In my room, I secure the torch in the sconce on the wall, turn to Hadrian, and hit him across the face.

It sends him stumbling back. He hits the wall and folds in half, then looks up at me, his expression unreadable in the flickering light. In two steps, I close the distance between us. He straightens, his hands flying up to protect his face, yet he knows better than to try and fight me.

I land another blow, and his head bobs to the other side. I raise my fist again.

"Bruno." Breathing hard, he squints at me from behind his spread fingers. "Enough."

"Are you giving me orders again?"

"No, I..." He struggles to catch his breath. "I just...I've really had enough for one day, don't you think?"

"Not nearly so." Yet the sight of him cowering by the wall, his clothes torn, the first blue marks beginning to appear on his skin makes me pause. There's blood on his arm, too, that I haven't noticed before.

"You deserve at least to be knocked out unconscious," I grumble, "like you did to Syra."

"I'm sorry...about that." He holds both hands out in a pacifying gesture. "I didn't want to hurt her. I hit her with a fist, not a wooden log. A log would have broken her head for sure."

"Are you expecting praise for that?"

"But what...what else could I have done? I had to..." He looks away, blinks, then looks at me again. "I'm going to die here. If you were in my place, wouldn't you try to escape?"

"Not if it meant hurting an innocent bystander." I move to the fireplace and begin to throw logs into it. "Philto thinks Syra will be fine, but if she doesn't wake up by the morning, I will fucking tear you into pieces, you know that?" I walk over—he flattens himself against the wall at my approach—but I only pick the torch and return to the fireplace to lit the fire. "I told you that serving me would keep you alive—and yet you tried to find another way out."

He shakes his head. "Oliver never meant for me to remain alive. He said so himself. He only allows you to play with me for a while."

"Yet here you are, alive and not raped by a bunch of soldiers, all thanks to me—while I'm yet to hear a word of gratitude from you." He just stares, so I shake my head. "Gratitude doesn't run in your family, I guess. Come here."

He approaches warily. I pull him closer to the fireplace that gives more light now than the torch and examine his shoulder and the left side of his chest that is left bare by the torn clothes. There are numerous bruises and scratches, the deepest one on his upper arm still bleeding.

I look around for something to serve as bandage, then bend down and tear a stripe of cloth from his dirty, ragged skirt. The image of Syra from earlier today comes to mind, wearing this very dress, looking so carefree and happy. Now she's lying unconscious in Philto's room, and her outfit has turned to rags. The thought makes me want to punch Hadrian again.

Instead, I pick a bottle of wine from the table and splash it on his wound. He inhales sharply, but keeps still. I clean the blood with the cloth and wrap it around his arm. At this stage I'd expect a 'thank you' from anyone, but he keeps quiet. His eyes flicker from his wound to my face and back, but when I meet his gaze he looks away.

"You could take me to Philto," he says. "He could do it better."

"Yeah, and you could convince him to help you escape."

He shrugs as if such an idea never crossed his mind.

I look him over. "Did they buy it?" I say. "Your masquerade?"

"The guards?" He looks down at his ruined dress. "They did at first, but when I tried to go through the gate, one of them started to talk to me. I just smiled and nodded, so that they wouldn't hear my voice, but that only got them suspicious. And then that damn Rollo came over and he recognized me. I tried to fight, but..."

"Yeah, I saw how good you were in that. Were you ever taught how to fight? Or did you fuck your master of arms to skip the lessons?"

He gives me a wounded look. "That Rollo is a bear of a man, what could I do?"

"Well," I say. "I'll tell you what you can do." I grab his chin and force his face up, knowing that as much as he hates my touch, he won't dare to move away. "Tomorrow, you will do what I tell you. You will be a good servant. You will go where I send you and do as you're told and if you disobey, you will be punished. Is that clear?"

His green eyes stare into mine, the emotions in them gradually dissipating until all that's left is a calm, evaluating gaze.

"Listen to yourself," he says. "It's the dragon talking."

I frown. Did they hit him on the head, too?

"There's that tale Clementa used to tell me when I was little," he says. "About a kingdom ruled by a dragon. Knights tried to defeat it and, once in a while, one or the other would succeed. But then he would enter the castle and find all the gold and all the servants of the dragon, free for the taking, and the greed and the desire to rule would overwhelm him, and he would turn into a dragon himself. There was no way to defeat the dragon, only to replace it with a new one."

His lips stretch into a humorless smile.

"So how does it feel, turning into the dragon you thought you have defeated?"

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