Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) (28 page)

Stitchmark took him to that great palace, and Raem walked into his
hall, his horse hoof thudding, his talon scratching. When he passed
by his statue—one of the few statues to have survived the war—he
gazed upon that proud, stone king and laughed. He saw a noble man,
clean-shaven, his limbs muscular, his body pure. When Raem looked
down upon his body, he saw a creature more glorious by far, a
creature more than a man. He kept walking, heading toward his throne.

Angel lay here, her body long as a dragon, her wings draped around
her. She gazed at him with eyes like embers. Like a serpent, she
coiled around his throne. The seat appeared to have been shattered,
and strings of skin and veins held it together like flesh growing
over broken bone. Upon the throne sat a nephil, its eyes large and
green, its body raw and wet.

"Our son," said Angel. "Ishnafel."

Raem approached slowly. He reached out his new left arm, and the
writhing tentacle brushed against Ishnafel's cheek.

"He is beautiful. He is my heir."

When Raem tried to remove his son from the throne, the nephil hissed
and snapped his teeth. His fangs drove into Raem's new arm, but he
felt no pain. He placed the prince in his mother's grip. The child
nursed at the stone breast, the lava flowing down his throat. Raem
sat down, leaned back in his throne, and lovingly gazed upon his
family.

 
 
LAIRA

Laira
stood in the dawn before the communal grave below the mountain.
Boulders topped the hill of crumbly earth, one per vanquished life.
Over a hundred souls lay buried here at the foothills, Two Skull
Mountain forever watching over their rest. Tribesmen of Goldtusk.
Tribesmen of Leatherwing. Many of their mounts, dear Neiva among
them. Grass rustled around this hill of mourning, and birds sang
overhead. The sky was clear, the air fresh, but forever this would be
a place of grief for Laira.

"Goodbye, Neiva," she whispered, the wind streaming through
her hair and fur cloak. "Goodbye, my husband."

She lowered her head, the pain grabbing and squeezing her heart. She
had married Chieftain Oritan to forge an alliance, to bring aid to
Requiem, not for love. In his bed, however, she had found the bud of
that love, found a man who was strong and mighty yet gentle, loving,
kind. She would forever remember how he had gazed into her eyes years
ago, treating her—a mere servant—as an equal. And she would never
forget marrying him, sharing a life with him if only for a day.

Goodbye.

She turned from the grave to look at those standing behind her. The
tribes of Goldtusk and Leatherwing, down to half their size, watched
her with solemn eyes—men, women, children. The wind ruffled hair,
feathers, and fur cloaks. All were silent, staring, awaiting her
words.

The world was so silent, Laira didn't even have to raise her voice
for them all to hear.

"I am Laira, Chieftain of Goldtusk, Daughter of Ka'altei. I am
Laira, Widow of Oritan, Chieftain's Wife of Leatherwing. Today I
stand before a united tribe, and you await my commands." Her
throat felt too tight, her eyes too dry. "I came north as an
Eteerian exile. I suffered for many years as a slave. I rose to lead
your tribes, to become a huntress, a warrior, a chieftain. Flying
with you has been an honor I will never forget." She took a deep
breath, collected her magic, and rose into the air as a golden
dragon. She spoke louder. "Yet today, as we celebrate our
victory and mourn our loss, I must choose a home. I must choose one
path for my heart. Today I am not Eteerian nor a chieftain." She
looked at Jeid; he stood across the crowd in human form, looking at
her with gentle eyes. She spoke softly, more to him than to anyone
else. "Today I am a daughter of Requiem." She looked back
at the tribesmen. "Choose a new leader amongst yourselves. Fly
as one tribe, and I pray you find your own sky. Mine lies above the
forests of Requiem and the marble column that rises in the
starlight."

She rose higher in the sky, letting the wind flow across her, fill
her nostrils with the scent of the free air, and billow her wings.
The other dragons rose around her. Thirty remained alive, no more.
Thirty souls to forge a kingdom. Thirty souls to birth a nation. Jeid
flew at her side, the largest among them, the sun bright against his
copper scales. Maev flew at Laira's other side, solemn and silent.

Behind Laira, every other dragon held a body in his or her claws.

Fur cloaks shrouded the dead, the fallen Vir Requis. In death they
had regained human forms, their magic forever gone, their lights
forever dimmed. Laira looked at them—survivors and fallen. She met
Dorvin's gaze, and he stared back at her with wet, red-rimmed eyes.
In his claws, the silver dragon held the body of his sister, of the
druid Alina, and Laira felt lost, for the guiding light of Requiem
had fallen dark.

They flew on the wind.

They left the mountain and tribes behind. They sailed over swaying
plains, rolling hills, silver rivers, and misty forests of birches
and maples. They flew through day and night until they saw it
ahead—King's Column rising from the forest. The heart of Requiem.

They landed on a hill, the column rising in the horizon, a golden
pillar in the sunset. And here they dug more graves. And here they
mourned a loss too great to bear. By the graves of Requiem, a young
dragon slain too soon, and Eranor, the first priest of starlight,
they buried their new dead. And now her tears did flow. Now Laira
wept, kneeling before the graves, her hands upon the soil.

"I don't know how I can go on without her," Dorvin said,
voice choked. The young man's cheeks were pale, his eyes haunted, his
cheeks covered in stubble. "She was the light of Requiem, a
beacon sent from the stars to guide us home. To guide me." He
lowered his head. "Goodbye, Alina, my sister. I love you."

Her golden hair still stained with the blood of their battle, Maev
approached Dorvin. The tall, gruff woman, perhaps the greatest
warrior in Requiem, embraced the young man, and her eyes dampened.
She kissed Dorvin's cheek and whispered comforts into his ear, and
the two stood upon the grassy hill, the wind in their hair, holding
each other close.

As Laira stood here, she felt more than loss for their dead. Many
lights had gone out; two were missing.

"Where are you, Issari, my sister?" Laira whispered. She
had already lost a brother; to lose her sister too would a pain she
could not bear. "Where are you, Tanin, Prince of Requiem?"

The two had gone south to claim a distant throne. They had never
returned. Laira looked south as if they would appear upon the horizon
as she waited, a white dragon and a red one, a sister and a prince,
the two she needed with her here. It was a dream, perhaps a fool's
dream, and deep inside her Laira feared that they had fallen too,
that their bodies would remain across the sea, leaving her always
doubting, always empty, a shell of who she could have been.

Return to me. Please.

As she gazed at the horizon, she thought she saw a dragon there, a
vision, a wish woven into a daydream of her sister coming home.
Laira's breath caught in her throat. She narrowed her eyes.

She turned to Jeid who stood beside her. "Jeid, do you see it?"
Her eyes dampened. "A dragon from the south."

He nodded. Laira shifted and took flight. She flew toward the distant
figure, hope kindling inside her. Issari! Issari returned! She—

No.

Laira felt her heart freeze and shatter within her. The dragon flying
toward her wasn't white like Issari. His scales were a pale blue, the
color of robin eggs, and one of his legs was too small, barely larger
than a human leg. The young dragon—he was even smaller than
Laira—panted in the air, smoke puffing out from his nostrils in
short spurts. He seemed close to exhaustion, and his scaly skin hung
loosely over his bones.

"Requiem!" he cried out. "I seek Requiem. I—"

His eyes rolled back and he dipped in the sky. His magic left him,
and he became a human boy clad in rags. He tumbled toward the ground.
Laira raced forward and caught him in her claws.

She descended, shifted back into human form, and held the child in
her arms. He gasped for breath. Jeid landed beside them, claws
digging ruts into the hill, and also returned to human form. Others
joined them, surrounding the child. The boy lay in Laira's arms, his
skinned tanned brown, his eyes black, his frame almost skeletal. His
left arm and hand were small as a babe's, hanging loosely from his
torso.

"Have I . . . have I found Requiem?" He licked his dry
lips, drank from a gourd Jeid held above him, and coughed. "I
flew from Eteer. I seek the land of dragons. The land of my people."

Laira stroked the boy's hair. "You found Requiem, my child. You
found your home."

Tears filled his eyes. "She told me it would be here. The Lady
in White. The Daughter of Taal with the Silver Palm."

Laira's breath caught in her throat. "A Silver Palm? Do you mean
an amulet embedded into her hand?"

The child nodded. "A holy woman. A seraph from the sky. Issari."
Tears streamed down his face, drawing lines through grime. "With
her was a great Prince of Dragons. They entered the desert, and they
will bring light to the world. They will deliver us from darkness.
They will heal the sky."

His eyes closed and he fell into slumber, and Laira held him close,
and a hint of hope, a flutter of light like a firefly on a moonlit
night, filled her breast. So many had died around her. So many
nightmares filled her mind. But her sister was alive and Laira
laughed, her tears of relief falling onto the child she held.

 
 
JEID

Beneath
the marble column, the birches rustling around them, King Aeternum
wed his bride.

They had no druid to join their hands. Eranor had fallen; so had
Alina. But night had fallen and the stars shone above, reflecting in
the marble of King's Column, and holiness filled this place, and Jeid
knew this marriage was as real as the starlight, the marble, and the
heat of dragonfire.

He had no fine cloak, no bright armor, no garments for a king. As
always, he wore his shaggy old furs. As always his hair was too wild,
his beard too long, his weapons too coarse. He did not feel like a
king today, only like Jeid Blacksmith, an outcast from a village, a
broken man hiding in a canyon. He looked at the people who gathered
before him in the night, holding clay lanterns, the few survivors of
Requiem. They all stared at him, the light painting their faces, and
in their eyes was love for him, devotion to their king.

I took the name King Aeternum,
he thought.
A noble name.
The name of a great leader to be remembered for eternity. But I still
feel like Jeid. I still feel lost.

The pain swelled inside him, the pain of all those who had fallen.
His wife, slain by the cruel Zerra. His father, Eranor, who had
fallen defending the escarpment. His daughter, little Requiem, whose
name now lived on in their kingdom. So many others, the people he was
supposed to lead, the people he had brought here, the people he was
so scared for.

Doubt might fill me,
he thought,
and too much fear for any
man to bear, but for them I will be King Aeternum. For them I will be
the leader they need.

The crowd parted, whispering and bowing their heads, and from the
darkness she emerged—his bride.

When Laira had first come to him, she had been only half
alive—starving, wounded, feverish, a fragile thing barely clinging
to life after years of abuse. He had watched her grow into a warrior,
then a chieftain, and now before him he saw a new Laira. He saw the
woman he would forever fly with, the light he would join to his. She
walked toward him, smiling softly, staring at her feet. She wore a
fur cloak and a necklace of beads, attire as humble as his, but she
was beautiful to Jeid. A garland of flowers crowned her head of raven
hair; that hair, once sheared short, now grew down to her chin. When
she reached him, she looked up at him, her eyes huge and green and
lit with starlight. Her lips—slanted from an old injury—parted, and
she whispered to him, her voice so low only he could hear.

"I have loved you since I first saw you, Jeid. I will love you
forever. Always will we fly together."

He kissed those lips, and the people raised their lanterns around
them, and the lights glowed like the stars.

The dragons of Requiem worked through the summer, flying to the
mountains in the north, cutting out stones, carving, building. Around
King's Column they laid down more tiles, and more columns rose,
sisters to the first pillar of their kingdom. Porticoes rose among
the birches, soaring hundreds of feet tall, forming the skeleton of
what would become a palace, the heart of a nation.

As the palace grew from the forest, so did their number.

The first new dragons arrived on a clear summer night with no moon, a
husband and wife from the eastern plains. Three days later, on a warm
evening, seven dragons flew in from the distant, snowy north where no
plants grew and ice formed the walls of homes. By the summer
solstice, a hundred dragons flew above the halls of Requiem, a
hundred souls no longer lost, blessed by their stars, joined
together.

The palace was not yet complete; only half its columns stood, and no
roof topped them. The winds blew into the hall, and birch leaves
scuttled across the marble tiles. It would still be many moons,
perhaps many years, before the halls of Requiem shone in all their
glory. That did not stop one Vir Requis, a young hunter with dark
eyes, from spending that summer carving and polishing, working an oak
into a throne of wood, its branches and roots coiling to form its
shape. On that summer solstice when Requiem welcomed its one
hundredth dragon, Dorvin took his creation into the hall of his king,
and he placed the throne upon the tiles between the columns.