Lying now in the same pool, the water soothing her wound that would not heal, Kalafi passed her hands down her legs, remembering his touch, the forbidden pleasure of slave flesh. She knew that her son took slaves into his bed, that many of the seraphim did, plucking beauties from Tofet and hiding them in the den beneath the ziggurat. Kalafi had succumbed to her temptation just that one time, then cast the man aside, let him grow weary and old in Tofet, to die far from her sight.
But her husband . . .
A smile rose on Kalafi's lips.
"I wanted to see you die."
She inhaled sharply, remembering how wonderful it had felt, seeing the king eat the poisoned fig, hearing him choke, watching him fall to the floor. A child in her womb—a slave's child—Kalafi had laughed as her husband died, and she had spat on his body. She had taken his throne. And now, under her reign, Saraph rose to its greatest glory—the empire's last enemies defeated, the world theirs, Edinnu reborn in exile.
Kalafi rose from the pool. Her wound, the ugly burn she had endured falling from Edinnu, bubbled on her side, rising like a red serpent from her waist to her ribs. The pain was a dull throb now, but she knew that within hours, it would flare again, never healing, fading only when she soaked in the hot water again. Alone, her slaves dismissed, she stepped out of her pool and walked toward the balcony.
She stood between the gilded columns, naked in the night, the warm spring breeze drying her. From the height of her ziggurat, she gazed at her city. Lanterns burned in the night, a field of stars, their light falling upon the Paths of the Gods, the temples and palaces, and the desert beyond. There, in the land of Tofet on the horizon, he still lived. She had seen him at the bronze bull.
"Jaren," she whispered.
Kalafi winced.
She too had wanted a daughter—a woman to breed with Ishtafel, to give her an heir of pure blood. Yet now the blood of weredragons flowed through Meliora. The girl did not know her heritage; she thought that her father was the fallen Harash, that the king had choked on a fig, not that Kalafi had pumped the fig fill of hemlock.
"But something inside you calls out," Kalafi whispered. "You saw the slaves . . . and you saw yourself. You burned yourself to save them."
Kalafi's fists clenched. She spun around from the balcony, pulled on a muslin robe embroidered with golden sunbursts, and strapped a dagger to her side. She left her chamber.
She walked through the palace, still wet, water dripping from her wings onto the mosaic floor. Oil lanterns glowed on the wall, illuminating ivory statues and murals of the gods. Finally she reached a door of giltwood. Armored guards knelt before her, and Kalafi stepped into the room.
She walked between jeweled vases and statues and stood above the bed, staring down at her slumbering daughter.
A rich, embroidered blanket covered Meliora, but Kalafi could see the burn marks stretching up to her exposed shoulders—the burns endured in the bronze bull to save her precious slaves.
You are beautiful, daughter, Kalafi thought. Your hair is a river of gold, your lips are ripe fruit, your wings are clouds in sunrise. I thought that my purity would sear away the slave's blood, that you would be as I am . . . yet his blood still taints your heart.
Standing above the bed, Kalafi drew her dagger.
Meliora stirred in her sleep, mumbling something about fires that burn, about pain and song.
"I must do this, daughter," Kalafi whispered. "If the slave blood spreads through you, one day you will discover their magic. The magic to become a dragon. To rise against me. To burn us all."
Meliora kicked in her sleep, brow furrowed. "Run, Kira! Run, Talana! I saved you . . . I saved you . . ."
With a deep breath, Kalafi raised her dagger above her sleeping daughter.
"Mother," Meliora whispered, eyes still closed. "You saved me, Mother. You saved me from the fire. I love you. I love you so much. Forgive me, Mother."
Tears fled Kalafi's eyes. She dropped the knife. It thumped onto the bed.
I love you too, my daughter.
The tears streamed, and Kalafi could not stop the memories—her slave knowing her, her husband dying at her hands, her daughter born, sweetest Meliora, smaller than the other babes yet just as beautiful.
"I will keep you pure," Kalafi whispered. "I will cleanse the weakness from you."
She turned away. She left her daughter's chamber. As she walked down the corridor, Kalafi's hands balled into fists, and rage simmered in her belly.
Meliora would have to see that slaves were unworthy of sympathy, that they had no hearts, no feelings, that they were barely better than beasts. At dawn, Kalafi would make the creatures work harder, doubling their workload. She would insist that the weak be culled. That the old and frail were burned in pits of fire.
"You wanted to save them, my child," Kalafi whispered. "But you will see them ground into the dust like the worms that they are."
ELORY
She tiptoed through the shadowy ziggurat, unchained for the first time in her life, holding her scroll before her like a shield.
As a child, Elory would hop at night between the huts where the slaves lived, as fast as she could move in her hobbles. She'd stretch out her arms, pretending to be a dragon, a magnificent beast flying through canyons. The thousands of huts had spread out, forming a great labyrinth, yet Elory had never gotten lost, not even navigating the darkness for hours.
Here, the innards of the ziggurat formed a maze far more convoluted.
She walked up a staircase—it was still strange to walk on stairs, which she had never seen in Tofet. Lanterns glowed on the walls, illuminating murals depicting seraphim battling sea serpents. With every flicker of the lamps, Elory started, sure that the seraphim on the walls were real, that they were about to strike.
Finally the staircase emerged from the underground, and Elory found herself walking along a colonnade. A wall rose to her right, built of sandstone bricks cobbled together with the bitumen she had spent her life hauling. More murals appeared here, showing scenes of tigers, hippos, and birds of every kind among rushes and palm trees. To her left stretched a portico of columns, exposing the open night. Between the limestone pillars, she saw a dark stream, lush gardens, and the lights of the city.
Elory paused and stared.
Several seraphim guards stood in the dark gardens, still, silent, facing the city. They did not see her, all their attention focused outward.
I can escape, she thought. I can sneak between them, disappear into the city, find my family again.
Her hand trembled, crinkling her scroll so loudly she thought the guards would hear. Her heart thudded even louder, pounding in her ears. And why should she not escape? She was small and fast. She could vanish into shadows in the night, leave this place. She perhaps could not escape Saraph itself; a great wall rose in the north, blocking her passage to the distant ruins of Requiem, and only one slave—the legendary Lumen—had ever scaled that wall and lived. But Elory could still flee the ziggurat at least, still find her family in Tofet.
And leave my sister? Elory thought.
She closed her eyes.
She had never seen Meliora before, the fabled Princess of Saraph, daughter of Queen Kalafi. Daughter of Elory's own father, the humble slave. But she had heard tales of Meliora a thousand times. Her father would whisper of her at night, making Elory vow not to tell, not to repeat the story, telling her that even Meliora herself did not know that she was half Vir Requis. The seraphim soldiers in Tofet would speak of Meliora too, singing her praises, worshipping her name, calling her a deity of beauty and endless piety.
"She doesn't know that I'm her father," Jaren would whisper to Elory at night, telling her tales of her famous half sister. "Meliora thinks that her father was the late King Harash. She doesn't know that she's half Vir Requis, and she doesn't have the magic to become a dragon. But someday, Elory . . . someday a child of Requiem will sit upon the throne of Saraph. Someday your sister will rule the world."
And
now I must find that sister, Elory thought. I must tell her who she is. I must beg her for aid. Not just for me. For my father. For my brother. For everyone suffering in chains. She turned away from the gardens, from the path to freedom. I will not escape while my people suffer, while I can find them a savior.
She kept walking, found another staircase, and climbed.
She found herself walking down a dark corridor, leaving the hot night air behind her. Lanterns glowed on the walls, illuminating polished tiles. Engravings covered the walls, depicting scenes of seraphim slaying dragons, felling the halls of Requiem, and bearing collared slaves back into Saraph. In the land of Tofet, it was a tragic tale—the fall of Requiem, the breaking of a proud nation. Here, in the palace of Saraph, the story appeared heroic, the engraved seraphim handsome and proud, the dragons rabid and cruel, the slaves hook-nosed and hunched over, ugly demons thrashing in their collars like beasts.
At the sight of the engravings, Elory's heart wrenched.
Requiem is real, she thought. It has to be real, if even the seraphim engraved it. We will fly there again, free, no collars on our necks. We will find our sky.
As she kept walking down the corridor, the scenes continued to roll across the walls, showing piles of dead dragons and triumphant flights of flaming chariots. After walking for a hundred yards, near the end of the scene, Elory saw an engraving of a towering column. It soared all the way to the ceiling, dead dragons lying at its base. If engraved to scale, it must have soared hundreds of feet tall in real life.
Elory paused and stared.
"King's Column," she whispered.
This was only an engraving, of course, paling in comparison to the true King's Column from the tales. In the stories her father told her, King's Column rose in the heart of Requiem, the pillar around which the kingdom had been built. They said that King Aeternum himself, founding father of Requiem, had raised this column in a birch forest five thousand years ago, that since that time the kingdom of Requiem had worshiped it. They said that the Draco constellation itself, the stars Elory could not see from this land, blessed the column, that it would stand so long as Vir Requis lived in the world. Indeed, even in this engraving in the halls of Saraph, seraphim were attacking the column with lances and arrows, unable to topple it, even as lesser columns lay shattered at its feet.
"So long as a single Vir Requis lives, the column will stand," Elory whispered. She hesitated, then gingerly placed a hand against the engraved column. The limestone was cold and rough, not polished marble like the true column, but she imagined that she was touching the real King's Column, that she felt its magic flow through her.
You are blessed, child, a voice seemed to whisper within her. You are a child of starlight. We watch over you from the stars. Always, Elory. Always.
Elory bit her lip, eyes damp, hand against the column. She felt the ancient magic, a warm, soothing feeling that flowed through her. Her collar kept that magic at bay, not letting her summon it, but it filled her nonetheless like bitumen lying under the surface, waiting to be drawn. Even here, centuries after the fall of Requiem, captive and collared, the old magic filled Elory.
A magic of dragons.
"Requiem!" she whispered. "May our wings forever find your sky."
"Slave!" The voice boomed down the corridor. "What are you doing there? Where is your night pass?"
Elory spun away from the wall, heart leaping into her throat. She gasped to see two seraphim guards marching toward her. Their sandals clattered against the floor's polished tiles, and their halos' light reflected against their burnished breastplates and helmets. Their shields displayed the Eye of Saraph, and their spears dipped to point toward her.
Struggling not to faint from fear, Elory raised her scroll. She held it before her, her own weapon, the only weapon that could save her in the bowels of the ziggurat.
She knelt before the seraphim, lowered her head, and held out the scroll.
"Here is my pass, my lords! It bears the seal of Prince Ishtafel himself. He commanded me to bear this scroll to his sister—unopened."
She pulled back the scroll, afraid the guards would grab it. If they demanded to read it, they would read Ishtafel's orders that she report to the pleasure pit.
Thank goodness you don't know how to read, Tash, Elory thought. Unable to read the contents, the pleasurer had seen no point in breaking the seal. Perhaps, with this seal intact, the scroll still rolled up, Elory might just make her way through.
The soldiers stared at the seal, and their eyes darkened. Their wings stiffened.
"Prince Ishtafel's seal," whispered one.
Elory nodded. "I must deliver this scroll to Princess Meliora. Will you allow me to continue on my way, my lords?"
The seraphim glanced at each other, fear in their eyes. They nodded. "Go!"
They continued walking, passed by her, and quickly vanished into shadows.
Elory breathed out a shaky sigh of relief. She trembled, and cold sweat dripped down her spine. She had almost lost her life. She had almost lost the hope of Requiem.
We need a savior. We need one who can remove our collars like Tash removed my shackles—who can save me, who can save a nation. We need you, Meliora, the sister I've never met.
Standing here in darkness, alone, afraid, lost in the heart of her enemy, Elory raised her eyes and stared up at the dark ceiling. And there she saw it. Tears flooded her eyes.
"The stars of Requiem," she whispered.
It was only an engraving, an image of the northern sky. The Draco constellation was small, barely visible, a few stars worked into the stone, filled with silver, their shine dull. One constellation among a hundred. Her stars.
Our stars.
Our sky.
Elory raised her chin and kept walking, new strength in her heart, and as she walked she made a vow to herself. A vow she would cherish like the dream of Requiem.
"I will not just save myself, sparing my body from the cruelty of Ishtafel." The stars seemed to shine in her eyes, perhaps only her tears. "I will save all of you. I will save Requiem. We will see that sky again, and we will fly under those stars as dragons."
She kept walking through the palace until she found another slave, an old woman moving through the halls with a basket of laundry. The elder gave Elory directions, and she walked on, asking again a few stories up, this time from a boy slave who was sweeping the floor. In the shadows of night, as the seraphim slept, the slaves were everywhere—washing, dusting, polishing.
"Remember Requiem," she whispered to them.
They nodded, afraid, glanced around for their masters, then answered the prayer. "Remember Requiem."
As she passed by a window, Elory saw that she was so high up now that she could see Tofet, just a hint on the horizon. A shadow. A darkness where only the odd candle lit the night.
Remember Requiem, my people, she thought, staring at them, at the hundreds of thousands crying out in chains.
Already she saw trails of lights, clay lanterns held in trembling hands—the slaves leaving their huts, heading to their work. Dawn was only two hours away, and then the seraphim too would wake, filling the ziggurat's halls.
She turned away from the window. She kept walking until she reached a golden door where stood two seraphim guards.
Meliora's chamber.
Elory raised her scroll toward the sentries, showing them the seal, her amulet of power.
You gave me this seal, Ishtafel, so that I could enter the pleasure pit, so that I could train to pleasure you, Elory thought. But you gave me the key to every chamber in this palace.
The guards stepped back and Elory entered the chamber of her princess, her mistress, her sister.
JAREN
In the darkness of night, no moon in the sky, Jaren walked through the tortured land of Tofet.
The towering limestone walls, topped with seraphim guards. The huts of slaves. The bitumen pits where his wife had died, where his daughter had labored. The quarries where his son toi
led every day, back almost breaking. The refineries and fields where bricks were made, the fields where slaves struggled to raise crops from the dry land—crops they would never eat. A land of misery, the Abyss risen onto the earth, a prison surrounded by hosts of seraphim, an enemy they could not slay.
A land of tears, Jaren thought. The land where I lost my wife, where I saw my daughter kidnapped by the demon.
He grimaced to think of Ishtafel. In the lore of Requiem, he was a tyrant, the seraph who had destroyed Requiem, who had slain a million of their kind, who had taken myriads here to slavery. In the lore of Saraph, he was a hero, the noble and handsome warrior who had conquered the world.
"And to you, my beloved Kalafi . . . he is a son."
As he walked through the darkness, Jaren lowered his head. All his life, he had tried to give hope to the children of Requiem, to cling to that hope, to cling to morality, to decency, to joy—even here, even in chains. Yet that day . . . that day long ago, he had shamed his people. That shame still lived inside him, even now.
I loved you, Kalafi, and I will always hate myself for it.
Jaren kept walking, and finally he saw the bridge ahead, spanning the Te'ephim River. The edge of Tofet. Beyond that arching stone bridge it lay—Shayeen, the City of Kings. The place where their bricks, bitumen, all their labor went. The great wonder of the world. The place that was now forbidden to him. The place where he had first met her—the first woman he had loved.
He glanced toward the sky. By the position of the stars, it was midnight, a week before the summer solstice. Just another night, not a festival to any god or hero. A forgotten night in the calendar. The same night he came here every year.
It was time.
Chains clanking, he stepped onto the bridge and walked, the water flowing below him. The bridge was wide enough to let twenty men walk abreast, built of sturdy stone. At its far side stood walls and towers and seraphim upon them, but Jaren would not walk that far, perhaps never again. When he reached the center of the bridge, he paused.
Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Page 11
