Mori gasped and tears filled her eyes.
"Beautiful," she whispered. "It's so beautiful, Bay."
Bayrin whistled softly.
"Stars," he said. "Now this is something."
He had been in caves before, but this was more like a palace. The chamber loomed, larger than Requiem's royal hall. Stalagmites and stalactites coiled and glittered, a hundred feet tall, like the melting candles of gods. Some formed shapes like dragons, others like knobby people, and some like trees.
These columns surrounded a silvery pool large enough to bathe ten dragons. Upon its water rippled the reflection of the moon, larger than Bayrin had ever seen it; he could see craters, valleys, and hills upon it. The moonlight filled the chamber. Bayrin looked up, expecting to see the true moon shining through a hole in the ceiling, but saw only a rocky dome glowing with runes.
Hundreds of white lions filled the chamber, he realized. Some lay between the stalagmites, eyes shut. Others whispered in nooks. Some stood around the pool of moonlight, drinking from its waters. When they saw Bayrin and Mori, the lions looked upon them, nodded, and whispered blessings.
"Welcome," said Aeras, "to the Chamber of Moonlight. Welcome to the heart of our realm."
He walked between the stalagmites, silks billowing. Bayrin and Mori followed, gaping at the melting stones, the glittering pool, and the lions who followed them with silvery eyes.
Aeras approached an alcove in the wall. The stone here was smooth, forming a rounded nook like a basket. Aeras gestured at it.
"Sit and rest," he said. "We will bring you food and song and healing."
Mori bit her lip and climbed into the nook. She leaned back against the smooth stone, pulled her knees to her chest, and smiled. She looked like a babe in a stone bassinet. Bayrin, however, remained standing. He ignored the ache in his muscles and wounds.
"Aeras," he said, "we can't rest. The Sun God attacks our home and we need your help. We seek the Moondisk—a weapon to defeat the phoenixes, great birds of fire that serve the Sun God and burn our people. Give us no food, no music, no healing—give us the Moondisk. We can't wait another hour."
The Children of the Moon looked at one another. Their eyes darkened and their glow dimmed.
Aeras sighed deeply. "The Moondisk will douse the fire of the phoenix; it has sent them fleeing from our island. But the disk has since been taken, and reclaiming it has failed us."
Bayrin felt the breath leave his lungs like air from a bellows. His shoulders stooped and his eyes stung. Ice seemed to wash his belly. Sitting in the nook, Mori gasped and her eyes dampened.
"So we failed," Bayrin said, voice choked. He felt like weeping, and it was all he could do to remain standing. "We've come all this way, and… the Moondisk is gone." He thought of his parents, his sister, and his friends, and his voice cracked.
Aeras raised his hands. "Not all hope is lost, child of stars! The Moondisk is not gone; it lies here upon this island, on the peak of this very mountain. Sit, child of starlight. Eat and drink, and we will tell you what you must know."
Warmth flickered inside Bayrin. The Moondisk, here on the mountain? What riddles was this man speaking? He wanted to throttle Aeras, to demand answers, but forced himself to sit by Mori. When more Children of the Moon brought him bowls of fruits, he ate, and when they served him jugs of water, he drank. Vaguely, he was aware that the fruit was fresh and sweet, the water pure and cool, but he could barely taste them. Famished as he was, he cared about no food, drink, or rest, only about one thing—getting the Moondisk.
"Speak, Aeras!" he demanded as two young women, pale Daughters of the Moon with silver eyes, bandaged his wounds. "I am thankful for your hospitality, truly I am, but our people are dying. They burn as we speak. We must bring them the Moondisk at once and cannot delay. How do we find it?"
Aeras stood before him, eyes dark. "It was five thousand years ago that we made the Moondisk, forging it from bronze and gold and the light of the moon. It protected us from the wrath of the Sun God for many generations, even as our people burned upon islands we could not reach. The Sun God sent many beasts and spies to steal our Moondisk, to cleave it with their axes of steel. As our numbers dwindled, we took the Moondisk to the mountaintop and raised there a champion, a great demon of wood and stone, and set him to guard our Moondisk."
Mori swallowed a bite of pear. "Is this demon still there?"
The Children of the Moon lowered their heads. Several shed tears.
"Yes," said Aeras, "he still lives upon the mountaintop, guarding the Moondisk from any who would claim it. We named him Ral Siyan, which means Beast of Wood and Stone in our tongue. He obeyed our ancestors, but many seasons of loneliness drove him mad, and he no longer serves us. He will not obey us. He will not surrender the Moondisk we set him to guard, not even when threatened with spear and arrow."
Bayrin rose to his feet, clasped his head, and sighed deeply. "Great. Just great. First phoenixes on our tails. Then lampreys the size of my sister's vanity. And now this, a beast of wood and stone that no spear or arrow can kill." He groaned.
Mori stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't despair, Bayrin," she whispered. "We've come this far. We'll find a way."
"There is only one way to claim the Moondisk, children of stars," said Aeras. "You must defeat Ral Siyan in battle. Our people are blessed with moonlight, and we can become the white lions, creatures of the moon; we are beings of magic, of meditation, of wisdom. But you…" His eyes shone. "You are of Requiem. You are blessed with starlight, the light of the Draco constellation. You can become dragons, creatures of wrath and ruin. You can fight Ral Siyan and reclaim the sacred Moondisk of our ancestors." He squared his shoulders and raised his chin. "Fight him, Bayrin and Mori of Requiem, and you may take the Moondisk to your land, and defeat the servants of the Sun God, for we are your brothers and share your enemy."
Bayrin swallowed, looked at Mori, and clasped her hands. "Are you up for a good old-fashioned fight, Mori my dear?"
She trembled but bit her lip, raised her chin, and nodded.
"We fight," she whispered.
LYANA
Shadows and lightning swirled around her. Whispers rose like wind. She looked ahead but saw nothing, and her feet walked upon mist. Suddenly she was falling, tumbling through an endless storm, and she shouted and shifted. Wings burst from her back, and she flew, roaring fire. Wind and clouds whipped her.
"Elethor!" she called. She had stepped through the Crimson Archway holding his hand, but he was gone from her now. She whipped her head from side to side, blowing flames, but could not see him. Nothing but storm clouds flowed around her, charcoal and blue and deep purple like bruises. When she spun around, the Crimson Archway was gone; she saw only the endless storm.
"Lyana!" His voice rose somewhere in the distance; she could not tell from which direction. He seemed leagues away. She called for him again, but he did not answer.
Fly, Lyana, she told herself and tightened her lips. Fly!
Winds blasted her, billowing her wings like sails. She nearly tumbled. Shadows tugged her like chains, but she kept flying, one wing flap after the other. Stars streaked around her, countless lines of light. Lightning crashed. Thunderclaps deafened her. She blew fire and roared.
"Elethor, can you hear me?"
Rain of blood pattered against her. Faces of shadow and clouds swirled in the storm, mouths opening and closing, eyes appearing and disappearing. She saw Orin's face smiling, then screaming, then melting in lightning fire. She saw the face of her brother Bayrin, and of her young sister Noela who had died in her cradle. She saw her parents, Deramon and Adia, burning in a rain of acid and calling to her.
"Lyana!" they cried. "Lyana, why did you forsake us to die?"
She howled. No. No, they cannot be dead! They cannot. It was only a dream, a vision, a lie.
Her sister Noela wept in the clouds, a mere babe, crying to her. "Why did you not weep when they buried me? Why did you shed no tears?"
I wanted to! I
wanted to cry like my parents, like Bayrin, but I couldn't, I couldn't, I had to be strong for them….
Her beloved Orin flew toward her, a dragon of cloud and lightning, bleeding and burnt. Half his face was a gaping wound, showing the crimson innards of the heavens.
"Why do you fly with Elethor?" he cried. "Why did you leave me to die and take my brother for your betrothed?"
He blew flames that washed her, red clouds that dispersed into rain.
"I should have been there," she whispered, wings roiling the clouds. "I should have gone with Orin to Castellum Luna, helped him fight the phoenixes, not stayed north and let him die… I let him die… Elethor, I let him die."
She tried to fly, to escape Orin's burnt face, his one eye that blazed, his dripping wounds. She beat her wings madly, shoving through the storm, but a gust of air caught her, and she tumbled through the sky. Lightning smashed into her scales, and they grabbed her, all of them—dead and burnt Orin, and her dying parents, and her dead sister Noela. They clung to her, begging.
"Don't fly, don't run, don't leave us, Lyana! Don't leave again. It's cold and dark in the Abyss, please save us, save us Lyana, don't leave us again…."
She wept and tried to flee, but could not; she knew that they would always follow her. She knew that no matter how far she flew, those eyes would haunt her—across endless skies and into her grave. She saw herself years in the future, a great Queen of Requiem upon her throne, her king Elethor at her side. Gold and jewels and peace surrounded her, but still at night she would curl up, weep, and try to flee them but find no peace.
For there is no peace for you, child, whispered a deep voice, and Lyana screamed and saw the black hill with the black flower. It rose before her between the clouds, a towering monument, larger than Requiem herself, woven of her terror. A great black bowl, it rose from a landscape of ink. A single black rose grew atop it, and Lyana tried to reach it. She knew she had to save that rose, to heal it, to stop the terrible pain of it, the horror that pounded. She screamed, for this mountain was larger than the world, larger than her mind could grasp. Her soul left her body and spread across the landscape, twisting with its fear, and everywhere she saw those petals.
"I have to… I have to save it," she whispered. "I have to count them. I have to line them. You have to keep the numbers."
The Shrivel she had eaten laughed inside her belly, a coiling worm, forever inside her, forever mocking, forever counting. Its teeth gnashed at her entrails, and its claws dug, her eternal child, a parasite of her womb.
I am here within you, it whispered, taunting. You cannot flee me, and you cannot flee those you let die, not until you climb the mountain and heal the black rose… until then I will remain and feast upon you.
"Lyana!" cried a desperate voice. "Lyana, listen to me! Lyana, do you hear?"
She shouted and blew fire. "Leave me! Leave me! I killed no one. Please…" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "I am a soldier! I am a knight of Requiem. I have to save him, Elethor. I have to save the king, and Orin, and Noela… oh stars, Noela…"
She wept. Her body convulsed as she tumbled from the sky. Sweet Noela, little Noela, only a moon old, and they buried her, and Lyana couldn't even weep, she couldn't be weak, but now she wept and shouted. I have to save her… I have to save her from this place. I have to save all of them. "Lyana!" the voice cried. Claws dug into her shoulders and pulled her. "Fly, Lyana!"
She could see nothing but her tears, but she outstretched her wings, and the wind billowed them, tossing her higher. She leveled off, banked, and flew upon the wind. The sky. She had to find the sky. Elethor flew beside her, brass scales shimmering, and she saw it, a hint of dawn ahead, a smudge of blue.
Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky. She remembered those words. She soared, howling and blowing fire. Though the storm blasted her and lightning smashed against her, she flew, tearing free from the grip of the dead. Her tail lashed and her claws reached out.
"Elethor!" she cried. "Fly with me, Elethor!"
They soared, cutting through the storm, smashing through rain and rock, until Lyana saw it. Tears filled her eyes again, but now they were tears of joy. I see it… stars, I see it. They were the columns of Requiem, white marble rising from fire and blood into good, healing starlight. They beamed from death to hope, from firelight to starlight, and Lyana flew like she had never flown, tears on her cheeks. I will find your sky, Requiem… forever.
The two dragons dived through the lightning, streaming toward the ghostly columns that rose among the storm of the Abyss, and soon flew between them. The pillars gleamed around them, palisades guiding them home. Flames blazed against their bellies, and starlight kissed their backs, and wakes of red and white light trailed behind them. They shot between the columns, through the storm, and dived into a great cavern of stone and starlight.
The storm silenced.
Lyana gasped.
She flew. She heard nothing but the thud of wings. Elethor flew at her side, panting, fire rising between his teeth. The chamber rose around them, the size of a kingdom, its ceiling of stone lit with countless stars. Lyana's heart pounded.
We made it, she thought. We passed through the storm.
A great boulder rose ahead like an island rising from darkness, and she spiraled toward it. She landed upon its top, so weak, and shifted into a human. Elethor landed beside her, shifted too, and they lay holding each other. Tears wet their cheeks and their chests rose and fell.
She clung to him. "What was that storm?" she whispered. "Did you see them too? Did you see the dead?"
His face was pale. His arms held her close as the stars gleamed above. "I saw my dead brother, and my dead father, and…" His eyes dampened. "I saw Mori dead too. She cried for me to save her, and I tried to, but I couldn't." He blinked and whispered. "Are they all dead, Lyana?"
"No." She clenched her fists behind his back. "I will not believe it. The storm… it showed us our nightmares, I think. It isn't real." She laid her head against his shoulder. "It can't be."
A shiver ran across her. Did that Shrivel truly live inside her, a coiling worm in her belly? Or was that merely her fear that nested in her soul? She did not know.
"El," she said, "thank you… for holding me. For pulling me from the darkness. I was drowning."
He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. "I told you, Lyana. I will always fly by your side. I will always look after you. You can repay me later by smashing those statues I carved of Solina." He sighed and laid his head down against the stone. "You were right. I was a fool." He shook his head, grimacing. "When the sphinx asked me about her, I couldn't lie… I had to tell her that I still love her, even now. Lyana, she killed my father and my brother." He looked at her with haunted eyes. "How could I still love her?"
She held him close. "Love me instead," she whispered, "and hold me for a while longer."
He kissed her cheek and held her, and stroked her hair, and their bodies pressed together until the pain and fear faded, until their whispers and warmth could drive away the memories.
Lights blazed from below.
Lyana and Elethor rose to their feet upon the pillar of stone. They gazed into the darkness below. Two eyes like stars cracked open, shooting pillars of light like the starlit columns of afterlife.
"Stars," Lyana whispered.
In the new light, she saw great shoulders of stone and a rising tail, and soon a creature unfurled in the shadows, larger than a palace, a being of rock and light.
The Starlit Demon rose before them in the darkness.
MORI
As they flew up the mountain, heading toward its granite peak, Mori wanted to think about the task ahead. She wanted to steel herself for battle, imagine seizing the Moondisk from its demon guardian, prepare for a long flight over the sea and back to Requiem. Yet as her wings stirred the cold air over mountainsides of pines, she only thought of Bayrin's kiss.
Stupid love-struck girl! she scolded herself. You think of kisses and love and r
omance while your people burn, while your brother and father lie dead?
She looked at Bayrin who flew beside her, his eyes narrowed, mist swirling around his green scales. Mori felt a chill invade her.
No, she knew. This was not how romance felt. Lyana had told her about love—she said how when Orin was near, she would tremble, her heart would flutter, how warmth would spread through her, how joy bloomed inside her. This felt different. Mori felt no flutter, no warmth, no joy.
She lowered her eyes. She felt shame. She felt unclean.
Would Bayrin love me if he knew my secret? she thought, soaring over mountainsides of chalk and leaf. If he knew how I let Acribus claim me, and how I didn't even fight him, how I… how his filth still clings to me? He thinks I'm just sweet Mori, the young princess, like from the fairytales… but I'm not her anymore. Not now. Not ever again. Her shame burned inside her like a demon child in her womb. Was that Acribus's child, a babe with cruel eyes and a white tongue, that festered inside her?
"Mori, are you ready?" Bayrin called to her.
No, she thought. No, I'm not ready to kill a demon. I'm not ready to fly over the sea again, to return home and find more dead. I'm not ready to face this world and keep flying. She growled, thought about the old heroines from her stories, and nodded. But I will do these things nonetheless.
She gave her wings three great flaps, filling them with air like sails, and soared toward the mountaintop. Bayrin soared beside her. Smoke streamed between his teeth, and the thud of his wings blasted her. They cleared the mountain's peak, and Mori found herself looking down upon an ancient ruin.
Pillars lay fallen and chipped. Their capitals were shaped as bucking elks, but smoothed with centuries of rain. An archway rose from a tangle of ivy and bushes, the wall around it long fallen. Bricks lay strewn. Shattered wood, snapped branches, and boulders littered the ruins. Wild grass grew from a smashed mosaic. Whatever structure had once stood here, nature was overgrowing it; the fallen bricks were more moss than stone.
A Dawn of Dragonfire (Dragonlore, Book 1) Page 23
