Kalafi struck her.
White light flashed across Meliora's vision. She hissed and clutched her burning cheek.
"How dare—" Meliora began.
The queen struck her again, a blow to the second cheek. "You will not defy me, child." Kalafi's eyes flared like exploding suns. "For five thousand years, I roamed this earth. For five hundred of those years, your brother fought wars to conquer this world, to give us—to give you!—a home of light and splendor. You are but a child. Twenty-seven summers old, a mere babe, spoiled, impudent. What do you know of pain? What do you know of the agony of our long banishment, of the fires of war, of the triumphs your brother gave our race?"
Meliora held her burning cheek, struggling to keep the tears from her eyes. "I will defy you! Yes, I am young. No, I never knew our fall from paradise, and I never knew our long exile in the desert. Yes, I was born into a life of splendor, slaves to wait upon me. But that doesn't mean that I will serve you as a slave. I—"
"Slaves?" Kalafi laughed. "You take them for granted, as if they're as inherent a part of our lives as our wings. It's thanks to Ishtafel, the conqueror of Requiem, that slaves now serve you. Yes, thanks to this brother you spurn. And so you will learn to live without them." Kalafi's lips stretched into a thin grin. "Your two house slaves will die tomorrow. Come see them burn in the bronze bull, daughter. Come hear them scream, then return to your chambers where you can make your own bed, pour your own wine, and wipe your own backside."
Meliora gasped. "Mother!"
She thought of Kira and Talana, her two slaves, young women who served in her chambers. The two were meek things without sin—aside from the sin of their lesser race. To burn them in the bronze bull?
Meliora had heard Ishtafel speak of the bronze bull before—of Malok. Her brother used to terrify her with those stories. As a child, Meliora had believed them and would cry and cower. Ishtafel had described how soldiers pulled an unruly slave into a great, hollow statue of a bull. Fires were lit under the bull until the bronze heated, boiling the slave within. The slaves' screams would rise through a network of pipes, emerging from the bull's mouth in a melodious song.
If you're a bad girl, Ishtafel had once taunted her, I'm going to toss you into Malok's belly and dance to your screams.
Meliora had cried so much that Ishtafel had hugged her, soothed her, confessed that he had lied. Yet now her mother resurrected that old threat. How could Malok be real? How could the cruel bronze bull truly exist in Saraph, this realm of light and beauty?
"You lie," Meliora said. "Those are just stories Ishtafel invented. There is no Malok."
Queen Kalafi laughed. "Yes, daughter. Mere stories. And little fairies conjure up our bitumen with the snap of their sparkling fingers, and unicorns bear us the tar on their backs. I have sheltered you for too long, girl. You will accompany me tomorrow at dawn to see your precious slaves sing in the bull. And then you will return to your chambers, where you will pray to never see true horror as I have seen. And in two moons, on the blessed summer solstice, you will marry your brother. And nine months later, you will bear me a pure heir. You will do this or it will be you burned in the bull."
Meliora's chest shook, her head spun, and her eyes burned with tears. She spun and fled the chamber.
VALE
He stood in the blood, dust, and agony of Tofet, burying his mother.
My people languish in chains. Vale's eyes burned, and his fists trembled. My sister was taken captive. His breath shuddered, and the chains around his legs rattled. My mother is dead.
For all his twenty-one years, Vale had labored in this place, making bricks with his father while his mother and sister mined the bitumen that would hold those bricks together in palaces and temples. For all those twenty-one years, Vale had sweated, wept, screamed when the masters whipped him, yet still clung to hope—clung to a desperate dream that someday Requiem would rise again, that someday he would fly free with his family.
Now that family is broken. Tears burned in his eyes. Now I bury my hope along with my mother.
The grave yawned open before him. A pit. A mass grave for all the slaves killed that day, over a hundred souls. A hundred slaves worked, starved, beaten to death. Some mere children, the whips of their masters too cruel for their frail bodies. Others were elders, slaves who had toiled for decades under the sun, clinging to a hope to see Requiem again, finally to end up here, bodies in a land of despair.
And one woman, torn apart, her severed limbs and battered torso wrapped in a shroud. A woman who had dared to fly, dared to fight. A lost light of Requiem. A mother.
"I'm sorry, Mother," Vale whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, that I couldn't fly with you, fight with you."
A soft voice spoke at his side. "Her soul will rise to the celestial halls of Requiem. She will shine there in palaces of starlight, drink wine, and sing among our ancient heroes. She is at peace now. She is at peace."
And yet pain filled that voice. Vale turned to see Jaren, his father, standing at his side in the crowd of mourners.
"There is no such thing." Vale's voice was a hoarse whisper, yet the pain of an anguished cry filled it. "Celestial halls? An afterlife of starlight? Just dreams. Just stories." His tears burned in his eyes. "Maybe Requiem itself is but a dream, a land that never was."
He saw how those words wounded his father. Jaren winced and his lips tightened into a line. Dust coated the priest's long grizzled beard, and chains hobbled his ankles. Years of brickmaking in the sun had weathered his face; Jaren was only in his fifties, yet he looked like a man of eighty—wrinkled, weary, his hair gray. Despite the chains, despite his rags, despite his years of labor, Jaren still clung to the old stories. Still called himself a priest of the Draco constellation, the stars that supposedly had once blessed Requiem, that would someday save them again. Still believed in that lost, distant realm the seraphim had burned five hundred years ago.
But Vale no longer believed, no longer cared if he hurt his father. There was so much pain in this place, so much anguish. What was more pain? Why even live on, why linger, why cling to stories? Perhaps his mother had taken the only sensible path. Perhaps it was best to rise up, to fight, to die in battle rather than linger here in chains.
Vale expected Jaren to argue, to insist that Requiem was real, that stars truly blessed them, that a dragon constellation truly shone in the northern skies. But the old priest merely lowered his head, and tears streamed down his cheeks into his beard.
Vale felt all his anger fade. He stepped close to his father, his own tears falling, and embraced the old man. They stood together, crying together, their chains rattling, watching through the veil of tears as the corpses were lowered into the pit.
Several dragons, their collars removed but their limbs chained, pulled forth the wagons of corpses. Upon a hill, an old slave with a white beard chanted prayers to the Eight Gods, the vengeful deities the seraphim worshipped, the religion forced upon the Vir Requis slaves in the land of Tofet.
"Praise the Eight!" the white-haired slave cried upon the hill. "Blessed be their light! Praise the seraphim masters for their mercy, and may their light guide the souls of our dead to rest."
"Praise the Eight!" answered slaves in the crowd, hundreds come to see their dead buried, as the dragons tilted the wagons, as the dead spilled into the mass grave.
Curse the Eight, Vale thought, staring at the bodies sliding into the pit. One among them was his mother; he didn't even know which one anymore. Curse the foul gods of this place. Curse the seraphim. Curse the land of Tofet. Curse these chains. And curse Ishtafel.
The memory filled Vale, burning inside his skull. It had happened only hours ago, yet it seemed eternal, an event ancient and current, a flame consuming all time, a terror that he knew would always fill him. His father stepping into the quarry. Mother dead in his arms.
Vale closed his eyes, and his fists shook at his sides.
"You killed her, Ishtafel," he whispered. "You killed my mother. You kid
napped my sister."
I should have been there, Vale thought. I should have flown with you, Mother.
He should have flown, blown his dragonfire, lashed his claws. Yet this collar kept him chained. Kept him in the dust, a worm, a wretch.
"Praise the Eight!" the priest on the hill cried. "May the gods bless their souls."
At Vale's side, his father closed his eyes and whispered so softly Vale could barely hear.
"As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home." Jaren took a shuddering breath, raised his head, and gazed up at the sky. Tears filled his eyes, and awe filled his whisper. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."
The ancient prayer of Requiem. The words that, the stories claimed, King Aeternum had sung six thousand years ago in a distant land, forging a home for the Vir Requis. A home for dragons.
Vale raised his eyes, seeking the Draco constellation, seeking those stars his father claimed blessed Requiem. But he saw no stars that looked like a dragon, only a field of cold lights like so many dead eyes.
The stars had abandoned them. His mother was gone. His sisters were gone—both Elory and the sister they never spoke of. All hope was gone.
The wagons dumped the last corpses of slaves into the pit. The dragons—the few slaves allowed to shift into their ancient forms—began shoveling dirt into the grave, hiding the dead, hiding the shame. Soon Vale would return to his hut with his father, but his mother won't be there, nor his sister, and in a few hours he would rise, and he would toil in the sun, and the chains would chafe his body, and the whips would cut his back, and it would continue. Year after year. Generation after generation. Endless pain in the land of Saraph as Requiem remained but a memory, fading to myth.
"Come, son." Jaren placed a hand on his shoulder. Tears still streamed down his lined cheeks to dampen his beard. "Let us return to our hut. Let us pray. Let—"
Laughter.
Laughter rolled across the darkness, interrupting Jaren's words.
"Mother!" A voice rose in mocking falsetto. "Mother, please!"
Slowly, his chains rattling, Vale turned around.
He saw them there on a hill. Two seraphim, a woman and a man. Both wore gilded armor, the breastplates curved to mimic bare torsos. Both carried round shields and lances. Vale was tall for a Vir Requis, almost six feet tall—a giant among the malnourished slaves—yet these seraphim dwarfed him. The immortals were beings of beauty, hair long and lustrous, pupils shaped as sunbursts in their golden eyes, lips full and pink, wings the color of milk. Fallen angels. Masters. Destroyers.
"The little whore whined like a babe," said the male seraph. He raised his voice to falsetto again. "Mother, Mother, please don't let the bad seraph take me! Don't let him spread my legs and thrust his holy spear into me!"
The female seraph laughed. She raised a flaming whip. Vale recognized her. Here stood Shani, an overseer of the tar pit, a woman who had beaten Elory with her whip too often to count. So many nights, Elory had lain shivering on her straw bed, feverish and moaning with pain, as Vale rubbed ointments into the wounds on her back—wounds Shani had inflicted.
"Ishtafel's new whore was in my work team," Shani said to her companion. "Worked as a yoke bearer. I striped her back many times. Squealed like a pig every time."
Rage flowed through Vale, a fiery explosion. His fingernails drove into his palms, shedding blood.
They're talking about Elory. About my sister.
"Come, son," Jaren said, voice still choked with grief. He placed a hand on Vale's shoulder. "Let's go. Leave them be."
But Vale could not look away from the laughing seraphim on the hill. The pair were still talking, laughing as they stared into the grave.
"Little harlot will be back in Tofet in no time." The male seraph snorted. "The weredragons never last long with Ishtafel."
Shani barked a laugh. "Not weak as that one is. I beat her bloody too many times. She'll be back as a corpse soon. Next time the wagons roll around, we'll spit on her body."
Jaren was speaking behind him, urging calm. But Vale could no longer hear. The fury blasted through him, shaking his limbs, constricting his chest, painting the world red.
He could not fly as a dragon, not with the cursed collar around his neck, the metal engraved with runes to crush his magic. But he could still fight with tooth and nail.
Better to die fighting. Better to end this now, to die young rather than languish into old age. The pit awaits us now or after years of pain.
With a roar, Vale raced forward.
He charged uphill, fists raised.
In the old stories, the ones passed from father to son, the Vir Requis would rise as dragons, fight in great armies in the sky, blowing dragonfire. Vale had never become a dragon; the collar had constricted him since birth. But in his mind, as he charged forth, he was a dragon roaring, a beast of fury and fire.
The two seraphim turned toward him, eyes widening.
"For Requiem!" Vale shouted. "For stars and dragonfire!"
He leaped forward, fists swinging.
He was weakened by years of servitude, feeding on gruel while building bricks for eighteen hours a day, but the wrath of an ancient nation burned within him, and he moved fast. He reached the seraphim and landed the first blow, driving his fist into the male's chin.
It felt like punching a cliff.
Vale's knuckles cracked, and pain blazed through him.
"Rabid dog!" Shani shouted. The beautiful seraph, her blond hair flying in the wind, swung her whip.
The lash of fire slammed into Vale, tore across his back, and wrapped around him to sting his chest. His skin tore, and the fire cauterized the wound, burning his blood.
"Vale!" Jaren shouted, racing uphill. "Vale, no!"
But Vale ignored his father. Too much pain. Too much fury—the fury of a dragon, dragonfire blazing even within his famished human form. He roared and attacked again, driving his fist toward Shani.
Smiling savagely, Shani grabbed his fist in her hand. She squeezed, her grin stretching into a rabid, toothy snarl.
Vale screamed, his hand crushed.
"Yes, you will scream like she did." Shani tightened her grip. The seraph was taller than Vale, stronger, ancient beyond measure. Vale howled and swung his other fist, only bloodying his knuckles against her.
Agony exploded across his back. He screamed, falling to his knees. Another blow hit him, knocking him down. Vale tried to turn around, glimpsed the second seraph raising his fist, and then another blow slammed into him. Light flared. Vale hit the ground.
"Cease this!" Jaren cried somewhere in the distance—miles away. A fading sound. Vale could barely hear his father, barely hear anything but his own screams. The blows kept raining onto him.
"Father!" he cried. "Father! Requiem!"
"Enough!" Jaren shouted, but the voice was a muffled cry from another world, a whisper, then nothing. The world washed away under the blood.
"Wait." Shani spoke somewhere in the haze. "Stop. Keep him alive. We'll burn him in the bronze bull tomorrow." She laughed. "I'd like to hear the bull sing."
The blows stopped but the pain still bloomed across Vale. In his memories, he could see that bronze bull again, the fires burning below it, the screams rising through its pipes to emerge as a melodious song—a song of burning flesh, burning souls, of his death in the forge.
So I will burn. A thin smile stretched across his lips, and he tasted blood. It's a good death for a Vir Requis.
So hurt he could barely see, barely hear, he managed to spit blood onto Shani's feet.
The seraph cursed and drove her foot forward. Light exploded, then died to darkness, and Vale felt no more.
ELORY
She knelt in the dark, chained, shivering, the fear like a living beast coiling within her.
He's coming for me. He's coming to hurt me. The man w
ho killed my mother.
She tried to stop the tears from falling. She tried to be brave, to be like the old heroines of Requiem from her father's stories. To be brave like Mother had been, defying the masters with her last breath. Yet still those damn tears fell, and still Elory trembled.
The past few hours were a blur, a dreamscape of color and sound, so hazy and surreal Elory wondered if it hadn't been a true dream, if she wouldn't soon wake back in her hut in Tofet. She recalled the heat of the chariot of fire, a flight over the desert, the smudged glimpses of a great city below. And then jeweled columns shining with light. Mosaic floors depicting all the fish of the seas. The labyrinthine corridors of a palace, a realm as confusing as another world.
And she recalled other slaves too. Other Vir Requis. But not ones like those from Tofet. Here, in this realm of gold and jewels, the slaves' skin was paler, for the sun did not burn them. Their shoulders did not stoop under a yoke, and their legs did not bend under baskets of bricks, and no hot tar stained their feet. Elory flushed to remember them stripping her naked, scrubbing her tarred skin until it reddened, shaving the downy hair that grew on her body, soothing her wounds with ointment, and finally cladding her in this cotton shift.
She knelt now in the dark chamber. Cleaned. Bandaged. Shaved. Perfumed with a hint of frankincense. Yet still her ankles were hobbled, and still the collar encircled her neck.
Still a slave. Still a daughter mourning.
Elory lowered her head. Still that vision played in her mind, again and again. She knew it would never leave her. Her mother, a silver dragon, calling her name, flying toward her . . . and the lances, the arrows, the swords . . . the blood raining . . . the severed limbs, the anguished eyes, and . . .
"No," Elory whispered. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. I will not let that vision fill me. I refuse.
Instead, she conjured up older, kinder memories. Her mother comforting her after the overseers would whip Elory's back. Her mother holding her, singing to her the old songs of Requiem, whispering of the day when the dragons would rise again, overthrow their masters, and fly home. Elory would remember that woman instead: the kindly mother, face sunburnt and weathered but still beautiful, eyes still dreaming, still hoping, loving her.
Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Page 6
