Crown of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  CROWN OF DRAGONFIRE

  FLAME OF REQUIEM, BOOK TWO

  by

  Daniel Arenson

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: TASH

  CHAPTER TWO: MELIORA

  CHAPTER THREE: TASH

  CHAPTER FOUR: MELIORA

  CHAPTER FIVE: VALE

  CHAPTER SIX: JAREN

  CHAPTER SEVEN: ISHTAFEL

  CHAPTER EIGHT: MELIORA

  CHAPTER NINE: ELORY

  CHAPTER TEN: MELIORA

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: VALE

  CHAPTER TWELVE: ISHTAFEL

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MELIORA

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: VALE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: ISHTAFEL

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: MELIORA

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: ISHTAFEL

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: VALE

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: LEYLEET

  CHAPTER TWENTY: ELORY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: MELIORA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: JAREN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: LUCEM

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: VALE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: ELORY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: VALE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: MELIORA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: JAREN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: VALE

  CHAPTER THIRTY: ELORY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: LEYLEET

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: MELIORA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: ELORY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: TASH

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: VALE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: MELIORA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: VALE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: ELORY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: TASH

  CHAPTER FORTY: JAREN

  AFTERWORD

  NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

  KEEP IN TOUCH

  TASH

  Tash lay in the palace gardens, pleasuring the lords of the court, when the sky burned and the severed wings fell at her feet.

  "More wine, my lord?"

  "Grapes, my sweetness?

  "Smoke some hintan with me, master?"

  The day had begun like many others. All morning, Tash had been working in the gardens, moving between the seraphim, offering all the pleasures of the empire—pleasures of fine food, drink, and hookah . . . and the pleasures of her lips, her stroking fingers, her warm flesh. The seraphim were tall, beautiful beings, demigods fallen from the sky, their swan wings purest white, their halos golden, and she was but a mere mortal, a slave . . . yet a slave who knew all the secrets of what they desired.

  A slave Tash was, but one unlike the multitudes who toiled across the empire. Her head was not shaved; she sported long brown hair that flowed down to her hips. Instead of manacles, golden links surrounded her ankles and wrists. Instead of ash, perfume clung to her soft skin. Instead of rough burlap, she wore fine silken trousers, the fabric soft as summer sunset, and a top that revealed more than it hid. She was a pleasure slave, chosen from the pits of despair for her beauty, her coquettish lips, her knowing eyes, her tongue that could whisper sweet nothings and raise flesh to heights of unbearable pleasure. In a land of pain, she used her gifts of pleasure. Among a chained, broken people, she found her servitude in a gilded cage.

  She looked around her. While most slaves labored in Tofet, a desert of sand and rock and whips, she served in wealth. The garden rustled with irises and lilies and jasmines, with fig trees, pomegranate trees, and date palms. Behind them soared the palace of Saraph, a towering ziggurat, framed by idols of gold, topped with a great platinum eye. Before them rose a portico of marble columns, and beyond sprawled the city of Shayeen, a realm of temples, bathhouses, theaters—a city of leisure and splendor for the fallen gods of lost Edinnu. The land of Tofet, where most of the slaves toiled, lay hidden beyond the horizon.

  "Tash, darling!" cried a drunken seraph, waving an empty goblet. "More wine, my dear."

  Tash giggled at the pink-cheeked man, a young lordling from the city garrisons. He lay on a blanket between the flower beds, his wings spread out around him. He had doffed his breastplate, and droplets of wine ran down his bare chest. His halo was pale in the sunlight, barely visible; it had been fading with every cup.

  "Tash!" he cried to her. "Wine!"

  She swayed toward him, deftly making her way between the other seraphim in the garden, dodging their reaching hands. Harps played, the peonies and jasmines rustled, and marble statues of cherubim pissed water into koi ponds. When Tash reached the drunken seraph, she poured him more wine from her jug. As the crimson liquid flowed, he reached out and pinched her soft flesh. She squealed as she had been taught, feigning delight.

  "There's wine spilled on my chest!" said the lordling.

  Tash stroked the seraph's long golden hair. "Let me drink it, my lord."

  She leaned down, stared up into his eyes, and licked the wine from his chest. Across the gardens, the other seraphim saw and hooted. The young lord pulled her head up, and he kissed her roughly, his tongue seeking, and she kissed him back.

  When I serve them here, I do not bear a yoke across my shoulders, she thought. I do not cry in agony as flaming whips tear into my skin. I do not suffer in the desert, breaking my back under baskets of bricks. So let me service these lords and ladies, for the day I can no longer bring pleasure . . . there will be nothing for me but pain.

  As she left the lordling to his cup, making her way toward another seraph, Tash fingered the iron collar around her neck. Perhaps she wore no yoke, no chains, no burlap. But like all Vir Requis slaves, six hundred thousand of them here in this cruel southern empire, she wore the collar.

  Tash winced. The curse of Requiem.

  Ancient runes were engraved into the collar, keeping her magic at bay—the magic of starlight. Once, Tash knew, hundreds of years ago when the Vir Requis had lived free, they could summon the magic of the Draco constellation. In their land of Requiem, they could grow wings and scales, breathe fire, and take to the sky as dragons. They had been a mighty nation, a kingdom of magic, starlight, and dragonfire.

  But those days had ended.

  The cruel Ishtafel had crushed Requiem, felled the marble halls, slaughtered a million souls, and brought the rest here to captivity. Tash could feel the magic inside her; she had been feeling it all her life. Yet it tingled just beyond her reach, the collar's dark magic forever imprisoning the dragon inside her. And so she remained a human—a young, slender woman with quick hands, a quick tongue, a quick mind. A woman who would forever serve her masters, who would never find her sky.

  "Sweetness!" called another seraph, a soldier with flowing blond hair and gleaming eyes, the pupils shaped as starbursts. He patted his lap. "Come, little one. Sit! Feed me grapes."

  As she made her way toward him, Tash raised her eyes and gazed at the sky. They said that in Requiem far in the north, the sky had been a thing of many colors—sometimes golden, sometimes deep blue and purple, sometimes strewn with clouds in all the colors of fire. But here in the south, in the empire of Saraph, the sky was always a cruel pale blue, almost white, the sun large and viscious. A sky she would never reach. The seraphim had wings of feathers, and Tash had wings too—the leathern wings of a dragon, hidden inside her, forever bound deep within. Wings that could never spread wide, never glide upon the wind.

  I still dream of you, Requiem, she thought, looking up toward that sky. I still pray to find your sky.

  She had reached the seraph, and she had just settled down on his lap when the chanting rose from the city and the sky burned.

  "Remember Requiem! Remember Requiem!"

  Six hundred thousand voices crying out as one.

  "Requiem!" they cried. "May our wings forever find your sky!"

  Across the garden, the seraphim froze.<
br />
  Tash leaped off the soldier's lap. Her entire body trembled.

  "Remember Requiem!" rose the chant from beyond the palace gardens. "Remember Requiem!"

  The seraphim leaped to their feet. Drunkenly, they spread their wings and soared into the sky, their cups—and Tash—forgotten. The gardens shook as the chant kept rolling.

  "Remember Requiem!"

  Tash could barely breathe.

  She ran, leaping across the grass and over fallen mugs and puddles of wine. She raced up a staircase and onto the marble wall that framed the gardens. Heart thrashing, she gazed upon Shayeen, the City of Kings, the capital of Saraph.

  Stars above . . .

  Thousands of slaves—hundreds of thousands—were marching through the city, raising candles, chanting for Requiem. The slaves of Tofet—heads shaven, ankles hobbled, backs striped, necks collared. They marched together, calling out for freedom, and at their lead walked a tall slave, a woman in burlap, her head shaved.

  The woman had a halo and swan wings.

  Tash narrowed her eyes.

  A seraph slave?

  "Meliora!" the marching slaves cried. "Meliora the Merciful!"

  Tash gasped and covered her mouth.

  Meliora?

  Tash narrowed her eyes. As the procession of slaves marched closer to the palace, Tash got a closer look. She had seen the Princess of Saraph before, daughter of Queen Kalafi. Many times, walking through the palace to a lord or lady's chamber, Tash had paused to kneel before the princess. Gone was Meliora's long golden hair. Gone was her muslin kalasiri dress strewn with gemstones. Gone were her cosmetics, her jewels, her aura of youth and health. But even marching along the city boulevard, barefoot, ankles shackled, head shaved—Meliora had the same noble face, the same halo, the same sunburst eyes.

  "Meliora the Merciful!" cried the slaves.

  Tash stood on the garden wall, the wind billowing her harem pants, watching as her people—myriads of Vir Requis in chains—chanted for freedom. She watched as a leader rose among them, Princess Meliora, daughter of the queen of Saraph, daughter of a common slave—a leader who shouted for Requiem.

  Hope rises.

  And Tash watched, eyes damp, as the wrath of Saraph descended from the sky.

  The firehorses galloped across the sky, their brimstone hooves like thunder, their flaming wings spreading wide. Behind them streamed the chariots of fire, and within them the seraphim shone. Thousands of the deities, cast out from Edinnu, covered the sky.

  And above them all he rose—King Ishtafel. The lord of Saraph, the blood of his slain mother still on his lips. The destroyer of Requiem. The cruel god of light. He flew in a chariot of fire, his wings spread wide, and from the city she ascended—Meliora, transfigured into a dragon of silver and gold, her scales gleaming like pearls, feathers ruffling upon her wings and tail. She blasted white flames, a dragon of light, a savior of Requiem, and Ishtafel plunged toward her, wreathed in fire and brimstone.

  Tash watched, tears on her cheeks, as Ishtafel drove his spear into the feathered dragon, as Meliora lost her magic, as she fell in human form. She watched, weeping, as Ishtafel pulled the bleeding Meliora onto the palace balcony far above the gardens, as his sword lashed, as the blade cut through Meliora's swan wings.

  Requiem fell. Hope fell.

  And with hope fell the wings—gliding, almost peaceful, their white feathers stained red. The severed wings of a seraph, of Meliora's lost divinity. The wings glided down and landed at Tash's feet. Above her, on the balcony, Ishtafel roared to the crowd and Meliora screamed no more.

  Tash's heart seemed to shatter within her.

  Trembling, the screams washing across her, Tash lifted a fallen feather—a long white feather from Meliora's wing. A piece of the savior.

  As the sky burned, Tash fled the gardens. Feather clutched to her chest, she ran into the ziggurat. She raced along gleaming corridors, jeweled columns at her sides. She bounded down stairways, plunging deeper and deeper underground, entering the bowels of the city, the shadowy underworld where few seraphim ventured. Yet the screams still echoed above—echoed in her ears, over and over. The screams of the dying, of thousands of her people falling to the spears of the seraphim, those seraphim Tash served.

  Tears blinded her.

  My people die yet I flee into shadow. They march for freedom yet I burrow underground.

  The grief, the terror, the guilt tore at her, and her heart thrashed, and her head spun.

  Finally, dizzy, Tash stumbled into her home—the glittering cavern beneath the ziggurat. The pleasure pit.

  Here was a place of smoke, shadows, flickering lights. Her little kingdom to rule. Curtains of beads and silk hung from the ceiling. The walls were roughly carved, no finer than the walls of a cave, peppered with alcoves full of candles, incense sticks, and gleaming crystals. The other pleasure slaves—Tash's girls—lounged upon tasseled pillows and rugs, smoking from hookahs. The hintan—a pleasurer's favorite spice—bubbled in the glass containers, gleaming green, while purple smoke rose from the slaves' lips. Two male seraphim were here today, lying on a rug, moaning as perfumed slaves pleasured them with spice, wine, and flesh.

  Tash was a young woman, among the youngest in the pit, yet she ruled over the others, for she refused to surrender to the spice. Her mind was clear, her instincts sharp. With her wits, she had risen to rule her domain of shadows.

  Let there be some safety here, she thought, gazing upon her girls. Let this be a haven even as the world shatters above.

  She walked through the chamber, navigating between the curtains of beads, the bubbling hookahs, and the pleasure slaves who lay everywhere. The candlelight shone, the beads jangled, and the giggles of the slaves rose like music. But still those screams echoed in Tash's ears, and she could not forget the raining blood.

  She thought of Elory, the young girl who had come here from the bitumen craters, who had vanished from the pleasure pit days ago. Tash had thought the girl insufferable at first, naive and dulled by the sun of Tofet, yet as she had taught Elory the ways of lovemaking, Tash had come to like the girl.

  Are you still alive, Elory? Did you find safety up in the cruel world, or did—

  The door to the pleasure pit banged open.

  Tash spun around and felt the blood drain from her face.

  Her heart seemed to stop.

  There he stood—the new King of Saraph, the blood of his mother and sister still on his hands.

  Ishtafel.

  Tash hid the long white feather behind her back. Her heart, which only an instant ago had seemed frozen, burst into a gallop. Cold sweat washed her. She had just watched this seraph, the man who had destroyed Requiem, cut the wings off Meliora, and now he was here, bloodlust in his eyes.

  Tash raised her chin. I cannot let him hurt any others. I cannot let him hurt my girls.

  "My lord!" She rushed toward him, placing herself between him and her fellow pleasure slaves. "Welcome to the pleasure pit! I am Tash, and I would be glad to—"

  He grabbed her, snarling, lust in his eyes—no longer bloodlust but lust for her. Not the playful, sometimes even wild lust of the other seraphim who called upon her services. His was a violent, cruel thing, the lust of a predator, of a conqueror.

  "My lord, I would be happy to please you—" she began, heart thumping.

  "Silence."

  He ripped her clothes, and he did not let her do her work. She would not be pleasuring him today, would not pour him wine, giggle at his jokes, kiss every part of his body until he went mad with desire. No. He wanted her to give him nothing; he wanted only to take. And he took from her. He took all of her, clutching her with bloody fingers, laughing, drooling onto her, a rabid beast, a demon above her. She shut her eyes, shuddering beneath him as his fingers bruised her, smearing others' blood across her pale skin. Tash had made love to countless men, yet she had never had a man take her like this; he was not a man, she thought, not a sentient being but a charging bull of fire.

 
Finally he pulled out from her, and he shoved her aside.

  He left her there on the rug. He left her as he had left Meliora—wingless, a broken thing. He left her as he had left Requiem—shattered.

  She lay there in another person's blood, clutching her feather.

  Remember Requiem, Tash thought. Remember Requiem.

  Slowly, as a flame in old embers, a rage kindled in Tash. She had seen a nation march. She had seen a leader rise among them—Meliora the Merciful—only for Ishtafel to cut off her wings.

  When Elory had spoken to her of her dreams—dreams of old Requiem, of Requiem rising again—Tash had scoffed. But something had happened this day. Something Tash knew she would never forget. She held her feather so tightly she crushed it.

  Remember Requiem.

  "Tash, are you all right?" whispered one of her girls, a slave with long red hair.

  Tash rose to her feet, a deep ache between her legs, searing up her belly. She clutched the feather as if drowning at sea, clinging to a rope.

  "No," she whispered. "I'm not all right. None of this is all right."

  And then she heard it.

  The chanting—not just in her memory but true voices, calling out, again and again.

  "Free Meliora! Free Meliora!"

  The voices of her people. The cry of Requiem.

  We rise up.

  Tash balled her fists.

  And I will rise with my people. With Requiem.

  Tash tightened her lips and left the pleasure pit. She made her way along the dark corridors, up the stairs, and back to the surface of the world. She walked along a portico, a wall of frescos to one side, columns to the other, affording a view of the city beyond.

  "Free Meliora!" the slaves cried. "Free Meliora!"

  Requiem cried out . . . and Saraph answered.

  Fire streamed above, and there he flew—Ishtafel, rising in a chariot of fire, laughing, slick with blood, and the pain in Tash flared. A hundred thousand seraphim or more flew with him, their chariots covering the sky.

  Tash stared from between the columns, feeling the world collapse around her.

  Blood flowed across the city of Shayeen that day.