A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (8 page)

"What are you talking
about?" she demanded again, glaring. "Stop laughing like
an idiot. If you can't fly home, I'm flying without you."

She raised her chin and
stretched out.

Nothing happened.

She growled, strained, and
hopped about.

She remained a human.

"Having trouble?"
Leresy asked.

She roared and glared at him,
barely five feet tall but looking fierce as a demon.

"What did you do, you
gutter stain?" she said. "Damn you, you sheep-shagger,
what the Abyss did you do?"

He grinned. "I didn't do
anything." He gestured at the sack of glowing shards. "They
did. The red shards. Don't you see?" He whooped, joy brimming
in him. "They cancel out magic! They're like... like anecdote
to poison. Like light to shadow. Like song to silence."

"Like booze to your brain,"
she said. "Pretty much wipes it out."

"Pretty much," he
admitted. "By the stars, Err! The old man got it. Bantis
figured it out." He gave a little Bantis-style jig himself.
"No wonder the bugger was dancing about. He knew the way to
kill my father all along. Imagine it! The Legions flying toward
you, hundreds of thousands of dragons roaring for blood. You wave
these shards around, and they fall from the sky as humans. If any
survive the fall, you blast them to death with hand cannons."
He punched the air. "This is what I'm talking about. This is
how you take Nova Vita."

Erry rolled her eyes. "Yes,
yes, that's all fine and dandy, except for one little problem. Nova
Vita is far in the north across the sea. And we're, well... stuck on
this damn rock!" She shoved him. "How the Abyss do we get
back now? We can't fly, you idiot, and Bantis has the raft."

Leresy tapped his cheek. "We
were able to fly here, back when the shards were underground."
He stared at his makeshift sack of cotton. "See how they glow
through the cloth? We need a thicker barrier against whatever magic
they're spitting out. It's the light that does it, I reckon."

He looked around the beach,
considering. If he had a wooden chest, cast iron pots, or even a
sack made of thicker cloth than his old tunic, perhaps he could
contain the shards' magic and fly. Would he have to rebury them
after all that work?

"How about this?" Erry
said. She scampered across the beach, lifted one of the magnifying
cylinders, and waved it about. "The ladybug shite can go in
here."

"Will you please stop
calling them that?" Leresy said.

He grabbed the cylinder from
her. It was made of hard, boiled leather like the armor his recruits
used to wear. It could work, he had to confess. He popped off the
lid, revealing the glass lens, and drew his dagger.

"Don't scratch it,"
Erry said.

"Be quiet. I'm working."

With a few twists and pokes of
his dagger, he pried the lens off the cylinder. He revealed a hollow
receptacle about a foot deep. He filled it with red shards, popped
the lens back in, and screwed the lid back on. Erry, meanwhile,
scurried around the beach and returned with three more magnifying
cylinders in her arms. She dumped them at his feet, and Leresy
filled those too. It took four cylinders to seal all the red shards.

"Now try to shift,"
Leresy said, holding the cylinders. "The shards are sealed. No
more light. Go on, fly!"

Erry gave a few stretches,
touched her toes, and shook her legs. With a clearing of her throat,
she shifted.

Wings burst out from her back.
Copper scales rose across her. She took flight, her beating wings
tossing sand onto Leresy.

"Moldy troll toes, it
works!" she said and flew over the water, heading back west.
"Now come on, fly after me. We're getting out here."

Leresy unscrewed the lid off a
cylinder and pointed it at her. Red light shone out the lens.

Erry's magic vanished.

She tumbled in human form and
crashed into the water.

"Leresy, you dung-sucking
puddle of codpiece-juice!" She floundered in the water. "I'm
going to shove these shards down your throat!"

She swam back to shore, stepped
onto the beach, and marched toward him. With a glower that could
wilt flowers, she grabbed the cylinders from him and shoved him back.

"Give me those, you
piss-drinking maggot worm breath."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means you're a damn
child."

He shrugged. "I had to
test them. And they work beautifully. Thank you for your dedication
to our cause."

She kicked his shin, and when he
cursed and leaped with pain, she sealed the open cylinder. She held
all four cylinders to her chest and shifted back into a dragon,
taking the vessels into her larger form. She beat her wings and flew
again.

Leresy summoned his magic. It
crackled through him, as familiar as a warm, old cloak. He rose as a
dragon, blasted fire against the sand below, and flew after Erry.

As they dived across the sea,
heading back to Horsehead Island, Leresy imagined the Legions flying
toward him, a storm of scale and fire covering the sky.

And he imagined them falling.

"I'm coming home, Father,"
he said into the wind.

As he flew onward, a grin
stretched across his face, wide enough to hurt his cheeks. He had to
keep grinning. He had to keep drowning that fear under rage, or he
would see the blood again, the fire and death and guns blazing.

"I will face you again,
Requiem," he swore. "And this time I will not run. This
time I will win."

He flew. He kept
grinning—forced himself to keep grinning—even as his tears fell and
his belly twisted.

 
 
RUNE

He sat in his cell, chained and
bruised, and stared at the wall that awaited him.

He had stared at these
instruments for so many days, they had become like people to him,
staring back at him, waiting, thirsty for his blood. The thumbscrew
hung from the wall, its two bolts like eyes watching him, its vise
like a mouth waiting to bite his fingers.

I
will crush your fingers and toes!
it cried to him, staring, waiting.
Your
bones will snap between my jaws.

Rune turned his eyes toward the
stretching rack. Knots in the wood reminded him of a face, sagging
and cruel.

I
will tear your bones from your sockets, Rune,
the face hissed at him.
Come
lie with me.

The pliers laughed from the
wall, tiny iron crocodiles hungry for his fingernails. The rusted
hooks sang for his entrails. The floggers screamed for his flesh.

We
await you, Rune!
The
instruments sang and danced upon the wall.
We
will make you sing with us. We will dance with blood.

Chained to the wall, Rune only
smiled at them.

"I won't fear you," he
said. "You're my friends. I can't fear friends."

That confused them. They fell
silent. Good. Good. If they had faces, friendly faces that were
funny, he would not fear them. He would only laugh at their taunts.

Friends.

Tilla had been his friend once.
Once. Years ago. Eras ago. In a different world, one that had
burned. A world of sand and water and dreams now buried under ash.

"Are you still my friend?"
he whispered into the shadows as the sun fell outside.

He did not know. Tilla served
the red spiral now. She served those who hurt him. Tilla tried to
protect him, but... she wasn't always here. She wasn't here when the
guards kicked him, when they spat in his food, when they spilled his
water across the floor, leaving him to lick moisture from dust and
encrusted blood. But she had been there when Lynport burned. She
had flown above, watched their city fall, and fought for
him
.

"For the demon," Rune
whispered through cracked lips.

For the golden beast. For the
creature with many heads. For Frey Cadigus.

Rune could see it again in the
darkness. His home burning. The golden dragon above, his minions
behind him, a hundred thousand strong. Kaelyn cried for him from the
tower, and everywhere below the corpses lay, all those he'd grown up
with, all those he'd loved, burnt and torn apart. So many screams.
So much fire. Evil itself, a blanket of scale and smoke and fang,
swirling above in a storm.

And her.

"And you."

The white dragon. A single beam
of light breaking through the storm, warm and kind, caressing him,
taking him under her wing. His dearest friend. His love. His
Tilla.

"I have to save you from
him," he whispered, his throat dry, his lips cracked and
bleeding. "Even if they break me. Even if all those tools on
the wall hurt me. I have to save you from him."

He tried to imagine it—Tilla
leading him outside the tower, holding his frail body in her claws,
and flying south. Flying away from the capital. Flying to the sea,
across the waters, and into distant lands where Frey could not find
them. They would find another home. Another beach to walk along,
sand to caress their feet, water to wash away their pain. He would
hold her in the night, kiss her lips again, and they would be as they
were.

"And you will be good
again," he spoke into the darkness, voice choked. "You
will be Tilla Roper again, not Lanse Tilla Siren, not this creature
they molded you into. And I will just be Rune. Not Relesar
Aeternum, not any king. Just Rune and Tilla on the beach. That's
all I want."

For a year, fighting in the
Resistance, Rune had prayed to see her again. And now he saw Tilla
here every night. She came to him in her armor, a machine of the
enemy, and she spoke to him. Sat with him in the dark. Held him in
her arms, and whispered to him, and kissed his cheek, and begged him
to join her.

"But I will not let this
happen to us. I cannot forget who you were."

The sun fell outside, casting
orange light through the arrowslits. On cue, keys rattled in the
lock. The door creaked open. And there she stood.

"Hello, Tilla," he
said, sitting in the corner, his arms and legs chained.

Her sword hung from one hip, her
punisher from the other. She had never used the instrument on him,
but when the moon fell to darkness, when her time to sway him ended,
would she burn his flesh?

As always, she sat by his side.
As always, she wore her armor, the fine black plates of an officer.
She stared at the wall with him, saying nothing.

"A fine pair we make,"
he said. "Me wearing my prisoner rags, you wearing your steel.
Me with my face all dirty and thin, you with your face so pale, your
eyes sad."

"It doesn't have to be this
way," she whispered, her voice choked. She looked at him. "You
can wear armor too, not rags. You can fight with us. For Requiem."

He looked away from her, leaned
back as far as he could in his chains, and smiled softly. "Do
you remember the mancala board I carved that winter, the one with the
seashell pieces? It was such a cold winter, too cold for the south.
Rain and thunder and wind every day. We sat in the Old Wheel most
nights by the fire. You'd wrap a blanket around your shoulders. And
we'd play mancala and drink ale, and Scraggles would lie at your
feet. Do you remember? We—"

"Stop it," she said.

He let his smile widen and
closed his eyes. "And the apple pies my father would bake!
Stars, the whole place would smell of apples, and—"

"Stop it!" she said,
more vehemently this time, and grabbed his arm. "Rune, those
days are gone. The Old Wheel burned. You know this." Her
fingers tightened and she stared at him. "Our home is gone.
Everything we've ever known is gone."

He looked into her dark eyes and
shook his head. "You're still here."

"I am not the woman I was."

"You are Tilla Rop—"

"I am Lanse Tilla Siren!"
she said and bared her teeth. "I serve the red spiral. I
follow Frey Cadigus. And so will you, Rune. So will you." She
rose to her feet. "I placed you in the dungeon so you could
hear the prisoners scream, see their blood, and languish in the dark.
And still you did not worship him. So I placed you here, in this
tower, so you could stare at the instruments of torture and imagine
their pain. And still you do not join me."

"And still you, Tilla, do
not join me," he said. He struggled to his feet, the chains so
heavy, and stood before her. "You can end this. You have the
key. You can flee with me."

She stared at him coldly, face
blank as always, but something filled her eyes this time, something
cold and afraid. She touched his cheek and whispered.

"So I will take you to a
third place. And in this place, Rune... you will join us. I promise
you. This place will break you."

She reached behind him and
unchained him from the wall. She left his wrists manacled, but for
the first time in days, no shackles bound him to the wall.

She held his shoulder and guided
him toward the door. He walked with small steps. For nearly a moon
now, he'd languished in irons. His chain had been long enough to let
him stand and lie down, but not to walk. Walking now, every step
ached, shooting pain from his toes, up his legs, and down his spine
to the tailbone. He winced and almost fell, but Tilla held his arm,
a gentle jailor, helping him onward.

The climb downstairs seemed an
eternity. Rune did not count the steps, but there were hundreds,
maybe a thousand. Each one shot more pain through him, and his head
spun. He was too weak, too hungry, too hurt. The guards had kicked
him too strongly. When they finally reached the bottom, Rune panted
and swayed.

They stepped through the
doorway, past the two guards with the mocking eyes, and into a snowy
courtyard. The walls of the Citadel rose all around them. More
guards stood upon the battlements, faces hidden behind helms. From
within those walls, screams rose, a chorus of a thousand prisoners
mad and beaten and dying. Rune had spent his first week here with
them, and just hearing their screams, he could imagine their
anguished faces.