Crown of Dragonfire (11 page)

My only love is
Requiem,
he thought, hating the strange feelings Tash's scent stirred
inside him, but proud that he could finally push thoughts of her away.

"So . . .," Tash said
as they walked. "Ever poked a woman?"

Vale groaned. "What are
you on about?"

He could just make out
her turning toward him, and the moonlight shone on her teeth as she grinned. "You
know, ever dropped your trousers, pulled out your spear—and I don't mean the
one you're holding in your cloak—and poked a nice maiden twixt her nethers?"

He groaned louder. "I
never knew pleasurers would use so many euphemisms."

Her eyes widened. "That
means no! You're not even denying it." Tash nodded. "I wondered how much
lovemaking you lot down in Tofet got to. When Elory came into the pleasure pit,
she knew nothing. Nothing! I don't think she even knew she
had
nethers,
or that boys have spears to stab them with. But I taught her." She leaned
toward him, and her eyes turned sly. "I could teach you if you like."

Oh stars above,
Vale
thought. Tash—naked against him, kissing, caressing—

No.

He gritted his teeth.

He had no use for such
things. They would distract him from his quest. He cared only for Requiem.

"Focus on finding the
way to the shore." He turned to stare ahead as if there were anything to see in
the darkness.

She nodded and touched
his arm. "I understand. You're a little embarrassed. Not sure you could
perform. Not sure you'd know what to do. You're all strong and tough and tall,
a real man, and you're worried I'll think you're a boy, or maybe you're worried
your reed will wilt. But I don't mind if it takes you a while to learn. We all
have to learn sometime! Did you know—at my first time I was absolutely
hopeless. The woman who taught me was a pleasurer too. I learned quickly. So
will you."

Vale definitely did not
want to think of any of those things—not himself "wilting" and certainly not
the vision of Tash learning the ways of love.

"Why don't we walk
silently?" he said.

She moaned. "Because it's
boring! I'll grow bored to death on the way unless we can have sex. Vale, don't
make me beg you! If you don't let me seduce you, I'm going to have to beg, and
I'm really a horrible beggar."

He pointed ahead into
the sky. "I suggest you focus your attention up at the sky, not down at your
nether regions. Those aren't stars."

Three orange lights
shone in the distance, moving closer, swooping down from the sky like comets.
Distant cries rose from them.

Vale cursed and grabbed
Tash's arm. "Down!"

She waggled her
eyebrows at him. "Ooh, darling."

He groaned. "Be quiet
and lie still. Under our cloaks. By that boulder."

He lay down and pulled
Tash down beside him. They lay on their stomachs, pressing against a boulder,
and pulled their hoods low.

Vale could hear the
chariots fly closer, smell the brimstone and fire. Lying facedown, he could
only hope that he appeared like nothing more than part of the boulder. Tash lay
beside him, her body pressed against his, and a strand of her hair tickled his
lips.

The chariots streamed
directly above, the firehorses' hooves thundering through the air, the flames
crackling. Sparks rained and singed his cloak.

Tash's hand trailed
down his leg. "Vale," she whispered, "let's do it now. While they're flying
above."

He raised his head just
an inch, saw her smiling at him, and glared. "Hush!"

She pouted.

Ash rained and finally
the sound of the chariots faded. Vale rose back to his feet to see them in the
distance.

"Maybe you like boys?"
Tash said. "That's all right; I don't judge. We had a few boys in the pleasure
pit, you know. Some of the seraphim favored them."

"Enough." Vale
continued marching. "We keep going. Quickly now." He turned around. "Tash! Come
on."

She placed her hands on
her hips. "You go that way, Vale, right back to Tofet. I'm going to walk the
right way." She pointed. "Follow the star, remember?"

He grumbled but he
changed course. They walked onward through the darkness.

Thankfully, Tash
stopped talking soon, though the young woman still hummed, clucked her tongue,
and sometimes mumbled to herself as they walked. Vale began to regret agreeing
to accompany her on this quest. He should have accompanied Meliora instead to find
the Keymaker—it seemed that was where hope shone brighter—not gone on this wild-goose
chase, stuck here with the insufferable Tash.

The woman had seemed
sympathetic enough back in Tofet. After all, she had helped Meliora escape from
prison, and for that Vale was grateful. But stars above, once alone with her,
Tash had regressed back to, perhaps, her true self—a loquacious, flirty little
minx who boiled both his blood and temper. She confused him. She infuriated
him. He had agreed to accompany her out of some sense of nobility, wanting to
protect the helpless maiden perhaps, like the heroes in the old tales. Now he
wondered if Tash would lead him to nothing but madness.

They walked for hours,
and when dawn began to rise, Vale approached the river.

"Going for a morning
swim?" Tash asked. "Naked?"

"Going fishing." He
hefted his spear. "We need to eat."

The light was still
dim. Hints of pink and blue appeared in the eastern sky, and the world began to
appear around him, all in gray, black, and indigo. He could make out the river
flowing at his side, a few trees with curling branches, rocky hills, and Tash's
slender form. Soon the sun would rise and its light would drench the land, and
they would need to find shelter and hide—perhaps another cave, perhaps between
boulders or trees. But for now, Vale needed food. He had not eaten in a night,
a day, and another night, and his limbs already felt weak from hunger, and his
stomach knotted. He had never eaten fish before, but he had seen the overseers consuming
them. He stepped onto the riverbank and hefted his spear.

Beads of light
glimmered on the water, and the fires had not spread this far yet. Reeds and
grass swayed around him, and Vale waded between them, the water rising above
his ankles. As the light kept brightening, he caught sight of his reflection in
the river. The vision was smudged and dark, and he stared down at it. Vale had
never stared into a mirror before—at most, he had seen his reflection at the
bottom of wet mugs or upon the surfaces of polished stones. Looking at his
watery reflection now, he seemed thinner than he'd ever been. A gaunt wretch,
cheeks sunken, eyes too large. A figure close to death.

The old stories of
Requiem, the ones his father would tell, would often speak of the beauty and
vigor of youth, of young heroes scampering across fields and soaring, laughing,
rolling through the sky in abandon, not yet burdened by the worries of age.
Vale was only twenty-one—in Old Requiem, he'd be considered at the prime of
his youth, barely older than a boy. Yet he felt old. He looked old. He felt
ready for death, having suffered too many years of whips, chains, hunger,
exhaustion, as if all those five hundred years of slavery—stretching back to
the fall of Requiem—weighed upon his shoulders.

And yet I'm still
here. Still moving onward. Still alive. Still fighting.
He closed his eyes.
I still remember you, Issari. I will never forget your starlit hands upon me,
the love in your eyes. You told me that a great battle awaits me. I will live and
fight on, my lady of starlight.

Splashing sounded in
the water beside him, and Vale's eyes snapped open. He started and his heart thrashed.
He found himself wincing, expecting the lash of a whip, a habit he didn't know
if he'd ever shake. But it was only Tash wading into the water beside him,
naked as the day she'd been born, aside from the jewel in her navel.

"Tash!" he whispered,
looking away.

She splashed him. "Join
me, Vale! Off with your clothes. It's time for a morning bath."

He glanced at her, then
quickly looked away, the sight of her naked body seared onto his memory. He was
about to reproach her, even grab her cloak and cover her up, when another
splash—this one softer—sounded below him.

He looked down and his
eyes widened.

A fish.

Vale lifted his spear.

The fish lazily swam
between the reeds and rushes, fat and sluggish.

Vale thrust down the
spear, piercing it.

"Got you!" He lifted
his prize from the water, already salivating. "Tash! Hurry up and wash
yourself. We've got breakfast. I'll see if I can catch another."

She stuck out her
tongue, the water now blessedly up to her shoulders. "See if there are any
pears baked in honey and wine down there, will you? Maybe some almond and
butter cakes too."

He scoffed. "It's fish
and some algae if you can stomach it. Better than what we ate in Tofet. You
house slaves went soft."

He expected her to roll
her eyes, to splash him again, maybe to make a joke, but instead anger filled
Tash's eyes. She waded toward him in the water.

"Don't you tell me that
I'm soft." She glared, her eyes red. "You don't know what I've had to endure."

"What?" He matched her
glare. "Did you endure firewhips against your back? Yokes that crushed your
shoulders? Eighteen hours of labor a day, carving bricks and hauling tar in the
blinding sun? Or did you just have to suffer baked apples sometimes instead of
honeyed pears?"

Her eyes dampened, but
then her rage seared the tears dry. "I had to live through things you cannot
even imagine. I was thirteen when I was tossed into the pleasure pits. You
suffered the whip; I suffered the lust of the seraphim. I would have chosen the
whip a thousand times over what they did to me, to a mere child." Her voice
shook. "For years, I sank into a deep hole. For years, I smoked the hintan,
lost in a stupor, barely alive, a giggling, drooling, vapid thing, mere meat, semiconscious,
as the seraphim masters had their ways with me. But I crawled out of that pit.
I shoved the comfort of hintan aside, and I learned to accept pain, because
pain gives me clarity, pain gives me strength. So yes, Vale of Tofet. I ate
honeyed pears instead of gruel, and I wore anklets of gold instead of shackles
of iron. And I suffered more pain than I can remember without dying inside."

The fish flapped on his
spear, and Vale felt his anger wan. Why was he so mad at the woman? Tash had
been kind to Elory, protecting her in the pleasure pit. She had saved Meliora
from the dungeon. She had fought bravely against the seraphim during their
escape from Tofet, and she sought the Chest of Plenty not for personal gain but
to duplicate the Keeper's Key and bring Requiem hope. Why had he spent the past
night and day mad at her? Was it because of her body—and by the stars, she was
naked now in the water, only inches away—that intoxicated him? Was it because
she awakened something deep inside him, something frightening, something that
was all soft warmth and joy, unlike anything he had ever felt, anything he
thought he deserved?

He nodded. "Let's eat
breakfast. I'll catch you a fish too. I promise it'll be tasty."

She nodded, her face
calming. She stepped out from the river and pulled on her cloak, then paused.

She stared down,
frozen.

"Tash?" Vale said. "Are
you all right?"

She spun back toward
him, eyes wide. "I found something. Oh stars above, Vale. I found something."

 
 
ISHTAFEL

In his dreams he was still
there. In darkness. Five hundred years ago. Young. Scared. Fighting with her.

"The cowards flee, my
love!" Reehan cried, laughing as she swung her twin
xiphos
swords. "Like
worms digging deeper into their holes. Let us hook them!"

Ishtafel fought at her
side, swinging his own twin blades. Blood covered his steel breastplate, his
long blond hair, his face—every part of him, sticky, hot, red, coppery, sweet.
Some the blood of his enemies. Some the blood of his friends. Some his own
blood.

And in the tunnels
ahead, they scurried.

The weredragons.

Ishtafel swung one of
his short, wide blades, blocking a blow from a massive weredragon longsword.
The beast roared before him, bearded, eyes wild, clad all in steel plates. The
brute's armor was thicker than his own, his sword longer and sharper, and fear
flooded Ishtafel—cold, all-consuming terror.

He thrust his blade
again, trying to reach past the weredragon's defenses. The tunnel walls seemed
to close in around Ishtafel. He couldn't breathe in here, couldn't see. Behind
the barbarian ahead, thousands more—filthy weredragons—lurked in the
darkness, just waiting to strike, to cut him down.

I can't do this,
Ishtafel thought, tears budding in his eyes as he swung his blade.
I can't
survive on this world. We should never have rebelled, never have fallen from
Edinnu. I'm going to die here in darkness.

The weredragon lashed
at Ishtafel again, and his longsword slammed into his armor. Ishtafel cried out
and fell to his knees in the tunnel, these holes far beneath the realm they
called Requiem. The weredragon grinned and raised his longsword, prepared to
land the killing blow.

Reehan let out a battle
cry. Her golden hair streamed, and her bloody face twisted with rage. She
leaped forward, twin blades flashing. With one swing of the blade, she knocked
aside the weredragon's longsword. With the other, she cut the creature's neck,
sending him crashing down. Blood spurted onto her, and she licked it off her
face and smacked her lips.

"All right, my love?"
she said, reaching down to help him up.

Ishtafel rose without
her help. His heart thudded against his ribs. Sweat dripped down his face,
mingling with the blood.