by Colt, K. J.
“Break her!” Angel commanded.
Issari closed her eyes again.
To shift is not a curse, she thought. My mother could shift. My siblings can. Even my father shifted.
She breathed shakily. For years, King Raem had preached of the evil of the reptilian curse. For years, Issari had feared the magic, thinking the weredragons poor souls to pity. But her father too could shift! It was not a curse. It was not an abomination unto Taal.
It was magic.
Issari took a deep, shuddering breath.
Wings sprouted from her back, shoving her upward.
She opened her eyes to see claws growing on her fingertips. Her body ballooned, knocking demons back. White scales, glimmering like mother of pearl, grew across her body like armor. Demons clawed but could not break through.
A white dragon, Princess Issari rose in the chamber, sounded her roar, and blew her fire.
RAEM
HE STOOD IN THE CHARRED rooftop gardens—the same place he had stabbed his father—stitching the wound his daughter had given him. His lips were tight, and sweat dripped down his face as he worked, sewing his arm shut.
The trees, bushes, and flowerbeds lay burnt around him. The broken lattices rose like blackened bones. Once this had been a garden of life, a place of solitude and peace. The dragons had come. The dragons had burned. The dragons had torn his life apart, torn his children from him.
Two of those children—Laira and Sena—now flew in the north, diseased creatures. His third child, his youngest, he had taught too well.
“Issari is like me,” Raem said softly into the ashy wind. “A traitor to her father. And so she will suffer.”
He violently thrust the needle into his arm, savoring the pain. He was sewing the last stitch when the palace shook. Dust flew. Bricks toppled into a courtyard below. Raem leaned over the roof’s edge and sucked in his breath.
A white dragon crashed out of the palace doorway, shattering bronze and stone, and soared into the sky.
Raem stared, silent.
A cloud of demons burst out of the palace like black blood spilling from an infected wound. They began to fly in pursuit, but the white dragon turned and blasted fire. The inferno blazed across the demons and crashed into the palace, forcing Raem to step back into the charred gardens. Sparks landed upon him, searing his skin; he was still shirtless after his visit to the cistern. When the flames died, he saw demon corpses upon the courtyard below. The white dragon was already flying toward the coast.
Light caught the dragon’s palm, shining against something metallic. Raem knew that light.
An amulet of Taal.
“Issari,” he whispered.
Before he could take another breath, the roof crashed open behind him. Through a cloud of rock and smoke, Angel ascended, shrieking. Claw marks drove down her stony chest, leaking lava. Rings of fire burst out from her.
“Your daughter!” she cried, voice a storm. “Your daughter is diseased!” She landed before him, wings knocking down charred trees, and clawed what remained of the roof. “You have forbidden me to leave this city, and now she flees. Send me after her!”
Raem was surprised.
Not surprised that Issari was a dragon.
Not that his city crumbled around him.
Not that his wound dripped, a failed assassination attempt from his dearest daughter.
Raem was surprised that, despite all these things, he found himself feeling remarkably calm, even casual.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, my dear Angel, it seems she is a dragon. And yes, I have forbidden you to leave this city.”
The Demon Queen screamed. Her fire blazed, a great pillar upon the roof. The palace shook. Demons who flew above, balls of slime, burst under the sound wave of her scream, falling down in tatters.
“Send me after her!”
Calmly, Raem turned to look toward the coast. The white dragon was now over the water, fleeing north. A second beast was flying in the opposite direction, heading from the sea toward the city. As Raem watched, a great oily vulture—larger even than a dragon—flew toward the palace, a rider upon its back.
With a shriek, the roc landed on the palace roof. A Goldtusk hunter spilled off its back, barely landing on his feet. He was a tall, hirsute man with beads threaded into his beard. Three fingers were missing from his hand, the wounds fresh, and a gash ran down his chest. His skin was ashen, his eyes sunken. Blood stained his tattered fur cloak.
“I seek King Raem!” the man said, wavering, looking so weak he barely acknowledged the smoky, fiery Angel.
“You have found him,” said Raem.
The hunter gripped Raem’s arms. “The rocs . . . many dead. Zerra . . . slain. Laira, that maggot of a harlot . . . took over the tribe. The dragons have a kingdom now. Requiem, they call it. All is lost. All . . . lost . . .”
With that, the man collapsed. He breathed no more.
Raem stared at the dead man, at Issari who was barely visible upon the horizon, at the ruin of his palace, and at the panting, sneering Angel.
And he laughed.
His laughter seized him. He could not stop. Angel shrieked again, beating her wings, and Raem laughed so much he had to wipe a tear from his eye.
“Do you see, Angel?” he said. “Do you see the pain of children? Never breed, Angel. Never bear a child.”
She ripped out a chunk of roof and tossed it aside. She lifted the dead hunter in her claws, raised him to her lips, and hissed.
“It is time,” she said. “Time to eat human flesh. Time to grow. Time to kill dragons.”
Raem looked down upon the city. He saw no living souls. All his people—once proud and strong—hid in their homes.
The dragons destroyed my city, he thought. And so be it. Let blood fill these streets.
He nodded.
“A thousand men and women I give to you. A thousand meals. Fly through the city with your demons, Angel. Feast upon them. Grow large. Grow strong. And then . . . then we fly north. To Requiem.”
Angel howled in joy. Her jaw unhinged, her maw opening wide like a python about to swallow a pig. She stuffed the dead tribesman into her mouth, gulping him down, chewing, swallowing, until her belly extended like some obscene pregnancy. Her limbs grew longer. Her head ballooned. She laughed as she grew taller, sprouting to twice her old height, then growing even further. She spread her wings wide like midnight sails.
“Rise, demons of the Abyss!” Angel shouted. “Rise and feast upon the flesh of Eteer!”
She beat her wings, rising, ringed in fire, a woman of stone and lava the size of a dragon. From the palace windows and doors, they burst out, a thousand abominations of the Abyss. They spread through the city streets. They crashed through the doors of homes and shops. And they fed. And they grew.
Screams and blood filled the city of Eteer that day.
Raem watched from the palace roof, a thin smile on his lips.
Before him, the demons grew, extending like boils about to burst. Globs of flesh. Scaled creatures of hooks and horns. Unholy centipedes of many human heads and limbs. All rose before him, growing to the size of dragons. They hovered before the palace roof, swallowing the last bits of human flesh.
It was an army of darkness. It was an army to purify the world.
Upon the roof, Raem raised his arms. He shouted out for them all to hear.
“I have fed you, my children! And you have grown strong. Now we fly! We fly north. We fly to Requiem. We fly to kill dragons!”
They shrieked, howled, sneered, laughed, roared. Their voices rose into a single cry, a thunder that shook the city, that shattered towers, that sent burnt trees crumbling. Raem’s mount—the twisted woman broken, cursed, and stretched into a bat—flew toward him. Once the size of a horse, the deformed creature was now as large as a dragon, and the blood of men stained her lips. Raem mounted the beast and stroked her.
Hiding the sky behind their wings, leaving a trail of rot, the demon army flew across the city and ove
r the sea, heading to the land of dragons.
Read Chapter One of Book #2 in this Series on the Next Page, or Alternatively, Purchase Book #2 from Amazon Now.
ISSARI, REQUIEM'S HOPE PREVIEW
A WHITE DRAGON, SHE FLEW across the wilderness, a thousand demons of the Abyss flying in pursuit.
Issari panted and her wings ached with every beat. Jabs of pain shot through her belly, and fire blazed in her maw, blasting out smoke that blinded her. She had been flying for days, barely resting, as they drew closer behind her--shrieking, roaring, clattering, hissing--the creatures of nightmares.
Heart thudding, struggling for every breath, she looked over her shoulder and saw them. Three days ago, they had been only a shadow on the horizon. Now she could see their eyes blazing, their fangs glinting red in the dawn, their claws stretching out toward her. Creatures of rot. Creatures of scales, of slime, of disease, of leather and of mummified flesh. Demons. Beasts of the underground. The unholy army her father had summoned to kill weredragons, to kill her kind.
Issari turned her eyes back forward and blinked away tears. The wilderness of the north spread before her: hills topped with patches of snow, plains of frosted grass, and forests leading to distant mountains.
My kind, she thought, her scales clinking.
She was eighteen years old, and she had never known of her magic, had never shifted into a dragon, until only days ago. All her life, weredragons--the cursed, diseased ones who could shift into reptiles--had been people to pity, to protect from her father's wrath.
And now I'm one of them.
She didn't know how she had become a dragon after all these years. Had praying to the Draco constellation given her this magic? Had she inherited it from her parents and only seen it manifest now? She had lost her baby teeth late, bled late, grown to her adult height late; had she simply discovered her magic late too?
"Catch the reptile!" rose a shriek from the southern horizon; it rolled across the plains like thunder. "Break her spine! Tear off her wings! Pull every tooth from her mouth, and snap her limbs, and drag out her entrails, and make her beg for death!" The demons jeered, their voices rising into a single cry, a sound like shattering metal, whistling steam, and collapsing mountains. "Slay all weredragons!"
Issari growled and flew harder.
No, she thought. No, I am no weredragon. Weredragons are monsters. She howled and spat fire across the sky. I am Vir Requis.
She picked up speed and streamed across the world.
"Make the sky rain the blood of dragons!" rose a screech.
"We will feast upon dragon flesh!" bellowed a deep voice.
"We will crack their bones and suck sweet marrow!"
Issari ground her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and kept flying.
The memories of the past few days filled her, hazy and thick like dreams in the dawn. For so long there had been pain, water, sky--a flight over the sea, three dusks and dawns, sometimes sleeping in the water, her wings stretched out to help her float, mostly flying, mostly hurting, seeking the northern coast. Then there had been this--snow, cold winds, dark clouds, the hinterlands of the barbarian north, a new world, a world of dragons.
"You're here somewhere, Requiem," Issari whispered. "My sister. My brother. My friends. The dragons of Requiem."
Did they live in peace now, building their kingdom in the north?
"I have to find you. I have to warn you." The shrieks rose again and she shuddered, her scales clattering. "We have to flee them."
Yet how could she find the others? The north was vast and sprawling, far larger than Eteer. And even if she did find the Vir Requis, would she not lead these demons directly to their door?
She looked behind her again, and she saw him there--her father.
From here, several marks away, he was a glint of sunlight on bronze, no larger than a bead of dawn on the sea. But she knew it was him. He led this army, riding upon a great demon as large as a dragon, a human woman broken, stretched, fed the flesh of men, and shaped into an obscene bat. Even from here, Issari felt her father's eyes staring at her, boring into her, cutting her like his whip had cut her flesh.
My father, she thought, and new fire rose in her maw, fleeing between her teeth. The man who butchered thousands. The man I must kill. The man who tossed me to the demons and will shatter my body if he catches me.
She roared more flame and flew with every last drop of her strength.
So I won't let him catch me.
The clouds thickened above and a drizzle began to fall. In the north, sheets of rain swayed like curtains, and lightning flashed, spreading across the sky like the roots of a burning tree. A forest spread below Issari, thick with oaks, pines, and many trees she did not recognize, trees that did not exist in her warm, southern kingdom. She dipped in the sky, panting, her chest feeling ready to cave in.
She glanced over her shoulder. The demons were closer.
I can no longer flee them in the sky, she thought. My scales are too bright, my scent too clear. I'll have to lose them in the forest, a human again, small and sneaky.
She glided down.
The treetops spread below her, drooping with rain and shaking in the wind. Patches of old snow thumped down like a giant's dandruff. Issari dived lower. Wincing, she turned her head aside, stretched out her claws, and crashed through the canopy.
Branches snapped around her, cracking against her scales. Snow filled her nostrils and mouth. One branch thrust up like a spear, its sharp edge driving under a scale like a splinter under a fingernail, and Issari yowled. She kept falling, shattering more branches, and finally thumped onto the ground.
She lay in the snow, the early spring shower pattering against her. Twigs fell like more rain. Her tail flicked and smoke plumed from her nostrils. When she glanced up, she saw a hole in the canopy, revealing the gray sky. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, and she heard them in the distance, screeching, laughing, mocking her, flying closer.
A growl sounded ahead.
Issari turned her head slowly.
A bear stood before her, staring at her, a burly animal so small next to her dragon form.
The cries rose from the sky.
"Sniff her out! Find her! Follow her scent."
Issari had spent many hours on her balcony back in Eteer, watching the demons sniff across the city, seeking weredragons.
They'll smell me. They can find me anywhere. I shifted into a dragon; the starlit magic fills me now, forever leaving a trail for them to follow.
The bear growled.
"I'm sorry, friend," Issari whispered. She grimaced, guilt pounding through her, and lashed her claws.
The bear whimpered and fell.
As the demon cries grew closer, Issari worked with narrowed eyes, struggling not to gag. With claws and fangs, she skinned the bear, ripping off a cloak of fur, skin, and blood. The meaty, coppery smell filled her nostrils, mingling with the stench of the approaching demons.
Her work complete, she stared down at the skinned carcass. She grimaced. She had not planned to eat this animal, and the sight disgusted her; back in Eteer, she never ate meat. Yet now her stomach growled, clanking her scales. She blasted out fire, roasting the meat, already imagining the taste.
I need this. I need its energy. I've not eaten for days.
She growled and let her flames die.
No. No! With a dragon-sized stomach full of bear, she wouldn't be able to become a human again, not unless she wanted her stomach to burst. And now she needed to run as a girl, hidden, quiet, disguised.
For the first time since fleeing Eteer, she released her magic.
Her white scales melted like snow under rain. Her wings pulled into her back, her claws and fangs retracted, and her body shrank. She stood in the forest, a woman again, shivering in a white tunic, her black braid hanging across her shoulder.
And still her stomach growled, and still the meat tempted her.
Grimacing, she tore off a chunk of half-cooked, bloody bear meat a
nd stuffed it into her mouth. She chewed, struggling not to gag, and she hated herself, and she cried, and still she savored the sweet meat and hot blood.
"We smell her!" rose cries behind, not a mark away. "We smell the whore. Find her! Break her!"
Panting, still chewing the meat, Issari grabbed her bloodied cloak of bear fur. Bits of flesh still clung to it. Her stomach roiling, she wrapped the dripping coat around her, shielding herself in a cocoon of its wet, hot smell.
With any luck they can't smell me like this.
She ran three steps, heading away from the shattered canopy and into the depths of the shadowy forest.
Blood dripped down her face, her stomach gave a sharp twist, and she couldn't help it. She doubled over and gagged, vomiting up her sparse meal.
"Find her! Rip out her spine!"
She kept running.
She ran between the trees, the canopy hiding her, praying the cloak masked her smell. Tears stung her eyes, her breath shuddered, and her legs shook with weakness, but she wouldn't stop running. The demons streamed above now, spinning, diving, and their drool and rot dripped like the rain, pattering between the trees.
"Her scent is gone!"
"Uproot the forest!"
"Break her!"
Claws shattered a tree ahead. Issari bit down on a yelp, spun, and ran in another direction. Shadows streamed above, and talons uprooted an oak. She turned and kept running.
They can't smell me. I just have to keep running. I have to find the others. She clutched her aching belly, stumbling over roots and stones.
"I'll find you, Requiem," she whispered. "I'll find you and warn you. We will slay them together, or we will flee . . . or I will die as a dragon of Requiem, roaring fire, fighting among my kind."
The demons screamed above, branches slapped her, the meat roiled in her belly, and Princess Issari Seran--a Vir Requis, a child of magic--kept running.
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