Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (29 page)

"I've flown across
the world, Mother." He licked his lips and sucked up a hanging strand of
meat. "I killed the ice beasts in the northern pole, and I slew the
griffins of the east, and I defeated so many enemies, Mother. Demons that would
haunt your nightmares if you only saw a vision of them—and I fought them in
their underground pits. Gods upon mountains, carved of ice, with pulsing hearts
in their frozen breasts, creatures whose gazes would freeze and shatter your
bones—I shone my light upon them, and I shattered them." He stepped
closer, leaving a trail of blood. "And I slew dragons, Mother. I faced an
army of a million dragons, the greatest army in this world, and I watched
thousands of seraphim die around me, but I slew them. I defeated the enemy. And
yet . . . and yet those dragons still live. Beyond the river. Here in our
palace. And . . . in my sister."

Kalafi rose from the
pool, wincing in pain. Her wound dripped pus. She grabbed a robe and covered
herself, stood on the edge of the pool, and stared at her son. "You sicken
me, Ishtafel. Your wars are over. You won them! Yet you prowl through this
palace as if it were a battlefield—this palace that your father built—slaying
my own slaves. Shedding blood upon priceless jewels. Acting like a beast among
civilized souls and—"

"My father?"
Ishtafel frowned and nodded. He looked around him. "Yes. My father built
this palace. The king. A noble man, far nobler than me or you, Mother. A man
who cared for the purity of our race, of our dynasty, of our legacy."
Ishtafel contemplated the blood on his fingers, rubbing them together.
"And yet you betrayed that purity. You took a slave into your bed."

Kalafi snorted.
"Do you think I don't know—that anyone doesn't know—how many slaves you've
bedded?"

"Bedded,
yes." Ishtafel nodded. "But I was always careful. Whenever their
bellies swelled with my children, I took care of the problem. Do you see,
Mother? My . . . what did you call it? Beastliness? That quality preserved our
blood. That quality had our greatest enemies fleeing before my hosts. That
quality built us an empire. You and father fell from paradise." Ishtafel
clenched his fist, letting the blood drip between the fingers. "I built us
a new paradise."

Kalafi snickered.
"I don't recall blood staining the floor in Edinnu."

Ishtafel continued as
if he hadn't heard her. "Do you know, Mother, that you almost ruined
us?" He emitted a short burst of laughter, a sound like a snapping bone.
"I almost married Meliora. I almost placed an heir in her belly. In the
belly of a half-breed." He stepped closer, and suddenly his face changed,
becoming a demonic mask, and his voice rose to a howl. "I almost fathered
a monster!"

Kalafi nodded, stepping
toward him until she stood only inches away from her son. "You did,"
she whispered. She placed a finger against his lips, covering it with blood,
then brought her finger to her own mouth and sucked up the coppery liquid.
"You almost fathered a monster, Ishtafel . . . a child like you. A child
vicious. A child with no respect for the gods. For Edinnu's memory. For the
light of Saraph." She spat out the blood. "All you are is a warrior.
You will never be a king."

He stared at her in
silence, face frozen, a mask of stone. His eyes were dead.

There is no humanity
to his eyes,
Kalafi thought.
There is no soul.

Slowly that face
changed, twisting into something resembling a hideous smile.

"But you're wrong,
Mother." When his grin widened, she saw broken teeth in his mouth—not his
own. "I will be king. Dawn rises upon a new ruler of Saraph. Farewell,
Mother."

She hissed and tried to
leap toward her side table, toward the blade that lay there.

She was too slow.

His hands pressed
against her chest, shoving her, and she fell.

Time was too slow.

She fell for hours, she
thought. She fell for years. Perhaps she had been falling since that day, since
that war she and her husband had never stood a chance to win. She had fallen
from the sky that day, hurt, bleeding, cast out from Edinnu, and still she fell
. . . through blue skies. Through golden rain. Through ending and rising eras, through
betrayal, through grief, through a lost daughter.

I'm sorry, Meliora.
I love you.

The skies of Edinnu
shone above her, the gilded clouds in dawn, the meadows with those flowers
whose names she no longer knew, those trees of forbidden fruit, the land she
had never forgotten, had never stopped trying to raise again here upon this
cruel world, this place of so much hatred, so much endless pain.

She fell.

She fell from paradise.

She fell and she hit
the floor, and her head hit the edge of the pool, and as she slid into the
water she knew that her head had broken. That her skull had cracked. That she
would not rise again, that this wound too would not heal, but that soon the
pain, the guilt, the never-ending sadness would end.

I fought the gods
.
Her eyelids fluttered.
I fought in a great war such as my son would never
know. I die at that son's hands. Queen of an empire, the woman who stood up to
the Eight and resisted them, I die cracking my head on a wet poolside.

She laughed.

She sank into the
water, and blood rose from her, coiling, dancing, dancing with her, dancing the
eternal dance, and she danced with them, with the spirits of demons and the
ghosts of long gone years.

 
 
MELIORA

As she had a thousand times,
coming home from strolls in the gardens or prayers at the temples, Meliora
stood before the ziggurat of Saraph.

A thousand times, she
had come here clad in fineries, her hair perfumed and brushed by her slaves,
her body shining with jewels. Now she wore rags. Now her head was shaved. Now
iron shackles circled her ankles. If not for the tattered, burnt wings that
grew from her back, she would have appeared as any other slave.

For now I am a slave,
she thought.
Now I am a child of starlight.
Now I am mightier
than I've ever been.

Behind her they stood,
flowing down the Boulevard of the Victorious from ziggurat to the city gates, hundreds
of thousands of slaves.

No—not slaves,
she thought.
Comrades. Vir Requis.

Silence cloaked the
city. Even with a nation behind her, with countless seraphim watching from the
roofs of homes, Shayeen was silent. Not a breeze blew and not a bird sang. The
sun beat down upon a still city.

Meliora raised her
chin.

"Queen Kalafi!"
she called out, staring up at the balcony. "Queen Kalafi, do you hear?
Come speak to me!"

Her voice sounded
almost too loud, echoing across the silent city. She thought that all her
people, spreading across the miles, could hear.

Not a seraph or slave
stirred. Not a soul emerged onto the balcony. The ziggurat loomed above her,
its stairs stretching up its limestone facades, the massive bricks hauled here
by slaves hundreds of years ago. Two colossal statues framed the staircase,
carved as women with the heads of cats, ancient protectors of royalty. Its
platinum crest shone, and the eye upon it—the Eye of Saraph within the
sunburst—gazed down at her from a thousand feet above, reflecting the
sunlight, nearly blinding Meliora.

"Queen Kalafi!"
Meliora called again. "Come speak to those whom you enslave. Come hear
those who demand their freedom. Mother! Come speak to your daughter."

Still—only silence.
The world seemed frozen around Meliora.

A few chains rattled
around her. She glanced to her side to see slaves shifting their weight,
clenching and unclenching their fists. Only her family kept staring ahead at
the ziggurat, still, faces blank.

Meliora looked back
toward the palace and raised her staff.

"Hear me, Kalafi
of the Thirteenth Dynasty, Great of Graces, Queen of Saraph! I am Meliora. I am
a daughter of Requiem, and I am a daughter of Saraph. I grant these people
freedom from chains! I will lead them north to their stolen homeland as I've
led them here to your palace. Grant me the key to their collars! Grant me the
key, for we are a free people, and we will no longer serve as slaves, no
longer—"

She gasped and bit down
on her words.

A chariot of fire
emerged from a tunnel on the ziggurat, hundreds of feet above, and rose to shine
in the sky like a second sun. Its four firehorses reared, wings casting off
sparks.

From this distance, it
was hard to see. Meliora made out barely more than fire and light beams. A
figure stood within the hovering chariot, wreathed in gold, halo crackling and
wings spread wide. And—

Meliora hissed.

The figure threw
something down from the chariot.

A ball flew through the
sunbeams, leaving a trail of gold, tumbling down and down, and finally slammed by
Meliora's feet where it shattered, spilling its innards.

Meliora took a step
back and couldn't help it. She screamed.

On the ground before
her, shattered into several pieces on impact, was a woman's head. Half the face
remained, enough for Meliora to recognize her.

"Mother," she
whispered.

Elory screamed too and
stepped back, covering her mouth. Vale cursed and Jaren whispered a prayer.
Across the crowd of slaves, men and women whispered and mumbled and a child
wept.

Meliora could barely
hear them, barely see them.

Mother . . .

Perhaps her life had
been a lie. Perhaps the old king had never been her father. Perhaps Ishtafel
had never been a true friend, only one who craved her flesh. But here—here
before her, these remains . . . this was her mother. Her true mother. The woman
who had grown Meliora in the womb, birthed her in blood, raised her.

Memories flooded her
again, as they had in Tofet, but these were not memories of dragons. She
remembered a beautiful, angelic mother, rocking her, singing to her softly
songs of old Edinnu. She remembered carefree days in the gardens, chasing her
mother between the fountains, catching her, laughing with her, always laughing.
She remembered a proud queen, teaching Meliora how to walk with pride, how to
be beautiful, how to be royal, how to be proud.

In the past few days,
Meliora had learned to hate her mother, learned to see a tyrant, but she could
not erase years of love. Not before this horror.

My mother is gone.

Slowly, Meliora balled
her hands into fists.

She raised her head
from the remains on the ground, and she stared up at the flaming chariot that
hovered far above, and she saw him there.

"Ishtafel!"
she shouted, voice torn with rage, rolling across the city.

He raised his hand.
"It is I!"

The sun rose to its
zenith, casting its beams down upon him. Standing in his chariot, he spread his
wings wide, a golden god. A killer. A king.

Meliora growled and
shifted into a dragon. She soared, the air whistling, rising in a straight line
until she hovered before the chariot. Not a hundred yards away, blood stained the
ziggurat's platinum facade where Vale had hung.

"What have you
done, Ishtafel!" she cried, beating her wings.

He stood before her,
hands stained with blood. "I did what you could not! I did what I've been
doing for centuries." A grin split his face, revealing red teeth.
"Conquering. I conquered the world, Meliora. Did you really think I would
let another rule it?"

Meliora hovered before
him, scales chinking as she beat her wings. She stared at him, shaking her
head, not recognizing him. Who was he? Who was this creature? Not her brother.
Not the man who would bounce her on his knee, who would play ball with her in
the gardens, who would listen to her prattle on endlessly about her dolls and
puppies.

This has always been
him,
she realized, flying before the chariot.
The other him, the one who
danced with me, who laughed with me—that was a mask. Here is the Ishtafel that
Requiem saw five hundred years ago, that countless other enemies saw before
they fell. Here is my true brother. Here is the true gilded, rotted heart of
Saraph.

"You're
right," she said. "I could not kill Mother. But I killed a man in
Tofet. And I killed Shani the overseer. And I will kill you."

She sucked in air and
let flames rise in her belly, prepared to blast her fire.

Standing before her in
his hovering chariot, he smiled thinly and pulled a key out from his pocket. A
long, crimson key engraved with golden runes. He held it before her.

"Did you know,
Meliora," he said, "that dragonfire is hot enough to melt metal? Even
an ancient, magical key to open ancient, magical collars."

Meliora sneered and
swallowed her flames. She sucked in air. The key! The Keeper's Key! The key
that could open the collars of her people, that could give them freedom, that
could take them back home, that—

"You want this,
don't you?" Ishtafel smiled thinly. "It's the only one of its kind in
the world, do you know? Yes, the power this key has—to let dragons dig for
bitumen, to haul stones, and . . ." Ishtafel frowned. "Do you know,
sister? I do believe that's all this key is good for. Doesn't seem like very
much, does it?" He shrugged. "More trouble than it's worth, it would
seem to me. Oh well."

With that, he closed
his fist around the key, crumpling the metal in his hand.

"No!" Meliora
shouted and flew forth, reaching out her claws.

Ishtafel grinned,
lifted a shield and lance from his chariot, and thrust the blade toward her.

She roared out her
flames, and her dragonfire blasted against his shield. His lance drove into her
shoulder, and Meliora howled in pain.

"Meliora!"
somebody cried below, but she could barely see them, barely hear them; the
other Vir Requis stood a thousand feet below, unable to shift into dragons,
their hope gone, the key crushed.