Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (30 page)

"Yes, scream for
me, whore!" Ishtafel shouted from his flaming chariot. He laughed.
"You will scream in my bed. You will scream as you give birth to my
child."

"I will
never—"

He thrust his spear
again.

The lance drove into
her wing, and she roared. Her blood rained. She blew her fire again, but his
chariot rose, and her white flames passed beneath it.

He swooped, his
firehorses kicking, and hooves of brimstone slammed into Meliora, cracking her
scales, burning her skin. His lance thrust again, scraping across her back,
tearing off small white scales like pearls. She screamed.

"Already you
scream, Meliora!" He laughed, driving his chariot around her in the sky.
"You are nothing but a slave now. My slave. My blood. My bearer of
children. Your son will be king, Meliora! He will rise to crush your precious
weredragons!"

Her lifeblood dripped
to the city below. She spun in the sky. The city, the river, the desert beyond,
the cruel sun—they all swirled around her. The souls below, calling her name.
Her family—crying for her. Requiem—a dream, just a dream, slipping away.

No.

She growled.

I do not abandon
hope. I will be brave.

She roared and charged
toward her brother. She blasted fire, and the flames cascaded across his
shield. She soared skyward, then spun, the sun at her back, and plunged down
toward him, claws outstretched.

He raised his shield,
and her claws slammed against it, denting the steel. She grabbed the disk with
both front claws, tugging at it. She roared down fire, and the flames exploded,
crashing against the shield, showering back up against her, igniting her
feathers. She burned. She kept clawing, biting, and she tore the shield away,
exposing her brother in his flaming chariot.

She opened her jaws
wide and lashed down, prepared to bite.

He raised a sword, thrusting
it into her mouth.

The blade scraped against
her palate and sank into the flesh.

The pain blinded her.

White.

White fire.

Her own flames, burning
her.

She fell. She fell
through the sky, a human again, tumbling down, her seraph wings losing their
feathers, blood in her mouth, blood raining, falling, falling toward her
family, falling to death, to the death of hope. Above her, she saw him in the
sky, laughing, his chariot a sun, his lance and sword raised, coated with her
blood. He came swooping toward her, refusing to even give her death, refusing
to ever release her from pain.

Requiem.

Shadows in the night.

Dragons in the wind.

A marble column rising
from ruin to starlight.

Meliora tightened her
fists as she fell.
I will not forget you, Requiem. I will not die. Not so
long as I can fight.

"Requiem!"
she cried. "May our wings forever find your sky."

She found her magic,
and she found her sky. She shifted, growing into a dragon again, her scales
chipped, her body pierced, but still a dragon of Requiem, still fighting, still
soaring through that sky.

His lance thrust.

She slammed against
him, his weapon in her chest.

She cried out in agony,
the chariot's fire washing across her, the hooves slamming into her. He leaned
across his chariot, grabbed her wing, and tugged her up, and his sword drove
into her shoulder.

She couldn't even
scream. She couldn't even breathe.

She fell into his
chariot, a human again, and lay at his feet.

"Sweetest
Meliora." He leaned down, tugged her head up from the floor, and snapped a
collar around her neck. "Don't die on me yet. I still have use for
you."

She tried to breathe.
She tried to live. Blood dripped into her eyes. She heard them cry her name
below, heard them call for Requiem, heard them pray, but above it all roared
the flames of the chariot. They flew down. Down. Spiraling. The sun spinning.
The city spreading into hazy horizons, places she could never fly to, hope
burnt.

I flew as a dragon.

She tried to raise her
head. He placed a boot against her cheek, shoving her head back down.

I have to fly. I am
the wind. I am fire.

She reached for her
magic, trying to shift. She felt it. The starlight. The magic of Requiem. She
saw them—the celestial halls, the great kings and queens of old, and she was shifting,
growing, ready to fly, to—

She gasped in pain.

The collar squeezed her
neck.

Her eyes rolled back.
She sucked in air, trying to cling to life, her magic gone. The key crushed.
She saw it lying beside her, crumpled, broken. She grabbed it in her fist.

Fire crackled, and
every bone in her body seemed to shatter, as the chariot landed. Hands grabbed
her—his hands, tipped with bloody fingernails like claws. Hands that had slain
millions. They tugged her, lifting her, dragging her out of the chariot. He
gripped her against him, his arm across her chest, pinning her body to his. Blood
dripped around their feet.

"See your
champion, slaves!" Ishtafel shouted, voice thrumming against her ear,
impossibly loud, tearing at her eardrum. "See Meliora, the Reptile
Whore!"

She blinked in the
sunlight. She stood on the balcony, she realized. Her mother's balcony. The
king's balcony. Below they spread across the miles, the children of Requiem, a
proud nation, a nation of slaves. Lives she couldn't save.

The Keeper's Key.
It's crushed. It's gone.
She felt it in her fist, broken, crumpled into a
ball. She trembled. She tried to shift again. She could not. She would have
fallen to her knees were he not holding her up.

"Requiem,"
she whispered, hoarse, tasting hot copper. "May our wings forever find
your sky."

"Wings,
sister?" Ishtafel leaned forward, lips against her ear, his breath foul,
smelling of rank meat. "Slaves do not have wings."

He kicked the back of
her knees, forcing her to kneel, and wrapped an arm around her throat,
constricting her.

"See how she
kneels, weredragons!" Ishtafel called off the balcony. "Meliora calls
herself a slave now. Then let her be a slave as you are! Kneeling, collared,
and wingless."

He raised his sword.

He thrust the blade
down.

Meliora screamed.

The pain shattered her.
It claimed her. She wept with it. She tried to shift again but could not. She
tried to fight him. She tried to rise to her feet, but he shoved her down. His
sword lashed again, and she howled, a torn cry, and the crowd below screamed.
Above her head, her halo crackled, shattered, blazed with red light.

"Take her wings,
Requiem!" Ishtafel said, laughing, holding them up, severed, bleeding.
"See if they fly."

He tossed Meliora's
seraph wings from the balcony, and they glided down, mere feathers, feathers on
the wind, mere dreams, mere clouds like the clouds of lost Edinnu. The blood
flowed down her back and pooled on the balcony floor. The agony was a living
thing, two demons digging through her, phantom wings that screamed, burning,
flapping madly, every missing fiber crackling with the agony. Flames burned
around her head, blasting her with heat.

"You defied me,
sister." Ishtafel lifted her in his arms. "Now you learn the price of
all who dare fight me." He raised her above his head, and he roared to the
crowd. "Behold your leader, Requiem! Behold Meliora, collared, wingless,
my slave."

Chariots of fire
streamed across the sky. Hundreds of them, rising from behind the ziggurat, storming
forth, leaving hundreds of trails like jets of dragonfire.

The slaves below
screamed.

Meliora's blood
dripped.

She clutched the
crumpled key in her hand. She had to think. To focus. To feel her magic. To
feel nothing else. To . . .

Her thought faded, and
she fell into shadow, falling like her mother had fallen from Edinnu, falling
like the columns of Requiem, falling until nothing was left.

 
 
ISHTAFEL

He tossed her into the
prison cell—a beaten, pathetic slave, her wings cut off, cast out from his
empire of light. No more golden glow haloed her, only a ring of red fire, the
eternal flame of her curse. He slammed the cell door shut, sealing her in
shadows. He grinned and licked her blood off his fingers, savoring the taste.

"Sleep awhile,
Meliora." He stared at the closed, heavy door, grinning. "Rest.
Regain your strength. You're going to need it."

Her blood was sweet in
his mouth. Yes, tainted with the weredragon curse, but half of it was his own
blood. What choice did he have? His mother was dead. So was his father. There
were no others to pass on the pure blood of the Thirteenth Dynasty; the only
other with that ichor was Meliora, impure as it was. She would have to serve,
would have to bear him a child. And if that child too showed the weredragon
curse, could shift into a beast? Well, such children could be culled, and her
womb would bear him another child—again and again, until a pure child was born,
one clean of the reptilian curse. That child's womb too could carry his seed,
as could the womb after it, every generation purer, slowly filtering out the
dragon, as one sifts golden flecks out of soil.

I can wait,
Ishtafel thought.
I can breed out the disease from you, Meliora. But you will
have to live for a long while.

Leaving Meliora in her
dungeon cell, Ishtafel walked down the corridor, hungry, famished, desperate
for meat. Deep underground he prowled, seeking prey. Through the labyrinth he
moved, deep beneath the ziggurat, the belly of his empire, until he found the
pit.

He entered the
candlelit chamber. Aromatic purple smoke wafted here, and green hintan bubbled
in glass hookahs. The slaves lounged here upon tasseled cushions and rugs, clad
in silks, eyes glassy. The place where Elory had gone to study; the place
Meliora had snatched her from. Ishtafel moved through the chamber, hunger
growing.

"My lord!"
said one slave, rushing forward. She was a young woman with long brown hair,
large brown eyes, and slender bones he could imagine shattering. "Welcome
to the pleasure pit! I am Tash, and I would be glad to—"

He grabbed her,
snarling, unable to resist any longer. He shoved her down.

"My lord, I would
be happy to please you—" she began.

"Silence." He
ripped at her clothes, tearing the silk, and he claimed her, clutching her
body, staining her pale skin with Meliora's blood, laughing, drooling onto her,
conquering her, soothing his hunger. For now. For now.

He shoved the slave
away.

"I'll be back for more
later." He snorted. "Clean up."

He left the pleasure
pit. He climbed staircases. Still hungry. Still needing to feed.

He stepped onto the
northern portico, stood between the columns, and stared out at the city. They
were still there across the mote and gardens, clogging the streets. Myriads of
them. Slaves. Weredragons. Their fists were raised, and they were chanting
together in one voice.

"Free Meliora!
Free Meliora! Blessed be Meliora the Merciful!"

Sandals thumped and
armor clanked at his side. Ishtafel turned his head to see one of his generals
approaching, a seraph named Kerael. Among the most ancient of seraphim, Kerael
had lived during the fall of Edinnu, had fought the Eight Gods himself with
lance and shield. He still bore that same old lance and shield, the steel three
thousand years old. His breastplate was gilded, and his swan wings spread out,
blinding in the sunlight.

"My king." He
knelt before Ishtafel. "I swear my allegiance to you, my lord. The hosts
of Saraph are ready, glorious Ishtafel. How may they serve you?"

Ishtafel motioned for
the general to rise. "How many soldiers are currently garrisoned in the
City of Kings?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Two full
divisions, my lord, of proud sons and daughters of Saraph, each armed with a lance."

"Good."
Ishtafel nodded. "And there are, I'm told, six hundred thousand slaves
outside our doors. Have you ever heard of decimation, Kerael? The slaying of
one in ten?"

Kerael had followed him
through countless wars, from the conquest of Requiem to the slaying of the last
dragons. Yet now, perhaps for the first time, Kerael seemed taken aback. His
face paled, and it was a fraction of a second before he replied—an eternity.

"I shall spare the
women and children, of course." Kerael nodded. "But—"

"No, Kerael."
Ishtafel placed a hand on the general's shoulder. "It is the men we need
for labor. You will
especially
slay women and children. I want sixty
thousand corpses, skewered on sixty thousand spears. And I want those spears
raised in the land of Tofet, a forest of flesh. I want them to remain there,
rotting in the sun, festering, fluttering with vultures. And I want the
survivors to see them as they toil. And oh . . . how they will toil. Their
quotas will double as they work in the shadow of their dead. Now fly out! Take
the chariots. Summon all your men." Ishtafel clenched his fists, grinning.
"I will fly with you. We will make them pay."

 
 
ELORY

Elory stood outside with her
people, fist raised, chanting for freedom.

"Free
Meliora!" the slaves cried. "Blessed be Meliora the Merciful!"

Standing here with her
brother, her father, and all her nation, Elory felt stronger than she ever had.
They were no longer cowering in Tofet. They were standing united. Heads held
high. Fists raised. Chanting in one voice.

"Free Meliora!
Free Meliora!"

Their cries rolled
across the city, flowing over the ziggurat, the statues of the gods, the
obelisks, the temples, the boulevards and roads—this wonder their sweat and
tears and blood had built, this city of their masters, this city they would
topple with their voice.