Dragons Lost (8 page)

She lowered her head,
showing submission, and began to back away into her cellar.

"No!" Gemini shouted. "To
me!"

He lashed his whip.

The tip crackled with energy,
blue and searing, then hit her shoulder. Domi yowled. It felt like a bolt of
lightning hitting her. She stumbled back, looked down, and saw that the
lightning lash had cracked her scale.

"Lost your saddle!"
Gemini said, grinning now, and lashed the whip again. "You won't lose any more
saddles under my rule."

He lashed her again and
again, cracking her scales, and her roar echoed through the chamber. She wanted
to bite him, to tear him apart. At her sides, the other firedrakes screeched
inside their cellars, banging against the bars. And still his whip flew.

Finally, sweat
drenching him, he relented. He hung the whip back on the wall and wiped his
brow.

"Now into your cell!"
he said. "Go. Good firedrake. Good. I taught you who's master today. Don't you
forget this lesson. Show any other sign of aggression toward me, any sign of
disobedience, and I will make today feel like a caress."

She backed up into her
cell, her legs shaking. Her scales had cracked and blood seeped from between
them. Once she was in the cell, Gemini tugged a lever. The portcullis slammed
down, nearly hitting Domi, sealing her within.

Gemini gave her a last
look, smirked, and turned to leave the cavern. He took the last torch with him,
leaving the pit in darkness.

With Gemini and the
light gone, Domi lowered her head. All across the cavern, the other firedrakes
screeched madly; she saw no buckets of feed, and they must have felt as hungry
as she was. She sighed.

"I chose the life of a
firedrake," she whispered into the darkness. "But not like this. Not
underground. Not with Ventris gone, with Lord Gemini torturing us for his
sport."

Some nights, like tonight,
Domi just wanted to burn them all.

Some nights, like
tonight, she felt that it would be better to escape the Temple, fly free, and
roar for freedom even if all the hosts of the Commonwealth hunted her down.

But no. She could not
fight, not now. She could not die just as new hope emerged.

"There is another," she
whispered to the shadows. "Another Vir Requis. Another soul who knows the name
of our kingdom, the holiest word we have, the word that means everything."
Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Requiem."

She waited a few
moments, and when Gemini did not reappear, she released her dragon magic. She
shrank, becoming a human girl again, clad in rags and covered in soot. At least
this way she had room to lie down. She scuttled backward on her bottom until
her back hit the wall. There she lay down, pulled her knees up to her chin, and
closed her eyes.

"Cade," she whispered.

She imagined that he
was lying here with her underground, that she was hugging him instead of her
knees. She brought to mind the messy, light brown hair that fell across his
brow; his large hazel eyes, fear and anger mingling within them; his tense
muscles, ready to sprint. She remembered whispering "Requiem" to him, how her lips
had touched his ear, how their bodies had pressed together. Even here on the
cold floor, she felt warm, and a smile touched her lips. She reached between
her legs and felt the heat there, the longing for him, the animal needs she
could not curb. She slept and she dreamed of him.

 
 
CADE

He was walking through the
grasslands, hungry and thirsty and feeling ready to collapse, when the
firedrakes streamed above.

"Spirit damn it!" Cade
said. "Damn beasts flying everywhere."

He dropped to his
belly, hiding himself in the tall grass. The shrieks rose above him. Wings
thudded like drums. The voices of paladins rose too; the riders were calling to
one another, though lying facedown in the grass, Cade could not make out the
words. He dared to peek over his shoulder and cursed again. Between the blades
of grass, he glimpsed them—three flying in a triangle, scanning the grasslands.

Cade lay as still as
possible. The grass rose two feet tall, and he reached out and tugged some down
around him, hiding his body. He had woven more blades of grass across his
burlap tunic and into his hair. He hoped that, lying here, he vanished into the
landscape. He had been traveling across these grasslands for three days now,
daring not fly, not with firedrakes in the sky. The beasts had been scouring
the land, flying overhead every hour.

Seeking me,
he
knew.

He was a weredragon,
unpurified. The Temple had but two enemies: the Horde, a motley army of many
nations that mustered across the sea, and the weredragons. Like him.

Only . . . that's
not our name,
he thought, lying on his belly among the grass.
Not our
real name. I am Vir Requis.

A mantis stared down at
him from a blade of grass, its eyes green, and Cade thought of Domi's green
eyes, of her body pressed against his, of her lips touching his ear. And mostly
he thought of that word she had uttered, the word that would not leave him,
that gave him strength even now.

Requiem.

To Domi, he had sensed,
the word had been rich with memory, with understanding, a word that conjured
lost tales, ancient cities, a world of magic. Cade didn't know more than what
he had seen in Domi's eyes, but just the memory of those green eyes, bright and
full of awe, infused the word with holiness and magic.

"Requiem," he whispered
as the shadows of firedrakes flitted across him.

Only this time, unlike
the past ten times, the firedrakes did not keep flying onward. Instead they
circled above, their shadows darting across Cade again and again. He heard the
paladins call to one another.

"There's a trail in the
grass!" one shouted. His voice was still so distant Cade could barely make out
the words.

Oh Spirit,
he
thought, fingers tingling.

He glanced above him.
The three firedrakes were flying lower—a black dragon, a bronze one, and a gray
one. Upon each beast's back rode a paladin. They were spiraling down toward the
grasslands—toward him.

Cade grimaced, a cold
iciness flooding him.

Claws thumped down into
the grass around him, digging into the land. The smell of the firedrakes
blasted his nostrils, scented of oil, fire, and raw meat. The beasts' scales
clattered around him, and boots thumped into the grass as the paladins
dismounted.

"The drakes smell
something," said a paladin.

Another voice replied. "There!
A lump in the grass. A man."

With shaky fingers,
Cade tugged off his grassy tunic, remaining in his underclothes. He shook more
grass out of his hair, rose to his feet, and feigned a yawn.

"Hullo, friends!" he
called to the paladins, speaking through his yawn, and stretched out his arms. "Was
just having a nap in the grass, I was. Old Barleyman from Ashgrove always said
I nap too much, he did. Young Nappy, he'd call me, and—"

"Shut your mouth," said
one paladin, a towering man—by the Spirit, he must have stood closer to seven
feet than six—in white armor. He stepped closer to Cade. "Who are you?"

The two other paladins
approached too. The three firedrakes, meanwhile, moved in slow circles around
Cade, sniffing and snorting out smoke.

"I told you!" Cade
said, affecting a farmer's accent. "Nappy's my name. Well, it's what they call
me in Ashgrove when I walk by. I wander a lot. Ain't got me a home, so I sleep
in the grass, and the sky's my blanket. I—"

"Show us your brand,"
the tall paladin demanded.

Wearing only his
underpants, Cade turned around and displayed the back of his shoulder to the
paladins. Like purified people, he carried a brand shaped as a tillvine blossom,
marking him cured of dragon magic. He did not remember getting the mark. The
fake brand had been on his shoulder when, as a baby, he had been left at Derin
and Tisha's doorstep.

At the thought of his
adoptive parents, grief flared through Cade. He saw their charred corpses again
in his mind, saw Eliana's empty crib. The only family he had ever known—gone. The
pain suddenly stung so badly his eyes dampened, even here with the paladins
scrutinizing him.

"What do you think, Sir
Actus?" said the tall paladin.

A shorter, wider man
leaned close, peering at Cade's brand. "The blossom is too narrow. Crudely
done. Might have been performed by a monk with poor tools. Might be a fake."
The squat man turned his head. "Sir Stoen, bring the ilbane! We'll test him."

Cade forced himself to
grin dumbly, even though his insides roiled and his heart seemed to sink into
his pelvis. "What you paladins testing for? Looking for somebody?"

A leathery man with
hard eyes, Sir Stoen pulled a bundle of ilbane from his firedrake's saddle and
came walking forward with the leaves. The acrid stench and heat blasted Cade.

Oh bloody Spirit's
beard . . .

Heart thudding against
his ribs, Cade leaped into the air and shifted.

"Weredragon!" the tall
paladin shouted.

Cade beat his wings
three times, rose only several feet into the air, and spewed down dragonfire.

The flames crashed down
into the grass and showered back up. The three paladins screamed and fell back,
the flames washing over them. The three firedrakes screeched madly, strings of
saliva quivering between their teeth, and leaped toward Cade.

He beat his wings
mightily. He soared higher. Two firedrakes slammed into each other below him.
The third blasted up dragonfire.

Cade swerved.

The flaming jet crashed
against his tail, and he howled.

He kept flying, rising
higher. Air roared around him. More dragonfire shrieked, and he swerved again,
dodging a second jet. He flew upward in a straight line, soaring higher and
higher toward the sun. When he glanced behind him, he saw only one firedrake
pursuing; the other two stood on the grass, paladins leaping into their
saddles.

Cade flipped over in the
sky and swooped.

He roared, plummeting
down toward the soaring firedrake. Both dragon and drake blasted out flames.
The jets crashed together and exploded in an inferno. Cade kept swooping,
passing through the fire, and bellowed.

He lashed his claws. He
bit. He tasted blood. The firedrake crashed down below him, and Cade kept
swooping.

The two other
firedrakes took flight, singed paladins upon them.

Cade rained down all
the dragonfire remaining in him.

The paladins burned.
They screamed. Their armor heated, blazing red, and their skin peeled off, and
their flesh melted. Still their firedrakes soared, burning beasts with mad
eyes, blazing men in their saddles.

Cade flew between them,
whipping his tail. One firedrake's claws cut deeply into his side, and Cade
cried out, and his blood spilled.

He leveled off just
before hitting the ground and flew eastward. The grasslands burned, the fire
spreading across them. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw only one
firedrake pursuing, a corpse in its saddle. The other two beasts lay in the
burning grass, wounded or dead.

The creature chasing
him was large and coppery, its wings longer than Cade's, its flight faster. It
was gaining on Cade.

Spirit damn it,
Cade cursed. The firedrake reached out its claws as it flew, grazing Cade's
tail.

Cade sucked in breath
and released his magic.

He tumbled down into
the grass as a man.

The firedrake overshot
him and kept charging forward. Before the beast realized what had happened,
Cade shifted back into a dragon and roared out his flames.

The jet crashed against
the firedrake. The beast screamed, an almost human sound. Cade leaped forth,
landed on its back, and clawed madly, ripping out scales, and blood spilled.

The firedrake crashed
down dead beneath him, slamming against the earth.

Cade flew a few more
feet, then fell to the ground, panting and bleeding. He released his magic. For
long moments he knelt in the grass, breathing raggedly. The fires still blazed
behind him, and the corpses of the firedrakes and paladins burned.

Again, in only a few
days, he had killed.

"I'm just a baker," he
whispered. "Spirit, I'm just a baker. And now my family is gone. My village is
gone. And the blood of men stains my hands."

But no. He was not just
a baker. Not anymore.

"Requiem," he
whispered. The word he did not understand. The word that gave him strength,
courage. The memory of Domi's eyes. The prayer of his heart.

Requiem.

He kept walking. He
kept moving eastward, to the city of Sanctus, to the library, to find help, to
find the meaning of the word he whispered over and over.

 
 
MERCY

Mercy had to pause outside the
gates of the Temple, take a deep breath, and steel herself.

Be calm, Mercy. You
can do this.
Her breath shuddered, her fingertips tingled, and the baby
whimpered in her arms.
You are twenty-four years old, no longer a child.

And yet, around her
mother, Mercy always felt like a child. Even now, a grown woman and paladin,
she felt like a foolish toddler whenever Beatrix turned those icy shards she
called eyes upon her.

But she must know .
. . know about the boy. Know that I failed.

Mercy's eyes burned,
and she clenched her jaw. She raised her chin, sucked in air, and climbed the
last few steps toward the Temple gates. A marble archway rose here, inlaid with
pearls. Guards stood alongside, clad in white steel and gold, holding spears
and shields. They bent the knee as Mercy walked between them. She stepped under
the pearly archway, entering the heart of the Commonwealth.