Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (15 page)

She walked between
jeweled vases and statues and stood above the bed, staring down at her
slumbering daughter.

A rich, embroidered
blanket covered Meliora, but Kalafi could see the burn marks stretching up to
her exposed shoulders—the burns endured in the bronze bull to save her
precious slaves.

You are beautiful,
daughter,
Kalafi thought.
Your hair is a river of gold, your lips are
ripe fruit, your wings are clouds in sunrise. I thought that my purity would
sear away the slave's blood, that you would be as I am . . . yet his blood
still taints your heart.

Standing above the bed,
Kalafi drew her dagger.

Meliora stirred in her
sleep, mumbling something about fires that burn, about pain and song.

"I must do this,
daughter," Kalafi whispered. "If the slave blood spreads through you,
one day you will discover their magic. The magic to become a dragon. To rise
against me. To burn us all."

Meliora kicked in her
sleep, brow furrowed. "Run, Kira! Run, Talana! I saved you . . . I saved
you . . ."

With a deep breath,
Kalafi raised her dagger above her sleeping daughter.

"Mother,"
Meliora whispered, eyes still closed. "You saved me, Mother. You saved me
from the fire. I love you. I love you so much. Forgive me, Mother."

Tears fled Kalafi's
eyes. She dropped the knife. It thumped onto the bed.

I love you too, my
daughter.

The tears streamed, and
Kalafi could not stop the memories—her slave knowing her, her husband dying at
her hands, her daughter born, sweetest Meliora, smaller than the other babes
yet just as beautiful.

"I will keep you
pure," Kalafi whispered. "I will cleanse the weakness from you."

She turned away. She
left her daughter's chamber. As she walked down the corridor, Kalafi's hands
balled into fists, and rage simmered in her belly.

Meliora would have to
see that slaves were unworthy of sympathy, that they had no hearts, no
feelings, that they were barely better than beasts. At dawn, Kalafi would make
the creatures work harder, doubling their workload. She would insist that the
weak be culled. That the old and frail were burned in pits of fire.

"You wanted to
save them, my child," Kalafi whispered. "But you will see them ground
into the dust like the worms that they are."

 
 
ELORY

She tiptoed through the
shadowy ziggurat, unchained for the first time in her life, holding her scroll
before her like a shield.

As a child, Elory would
hop at night between the huts where the slaves lived, as fast as she could move
in her hobbles. She'd stretch out her arms, pretending to be a dragon, a magnificent
beast flying through canyons. The thousands of huts had spread out, forming a
great labyrinth, yet Elory had never gotten lost, not even navigating the
darkness for hours.

Here, the innards of
the ziggurat formed a maze far more convoluted.

She walked up a
staircase—it was still strange to walk on stairs, which she had never seen in
Tofet. Lanterns glowed on the walls, illuminating murals depicting seraphim
battling sea serpents. With every flicker of the lamps, Elory started, sure
that the seraphim on the walls were real, that they were about to strike.

Finally the staircase
emerged from the underground, and Elory found herself walking along a colonnade.
A wall rose to her right, built of sandstone bricks cobbled together with the
bitumen she had spent her life hauling. More murals appeared here, showing
scenes of tigers, hippos, and birds of every kind among rushes and palm trees.
To her left stretched a portico of columns, exposing the open night. Between
the limestone pillars, she saw a dark stream, lush gardens, and the lights of
the city.

Elory paused and
stared.

Several seraphim guards
stood in the dark gardens, still, silent, facing the city. They did not see
her, all their attention focused outward.

I can escape
,
she thought.
I can sneak between them, disappear into the city, find my
family again.

Her hand trembled,
crinkling her scroll so loudly she thought the guards would hear. Her heart
thudded even louder, pounding in her ears. And why should she not escape? She
was small and fast. She could vanish into shadows in the night, leave this place.
She perhaps could not escape Saraph itself; a great wall rose in the north,
blocking her passage to the distant ruins of Requiem, and only one slave—the
legendary Lumen—had ever scaled that wall and lived. But Elory could still
flee the ziggurat at least, still find her family in Tofet.

And leave my sister?
Elory thought.

She closed her eyes.

She had never seen
Meliora before, the fabled Princess of Saraph, daughter of Queen Kalafi.
Daughter of Elory's own father, the humble slave. But she had heard tales of
Meliora a thousand times. Her father would whisper of her at night, making
Elory vow not to tell, not to repeat the story, telling her that even Meliora
herself did not know that she was half Vir Requis. The seraphim soldiers in
Tofet would speak of Meliora too, singing her praises, worshipping her name,
calling her a deity of beauty and endless piety.

"She doesn't know
that I'm her father," Jaren would whisper to Elory at night, telling her
tales of her famous half sister. "Meliora thinks that her father was the
late King Harash. She doesn't know that she's half Vir Requis, and she doesn't
have the magic to become a dragon. But someday, Elory . . . someday a child of
Requiem will sit upon the throne of Saraph. Someday your sister will rule the
world."

And now I must find
that sister,
Elory thought.
I must tell her who she is. I must beg her
for aid. Not just for me. For my father. For my brother. For everyone suffering
in chains.
She turned away from the gardens, from the path to freedom.
I
will not escape while my people suffer, while I can find them a savior.

She kept walking, found
another staircase, and climbed.

She found herself
walking down a dark corridor, leaving the hot night air behind her. Lanterns
glowed on the walls, illuminating polished tiles. Engravings covered the walls,
depicting scenes of seraphim slaying dragons, felling the halls of Requiem, and
bearing collared slaves back into Saraph. In the land of Tofet, it was a tragic
tale—the fall of Requiem, the breaking of a proud nation. Here, in the palace
of Saraph, the story appeared heroic, the engraved seraphim handsome and proud,
the dragons rabid and cruel, the slaves hook-nosed and hunched over, ugly
demons thrashing in their collars like beasts.

At the sight of the
engravings, Elory's heart wrenched.

Requiem is real,
she thought.
It has to be real, if even the seraphim engraved it. We will
fly there again, free, no collars on our necks. We will find our sky.

As she kept walking
down the corridor, the scenes continued to roll across the walls, showing piles
of dead dragons and triumphant flights of flaming chariots. After walking for a
hundred yards, near the end of the scene, Elory saw an engraving of a towering
column. It soared all the way to the ceiling, dead dragons lying at its base. If
engraved to scale, it must have soared hundreds of feet tall in real life.

Elory paused and
stared.

"King's
Column," she whispered.

This was only an
engraving, of course, paling in comparison to the true King's Column from the
tales. In the stories her father told her, King's Column rose in the heart of
Requiem, the pillar around which the kingdom had been built. They said that
King Aeternum himself, founding father of Requiem, had raised this column in a
birch forest five thousand years ago, that since that time the kingdom of
Requiem had worshiped it. They said that the Draco constellation itself, the
stars Elory could not see from this land, blessed the column, that it would
stand so long as Vir Requis lived in the world. Indeed, even in this engraving
in the halls of Saraph, seraphim were attacking the column with lances and
arrows, unable to topple it, even as lesser columns lay shattered at its feet.

"So long as a single
Vir Requis lives, the column will stand," Elory whispered. She hesitated,
then gingerly placed a hand against the engraved column. The limestone was cold
and rough, not polished marble like the true column, but she imagined that she was
touching the real King's Column, that she felt its magic flow through her.

You are blessed,
child,
a voice seemed to whisper within her.
You are a child of
starlight. We watch over you from the stars. Always, Elory. Always.

Elory bit her lip, eyes
damp, hand against the column. She felt the ancient magic, a warm, soothing
feeling that flowed through her. Her collar kept that magic at bay, not letting
her summon it, but it filled her nonetheless like bitumen lying under the
surface, waiting to be drawn. Even here, centuries after the fall of Requiem,
captive and collared, the old magic filled Elory.

A magic of dragons.

"Requiem!"
she whispered. "May our wings forever find your sky."

"Slave!" The
voice boomed down the corridor. "What are you doing there? Where is your
night pass?"

Elory spun away from
the wall, heart leaping into her throat. She gasped to see two seraphim guards
marching toward her. Their sandals clattered against the floor's polished tiles,
and their halos' light reflected against their burnished breastplates and
helmets. Their shields displayed the Eye of Saraph, and their spears dipped to
point toward her.

Struggling not to faint
from fear, Elory raised her scroll. She held it before her, her own weapon, the
only weapon that could save her in the bowels of the ziggurat.

She knelt before the
seraphim, lowered her head, and held out the scroll.

"Here is my pass,
my lords! It bears the seal of Prince Ishtafel himself. He commanded me to bear
this scroll to his sister—unopened."

She pulled back the
scroll, afraid the guards would grab it. If they demanded to read it, they
would read Ishtafel's orders that she report to the pleasure pit.

Thank goodness you
don't know how to read, Tash,
Elory thought. Unable to read the contents,
the pleasurer had seen no point in breaking the seal. Perhaps, with this seal intact,
the scroll still rolled up, Elory might just make her way through.

The soldiers stared at
the seal, and their eyes darkened. Their wings stiffened.

"Prince Ishtafel's
seal," whispered one.

Elory nodded. "I
must deliver this scroll to Princess Meliora. Will you allow me to continue on
my way, my lords?"

The seraphim glanced at
each other, fear in their eyes. They nodded. "Go!"

They continued walking,
passed by her, and quickly vanished into shadows.

Elory breathed out a
shaky sigh of relief. She trembled, and cold sweat dripped down her spine. She
had almost lost her life. She had almost lost the hope of Requiem.

We need a savior. We
need one who can remove our collars like Tash removed my shackles—who can save
me, who can save a nation. We need you, Meliora, the sister I've never met.

Standing here in
darkness, alone, afraid, lost in the heart of her enemy, Elory raised her eyes
and stared up at the dark ceiling. And there she saw it. Tears flooded her
eyes.

"The stars of
Requiem," she whispered.

It was only an
engraving, an image of the northern sky. The Draco constellation was small,
barely visible, a few stars worked into the stone, filled with silver, their
shine dull. One constellation among a hundred. Her stars.

Our stars.

Our sky.

Elory raised her chin
and kept walking, new strength in her heart, and as she walked she made a vow
to herself. A vow she would cherish like the dream of Requiem.

"I will not just
save myself, sparing my body from the cruelty of Ishtafel." The stars
seemed to shine in her eyes, perhaps only her tears. "I will save all of
you. I will save Requiem. We will see that sky again, and we will fly under
those stars as dragons."

She kept walking
through the palace until she found another slave, an old woman moving through
the halls with a basket of laundry. The elder gave Elory directions, and she
walked on, asking again a few stories up, this time from a boy slave who was
sweeping the floor. In the shadows of night, as the seraphim slept, the slaves
were everywhere—washing, dusting, polishing.

"Remember
Requiem," she whispered to them.

They nodded, afraid,
glanced around for their masters, then answered the prayer. "Remember
Requiem."

As she passed by a
window, Elory saw that she was so high up now that she could see Tofet, just a
hint on the horizon. A shadow. A darkness where only the odd candle lit the
night.

Remember Requiem, my
people,
she thought, staring at them, at the hundreds of thousands crying
out in chains.

Already she saw trails
of lights, clay lanterns held in trembling hands—the slaves leaving their
huts, heading to their work. Dawn was only two hours away, and then the
seraphim too would wake, filling the ziggurat's halls.

She turned away from
the window. She kept walking until she reached a golden door where stood two
seraphim guards.

Meliora's chamber.

Elory raised her scroll
toward the sentries, showing them the seal, her amulet of power.

You gave me this
seal, Ishtafel, so that I could enter the pleasure pit, so that I could train
to pleasure you,
Elory thought.
But you gave me the key to every chamber
in this palace.

The guards stepped back
and Elory entered the chamber of her princess, her mistress, her sister.