They will pay.
He left the columns, and he roamed the corridors of his palace, and he was roaming the tunnels again, the labyrinth beneath Requiem, the hives of the creatures, the greatest battle of his life, the war that still raged within him, that he would never stop fighting. He grinned and licked his lips.
My war will never die.
He found another slave sweeping a corridor, and Ishtafel laughed as he tore out the woman's organs, held them overhead, bit into the sweet meat. He roamed onward, a hunter, a conqueror. A weredragon lurked in the shadows ahead, a vile creature with shining eyes, and Ishtafel shattered its spine, tossed it down, crushed its skull under his heel. He roamed onward, covered in blood, finding the weredragons in their burrows, slaying them one by one, a god of light, a god of vengeance.
You dirtied my sister. Your poison infected my legacy. Your blood will forever spill.
He roamed the halls of the ziggurat, roamed the tunnels of Requiem, covered in the blood of weredragons. He lifted a heart in each hand, still beating, crushing them, his trophies of flesh and victory.
MELIORA
She walked into the land of Tofet, her dress tattered and burnt, her wings bleeding and missing half their feathers, her eyes dry, her shoulders squared, an emptiness in her heart. She walked into ruin, into a land of agony, into her home, into the place that had always been her home.
For twenty-seven years, this land hid just beyond the horizon, Meliora thought. For twenty-seven years, she had gazed upon the edge of Tofet from her balcony, seeing nothing but a haze. She had imagined a land of happy miners, whistling as they shoved trolleys on tracks. A land where slaves sang in lush fields and vineyards, laughed as they danced upon grapes, picked fruits from rustling trees, retired in lazy afternoons to fish in streams and lounge in meadows. Often Meliora had wanted to flee her palace, to come to this wondrous land she had envisioned.
Now she walked into Tofet, into the shame of Saraph, the agony of Requiem.
She walked through a rocky field where slaves, chained and beaten, labored under the cruel sunlight. They mixed clay with straw and bitumen, forming bricks in molds, crying out as their masters whipped them with lashes of fire. She walked along a quarry where, deep in the earth, slaves labored with pickaxes, chipping stones for the columns of temples and palaces, coughing in the dust, falling in exhaustion only to suffer the kicking boots of their masters. She walked along a pit of tar where slaves shuffled, heavy yokes chained to their shoulders, bearing baskets of bitumen. The fumes spun Meliora's head, and every moment, another slave fell, burning his or her knees in the bubbling tar, crying out as the whips tore into their flesh.
I lived in wealth, a palace grown from the toil of these people, a throne upon their broken shoulders.
All around her, for miles, they cried out in pain, in memory, begging for mercy, praying for a lost home. As Meliora walked between them, charred and bruised, her tears fell onto the dry earth.
"I'm sorry, children of Requiem," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my brother. For my mother. Forever, I'm sorry."
Finally, past the miles of pain, Meliora reached a city of clay huts. A great limestone wall surrounded the place, topped with seraphim guards. There were as many Vir Requis in the empire as seraphim, and yet their city was so much smaller, over half a million souls condensed into an area barely larger than the palace grounds south of the river. Each hut was small, smaller than the carriages Meliora used to ride in with her mother, molded of crude, flaking mud. Gutters ran between them, overflowing with filth.
No children played here as they did in Shayeen; here children hobbled in chains, scrawny, their ribs pushing against their skin, digging for beetles, worms, scraps of food in the dry earth. No happy mothers idled in gardens here, playing with plump babies; here mothers sat in what shade was available, heads shaved, too weak to even brush aside flies, their breasts ravaged as their babes suckled for whatever drops of milk they could drink. No flowers grew in Tofet, filling the air with sweet perfumes; Meliora smelled only disease, filth, death. No birds sang; she heard only the clanking chains, crying babes, distant whips lashing, and screams.
She kept walking through the nightmare, the guilt and horror battling for dominance within her. She was deep in the labyrinth of huts when she heard a nearby scream, stepped around a bend in the dirt road, and gasped.
A seraph overseer stood ahead, his back to her, clad in a fine breastplate and flowing white robes. No dust or blood marred his wings of purest white feathers. His whip of fire flailed, the blows landing on a slave in the mud. The slave raised her arms, begging for mercy, gravid with child.
"Silence, you guttering rat!" the overseer shouted, landing his whip again, the thong tearing into the pregnant slave's arms.
"Stop!" Meliora marched forward. Her chest shook and she could barely breathe. She had never seen such cruelty. "Seraph, stop!"
The overseer spun toward her, snarling, not recognizing her in her filthy rags. "Stand back, girl. This slave only produced nine hundred bricks today. Quota's a thousand." He spun back toward the slave, raising his whip again.
"I told you to stop, son of Saraph!" Meliora leaped toward him and grabbed his arm, tugging him back.
The overseer spun toward her again, face flushed, teeth bared. "And I told you to stand back, you whore. You ain't no overseer. Go fly back to your momma." He raised his whip, then brought it down hard against Meliora.
She yowled in pain. She had always known whips were painful, had always known that people screamed beneath them. Yet Meliora had never imagined such pain—searing, all-consuming pain, almost too much to bear, pain that flooded her, impossible pain. She fell.
The overseer brought the whip down again, hitting her shoulder and back, and Meliora screamed.
"I ain't afraid to teach a seraph pup a lesson either." The overseer smirked and raised his whip again. "I'm going to stripe you just as good as any slave, girl."
His whip lashed.
Meliora grabbed a rock from the ground.
The whip tore into her shoulder, and she hurled the stone.
The projectile streamed through the air and slammed into the overseer's brow.
Blood spurted and the seraph fell. He hit the ground and did not rise.
Everything suddenly seemed so silent. Her wounds aching, Meliora rose to her feet and limped forward. She stared down at the seraph. He lay on his back, his forehead shattered and bleeding, his eyes staring lifelessly.
Dead.
Meliora stared down, feeling nothing.
I killed. I took a life.
And still she felt nothing. No horror. No guilt. She was a killer. A murderer. A slayer of her own kind.
No. Not my kind.
She stepped over the fallen overseer and knelt by the wounded weredragon.
No. Not a weredragon. A Vir Requis.
Meliora lowered her hand. "Rise, friend."
But the slave did not rise. She knelt and bowed her head. "Meliora the Merciful. Praised be your name, child of starlight. May the stars bless you, daughter of Requiem." The woman looked up, eyes shining and damp. "Our savior. A savior from the palace of gods, from the stars of our home."
Meliora shook her head. "I'm not a savior. I was sent by none."
A new voice spoke, coming from behind her, a soft, high voice, trembling with awe. "You are my savior, sister. The stars sent you here."
Elory.
Meliora turned around and saw a family.
Elory stood there, wearing cotton rags, her legs hobbled again, her head stubbly. With her stood a young man—the same young man who had, only hours ago, been nailed into the ziggurat, now healed. Behind them stood an older man, his head shaved but his beard long, brown streaked with white, and he held a staff in his knobby hand.
A family.
My family.
Meliora blinked at them, and now—now all those feelings she could not feel when killing a man flooded her. Grief. Fear. But also love, also joy.<
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She stepped toward them, hesitant, breath trembling in her throat.
"You . . . you are my brother," she whispered to the young man. She turned toward the older man. "You . . . are my father. You are my family."
Elory smiled tremulously and nodded.
"This is Vale . . . your brother," the girl whispered, gesturing toward the young man. "And this is Jaren . . . your father. We're your family, Meliora. We're the people who love you."
Tears flowed down Meliora's cheeks, and for once they were not tears of pain or grief; they were tears of joy. She stepped closer and pulled her family into an embrace. They wept too, holding her in their arms.
"Welcome home, Meliora," her father whispered. "Welcome home."
LUCEM
He stood on the hill, singing.
He curled up in his cave, watching the rain.
He talked to stones. He laughed with trees. He laughed. He laughed and laughed. He wept.
He watched the sun rise and set thousands of times.
"Good morning. Good morning." The sunlight streamed into the cave, and Lucem gazed at the drawings on the walls. His friends. Animals. Men and women. Funny creatures he had invented. "Good morning."
They could not speak, but he could hear them in his mind. They greeted him.
He took one of his friends with him today—a lump of wood with two knots, two eyes, and a little smile he had carved. A beautiful woman. His dearest companion, a wife, a confidant. Together they walked across the hill, chewing mint leaves. Together they speared fish in the river, and they even caught a wild goat, and that night they feasted.
He sang around the campfire.
"Old Requiem Woods, where do thy harpists play, in Old Requiem Woods, where do thy dragons fly . . ."
He spread out his arms, and he danced around the fire, clad in his tattered tunic. A dragon. In his mind he was always a dragon. He blew out his breath, and the campfire flared—his dragonfire.
He fell to his knees, and he howled.
He grabbed his collar, tugged it, smashed it with rocks again and again. He fell to the ground, crawled into his cave, and shivered.
It's all right, his friends whispered—the drawings on the wall, the little wooden blocks with eyes. You're safe here. You're far from pain. You're far from Tofet.
"I'm far from Requiem," he whispered.
Requiem. The home of his ancestors, the place he had heard of so many times as a child. His parents had told him—his parents whom the seraphim overseers had murdered. His parents who lay buried in Tofet in a mass grave. His parents whose bodies he had left behind—along with so many living, with so many suffering souls, crying out under the whip, begging for mercy that would never come, pleading for freedom . . . which he had found.
Lying in the cave, Lucem balled his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. He screwed his eyes shut.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I left you. I climbed the wall. I escaped Tofet. I left you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
His tears stung. He had been only eleven years old—only a child, yet broken, too thin, covered in cuts and bruises, the marks of whips on his back. He had been small enough to climb in the dark, to escape the guards, to come here, to leave them, to betray them . . .
"I miss you, Mother," he whispered. "I miss you, Father. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
He dreamed of Requiem—dreamed of flying in the night, flying with his parents, with countless dragons, no collars around their necks. Flying in their sky, their columns rising below from the birch forest.
Dawn rose—as it had risen so many times. He crawled out of his cave again. He fished in the river. He chewed his mint leaves. He chewed carobs and wild figs. And he walked.
The wilderness rolled by around him. Hills speckled with mint bushes, white boulders, and carob trees. A few goats ambled on a hill, and the river streamed at his side. The sun beat down, and grasshoppers bustled in the rushes.
He slept in the tall grass. He caught another fish with his spear. He walked on.
When he finally saw it, he paused and stared. His guilt rose inside him like a demon, struggling to crash through his ribs, to consume his flesh.
"Tofet," Lucem whispered.
The wall of that cursed place rose in the distance, hundreds of feet tall. Atop it stood the seraphim, guards and overseers, mere glints of sunlight on metal from here. Behind that wall, they still languished—six hundred thousand souls, children of Requiem. All those he had grown up with, worked with, suffered with. Crying out to him.
You left us, Lucem!
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
You betrayed us!
"I had to leave, I had to." He trembled. "They hurt me so badly."
Now they hurt us! Now we suffer while you dance and sing around your fires.
Lucem took a step closer. Then another. His fists shook at his sides.
"I'm coming home," he whispered. "I'm coming back. They'll let me back in. They have to! They have to."
He kept walking, moving closer to the wall. Soon the guards would see him. Soon they'd cry out, fly to him, lift him up, take him home—back into Tofet. To his people. To the grave of his parents. To an end to this guilt, to this torture, an end to this madness in the wilderness.
Back to the whips, his friend said. Back to the mines, to the stench, to the death all around you.
The block of wood stared at him. Lucem stared back.
"You know nothing," he said.
You are a fool! she said, staring with her knot eyes. You will die in there. Die! Die and leave me. Tofet is not your home.
"It's my only home," he said. "And you're only a block of wood, and you know nothing, so be quiet."
She glared at him. Requiem is your home!
He hurled the wood as far as he could, then winced, ran after her, lifted her, cradled her.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Go away from this place, she said. Go! Go! Never come back.
"Stop talking, you block of wood."
Then stop acting like a fool.
He turned around, and he walked away, leaving the wall behind—leaving them all behind. And that guilt screamed, tearing at his insides.
He walked along the river. He walked past his cave. He hunted. He fished. He ate fruit. He chewed leaves. For many days and nights he traveled, singing, laughing, telling old stories again and again. He kept talking—always talking. It was important not to forget how to talk. It was important to remember his name. "Lucem, Lucem," he said, over and over. He found a small rock shaped like a woman, a new friend, and he slept holding her.
He crossed hills, mountains. He hid in caves. He roamed through forests. He kept singing. He kept talking. You had to keep talking. You had to remember. He made new friends on the way.
Finally Lucem reached the coast, and he stood on the beach, and he stared out at the sea.
The waves were cobalt, almost gray, crested with foam. Clouds covered the sky. Lucem stood for a long time, staring.
"Requiem," he said. "Requiem. Requiem." You had to keep talking.
His homeland lay beyond the water. The land of dragons, the land his people had lost. In ruins. Devastated! But . . . maybe some had survived. Maybe some still hid there—hid in the ruins, waiting for him, waiting to welcome him home.
Lucem inhaled deeply, spread out his arms, and reached for his magic.
His skin began to harden, forming the first hints of scales. His fingernails began to lengthen into claws. The nubs of wings rose from his shoulder blades. His neck thickened . . . and the iron collar tightened around it.
He choked.
He grinded his teeth and kept tugging on his magic.
Pain. Pain flared through him, squeezing his neck, creaking his bones, blazing through his head.
Keep shifting. Become a dragon! Break the collar! Fly, fly home, fly—
Stars spread out before him, endless, the stars of his people, hovering over blackness. He fell into the sand, and he
floated among them, gasping.
He slept.
When he finally awoke, it was night, and clouds hid the true stars. He shivered, feverish, and when he reached to his neck, he felt blood.
As always, he was a human.
Lucem howled.
He clawed at his collar until his fingers bled. He grabbed a sharp stone. He stabbed the collar again and again until he cut his neck, and the stone fell, and Lucem fell after it into the sand. He shivered.
"Lucem, Lucem," he whispered. "I have to remember, I have to keep talking."
A crab walked up and examined him, then scurried away. Lucem reached for it desperately. He needed to talk to it. He needed to hear its voice. And yet it scuttled away and vanished in the darkness.
Dawn rose, and Lucem rose, and his guilt rose, and he walked along the beach. Thirst clawed at his throat and hunger rumbled in his belly.
At noon he saw a city ahead. No walls rose around it, and he saw obelisks capped with gold, great cathedrals soaring to the sky, grand palaces and humbler homes. Above the roofs rose banners, showing an eye within a sunburst—symbol of Saraph. The city spread along the coast, sending ships into the waters. A city of seraphim.
Lucem stared, eyes damp. "People," he whispered. "People."
No! his wooden friend said. Not people. Seraphim! Seraphim aren't people.
"You're not people, you're just a block of wood," Lucem said. "Be quiet or I'm going to toss you into the sea."
I'll float, said the block of wood. But you'll just drown trying to save me.
"Hush!" he said. "I need to keep talking. You need to be quiet."
The block of wood glared at him. Lucem tucked her under his sleeve and kept walking, approaching the city. He could see more details now. Seraphim flew above upon swan wings. Bells rang in a steeple. Two towering statues rose ahead, shaped as serpopards—felines with necks longer than their bodies. Those necks curved and coiled around each other, forming a gateway that led into the city.
Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Page 19
