XXVII
Dark lay in the corner of his cell. He couldn’t sleep, and hunger ripped through his stomach.
He was so hungry it made him dizzy. He couldn’t stand without nausea, and he’d already thrown up all over the floor. He’d sensed it coming and aimed it for a corner so as not to live in his own filth. But it weakened him.
The bucketfuls of meat sitting right in front of him didn’t make him feel any better, for he couldn’t eat them due to the metal cast on his mouth.
The raw meat was fresh and bloody. It reminded him of the mounds of tribute his subjects used to make—piles and piles of meat for him and his dragons to share every night, grass-fed beef from the plains.
He and his dragons would eat like lions, filling the corridors of the palace with scraps, bone, and blood. For hours after
