The slaves cried out as Ishtafel tossed the corpse down into the pit.
Elory winced and scurried backward, chains rattling. Her heart thrashed against her ribs. Her belly churned. One of her buckets tilted, nearly spilling the sticky clumps of bitumen.
Her friend's body slammed down onto the rock beside her, bones snapping.
Elory wanted to look away, to close her eyes, to do anything but look. And yet she found herself staring at that corpse, her eyes wide, her breath frozen.
Bruises spread across Mayana's face. Rough hands had torn at her clothes, and fingernails had dug into her flesh. The marks of fingers wrapped around her throat, leaving raw welts. Somebody had beaten her. Slowly. Inch by inch, finally strangling her. Elory had seen death before. When you worked in the tar pits, you saw death every day—death by whip, by starvation, by exhaustion. Yet here was a different sort of death, something more meticulous, something wrong, something that should never have been.
You will serve in a palace now! Elory's own voice echoed through her mind. You're blessed, child.
Elory forced her gaze away. Slowly, fists trembling, she turned back to stare at Ishtafel.
The Prince of Saraph still stood on the hill, but even from this distance, it seemed to Elory that his golden eyes stared into hers, his gaze haughty, amused. Across the pit, the slaves and overseers knelt as one, heads bowed, trembling in Ishtafel's presence. Yet Elory forced herself to stare into his eyes.
I am a daughter of Requiem, she thought, fingernails digging into her palms. If not for my collar, I could become a dragon. I am descended from a great nation, blessed by starlight. I will not cower before you, false god.
From the distance, it seemed as if he smiled—a thin, knowing smile.
"Slaves, step forth!" he cried, never removing his eyes from hers. "I will choose a new servant from among you."
Across the tar pit, the stone refineries, and the fields of brickmakers, the lesser seraphim—the overseers—straightened and cracked their whips.
"Up, slaves!" they roared. "Rise before your lord! Heads bowed. Rise! Stand still."
Elory struggled to rise to her feet. The noon sun blazed overhead, searing hot, burning her skin. She had been laboring in the pits since before dawn, and she hadn't eaten or drunk in that time. Straightening cracked her back and made her limbs shake with weakness. The yoke still hung across her shoulders, chained to her collar, its baskets of bitumen threatening to rip off her arms. Their fumes spun her head. But she forced herself to stand as straight as she could, to stare at the deity ahead. To hate him. Never to fear him. Hate was better than fear.
Yet as Ishtafel beat his wings, soared skyward, and then descended toward the valley, cold sweat washed Elory, and her heart twisted with that old feeling, the feeling that even now, broken and whipped so many times into this lingering wretch, she could not crush.
Fear.
The Prince of Saraph landed in the dust, yet it seemed that no dirt could ever cling to him. Not a scratch marred his armor. Not a speck of sand clung to his sandals, his flowing golden hair, nor his snowy wings. He walked among the slaves, towering above them, seven feet of light, of gold, of immortal beauty. They said that Ishtafel was centuries old, that he had lived and ruled even back on the Day of Burning, the day when Elory's ancestors had been captured and taken to this land. And yet, as he drew nearer, Elory saw that he seemed ageless. His face was smooth; at a glance, it seemed no older than the face of a thirty-year-old man, the skin bronzed, the lips full, the cheekbones high. Yet his eyes were old. Eyes with pupils like suns. Bright yet shadowed. Seeing all. Ancient eyes.
"These slaves are scrawny." Ishtafel frowned as he walked through the pit. "They stink of sweat and tar."
One of the overseers nodded. She was a cruel seraph named Shani of House Caraf, high ranking among the masters, her eyes and hair shining gold and her wings purest white. "They are weredragons, Your Excellence. Wretched beasts worthy of little more than crawling in the mud. Offensive to the nose and distasteful to the eyes."
Ishtafel grimaced and held a handkerchief to his nose. "And fragile. Discipline them and they shatter, their mortal life fleeing their frail forms."
Elory glowered at the seraphim walking before her. Frail? Wretches who crawled in the mud?
She placed her hands upon her collar. The iron ring squeezed her throat when she gulped. A dark light coiled within the metal, a magic only the seraphim held, a magic that crushed her own power. Without these collars, they could rise as dragons. Magnificent and mighty. Beings to soar, blow fire, as beautiful and powerful as any seraph. How dare these beings of light mock her people, the children of starlight?
Elory took a deep breath, trying to summon that memory—a memory passed through the generations, perhaps just a dream. A memory of Requiem. A memory of dragons.
For thousands of years, we flew above the birch forests of our home, she thought. Our marble halls gleamed in the sunlight, and blue mountains rose in the dawn. We flew free, millions of dragons of all colors. No collars around our necks. No chains to hobble our wings. No seraphim to whip us, grinding us into the dirt. A proud, ancient kingdom, a land of beauty, of white halls in green forests. Her eyes stung. A kingdom of dragons, a home where we were free.
She had never seen those marble halls, those birch forests, those blue mountains, those golden dawns. Nor had any of the slaves. Only their ancestors, beyond the generations, had ever dwelled in Requiem. Yet the tales had passed from parents to siblings. Her own mother—a dragon chained, whipped, forced to dig for the bitumen—had told Elory the tale a thousand times, the same tale her mother had told her. In her mind's eye, Elory could see Requiem, as if she herself had flown there. Every night before she huddled in her mud hut, before she fell into a slumber that would last only a few hours before the overseers woke her for more labor, she would imagine Requiem. In her dreams, no collar squeezed her neck, and she could summon her magic, grow wings and scales, rise as a dragon.
In some dreams, she was a dragon of gold, like the great Queen Laira, Mother of Requiem. In other dreams, Elory's scales were black—black like King Benedictus, one of Requiem's greatest rulers. In other dreams, she was red and fiery like the great Princess Agnus Dei, a heroine of Requiem who had defeated the griffins. Elory had never become a dragon before, for her collar had never been removed—only diggers were allowed to become dragons, their claws seeking the tar reserves, never the bearers of yokes. She did not know what color her scales would be, but the land below never changed in her dream. Requiem was always a realm of sprawling birch forests, of great marble columns, of statues and fountains in pale squares. Of beauty. Of peace. Of pride. A land whose sky she found every night in her sleep, a land she prayed every day to see with her waking eyes.
"This one does not cower like the others." Ishtafel's voice tore through Elory's thoughts. "Nor is she quite as wretched to behold."
Elory's heart thrashed. She realized that he was talking about her, that he had come to stand before her. Her head spun, and she gulped. She struggled to raise her chin, to square her shoulders, even as the yoke shoved down upon her.
She was scrawny, short. He towered above her, easily thrice her size, his shoulders broad, his chest wide. Her wings were hobbled, her magic hidden. His swan wings spread wide. She wore rags and chains. He stood clad in priceless gilded armor. She was a creature broken, whipped, her soul shattered. He was a being of pale beauty and light and dominion. And yet Elory thought of Requiem and stared at him, refusing to kneel again, refusing to cower, refusing to be a slave.
I stand in chains, the daughter of many generations of slaves, and yet I still remember Requiem. I am still proud.
Ishtafel's brow furrowed as he stared at her.
"Look at how she raises her chin, how she stares at me, not at her feet." Ishtafel tilted his head. "A proud one. Not yet broken."
Ishtafel's companion, Shani the overseer, snarled. "I will break her, Your Excellence."
The s
eraph raised her whip and Elory winced, expecting the pain, but Ishtafel reached out, staying Shani's hand.
"Wait."
Elory released a shaky breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She stared up at the seraph, her chest rising and falling, her arms shaking. Sweat dripped into her eyes, and she felt blood trickling down her back, and the damn fear wouldn't stop crawling along her spine.
Ishtafel stepped closer. Elory felt as small as a child before this giant of a god. He reached down his hand, a hand large enough to encase her head. While the rest of him was all wealth and might—the gilded armor, the pale wings, the flowing hair—Elory noticed that his hand was not soft. Calluses covered his fingers, and thin scars trailed across his palm. The hand of a warrior.
With that large hand, he rubbed tar off her brow, the movement almost like a caress. He stared down upon her, and in his golden eyes, Elory saw herself reflected—covered in tar, sweat, and blood, a young collared woman with a shaved head and dark eyes, a slave, only a slave with dreams of ancient glory.
"You do not look away?" Ishtafel said, his voice soft, his words only for her. "Most slaves avert their eyes from the sight of a god."
"I did not avert my eyes from Mayana's corpse," Elory said. "I will not avert them from you either."
"Impudent worm!" Shani raised her whip again, teeth bared. The seraph stood nearly two feet taller than Elory, her arms strong, her whip crackling with fire. "I'm going to flay you alive and toss your skinless corpse into the tar."
"You will do no such thing," Ishtafel said, voice calm. "Lower your whip, Shani. This slave intrigues me. Not yet broken. Still some spirit to her." He smiled thinly, and he stroked Elory's cheek. His fingers came back sooty. "Once the dirt is removed, and she's clad in livery, her hair growing longer, her body perfumed, she would do well in the palace. There's fire to this one. There's strength to her. I like that." His smile widened—a thin, predatory smile, the smile a wolf gives a sheep before devouring it. "She will last longer than the previous one."
Elory's eyes stung. Her heart felt ready to shatter her ribs and thump into the dirt. She turned her head and saw the corpse still there. Mayana's eyes were still open, staring at Elory, her face twisted with pain. Her teeth had been bashed in. Her eye socket had shattered. Drying blood soaked her fine cotton livery. The finger marks around her throat were long, powerful—the same fingers that had just caressed Elory's cheek.
"Sir, I . . ." Elory gulped. "I know not of the palace's ways. I'm only a yoke bearer, sir. I—"
"You will address him as 'Your Excellence!'" Shani said, and now her whip did lash. The fiery throng slammed into Elory's chest. Her rags tore. So did her skin. She cried out, wobbling, nearly dropping her yoke. If she spilled the bitumen, she knew the overseers would not allow her a quick death. Bitumen was the glue that held the empire of Saraph together. To lose buckets of the black gold meant a burning in Malok, the bronze bull on the hill. Recalcitrant slaves cooked within the belly of the idol, their screams flowing through pipes and rising from the bull's mouth as a melodious song.
"Shani!" Ishtafel's voice barely rose above normal volume, yet it carried the rage and authority of a great cry. His hand—that hand that had beaten Mayana to death, that had stroked Elory's cheek—swung and backhanded the overseer.
Shani hissed and clutched her cheek. Ichor dripped down her alabaster skin. Her golden eyes flashed with pain, with surprise, with rage . . . then dropped to stare at her feet. The mighty seraph, the overseer who had beaten so many slaves into submission or to death, knelt in the mud. She lowered her head, letting her hair hang down.
"Forgive me, Your Excellence," she whispered.
"Nobody will hurt this one anymore," Ishtafel said to the kneeling overseer, then looked back at Elory. That thin smile returned. "Nobody but me." He reached out his hand. "Come, child. Take my hand. Join me in my chariot of fire, and I will take you to live in a great palace, a place of jewels, of fine wine, of wealth you cannot imagine. A place away from the tar and filth and stench of this place."
But not away from the whip, Elory thought. Not away from the rage of a master. Not away from my chains, my collar, and the threat of death every dawn and dusk.
The fear grew in her. She had known nothing but the tar pits all her life. For eighteen cruel summers, the palaces of Saraph had been but a glimmer in the distance, a land of wealth on the southern horizon, a place whence came the masters, came death and pain. The place where the bitumen she mined held together bricks, roofs, jewels, mosaics, cobblestones, an empire. To walk upon those cobbled streets? To live in one of those palaces? To serve a seraph not as a yoke bearer but as a personal servant, a girl to wash his feet, polish his armor, pour his wine, serve his food, perhaps warm his bed at nights? To suffer his hand—stroking her, beating her, choking her when he pleased?
Elory glanced behind her. To leave her family?
Her breath shuddered. The land of Tofet, these pits of slavery, sprawled into the distance, a realm of nightmares, of sweat and blood and agony. Hundreds of thousands of slaves toiled here. Many, like her, bore yokes and baskets. A handful, like her mother, served as dragons, digging the wells of tar. Others, like her father and brother, labored in the rocky fields to form and bake bricks. Elory did not see her family much—only for five precious hours a night, a time to pray, to nurse one another's wounds, to huddle together, to sleep in their mud hut. And yet Elory could not imagine her life away from them. Her kind mother. Her wise father. Her strong and noble brother. How could she leave them here to a slow death while she flew off in this seraph's chariot to a new life—a life only a few miles away, yet a life different from any she had ever known, a life she would return from only in death?
She looked behind her. Across the torturous landscape, they were watching her. Men, women, children, elders, all in chains and collars. The yoke bearers. The brickmakers. Farther back, in the center of the pit, even the diggers—those few Vir Requis allowed to remove their collars, to dig in dragon form—were watching her. Her own mother stared across the distance, a chained silver dragon.
Elory's eyes burned.
"I cannot leave," she whispered. The land of Tofet, home of the slaves, was a land of blood, chains, and endless death, but it was her home now. The only home she had ever known. Here was the only family she had ever known. She would not abandon her family, not even to escape the yoke and tar for a palace of gold.
"I cannot leave," she repeated, turning back toward Ishtafel. "Please, Your Excellence. Choose another."
Ishtafel's brow furrowed. A flash of anger crossed his eyes. He reached out and grabbed her arm, his grip like a vise. He tugged her forward.
"Do you think that I take orders from weredragons?" He stared down at her, his smile stretching wider, revealing his canines, a smile almost like a snarl. "Do you think that I crushed your kingdom, dragged your ancestors here, and chained you in the muck so that I, defeater of Requiem, slayer of giants, a god of Saraph, should take orders from a worm that crawls in the dirt?" He backhanded her, rattling the teeth in her jaw. "You will do as you're told, or you will end up like your friend, a crushed wretch in the tar."
Pain flowed across Elory's jaw. She tasted blood. She knew she should kneel in the dirt, kiss his feet, beg for mercy. She knew she must obey or she would be cooked in the bronze bull, dying slowly as she screamed. She knew she should cower, worship him, fear him.
Yet Elory stared into Ishtafel's eyes, and she spoke softly.
"Our name is not 'weredragons.' We are Vir Requis, children of Requiem, a great nation that still blazes in our hearts. Requiem still lives, even in chains. You cannot extinguish her light."
And now Ishtafel's smile stretched into a grin, showing more teeth. He grabbed her yoke, that hunk of wood and iron that had weighed upon her shoulders for years, and he snapped it between his hands. All her life, Elory had struggled, bound to this burden; the seraph shattered it like a man crushing twigs. The baskets of bitumen fell to the ground, spil
ling their precious contents. Chips of wood and metal showered. Before Elory could feel any relief, he grabbed her, twisting her arms, nearly snapping her too.
"No!" she cried out. "No! I won't go. Release me! I won't!"
She kicked, but her ankles were still hobbled, and she could not reach him. She tried to strike him, but he held her wrists, laughing, mocking her resistance.
She growled.
I can become a dragon. I can fly, blow my dragonfire, burn him.
Elory sucked in air, trying to summon that ancient magic, the magic only the diggers were allowed to use, the magic that had once let millions of her kind find the sky.
She felt it deep within her, a reservoir of starlight, there since her childhood, waiting to tap into like the bitumen buried underground.
She let it fill her.
Held in the grip of this cruel angel, she felt the magic flow through her.
She felt the nubs of wings begin to sprout from her whipped back. Her skin thickened, hardened, began to rise in scales. Her fingernails lengthened into the hints of claws, and she felt her teeth bite into her lip, forming fangs. Flickers of fire filled her mouth, and her body began to grow, lengthening, ballooning into a dragon that could fly, slay her enemies, escape to—
She gasped for air.
As her body grew, her collar tightened further, constricting her, nearly snapping her neck.
Keep shifting! she told herself. Tear through the collar! Fly! Burn him!
She croaked for air, yet she clenched her fists and kept tugging on her magic, kept growing, and—
Something seemed to crack in her neck. Blackness spread across her. Stars exploded and spun. She lost her magic. Her body shrank, and she gasped for air, sucking it greedily. She would have fallen to the ground were Ishtafel not still holding her.
He dragged her across the dirt, then lifted her and slung her across his shoulder. Elory screamed, struggling against him, crying out to Requiem, to her stars, to her mother. He walked across the barren hill. They moved toward the chariot of fire, prepared to fly away from this place, fly to a palace of gold and danger and death. All around, the slaves knelt again, yet their heads were raised, and their eyes stared into hers. Those eyes shone with tears.
Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Page 2
