Crown of Dragonfire (3 page)

"Perhaps I should have
married him," Meliora whispered, eyes stinging. "Perhaps I should never have
raced Ishtafel in the chariots, tried to save Elory from his clutches, led the
slaves in revolt. Perhaps I should have birthed his heir, been a mother to our
child of pure blood. My own mother would still be alive, and I would still be a
princess, still have my wings."

But no. That would have
been only an illusion. That would have been just as much a prison cell. Meliora
knew the truth now—knew that her father was Jaren the slave. Knew that she was
half Vir Requis.

"I will not forget you,
stars of my fathers," she whispered in the shadows. "Not for all the palaces
and gold in the empire. Requiem! May our wings forever find your—"

The lock on the cell
door clattered.

Meliora froze, then
scuttled backward, leaped to her feet, and hissed.

The heavy stone door
creaked open. Torchlight flooded the chamber, brighter than her halo, crackling
and casting out sparks. Meliora winced, staring at the dark, towering figure
who stood in the doorway, wings spread out, head haloed with golden light.

"Hello, sweet sister,"
the figure whispered, voice smooth and deadly like a steel blade, and stepped
into the chamber.

Meliora sneered. "Ishtafel."

He smiled thinly and
stepped closer, the heat of his torch singeing her body. While she was covered
in scratches, bruises, and dried blood, clad in rags, Ishtafel looked more
resplendent than ever. Rubies shone upon his gilded breastplate, the metal
forged to mimic the shape of his bare torso. His hair hung down his back, lush
and golden. A crown rested on his head, mimicking his halo, and a lush cape of
samite hung across his shoulders.

"My, my, but aren't you
a wretched sight." He tsked his tongue. "Filth does not become you, sister. You
were fair once."

"And I thought you
noble once," she said. "Yet I saw the filth within you. I saw the blood of
Mother, the blood of Requiem upon your hands. The blood of my own wings. You
stand before me in gold, but you are covered with more filth than I ever will
be."

He raised an eyebrow. "And
so sweet little Meliora, the princess who once could speak of nothing but
puppies and cupcakes, now waxes poetic about righteousness and evil. This cell
has made you a philosopher."

She shook her head. "Not
this cell but truth. I am no longer that innocent princess, it is true, not
because I languish in the underground but because I know who I am. I know that
dragon blood flows through me."

Sudden anger twisted
his face. His eyes narrowed, the golden irises blazing around his sunburst
pupils. His lips peeled back, baring his teeth like a rabid wolf over meat. He
lashed his hand, slashing his fingernails across her cheek. She yelped.
Ishtafel pulled his hand back, examining her blood on his fingertips. He licked
a drop.

"True." He smacked his
lips. "I do taste the dragon filth. But I also taste the ichor of the
Thirteenth Dynasty, the pure, golden blood of my own lineage. Mother is dead.
No other women of our family live. And that blood must be preserved." He
grinned and licked his lips, smearing her blood across them. "Now that you've
had time to languish in darkness, and now that your slave friends are broken,
you will come to my chamber. You will clean up. You will wear gowns again. You
will feed upon the fine fare your slaves grow. You will wed me, as planned, and
you will bear me an heir."

She snorted. "So you
would have an heir tainted with slave blood?"

"I will not." His grin
grew wider. "You will bear me a daughter, Meliora. And she will bear me a
daughter too, on and on, until the dragon blood is bred out of our line. We are
immortal, my dear, and we can wait. We have time. In a few generations, the
dragon blood will be gone from our family, and the Thirteenth Dynasty will be
pure again. I spent five hundred years battling our enemies, burning out the
impurity from the world. I can spend five hundred more breeding out the
impurity from my family."

"You are insane,"
Meliora whispered.

He shook his head. "I
am a god, sister. And gods strike down their enemies." He reached out his hand
to her. "But you need not suffer. I have punished you, sister. I have punished
you justly, and you have suffered for your sins. But you will find me a
merciful god. Return with me to the palace, wed me, grow my daughters in your
womb, and you will return to your puppies, your cupcakes, your days of careless
wonder. Once more, you will sleep on a bed of silk, giggle in the gardens, and
enjoy a life in the splendor I have built."

She stared at him, eyes
narrowed, and shook her head slightly. "I don't know who you are." Her voice
was barely more than a whisper. "I don't know where my brother is. Where is the
brother who would run with me through the gardens, teach me to fish, teach me
the names of birds? Where is the brother who pretended to drink tea from my toy
cups, who taught me to spit off the balcony, who always laughed at the stupid
jokes I read in my books?" She took a step back from him, and her back pressed
against the wall. Her phantom wings flared—the wings he had cut off. "He is
dead now."

"He is very much alive,
I assure you." He reached out and took her hand. "Perhaps we both have changed.
Yet one thing remains: our duty to Saraph."

She tugged her hand
free. "My duty is only to Requiem. I will not become your wife, and I will not
bear your heirs, and I will not return to who I was. That princess too is dead,
as dead as the man you once were. I would rather choose a life of chains, true
to myself, than a life of lies in a palace."

Once more rage flared
across his face. His halo crackled, and his eyes blazed. "You will have no
chains, sister, only a cell. Only darkness." He laughed. "We are immortals,
Meliora. Enjoy the next hundred years in darkness. I will see you next century
. . . and maybe then you will change your mind."

He stepped outside the
chamber.

Meliora leaped toward
him, shouting.

He slammed the door
shut, knocking her down. She fell onto the stone floor, banging her elbows, and
the door's lock clanked shut, leaving her in darkness.

She pounded at the
door, screaming. "Ishtafel! Ishtafel! Wait!" She fell to her knees, and tears
burned in her eyes. "I changed my mind! Let me out! Let me out . . ."

Yet he would not
answer.

He would not return.

She had been in this
chamber for only a few days, and it felt like an eternity. A hundred years of
solitude awaited her.

Will he really leave
me here for a century? When I emerge, Elory, Jaren, Vale . . . my family . . .
they will be gone. And who will I be? A creature driven mad, a sniveling wreck.

"Ishtafel!" she cried,
scratching again at the door until her fingernails bled. "Ishtafel!"

Nothing but silence
answered her, and Meliora pressed her head against the door. Her halo of
dragonfire crackled above her head, searing the stone.

I am dragonfire.

I am a
daughter of Requiem.

I am
free.

Meliora curled up on
the floor, hugged her knees, and closed her eyes. She imagined herself as a
dragon of gold and silver, feathers ruffling in the wind, gliding in the sky of
her home.

 
 
TASH

She walked through the
labyrinth beneath the ziggurat, holding her hookah of bubbling spice, a warrior
of Requiem armed with smoke and gemstones.

Her anklets jangled
with every step, the gold embedded with topaz. A ring shone on her finger, a
gift from a sailor on a hot night last summer. Her only armor was her silken
trousers and top, and she held her hookah before her like a sword. The green
liquid inside bubbled, heated by embers in a hidden chamber, and purple smoke
rose from the nozzle, dancing around Tash like demons of forgetfulness. It had
been three years since Tash had danced with that demon; she had tamed it, used
it as her familiar, her secret assassin.

I will fight for
you, Requiem, the way I can. Fate made me a pleasurer. I will fight with
pleasure instead of steel or dragonfire.

The dungeons beneath
the ziggurat were deep, a place of many hidden kingdoms. Not only the pleasure
pit hid here underground, but many other domains—the cisterns that stored
water for the city of Shayeen, armories full of lances and shields, stores of
grain and salted meats, glittering halls full of treasures . . . and the city
dungeons. Here in the darkness languished the prisoners of the Thirteenth
Dynasty. Here in the darkness waited hope.

"I will find you,
Meliora," Tash whispered. "You don't know me, but I fight for you."

She thought back to
that day in the gardens, seeing the march through the city. She had sat upon
the lap of a seraph, giggling at his jokes, feeding him grapes, serving the
masters, and she had seen six hundred thousand slaves marching for freedom,
unafraid. She had seen a leader walk before them, rise as a feathered
dragon—Meliora the Merciful. The shame of that day still burned through Tash.
Her people had fought, bled, many died, fighting for freedom, fighting for
Meliora.

And I just watched.
I just fled.

And she remembered
Ishtafel clutching her, fingers still bloody, thrusting into her, mounting her,
taking her like a rabid dog takes a bitch.

Someday I will kill
you, Ishtafel,
Tash silently swore.
Perhaps you are a god of light, but
I serve the stars of Requiem, and their light is soft, cold, impossible to see
in the sunlight, yet stronger than you know.

She reached into her
pocket with her free hand, and she felt the feather there—the feather from Meliora's
wing. A token of hope.

She walked down a
staircase, hookah bubbling, heading deeper underground than she'd ever
gone—deeper even than the pleasure pit. She reached a craggy corridor lined
with torches. Muffled screams rose from ahead, and footsteps thumped. A deep
voice laughed, a whip lashed, and a scream rose again.

Tash paused and gulped.
Cold sweat trickled down her back.

The dungeons.

She forced herself to
take a deep breath, inhaling just a little of the lavender smoke. She would be
brave. She would be brave like the great heroes of Requiem. Like Issari, the
Priestess in White, who shone in the sky. Like King Benedictus who had fought
the griffins. Like Queen Fidelity the Wise who had fought the cruel Templers
and rededicated the halls of Requiem.

Tash was no noble
heroine like them. She was not tall, not proud, not a warrior in armor, not
noble. She was only a pleasurer, no better than a whore, clad in the garments
of her shame. But Meliora was pure. Meliora was noble. And Meliora needed her.

Tash raised her chin
and walked on.

She reached an iron
door set into a stone archway—the entrance to the dungeons. Two seraph guards
stood here, wearing steel armor, holding spears and shields. Their eyes cast
their own light, gleaming through the holes in their helmets.

"What are you doing
here, slave?" one guard said, spitting out the words. She recognized this
one—a fool named Erish.

Tash raised an eyebrow.
"Slave? You called me nicer names last summer, when you guarded the hunting
expedition the nobles took me on. Something about . . . sweet teats?"

She could not see
through the man's helmet, but she swore that he was blushing. "Damn pleasure
slaves got dirty tongues."

She thrust her tongue
out at him. "That's how you like my tongue. I know." She reached into her
pocket, struggling to hide her shaking fingers and the thrashing of her heart.
She pulled out the rolled up scroll and held it forward. "I carry Ishtafel's
seal. He's given me a pass to enter this dungeon. I bring . . . a special surprise,
a gift for the man who guards Ishtafel's sister."

The guard grunted and
grabbed the scroll. "Let me see that."

Tash's heart hammered
as the guard examined the wax seal.

Please, stars of
Requiem, let him believe me. Let him open the door.

A few weeks ago,
Elory—a slave from the bitumen pits—had entered the pleasure pits, had come under
Tash's tutelage. For long hours, Tash had taught the girl the ways of
lovemaking—how to drive a man wild with a nibble to the earlobe, a kiss on the
neck, a stroke at just the right places. And while Elory slept, exhausted from
her lessons, Tash had spent long hours studying the scroll Elory had brought
into the pleasure pit—the scroll bearing Ishtafel's seal. Slowly, whittling
away in the shadows, Tash had copied that seal, engraving its shape—an eye
within a sunburst, surrounded by runes—into one of her rings. She had melted a
hundred candles, made hundreds of wax seals of her own, always tweaking,
adjusting the marks on her ring . . . finally coming up with her own imperial
seal.

Elory was gone now, but
that seal remained, engraved into the ring in her pocket . . . its mark upon
the scroll the guard now held.

The guard stared at the
seal, eyes narrowing. At his side, his fellow guard tightened his hands around
his lance. A vision flashed through Tash's mind—the seraphim flying in their
chariots, descending upon the city, thrusting those lances into thousands of
slaves.

Please, stars of
Requiem. Please, Issari, the Dragon's Eye. If you can hear me from underground,
far in a foreign land . . . grant me aid. Let me fool them. Let me fight with
trickery if I cannot fight with dragonfire.

Finally the guard broke
the seal, tugged the scroll open, and read—the words one of Tash's girls had
written, the only one among them who could write.

Please, stars of
Requiem, let Erish be somewhat literate . . . or illiterate and ashamed to
admit it.

Finally Erish the guard
grunted and rolled up the scroll. He snorted and glanced at his comrade. "Checks
out. That gift to Gron?" He thrust his chin toward Tash. "Her sweet teats."