"What have you done, Ishtafel!" she cried, beating her wings.
He stood before her, hands stained with blood. "I did what you could not! I did what I've been doing for centuries." A grin split his face, revealing red teeth. "Conquering. I conquered the world, Meliora. Did you really think I would let another rule it?"
Meliora hovered before him, scales chinking as she beat her wings. She stared at him, shaking her head, not recognizing him. Who was he? Who was this creature? Not her brother. Not the man who would bounce her on his knee, who would play ball with her in the gardens, who would listen to her prattle on endlessly about her dolls and puppies.
This has always been him, she realized, flying before the chariot. The other him, the one who danced with me, who laughed with me—that was a mask. Here is the Ishtafel that Requiem saw five hundred years ago, that countless other enemies saw before they fell. Here is my true brother. Here is the true gilded, rotted heart of Saraph.
"You're right," she said. "I could not kill Mother. But I killed a man in Tofet. And I killed Shani the overseer. And I will kill you."
She sucked in air and let flames rise in her belly, prepared to blast her fire.
Standing before her in his hovering chariot, he smiled thinly and pulled a key out from his pocket. A long, crimson key engraved with golden runes. He held it before her.
"Did you know, Meliora," he said, "that dragonfire is hot enough to melt metal? Even an ancient, magical key to open ancient, magical collars."
Meliora sneered and swallowed her flames. She sucked in air. The key! The Keeper's Key! The key that could open the collars of her people, that could give them freedom, that could take them back home, that—
"You want this, don't you?" Ishtafel smiled thinly. "It's the only one of its kind in the world, do you know? Yes, the power this key has—to let dragons dig for bitumen, to haul stones, and . . ." Ishtafel frowned. "Do you know, sister? I do believe that's all this key is good for. Doesn't seem like very much, does it?" He shrugged. "More trouble than it's worth, it would seem to me. Oh well."
With that, he closed his fist around the key, crumpling the metal in his hand.
"No!" Meliora shouted and flew forth, reaching out her claws.
Ishtafel grinned, lifted a shield and lance from his chariot, and thrust the blade toward her.
She roared out her flames, and her dragonfire blasted against his shield. His lance drove into her shoulder, and Meliora howled in pain.
"Meliora!" somebody cried below, but she could barely see them, barely hear them; the other Vir Requis stood a thousand feet below, unable to shift into dragons, their hope gone, the key crushed.
"Yes, scream for me, whore!" Ishtafel shouted from his flaming chariot. He laughed. "You will scream in my bed. You will scream as you give birth to my child."
"I will never—"
He thrust his spear again.
The lance drove into her wing, and she roared. Her blood rained. She blew her fire again, but his chariot rose, and her white flames passed beneath it.
He swooped, his firehorses kicking, and hooves of brimstone slammed into Meliora, cracking her scales, burning her skin. His lance thrust again, scraping across her back, tearing off small white scales like pearls. She screamed.
"Already you scream, Meliora!" He laughed, driving his chariot around her in the sky. "You are nothing but a slave now. My slave. My blood. My bearer of children. Your son will be king, Meliora! He will rise to crush your precious weredragons!"
Her lifeblood dripped to the city below. She spun in the sky. The city, the river, the desert beyond, the cruel sun—they all swirled around her. The souls below, calling her name. Her family—crying for her. Requiem—a dream, just a dream, slipping away.
No.
She growled.
I do not abandon hope. I will be brave.
She roared and charged toward her brother. She blasted fire, and the flames cascaded across his shield. She soared skyward, then spun, the sun at her back, and plunged down toward him, claws outstretched.
He raised his shield, and her claws slammed against it, denting the steel. She grabbed the disk with both front claws, tugging at it. She roared down fire, and the flames exploded, crashing against the shield, showering back up against her, igniting her feathers. She burned. She kept clawing, biting, and she tore the shield away, exposing her brother in his flaming chariot.
She opened her jaws wide and lashed down, prepared to bite.
He raised a sword, thrusting it into her mouth.
The blade scraped against her palate and sank into the flesh.
The pain blinded her.
White.
White fire.
Her own flames, burning her.
She fell. She fell through the sky, a human again, tumbling down, her seraph wings losing their feathers, blood in her mouth, blood raining, falling, falling toward her family, falling to death, to the death of hope. Above her, she saw him in the sky, laughing, his chariot a sun, his lance and sword raised, coated with her blood. He came swooping toward her, refusing to even give her death, refusing to ever release her from pain.
Requiem.
Shadows in the night.
Dragons in the wind.
A marble column rising from ruin to starlight.
Meliora tightened her fists as she fell. I will not forget you, Requiem. I will not die. Not so long as I can fight.
"Requiem!" she cried. "May our wings forever find your sky."
She found her magic, and she found her sky. She shifted, growing into a dragon again, her scales chipped, her body pierced, but still a dragon of Requiem, still fighting, still soaring through that sky.
His lance thrust.
She slammed against him, his weapon in her chest.
She cried out in agony, the chariot's fire washing across her, the hooves slamming into her. He leaned across his chariot, grabbed her wing, and tugged her up, and his sword drove into her shoulder.
She couldn't even scream. She couldn't even breathe.
She fell into his chariot, a human again, and lay at his feet.
"Sweetest Meliora." He leaned down, tugged her head up from the floor, and snapped a collar around her neck. "Don't die on me yet. I still have use for you."
She tried to breathe. She tried to live. Blood dripped into her eyes. She heard them cry her name below, heard them call for Requiem, heard them pray, but above it all roared the flames of the chariot. They flew down. Down. Spiraling. The sun spinning. The city spreading into hazy horizons, places she could never fly to, hope burnt.
I flew as a dragon.
She tried to raise her head. He placed a boot against her cheek, shoving her head back down.
I have to fly. I am the wind. I am fire.
She reached for her magic, trying to shift. She felt it. The starlight. The magic of Requiem. She saw them—the celestial halls, the great kings and queens of old, and she was shifting, growing, ready to fly, to—
She gasped in pain.
The collar squeezed her neck.
Her eyes rolled back. She sucked in air, trying to cling to life, her magic gone. The key crushed. She saw it lying beside her, crumpled, broken. She grabbed it in her fist.
Fire crackled, and every bone in her body seemed to shatter, as the chariot landed. Hands grabbed her—his hands, tipped with bloody fingernails like claws. Hands that had slain millions. They tugged her, lifting her, dragging her out of the chariot. He gripped her against him, his arm across her chest, pinning her body to his. Blood dripped around their feet.
"See your champion, slaves!" Ishtafel shouted, voice thrumming against her ear, impossibly loud, tearing at her eardrum. "See Meliora, the Reptile Whore!"
She blinked in the sunlight. She stood on the balcony, she realized. Her mother's balcony. The king's balcony. Below they spread across the miles, the children of Requiem, a proud nation, a nation of slaves. Lives she couldn't save.
The Keeper's Key. It's crushed. It's gone. She fe
lt it in her fist, broken, crumpled into a ball. She trembled. She tried to shift again. She could not. She would have fallen to her knees were he not holding her up.
"Requiem," she whispered, hoarse, tasting hot copper. "May our wings forever find your sky."
"Wings, sister?" Ishtafel leaned forward, lips against her ear, his breath foul, smelling of rank meat. "Slaves do not have wings."
He kicked the back of her knees, forcing her to kneel, and wrapped an arm around her throat, constricting her.
"See how she kneels, weredragons!" Ishtafel called off the balcony. "Meliora calls herself a slave now. Then let her be a slave as you are! Kneeling, collared, and wingless."
He raised his sword.
He thrust the blade down.
Meliora screamed.
The pain shattered her. It claimed her. She wept with it. She tried to shift again but could not. She tried to fight him. She tried to rise to her feet, but he shoved her down. His sword lashed again, and she howled, a torn cry, and the crowd below screamed. Above her head, her halo crackled, shattered, blazed with red light.
"Take her wings, Requiem!" Ishtafel said, laughing, holding them up, severed, bleeding. "See if they fly."
He tossed Meliora's seraph wings from the balcony, and they glided down, mere feathers, feathers on the wind, mere dreams, mere clouds like the clouds of lost Edinnu. The blood flowed down her back and pooled on the balcony floor. The agony was a living thing, two demons digging through her, phantom wings that screamed, burning, flapping madly, every missing fiber crackling with the agony. Flames burned around her head, blasting her with heat.
"You defied me, sister." Ishtafel lifted her in his arms. "Now you learn the price of all who dare fight me." He raised her above his head, and he roared to the crowd. "Behold your leader, Requiem! Behold Meliora, collared, wingless, my slave."
Chariots of fire streamed across the sky. Hundreds of them, rising from behind the ziggurat, storming forth, leaving hundreds of trails like jets of dragonfire.
The slaves below screamed.
Meliora's blood dripped.
She clutched the crumpled key in her hand. She had to think. To focus. To feel her magic. To feel nothing else. To . . .
Her thought faded, and she fell into shadow, falling like her mother had fallen from Edinnu, falling like the columns of Requiem, falling until nothing was left.
ISHTAFEL
He tossed her into the prison cell—a beaten, pathetic slave, her wings cut off, cast out from his empire of light. No more golden glow haloed her, only a ring of red fire, the eternal flame of her curse. He slammed the cell door shut, sealing her in shadows. He grinned and licked her blood off his fingers, savoring the taste.
"Sleep awhile, Meliora." He stared at the closed, heavy door, grinning. "Rest. Regain your strength. You're going to need it."
Her blood was sweet in his mouth. Yes, tainted with the weredragon curse, but half of it was his own blood. What choice did he have? His mother was dead. So was his father. There were no others to pass on the pure blood of the Thirteenth Dynasty; the only other with that ichor was Meliora, impure as it was. She would have to serve, would have to bear him a child. And if that child too showed the weredragon curse, could shift into a beast? Well, such children could be culled, and her womb would bear him another child—again and again, until a pure child was born, one clean of the reptilian curse. That child's womb too could carry his seed, as could the womb after it, every generation purer, slowly filtering out the dragon, as one sifts golden flecks out of soil.
I can wait, Ishtafel thought. I can breed out the disease from you, Meliora. But you will have to live for a long while.
Leaving Meliora in her dungeon cell, Ishtafel walked down the corridor, hungry, famished, desperate for meat. Deep underground he prowled, seeking prey. Through the labyrinth he moved, deep beneath the ziggurat, the belly of his empire, until he found the pit.
He entered the candlelit chamber. Aromatic purple smoke wafted here, and green hintan bubbled in glass hookahs. The slaves lounged here upon tasseled cushions and rugs, clad in silks, eyes glassy. The place where Elory had gone to study; the place Meliora had snatched her from. Ishtafel moved through the chamber, hunger growing.
"My lord!" said one slave, rushing forward. She was a young woman with long brown hair, large brown eyes, and slender bones he could imagine shattering. "Welcome to the pleasure pit! I am Tash, and I would be glad to—"
He grabbed her, snarling, unable to resist any longer. He shoved her down.
"My lord, I would be happy to please you—" she began.
"Silence." He ripped at her clothes, tearing the silk, and he claimed her, clutching her body, staining her pale skin with Meliora's blood, laughing, drooling onto her, conquering her, soothing his hunger. For now. For now.
He shoved the slave away.
"I'll be back for more later." He snorted. "Clean up."
He left the pleasure pit. He climbed staircases. Still hungry. Still needing to feed.
He stepped onto the northern portico, stood between the columns, and stared out at the city. They were still there across the mote and gardens, clogging the streets. Myriads of them. Slaves. Weredragons. Their fists were raised, and they were chanting together in one voice.
"Free Meliora! Free Meliora! Blessed be Meliora the Merciful!"
Sandals thumped and armor clanked at his side. Ishtafel turned his head to see one of his generals approaching, a seraph named Kerael. Among the most ancient of seraphim, Kerael had lived during the fall of Edinnu, had fought the Eight Gods himself with lance and shield. He still bore that same old lance and shield, the steel three thousand years old. His breastplate was gilded, and his swan wings spread out, blinding in the sunlight.
"My king." He knelt before Ishtafel. "I swear my allegiance to you, my lord. The hosts of Saraph are ready, glorious Ishtafel. How may they serve you?"
Ishtafel motioned for the general to rise. "How many soldiers are currently garrisoned in the City of Kings?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Two full divisions, my lord, of proud sons and daughters of Saraph, each armed with a lance."
"Good." Ishtafel nodded. "And there are, I'm told, six hundred thousand slaves outside our doors. Have you ever heard of decimation, Kerael? The slaying of one in ten?"
Kerael had followed him through countless wars, from the conquest of Requiem to the slaying of the last dragons. Yet now, perhaps for the first time, Kerael seemed taken aback. His face paled, and it was a fraction of a second before he replied—an eternity.
"I shall spare the women and children, of course." Kerael nodded. "But—"
"No, Kerael." Ishtafel placed a hand on the general's shoulder. "It is the men we need for labor. You will especially slay women and children. I want sixty thousand corpses, skewered on sixty thousand spears. And I want those spears raised in the land of Tofet, a forest of flesh. I want them to remain there, rotting in the sun, festering, fluttering with vultures. And I want the survivors to see them as they toil. And oh . . . how they will toil. Their quotas will double as they work in the shadow of their dead. Now fly out! Take the chariots. Summon all your men." Ishtafel clenched his fists, grinning. "I will fly with you. We will make them pay."
ELORY
Elory stood outside with her people, fist raised, chanting for freedom.
"Free Meliora!" the slaves cried. "Blessed be Meliora the Merciful!"
Standing here with her brother, her father, and all her nation, Elory felt stronger than she ever had. They were no longer cowering in Tofet. They were standing united. Heads held high. Fists raised. Chanting in one voice.
"Free Meliora! Free Meliora!"
Their cries rolled across the city, flowing over the ziggurat, the statues of the gods, the obelisks, the temples, the boulevards and roads—this wonder their sweat and tears and blood had built, this city of their masters, this city they would topple with their voice.
"Remember Requiem!" Elory cried.
The crowd chanted together, spreading across Shayeen. "Requiem! Requiem!"
Elory knew that Requiem was not merely a place. It was not merely a kingdom. It was a nation. An idea. A prayer. It was a home for the lost, a haven for a cursed people, a light in the darkness. Requiem was hope.
She left her brother and father, and she climbed onto a statue of a seraph, a towering deity of limestone and gold. She was on the idol's shoulder, chanting for Requiem, when the fire rained from the sky.
Elory stared up, frozen, her voice dying on her lips.
Light.
Flames.
Death.
Death fell from the sky.
The chariots of fire flew out from the ziggurat, from fortresses, from temples. Their flaming wakes covered the sky like dragonfire. Thousands of them flew above, their firehorses rearing in the air, burning wings spread wide. In the chariots they rode—the seraphim, soldiers of the empire, lances rising, shields blazing like suns. The hosts of war. Hosts of heaven.
It's what Requiem saw, Elory thought, staring above, frozen in fear. It's what our people saw that day five hundred years ago. Death. They saw death in fire.
The chanting below died.
The chariots swooped.
And the screaming began.
Elory knew that in Requiem's tales, great events were remembered forever—King Aeternum defeating the demons of the Abyss, Issari Seran rising into the sky to form a star in Draco's eye, the fall of Requiem to Dies Irae's griffins, the heroine Queen Gloriae raising Requiem from ruin, the rebirth of Requiem under King Elethor, and the great Queen Fidelity who had saved the lost magic of dragons. Some stories of great heroism, of strength, of holiness. Others stories of destruction, memories to mourn. All great suns of light or holes of darkness, chapters that would forever fill Requiem's song.
This day, here in this distant land, was another day to shatter Requiem, another note in her undying song, another chapter in her endless tale. Another stain of blood upon a broken nation.
Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Page 22
