A Dawn of Dragonfire: Dragonlore, Book 1 (23 page)

That chair is for me,
Lyana knew.

A portrait of King Olasar of Requiem hung upon the wall, framed in giltwood.  Somebody had smeared blood across it, giving the king horns and a forked tongue.  The eyes had been gouged out.  Words were scratched across the canvas, and Lyana read them, a shiver running through her.

At the table of lost souls

A feast awaits the withering

Nedath's cursed seek a cure

For skin, flesh, and bones decaying

Feed upon our sweetest meats

Your tainted blood again shall bloom

Crave and eat the lesser treats

And rot forever in our room

"What does it mean?" Elethor asked, standing beside her.  He was pale, and his dark hair clung to his damp forehead.

Lyana looked back at the feast covering the table:  roast ducks, fresh fruit, pastries, breads…  Would one of these heal her?

"What is the sweetest meat?" she asked.  "Feast upon our sweetest meats, and your tainted blood again shall bloom.  Does that mean that if I eat the right food, I'll be cured?"

Elethor shivered.  "Eat the lesser treats, and rot forever in our room."  He gestured at the Shrivels who gasped upon the chairs.  "That must be what happened to them.  They ate the wrong dish."

Heart hammering, Lyana walked to the table.  The scents of the feast filled her nostrils.  Her left arm dangled at her side, a flap of useless skin, its bones so brittle now, no wider than a porcupine's quill.  When she looked at a golden bowl, she saw her reflection.  Already her left cheek sagged, the skin gray.
     "What should I eat?" she called, turning to the Shrivels on the seats.  She grabbed one and shook it.  Its skin was clammy, and its spine rattled.  "What did you eat?"

The creature's head flapped from side to side.  It gasped and sucked its gums.  "Eat, child, eat the treats, join us, count with us…"

Tears stinging her eyes, Lyana tossed the creature aside.  It slapped against the floor and squirmed.  She grabbed another Shrivel.  She shook it, and its heart pulsed behind its clear skin, shooting black blood down a single vein.

"What do I eat here?" she demanded, tears on her cheeks.  "Tell me!"

The Shrivel whispered, and its eyes shed black tears.  "Please, light one, please, tell him, tell him to turn, he has to turn it, he has to turn the
screws
, please tell him!"

She tossed this creature aside too and spun toward the table, trembling.  Her left leg shook, and when she took a step, her foot pulled out from her boot.

"Lyana!" Elethor cried.  He ran toward her and held her, and she gasped, clinging to him.  Her sock fell off, revealing a shriveled foot, no larger than the foot of a baby.  Her toes curled inward, white and brittle.

"Oh stars, Elethor, stars," she whispered.

"Eat something!" Elethor said.  He pulled her toward the table.  "Eat… what is the sweetest meat?  Duck?  Veal?  Ham?"

Lyana looked at the feast.  For the first time, she saw that drool covered the dishes.  The marks of toothless gums filled the geese, the ham, the fruit.

The Shrivels had tried eating these foods,
she knew. 
They all chose wrong.
  She raised her head and looked at the empty seat.  She trembled, wept, and held Elethor tight.

"Please, Elethor," she whispered.  "Please, don't let him turn the screws, please, tell him,
tell him
."

She tried to say more, but felt a tooth come loose.  She spat it out, and she wanted to sink her gums into the meat, to feed, to count, to line things up, to…

No!  No, not yet.  You are not a Shrivel yet.
  She fumbled toward the table, tossed her sword down, and lifted an apple with her good hand.  Even that hand was shrivelling; it looked like the hand of an old woman.  She raised the apple to her lips.  Was this the fruit?  Was this the sweetest meat?

I will feast upon you… I will feast upon your sweet meat…

The words echoed in her mind, and Lyana gasped.  She had heard this before!  She had hung in cobwebs in Nedath's lair.  The great demon had bitten her shoulder, wrapped her webs around her, and whispered and cackled in her ear. 
You will be my sweet meat, child, I will feed upon you….

"It's the Shrivels!" she shouted.  She turned toward them, trembling.  "It's not the food.  Those are just lesser treats.  This is Nedath's Feast, and she eats what lies on the chairs, not the table."

She stepped toward one seat, where lay a Shrivel with hairy tufts on its hanging skin.  Her right foot pulled out from her boot, skin and bones twisting and rotting, and Lyana fell to the floor.  She reached out her right arm, which was now thin as a twig, and grabbed the Shrivel on the seat.  She pulled it down to the floor, like pulling down a wet cloth.  Ignoring the nausea that twisted her belly, she bit into the creature.

It was stringy and cold, like biting into raw chicken skin.  She forced herself to bite, though her teeth were loose, and she chewed, swallowed, bit some more.

"Lyana, don't!" Elethor cried, and she heard the terror in his voice, but she ignored him.  She had to keep eating.  She dug her teeth deeper, and liquid exploded in her mouth.  The Shrivel flapped, screaming and squirming, and she kept biting and chewing, eating it alive.

It is the sweetest meat,
she thought. 
I am a huntress, a feeder, a creature of darkness, and—

Starlight blazed.

Above her shone the Draco Constellation, the stars of Requiem, her homeland.  Hot tears flowed down her cheeks, and she gasped, shook, blood on her fingers, blood on her lips.

I am a creature of starlight,
she knew.  
I am… I am Lyana!  I am a knight of Requiem.  I am a daughter, a sister, a warrior.

She rose to her feet, the dead Shrivel hanging from her mouth.  She spat it to the floor and cried for her betrothed.

"Elethor!  Elethor, where are you?"

He ran toward her.  He held her, shook her, touched her cheek.  Tears filled his eyes.

"Lyana, I'm here!  You're changing.  You're healing.  Can you see me, Lyana?"

She kept gasping for air, and the chamber swirled around her.  She saw the hanging things move and laugh and swing, and Nedath's fangs, and that black hill with the black rose, but… she also saw marble columns rising from a forest of birches, and she heard harpists play, and she saw—

"Dragons!" she said, digging her fingers into Elethor's shoulders.  "I see dragons, Elethor, herds of them.  They fly over our home."  She wept.  "We are from Requiem.  I am Lyana.  You are Elethor.  Don't forget that,
never
forget."

She trembled so violently, and he held her so tight, not letting her fall, not letting her forget herself, drown in that dark place.

"You are Lyana Eleison, daughter of Deramon and Adia," he said, stroking her hair.  "You will not forget.  You will see dragons again.  We will return to Requiem."  He held her tight.  "We will return, and we will save our home, and we will destroy this place with fire."  He kissed her forehead and touched her cheek.  "You are healed, Lyana."

She turned to face the golden dishes and saw her reflection.  Her red curls fell around her shoulders in a mane.  Her skin was once more white, young, and strewn with freckles.  Her limbs were strong again.  She pulled her boots back on, lifted her sword, and marched toward the doorway.

"Let's go, Elethor," she said, her voice cold.  "Back to the bodies outside."

She walked through the darkness.  Soon she stepped back into the tunnel where bodies hung on meat hooks, snake eggs in their bellies.  They howled and smacked their lips, drooling.

"Feed us!" they cried.  "Feed us, child of starlight!  You promised."

Lyana took several steps to where the tunnel widened, ten feet between the walls.  It would be a tight squeeze, but Lyana narrowed her eyes.  She would do this.

"Stand behind me, Elethor," she said softly.  She pushed him behind her.  "Go farther back.  Fifty steps.  Go."

"Lyana, are you sure?" he said, and from the softness in his voice, she knew that he understood.

She nodded and looked into his eyes.  She saw something new there, something she had never seen when he looked upon her: warmth, caring… even love.  It made her eyes sting, and she couldn't help it.  As the bodies shrieked around them, she touched his cheek and kissed his lips.

"I'm sure, El," she whispered.  "I'll do this.  Now go."

He nodded and walked down the tunnel into the darkness.  The bodies lined the tunnel in front of Lyana, screaming on their hooks, thrashing their limbs.

"Feed us ourselves!" they demanded.  Some began to eat their own limbs, coating their teeth with blood.  The eggs inside them squirmed.  "You promised!  You promised!"

Lyana took a deep breath, lay down on her stomach… and shifted into a dragon.

Wings burst from her back and slammed against the tunnel ceiling.  She pulled them close to her body.  That body grew scales and ballooned until it pushed against the tunnel walls.  Her tail flapped behind her.  Fangs grew from her mouth, fire filled her maw, and with a howl, she shot a stream of flame.

The jet blasted the bodies.  They screeched.  The tunnel shook and rocks fell from the ceiling.  They screamed and screamed as they burned, and the eggs inside them popped, and small snakes fled only to burn too.  Lyana could not believe how long they screamed.  They screamed as their flesh charred, until nothing was left but bones, and still they screamed and thrashed.  She thought that they would never die, and she blew all the fire inside her, until finally their screams faded to whimpers.

"You promised," the charred remains begged.  "You promised to feed us.  You are cursed, daughter of Requiem! Your kingdom is cursed!  We will seek our vengeance.  Your land will turn to our darkness!  We will find your kingdom and we will twist it!"

With a last howl, their bones shattered, and they fell to black dust.

Lyana crawled forward, craned her neck around, and blew flames through the doorway.  The dragonfire crackled into the white banquet room.  Inside, the Shrivels screeched, voices high and twisting.

"She burns us!" they called.  "Black!  Pain!  She turns the screws, skeleys.  She counts the pain.  Count the hairs that burn sideways, Withered Ones!"

A few Shrivels came crawling from the room.  They squirmed until the fire consumed them and they collapsed.  They lay as crisp, blackened things, stared up with melting eyes, then crumbled to ash.

Lyana let her fire die, and silence filled the tunnels.

She shifted back into a human.  She lay in the ash, shaking, smoke rising around her.  Elethor rushed toward her, helped her up, and she embraced him.  She stood for long moments, her head against his shoulder, his arms around her.

"Elethor," she said softly.

He pushed back a curl of her hair.  "Lyana."

She swallowed and stared at him.  "It's time to find that Starlit Demon.  I want to leave this place."

He nodded.  They walked into the darkness, swords raised, smoke curling around their boots.

 
 
ADIA

She tried to run past her husband's soldiers.  They held her—broad men in armor, their eyes hard.  She tried to push them aside, but they stood firm.

"Let me through!" she demanded, glaring at them.  "I am High Priestess of Requiem, and I command you move aside."

Adia was a tall woman, and she knew that men often whispered of her stern eyes, her cold face, her commanding voice that could wither flowers.  Yet none of that held sway in these tunnels, as men clashed and cried and died ahead in the darkness.  She looked over the men's shoulders and saw their comrades pile rocks and wood, sealing the chambers above—the library, the wine cellar that had become their war room, the armory where Solina had burned all those Adia had labored to heal.

"I'm sorry, Mother Adia," one of the soldiers said, eyes lowered.  "Your lord husband commands it.  The upper tunnels have fallen, from the library to the armory."

"It is no longer an armory!" Adia said.  "It ceased being an armory once you donned your armor, and once we started moving the wounded in.  It's a hospital now, and I'm a healer, and you will let me through."

She was about to shove them again when she felt a hand on her shoulder.  She spun around, glaring, to see her husband.  Dust covered Deramon, painting him gray.  Blood trickled from a wound on his shoulder, thick with dirt.  Dents and scratches covered his armor, and welts ran down his cheek.

"The upper chambers have fallen," he said, voice low and gruff, but tinged with softness.  "They're dead, Adia.  They're gone."

She spun back to the soldiers, then back again to Deramon, and felt close to panic.  She forced herself to stand still, to take deep breaths, to ease the hammering of her heart.  Her eyes stung and her belly felt so cold and heavy, as if ice filled it.

I swore to heal them,
she thought. 
They depended on me.  I shouldn't have left them.  I shouldn't have gone to sleep while they burned.  Now the hurt are gone, while I, the healer, linger.

She turned and faced the other direction, staring into the darkness.  Survivors huddled before her, lining the walls.  There were so few of them.  So many had not managed to escape the upper chambers.  From behind her, she heard the cries of the Tirans, clashing steel, and a scream.  A voice cried out the words of Requiem—"May our wings forever find your sky!"—torn with pain.

"There are still Vir Requis alive up there," she whispered, a tremble running through her.

Deramon nodded, grim.  "They're beyond our help now."

The voice behind her rose in a scream—a cry of more anguish than Adia had ever heard, even in her hospital.

"They're torturing our men," she whispered.

Deramon held her shoulder and began leading her away.  "We can no longer help them, only pray.  Come with me, Adia."

How could she just leave this place?  How could she abandon those Vir Requis who still lived beyond the line of battle, cut and broken and tortured by Tiran steel?  And yet she walked, head raised, eyes staring ahead.  She would pray for those still left behind… pray that death found them quickly.