Dragons Lost

by Daniel Arenson

  DRAGONS LOST

  REQUIEM FOR DRAGONS, BOOK ONE

  by

  Daniel Arenson

  Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Arenson

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: CADE

  CHAPTER TWO: MERCY

  CHAPTER THREE: CADE

  CHAPTER FOUR: GEMINI

  CHAPTER FIVE: DOMI

  CHAPTER SIX: CADE

  CHAPTER SEVEN: MERCY

  CHAPTER EIGHT: CADE

  CHAPTER NINE: GEMINI

  CHAPTER TEN: CADE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: KORVIN

  CHAPTER TWELVE: CADE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DOMI

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: GEMINI

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DOMI

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: FIDELITY

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: CADE

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: GEMINI

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: CADE

  CHAPTER TWENTY: KORVIN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FIDELITY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: KORVIN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: GEMINI

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: DOMI

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: AMITY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: CADE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: MERCY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: CADE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: KORVIN

  CHAPTER THIRTY: CADE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: FIDELITY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: DOMI

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: CADE

  AFTERWORD

  NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

  KEEP IN TOUCH

  CADE

  Cade was cradling his sister in his arms when the firedrakes arrived, screeching and blowing fire across the sky, to burn out the baby's magic.

  He stood within the bakery where he lived and worked with his adoptive parents—and now with the newborn in his arms. Jars of yeast rattled on the shelves. Sacks of flour thumped down, and one opened to spill its white innards across the stone floor. The window shutters clattered, and between them Cade glimpsed the beasts: streaks of scales, streams of fire, claws that shone in the sunlight. Their cries rolled across the village, louder than thunder, so loud Cade would have covered his ears were he not holding his sister.

  In his arms, little Eliana wailed, only a few days old. Her parents—the kindly couple who had adopted Cade eighteen years ago, when he himself had been but a newborn—paled and tugged nervously at their aprons.

  "They know," whispered Tisha, her lips stiff. She held a rolling pin in her hand as a weapon. "Somehow they always know when they're born."

  Her husband, a paunchy and balding man named Derin, turned as pale as the spilled flour. Despite his nervousness, he patted his wife's arm and mumbled, "Eliana will be fine. She'll cry a bit, but she'll live. We lived through it as babes. And we're fine."

  A thin woman with graying hair, Tisha nodded and lowered her head. "I know. It's just that . . . after so long, to see our miracle hurt . . ."

  The firedrakes' screeches rose louder outside. When Cade glanced out the window, he saw a dozen or more land in the village square. Between the shutters, Cade could only glimpse bits of them—scales, claws, horns, cruel fangs slick with saliva. Whenever a babe was born in the village, somehow they knew. Somehow they always arrived.

  For the purification, Cade thought and shuddered.

  He had seen purifications before; the screams still haunted his nightmares. With tears, with poison, with branding, the magic was driven out of babes, leaving scars and haunting pain, leaving the child pure. All newborns across the Commonwealth, this empire that sprawled across the lands north of the sea, underwent purification for the glory of the Spirit.

  All but me, Cade thought. He had never gone through the ceremony. When he'd been a babe, his parents—he still didn't know who they were—had smuggled him away, had placed him here in the bakery. Since then Cade had lived with hidden magic, a secret that would have every firedrake in the Commonwealth hunt him if they knew.

  "Bring out the child!" rose a shout outside. "Bring out the newborn for purification."

  Eliana cried harder in Cade's arms.

  Tisha, her mother, lowered her head. Tears streamed down her lined cheeks. For over twenty years, Tisha and her husband—these kindly bakers who had taken Cade in—had tried to conceive. For eighteen of those years, Cade had been like a son to them, an adopted boy to a woman with a barren womb. Finally this year, a miracle had happened. Finally this year, Tisha had given birth to a precious babe, a great gift to their home.

  Now this babe would scream in agony.

  "It's time," Cade said softly, rocking the crying Eliana. "Let's get this over with. It'll only last a few moments."

  A few moments of torment, he thought but would not vocalize his fear. A few moments of poison and fire and screams to fill our nightmares.

  "Bring out the babe!" the cry rose again outside. It was a woman's voice, high and fair yet colder and crueler than steel. The voice of a paladin, a holy knight of the Cured Temple. "Bring out the babe, or my firedrakes will burn this backwater to the ground!"

  Cade gave the baby in his arms one last look. Eliana was not his true sister—he didn't know if he had real siblings—but she even looked like him. The baby had the same shock of messy, light brown hair, the same hazel eyes. Rage flared in Cade, overpowering his fear. Suddenly he wanted to put the baby down, charge outside, and summon his magic—the forbidden magic he carried, which all others had lost—and burn the paladins, burn the firedrakes, burn down the entire damned Cured Temple that ruled the Commonwealth.

  And why shouldn't I? he thought. I was never cured, never purified. I'm strong. I'm powerful. I'm—

  Derin placed a hand on Cade's shoulder. The rotund baker stood shorter than Cade, but he stared up at his adopted son with solemn gravity. "Come on, boy. Let's get it over and done with." He turned back toward his wife. "Tisha, stay here. Wait for us. We'll be back with Eliana soon."

  The graying woman nodded and wiped her tears away. She stepped forward, gave her daughter a kiss, then turned toward the wall and clenched her fists.

  "Now come on, Cade," Derin said. "Let's go."

  Cade clenched his jaw, the anger still blazing through him, but nodded. Holding the baby with one arm, he opened the bakery's door. Derin walked behind him. The two stepped outside into the village square . . . into a theater of flame and steel.

  Fifty houses formed the village of Favilla, if one could call them "houses"; they were barely more than huts built from pale clay, their roofs domed, their windows round. Men said that many years ago houses would be built three stories tall, wide and roomy, cool in the summers and warm in the winters. But the Cured Temple preached austerity, preached that humble living and suffering brought one closer to the Spirit. And so Favilla remained a model of humility—its huts small, its gardens barren of flowers, its public square devoid of grass. A place of white walls and brown soil. A place of holiness.

  Normally the village square was empty. Today a dozen firedrakes stood here, towering over the homes, each larger than the mightiest oaks from the northern forests. They were dragons but not noble, intelligent dragons like the ones men and woman could become before the Cured Temple. Here were wild beasts, no more intelligent than animals, their human forms and human minds torn from them, leaving them rabid and always hungry. Smoke rose from their nostrils.
Saliva dripped from their jaws, and fire sparked between their fangs. Their tails whipped from side to side, their scales clattered, and their wings creaked. Their grumbles rolled across the village like thunder.

  Cade stared at them, jaw tight. The Templers rip out our dragon magic, yet they bring dragons here to enslave us. The Templers speak of a reptilian curse infecting their flock, yet they bring great reptiles to slay us if we resist purification.

  His arms trembled with rage as he held his sister.

  But I am not purified.

  He could summon the old magic, the magic the Temple sought to eradicate. He could grow wings and scales, breathe fire, rise into the sky as a dragon—not a mindless firedrake, a beast with no human form, but a noble dragon, wise and strong. He could fly away with Eliana in his claws, saving her magic—the way his magic had been saved. He could hide her somewhere—the way his parents had hidden him. He could raise her, make sure she learned to control her magic, make sure she grew up with the power—the power to become a dragon, strong and free, not a weak, magicless human for the Temple to oppress.

  The dozen firedrakes stepped closer. Smoke blasted out from their jaws, hitting Cade, searing like an open oven full of roaring flames. The beasts' eyes blazed like cauldrons of molten steel. Globs of their saliva thumped to the ground, sizzling, eating holes into the soil.

  They were just waiting for him to escape, Cade knew. If he ran, even if he shifted into a dragon and flew, they would chase him. They would catch him. They would slay him. And they would slay Eliana too, rip this precious babe—a miracle child—into shreds of meat to consume.

  I cannot flee, Cade thought, trembling. I cannot risk them taking Eliana's life . . . even if they will now take her magic.

  Cradling Eliana in his arms, Cade looked up toward the riders on the firedrakes. A paladin sat astride each one of the beasts. Holy warriors of the Spirit, the paladins were sworn to fight for the Cured Temple and enforce its purity. They wore armor of white steel plates, and they carried pale banners emblazoned with the Temple's sigil: a tillvine blossom. The same flower, resembling a calla lily, was engraved onto their breastplates and painted onto their shields. The same flower, fair and pale, would now burn Eliana's skin and rip out her dragon soul.

  One of the firedrakes stood out from the others. Most of the beasts had dull, monochromatic scales, but this firedrake sported scales in all the colors of fire: red scales, orange scales, and yellow scales in a hundred shades, all gleaming together as if the beast were woven of flame. Its rider, clad in white steel, dismounted the fiery beast and walked toward Cade.

  This paladin was female, which was rare. Though the Temple's supreme leader was always female, her warriors were normally male, hulking men, noble-born and brawny. The woman walking toward Cade, however, was slender and no taller than him. Her armor mimicked the curves of her body, the steel plates white as snow, and a silver tillvine blossom gleamed upon her breastplate. She carried sword and shield, but she wore no helmet. Her face was as pale, cold, and hard as her armor. Her eyes were blue, piercing, cruel, lacking all emotion. Like all paladins and priests, the woman had shaved the left side of her head. The remaining hair was swept to the right side, bleached pure white, flowing down to her shoulder like a snowdrift.

  The paladin reached Cade and paused. She stared down at the babe in his arms, then back up at Cade. Her eyes . . . by the stars, her eyes cut through him as sure as spears. He felt the chill emanating from that icy blue gaze.

  "Do you know who I am?" she said softly. "I am Lady Mercy Deus. You will kneel before me." She stared around her at the other villagers who stood in the square—meek, humble farmers and tradesmen—and raised her voice to a shout. "You will all kneel!"

  Cade gasped. Mercy Deus? His insides seemed to crack and shatter. His heart sank. This was no ordinary paladin. Here before him stood the daughter of the High Priestess. The heiress to the Commonwealth. Aside from High Priestess Beatrix herself, Mercy was the most powerful woman in the world.

  And she's here in our village.

  Cade glanced at his adoptive father. Derin stared back at him, his eyes hard, his mouth thinned into a line. The balding baker nodded, then turned back toward the paladin and knelt. Across the square, the villagers knelt too and bowed their heads. While the paladins wore filigreed steel and embroidered, richly woven capes, the villagers wore rough burlap tunics—the only garments allowed to them, humble raiment symbolizing their purity.

  Cade stared at Lady Mercy for a second longer. She stared back, and her eyes narrowed. Her lips—small and pink—twisted into the slightest of smiles.

  Do you dare defy me? she seemed to ask; he could practically hear her voice speaking in his mind. Her hand, gloved in white leather, strayed toward the golden hilt of her sword. Do you challenge me to break you?

  Cade wanted to resist. Wanted to shift into a dragon right here and attack her, to burn her pretty face, to claw through her steel armor. She couldn't have been much older than twenty, only a couple of years older than him. Why should she bark orders, strut around like a monarch, while he knelt in the dust?

  He glanced down at the babe held in his arms. Eliana gazed back at him, calm now, curious.

  Cade exhaled slowly.

  For you, Eliana. To keep you alive.

  He knelt before Mercy, glaring up at her.

  The paladin reached out her gloved hands and plucked the baby from Cade's arms. She might as well have plucked the soul from his chest.

  As the firedrakes snarled and leaked smoke, and as the villagers knelt, Mercy raised the baby above her head. She walked around the square, displaying Eliana for all to see.

  "A child was born in the Commonwealth!" Mercy cried, her voice pealing across the village. "For every hundred babes born in our land, ninety-nine still carry the old curse. The old disease." Disgust dripped from her voice. "Ninety-nine are still born able to change their forms, to become . . . dragons." Mercy spat into the dirt. "The curse has brought nothing but pain to our people. For thousands of years, our enemies hunted us. For thousands of years, we waged wars with dragonfire. For thousands of years, our land bled and burned. But the Cured Temple saved you! The Cured Temple liberated you from your disease! And the Cured Temple will purify this innocent child, freeing her from the curse of our ancestors. She will be cured!"

  "Amen!" chanted the villagers.

  "Amen!" cried the remaining paladins upon the firedrakes.

  A curse, Cade thought, jaw clenched. A disease. He could not believe that. He refused to. Perhaps he was the only one left in the world with magic still inside him. Perhaps he was the only soul in the Commonwealth who could become a dragon. But he refused to believe himself cursed. Those secret nights he spent flying over the sea, free upon the wind, a golden dragon in the moonlight . . . those nights had never felt cursed. They had felt like magic. Like wonder. Like a great blessing from ancient times.

  You will never know such freedom, Eliana, he thought, gazing at the babe held aloft in Mercy's hands. You will never fly with me in secret nights, know the warmth of fire in your belly, the soothing chill of wind beneath your wings. He lowered his head. You will be purified . . . you will be broken.

  Again Cade had to curb the urge to leap forward, to grab his sister, to shift into a dragon and fly off. He could never escape, he knew. Not with a dozen firedrakes here, these wild dragons who had once been babes like Eliana, whose human forms had been ripped out instead of their dragon magic. The firedrakes would chase him if he fled. They would kill him and his sister.

  Cade clenched his fists, trembling with rage. He wished there were others like him, others who had never been purified, who kept their magic secret. Others who could join him, fight with him against the Cured Temple—against the High Priestess, against these pale paladins, against the firedrakes, against this whole damn world.

  But there are no others, Cade thought, eyes burning. I am alone.

  And so he remained kneeling, the anger a rock in his belly. />
  Two priestesses dismounted a black firedrake—identical twins clad in white robes, the left sides of their heads shaven, the hair on the right side bleached white. They carried forth a wooden altar and placed it in the center of the square. Each priestess placed a bowl upon the altar—one black bowl, one white—each full of leaves. Then they knelt and bowed their heads.

  Cade stared at the bowls, stomach souring.

  A black bowl to test them, he thought, remembering the old prayers. A white bowl to cure them.

  He would feel no less disgust to see two blades on this altar.

  "By the grace of the Spirit," cried Mercy, "let the purification begin!"

  The paladin stepped toward the altar and placed the baby between the bowls. Cade growled, forcing himself to stay still, as Mercy tied down the baby with straps. Eliana began to weep. Soon, Cade knew, she would scream.

  Cade glanced to his side. Derin knelt there, and Cade noticed that the baker too clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

  For twenty years he tried to have a child, Cade thought. And now . . . now to watch this child hurt . . .

  Cade looked back toward the altar. Mercy lifted the black bowl and held it above her head.

  "Here I hold the leaves of ilbane," the paladin announced. "The herb is harmless to all pure people." To demonstrate, Mercy plucked a leaf from the bowl and pressed it against her lips. "It will not harm any pure body, a body clean of the disease." She smiled thinly. "But those with dragon magic, those able to shift into reptiles . . . this ilbane will burn them like the very fire they spew. We shall test the babe!"

  Across the square, the other paladins—still seated upon the firedrakes—raised their fists. "Test the babe!" they chanted.

  Mercy grabbed a fistful of leaves and held them above the bound baby. As Cade watched, he didn't know what he preferred to happen. If Eliana had the magic—as most people did—the leaves would burn her, a pain greater than fire, greater than shattering bones. If she was pure—as only one in a hundred babies were—she would be marked as a breeder, and once she was of age, she would be forced to become pregnant every year, to pump out child after child in hope of eradicating the magic from future generations. That fate seemed even worse than momentary pain.