Dragons Lost (31 page)

She stepped down
another staircase, entering a dingy corridor. The floor here was not tiled, and
the roofs were but craggy stone. The burrow seemed to have been carved into the
living rock. Screams echoed ahead, and Domi smelled blood and human waste.
Another priest rushed by her, holding a bloodstained book wrapped in leather.
Domi had a chance to read the spine: "The Book of Requiem"

She shuddered but kept
walking. Soon she reached a stone archway, its heavy doors open. In the bustle
of priests and guards, she stepped through and entered the dungeon.

A hallway stretched
ahead, roughly hewn from the subterranean rock, and many cells lined it.
Screams echoed and the smell of blood, sweat, and urine flared so powerfully
Domi nearly gagged. Many soldiers stood here, rushing back and forth, talking
and cursing. A priest stood at the back, chanting and praying to the Spirit.

There's room to shift
here,
Domi thought.
Room to become a dragon. To kill them all.

But not yet. If she
shifted here, if she filled the hall with dragonfire, the flames might enter
the cells, might roast Cade and the other prisoners. She had to get closer, to
make sure she stood with her back to Cade, protecting him from her fire.

She raised her chin and
entered the corridor. As she walked, she glanced into every cell, looking for
Cade. She grimaced. Inside the first cell she passed, a whipped man hung from
chains, blood dripping from his lacerated chest. In a second cell, a guard was
laughing as he stretched a woman on the rack; the prisoner screamed and wept as
her arms popped from her sockets. Domi trembled and felt close to fainting, but
she forced herself to keep walking. In a third cell, a mere boy lay curled up
in the corner, not even reacting as rats fed on his legs.

The holiness and
glory of the Cured Temple, here in all its sanctity,
Domi thought and clenched
her fists. On the surface, the High Priestess and her champions spoke of godly
light, of righteousness. Here Domi saw the true rotted soul of the Cured
Temple.

I must save them
all,
she realized, tears in her eyes. Along with her fear, loathing filled
her, deep and hot—loathing for herself. She had been living here for months, a
servant of this evil. She had slept in the bed of Lord Gemini himself, second
born of the High Priestess, letting him invade her body, while here in the
darkness lurked these terrors.

Some of this blood
is on my hands,
Domi thought, tears in her eyes. She raised her chin.
I
will fight this. I will redeem myself. For Cade. For Requiem. For all who
scream here in pain, and for all who cry across the Commonwealth.

She passed by a few
more cells, a few more pits of anguish and torture, until she reached a crowd
of guards too thick to walk through. Two guards were laughing; another spat
into a cell. Domi could not see past their shoulders, could not see inside that
cell, but she heard a soft moaning.

Cade.
Her chest
shook and her heart seemed to shudder.
He's alive. He's hurt.

She had to see him. She
had to move closer, place herself between him and the guards, to protect him.

And then I'll shift.
She dug her fingernails into her palms.
Then I'll fill this whole damn
dungeon full of fire.
Perhaps she would burn the tortured prisoners inside
the other cells. Perhaps that would be a mercy.

She inched closer. "Excuse
me! I'm here to collect the rags. Excuse me!"

Domi began to worm her
way between the soldiers when a hand clutched her shoulder.

"Domi."

Her heart sank. Fear
leaped through her. Domi spun around and saw her there.

Mercy.

The paladin still wore
her fine armor, and Domi saw blood on it. More blood speckled her boot and
fists. Mercy's long, white hair fell neatly down her right side, revealing the
shaved left side of her head. Her lips smiled, but her blue eyes were colder
than the heart of winter, crueler than daggers of ice.

"My lady," Domi said
and began to kneel.

Quick as a striking
asp, the paladin grabbed Domi's neck and tugged her up.

"What are you doing
here?" Mercy hissed. She leaned close and bared her teeth.

Domi wanted to mumble
an excuse, wanted to shed a tear, to tremble, to play the part of a frightened
servant, so confused in this great big temple full of lords and ladies.

Instead, Domi found
herself staring firmly into Mercy's eyes, found herself hissing with the same
rage. "Let me go."

Mercy growled and
tightened her grip on Domi's neck, constricting her.

"You little whore." The
paladin leaned closer, so close their noses almost touched. "Who are you?"

Domi would wait no
longer.

She summoned her magic
and, fast as she could, shifted into a dragon.

Her growing body shoved
Mercy back. Her wings banged against the ceiling. Her claws dug into the floor,
and her scaly flanks slammed into the cells at her sides. She filled the
corridor, too large to move.

But not too large to
blow fire.

And Domi blasted out that
fire.

Her dragonfire shrieked
forward, white hot, casting out red tongues of flame. Through the inferno, she
glimpsed Mercy rolling aside and scuttling forward. Soldiers ran and fell,
blazing. Prisoners screamed.

Domi glanced down,
pausing for air. Instead of fleeing, Mercy had rolled forward, passing under
the fire. The paladin now leaped up, shouting, and drove her sword into Domi's
shoulder.

Domi screamed, whipped
her head aside, and grabbed the paladin between her jaws.

"Die now," Domi said,
driving her teeth into Mercy's white armor, bending the steel, seeking the
flesh, ready to taste the blood and—

Pain drove into Domi's
back.

She opened her mouth to
scream, and Mercy fell from her jaws.

The pain drove into her
again—swords behind her cutting her scales—and she lost her magic. She fell to
the floor, a woman again.

"Weredragon in the
dungeon!" men cried. "Loose weredragon!"

Soldiers charged toward
her from all sides. Men screamed. Domi tried to shift again, and scales grew
across her, and a crossbow fired. Men leaped forward with ilbane, and the
poison pressed against her, and Domi couldn't even scream. All her magic faded.

"Open a cell!" Mercy
shouted.

The paladin grabbed
Domi's hair and dragged her across the floor. Domi struggled to breathe. She
saw stars. She could barely see anything but shadows and floating lights.
Before the darkness covered all, she saw Mercy leaning above her, smiling
thinly.

"Two weredragons with
one stone," the paladin said.

Then her fist drove
forward, and Domi plunged into a land of blood, shadows, and endless screams.

 
 
CADE

"Domi." His voice rattled, barely
more than a scratch in his throat. "Domi . . ."

The soldiers grabbed
him. They tugged him to his feet and pulled him out of his cell. His feet dragged
across the floor. He was too weak, too hurt to walk on his own.

"Domi!"

As they dragged him
across the corridor, Cade looked aside and saw her in a cell. Domi lay on the
floor, unconscious, maybe dead, bleeding from several cuts. Cade's eyes stung.
There she lay—the woman he had dreamed of so often, the woman who had told him
about Requiem. Her red hair spread around her head like another puddle of
blood, and her eyes were closed.

Cade tried to break
free. He tried to rush toward Domi's cell, to break through. He was too weak.
Too many chains covered him; he could not break free, could not become a
dragon. They dragged him onward. He moaned.

Mercy was walking
ahead, leading the way. She looked over her shoulder at him. "Be silent, boy.
My mother wants to see you. Save your breath for her. She has many questions
for you, I'm sure. And save your strength too." She smiled thinly. "You will
need it."

The soldiers manhandled
him onward, and Cade struggled to walk, to place one foot in front of the
other, not to let them drag him. They left the dungeon, rose up a flight of
stairs, and walked through the Cured Temple.

It was a lavish
building. The Temple preached humility and poverty, forcing commoners to live
in huts and wear burlap, but here within the Temple itself, Cade saw splendor. Precious
metals, gems, and marble coated the halls. Murals sprawled across the ceiling,
and statues rose everywhere, depicting ancient druids in flowing robes. Cade
took some satisfaction that his blood dripped behind him, staining the
priceless mosaic floors.

He forced
himself to look away from the wealth, to stare at Mercy who walked ahead of
him. He let everything around him disappear until only the paladin filled his
vision, let all his pain fade until only rage simmered inside him.

I'm going to
kill you, Mercy,
he thought, and a resolution rose in him. Before they
killed him, he would shift. He would become a dragon. The chains were not a
part of him like his clothes; they would not be absorbed into his dragon form.
When he grew into a dragon, the manacles would likely squeeze and squeeze until
they ripped off his hands and feet. He would let it happen, let the manacles mutilate
him. With his dying breath, he would become a dragon and blow his fire, taking
Mercy with him to the pits of afterlife.

And he would do
it in front of the crowd. He would roar his fire for the Commonwealth to see,
and before he died, he would roar one word:
Requiem
.

After what seemed like
miles, they reached a doorway, and the guards released him. Cade stood on his
own, wavering, still bound in chains.

Mercy placed a hand on
his shoulder. "Come, Cade."

She opened the door and
guided him through.

Cade found himself in a
vast chamber, wide as a village square, with a plain floor of marble tiles.
Round walls soared hundreds of feet high; this chamber rose like a shaft,
probably spanning the entire height of the Cured Temple.

In the center
rose a marble column, pale and smooth. Seeing it, Cade lost his breath.

"King's Column,"
he whispered.

Tears filled
his eyes. Throughout
The Book of Requiem
, this column appeared like a
silver strand, connecting all generations of Requiem from its founders to him
here today. King Aeternum himself had carved this column thousands of years
ago, and the legendary Queen Laira—Mother of Requiem—had prayed before it.
Blessed with the magic of the Draco constellation, this column had withstood
Requiem's fall to the army of griffins, the fire of Queen Solina's phoenixes,
and even the cruelty of General Cadigus the tyrant.

A middle-aged woman
knelt before the column, seeming deep in prayer. Slowly, she rose and turned
around. She wore simple white cotton, though the robes were richly woven and
hemmed with silver. Her hair was white, flowing down the right side of her
head; the left side was shaved. Her smile did not touch her blue eyes. Cade did
not need to be told her name; she looked just like her daughter. Here before
him stood High Priestess Beatrix, ruler of the Cured Temple and the lands of
the Commonwealth.

"Hello, Cade," Beatrix
said softly. She looked back toward the column. "Magnificent, isn't it? Over
four thousand years old, and not a scratch on it. No matter how many hammers we
swing. No matter how many men try. The column stands." She looked back at him. "It
will stand so long as the dragon curse exists in the world. Until you and your
kind all perish. Until the Falling." She clasped her hands together. "That day,
the column will shatter, and the Spirit himself will descend to the world."

Cade grunted. "Yes,
I've read
The Book of the Cured
."

Beatrix smiled
thinly. She stepped closer to him and reached out a pale hand to touch his
bruised cheek. She looked over his shoulder at Mercy.

"Daughter, I
told you not to harm him."

Mercy shifted
her weight, armor creaking, and sneered. "He resisted. So he bled."

"Again, you act
like a butcher when I want a surgeon." Beatrix sighed and returned her eyes to
Cade. She brushed the hair back from his brow. "Do you know why the dragon
magic is a curse, Cade? As an impure child, you probably think it magical, a
thing of wonder. You probably grew up flying at night, in secret, the wind
beneath your wings, fire in your maw, feeling so free, so powerful. When Domi
told you about Requiem—oh yes, I know all about Domi—you probably imagined that
you could be like those old heroes. Like Kyrie Eleison who fought the griffins.
Like Rune Aeternum who fought in the great civil war. I can imagine how, for a
boy in a village, a dragon might seem enchanting, magical."

Cade stared
into the High Priestess's eyes. "I'm guessing you're going to explain why I was
wrong."

Beatrix laughed—a
short, trill sound with no mirth or joy. "Because those old heroes, Cade . . .
they all suffered. The hero Kyrie Eleison fought in a world of death, when
griffins hunted our babes, when all but seven of us died. Because Rune Aeternum
knew war and hunger and pain, a Requiem torn asunder. Because even King
Aeternum himself, founder of Requiem, was a man full of grief, his wife and
daughter slain because of their magic. To you, Requiem is a world of myth and
wonder, but to those who lived in it, Cade . . . theirs was a kingdom of
endless war, endless agony." Beatrix caressed his cheek. "We had to abolish
that kingdom. We had to root out that magic. We had to become . . . normal.
Only this way can we live in peace. Only this way can the Spirit come and bless
us. We must all be cured."

Cade stared
into her eyes, and he spoke hoarsely. "You didn't bring me here to debate
theology. You brought me here for death. So do it. Kill me and get it over
with."