A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (13 page)

"I spent eighteen years on
the docks," she whispered. "I lived with cats and I became
a feral beast, and I fought and I hurt. And you weren't there. You
left me to that nightmare."

She still clutched his medallion
in her palm. She looked at it, her face twisted, and she emitted
something halfway between growl and sob. She had thought this amulet
a symbol of hope, of home, of a better world. Yet now it disgusted
her.

She whispered through tight
lips, "You abandoned me."

She rose to her feet. She
tossed the amulet into the sea.

The sun began to set, and Erry
stood watching it, frozen as a statue, just standing, just staring,
alone. So many nights she had stood like this, watching the waters,
dreaming of what lay beyond. But now she knew.

"They were there. My
father. My sister. Living in peace. They left me."

Darkness fell and the stars
emerged. It was her seventh night alone on this islet. The others
had been searching for her; she had seen the dragons flying overhead,
calling her name. She had hidden among the trees until they passed.

"They can all leave,"
she said. "They can all fly to their war, and I will stay here,
and they can all go die. Especially him. Especially Sila."
She clenched her fists. "I hope he dies first."

She howled at the moon, fingers
raised like claws.

But no. She could not let him
die like this. Not yet.

She shifted into a dragon, rose
into the air, and roared fire across the sea.

"You will answer to me
first."

She howled in the darkness. She
beat her wings. She flew through the night.

The sea spread below her. The
sky spread above. Erry flew between black and black, her fire
lighting the way. Her blaze reflected against the water, and her
roars pealed. The night was clear but she was a storm.

"I've been hiding and
running all my life," she spoke into the wind. "But now I
will learn the truth. Now I will learn why I suffered."

She flew for hours before she
saw Horsehead Island ahead, a dark patch upon the inky sea. They
would be mustering for war now. Tomorrow they intended to fly out,
to invade Requiem, to kill and to die. That was their war; Erry
fought her own, a battle that had been raging inside her since her
birth upon the boardwalk.

She crashed down onto the beach
in a cloud of smoke and flame. Valien had forbidden them to light
fires, worried the Legions were patrolling the seas, but Erry didn't
care. She howled and sprayed her flames, lighting the island.

"Sila!" she cried upon
the beach. "Come see me. I'm here. Come face me!"

She tossed her head, scattering
fire, not caring that others saw. She beat her wings, raising the
sand into a storm. They stood upon the beach, Vir Requis and Tirans,
gaping at her.

Let
them gawk,
she thought, eyes burning.
Let
them see the orphan, the dock rat, the creature. He made me this
thing.

Through the smoke and flying
sand, he emerged, walking grimly and staring ahead. Captain Sila of
Tiranor. Her father.

"Erry," he said.

She growled and snapped her
teeth at him, still in dragon form. He stood before her,
wide-shouldered, leathery-faced, gruff and strong and weathered, but
still only a man. She was a dragon. She was fire and claw and fang,
and she could kill him. She could make him hurt like she hurt.

But her eyes only dampened
again.

She lowered her head, blasting
the sand with smoke, and growled and clawed the beach.

"Why?" she said,
spitting the words out with spurts of fire. "Why did you do
this?"

He stood before her, not
cowering back even as her smoke and fire flickered. Sparks from her
flame burned upon his tunic, but still he stood firmly, staring at
her steadily. His eyes were still hard, his face inscrutable.

"Will you face me as a
woman?" he said.

She growled. "Will you
face me as a man? I don't see a man. I see only a coward. I see
only a whoring sailor. I see a dog who... who abandoned my mother."
Her tears streamed now, steaming in her fire. "A dog who
abandoned me."

He met her gaze steadily.
"Return to human form, Erry, and we will talk."

She howled. She wanted to blast
him with fire. She wanted to dig her claws into his flesh. But he
only kept staring, eyes hard, lips tight, silent. He stared her
down. With a yowl, she blasted a pillar of fire skyward, and she
released her magic. She returned to human form and stood in the
sand, panting. Her flames rained around her as sparks.

"Speak to me!" she
said. "Tell me why you did it. You abandoned me!"

"Is that what your mother
told you?" he asked.

She could barely see through her
tears. "She never told me anything! She died when I was only
five. You didn't even know, did you? You didn't care. Frey killed
her, and you only lived here on the island. You never cared about
her. You only fled here, a coward."

People were gathering around
them, but Erry didn't care. She panted and rubbed her eyes and
stared at this man she hated.

"Erry, where is the
medallion I gave her? The medallion you carried all these years?"

"I threw it into the sea.
It's a piece of garbage. Meaningless. It's a trifle you paid for a
whore." She snorted through her tears. "I hope you
enjoyed bedding her that night. I hope it was your best damn time.
I hope your silver bought you an hour of joy. It bought me a
lifetime of pain."

He remained calm and cold. If
any pain filled him, his eyes did not betray it. He had a captain's
eyes, eyes for staring down mutinous sailors and enemy ships, for
staring down death and life.

"You have lived for years
upon the docks. You have served in the Legions. You have seen the
underbelly of the world. Have you ever, Erry, in all those years,
seen a man hire a whore with a silver medallion?"

She gritted her teeth. "You
probably spent your last few coins on booze."

He shook his head. "I
never did drink booze, not then and not now. No, Erry. I did not
hire your mother for a night of cheap passion. I loved her. I
courted her. I wanted her to marry me, to return with me to Tiranor.
When she refused, I gave her my amulet, a parting gift. I never
knew she was with child. You must believe that. Had I known, I
would have returned for you."

"I don't believe you!"
Her body trembled, and she could barely breathe. "If this were
true, my mother would have told me."

"Would she have? Would she
have told a toddler of these things even adults struggle to grasp?
Yes, Erry, I loved her. She was a flower blooming in the sand. I
found her living in boardwalk squalor, and I wanted to save her, to
show her a better life. I would have brought her to the desert and
built a palace for her. But she would not leave her home. Her heart
was in Requiem, land of her fathers, not my desert. She stayed—with
my medallion, with my heart... and with my daughter."

Erry shook her head, staring at
her feet. "I am not your daughter. By blood? Maybe. I don't
care." She looked up at him, and her voice cracked. "Do
you have any idea how I suffered? I was an orphan. I slept on the
docks. I always wanted to know who you are, but now... now I hate
you."

Finally something changed in his
eyes. Finally some of that hardness shattered, and for a moment, his
soul shone through, and it was hurt. It was as hurt as hers.

He took a step toward her.
"Erry," he said softly. "Erry, I am sorry. I am so
sorry."

Her tears fell. "I hate
you."

"I know." Now his
voice too cracked with pain. "You are my daughter. And you
suffered. And I hate myself for this too. Erry, my child. I cannot
change the past. I cannot make you forgive me. I cannot undo any of
this or make any of it right."

She sobbed. "So what can
you do?"

"Be with you now," he
answered, reaching out to her. "I cannot heal you, and I cannot
make you forget those years, but I can be with you now and always.
You are my daughter. Let me learn how to love you. Let me learn how
to be your father."

A shadow appeared behind him. A
platinum-haired girl stepped around the captain. Slim,
golden-skinned Miya walked across the sand, and her eyes shone with
tears. She reached out to Erry.

"I have a sister," the
girl whispered. "I have an older sister."

Erry wept. She looked away.
She wanted to fly. She wanted to flee this, to return to her island,
to roar her fire, to drown in the sea, or to be a wild beast, but not
face this. Not feel her heart shatter. Not feel love fill her; love
hurt too much. She had known too much pain to feel love now. It
frightened her more than all the dragons and horrors in the world.

Yet she could not move, and when
Miya embraced her, she could not resist. She wept against her
sister's shoulder. Miya was only eighteen, two years younger than
Erry, but taller and stronger. Erry had grown up with a tight belly,
and she was so small, a runt of a thing, but her sister held her
nonetheless, and she felt warm.

"I have a sister,"
Miya whispered and cried. "Erry, you are my sister. I see it
in your eyes."

Erry looked up. Sila stood
there, a foot away, looking upon them, still gruff, still the
captain. But then his throat bobbed, and he sucked in air, and he
took a great step forward and joined their embrace. Erry wanted to
scratch and kick him, to break free and burn him, but she found
herself holding him tight. She pressed her cheek against his chest
and wept.

I
have a sister,
she thought.
I
have a father.

She spoke through her sob, voice
shaking. "I'm so scared."

They held her close, keeping the
night at bay, strong and warm and enveloping her.

"I know," Sila said.
"But we'll be here with you. We'll help you face it. We'll
help you heal. You'll never more be alone."

Held in their arms, Erry raised
her head. She looked at the sky. The Draco constellation shone
there, stars of Requiem.

"And... you don't care that
I'm half Vir Requis? That half my blood is that of your enemy?"

Sila laughed and squeezed her
tight. "The only thing I care about," he said, "is
that you curse more than most sailors in my fleet."

She closed her eyes. "You're
talking bloody pig shite," she whispered.

She stood in the sand, letting
them hold her, and she thought of home. Mae had died, Tilla had
betrayed her, and Leresy could go lick codpieces. Erry sniffed and
rubbed her eyes.

I
have a family.

 
 
VALIEN

They flew above Horsehead Island
in the sunset, one dragon scarred and silver and brawny, the other
green and slim and fast. They glided silently. They surveyed their
army that mustered below.

"Three thousand Vir
Requis," Valien said, voice nearly lost in the wind. "Two
thousand Tirans strong enough to fight, each armed with an arquebus.
A handful... against the might of half a million legionaries."

Here was his new Resistance, a
patchwork. Only a seed of his original fighters remained. The rest
Valien had woven in from other forces. A few hundred had served as
Leresy's Lechers. A thousand had been men of Cain's Canyon. Now two
thousand Tirans joined his cause, foreign warriors who could not
shift into dragons. A patchwork, that was all. A few thousand souls
who hated Frey enough to join here upon these beaches.

It wasn't enough.

Flying at his side, Kaelyn
grinned, showing all her teeth. "Since when did we care about
being outnumbered?"

Valien snorted a puff of smoke.
"Since we lost most of our men in Lynport."

Since
I lost my wife,
he thought.
Since
I fled the capital with Rune in my arms and Marilion's blood in my
nightmares.
Yet he did not speak those words. He would not speak of Marilion to
Kaelyn, this new woman in his life.

She
lives! She lives in my dungeon, you fool!

Emperor Frey's words still
echoed. They filled his mind now as they did every waking moment.
Valien had seen his wife die. He had held her lifeless body. Her
blood had coated his hands.

She
lives!

He knew the emperor was lying.
He knew that Frey only wanted to hurt him. Yet still Valien
dreamed—even as he flew here above the island. Still her eyes
haunted him, and still he saw her in the lighthouse, smiling at him,
waiting for him always.

When
I fly to free Rune, will I find you in that dungeon too? Have you
been waiting for twenty years, Marilion?

He
growled.
No.
Frey lied.
Valien blasted fire.
All
he does is lie.

Kaelyn
flew around him in a circle, nudged him with her tail, and smiled.
"Come, Valien, let us land and sleep. Night falls. Tomorrow
our battle begins."

Below
upon the island, men and women sheathed swords, slung arquebuses over
their shoulders, and retreated into huts and tents. Even flying high
above, Valien could sense their fear; their every movement spoke of
it. These people had seen war and death, and tomorrow they would fly
back into the fire.
Valien
growled, forcing his own fear down his throat.
The
battle-hardened always fear war more than the green soldier.

The two dragons spiraled down
and landed upon the shore. When they shifted back into humans,
Valien looked at Kaelyn, and his heart twisted. The sun dipped into
the sea behind her, painting her orange and gold. The wind blew her
hair and dress, and she seemed so sad to him, a sea nymph lost upon
the shore.

"Kaelyn," he began,
voice low, but could say no more.