"You," barked the paladin, his voice scratchy. "I know every face in this city. I don't know you. Rise. Who are you?"
Cade rose to his feet. He knew he should keep his eyes lowered, keep showing subservience, but he couldn't help himself. Hatred for the Temple filled him, and he met the paladin's eyes. Those eyes were small, watery, and pale, but the gaze was piercing nonetheless. A white mustache topped the man's lip, the edge stained red, perhaps from wine.
"I'm a foreigner." Cade tried to keep his voice high, to sound even younger than his eighteen years. "From the farmlands. My parents died years ago, and I've come seeking the library. To. . ." He thought for a moment. "To read the holy books. I wish to study more about the Cured Temple and become a priest someday. I want to learn how to pray really hard to the Spirit, to help bring about the Falling."
Some of the intensity faded from the paladin's eyes. The aging man sighed. "It isn't the priests who'll bring about the Falling, son, but noble paladins who slay weredragons." He pointed down the road. "And the library's on the boardwalk, overlooking the sea. You'll find enough holy books there to pray from, if you can even read them."
Cade bowed his head. "Thank you, my lord."
Once the paladin and soldiers had moved down the road, Cade finally allowed himself to breathe. He kept walking down the streets, heading toward the sea, sparing no more glances at any tower or steeple. Finally he found himself upon a cobbled boardwalk that stretched along the coast. The sun shone overhead, and the water gleamed bluer than Mercy's eyes. Beyond the boardwalk spread a narrow beach, and several priests knelt in the sand, hands pressed together, praying to the Spirit. Fishermen stood upon a breakwater, their rods rising like great spider legs.
Cade turned toward the buildings that rose along the boardwalk. He saw a few homes, a humble monastery with a white dome, and several shops selling burlap, tillvine blossom amulets, and small glass bottles said to contain the Spirit's breath. Few people were here—a handful of commoners who hurried from a shop back to the streets, an elderly priest in white cotton, and a few soldiers in chainmail. Cade walked back and forth along the boardwalk, seeking the library, wondering if he was truly in the right place.
He had imagined the library to be a grand building, as grand as the castle or monasteries, a wonder of architecture serving thousands of readers. When he finally found the building, he realized he had passed by it twice, missing it. He paused outside the simple structure and stared, confused. The walls were built of pale, rough clay, rounded and supporting a domed roof. The door was simple wood. This place was barely larger than Cade's hut back home. If not for the piles of books balanced on the windowsills, he'd have never suspected this might be a library. Could this humble little house truly be the Library of Sanctus, the place Domi had spoken of in such awe?
He knocked on the door.
"Go away!" rose a voice from inside.
Cade blinked. He frowned. He knocked again.
"I said," rose the voice again, more irritated than before, "go away! We're closed."
Cade grumbled. He left the door, approached one of the windows, and stood on his tiptoes to stare inside. The chamber was small and stocked with many shelves and piles of books, more books than he'd ever seen in one place before. A figure sat at the back, shrouded in shadows, mountains of books hiding everything but a bit of golden hair.
"Hello!" Cade said. "Can you let me in?"
"No!" came the voice again—a woman's voice. "Now go away or I'll call the paladins. We always close for Saint Olora Day."
Cade returned to the door and knocked again. "Look, lady, I've been walking across the wilderness for days, I paid all the money I had to enter this city, and I've been looking for this library for hours. I'm not going away. So please, let me in."
An annoyed groan rose from inside. Footsteps thumped, and the door was yanked open.
Cade found himself staring at, he presumed, the librarian. She was a young woman, a little older than him—perhaps twenty years old. Her blond hair hung across her shoulder in a braid, and large, round spectacles perched upon her nose, magnifying her blue eyes. She wore tan leggings, a white shirt, and a blue vest with brass buttons; Cade had never seen anyone dressed so strangely. She carried a book in one hand, and she placed her second hand on her hip.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" she said, eyebrows pushed low.
Cade cleared his throat. "I'm looking for the Library of Sanctus."
"And I'm looking for some peace and quiet."
She tried to slam the door shut, but he placed his foot in the way. "I was told to come here. Can you at least let me inside so I—"
She cut him off with a sneeze. It was a sneeze so loud, so powerful, that her spectacles flew right off her nose. Cade had to catch them before they could fall to the floor.
"Give me those!" She grabbed them from him. "You almost broke them."
"I almost broke them?" He raised his eyebrows. "You're the one who sneezed."
"And you made me sneeze! I sneeze when I'm nervous." She sniffed, froze, and swallowed a second sneeze. "Oh, look what you've done. I suppose I'll be sneezing all over the place now." She sighed. "Fine. If you're going to keep arguing and blocking the door and making me ill, you might as well come inside." She grabbed his collar and tugged him. "Come on!"
She pulled him into the library and closed the door.
Dust floated in two beams of light that fell through the windows. The beams illuminated dozens of shelves that covered the walls and rose like a labyrinth across the chamber. Thousands of books were here, bound in leather. From what Cade could see, they all seemed to be prayer books of the Cured Temple. Many were copies of The Book of Auberon, the most ancient, perhaps the most holy of the Temple's texts; it recounted the first of the Cured, a druid who had healed many weredragons thousands of years ago. Other books were collections of prayers, guidebooks to achieve austerity, and books of sheet music for holy hymns. Tillvine blossoms were etched onto all the spines.
Cade frowned. Was this the right place? Why would Domi send him, a Vir Requis hunted by the Cured Temple, to a house full of books dedicated to eradicating his magic? Had this all been a cruel joke?
The librarian approached a wooden table. She slammed down the heavy book she carried, raising a shower of dust. Then she hopped up to sit on the tabletop, crossed her legs, and shoved her spectacles up her nose. Cade noticed that she had many freckles on that nose.
"Well?" she said, glaring. "Who are you and why are you here? Nobody but priests visit here."
"My name is C—" He cleared his throat. "Caleric. I've come seeking . . . books."
She rolled her eyes. "Really. Well, Caleric,"—she spoke that name as if it were the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard—"if it's books you want, we have them all. All seven of them. In thousands of copies."
Cade looked around him, frowning. "You have only seven books?"
The librarian nodded. "All seven books the Cured Temple approves for public consumption. About a thousand copies of each one." She held out one dusty hand. "Fidelity the Librarian, at your service. As you can tell, my job here is very fulfilling."
Cade wasn't sure if she was mocking him, herself, or the Cured Temple. When he hesitated and didn't shake her hand, she groaned, rolled her eyes, and returned her hand to her side.
"Do you have any books about weredragons?" he asked, hoping to pry more information from her.
She raised her hands to the heavens. "They're all about weredragons! You do know what the Cured Temple is, don't you? You know, only the religion that rules the entire Commonwealth and every facet of our lives. If you haven't noticed, the core tenants of the Cured Temple pretty much revolve around weredragons—specifically, how to hunt them down and kill them all."
Cade felt sick. He gulped. "Do you . . . do you believe all that? About, you know . . . hunting them?"
"What I believe," Fidelity said, "is that I'm tired, I'm hungry, and you're disturbing me. If you don't want a book, please leave." She
hopped off the table, grabbed his arm, and began escorting him toward the exit.
"Wait," Cade said. When she tried shoving him out the door, he placed his hand against the wall, holding himself steady. "I was told to tell you something." He gulped. This could be incredibly stupid, he knew. But something about Fidelity's voice, clothes, and rolling eyes told him that she wasn't the strictest of the Cured Temple's adherents. "It's a word. A secret word."
She groaned. "If the word isn't 'goodbye' I don't want to hear it."
He gulped and leaned closer to her. He closed his eyes, and he whispered that word, putting the same awe, the same secret wonder into his voice as Domi had. He knew this word was a gift, not to be uttered lightly. A gift to be cherished, to be given only at the most important of times.
"Requiem."
His whisper lingered in the following silence.
Fidelity said nothing.
When Cade opened his eyes, he found her staring at him, mouth hanging open. Tears filled her blue eyes, magnified and gleaming behind the lenses of her spectacles.
"Who," she whispered, "taught you that word?"
"Her name is Domi. She—"
She grabbed his collar, tugged his face near hers, and sneered. "Did you hurt her? If you touched a hair on her head, I swear that—"
"If anything, she hurt me!" Cade said. "Fidelity, let me go. Domi is fine. She's unhurt. She—Spirit, I don't know who she is, or why she sent me here, but she told me to find you. To say that word to you. She said you can help me." His voice dropped to a whisper again. "She said you can help a Vir Requis."
Fidelity gasped, released him, and took a few steps back. "Show me." Her voice shook. "Just the beginning. Don't slam against the walls or anything. Just . . . show me something."
He nodded, summoned his magic, and began to shift.
Golden scales appeared upon his body. Wings sprouted from his back, and his tail hit the floor. When his body began to grow larger, to press against the bookshelves, he released his magic, returning to human form.
Fidelity stared at him silently, tears on her cheeks. She leaped toward him, and Cade gasped, sure she would attack him, slay him right here for being a weredragon. But instead she locked him in a crushing embrace, and she wept against his shoulder.
"There is another," she whispered, trembling against him, laughing through her tears. "By the stars, there is another." She sniffed, her eyes red and watery. "Come with me."
GEMINI
He grunted as he lay atop the naked woman, thrusting into her. The bed rattled, the headboard banging again and again against the wall. The woman moaned beneath Gemini, eyes shut, sweat beading on her brow. The priests had ordered her here, commanded her to lie with him, to bear his children. She was here for duty, not love. Yet as Gemini thrust into her again and again, she raised her hips, grinding against him.
She's enjoying this, Gemini thought, sweat trickling down his forehead. He snorted. They didn't always enjoy it. It was their holy task to bear his children, the reason they existed, and often as they lay beneath him, they prayed to the Spirit and clutched their tillvine amulets. Yet this one was a wild thing, crying out in pleasure, digging her fingernails down his back. That was good. If the women the priests delivered to his chamber enjoyed the holy bedding, it made for all the more fun.
Gemini kept at it, trying to savor it, to make it last. The woman beneath him was attractive enough—her hair golden, her lips full and pink, her hips well-rounded—yet as he bedded her, Gemini found his mind straying to the firedrakes in the pit far beneath this chamber.
Firedrakes! He sucked in air and closed his eyes. Magnificent creatures, the drakes. He brought to mind their roaring dragonfire, their beating wings, their muscles moving beneath their scaly skin. As he rode the woman beneath him, he pretended that he was riding a firedrake through the sky, a conqueror, a tamer of the beast.
Pyre. Yes, he liked that one, the female with scales of many colors. She was wild. She was intelligent. Rebellious. Just the sort of firedrake Gemini liked to tame. He envisioned himself riding her through the night, seeking out weredragons to slay, blasting fire into the darkness. He cried out, pretending to blast his own dragonfire.
Drenched with sweat, he rolled off the woman. He lay at her side, panting, spent.
She nestled against him, purring. "My paladin." She kissed his cheek. "I will bear you a great son. I swear to you. A great, pure son with no magic inside him, and he will grow to become a great warrior for the Spirit. A hunter of weredragons." She smiled. "Maybe our son will bring about the Falling."
Gemini snorted. "Unlikely. I've fathered over a hundred sons by now. What are the odds it'll be your whelp that slays the last weredragon?"
He saw the pain in her eyes. Why did they always insist on talking? The priests did not send them here for conversation. Gemini had been born without any dragon magic inside him, born already pure; he had never undergone purification with tillvine, had never needed to. Even his mother—High Priestess Beatrix—and his sister—Lady Mercy—had been born ill, had needed priests to burn out their dragon disease with tillvine.
But not me. I was born superior. Born clean.
Being a pureborn destined him—destined all those like him—to a life of breeding. The pureborn women, and there were a few in the city, bore child after child, pregnant throughout their fertile years. A full half of their babes were pureborns, going on to breed their own pure children. A pureborn man's life was a little busier. Every night, the priests sent another woman to his chamber. Sometimes, when Gemini had been taming firedrakes all day and his appetite was great, he demanded two or even three women to bed. Many of his babies now wailed across the capital—half of them pureborn like himself, destined to save the race, to wipe out the magic.
To bring about the Falling, Gemini thought.
He snorted again. He couldn't care less about the Falling. As far as he was concerned, it could happen long after his death. As long as King's Column stood and weredragons lived, the priests would keep sending him women.
Let the Falling never come, he thought.
"Get out," he said to the woman. "Get out and never come back. I never want to hear from you again. You will not ask for money for your child. You will not loiter around the Temple, asking me to be a father. Get out. Return to whatever hole the priests dragged you from." He shoved her. "And for the Spirit's sake, learn not to scream so loudly in bed. My ear still hurts."
When she had left, tears in her eyes, Gemini rose from his bed. He walked across the room, naked and sweaty. It was a large chamber, lavish, the floor tiles carved of marble inlaid with gold and silver, the walls bright with gemstones, the ceiling painted with scenes of crusty old druids. Ignoring these fineries—he couldn't care less about them—Gemini approached the mirror and stared at his reflection.
As always, he liked what he saw. A tall young man. Slender but well built, his cheekbones high, his lips thin. His eyes blue as sapphires, his hair bleached white as milk. He looked like the masculine version of his sister, a young man in his prime.
My children are blessed, he thought, to inherit such good looks.
He looked back at the bed, considering sleep, but he felt too hot, too excited after his time with the woman.
Firedrakes. Pyre.
He pulled on some clothes—a pair of breeches and a tunic of white cotton—and left his chamber. He wanted to see her again. His firedrake. The most special one among them. His pet.
"My Pyre," he whispered, walking down the corridors of gold, marble, and gems.
Ever since he'd been a child, born to the High Priestess herself, Gemini had been fascinated with firedrakes. They were creatures of such strength, some grace, such might. They had been born human—regular babes from human wombs—cursed with the dragon magic. But while most babes were cured, these babes . . . they were destined to a greater fate. Gemini had once watched the ceremony, enraptured as the babe had burned in the fire, how the tiny skeleton had fallen apart, reveali
ng a shining egg—an egg to hatch a wild dragon, mindless, no human form to it, a weapon of the Temple.
But Pyre . . . she was not mindless. No. Gemini had been watching her all year, had seen a cleverness in her eyes, an almost human perception. The old caretaker had missed it, had thought Pyre just another beast to spoil with plenty of food, long flights in the open air, and even scratches behind the ear.
"Fool," Gemini spat.
Now you are mine, Pyre.
He stepped outside the Temple. He walked down the tunnel that delved beneath the palace, eager to see her, to ride her. Torches crackled at his sides, and he grabbed one and carried it with him. Bedding the woman had felt good, but nothing in the world felt as primal, as intoxicating, as erotic as riding a firedrake. The tunnel kept sloping downward, sinking deep into the belly of the earth. Finally, in the cold darkness, he reached the chamber where they slept. Many cells lined the walls, barred, revealing views of slumbering firedrakes. Gemini made his way toward the cell at the back—Pyre's cell.
As Gemini approached, he frowned. It seemed to him, in the dim light, that her cell was empty. He could not see her scales or hear her breathing. He marched closer, wondering if somebody had let the firedrake free.
He heard an inhalation of air. Scales clattered. Large green eyes opened and stared at him, and her snout pressed against the bars.
Gemini smiled.
"There you are."
He reached the cell and stood, admiring the firedrake. Such a special beast. Unlike the others whose scales were monochromatic, this firedrake had scales of many colors: reds, oranges, and yellows in all the shades of fire.
He grabbed the lever and tugged the portcullis open.
"Come, Pyre," he said. "To me."
She stepped out from the cell, scales clanking. Thin plumes of smoke rose from her nostrils. He stroked her snout.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he said. "I had to teach you discipline. I hope I won't have to hurt you again. You're a special firedrake. You're mine. My pet. Come with me now. We will fly."
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