Firebird (The Fire That Binds, #1)

by Juliette Cross

Some say that Minerva’s mystical gifts have been seeking the right sisters, the ones to right all of mankind’s wrongs once and for all.

My throat went dry, fear tripping my pulse faster. “Are any of them—” I swallowed hard, unable to finish the question. But Jardani knew. “Yes,” he growled. “One is a centurion.” The tent flap popped open again. Kizzy and Kostanya swept from behind Jardani’s imposing figure.

“What do you feel?” Besides Bunica, she was the only one who ever outright spoke of my gift. And they would never mention it outside

family. To be an empath like me held its own dangers.

other was a woman, a goddess sitting on a throne, an upside-down crescent over her head, a cornucopia held in both hands. “She is Lady Fortuna.”

Only noble-born Romans with the blood of the dragon coursing through their veins could be centurions.

“but this aureus was given to me by my mother, the gold minted by my own father when they married. A wedding gift. I’ve carried this aureus on me for many years.”

“She spoke to me tonight. And I knew you’d need the coin for good fortune one day.”

“Indeed.” He dipped his chin. “You are wise as you are beautiful, little firebird.”

had died on the field so that I wasn’t forced to bring him back to appease my uncle.

“Congratulations, nephew.” He’d pressed his bloody palm flat to my chest, yellow eyes glittering with his dragon. “Or should I say, Legatus Julianus Ignis Dakkia.”

I stepped into a small clearing where three tents burned off to the left, lighting the scene. Silvanus towered above everyone, rippling with gray scales over his bulging form. Perhaps his fate as one of the Griseo line, his dissatisfaction

as the lowest caste of dragon, propelled his cruelty. As if he could pound and fight his way up the ladder of nobility.

Suddenly, my dragon recognized her and roared to the surface. Pain lanced through my flesh and seared through my veins, pushing me out with savage force. His fury that she was nearly another victim of Silvanus’s blazed through my blood. “Son of Dis,” I growled, knowing I couldn’t fight him.

A red-scaled dragon with black-rimmed eyes and black-edged wings towered above me, his head even with the top of the tree line.

The night the Romans attacked our village three years ago, the night of my sister Lela’s wedding to Jardani, it was the only possession of value I managed to escape with.

The only thing that had kept me from taking my own life to join my family in the afterworld was Bunica’s foretelling, “You will save us all.”

“You’re not Celtic.” Her voice sounded accusing. I shook my head. “Dacian.” “Dominus brought you from the Celtic battlefields, Ruskus said.” “That’s correct.” I straightened under her scrutiny, realizing this was an interrogation. “My people were killed. The Celts took me in.”

“No, Malina.” He drew me closer, the anger gone, some other emotion dancing in his golden eyes. Even as an empath, I couldn’t place it. “In Rome, you are no longer one of the beautiful Bihari sisters dancing for crowds under the shadow of your beloved Carpathian Mountains.”

Romulus and Remus suckled from the she-dragon who raised them, who gave them her milk and her blood, and a power as great as the gods. She curled around them as they fed, her wings folded. Romulus was the first red dragon, Remus the first black—the oldest and most powerful houses of Roman nobility.

Whether it was the gods guiding me or my own intuition, I believed that I owed her for what she’d given me that night. It wasn’t simply a dance, but an unexpected courage to walk my new path. If she could look upon a dragon with such fearlessness, knowing I had the power to kill her and her entire clan, then I could summon the same to face my own future beneath my uncle’s power. That was why I’d paid her with such a precious coin that had been so dear, never knowing it would one day guide her right back to me.

All I knew was when I returned from the campaign I’d been on with Legatus Titus, I was told my aunt Camilla now resided in a dragon pit with a chain around her neck to keep her from escaping. Caesar had built the pit near his palace, where he kept her prisoner to this day, to keep her from escaping.

“Why do you worship Proserpina and not Pluto?” The priestess moved in her fluid way to stand and face the statue with me. “Because she rules the underworld.” Her voice was soft and pleasant.

The priestess faced me. I could barely see pale pink eyes behind the veil. “Because she rules her king’s heart.

“Wait. You want me to ride on top of your dragon?” He erased the small space between us, those golden eyes glittering in the semidarkness. “Yes, Malina. I want you to ride my dragon.”

ride his dragon.

leaving her behind in Rome where anything could happen to her was beyond my forbearance. I needed her near me, no matter what others might think of my behavior. It wasn’t as if women weren’t often brought on campaigns to satisfy men’s urges.

Perhaps, that’s because we were. I knew she felt attraction for me as well as disdain. If I wanted her to understand, I’d have to be the braver one. That meant risking my life. And I would. For her, it was a risk worth taking.

“Really?” I moved closer to them. “And who is your enemy this time?” That was something Julian hadn’t bothered to tell me yet. Trajan glanced at Julian, seemingly for permission. After Julian nodded he said, “We don’t know. They’ve sacked several provinces, burning one to the ground, and yet none of the

survivors can even tell us who they were.”

“Every dragon waits for his god-given treasure his whole life.” His hand groped on the bed, finding my wrist and wrapping his long fingers around it. “And I have found mine.”

“I’d think you were exaggerating but I’ve seen him do it before.” “That’s right,” he murmured. “No one hurts my woman.”

And when the emperor took her bait, latching onto her with his claws and clasping his jaws at her throat in midair, she amplified all the fire burning inside her and burst her own body into flames.” I flinched, not prepared for that ending. “She fell to her death, but she took the emperor with her, clutched in her claws. So that’s where the term firebird comes from.”

“You are a sister of the spirit world.” I didn’t know what that meant exactly, only that she recognized I had a goddess-given gift.

“I don’t know.” “Perhaps the dragons will all kill each other soon,” whispered the new girl. “We can only hope so,” said Lela, staring up at the noonday sky, wishing it were so.

waiting to be summoned by my master, Consul Valerius.