A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (14 page)

They howled, blinded and
burning. Before they could spray their own flames, Kaelyn swooped.
She lashed her claws and swiped her tail. Blood sprayed. The tower
guardians screeched, tumbled backward, and crashed to the hillside in
human forms.

Kaelyn hovered above the tower,
tossed back her head, and shot a pillar of flame skyward.

The fire crackled, a blazing
typhoon. Kaelyn looked to the northern forest, heart thrashing.

Six thousand more flaming
pillars rose from the trees. Howls shook the sky. Six thousand of
her comrades—dragons of the Resistance and the canyon—rose from the
forest, roared, and flew toward the city.

Below her, legionaries were
streaming out of the fortress. Kaelyn blew flames, torching the
Regime's banners that hung from the tower. She soared higher and
cried for the city to hear.

"General Gorne is dead!
Lynport is liberated! Legionaries—lay down your arms and live!"
Tears budded in her eyes, and she streamed over the city streets,
roaring her cry. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your
sky. Lynport is free!"

The Resistance raced over the
city walls, wings blasting air. The imperial dragons swarmed from
their fort, leaderless, confused, howling and sputtering flame. The
forces crashed above the streets and blood rained.

 
 
TILLA

She stirred in her sleep, caught
in her nightmare's claws.

"No," she whispered
and kicked her blankets, struggling to wake up, but the dream pulled
her deeper, and the blankets wrapped around her, and Tilla walked
down dark halls while eyes burned and faces floated in mockery.

"Lowborn!" they
chanted. "Lowborn scum!"

Punishers lashed out.
Everywhere she turned, more faces floated, laughing, spitting at her.
Lightning burned her. She ran down the hall, but more of her
tormenters awaited her there. They leaped from every shadow, demon
creatures with masks twisted in eternal scorn.

"I am Tilla Siren!"
she shouted, eyes burning. She had chosen the name of her new, noble
line; it was a strong name, the name of a mythical creature said to
live in Cadport's waters. She shouted it as a charm, a spell to save
her from her lowborn roots, from her shameful past upon the
boardwalk, from all her dirt and misery here in the purity of the
academy.

The other cadets laughed around
her, beautiful youths from noble houses, their blood old and pure,
their highborn accents meticulous.

"Tilla Roper!" they
said, laughing. "Seaside scum. Lowborn whore. Weave us a
rope, Roper!"

Again their punishers lashed
out.

Tilla screamed and fell.
Lightning raced across her, burning her clothes, burning her skin,
crackling her bones.

"I am… Cadet Tilla…
Siren!" she gasped, but tears ran down her cheeks, incurring
more laughter.

They kept burning her. They
hunched over her like vultures over prey, and she wept. And she
begged. And still they burned her.

"Lowborn worm," one
boy said and spat upon her. "Go back to Cadport, peasant."

Her screams echoed through the
black halls of Castra Academia.

Her eyes rolled back, and she
thought she would die.

But
I did not die,
her thoughts whispered in the dream, and her fists clutched her
blankets. She snarled, struggling to rise from slumber, but falling
back in.

I
survived!

No matter how badly the highborn
beat her, Tilla kept training. She did not quit. When they spat
into her meals, she ate sullenly around the spit. When they dumped
chamber pots on her clothes, she growled and washed them herself and
trained even harder. When they beat her, she fought back, and fell,
and hurt, then healed and walked again.

She fought with swords.

She flew as a dragon down dark
halls.

She
learned to plan battles, to break spirits, to
command
.

She was Tilla Siren, a commoner
thrust into a fortress full of the children of nobles, and they
tortured her, and they beat her, but she fought them and every lash
made her stronger.

Every night she clutched the
shield Shari had given her, the shield with her sigil—a cannon
overlooking the sea, a symbol of home.

I
will be like a cannon,
she
swore every night, lying in whatever filth her fellow cadets had
soiled her mattress with.
I
will be strong as iron. I will slay my enemies. I will outlast
sword and fire.
She growled every night as her tears burned.
I
will become an officer.

Tilla thrashed in her bed,
opened her eyes, and sat up with a pant.

Cold sweat washed her, and her
chest rose and fell. Her heart thrashed. She winced and raised her
arms.

"Please, don't hurt me,"
she whispered. "Please. No more."

But no punishers burned her.
Tilla opened her eyes to slits, then let out a shaky breath. She sat
in bed, shuddering. The sheets were soaked with sweat.

"Just a dream," she
whispered. "Just a memory."

She had survived for six moons
in Castra Academia, the great school for the Legions' officers, and
she had graduated first among her class.

I
am a lanse now,
she reminded herself.
I
wear red spirals upon my shoulders. I command. I'm south in Castra
Luna now, far from the academy. I no longer have to be afraid.

She looked down at her arms.
The scars of old burns still spread there. Tilla tightened her
throat.

"Scars make us strong,"
she whispered.

She rose from her bed,
shivering; the chill of autumn filled the night. Her tent was small
and barren, its black walls shuddering in the wind. A hint of light
shone through the tent flap; dawn was near. With stiff fingers,
Tilla approached her table, lit her tin lamp, and held her hands
above it, allowing the flame to warm her.

In the flickering light, she
stared down at the weapon on her table. Her punisher.

Hilt untouched, its tip was
cold, but when Tilla's fingers grazed the grip, the punisher crackled
to life. Lightning raced across the rod's rounded head, red and
creaking like shattering bones. She pulled her fingers back and the
lightning vanished.

I
burned her,
Tilla thought, staring down at the weapon.
I
burned Erry. I burned my friend.

"Damn it, Erry," she
whispered, and her throat tightened. "Why do you still have to
act like a seaside urchin? What else could I have done?"

Tilla's eyes burned, and she
blinked them furiously.

No,
she told herself.
Show
no weakness, not even when alone. Let no pain fill you. You must be
strong to survive.
She squared her shoulders.

"Only the strong will
survive in the Legions," she said, staring down at her punisher.
"I had to be strong, Erry. Scars make us strong."

Yet now Erry was gone, a
deserter from the Legions, an enemy to be hunted and killed. Now
Rune too was an outlaw, calling himself Relesar Aeternum, the heir of
the fallen dynasty.

How had all this happened? Only
a year ago, Rune had been a humble brewer, and she had been only a
ropemaker. And now… now she was an officer in the Legions. Now
Rune had a new name, proclaiming himself true king. Now he fought
for Valien, the man who had slain Tilla's brother.

They
all turned against me,
Tilla thought and clenched her fists, and a lump filled her throat.
None of them understood. None of them knew the law of this land.

"Cadigus reigns, and his
law is the blade, the punisher, and the iron fist," she said,
repeating the words she had learned. "The weak must be
purified."

She took a deep breath, closed
her eyes, and let her own weakness flow away. She let all those
thoughts of home drip from her mind like poisoned blood from a wound.

I
will be strong.

She dressed in her steel armor,
grabbed her sword and shield, and left the tent.

The camp stretched around her,
kindled with the first hints of dawn. In the eastern sky above the
trees, pink tendrils stretched across blue fading to black, and the
stars vanished one by one. In the west, shadows still cloaked the
ruins of Castra Luna, hiding the strewn bricks and fallen walls like
the midnight sea at home. Around her in the camp, the first
siragis—hardened, lowborn warriors—marched between tents. Shouts
rang across the clearing, and soldiers emerged for morning
inspection.

As Tilla walked between the
tents, whatever troops she passed—be they hulking warriors or green
youths fresh out of training—stood at attention, saluted, and
hailed.

She was an officer now. She
bore the red spirals. She was a goddess to them.

When
she reached a dirt square, she shifted into a dragon and took flight.
She flew across the camp, her white scales clattering, her horns
gilded like those of all officers. Below her, tents spread in rows
and troops bustled. Five milanxes mustered here, moved from the
western mountains, five thousand troops in all.

We
will find the Resistance in these forests,
Tilla vowed as she flew,
and
we will crush them.

She
looked across the camp to the northern trees. The white tombstones
rose there. Hundreds of youths from her home lay buried under that
soil. Mae lay among them.

"I will avenge you, Mae,"
Tilla whispered.

She returned her eyes to the
camp. A ring of dragons surrounded a dirt field. In its center rose
a towering tent, large as a house and topped with the banners of
Cadigus. Golden embroidery formed flying dragons across its black
walls. Soldiers guarded the tent entrance, clutching halberds.

Tilla flew toward the field.
She landed before the guards, shifted into human form, and raised her
chin. The guards saluted her, slamming fists against chests.

I
might be only a junior officer,
Tilla thought.
But
I'm the junior officer who saved Shari's life.

She walked past the guards,
stood at the tent entrance, and shouted her salute.

"Hail the red spiral!
Tilla Siren reporting."

The princess's voice came from
within. "Enter."

Tilla stepped inside. Opulence
filled the tent, befitting a daughter of Cadigus. A plush bed,
armchairs, and giltwood divans stood upon bearskin rugs. Golden
vases of wine, platters of fruits and cheeses, and a roast goose
topped a table. Racks of swords, helms, and breastplates stood
everywhere, a collection worthy of an armory, all belonging to the
princess of the empire.

That princess stood clad in
black armor, its plates filigreed with golden dragons. Her longsword
hung at her left hip, her punisher at her right. Her mane of brown
curls cascaded across her pauldrons. Her back was turned to Tilla;
she stood before an easel, staring at a parchment the size of a door.
Upon the parchment appeared a sketch of a castle, its dozen towers
lofty, its walls topped with cannons.

"Castra Sol," Shari
said softly, not turning to acknowledge Tilla. "Fortress of the
sun. It will rise from these ruins, thrice the strength of old
Castra Luna." She caressed the parchment, fingers gloved in
black leather. "It will be mine to command, a glorious castle
built for one purpose—to crush the Resistance."

Tilla took a step farther into
the tent.

"They toppled this fort,
Commander, so we will build one larger and greater. For the glory of
Requiem."

And
for Mae Baker,
she added silently.
For
hundreds of youths from my home.

Shari
turned toward her. Her face, tanned a deep gold, had aged six years
in the past six moons. Shari was only twenty-nine, but weariness
filled her dark eyes, and the first lines of an eternal frown had
begun to frame her lips.

She's
beginning to look like her father,
Tilla thought.
A
face as hard, cruel, and unyielding as stone.

"Tilla, we've received
reports from the south. The news is grim." Shari reached for
the table, grabbed a mug of wine, but did not drink. "We've
been betrayed. House Cain has joined the Resistance. Rebellion
flares in the south."

Tilla sucked in her breath.
"They say Lord Devin Cain is mad! They say he's not left his
canyon since we crushed his last rebellion. Does he fly against us?"
She clutched her sword. "We will crush him again! Let him fly
to us. We will slay him and his men upon the forest. We—"

"Tilla," Shari said,
her voice softer, and ghosts filled her eyes. She winced and her
left arm twitched—the side where she'd lost her wing.

"Commander?" Tilla
whispered, and suddenly fear flooded her.

There
is worse news,
she thought and her innards trembled.

"Valien and Cain have
joined their forces, and they've struck in the south. They've taken
Cadport. The city has fallen."

Every weapon in this tent seemed
to stab Tilla with cold, biting steel that drove the breath from her
lungs.

Cadport
fallen. My home. My father.

She couldn't help it. She
trembled. Red flooded her eyes.

Cadport.
My home. My father.

Her
eyes stung and her breath shook.

"We must fly there!"
she finally managed to say, speaking through stiff lips. "We
will crush them, Commander. I will slay this Valien myself, and
Cain, and the rest of them, and—"

Shari clutched her shoulder and
glared.

"Soldier!" the
princess said. "Calm yourself. Do not forget your station. I
command this garrison. You command a mere phalanx. Steel yourself
and stand straight." Her voice softened, her grip loosened, and
she sighed. "Tilla, I know this news is difficult, but please,
listen to me. Sit and drink my wine. We will not leave Cadport in
their hands."