Crown of Dragonfire (33 page)

She return to human
form. Leaving the chariot and firehorses on the field, she headed between the
huts, vanishing into the shadows.

Please, stars of
Requiem, don't let any other seraphim see us, don't let them know, don't let
them suspect—not until we're safe.

A shadow approached
between the huts, and Elory's heart leaped into a gallop, and she nearly
shifted and lashed her claws. But it was Lucem, slinking forward, back in human
form. She rushed toward him, and he wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top
of her head.

Other shadows
approached. Meliora, a hood dousing her halo. Vale, tall and grim. Tash,
tiptoeing forward, glancing around nervously.

"We made it," Meliora
whispered.

Lucem rolled his eyes. "Once
again, Mel, the sky is up."

Firelight fell onto the
road. The Vir Requis hurried behind a hut. A seraph walked down the dirt road,
holding a torch. Hiding behind the clay wall, Elory held her breath and
squeezed Lucem's hand. When finally the light faded and the guard had walked
by, the Vir Requis released their breath.

"Come," Elory
whispered. "I know the way."

They walked between the
huts, avoiding the larger dirt roads, slinking hut to hut. Vale carried the
Chest of Plenty under his arm. Elory carried the Keeper's Key, while Tash
carried a humbler iron key—the one she had used to unlock Elory's shackles
back in the pleasure pit long ago.

Another chariot of fire
streamed above. The Vir Requis froze and hid again, pressing themselves against
a hut's wall. When the firelight passed them, they walked onward.

Finally Elory saw it
ahead. It looked like any other hut, but she knew this was the place.

Home.

Her eyes dampened.
After all Elory had seen in the world—the great ziggurat of gold and ivory,
the open wilderness of forests and hills, underground caverns of ancient days,
a mountaintop palace full of magic—this hut seemed so small, so sad. So many
bad memories filled this place. So many times Elory had lain in this hut,
shivering from the wounds of the whip, her father stitching and healing her. So
many times her mother had embraced her in this hut, soothing her tears,
applying balms to her wounds, and singing to her old songs of Requiem. For
eighteen years Elory had lived here, and seeing it now nearly broke her heart.

Home. A home of
pain, of death, of fear, of love. The only home I've ever known.

Meliora looked at her,
smiled sadly, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Vale stood at her other side
and placed an arm around her.

The three siblings—the
three Aeternums, heirs to a dynasty, hurt, broken, fighting for their
nation—walked forward together.

They entered the hut.

He knelt inside in
prayer. Her father, tall and gaunt, bald and bearded. He looked up, and his
eyes widened, and Elory's eyes flooded with tears, and her body shook with
sobs. She raced forward, fell to her knees before him, and nearly crushed his
thin frame in her embrace.

"Father," she
whispered, sobbing against him. "Father."

He wept too, holding
her close. "Elory, Elory. You're alive. I knew you were alive. You're alive. Oh
stars, you're alive."

Vale joined them, and
even the gruff young slave shed tears, squeezing them close, shaking. Meliora
knelt too, wrapped her arms around them, and held them silently.

"I'm here, Father."
Elory smiled and blinked away her tears. "I'll never leave you again. I
promise."

Lucem and Tash stood at
the doorway, glancing around nervously. Elory rose to her feet and approached
them. She took their hands in hers, ushering them into the hut. Her heart
trembled at their touch. Tash—her closest friend. Lucem—the first man she had
ever loved. They were her family too, just as much as her father and siblings.
All of Requiem was her family.

"Father, you remember
Tash, and this is Lucem."

The young man bowed. "Yes,
the famous Lucem himself! I heard I'm something of a legend around these parts.
But not like you. I'm honored to meet you, King Aeternum. At least, the
descendant of King Aeternum, hopefully to be our real king soon. Not here. Bit
too crowded here. In Requiem, I mean. If we get there. Um . . ." He glanced at
Meliora. "Mel said there would be taters."

Elory rolled her eyes.

Jaren looked down at
the Chest of Plenty which Vale had placed on the floor, then up at his son,
then at Meliora and Elory.

"Did you . . .," the
old priest whispered. "Did you find them? The chest and key?"

Elory reached into her
pocket and pulled out the Keeper's Key. She stepped forward and brought the key
to her father's collar.

The collar opened.

Elory removed it from
around Jaren's neck and tossed it to the floor.

"We found them, Father."
She stared into his eyes, and her rage seared her tears dry. "We found them,
and now, Father . . . now we fight."

 
 
TASH

She kept glancing at Vale,
trying to meet his eyes, hoping he'd forgive her, but he hated her, he hated
her still, and Tash hated herself.

I would have turned
back,
she thought, kneeling in the hut.
I just had to take another step
toward my freedom, to hesitate, to feel the guilt, to turn back toward Vale and
curse my stupidity.
She hung her head low.
But you had to see me, Vale.
You had to call out, to try to stop me when I would have stopped on my own. I
would have. I have to believe that I would have. And I'm so sorry.

She raised her head,
trying to meet his eyes again. But Vale stood across the hut, pointedly looking
away from her, talking instead to Lucem.

Tash's shoulders
stooped.

I'm going to show
you, Vale. I'm going to make amends for what I've done. I'm going to show you
that I love Requiem, that I'll fight for her, that I'm sorry for my betrayal.

Elory approached and
sat beside her. "Are you all right, Tash?"

Tash looked at the
girl, and fresh guilt filled her. Back in the pleasure pit, perhaps she had
treated Elory too harshly, commanding her as if she, Tash, were a seraph
herself rather than a slave. The girl was kind, meek, truly believed in Requiem's
cause.

Another one I
mistreated,
Tash thought.
Another one I must prove my worth to.

Suddenly Tash hated who
she was. Hated herself. A pleasurer who, while the others toiled in the dust, had
serviced seraphim with kisses and caresses. A slave who had looked down on
other slaves as if she were superior. A traitor who had almost ruined Requiem,
who had almost fled with the Chest of Plenty.

I don't belong here
with these noble, kind people,
she thought, looking at the others.
I'm
not like them. I'm not good and brave and strong like they are.

"Tash, are you all
right?" Elory whispered.

Tash nodded. "Yes, and
I'm ready. Let's try this."

She took a deep breath,
opened the Chest of Plenty, and placed the Keeper's Key inside.

The others all gathered
around her. Meliora, Lucem, Jaren, Vale; they all stared. Tash gulped and
opened the chest.

Hundreds of crimson
keys, engraved with golden runes, spilled out.

"It works!" Tash
whispered.

Lucem whistled. "Now
all we need is a mug of beer, and we're set for life."

Instead of beer, Tash
grabbed her collar, which she had opened outside the city but kept with her.
She placed the iron around her neck, took a deep breath, and snapped it shut.
Next she lifted one of the duplicated keys. For a second she hesitated, worried
that the duplicate would fail, that the chest had copied the key but not the
magic inside it. Yet when she brought the replicated Keeper's Key to her
collar, the runes glowed, and the collar opened anew.

Hurriedly, Tash reached
into her pocket, and she pulled out her second key—a smaller, humbler key. A
key she had used long ago on the shackles around Elory's ankles. She placed
this key into the chest too, duplicating it a thousand times. Keys to open
chains.

The pile of keys—some
crimson and gold, others simple iron—piled up in the hut.

"Dragons," Tash
whispered. "Thousands of dragons. Thousands of warriors of Requiem."

Elory grabbed Tash's
hand and squeezed it. "Let's make more."

 
 
JAREN

He labored in the dirt under
the blinding sun, but this day, hope filled Jaren.

The whips hit his back,
but he thought of Requiem.

His joints ached, his
skin burned, his head swam with weakness, and he thought of dragons rising.

His body was almost
broken, his life almost spent, and thousands languished around him in chains, the
overseers taking their lives day by day. But Jaren clung to his life.

Because his children were
back. Because there was hope.

That night, as always,
he limped back to the huts—breath rattling, back torn open, spine nearly
cracked with the agony. That night, as always, instead of sleeping, Jaren stood
outside his hut. As always, the children of Requiem came before him—the
wounded, the dying. Mothers too thin to produce milk, their babes starving.
Elders beaten, whipped, kicked, their limbs broken, begging for healing or a
blessing before death. Young men and women in the prime of their youth, yet
frail as the elders, coughing, shivering, bleeding. They all came before Jaren
Aeternum as they did every night.

He was descended of
kings, but here in Tofet, he was a priest, he was a healer.

The first of his people
approached, limping—a young girl, no older than twelve or thirteen, her arm
crushed. Her father walked with her, face pale, eyes damp.

"Please, Papa Jaren."
Sweat glistened on the girl's brow. "It hurts so bad."

Jaren prayed, calling
upon the stars to heal her wound, to ease her pain. She cried out as he set the
bone, then shivered, whispering her thanks.

Before they stepped
aside, Jaren held the father's arm. He passed a sack into his hand.

"Keys," Jaren
whispered. "Keys to remove your collars. Keys to remove the chains around your
ankles."

The slave's eyes
widened. "Do you jest?"

Jaren shook his head. "A
blessing, my son. A miracle. Keep them secret. Hand them out to every hut
around yours; there are two hundred keys in this sack. Spread the word to wait.
To wait until the Night of Seven."

Night of Seven. Among
the holiest nights in Requiem's calendar. It was the night that Requiem
remembered the great fall two thousand years ago—the genocide that had slaughtered
all but seven Vir Requis, the Living Seven who fought the tyrant Dies Irae, who
rebuilt Requiem from ruin. Queen Gloriae Aeternum had sat upon the Oak Throne
that night two thousand years ago, and now—here, far from Requiem, chained in
a distant land—the slaves of Requiem would rise in new defiance.

"Two nights from this
one," whispered the slave, accepting the sack. "May the stars bless you, son of
Aeternum."

Another slave
approached, the whip lashes on his back infected. Jaren prayed, applied
ointments, and stitched the wounds. To this man too, he gave a sack of keys.
Inside were Keeper's Keys and simple, iron keys for the shackles around the
slaves' feet.

He stood out in the
night for hours, handing out the keys. He finally slept, allowing Elory to
continue the work.

In the daylight, they
toiled again.

In the darkness, they
healed more slaves, handed out more keys.

"Keys for your collars,"
Jaren whispered to the ill and wounded approaching. "Keys for your shackles.
Tomorrow night we rise. May our wings forever find Requiem's sky."

"Bless you, Papa Jaren!"
they said. "The stars will forever shine upon you. Tomorrow night we rise."

Dawn rose.

"Toil!"

Whips lashed.

"Faster!"

Boots kicked.

"Die!"

Slaves fell into the dust,
fading, flickering out.

Darkness fell.

They gathered in the
hut. Slaves. Rebels. Children of starlight. An old priest and his children. A
young hero. A young woman who'd fled from darkness. Those who had stood up
against the shadows, who had shone a light, who had bled and prayed for their
lost kingdom. Heroes of Requiem.

Jaren stood before
them, and he spoke softly.

"Two thousand years
ago, a tyrant named Dies Irae raised an army, and he toppled the halls of
Requiem, and he slew all but seven of our people. Those seven Vir Requis—the
great heroes of our nation—raised Requiem again from ruin. We've all heard
their names in many tales: Benedictus, Lacrimosa, Gloriae, Agnus Dei, Kyrie Eleison,
Terra, Memoria. Seven names we remember and praise even now, so many
generations later."

Vale's eyes flashed. He
had always imagined himself strong and noble like the great King Benedictus.
Elory's eyes shone. She had always loved tales of Queen Lacrimosa, the great
mother of Requiem.

"Tonight is the night
we remember those old heroes," Jaren said. "And this night again, Requiem lies
in ruin. Our people are dying. Our kingdom lies across the sea, its halls
fallen. And this night again, heroes rise. This night we fight. And every night
hence, for thousands of years, the Vir Requis will remember new names. Lucem.
Tash. Elory. Vale. Meliora."

He looked at them, one
by one, as he spoke their names. They stared back, eyes determined.

"And Jaren," Meliora
whispered, reaching out to hold his hand. "My dear father, the kindest,
bravest man I know."

Jaren squeezed her
hand, looking at her—his eldest, his sweet Meliora.

You are Kalafi's
daughter, and for so many years, I never knew you, but I love you, Meliora. I
love you all. You are all my children.

"Let us pray," Jaren
said.

They all held hands in a
circle, and they spoke together. "As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as
the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the
mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you
are home." Their voices dropped to whispers, and tears shone in their eyes. "Requiem.
May our wings forever find your sky."