Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (11 page)

Meliora growled at her
mother. "You think I'm weak because I'm young? Because I didn't fight in
wars like you and Ishtafel?" She snorted. "I'm stronger than you
know."

The queen nodded.
"Aye, very strong, child. So strong you think you can defy my wishes,
throw tantrums, and refuse to bear me a pure heir. We'll see how strong you are
when your little slaves sing in the bull. Ah!" Kalafi pointed. "There
it is. We draw near."

Meliora stared back
down at the land of Tofet, and she saw it there. For the second time since
leaving the city, she lost her breath.

The bronze bull. Malok.

The idol stood on a
hill, twice the size of a regular bull, its head lowered, its horns raised, a
beast ready to charge. Its bronze body gleamed in the sunlight, blinding.
Firewood and kindling were arranged below it, soaked with oil. Meliora had seen
statues before—the City of Kings was full of them, idols far larger than this
one—yet this bull filled her with dread. Its red eyes seemed to stare at her
from below.

The stories are
true,
Meliora thought, trembling.
They cook people inside it, they—

She tightened her lips.

No. Foolishness. She
wouldn't let her mother win this one. Meliora tore her gaze away from the bull
and glared at the queen. This was all a ruse. All a show. No doubt, Kalafi had
placed the yokes on these slaves, covered them with fake blood, placed this
silly bull here to torment here, and had arranged the whole thing. It was just bad
theater, that was all. Just some elaborate punishment concocted to terrify
Meliora into marrying her brother. The slaves below were just actors. As soon
as Meliora turned and left, they would doff their yokes and return to their
songs.

Meliora nodded.
I
won't be fooled.

"Let's hear the
bull sing, Mother." She forced herself to laugh. "I'd love to hear
it."

Meliora swung her lash,
and her firehorses began to descend, pulling her chariot of fire down toward
the bronze bull. She smiled thinly. Mother would be forced to stop this charade
soon, forced to admit that she had lost. And Meliora would only laugh, proving
her strength.

I will trick the
trickster.

As she descended, she
saw that many slaves were gathering on the hill around Malok. All were hobbled
and collared, and seraphim overseers stood among them, flaming whips in hand.
Most of the slaves wore rags, but a handful were naked, standing together in a
wooden corral beside the bronze bull. Their backs were whipped, their arms
shackled.

The condemned to be
burned,
Meliora realized.

Across the hill, both
the weredragon slaves and seraphim overseers knelt as the royal chariots
descended. Meliora's chariot landed first, and she emerged from the flames to
stand on the hilltop by Malok. The bronze idol shone above the pyre of wood and
kindling, and still its eyes seemed to stare into Meliora. Cruel eyes. Carved
of metal yet somehow living, taunting her. She could see that a door was fitted
onto the bull's flank.

They burn the
prisoners within.
Meliora remembered the stories.
They cook them in
there, cook them until they scream, and the screams flow through pipes to make
the bull sing melodiously, and—

She shook her head
wildly and forced herself to laugh. She was not fooled by this fake idol! It
probably wasn't even made of real bronze, just painted wood. As for these
slaves around her, kneeling and broken? Actors! That was all. Fake blood taken
from a troupe of performers.

The other chariots
landed around her, and the lords of Saraph emerged. Ishtafel inhaled deeply as
if savoring the scent of blood, and a smile stretched across his face. The
golden prince gave Meliora the slightest of winks. Queen Kalafi winced as she
alighted from her chariot, sudden pain twisting across her face. Too far from
her salted baths, her wound always began to ache.

"Nice try,
Mother," Meliora said. "But I'm not scared of this place. I—"

"My lady!"
rose the anguished cry behind her. "My lady Meliora, please!"

Meliora spun around and
felt the blood drain from her face.

"Gods," she
whispered.

Kira and Talana, her
dear palace slaves, stood in the corral with the other condemned weredragons.
Meliora had looked past them only moments ago, not recognizing them. The two
had been beaten. Their faces were swollen, the skin purple with bruises, cuts
bleeding on their lips and foreheads. Firewhips had striped their backs,
tearing into the skin and cauterizing the wounds. Kira—sweet little Kira who
had painted Meliora's fingernails so many times—was shivering, her arm hanging
at an odd angle, dislocated and swelling.

"Please help us,
my princess," Talana said, voice slurred, barely seeping past her swollen
lips.

Even with her limbs
chained, Kira managed to kneel. "We're sorry, my princess! We're sorry for
our sins. Spare us the bull."

Meliora trembled. Cold
sweat washed her. She panted, her head spun, and blackness began to spread
across her vision. No. No! How could this be real? This
had
to be an
act, just a show, but why did the blood smell real? Why was she trembling so?
She was going to faint. Going to faint right here, but she had to save them,
had to help her slaves, had to—

"Soon they will
scream," Kalafi said. The queen approached and placed a hand on Meliora's
shoulder. "Soon the bull will sing."

Meliora gasped for
breath, forcing herself to suck in air. The world kept spinning around her. She
was going to faint, here before her brother, before her mother, before the
watching slaves. She couldn't. She had to stop this! This had to be fake,
had
to. How could this be real?

Meliora was consumed
with the overwhelming urge to flee. She wanted to rush back into her chariot,
to fly home to her palace, to never emerge again—to hide among her statues,
her jewels, her mosaics and murals, her gardens and her libraries, to never
return into this world. To never see the yokes, the whips, the blood. She was
princess of Saraph. She could leave this place. She could escape all this pain.
She could marry Ishtafel as Mother had commanded, return to her gilded cage,
and—

"No," she
whispered, breath shaking in her lungs.

She could not abandon Kira
and Talana. They were only slaves, it was true. Only mortal weredragons,
creatures no more important than cats or dogs. But they were
her
slaves.
And Meliora could not see them suffer.

Though the sight shot
terror through her, Meliora forced herself to look back at her slaves. At the
bruises swelling across their faces. At the burnt welts on their backs. At the
chains cutting into their limbs. This was real, Meliora realized. Her mother's
soldiers had truly beaten her precious pets.

But I'm going to
save you,
Meliora thought.

She took a step toward
the slaves.

A hand gripped her
shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

"Wait,
daughter!" Kalafi tightened her grip, holding her from behind. The queen
stood several inches taller than Meliora, stronger, thousands of years older, her
hands like vises. "Wait and listen. The first slave is about to
sing!"

Meliora stared, cold
sweat dampening her jeweled muslin dress, as seraphim dragged forth one of the
naked, chained slaves from the corral. He was an old man, haggard, shoulders
slumped and back crooked. One of his eyes vanished into an ugly scar. The
seraphim manhandled him toward the bronze bull.

"Do you know what
his crime was?" Kalafi leaned down to whisper into Meliora's ear. "He
failed to make two thousand bricks a day. He made only half that many. Now he
will sing for us, and you will listen."

Meliora wanted to flee,
wanted to leap forward to help, wanted to do anything but stand here and watch,
but her Mother's grip was iron. Meliora stood, tears in her eyes, watching as
the seraphim opened a bronze door on the bull's flank.

The old weredragon
stared into the bull and tried to resist, tried to free himself from the
seraphim soldiers, but he was so frail he could barely even stand. He tossed
back his head and opened his mouth, revealing toothless gums. He cried out,
voice torn, hoarse, cracking, yet loud enough to roll across the hill.

"Remember
Requiem!" The slave raised his manacled arms toward the heavens.
"Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

"Impudent
reptile!" One of the seraphim guards kicked the man. Meliora grimaced to
hear the
crack
of a snapped rib. The soldiers gripped the slave, lifted
him into the air, and shoved him into the bull. They slammed the bronze door
shut, sealing the slave within.

"He tried to sing
to Requiem," Kalafi whispered, lips touching Meliora's ear. "Now
he'll sing the melodious song of Saraph's glory."

The seraphim guards held
a torch to the pyre beneath the bull's belly. Soaked in oil and stuffed with
kindling, the wood burst into flame at once. Sparks showered out, logs
crackled, and the heat bathed Meliora, so potent she winced for fear of her
eyeballs burning.

The bull's underbelly
began to redden. The heat spread across the flanks, down the legs, across the
lowered head. Malok's eyes burned, and the bull began to sing.

The slave inside was
the one screaming, Meliora knew—screaming as his flesh boiled. But the
screams, passing through the pipes inside the bull, emerged from its mouth in a
beautiful, astral song. The music of flutes, ethereal, a sound like the song of
the seraphim back in the heavenly realm of Edinnu.

And across the hill,
the seraphim began to sing with the bull. Their voices rose together—the
queen's, Ishtafel's, the dozen nobles, all singing to the music, their voices
fair and sad. A song of their lost realm, the paradise their gods had banished
them from. A song of lost fields of clouds gilded in the dawn, of rivers of
silver that flowed through meadows, of trees that bore a thousand kinds of
fruit, of fields that yielded endless crops, a land with no pain, no toil. A
land lost. A prayer never forgotten.

"Beautiful, isn't
it?" Kalafi whispered to Meliora. "The song of our people."

Yet Meliora did not
sing with them. She stared, tears on her cheeks, as the fire burned, as the
bull's song died. When the last note had sounded, the seraphim opened the
bronze door.

Bones and red-hot
chains spilled out onto the pyre.

Meliora looked away,
wincing. Her fists trembled at her sides.

This was no show. The
god Malok. The brutality of Tofet. The looming death of her slaves. It was all
real.

Meliora felt as if her
own ribs were shattering.

Something changed in
her life this morning, Meliora knew. Even if she returned to her palace, to her
life in that gilded cage, she would never forget this place, never forget that
song of her people—a song woven from the screams of Requiem.

"Cook the next
ones!" Kalafi cried, voice shrill. The queen grinned madly, a grin that
showed nearly all her teeth down to the molars. Her cheeks flushed; whether
from the heat or excitement, Meliora did not know. "Toss in the pair! Make
them sing."

The soldiers grabbed
two more slaves—Kira and Talana.

Before she even
realized what she was doing, Meliora tugged herself free from her mother's
grasp, leaped forth, and shouted for the crowd to hear.

"No!"

The soldiers froze,
holding the beaten slaves a foot away from the heated bull. The other slaves,
thousands across the hill, turned to stare. The noble seraphim, standing before
their chariots of fire, whispered amongst themselves.

"No," Meliora
repeated. Her chest shook, her knees knocked, but she forced herself to raise
her chin, to square her shoulders, to keep speaking loudly. "Stop this.
Enough. Enough!"

The soldiers stared
between Meliora and the queen. Tears were flowing from Kira and Talana's bruised
eyes, along their broken cheeks, and to their bloody mouths.

"I'm going to save
you," Meliora whispered to them. "I'm going to bring you home."
She spun away from the bull to face the queen. "Mother, enough of this.
I've learned this lesson you tried to teach me. Release them and end
this."

The queen was resplendent
in the sunlight, clad in a kalasiri woven with precious gems and golden beads. A tiara topped her blond hair, shaped as a serpent with ruby
eyes. Her wings spread wide, blindingly white in the sun. Kalafi—Queen of
Saraph, fallen angel—smiled in delight.

"You would have me
renege on my promise?" Kalafi tilted her head, jewels jangling. "I
vowed to teach you a lesson, daughter. You defied me. You refused to marry
Ishtafel. You robbed our family of a future heir. So I will rob you of your
slaves. Sing with us this time, Meliora! Sing with the bull as the weredragons
burn!" The queen nodded at the soldiers who held the slaves. "Place
them in the belly of Malok."

The guards began to
drag the slaves back toward the bull.

"No!" Meliora
shouted.

She raced across the
hilltop, leaped forward, and placed herself between the bull and the slaves.
Her heart thrashed. Her hair whipped in the wind. The sparks from the flames
bit her ankles, and the heat of the bronze bull—only inches away—baked her
back. She glared at the seraphim before her.

"Return these
slaves to their homes," she told the seraphim, then spun toward the queen.
"I refuse to let this happen. Yes, I defy you again, Mother." Her
heart seemed ready to escape her throat, her knees shook wildly, and breath
rattled in her lungs, but she refused to back down. "End this."

Kalafi's smile
vanished. She stared at Meliora, and the amusement died in the queen's eyes,
replaced with cold, murderous venom. Here was a woman who had defied the gods
themselves. What chance did Meliora have facing her?