1
The dragon landed hard, its massive claws tearing into the hard packed ground as we struck the ground beyond the burning outskirts of town. The impact rattled my bones and snapped my teeth together, but the terror and exhilaration of flight still coursed through my veins like liquid fire. For precious moments, I could only cling to the iron chains, my mind struggling to comprehend what we had just done.
We had escaped. On a dragon. The impossibility of it made me want to laugh or scream or both.
As the great beast settled, wings folding with a sound like leather sails, I became acutely aware of Livia’s body pressed against mine. Her back was flush to my chest, her hair wild from the wind and smelling of smoke and sweat and steel. My arms had locked around her during our desperate flight, holding her steady as the world fell away beneath us. Now they lingered, reluctant to let go of this miracle we had somehow survived together.
More surprising was the weight behind me, the arms still wrapped tight around my waist like iron bands. Septimus. Thearena champion who’d leapt onto a dragon with a half-breed rather than remain under Drusus’s boot. His grip had been desperate during our flight, his face buried against my shoulder as though he could hide from the reality of what we were doing. Now those arms loosened slightly but remained locked around me as his breathing gradually steadied against my back.
I could feel the hammering of his heart through my spine, matching the frantic rhythm of my own. For this suspended moment, we were just three people clinging to each other in the aftermath of the impossible, with no room for the hatred and mistrust that usually stood between our people.
“We’re alive,” Livia whispered, her voice full of wonder. “By all the gods, we’re actually alive.”
She turned in my embrace, her face tilted up to mine. Her eyes reflected the distant fires of the town, flames dancing in their depths like captured stars. Blood streaked one cheek, and soot blackened her forehead, but I had never seen anything more beautiful than her face in that moment — fierce and wild and finally, truly free.
Behind me, Septimus seemed to come to his senses. His arms unwound from my waist as though suddenly burned, and he scrambled backward, nearly tumbling from the dragon’s massive neck in his haste to put distance between us. I felt the absence of his warmth immediately, the night air suddenly cold where his body had pressed against mine.
“Fucking hell,” Septimus gasped, his feet finding purchase on the dragon’s rough scales. He staggered to his knees, then promptly vomited onto the ground below, his broad shoulders heaving. “Never again. Never. Bloody. Again.”
I couldn’t help but smirk as I slid from the dragon’s neck, my legs trembling beneath me like a newborn colt’s. The mighty arena champion, undefeated in twenty-seven bouts, undone by a dragon ride. There was poetry in that.
I watched him retreat until he stood at the junction where the dragon’s neck met its shoulders, his face a mask of conflicted emotions. Disgust warred with relief on his features, and something else I couldn’t name — something that looked almost like fear when our eyes met.
“Never speak of this,” he spat, rubbing his arms as though trying to erase the memory of holding onto me. “To anyone.”
I snorted. “Who would believe me anyway? The great Septimus, clinging to a half-breed like a child to his mother’s skirts?”
I reached up to help Livia down, wrapping my arms around her to steady her as her feet hit the ground. Septimus didn’t like that one bit.
“Get your hands off her,” he snarled, regaining his balance and his hatred in the same moment. The vulnerability I'd felt in his desperate grip during our flight had vanished, replaced by the familiar cold contempt.
“Septimus, don’t,” Livia said quietly, but I didn’t want to start a fight right now. Not here. I released Livia slowly, letting my hands trail down her arms before stepping back. Not because he commanded it, but because we needed to move, to plan. The town behind us was chaos, imperial forces battling the Talfen raiders who had given us our chance at freedom. How long before they noticed a dragon flying away with escaped slaves?
“We should move. Drusus won’t let us escape so easily.”
“We need supplies,” I said, ignoring Septimus’s glare as I surveyed our surroundings. The desert stretched before us, silver-blue under the moonlight. Behind us, the town continued to burn, the arena a crumbling ruin at its heart. “Water, food. We won’t survive the crossing without them, even with a dragon to ride. We need to go back.”
“Back? Are you mad?” Livia asked. “We should be putting as much distance between us and that town as possible.”
“With what provisions?” I challenged her. “How far do you think we’ll get with nothing but the clothes on our backs?”
Her eyes flashed and she opened her mouth to reply, but Septimus stepped between us.
“I hate to say it, but the half-breed is right. We need supplies. There’s a storehouse near the eastern gate. If the fire hasn’t reached it…”
“Going back is madness. The whole town is on fire!”
“Then they’ll be distracted,” I countered.
“Fine,” she muttered. “Let’s go.”
“No.” The word came simultaneously from Septimus and me, our gazes locking in rare agreement over her head. He might despise me and everything I represented, but on this, we were united. She would not walk back into that death trap.
Livia’s expression hardened, that familiar stubbornness settling over her features. “I’m not some delicate flower that needs—”
“Someone needs to stay with the dragon,” I interrupted softly. “It knows you, Livia. It chose you. If it flies off without us...”
She knew I was right. We all did. Her shoulders sagged slightly, but I saw the fire still burning in her eyes. Submission had never come naturally to her, even when it was the wisest course.
