Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (2 page)

Five hundred years ago,
Elory knew, an army of such fiery chariots had streamed into Requiem. Thousands
of seraphim had fired their arrows, tossed their javelins, shone their light.
The hosts of fire had felled the dragons from the sky, crushed the marble
halls, burned the trees, collared the Vir Requis to contain their magic, and
taken them south to a burning land. Thousands of such chariots had covered the
sky that day, the Day of Burning. Today, here under the blazing sun of southern
Saraph, it took only this single chariot to strike terror into the hearts of
all who saw it.

A banner flared out
from this chariot, wreathed in flame yet not burning. Upon it shone a sigil
embroidered in gold, shaped as an eye inside a sun. Sigil of the Thirteenth Dynasty.
Sigil of Requiem's ruin. Sigil of Saraph's royal house.

Across the tar pit, the
refineries, and the rocky fields where brickmakers toiled, the Vir Requis
slaves knelt. Even the overseers, seraphim in gilded armor, folded their swan
wings against their backs and knelt in the muck. Even these towering beings of
light, haloed and immortal, were as lowly as worms by this flaming chariot.

The light flared out,
nearly blinding Elory as the chariot descended. Sweat washed her, stinging the
open cuts on her back, dripping into her eyes, soaking her canvas rags. With
shrieking fountains, the chariot of fire landed upon a hill ahead, and its
rider emerged.

Now new sweat washed
Elory—cold, sticky, trailing down her back like the fingers of a ghost. She
stared, unable to look away, terror squeezing her heart.

A towering man alighted
from the chariot and stood on the hill, staring down at the pit of despair. No,
not a man. A seraph. An angelic being, closer to a god than a mere mortal like
her. Elory had been laboring in the pits all her life, whipped, beaten,
surviving on gruel and whatever brackish water the masters allowed her. At
eighteen years of age, she was barely larger than the yoke she carried. Yet the
seraph ahead stood seven feet tall, his shoulders as wide as Elory's burden of
wood and chains. His hair flowed in the wind, and his eyes shone, just as golden
and bright, the pupils shaped as sunbursts. He wore a gilded breastplate molded
to mimic a bare, muscular torso, and he held a lance and shield emblazoned with
the Eye of the Sun. His feathered wings spread out, purest white, reflecting
the true sun. Upon his head, gleaming in the light of his halo, perched a steel
crown.

Elory knew this seraph.
All in this barren land knew him, the son of the queen, the god of the desert.
Three years ago, when he had traveled south to fight the giants of the
mountains, the slaves had sung and prayed in joy, finally free—if only for a
while—from his terror. A month ago, when this seraph had returned from his
conquests with fire and a vow to raise great palaces in his honor, the slaves
had wept.

Here was the cruelest
of the masters, the fairest, tallest, brightest, the golden son of Saraph. He
was known by many names. The Sunlit Conqueror. The Son of Sunlight. The Blade
of the Desert. Kneeling before him, her lips bloody, Elory whispered his true
name.

"Ishtafel."

The Prince of Saraph
stood on the hill, staring down upon the Land of Tofet, these pits of slavery.
As lowly as the slaves were—broken, chained, collared, beaten—this idol of
gold was lofty, a being of beauty, light, and eternal dominion.

Once we too were
beautiful,
Elory thought.
Once we flew free, beings of dragonfire and
scales, gliding above marble halls. Now we toil. Now we serve. Now we pray to
fly again.

Her eyes narrowed. She
clenched her fists, and she squared her shoulders even as the yoke threatened
to crack them. She glared up at this beautiful being, and a new feeling rose in
Elory. Not fear. Not pain.

Rage.

She raged against the
brightness of his armor and the stripes across her back. She raged against his
palaces and her pit of broken bones and sweat and blood. She raged against his
beauty and her wretchedness. She raged for a nation stolen away, chained,
enslaved, their homeland in ruins. Raged against a rising empire of light and
sandstone built upon shattered spines.

One day we will fly
again, Ishtafel,
she vowed, staring up at his light.
One day Requiem
will rise. One day we—

Her heart clenched. Her
breath caught in her throat.

Ishtafel lifted
something from his chariot. At first Elory thought it a scrap of red cloth,
then when she saw the draping limbs, she thought it the carcass of an animal.
The corpse seemed so small in the seraph's arms, like a child in a mother's
embrace.

Then red stubble caught
the sun, growing from a caved-in head, and Elory knew it was her.

Tears filled her eyes.

"Mayana," she
whispered.

The young woman had
toiled in the bitumen pits with Elory until only a month ago. Ishtafel had
landed his chariot here that day too, freshly returned from the war, seeking a house
servant for his palace. He had chosen Mayana—young, fair Mayana with the red stubble
on her head, green eyes, a rare beauty in these pits of ugliness.

"You will serve in
a palace now," Elory had whispered to her friend last month, holding her
close. "You will no longer have to haul bitumen, only jugs of wine. You
will no longer wear a yoke, only soft livery of cotton. You're blessed,
child."

Mayana had trembled
against her that day, so afraid, tears streaming down her cheeks.

And now you return
to us,
Elory thought, shedding her own tears.
Now you're back among your
people.

Ishtafel raised the
corpse above his head. His voice rang across the pit, deep, sonorous, a voice
of dark beauty tinged with menace like a panther lurking in a shadowy forest.

"I took a slave
from among you!" the seraph cried. "She is used up."

The slaves cried out as
Ishtafel tossed the corpse down into the pit.

Elory winced and
scurried backward, chains rattling. Her heart thrashed against her ribs. Her
belly churned. One of her buckets tilted, nearly spilling the sticky clumps of
bitumen.

Her friend's body
slammed down onto the rock beside her, bones snapping.

Elory wanted to look
away, to close her eyes, to do anything but look. And yet she found herself
staring at that corpse, her eyes wide, her breath frozen.

Bruises spread across
Mayana's face. Rough hands had torn at her clothes, and fingernails had dug
into her flesh. The marks of fingers wrapped around her throat, leaving raw
welts. Somebody had beaten her. Slowly. Inch by inch, finally strangling her.
Elory had seen death before. When you worked in the tar pits, you saw death
every day—death by whip, by starvation, by exhaustion. Yet here was a
different sort of death, something more meticulous, something wrong, something
that should never have been.

You will serve in a
palace now!
Elory's own voice echoed through her mind.
You're blessed,
child.

Elory forced her gaze
away. Slowly, fists trembling, she turned back to stare at Ishtafel.

The Prince of Saraph
still stood on the hill, but even from this distance, it seemed to Elory that
his golden eyes stared into hers, his gaze haughty, amused. Across the pit, the
slaves and overseers knelt as one, heads bowed, trembling in Ishtafel's
presence. Yet Elory forced herself to stare into his eyes.

I am a daughter of
Requiem,
she thought, fingernails digging into her palms.
If not for my
collar, I could become a dragon. I am descended from a great nation, blessed by
starlight. I will not cower before you, false god.

From the distance, it
seemed as if he smiled—a thin, knowing smile.

"Slaves, step
forth!" he cried, never removing his eyes from hers. "I will choose a
new servant from among you."

Across the tar pit, the
stone refineries, and the fields of brickmakers, the lesser seraphim—the
overseers—straightened and cracked their whips.

"Up, slaves!"
they roared. "Rise before your lord! Heads bowed. Rise! Stand still."

Elory struggled to rise
to her feet. The noon sun blazed overhead, searing hot, burning her skin. She
had been laboring in the pits since before dawn, and she hadn't eaten or drunk
in that time. Straightening cracked her back and made her limbs shake with
weakness. The yoke still hung across her shoulders, chained to her collar, its
baskets of bitumen threatening to rip off her arms. Their fumes spun her head.
But she forced herself to stand as straight as she could, to stare at the deity
ahead. To hate him. Never to fear him. Hate was better than fear.

Yet as Ishtafel beat
his wings, soared skyward, and then descended toward the valley, cold sweat
washed Elory, and her heart twisted with that old feeling, the feeling that
even now, broken and whipped so many times into this lingering wretch, she
could not crush.

Fear.

The Prince of Saraph
landed in the dust, yet it seemed that no dirt could ever cling to him. Not a
scratch marred his armor. Not a speck of sand clung to his sandals, his flowing
golden hair, nor his snowy wings. He walked among the slaves, towering above
them, seven feet of light, of gold, of immortal beauty. They said that Ishtafel
was centuries old, that he had lived and ruled even back on the Day of Burning,
the day when Elory's ancestors had been captured and taken to this land. And
yet, as he drew nearer, Elory saw that he seemed ageless. His face was smooth;
at a glance, it seemed no older than the face of a thirty-year-old man, the
skin bronzed, the lips full, the cheekbones high. Yet his eyes were old. Eyes
with pupils like suns. Bright yet shadowed. Seeing all. Ancient eyes.

"These slaves are
scrawny." Ishtafel frowned as he walked through the pit. "They stink
of sweat and tar."

One of the overseers
nodded. She was a cruel seraph named Shani of House Caraf, high ranking among
the masters, her eyes and hair shining gold and her wings purest white. "They
are weredragons, Your Excellence. Wretched beasts worthy of little more than
crawling in the mud. Offensive to the nose and distasteful to the eyes."

Ishtafel grimaced and
held a handkerchief to his nose. "And fragile. Discipline them and they
shatter, their mortal life fleeing their frail forms."

Elory glowered at the
seraphim walking before her. Frail? Wretches who crawled in the mud?

She placed her hands
upon her collar. The iron ring squeezed her throat when she gulped. A dark
light coiled within the metal, a magic only the seraphim held, a magic that
crushed her own power. Without these collars, they could rise as dragons. Magnificent
and mighty. Beings to soar, blow fire, as beautiful and powerful as any seraph.
How dare these beings of light mock her people, the children of starlight?

Elory took a deep
breath, trying to summon that memory—a memory passed through the generations,
perhaps just a dream. A memory of Requiem. A memory of dragons.

For thousands of
years, we flew above the birch forests of our home,
she thought.
Our
marble halls gleamed in the sunlight, and blue mountains rose in the dawn. We
flew free, millions of dragons of all colors. No collars around our necks. No
chains to hobble our wings. No seraphim to whip us, grinding us into the dirt.
A proud, ancient kingdom, a land of beauty, of white halls in green forests.
Her eyes stung.
A kingdom of dragons, a home where we were free.

She had never seen
those marble halls, those birch forests, those blue mountains, those golden
dawns. Nor had any of the slaves. Only their ancestors, beyond the generations,
had ever dwelled in Requiem. Yet the tales had passed from parents to siblings.
Her own mother—a dragon chained, whipped, forced to dig for the bitumen—had
told Elory the tale a thousand times, the same tale her mother had told her. In
her mind's eye, Elory could see Requiem, as if she herself had flown there.
Every night before she huddled in her mud hut, before she fell into a slumber
that would last only a few hours before the overseers woke her for more labor,
she would imagine Requiem. In her dreams, no collar squeezed her neck, and she
could summon her magic, grow wings and scales, rise as a dragon.

In some dreams, she was
a dragon of gold, like the great Queen Laira, Mother of Requiem. In other
dreams, Elory's scales were black—black like King Benedictus, one of Requiem's
greatest rulers. In other dreams, she was red and fiery like the great Princess
Agnus Dei, a heroine of Requiem who had defeated the griffins. Elory had never
become a dragon before, for her collar had never been removed—only diggers
were allowed to become dragons, their claws seeking the tar reserves, never the
bearers of yokes. She did not know what color her scales would be, but the land
below never changed in her dream. Requiem was always a realm of sprawling birch
forests, of great marble columns, of statues and fountains in pale squares. Of
beauty. Of peace. Of pride. A land whose sky she found every night in her sleep,
a land she prayed every day to see with her waking eyes.

"This one does not
cower like the others." Ishtafel's voice tore through Elory's thoughts.
"Nor is she quite as wretched to behold."

Elory's heart thrashed.
She realized that he was talking about her, that he had come to stand before
her. Her head spun, and she gulped. She struggled to raise her chin, to square
her shoulders, even as the yoke shoved down upon her.

She was scrawny, short.
He towered above her, easily thrice her size, his shoulders broad, his chest
wide. Her wings were hobbled, her magic hidden. His swan wings spread wide. She
wore rags and chains. He stood clad in priceless gilded armor. She was a
creature broken, whipped, her soul shattered. He was a being of pale beauty and
light and dominion. And yet Elory thought of Requiem and stared at him,
refusing to kneel again, refusing to cower, refusing to be a slave.