Dragons Rising (19 page)

"I
love you, Korvin," Beatrix whispered to him on a hot summer
night decades ago. She lay naked in his arms, their bodies sweaty and
sticking together. "My soldier. My brave warrior."

Korvin
had kissed her, vowed to always love her. "I will always be your
soldier. I will always fight for you. I will always love you."

Standing
on the mountain, Korvin lowered his head and clenched his fists.

And
I did love her . . . until I saw the madness within.

Perhaps
Beatrix had always been mad, had always hidden a rotted core. Perhaps
the life in the Temple, the cruelty of her parents, the searing light
of the Spirit had driven her mad. When Korvin had seen that madness,
seen her lust to slay weredragons, he had revealed his secret.

"I
am one of them!" he cried to her, voice torn. "I am one of
those you want to hunt!"

And
she had screamed.

And
she had drawn her sword.

And
she had tried to kill him--the one she had vowed to forever love.

"I
fled you then," Korvin whispered, jaw tight, the snow stinging
his eyes. "I married another." Tears burned in his eyes.
"And you murdered her. You could not kill me so you killed
her--a way to hurt me, to kill my soul if you could not kill my
body."

In
his memories, he could see Mishal again--sad, wise Mishal, the
potter's daughter, the bride he had chosen, the mother to his
daughters. The memories rose before him in the flurries: Mishal, a
veil hiding her dark hair, holding his hands and whispering her vows
on their wedding day; Mishal, smiling yet always a little wistful, a
little sad, tending to their home and garden; Mishal holding their
daughters, the toddler Fidelity and the babe Domi, radiant and fully
joyous for the first time in her life; Mishal crying out, bleeding,
dying, Beatrix's sword in her chest.

"I'm
sorry, Mishal," Korvin whispered. "I miss you. I love you
always. And I will keep fighting for our daughters. I will avenge
you, and I will rebuild the kingdom our daughters deserve."

As
if summoned by his words, those daughters emerged from the cellar and
came to stand beside him on the mountaintop. Both had removed their
Terran armor, discarding the old leather and iron. Instead, over
their tunics and leggings, they wore the fireslug's scales. The armor
was translucent, revealing itself only when the sun caught it. Korvin
wore his own suit of the demonic scales. With the sunrays bouncing
off them, it left him even colder than before, but he knew it would
protect him from bonedrake light.

"We're
ready, Father," Domi said.

Fidelity
shifted her weight from leg to leg. "Are you sure we should do
this? We could keep printing our books. Keep fighting in shadows.
Keep--"

"I'm
sure," Domi said. "We must strike at the Temple's heart."
She turned toward Korvin. "We're ready. Right, Father?"

No,
we're not ready,
he wanted to say.
No, I'll never be ready to
fly with you, my daughters, to war. I'll never be ready to risk your
lives, to risk seeing Beatrix kill you like she killed your mother.
He looked at his daughters--a bespectacled bookworm and a wild,
red-haired sprite--and Korvin knew that neither could he let them
languish here. Neither could he let them become like he was--jaded,
aging in exile, a soul without a home.

"We're
ready," he said.

The
others emerged from the cellar to join them. Gemini lolloped as he
walked, wearing two suits of armor--the paladin's white steel and
above it, translucent and shimmering, the armor of fireslug hide.
Amity and Cade had both doffed their old armor, and they wore their
invisible scales over their tunics. They all carried swords and
spears.

The
others gathered around Korvin, staring silently as he spoke.

"A
hundred years ago, the Cured Temple rose to wipe out the magic of
Requiem, to tear out our magic with tillvine or slay those who
resisted. For a hundred years, the last Vir Requis lived in hiding as
the Temple hunted us, seeking to kill the last of us, to bring about
the Falling. For all our lives, we here--the last Vir Requis--have
been hunted, scared. We've seen friends and family murdered. We've
seen our homes destroyed. We've seen evil rise from underground to
crush the world in an attempt to slay us. And now, for the first time
in a century, we have a chance to bring Requiem back to life."
Korvin turned toward Gemini. "We have a scion of the Temple
willing to grant us a kingdom--a small kingdom but a kingdom
nonetheless, a safe haven. Requiem."

Gemini
nodded. "Requiem will be yours once you kill Beatrix and Mercy."

Korvin
turned toward the others. "In two days is winter solstice, and
Beatrix--as she does every year--will speak from the balcony of the
Temple to the crowd. We cannot walk into the city in disguise, not
with bonedrakes sniffing for us; they can smell a Vir Requis from
miles away. We'll fly as dragons, cutting through whatever drakes fly
our way, be they of fire or bone. And we will burn Beatrix down."

Amity
pounded her fist into her palm. "Burn her with fire!"

Gemini
sneered. "Burn her slowly so she has time to scream."

Even
Fidelity and Domi seemed eager for the fight, and their eyes shone.

Cade,
however, wrung his hands and spun from side to side. "No,"
the boy said. "No, this plan won't work. We can't just . . .
just show up roaring fire and burn the Temple. Not with Eliana
inside."

Korvin
laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "We won't burn down the whole
Temple. We'll only be attacking Beatrix on the balcony. A pinpoint
attack."

But
Cade seemed more distraught than ever. "And if you kill Beatrix,
they'll kill Eliana! She's their captive, Korvin. Their captive! If
we attack and Eliana is still in their hands . . . oh stars, they'll
kill her before we land. Just to hurt us. We have to save Eliana
first. We have to get her to safety before we attack."

Everyone
began talking at once. Amity kept trying to reassure Cade that the
baby would be safe, while Fidelity and Domi acknowledged that Cade
was right, and Korvin tried to get everyone to calm down and speak in
turn. Only Gemini remained silent throughout the conversation,
standing to the side.

Finally
the young lord spoke, softly. "I know where she is."

Everyone
was still talking. Only Korvin seemed to hear.

"I
know where Eliana is!" Gemini repeated, louder now.

Cade
spun toward him. Slowly the conversation died down, and all eyes
turned to Gemini.

The
paladin continued, voice low. "I've seen the babe. Mercy adores
her. She calls Eliana her daughter now. She keeps the babe in a crib
in her bedchamber by the window. I know which window it is. I could
recognize it even from outside the Temple." He turned toward
Cade. "Eliana is Mercy's dearest prize--a prize I would love to
take from her. You and me, Cade. The two lost brothers of the Temple.
We will fly to that window together. As the others blow their
dragonfire and Beatrix screams, we will snatch Eliana away from
Mercy's grip." He drew his sword. "And if Mercy is there
and puts up a fight, I will gladly shove this steel into her heart."

Korvin
nodded. "We begin our journey this morning. Let us shift into
dragons."

"Wait,"
Fidelity said. "Before we fly, let us pray." She looked up
toward the sky. "I can't see the stars through daylight and
cloud, but they're up there. Let us pray for their light." She
took a deep breath and began to sing softly, the song from
The
Book of Requiem
, the
most ancient prayer of their people. "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." Tears streamed
down Fidelity's cheeks, and their voices all rose together. "Requiem!
May our wings forever find your sky."

Fidelity
shifted into a dragon first. She wore her oversized spectacles, the
lenses the size of dinner plates. Above her blue scales lay armor of
transparent fireslug scales like more lenses. Domi shifted next, her
scales all the shades of autumn leaves, and she too wore the glassy
armor. New scales were growing over her old tenderspots, still thin
but hardening into orange plates, and Gemini wore no spurs when he
climbed onto her saddle. Amity then shifted, becoming a wild red
dragon, her scales chipped, her belly covered with scars, her wings
long and tipped with cruel claws, and she tossed back her head and
blasted fire skyward with a roar. Cade followed, becoming a golden
dragon, his eyes--once eager and full of light--now somber.

The
four dragons stared at Korvin--the last dragons in the world. And
finally Korvin shifted too, became a burly dragon, the largest among
them, his scales heavy and dark gray like plates of iron. Like the
others, he wore transparent armor over his scales. He stared at them,
and he spoke in a low, rumbling voice.

"We
are the last dragons of Requiem. We fly to our final stand--to death
or to rebirth. For Requiem."

"For
Requiem!" the others cried out.

They
took flight together. Requiem's five last dragons rose into the sky
and flew across the mountains, fire in their mouths, the prayer of
Requiem in their hearts. They flew south--to the Cured Temple and to
the column that rose within, the pillar of their kingdom, the beacon
guiding them home.

 
 
BEATRIX

She
stood outside the city before the charred weredragon skeletons:
Julian and Roen, diseased traitors, now nothing but bones.

"You
flew against me," Beatrix whispered to the skeletons. They were
human skeletons, but she knew them to be the bones of weredragons.
"Death is too kind a fate for weredragons."

She
raised her eyes and stared toward the distant city of Nova Vita,
capital of her empire, center of her power. She stood several miles
away, but even from here, Beatrix saw the Cured Temple shining like a
beacon, hiding within it a rotted bone--the column that locked the
Spirit out of the world. But already the column's power was waning.
With every weredragon death, the column weakened, rotting from
within, and already tendrils of the Spirit were working their way
into the world, letting the bones of firedrakes fly again.

"Please
raise these bones too, my lord." Beatrix raised her eyes to the
heavens. "They too will fight for you. Only five weredragons
remain, my lord. Only five more to kill, and King's Column will
shatter, and then your true glory will bathe me, my lord. Then your
beautiful light will shine across the world, and all will kneel
before you." She raised her hands. "Grant me the power to
fight them, my lord! Grant me your light so that I may raise warriors
for your army!"

She
felt the light fill her, shine in her eyes, coil within her breast,
cold and cutting and beautiful, making her scream in pain and
ecstasy. The light gathered in her palms, sending out tendrils.
Beatrix held out her hands toward the two blackened weredragon
skeletons.

"I
summon your souls, weredragons!" she cried. "I will not let
you rest. Return to your bones! Return and rise before me!"

At
first they fought her. The souls resisted as Beatrix tugged them. She
felt them struggling, pulling back, trying to hide from her. Yet she
would not let go.

"You
will rise, weredragons!" she shouted, the light pulsing out from
her. "You cannot resist the light of my lord. Rise, bones! Rise,
souls! Shine!"

They
screamed, a torn sound that rose from charred jaws. Beatrix tugged
with all her might, screaming too, laughing, loving the pain. And
slowly, creaking, shedding scraps of burnt skin, the two human
skeletons rose.

Beatrix
raised her arms, and the skeletons levitated from the ground, shreds
of burnt flesh dangling off them. One skeleton was short, the other
tall. Julian. Roen. Two outlaws. Two weredragons, father and son.
They thrashed in the air, jaws opened, crying out with hatred and
pain. Beatrix thrust forth her light, and the strands invaded their
ribcages and coiled within, thrumming, weaving tightly knit hearts.

Their
screams rose louder as she claimed them, as the Spirit's light made
them her own.

"You
will fight for the Spirit!" Beatrix shouted, laughing. "You
will fight against your own kin, and you will slay them, and they too
will become bonedrakes. They too will serve the Spirit even in death.
Shift, weredrakes! Shift into your dragon forms and fly!"

With
the Spirit's light within them, they were powerless to resist her.
The two human skeletons cried out in anguish . . . and shifted.

Long
bones sprouted from their shoulder blades, tipped with claws,
becoming wings. Their tailbones lengthened into whipping, spiked
tails. Their skulls sprouted horns, and their torsos morphed, grew,
curved. They beat their rotted wings and rose into the sky--two
dragon skeletons, the light of the Spirit shining in their eye
sockets. Bonedrakes. Weredrakes.

"My
servants," Beatrix whispered.

The
firedrake Beatrix had ridden here, a graceful female named Keera,
yelped behind her. Beatrix approached the beast, stroked her lavender
scales, and climbed into the saddle.

"Do
not fear them, Keera," Beatrix said. "They will be our
greatest warriors." She smiled thinly. "The weredragons
will come to me. I do not doubt it. I know Korvin. He will seek to
fly against me this winter solstice. He will seek to kill me like I
killed that whore he married. And his friends will await him."

She
drove her spurs so deep into Keera's tenderspots that the firedrake
yowled in pain. Keera beat her wings and took flight, heading back
toward the city.

"Fly
with me, weredrakes!" Beatrix cried.