"Farewell, daughter," one old woman whispered, her shoulders stooped under her yoke.
"Farewell, Elory!" said a child, a young boy carrying a yoke larger than himself.
One slave broke free from the others, hobbled forward in his chains, and cried out for the camp to hear. "Requiem!" The man's voice tore with agony, a voice broken like the backs of a thousand slaves. "Requiem, may our wings forever find your sky!"
The prayer of their people. The ancient prayer of dragons, of starlight. A prayer for a home lost, a sky they must reclaim. The seraphim overseers raced forward, whips lashing, spears thrusting, cutting the slave who had prayed aloud, then dragging him off—to the bronze bull Malok, to a burning in the belly of the beast.
"Requiem!" Elory called out, answering the cry. Let them burn her too in Malok. Let them all cry out together, one voice, one prayer, one—
A roar.
A roar tore across the camp, rising louder, shaking the earth.
Iron chains snapped.
Leathern wings beat.
A dragon, silver and thin, scales chipped, wings punched full of holes, soared through the air.
"Mother!" Elory cried.
Nala, a digger of Tofet, a dragon of Requiem, flew across the sky toward her. Shackles still encircled her legs, their chains snapped and dangling. The marks of countless whips covered her scales and underbelly, and her horns had been sawed off, her teeth uprooted. And yet still fire flickered in her mouth, and still her claws reached out—claws sharp enough to dig through rock for bitumen, claws sharp enough to tear even through a seraph.
"Elory!" the silver dragon cried. "Elory, I'm here! I'm here, I—"
The javelins of the overseers flew. The shards of steel stormed across the sky, pale and reflecting the sun, to drive into the dragon.
Scales cracked. Blood spilled. The dragon cried out in agony, yet still she flew.
"Elory!" she cried. "Daughter!"
"Mother!" Elory shouted, still caught in Ishtafel's grip. She reached out to her mother. "Fly back, Mother! Back to the pit. Please!"
Tears filled Elory's eyes as she watched more javelins drive into the dragon. Seraphim beat their swan wings, flying around the silver dragon, thrusting lances, firing arrows, thrusting swords. The weapons cracked more scales, drove deep into the flesh, shed more blood. A lance ripped into Nala's wing, tearing through it, making a horrible sound like ripping leather. A cry, equally torn, emerged from the dragon's throat.
"Mother," Elory whispered, tears flowing. "Mother, turn back . . . please . . ."
But it was too late.
Laughing, Ishtafel spread his wings and took flight. The seraph soared, carrying Elory across his shoulder. They rose higher. From up here, Elory could see for miles—the tar pit, the field of bricklayers, the refineries, the limestone quarries, the city of huts, the endless agony of a nation forgotten.
And a single silver dragon, gazing at Elory with damp eyes.
"Remember Requiem," Mother whispered. "Remember that I love you. Always."
Gripping Elory with one hand, Ishtafel hefted his lance in the other.
He threw the weapon.
A shard of light, the lance streamed through the air, fast as lightning, slower than generations of slavery. It cut through a lost sky. It drove into the silver dragon with a blast of light and red mist. It tore into Nala's throat, emerged from the other side, and the dragon lost her magic.
Nala fell as a woman. A chained slave. Haggard. Torn with many blades.
"Mother," Elory whispered, shaking in the grip of the seraph.
The seraphim swooped. Their lances thrust. They ripped into the falling woman, tearing her apart, severing her limbs, gutting her innards. Nala thudded onto the ground in pieces and shattered . . . shattered like Requiem, like Elory's heart, like all her hope, all her prayers.
She closed her eyes. She wept.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mother.
She wanted to scream, to rage, to curse the stars that had abandoned her, to curse Ishtafel the Cruel. Yet her strength was gone.
The seraph's lips touched her ear.
"Remember what you saw here, precious doll." His breath brushed her head. "Remember what happens to those who defy me."
He carried her away from the camp. He took her into his chariot of fire. He cracked his whip, and his firehorses bucked and soared, carrying the chariot across the sky.
Elory sat in the chariot, chains around her ankles, the seraph's arms around her frail frame. They left the land of Tofet behind—left a place of screams, of endless blood and tar, of a memory that Elory knew would forever haunt her. Ahead, across the barren distance, rose the city of limestone, steel, and gold, a place of splendor, of might, of a new home.
VALE
Vale was chipping rocks in the quarry, cutting bricks for his masters' temple, when the chariot of fire flew above him with heat and light, and his world went dark.
He had been working since before dawn. The chains chafed his ankles, the sun beat down on his shaved head, and the whips had torn into his back. Blisters bloomed across his hands, but he kept working, chipping limestone with his chisel. The walls of the quarry soared around him, taller than temples.
Ishtafel, Prince of Saraph, had returned from war, and the empire celebrated. In Shayeen across the river, the city of the seraphim, feasts and dances were held all day and night. Parades would be marching down the limestone streets. Dancers and singers would be performing for the masses. And across the city, great monuments were rising for Ishtafel's glory: statues of the hero, obelisks tipped with precious metals, and a great temple to the Eight Gods bearing the prince's name.
And so Vale toiled.
And so thousands of his kinsmen, the men and women of fallen Requiem, swung their pickaxes, carving out bricks that would rise for their lord's glory. And so Requiem, a once-proud nation, cried out in pain, whipped, worked nearly to death, praying to stars that no longer shone at night.
Vale wiped the sweat off his brow. He was a young man, only twenty-one, but he felt old, weary, haggard. His arms seemed so thin to him, and his head swayed. The sun kept beating down. He wanted water—only a few drops to soothe his parched throat—but dared not ask. The last slave to have begged for water now hung upon the quarry wall, hands and legs nailed into the limestone, the crows pecking at his living flesh.
Maybe he's the lucky one. Pausing for breath, Vale flicked up his eyes. He saw them there. They stood upon the quarry's rim above. Twenty seraphim masters. As thin, dirty, and wretched as Vale and his comrades were, the seraphim were noble. The sunlight shone on their gilded armor and swan wings, and their golden eyes stared down into the pit, all-seeing.
"Work, worm!" one master shouted, raising his firewhip.
Vale returned to chipping the stone. Rage burned in his throat like the thirst. The collar itched around his neck, worse than the weariness, the thirst, the pain. More than anything, Vale wished he could take the pickaxe to that collar, break it off, summon his magic. With every swing of that pickaxe, Vale imagined that he was beating leathern wings. With every chip of stone that flew, he imagined claws lashing. As the sunbeams beat him, he imagined streams of dragonfire.
All around him, the thousands of slaves labored. Some fell with exhaustion, even the whips of their masters unable to rouse them. Others prayed under their breath—prayed to the Eight Gods of Saraph when the masters drew near, prayed to the old stars of Requiem when no seraphim could hear.
"Requiem," Vale whispered, swinging his pickaxe, the sun and dust and sweat in his eyes.
He tried to imagine it. His ancestors, millions of Vir Requis, no seraph masters to whip them, no collars around their necks. Thousands of men and women who could summon the ancient magic of starlight, grow wings and scales, breathe fire, and take flight as dragons.
We need to rise again. Vale clenched his jaw, banging against the limestone walls with all his rage. We need to shatter our collars. To rise as dragons. To blow our fire, figh
t again, to—
"Stop hacking like a butcher at a hog!" shouted an overseer. The seraph swooped, landed behind Vale, and lashed his whip. "These bricks are for Ishtafel's temple, not one of your wretched maggot huts."
Vale screamed as the whip hit his back, ripping the flesh, cauterizing the wound with a sizzle.
With a grunt, the seraph moved to swing his whip at another slave, a mere boy of ten years who had accidentally cracked a brick in two. The whip swung again and again, the boy screamed, and Vale's hands shook around the shaft of his pickaxe. So many nights he had tried to swing that pickaxe against his own neck, to shatter the collar, but couldn't break the ancient curse that held it together, that buried his magic—the magic of dragons. So many nights he had prayed for the courage to swing that pickaxe just an inch higher, to drive the blade into his neck, to end the pain.
And so many nights he had seen those who had fled this nightmare. Those who had summoned the courage to do what Vale could not—to end their lives.
Vale ground his teeth, slamming the limestone again and again, carving out the bricks, the stones that would raise great monuments for the seraph who had crushed Vale's kingdom.
I live so that one day I can drive this pickaxe into your throat, Ishtafel. He snarled as he worked. I live to see that day when we rise in rebellion. When we do what our ancestors could not. He drove the axe so deep into the stone the shaft cracked. For the day we burn you all.
Just as he was imagining dragonfire raining down on the masters, fire crackled above. Vale raised his head and saw him there.
A growl rose in his throat, and his knuckles whitened around his pickaxe's grip.
"Ishtafel," he hissed.
The chariot of fire streamed above the quarry. Its royal banner unfurled in the wind, displaying the Thirteenth Dynasty's sigil—an eye within a sunburst, the Eye of Saraph. Steeds woven of living flame pulled the vessel across the sky, heading away from Tofet, the land of slaves, toward Shayeen, the distant city of seraphim. Even from here below, Vale could see the tyrant's torso and head rise from the chariot—the gilded pauldrons and breastplate, the golden hair that streamed like another banner.
There he was, so close! The immortal creature who had destroyed the realm of Vale's ancestors, who had brought Vale's people here, who doomed him to a life in the mine, breaking the very stones that built temples in Ishtafel's name.
Vale tugged at his collar, wishing—as he had since childhood—that he could rip it off, summon his magic, soar, blow his fire, avenge his people.
But, like all others across the quarry, he only knelt. Thousands of quarrymen, scores of seraphim overseers—all bent the knee as the chariot of fire flew overhead.
But as the others all lowered their gaze, Vale stared up at the flames, eyes narrowed, stinging with sweat, with hatred. His pickaxe trembled in his hands—the axe he would someday drive into that tyrant's golden, beautiful flesh.
"Praise Ishtafel!" cried an overseer. "Praise the Prince of Saraph, the Slayer of Giants, the Destroyer of Requiem!"
Curse you, Vale thought. Curse you, foul murderer, and curse your family, and curse your empire, and curse—
"Brother!"
The cry rose from far above, torn in pain.
Vale looked back up at the chariot and his world seemed to crash around him. Were the walls of the quarry to tumble, the sky to fall, the ground to open up to swallow him, Vale could not have felt more shock.
Above in the flaming chariot, held in the tyrant's grip, was his sister.
"Elory," Vale whispered.
"Brothe—" she began, leaning over the edge of the fire, eyes wide, and for a horrible instant, Vale was sure she was going to jump, to leap from the flames and crash down dead into the quarry. Then Ishtafel grabbed her. The seraph pulled her back into the flaming vessel.
The chariot flew onward, vanishing from view over the quarry's rim, heading toward the city of seraphim.
"Go on, back to work, scum," an overseer said, cracking his whip. "Stop kneeling like worms, and get to cutting stones for your lord's temple."
Across the quarry, the slaves rose and resumed their work.
Vale rose too, but he couldn't bring himself to swing the pickaxe. His head spun. His breath rattled in his lungs. His knees felt weak.
Ishtafel, the conqueror, the son of Queen Kalafi herself, the creature who had killed so many Vir Requis . . . has my sister.
Vale could barely breathe.
He had heard tales of Ishtafel's bedchamber. Any man with a sister or daughter had. They said that Ishtafel's chambers made the quarry, the refineries, and the bitumen pit seem leisurely. They said that Ishtafel took pleasure from his slave's bodies, a pleasure so barbaric he snapped their bones, tore up their insides, later discarding the corpses and fetching fresh meat from Tofet.
And now he has Elory. Vale let out a strangled gasp. The quarry swayed around him. Now he has my baby sister. Vale had already lost one sister to the seraphim—a sister they rarely spoke of, only in whispers, in darkness. Losing Elory too was a pain too great to bear.
A seraph marched toward him, dust staining his armor and wings, a helmet hiding his head. His sunburst eyes flared through the eyeholes, and he lashed his whip of fire.
"Back to work!"
Vale grunted as the whip stung his arm. But the pain of that wound was nothing compared to his fear.
He has Elory.
Memories flashed before Vale's eyes: Elory as a babe, born in their hut, an innocent child who had never asked to come into this world. Elory as a toddler, fitted with a yoke, sent to the bitumen mines. Elory coming of age, turning eighteen, a young woman who would never know freedom, who would always know nothing but the lash, the tar, the old prayers of a fallen land.
And Elory above him, only moments ago, crying out to him, taken to the only place in Saraph worse than the bitumen pits.
The seraph master growled, lowered his whip, and raised his lance above Vale. "Gods damn it, maggot, I'm going to spill your guts."
"Wait."
Vale stared at the seraph, refusing to flinch even as the lance thrust forward, stopping only inches from his belly.
"You dare talk back?" The seraph cracked his whip in one hand and thrust the lance closer. Vale was tall for a slave, almost six feet, a rare height among the malnourished, weary Vir Requis, yet this seraph soared a foot taller. The tip of the deity's lance bit into Vale's side, scraping a red line beneath his ribs.
I have to do this. He forced in a deep, dusty breath. I have to save her. Stars of Requiem, I have to stop this.
"I want to serve Ishtafel!" Vale said, letting his rage fill his voice, twisting it into something he hoped sounded like religious zeal. His voice sounded too loud to him, torn with pain, a crazed voice. "I want to serve the golden god of Saraph!"
The seraph grunted and lashed his whip. The throng drove into Vale's side. "Worship him by digging limestone. Your bricks will form a temple to him. A temple you'll never worship at." The seraph barked a laugh. "You can pray to him as you cut into the stone."
Vale raised his chin, ignoring the agony of his wounds. "My mother is a digger. She digs for bitumen as a dragon. The claws in our family are sharp. I would serve Ishtafel as a dragon in the City of Kings, flying above the scaffolds of his rising temples, holding the stones in my claws." He forced himself to stare into the seraph's burning eyes. "I spent the past ten years cutting bricks here. Now let me bear those bricks into the sky."
His breath shook in his lungs, but he refused to look away.
If I can fly as a dragon, no collar around my neck, bearing stones to the tops of temples . . . I can break free. He clenched his jaw. I can roar through the seraphim, charge through their lances and arrows, fly to the palace . . . and save my sister.
The arrows would cut him, he knew. The lances would thrust into him. A thousand chariots of fire would charge against him. But he would take the pain. He had taken the lash so often, he could endure their blades. He would grab his
sister from the demon, and he would carry her away, carry her into the wilderness like the hero Lucem who was said to have fled ten years ago. They would fly over the desert, over the sea, seek freedom in shadows from this empire of light.
I will save you, Elory. We will escape. Just like Lucem. I promise you.
The overseer stared at him, and those gleaming orbs of eyes narrowed, the sunburst pupils dilating. "And what makes you think I'll transfer you to the building crews?" He lifted his whip again. "What makes you think I won't whip you to death right here?"
"You could whip me to death," Vale said, taking a gamble now, his chest thudding, his fingernails digging into his palms. "But did you hear what Ishtafel's new slave called me? I'm her brother. The brother of the woman now sleeping in Prince Ishtafel's bed." He let a chaotic smile twist his lips. "My family was born to worship your prince."
She might be a slave, he thought, sweat dripping down his brow, tears burning down his cheeks. But she's the slave who's sleeping with Ishtafel.
At that thought, sickness filled his gut, so overpowering he had to struggle not to double over and vomit over the overseer's feet.
Before the seraph could answer, a voice rose behind Vale, soft yet cutting through the din of pickaxes and lashing whips.
"Vale."
Slowly, Vale turned around and stared.
For the second time that day, he lost his breath.
A tall, ragged slave came walking across the quarry. He was an old man, clad in rags, his thin ankles hobbled. His head was shaved, like the heads of all slaves, but his beard was long, brown, streaked with white. His name was Jaren. He was Vale's father.
"Vale," the old slave whispered again, eyes haunted, glassy. In his arms hung his burden—tattered, red.
This time Vale could not help it. He doubled over and gagged, losing the paltry gruel the overseers had fed him that morning.
Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Page 3
