A Day of Dragon Blood (11 page)

She knelt now in her garden, stubbornly fighting a losing war against dandelions which had invaded her rows of herbs.
Even the plants fight their wars,
she thought wryly. She kept tugging at the weeds until her fingers were raw and her robes covered with soil. When she surveyed her work, she saw that she had put but a small dent into the yellow invasion.

Once children had run across this lawn, she thought. Once Lyana and Bayrin had fought here with wooden swords, their feet tearing up whatever she had planted and dragging mud into the house. Once the stray dogs Bayrin would adopt—Adia had never understood where he found so many—would dig through her flowerbeds and eat her herbs. Once laughter and light had filled these gardens. Today this was all that remained: weeds and silence.

Abandoning her floral war for another day, Adia left the garden. Sunflowers and lilac grew around her door, wild and untamed, their leaves perforated with insect bites. They too needed care she could not give them. Her door was painted green and silver—some in Requiem thought them blessed colors—and when Adia stepped through this doorway, more silence greeted her.

She walked through her house and began to aimlessly work—sweeping a corner here, polishing a mug there. As she wandered the halls, she found the silence unbearable; it engulfed her like a white demon. There were too many rooms in this house upon the hill, too many halls, too many corners where memories whispered.

Three children had once filled this house with light, she thought. But Bayrin now lived in the palace, guarding his princess; Lyana now spied in the south, in such danger that Adia lay awake most nights, struggling for breath; and her sweet youngest child, Noela, still slept under her grave upon Lacrimosa Hill. No more laughter. No more clacking of wooden swords. No more muddy footprints, or scraped knees, or nights of stargazing with cider and roasted walnuts. Only this: empty rooms and silence.

Why had she come to this place? She had work to do in the tunnels: jars of preserves needed to be labeled, and swords needed to be hung on racks, and scrolls needed to be placed on shelves. She had healers to train at her temple, young and frightened girls who had never stitched a wound, sawed through a crushed leg, or comforted a dying man. She had stars to pray to: the constellation Draco, stars of her fathers, guardians of Requiem.

And yet today she had chosen this place, this home she had shared with her husband for... how long had it been? Adia shook her head in amazement when she counted the years. Twenty-nine summers had gone by since she had married Deramon and moved into this house on the hill. She had been only a youth then, not yet twenty, and the world had seemed so bright to her, Deramon so strong, her house so full of warmth and wonder.

Empty rooms and silence; it was all that remained.

But no,
she thought. Memories remained, moving through these halls like ghosts: Bayrin as a young boy, wild and impossible to tame, scratching his name into every wall; Noela first laughing, a mere moon before she had laughed no more; Lyana squealing as she tugged her brother's hair and fled when he pretended to be a griffin. Adia could still see Bayrin's name upon the walls, though it had been twenty years, and she could still hear the echoes of her daughters laughing and crying and calling for her.

She entered her bedroom, a sparse chamber of unadorned walls, a simple bed topped with white sheets, and no ornaments but for a basket of dried flowers upon a table. Adia walked to a window and looked outside at the burnt forests. She smiled softly. Those memories were kind, yet they too were fragile. Should Queen Solina fly to this hill, she would topple these empty halls and silent rooms, and then those memories too would die. Nothing would remain of this place but bricks and ash, and all the dandelions that plagued her would lie as charred dust.

She looked at the city outside; from here, she could see half of Nova Vita roll across hills to the walls and forests. She was High Priestess, the Mother of Requiem, and all those souls below were as children to her. All those memories would perish, and all those lights would fade.

"It is madness," she whispered. "Five thousand Vir Requis soldiers, most of them mere farmers, bakers, and shepherds... against myriads of wyverns and a hundred thousand desert warriors."

And yet what else could they do? Stock their supplies. Train their warriors. Pray.

"And walk through our homes," she said softly. "Relive the memories. Savor the light of life for one last day."

She heard the door open across the house, the clink of armor, and the heavy footsteps of her husband. Soon Deramon stepped into the bedroom. When Adia looked at him, she marveled at how more white now filled his beard; only last year, that beard had been bright red, and only a few white strands had invaded it. Now for every red hair, a white one grew.

Adia touched his cheek. "Deramon," she said softly and kissed him.

He removed his breastplate, then hung sword and axe upon the wall. She helped him unclasp the rest of his armor: vambraces upon his arms, greaves upon his legs, pauldrons like shoulders of steel, and a coat of chain mail. When finally he stood in nothing but a woolen shirt and pants, he looked so small to her, his arms scarred. Once she had thought him a bear of a man, a mountain of muscle and grit.

The years had softened him; they had done the same to her. For a few years now, Adia had allowed no mirrors in her home. She did not want to see the lines that grew under her eyes, the white that invaded her own black hair, and the new weight that coated her bones. When she first moved into this home—
twenty-nine years, stars!
—many called her the fairest woman in Requiem, a tall and willowy beauty with midnight hair and eyes like magic. Today her hips were wider, her legs blue with veins, her mouth less likely to smile.

Does he think me ugly?
she wondered as she looked at Deramon. She knew that some lords, when they crossed their fiftieth year, took concubines—young, pretty things for secret nights. On days like these, when death loomed, would he seek out last comforts?

"It has been nearly thirty summers since we moved into our home," she said to him. "The years have kissed my hair with white, softened my flesh upon my bones, and drawn lines of memory upon my face. But today I will love you like we used to love—with all the fire we would kindle in our youth. I will take you once more into my bed, like the first time, for this may be the last time."

She doffed her robes, stood naked before him, and saw his face soften.

"The years did not mar your beauty," he said, "but deepened it. When we wed, I called you the fairest flower in Requiem; that you are still." He cupped her cheek with his large, rough hand and kissed her lips. "Now and always."

She took him into her bed. She made love to him—with the fire and passion of their youth, and with the slow burn of what they had grown for so many years. She cried out to him. Today was a last day; she savored every breath, every touch, every whisper. When their love was spent, she lay against him and kissed him.

"I love you, Deramon," she whispered. "After Noela died, I know that I forgot that. I know that my love fled you then; all love fled from me. But I love you deeply, fully; I am yours always, and I will be yours in the starlit halls. I am yours in our life and death."

The sun began to set and she slept in his arms. Tomorrow fire would burn; tonight she lived twenty-nine years of laughter and starlight.

 
 
LYANA

She slammed against the cage bars and howled.

"Mahrdor!" she shouted. Her voice filled the solarium. "Mahrdor, free me! Open this cage or the fire of Requiem will rain upon you!"

The birds that filled the aviary shrieked and fluttered. Finches bustled in their hanging cages, beeping. A macaw squawked and bit at the bars of its own prison. A horde of green conures flew from perch to perch, their cages swinging. All had smaller, humbler cages than her own. All hung upon walls or between plants in corners. Lyana's own cage stood in the center of the chamber, the golden centerpiece of Mahrdor's collection. She was his prize pet.

"Mahrdor!" she shouted.

No one but the birds answered. Lyana kept slamming against the bars, but they would not dent. When she scratched at them, the gold peeled back to reveal iron. She tried to shift into a dragon again, but as soon as scales began to cover her and her body grew, the bars shoved her back into human form.

Finally, when her body was bruised from banging against the bars, she fell to her knees. She lowered her head, letting her hair cover her eyes, and gritted her teeth. A deep terror festered inside her. Mahrdor had known—he had known all along—and now Elethor would be flying to Ralora Beach... flying to nothing but waves and sand.

He will leave only the City Guard in Nova Vita,
she knew.
Only my father. My brother. A few green youths they had trained. They will die.

The fear rose in her like flames would rise in her dragon's maw. She snarled and glared through the bars at the glass panes above. The sun was beginning to set. How long until Solina's army flew?

"I have to escape," she whispered. "I have to warn Elethor. I will not be the one who lets Requiem fall."

She slammed against the bars again. They bruised her skin. She howled in frustration and fell back down. Her eyes burned and she clenched her fists to stop them from trembling.

"I have to escape," she whispered again. "I won't let Solina murder my family. I won't let Mahrdor imprison Princess Mori like he imprisoned me." She growled. "I will escape!"

She kept slamming against the bars until the sun sank, darkness filled the solarium, and she saw nothing but a faint glimmer of moon through the glass ceiling. With a wordless shout, Lyana sat down, pulled her knees to her chest, and lowered her head.

"I'm sorry, Elethor," she whispered.

She tried not to think of home. Remembering would be too hard. Yet in the darkness, she could not stop the memories from rising like dreams. She saw the gardens of the palace, a lush haven where she would walk with Elethor and talk to him of politics and warfare and heraldry, then catch him giving her a warm look and smile. He would pull her close and kiss her cheek, and she would struggle and call him a blockhead for ignoring her words, but then capitulate and let him kiss her under the trees. She saw Bayrin again, her oaf of a brother, sneak into her chamber to draw rude pictures on her shield, place frogs in her bed, and once—she shook her head to remember it—hide a snake in her drawer of undergarments. She thought of her parents, and of her friend Mori, and her squire Treale Oldnale, and a lump filled her throat. She could not stop a tear from falling.

In the darkness, she saw the acid coat them—Elethor, her family, and her friends. Like Silas at the palace, they would scream, and their flesh would melt, until they lay as sticky bones with anguished skulls.

She placed her head against her knees. She tried to stay awake, but sleep still found her, and dreams emerged in the darkness. She no longer huddled in a cage, but hung in a cocoon of cobwebs. Nedath, Guardian of the Abyss, scuttled toward her—a rotting girl with the body of a centipede. The demon licked and bit her, and Lyana screamed and wept. She swung on the cobwebs, and dozens of creatures swung around her, shriveled skin clinging to spines, their heads shrunken like those in Mahrdor's chambers, their toothless gums smacking.
Count the screws! Grow sideways like the little hairs of skeleys.

Cold wind blew.

A sun raced between clouds.

She walked through King's Forest outside her city, stepping daintily between conifers ancient and gnarly, her feet as snowflakes upon a carpet of fallen needles. As ten thousand magpies sang, she traversed the hilltops, and there she came upon a lion of the woods. A noble creature was he, with soft fur the color of light and paws that left no prints. She reached her fingers into his mane, and when she looked upon herself, she saw that her armor had become a pixie homespun of grass and fur, old leaves and strings of golden hair.

"O, King of all Beasts," she whispered into his ear, and lay beside him, and there he licked her lily hands and chanted blessings upon her.

"Climb onto my back, fair maiden of these pines, and lay your head upon mine," he said, and Lyana climbed onto him. He ran across the hills and took her to a faerie court where stone balustrades surrounded a pool of twigs and cyclamen petals. A sword of stone lay upon an old shield there, encrusted with kings' blood, and on its blade silver runes told of want and lacking.

King Lion laid his head upon the shield, and kissed the stone blade so that his lips bled, and anointed Lyana with a kiss. He sang.

Queen of blood

Lie upon the grave of kings

Child of shattered metal

And light

He seemed as though he would sing more. He forgot the words.

In the woods...

In the woods Lyana wept. In the woods she prayed for life, she who had been marked to die. In the woods a giant boy with the head of a moose disassembled her methodically, neatly unscrewing arms, legs, her head, laying the pieces out before him. He blinked his eyes, wet eyes the size of saucers, long lashes like oily curtains.

"Daughter of Eleison," he said, his voice like a grunt, the groan of a rutting beast. She was a tiny doll to him. His furry hands would not leave her, arranging and rearranging her pieces upon the earth of this land. This land...

So beautiful an animal...

Her blood seeped into the pinecones.

Through her city she walked, houses like boxes, stained hands, snarling teeth and fear so thick in the air she coughed, choked, and fell to her knees.

O, King Lion! King of all beasts!

She ran from door to door, but each was barred to her. She sought her mother and father, but she found only puddles on the ground full of floating teeth. In the puddles she saw the face of her dancer—hair platinum, eyes hidden behind a scarf, face dyed gold. Tiana. Her eternal twin.