Crown of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  Ishtafel hefted his spear. "I slew a million warriors of Requiem. Only days ago, sweet sister, we danced in the grand hall of our palace. Come to me now. We will dance again."

  Tash drew her dagger, claimed from the prison guard, and held the blade before her.

  Before her courage could abandon her, Meliora raced forward, spear lashing.

  Ishtafel swung his lance in an arc. Meliora had snapped her spear in half to hide it in her cloak, abandoning the lower half in the dungeon. With his longer range, Ishtafel easily parried her thrust. Almost lazily, he drove his lance forward, nicking her left arm.

  Her blood sprayed across the courtyard, pattering against Tash, and Meliora cried out.

  Tash screamed, blood on her face, and tossed her dagger. Yawning, Ishtafel raised his shield, and the dagger slammed against it and fell to the ground. Ishtafel kicked it aside.

  Fear flooded Meliora, but she refused to surrender to it.

  I am starlight.

  I am the wind.

  I am dragonfire.

  She could not become a dragon with her collar, but Meliora roared with her rage.

  "You murdered thousands!" she screamed, lashing her spear again.

  He snorted and parried. "Millions."

  "You are a monster!" She leaped forward, trying to spear him, but he parried again.

  He yawned. "All the best kings are, my dear."

  "You—"

  He drove his lance forward, and this time he cut her right arm, spraying more blood. She had barely registered the blow when he swung his lance again, hitting the side of her knee with the flat of the blade.

  Meliora yowled and fell to her knees before him.

  "Good." He nodded. "That is how I like you. Kneeling before me."

  With another thrust of his lance, he cut her fingers. She cried out, losing her grip on her spear. It clattered to the ground, and he kicked it aside.

  Meliora began to leap up. Ishtafel swung his shield, knocking the rim against her face.

  Pain.

  Light.

  Searing fire.

  Meliora fell to the ground, slamming her cheek against the cobblestones, blinded with agony. Blinking feebly, she thought she saw Tash run forth, grab the fallen spear, thought she saw the shield fly again, knocking Tash down. All was white, blinding pain . . . and beyond it a red light, crackling, hot. The light of dragonfire.

  Ishtafel knelt above her, reached down, and stroked her stubbly head.

  "So frail," he whispered. "Still such a weak, innocent thing, a trampled baby bird, her wings clipped. I will nurse you back to health, my sweetest sister. You will be mine. You will watch your sons become great kings—kings to crush Requiem as I have crushed her."

  Her eyes burned. Blood dripped down her face, pattering against the cobblestone.

  I flew as a dragon, she remembered. I soared as a great dragon all in silver and gold, coated with scales and feathers. Her breath shuddered. In my dreams, I flew with great herds of my kind, the hosts of Requiem of past and future.

  Ishtafel leaned down and kissed her brow. "Soon you will be beautiful again, fed all the fineries of the empire—strong enough to grow my child in your womb."

  No. No, I will never more be a prisoner. Not in a dungeon of stone, not in a palace of plenty.

  Her halo crackled with the flame of Requiem.

  I will find the sky. I am dragonfire.

  Her flames roared, blasting outward, and Meliora let out a howl, a cry of all her pain, her rage, her memory, and she leaped up, soaring like a dragon, seeking her sky.

  Ishtafel faltered, eyes widening, the flames painting him red.

  Meliora had once burned in a bronze bull, and today she charged like a bull herself, ramming into him, driving her halo of fire against his face.

  Her crown of dragonfire burned him, and Ishtafel screamed.

  The halo of fire flowed across his face, kindling his hair, melting his skin. He burned. He screamed like a wounded animal, a primordial sound, and the flames showered back onto Meliora, scattering across her scalp.

  She knelt. She grabbed her spear from the ground. She shoved it forth.

  The blade crashed into Ishtafel's armor, denting the metal, cutting through, driving into his skin. Still he burned.

  "Meliora!" Tash cried.

  Whistles filled the air, and Meliora glanced up to see arrows falling. Tash grabbed her, pulled her back, and the arrows clattered against the cobblestones. More whistled above, and Meliora glimpsed a hundred seraphim or more diving down from the sky.

  "Meliora, run!" Tash grabbed her hand and dragged her onward. "With me!"

  She held her bloody spear. Ishtafel burned before her, but still his lance thrust. She cried out as it hit her. More arrows fell, and one scraped across her thigh.

  "Meliora, run!"

  She ran.

  Arrows clattered around them, and one drove alongside Tash's hip, tearing the skin. They raced onward, holding hands, leaving the courtyard and entering a cobbled alleyway. The walls of silos, armories, and temples rose around them.

  "Hurry, with me!" Tash said, pulling her through a gateway into a covered walkway between brick walls.

  "Where are we going?" Meliora ran with a limp, blood leaving a trail behind her.

  "The underground of Shayeen. The secret passageways of the slaves." As seraphim dived down behind them, firing arrows, Tash tugged open a wooden doorway and pulled Meliora into a shadowy tunnel.

  They ran through darkness, finally entering a wine cellar, and here Tash pulled her into a second tunnel, and they emerged into a narrow alleyway in the shadow of the ziggurat. A grove of palm trees rustled ahead, and they moved under the fronds, hidden from the sky, as above the seraphim cried out and the chariots of fire rained ash.

  "We go into the city," Tash said. "We take the shadow path."

  Meliora ran close behind, and they circled a well and stepped onto a narrow street, the sky hidden above the awnings of shops.

  "The shadow path?"

  Tash nodded and flashed a weary grin. "There are eight boulevards in the City of Kings and eight thousand secret roads. Ours is the shadow path, the way of slaves between the ziggurat and the land of Tofet."

  Meliora glanced around her, seeking the palace soldiers, but the street was packed with a thousand others—shopkeepers hawking spices and dried fruits, young seraphim of common birth, and many collared slaves on errands from their masters. The chariots of fire still streamed above, but the shadow path was hidden from the sky, no less a labyrinth than the one beneath the ziggurat.

  Is he still alive? Meliora thought as they raced into an alleyway of metalworkers. The clanging of hammers on anvils rose from smiths at their sides. Is Ishtafel—

  His scream rose in the distance, answering her.

  "Find her! Find the escaped prisoner. Bring her to me alive and bring the pack rat too!"

  Meliora and Tash glanced at each other silently, then looked forward and kept running along the shadow path, vanishing into the City of Kings as screams of seraphim and the fire of their chariots filled the sky above.

  VALE

  "Faster!"

  The whips flew.

  "Move, slaves! Toil!"

  Burning leather slashed through flesh.

  "Faster! Toil or die!"

  Sweat dripped across Vale, stinging his eyes, drenching his burlap loincloth, burning the whip's welts across his bare back. Those welts ached like scorpion stingers forever digging into him. His muscles were cramping, begging for relief, and the sunlight burned his shoulders and shaved head, leaving him dizzy, gasping for breath.

  "Toil!"

  The flaming whips cracked. The overseers smirked as they flew above upon swan wings, whipping any slave who dallied—a handful of masters ruling over thousands of slaves.

  For a day, hope rose, Vale thought, back bent. All hope has burned away.

  He spilled the basket of straw into the pit of clay. Joints aching, he lifted the barrel of bitumen and
spilled the tar into the mix. He climbed into the sticky pool, sloshing through it, mixing the ingredients with his hobbled legs. His feet burned, and the manacles chafed his ankles; he bled into the mix. Across the field, thousands of other slaves waded through their own pits of clay, straw, and bitumen.

  "Faster!" cried an overseer, and a whip cracked over Vale's head. "Shape the bricks. Move!"

  Vale nodded, back striped too many times. Another blow, he thought, would kill him. Perhaps that would be a mercy. Perhaps he should resist, let them whip him to death, join the poor souls around the pits. He raised his head, blinked out sweat, squinted in the sunlight, and saw them. A hundred slaves or more rose around the field, impaled on spikes, their flesh food for crows. Most were rotten. Some still twitched and moaned.

  Poor souls? Vale thought. The dead are the lucky ones.

  "Go!" cried the overseer. "Mix! Two thousand bricks a slave."

  The whip lashed again, and this time it slammed into Vale, tearing his back, knocking him into the hot clay. The seraph was still shouting above him, but Vale could barely hear. He lay facedown in the hot mixture of clay, straw, and tar, and he felt like he was back there—back upon the crest of the ziggurat, a thousand feet above the city, nailed into the platinum.

  I almost rose to the stars of Requiem, he thought. I was almost free from the pain.

  He wanted to lie here in the mud until the pain fled again.

  He still remembered the shock of Ishtafel swinging his hammer, driving the nails into Vale's hands and feet, nailing him to the ziggurat. He still remembered his body convulsing, his soul beginning to rise . . . and he had seen them. The celestial halls of afterlife. A Requiem that still stood, woven of starlight, and the spirits of the fallen awaiting him. His mother. His grandparents. The ancient kings and queens of his fallen nation.

  And I saw you, Issari. The Priestess in White.

  The ancient princess of Requiem, among the founders of the nation, had descended from the stars, a great healer. Forever shining in the sky, the eye of the Draco constellation, she had descended to the world for him. She had gazed at him with sad green eyes, and she had placed her hands upon him, passing her starlight into him, healing his wounds, returning his broken body to life. In his mind, she had whispered soft words.

  You will live, son of Requiem.

  "Let me rest," he had whispered to her.

  She had wept, her tears warm, healing his soul. Your path of thorns has not ended, son of Aeternum, for you are descended from the great family of Requiem, a child of King Aeternum and all the kings and queens who followed in his dynasty. Your battle still looms ahead, Vale. We will watch you. Our light will forever fall upon you. You must find our sky.

  Vale had awoken then, his lungs filling once more with air, the holes in his hands and feet only faded scars.

  And so I must live. With shaking arms, he pushed himself up from the mud. My battle still awaits me, and I will fight for my priestess. For Requiem.

  He rose to his shaky feet. He did not know what that battle was, what his task would be, but Issari Seran, the Eye of the Dragon, had commanded him to live. And so he would live. Whatever it took, however much pain he would endure, he would survive.

  His overseer stood outside the pit of mud, smirking. "Pity. Thought you were crow food. Would have liked to see them peck out your eyes. Now form the bricks! Two thousand a man. Go!"

  Vale labored in the sunlight among the thousands of slaves. In the old days, under Queen Kalafi's reign, each slave had needed to mix a thousand bricks a day—backbreaking labor that had them working from dawn to dusk. The cruel Ishtafel, new king of Saraph, had doubled that quota. With thousands of others, Vale filled baskets with the sticky mixture of mud, straw, and bitumen. He hauled basket after basket into the field, where he poured the mixture into wooden molds, mold after mold, like filling a great honeycomb. After the sun had dried the clay, he pulled out the brittle rectangles, and he placed them into stone kilns where they baked, hardening into bricks that would build homes, schools, armories, and monuments to Ishtafel across the empire.

  He worked in a daze, repeating the process over and over, suffering the whip whenever he faltered, moving as fast as he could, falling, crying out in pain, rising again.

  Two thousand bricks a slave.

  Countless lashes.

  Each slave who fell short—more flesh upon the pikes. More food for crows.

  In the fields of Tofet, they labored in chains, screaming, falling, dying, some surviving. Decimated. One in ten fallen to Ishtafel's spears, more falling every day. The nation of Requiem—crying out in greater anguish than ever before, withering under a cruel sun.

  When finally that sun had set, and his two thousand bricks were loaded into carts, Vale shuffled back toward his home.

  In the darkness, he walked between the huts where the slaves lived. His chains clanked between his legs, and his breath rattled in his lungs, full of dust from his labor. He could not stop coughing, a raw cough that tore at his throat like his shackles tore at his ankles.

  He raised his eyes to the sky, hoping against hope to see it again—the Draco constellation, the holy stars of Requiem, which he had seen only once, that night Issari had healed him. Yet those stars were gone now, if ever they had truly shone.

  The wind gusted, and three gibbets swung at his side from posts. Within the rusted cages languished three slaves, close to death—their only sin having failed to meet the new, doubled quotas. Vale had only a small waterskin, barely enough water to keep himself alive, yet he approached the cages, prepared to let the dying slaves drink. They stared at him with glazed eyes, reached out from the bars, bleeding lips smacking, desperate for a drink.

  Vale turned away. Their agony was almost over. He would not prolong it. He shuffled onward, their screams echoing in his ears.

  He tugged at his collar. If only he could remove this collar, could shift into a dragon again, could break the bars on the gibbets. He could free them. He could fly to the ziggurat, challenge Ishtafel again.

  Vale raised his head, closed his eyes, and remembered how wonderful it had felt. To become a dragon. To see his scales gleam in the sun, deep blue like the evening sky. To let the fire fill his mouth. To spread his wings and rise in the sky. Freedom. It had been freedom.

  He looked back down, saw the gibbets, the huts, the agony of Tofet, and balled up his fists.

  I will fly again. Someday I will fight as a dragon once more. I fought Ishtafel over the streets of Shayeen, but my greatest battle awaits.

  He kept shuffling forward until he reached his hut, a simple clay dwelling, barely larger than a cage itself. A birch leaf was engraved onto the door, an old symbol of Requiem. Vale opened that door and stepped into his shadowy home.

  His sister, Elory, lay facedown on a pile of straw, biting a piece of wood. Ugly lashes crisscrossed her back, and she bled where the shackles chafed her ankles. Above her knelt Vale's father, wise old Jaren. The bearded priest was dripping ointment into the wounds on Elory's back. She grimaced with every drop that fell, and sweat beaded on her shaved head.

  Rage flared in Vale.

  "Who?" he demanded, speaking between gritting teeth. "Which overseer? Was it Karah? The new one, Eldor?"

  Jaren raised his hands, silently urging calm. Elory pushed herself onto her elbows, staring at Vale with damp eyes.

  "It was my fault!" she said. "I almost failed to meet my quota of bitumen."

  The rage was blinding. Vale sneered and took a step back toward the door. "That's because Ishtafel doubled the quotas. I'm going to find who did this. I'm going to kill them. I don't care if they arrest me again, if—"

  "Son!" Jaren reached out, trying to grab him, to pull him back into the hut. "You cannot help your sister by dying. Please, son. We must bide our time. We must—"

  "Must what?" Vale said, voice hoarse, eyes damp. He shook himself free. "Bide our time for what? Our people have been waiting for five hundred years, Father. Waiting for a savior. Wai
ting for some hope. I thought that some hope rose. When we marched behind Meliora, I thought that finally the stars have heard our cry, that they sent us a savior. I thought that Meliora—your daughter, my sister—is the hope we've been waiting for all these years." He laughed bitterly. "But I was there. I saw Ishtafel cut off Meliora's wings, saw him drag her into his palace, saw our hope shatter. So yes. Let me go out and fight. Let me die avenging my sisters."

  A voice, melodious and soft, rose behind him, piercing through his rage like a ray of light through storm clouds.

  "Do not die for me, my brother. Together we will live."

  Slowly, Vale unclenched his fists and turned around. He saw her outside, stepping toward the doorway, cloaked in wool. Within the shadows of her hood, her eyes shone, golden, the pupils shaped as sunbursts with many rays. She smiled at him tremulously.

  "Meliora," he whispered.

  JAREN

  He sat with his family at the table, knowing that this brief moment of peace would soon shatter and burn.

  We are together again, united in the shadow of a great, burning hatred that will soon spew its flames upon us. Jaren looked up at the ceiling where he had engraved the Draco constellation. May we savor this moment, for it might be long years of blood, sweat, and tears before it returns . . . if ever we sit like this, together again.

  He looked at them all, one by one. They stared back from around the table, silent, all waiting for his words. Vale, his son, gaunt and scarred, his eyes blazing with fire. Elory, his sweet daughter, her brown eyes kind and soft, even after so much pain. Meliora, his eldest, her head now shaved like a slave's, crowned with a halo of dragonfire. And with them, too, sat Tash of the pleasure pits, a young woman with long brown hair, perfumed skin, and many jewels, and though Jaren had just met her, she too was like a daughter to him. She too was family. Perhaps all in Requiem were a family under the heel of Saraph. They all sat here in this small hut, surrounding the small table, sitting before clay bowls of gruel—a warm meal, perhaps a last meal.

  Their chains, which had once hobbled their ankles, lay in a pile on the floor. Tash had come here with an iron key, which she had used to unchain new girls arriving into the pleasure pit. Now she had freed the chains that had bound Jaren and his family's legs. And yet their collars remained, preventing them from using their magic, for no simple key could unlock that cursed iron. So long as they wore those collars, slaves they would remain.