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

"Hail the red spiral!"
answered the crowds.

"Requiem is strong! Hail
the red spiral!"

Kaelyn looked around her,
feeling like a woman drowning in a sea of steel and hatred.

How?
she wanted to shout. How could so many people worship blood? How
could so many people cheer the torture of children? These were her
people! They were fellow Vir Requis, children of starlight! They
were born to an ancient race that, for thousands of years, had
worshiped the stars and fought for justice. How could they now
scream for blood?

Eyes burning, Kaelyn looked
around at the howling soldiers. Though the slits of their visors,
she saw young eyes. The eyes of boys. Of young women. Many were no
older than her own nineteen years. And Kaelyn understood.

They
were just babes when my father took the throne,
she thought.
And he molded them. He forged their souls into his blades of
darkness. He turned a generation into a machine of murder.

Kaelyn looked up at her father.
The golden dragon cackled atop his tower, wings drawing in smoke and
flame, jaws spraying fire. Kaelyn snarled.

I
will kill you, Father,
she vowed silently.
You will fall. I will restore Requiem to starlight.

The men upon the battlements
twisted winches, and the wheels began to rise on their chains,
leaving trails of blood along the walls.

Now Kaelyn could finally close
her eyes. She wanted to reach out and clutch Rune's hand, but dared
not. She prayed silently to the stars of Requiem, the old and
forbidden gods.

Give
them strength, stars of my fathers. Or show them mercy and let them
die. Please, stars, let them die. Pity the children at least.

Yet could the stars even hear
her? The ash and fire of Cadigus covered the sky. Darkness cloaked
Requiem. The noble kingdom had fallen; the bloodstained empire rose.

The rally ended at sundown.

The troops marched back to their
barracks. Their officers flew as dragons, blowing flames over the
city roofs. The sun sank behind the walls and towers of Nova Vita,
and Kaelyn's work began.

I
will not fail,
she swore in the shadows.
I
will keep fighting. For the memory of those fallen. For the
sacrifice of those suffering. I will do my task. The tyrant must
die.

In the night, she and Rune
marched with the troops. Thousands of boots thudded along the
cobbled streets. Thousands of faces stared forward through slits in
dark visors. They moved through the city like a coiling snake of
steel, each soldier a single scale. At their lead, their
standard-bearers marched with their banners. At their sides, the
city rose: rows of homes four stories tall, barracks of troops,
smithies where hammers rang against anvils, the amphitheater where
Frey executed his enemies, and everywhere statues of the emperor,
fist to heart, eyes watching the city.

No civilians could be seen. The
sun had fallen; the curfew reigned. Years ago, they said, light and
laughter had filled these streets at night. Jugglers and singers
would perform, merchants would hawk wine and pastries, and the people
of Nova Vita would walk under ever-burning oil lamps. Since Cadigus
had taken the throne, only steel filled these streets after dark.
The singers, the jugglers, the merchants—they hid in their homes,
languished in dungeons, or lay buried.

Kaelyn
sneaked a look at Rune. He marched at her side, staring ahead, body
stiff. He did not glance her way. He looked every inch a soldier,
boots thudding and fist clutching his sword, but she saw the fear in
him. She
felt
it.

Be
strong, Rune,
she thought, as if she could transfer those thoughts into him.
Be
strong and we will survive.

They
marched with the Flaming Eye Brigade, a host of ten thousand warriors
stationed here in the capital, tasked with defending Nova Vita. Rune
and Kaelyn's armor, taken from the bodies of slain soldiers, fit
snugly. Their armbands sported two stars each—the rank of
corelis
,
low enough for officers to ignore, high enough to wield some respect
among fellow soldiers.

Everything
is perfect,
Kaelyn
told herself as she marched down the streets.
Our
armor fits. Nobody can see our faces behind these helms. Nobody
knows of the two legionaries we killed. We are nothing but two more
cogs with perfect hatred.

And yet fear pulsed through her,
and every officer she passed sent her heart thrashing. What if
something wasn't perfect? What if somebody found the corpses of the
soldiers she and Rune were mimicking? What if they stood too tall or
short? What if somebody saw their eyes through their visors and
spotted the ruse?

What
if we're caught?

Kaelyn swallowed a lump in her
throat, knowing the answer.

If
they catch us, they won't kill us. They will break us. They will
hang us in the square every year, then heal us, then break us again,
an endless cycle until our minds break too.

She tightened her lips and
gripped her sword. She kept marching with the thousands, passing
from street to street.

Then
we must not be caught,
she told herself.
We
must not fail. We will do our task. We will live. And then we will
flee far away from this place, back south to safety… and to Valien.

They
marched, passing from snaking streets to a wide boulevard. Ahead
rose a fortress all in black, its walls tiled in obsidian, its
battlements topped with cannons and armor-clad dragons. Torches
blazed upon these walls, their shadows dancing like dead spirits
rising from graves. Four towers rose here, capped with merlons like
the teeth of stone giants. The banners of Cadigus thudded upon each
tower, hiding and revealing red spirals.

"Castra Draco," Kaelyn
whispered. "The heart of the Legions."

Its towers dwarfed the buildings
around it. Its halls held three brigades, thirty thousand troops in
all. The generals of the Legions ruled from this place. If Tarath
Imperium was the heart of the empire, here was its iron fist.

Castra
Draco. Center of Requiem's military might.
She winced.
The
place the two soldiers we mimic served.

She glanced around. Thousands
of troops marched, clockwork demons of fire and steel. Boots thudded
in unison. Eyes stared ahead, never moving, never straying. The
fortress loomed above, and Kaelyn swallowed. She could not enter
those dark halls, the place where bones were broken, where souls were
forged, where the wrath of Requiem simmered. In there she and Rune
would have to remove their helms, unveiling their deception. If she
entered that darkness, they would not emerge.

"Come on," she
whispered under her breath. "Where are you, Lana?"

She looked up at the rooftops
along the streets, seeking movement. She kept marching with the
troops. The fortress grew closer, rising like a tombstone for a god.
Soon they were only a hundred yards away. Kaelyn bit her lip and
cursed under her breath. She sneaked another few glances to the
roofs of surrounding homes and shops.

Hurry
up, Lana,
she thought,
chewing her lip. At her side, she saw Rune too searching the
rooftops, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

What if soldiers had found the
woman, friend to the Resistance? What if Lana now languished in a
prison or lay dead?

Kaelyn stared ahead. The gates
of Castra Draco rose only yards away.

We'll
have to escape on our own,
Kaelyn decided and sucked in her breath. Yet how could she? She
marched among thousands. She and Rune moved in flawless formation,
their boots thumping with the others in a perfect beat. If they fled
now, they would be seen. They would be caught. They—

There!

A shadow appeared upon a roof.

Kaelyn sucked in her breath, and
hope sprang in her chest.

The silhouette of a woman stood
above, clad in leggings, tall boots, and a fluttering cloak. In one
hand, she held a banner; her other hand rested on the pommel of a
saber. The clouds parted, and moonlight caught her standard,
illuminating a two-headed dragon, sigil of House Aeternum. The pale
light shone upon the woman too, revealing mocking lips, a mask with
only one eye-hole, and long black hair with a single white streak.

Lady
Lana Cain,
Kaelyn
thought.
My dearest
friend.

"Soldiers of Cadigus!"
the lady shouted from the roof and raised her banner high. "King
Relesar Aeternum returns! See his banner. Hear his call.
Requiem—may our wings forever find your sky!"

Chaos erupted.

The troops below spun toward the
roof. Officers shouted orders. Soldiers shifted into dragons, armor
morphing into scales, swords into claws.

"Death to the tyrant!"
Lady Lana cried above, laughing and waving her flag. "Death to
Cadigus!"

With that, the masked woman
shifted and soared. A black dragon with a white stripe across her
back, she vanished into shadows.

All around Kaelyn, officers
shouted and pointed at the roofs. Dragons took flight. Fire spewed
from maws, lighting the night. Cries and roars rang.

Rune stood staring, frozen in
place. Kaelyn grabbed his arm and tugged him.

"Come on, you woolhead!"
she said.

She pulled him away from the
chaos and into shadows, praying no eyes were watching. But it seemed
everyone was busy shouting, flying after Lana in dragon form, or
watching the commotion—including Rune, who was still sneaking
glances toward the rooftops.

"Come
on
!"
Kaelyn said, tugging him.

They slunk into an alley,
leaving the brigade and disappearing into shadows. Kaelyn began to
scurry deeper into the darkness, her boots now silent upon the
cobblestones. She pulled Rune with her. The sounds of the boulevard
faded into a muffled storm.

A hundred yards into the alley,
Kaelyn found a moldy barrel. She drew her dagger, loosened the
barrel's lid with her blade, and pulled it free. She stood on
tiptoes and gazed inside. Rotten turnips festered there, rustling
with bugs.

"Bloody stars," Rune
muttered and lifted his helm's visor. "Did she have to use
rotten turnips? Why not a barrel of strong ale, or— Ow!"

Kaelyn kicked his leg hard.
"Quiet, Rune, and help me dig."

Standing on her toes, she
reached into the barrel and rummaged through the rotten tubers. Bugs
scurried around her fingers, and she thanked the stars that
legionaries wore thick leather gloves. Rune rooted around beside
her, grimacing.

"Disgusting," he said.
"I think I felt a rat in there. Or maybe a turnip that's gone
fuzzy."

"Quiet!" Kaelyn
whispered and reached elbow deep. She rifled around, then smiled.
"There! I feel it."

She gripped her catch and
pulled, fishing out a bundle of leather. She brushed it clean,
placed the bundle on the ground, and unwrapped it.

She revealed parchment placards,
each about a foot long. Her eyes dampened.

Each poster displayed the sigil
of House Aeternum—a two-headed dragon wreathed in leaves of birch,
the holy tree of Requiem. Above the dragon's heads, inked in silver,
appeared the constellation Draco—the stars of Requiem. Letters too
were drawn upon each scroll:

"Relesar
Aeternum, true king of Requiem, reigns in the south. Join the true
king! Death to Cadigus!"

Beneath this, in smaller script,
appeared the Old Words of Requiem, the forbidden prayer that priests
had sung for thousands of years.

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

Rune stared at the posters and
tapped his chin.

"Not bad," he said.
"Lana did a decent job, though she could have added something
about how I'm also breathtakingly handsome."

Kaelyn sighed. "We're here
to spread the truth to the empire, Rune, not inundate the people with
more lies." She grabbed a sheaf of posters. "Now lift
half of them! It'll be a long night."

"I don't understand,"
Rune said as he stuffed placards into his pack. "Why wouldn't
we just sneak into this city at night? Why bother seeing your father
speak and marching down the streets? We could have just come to this
alley in the first place." He shuddered. "Oh stars,
Kaelyn, the rally… the men he breaks… And we just stood there
and watched."

Kaelyn sighed, rolling up
posters and shoving them into her own pack.

"We needed to be there,"
she said softly. "We need to see, hear, and shout his evil. We
need to know the full rot of his soul." She lowered her head,
still seeing those broken bodies upon the wall, and when she looked
up at Rune, she saw them haunting his eyes too. "One must grasp
the depth of evil before one can fight it."

When they'd packed all the
posters, they crept back to the alley's mouth. Kaelyn heard nothing.
The boulevard seemed barren. All the soldiers had either entered
Castra Draco or flown in pursuit of Lana.

"Fly high, Lana,"
Kaelyn whispered and looked up at the sky, as if she could see her
friend flying there. "Fly far. Thank you."

Her eyes stung. She knuckled
them, tightened her lips, and stuck her head outside the alley. She
peered from side to side. Seeing no one, she grabbed Rune and pulled
him out into the street.

"Now come on," she
whispered to him. "We're just two soldiers on patrol, part of
the Flaming Eye Brigade. Curfew is on, the rally is over, so these
streets should be quiet. If anyone stops us, we're just doing our
rounds, and Castra Draco has our names to prove it."

They began to walk, moving away
from the fortress. Kaelyn had grown up in this city; she'd spent
sixteen years here before fleeing her father's rod and wrath. She
knew these streets like the scars her father had given her. After
walking several blocks, they reached a wide brick building. Smoke
plumed from its four chimneys, and the scents of wine, ale, and
roasted meats wafted. Behind the stained-glass windows, she saw the
shadows of men moving, and she heard them singing hoarse drinking
songs.