"Are you—" he began.
With a shout, Meliora came racing across the hilltop, swinging her sword.
"Meliora, wait!" Elory cried.
But it was too late. Meliora leaped toward the disheveled man, blade arcing. The hermit cried out in fear and tossed his stone toward Meliora. The rock sailed through the air and slammed into Meliora's chest.
Meliora cried out, slipped, and fell. The young man grabbed another stone and leaped forward, raising it, prepared to slam the rock down onto Meliora's skull.
Elory ran. "Stop this!" She bounded across the hilltop, kicked off a boulder, and jumped onto the young man's back.
The hermit cursed, and his stone thumped onto the ground. Meliora rose to her feet, wheezing and clutching her wounded chest. Elory clung to the man's back as he struggled, swinging his arms, trying to shake her off. He howled.
"A seraph!" He pointed at Meliora. "Seraph! She has seraph eyes. Kill her, kill her!"
"She's not a seraph!" Elory cried into his ear, still clinging to his back. "Do you see wings?"
"Seraph!" he cried, kneeling for another stone, even as Elory still grabbed him. "A mistress! Kill her! Kill her!"
Elory shouted louder into his ear. "She has no wings! Look."
The young man grimaced and covered his ears. "You shout. You shout too loudly. Too many voices. Too many old voices! Too much memory. Too much pain! You speak like a slave. Like a slave. Like a Vir Requis." He fell to his knees, shaking. "No wings, no wings." His voice sank to mere mumbles. "See no wings. No wings. Only eyes."
His arms fell limply to his sides, his head hung low, and his shoulders stooped. Elory released him and hurried toward Meliora, keeping one eye on the bearded hermit.
"Are you all right?"
Meliora nodded weakly, then winced. "It hurts. My ribs. But I'm all right."
The sisters stared at the young man. He knelt before them, head still lowered, still mumbling to himself. "No wings, no wings . . . slaves." He looked up at them, squinting, and his cheeks—at least what was visible beyond the dirt and yellow hair—paled. His voice was a mere whisper. "Slaves?"
Elory tugged at her iron collar. "Slaves."
The young man rose to his feet and pulled back his beard and hair. For the first time, Elory saw that he wore an iron collar like her own.
"Oh gods," Meliora whispered, eyes widening.
Elory stared and felt tears fill her eyes. She had always imagined a noble hero, a wise kinglike warrior, a tall and handsome leader of men. But here he stood. Not much older than her. Not much braver. A shivering young man, covered in filth, clad in rags.
She stepped closer to him, to the hero of Requiem, her tears falling.
"Lucem," she whispered.
MELIORA
"How?" Meliora whispered. "How is this possible?"
They hunkered together in the cave. The stony roof was so low they hunched over. A bed of dry leaves covered the floor, and chalk drawings covered the walls—drawings of falling dragons, of anguished faces, of a white column rising from a forest of fallen trees. Upon the walls of the ziggurat, the seraphim had immortalized scenes of fallen Requiem in towering frescos and engravings. Here in this cave, Lucem had remembered the horror with crude scribbles, drawn with stone on stone.
Lucem now sat before her, shoulders bunched inward. He was tall and barely fit in this cave, all knobby limbs. Smaller, Elory sat beside him, working at cutting his hair and trimming his beard with the spear's blade she had stolen from Tofet. With every blond lock that fell, Lucem began looking more and more human, and younger and younger. Soon he no longer looked like a wild hermit but like a lanky young man, eyes blue and peering.
"How is this possible?" Lucem repeated. He laughed mirthlessly. "I've asked myself that question many times. How is it possible—that I am here while so many others remained behind. That Requiem lies fallen. That cruel gods have conquered the world. None of these things should have happened, and yet here we are."
Meliora squinted, scrutinizing him. As Elory kept shearing him, Meliora realized that Lucem wasn't much older than the young woman; he couldn't have been much older than twenty.
"You must have been just a child when you escaped," Meliora said in wonder. "In Shayeen, the seraphim told of a vicious killer who slew many guards, a beast who stood nine feet tall, the deadliest Vir Requis to have lived since the days of old."
"And in Tofet," Elory added, "slaves told of a noble, kingly hero, a warrior both wise and brave, a crown upon his head, descended from the old kings."
As Elory worked at shearing the back of his head, Lucem snorted. "A vicious killer? A noble warrior? I was eleven years old and I looked six. I was hungry. I was small and quick and desperate. The cruel overseers murdered my parents—they died in the refineries, choking on the fumes." He clenched his teeth, balled up his fists, and lowered his head. "And so I escaped. I scaled the wall, hiding in its blind spot at night, too small to be seen. The seraphim starved me, made me no larger than a bundle of twigs. Their cruelty made me small enough to flee. But I never stopped feeling their whips, their fists, their . . ."
Lucem hunched over, overcome with emotion, unable to speak anymore. Elory placed down her blade, wrapped her arms around him, and stroked his hair.
"It's all right, Lucem," she whispered. "You're safe now. It's all right."
"It's not!" He raised his head so suddenly Elory fell back. "None of this is all right. That we're here and the others are still there. Still in chains. I . . . I wanted to go back so many times. To lead others up the wall, to bring them here. But whenever I tried to get close, so many seraphim flew in the sky, and twice as many patrolled the walls, and . . . I couldn't. I couldn't go back. I couldn't."
Elory embraced him again, whispering into his ear until Lucem calmed.
Meliora stared at them, and her fingers coiled around Amerath's hilt. The amber sword felt comforting in her grip, a relic of old Requiem. Holding the leather grip, she felt connected to those ancient kings and queens.
I am the daughter of Jaren, descended from Relesar Aeternum who held this sword, descended of Benedictus the Black, of King Aeternum who raised a marble column in a northern forest and founded a nation for Vir Requis.
She took a deep breath.
"Lucem," she said, "you've been free for ten years. Have you been hiding here the whole time? Or did you . . ." Meliora gulped, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Did you try to find it? To find Requiem?"
He raised his eyes, staring at her. Haunted eyes. Eyes that, despite their youth, had seen too much.
"I tried," he whispered.
Elory inhaled sharply, and Meliora leaned forward.
Requiem. The kingdom of countless myths. The kingdom whispered of in Tofet, the kingdom whose destruction was portrayed in a thousand statues and murals, the kingdom some said was just a myth, as lost as Edinnu.
"What did you find?" Meliora's words were so soft they were almost silent.
"For a year or more, I walked north. I walked through storms that nearly drowned me. I walked through heat that nearly burned me. I walked across deserts and forests until I reached the coast, and I beheld a great blue sea—the northern border of the Terran continent. I walked along the coast for months, almost starving, moving from port to port, but I dared not enter any city I passed. I found no more cities of men. The Terran people who had once lived upon the coast—the remnants of Eteer, Goshar, and other ancient civilizations—all were gone. The seraphim did not enslave those people but slaughtered them all, down to the last child." Lucem stared at the cave wall, eyes dead. "Every port contained seraphim, and I dared not approach to seek passage on their ships. And so I could not cross the sea. I could not see the land of Requiem."
Meliora reached out and touched Lucem's iron collar, then her own collar. "But without this cursed iron around our necks, we wouldn't need a ship. We could fly. Fly across the sea to Requiem as dragons."
Lucem barked out a bitter laugh. "Look at my collar.
Do you see any scratches? Dents? Any marring at all?"
Meliora shook her head.
Lucem nodded. "With as much effort as my labors in Tofet, I labored here to remove my collar. I spent hours bashing it with rocks. On my travels, I stole blades, plyers, hammers. I cut and bruised my neck so many times, trying to shatter this iron. I even snuck into a smithy once, took hot metal, tried to melt the collar off but only burned my skin." He pulled the collar downward, showing an ugly scar. "The runes upon it were forged in dark magic, and it cannot be removed. Our dragon forms are forever lost, and so is Requiem."
Meliora pulled out the crumpled key from her pocket. "Not if we can fix this."
For a long time, Meliora spoke, and Lucem listened. She told him of her life in the ziggurat, of the Keeper's Key that can open the collars. She spoke of losing her wings, of discovering Requiem, and of her quest for the Keymaker. She told him of the Chest of Plenty, of duplicating the key half a million times, of the dragons of Requiem rising together to flee captivity and seek Requiem. And as she spoke, Lucem was silent, asking no questions, simply listening.
When finally Meliora completed her story, Lucem crawled out of the cave, leaving her and Elory inside.
The sisters glanced at each other.
"Did we say something wrong?" Elory asked, frowning.
Meliora peered out the cave. Lucem was walking downhill toward the river, not turning back to look at them. Across his shoulders, he held his only belongings—a tattered old pack, a waterskin, and a makeshift spear with a rusted head.
With another glance at each other, the sisters burst out of the cave and followed.
"Lucem!" Meliora said. "Lucem, where are you going?"
He took a few more steps downhill, then looked over his shoulder at her.
"Where do you think? We're going to find that Keymaker. Are you going to just wait up there, or are you coming too?"
He resumed walking downhill. Meliora and Elory looked at each other, both with wide eyes, and Meliora couldn't help it. She grinned.
"Think we should let him tag along?" Meliora asked.
Elory glanced at Lucem; he had reached a valley and was now racing through the grass toward the riverbank.
"I think," Elory said, "that we'd be tagging along with him."
The sisters ran downhill, swords hanging at their sides, following a legend in chase of a myth.
JAREN
Under the burning sun they labored. In the heat and light of Saraph they screamed. In pits of tar and clay, their bones shattered, their backs broke, their skin tore, their souls cried out for mercy the masters would not grant. In darkness they hid, weeping, begging, praying to stars that would not answer.
Ishtafel, King of Saraph, rose above all, laughing above, a second sun, and under his flames the slaves burned.
Is this how Requiem perishes? Jaren wondered, toiling as another day began, mixing the clay and straw, forming the bricks to bake in the kilns. Not in battle, not with song, not with pride, but fading away in the dirt?
"Faster!" An overseer swung a wooden club, slamming it against Jaren's back with a crack. "Toil!"
Jaren couldn't help it. He cried out in pain. He fell. The seraph spat, clubbed him again, kicked his side.
"Up, old man!" The overseer laughed—a deep, throaty chuckle. "Up and toil. I won't let you die yet."
He screamed. Something tore inside him.
It is over. I fade now. I go to the stars of my forebears.
All around him, they screamed—the children of Requiem, whipped, beaten, broken.
No. I am their father, descended of their ancient king. I am their healer, their priest. Jaren pushed himself up, arms wobbling. I cannot die here. Not as hope still flickers.
He rose to his bleeding feet. He labored on.
As night fell again, they gathered before his home. The weak carrying the weaker. The wounded carrying the dying. Men, women, children with broken bones, open wounds across their bodies. Swollen, bleeding, coughing, shivering, convulsing, festering. The slaves of Tofet, broken, shattered, yet still clinging to life. Still clinging to a dream—a dream of Meliora returning. A dream of seeing Requiem again. Still clinging to life—so frail, so precious! A life even of pain, even of fear, of this endless agony, of centuries of torment—still to live! Still to draw one more breath, to see another dawn in the fields of dust and sweat, to utter one more prayer. To hope. To dream. To pray to see dragons again.
Outside his hut they gathered, dozens, then a hundred, and Jaren stood before them. He too was wounded. He too needed healing, needed water, needed rest. But his children needed him more.
"Come to me, my children." Jaren opened his arms. "Come and pray with me."
One by one, they approached. The first was a young girl, raped and beaten by her masters, bleeding inside. Her mother placed her down. She could barely breathe, merely lay gasping, raspy, gurgling. Jaren's eyes swam with tears as he knelt above her, as he stared up at the stars, as he prayed. He was not a great healer like Issari—the first priestess of Requiem—but he called upon her spirit, the spirit that had healed his son. And in the shadows and light, he thought he saw her form—a pious woman in robes, a braid hanging across her shoulders, her tears falling onto the child who lay in the dirt.
The young girl's eyes fluttered open, and she began to weep. Her mother stepped forth, lifted the child, and wept too.
"Bless you, Jaren Aeternum, shepherd of Requiem," she whispered.
The next slave approached, a father carrying his son; the boy's back was crooked, his clothes soaked with sweat and blood, his face torn in anguish. Again Jaren prayed, holding his hands over the boy, as starlight shone, as the spirit of the priestess wept, until the boy calmed.
Throughout the night they came, and Jaren prayed, healing them as best he could, soothing those he could not heal, guiding some into death. And even as dawn rose, and he returned to his labor, the wounded spread across Tofet, and the dead kept falling.
As he worked in the fields of clay, shivering with weakness and hunger, Jaren prayed a different prayer.
"Return to us, my children." His back burned in the sun. "Return to us, Meliora, Elory, Vale. Return with hope. We need you. Hurry, my children. All the eyes of Requiem are raised to you in hope."
LUCEM
People.
As they walked through the wilderness, Lucem could barely believe it.
Real people. Flesh and blood. Talking to me. Alive.
He looked at them. He had only met them, yet Lucem already loved them both, never wanted to part from them again.
Meliora was tall and fair, her cheekbones high, and her eyes shone gold, the pupils shaped as sunbursts—the eyes of a seraph. Yet kindness filled those eyes, and no wings grew from her back, for her father was Vir Requis, and she carried with her the pride and nobility of Requiem. Though clad in rough burlap, her body scratched and caked with dirt, her grace gave her a godly presence, a holiness greater than jewels and silk could ever bestow.
At her side walked Elory. While Meliora was a striking figure—a goddess of ancient legend come to life—Elory was fully of this world, a figure of warmth, of companionship, of goodness. Her eyes were large and brown, too large in her small face. She was short and slender—too slender—and scars peeked from under her tunic. Her head was shaven, her neck collared, her body bruised, yet she was beautiful to Lucem. A frail, warm, little thing, more precious than the greatest treasure.
Right away Lucem knew: he would come to admire Meliora, to respect her, to worship her divinity . . . and he would come to deeply love Elory, to connect with her soul, to see her as his dearest friend. One woman of holiness, golden yet perhaps searing to the touch. One woman of love, warm and soft and nothing but goodness.
Real people, he thought. Real friends.
Lucem remembered his long years in the wilderness—the friends he had carved from wood, painted onto stone, dreamed of, invented in his madness. They began to fade from his mind.
&
nbsp; And he talked.
He talked to Meliora and Elory of old tales—of Requiem, sometimes myths of other lands. They talked back. They shared stories. They told jokes. Walking along the river, they even sang a song together.
And slowly it faded—that pain, that loneliness . . . easing under the healing presence of them.
I had to remember how to talk, he thought. Now I talk again. Now I'm real. Now I'm here. I remember.
VALE
The sun was setting, spilling red across the sky, when Vale and Tash reached the sea.
"It's beautiful," Tash whispered.
Vale grumbled. "The marble columns of Requiem are beautiful. The birch forests of the north are beautiful. This is . . ." He sighed. "Fine. It's beautiful."
The delta spread around them, lush with life. The Te'ephim River broke into many rivulets here, each crawling along a different path. Lotuses covered the water in a blanket, pads deep green and blossoms red fading to pink. Many fingers of land coiled between the rivulets, and upon them grew wild grass, papyrus trees, date palms, flowering tamarisks, and carob trees heavy with fruit. Birds flew above or waded in the water. Vale saw terns, herons, plovers, egrets, ibises, and many other species he could not name. Frogs trilled between rushes, and crocodiles and hippopotamuses lay submerged in the water, only their nostrils rising above the surface. A few miles away, the delta spilled into the sea, swirls of azure and green water mingling with deep blue.
Yet along with the birds and plants, other life lurked here too, not as appealing. Vale pointed. "Beautiful aside from that."
Tash nodded and nervously tugged her hair. "Does ruin the view, doesn't it?"
A city rose a mile or two away from the greenery. Even from this distance, Vale spotted obelisks tipped with gold, the columns of temples, and statues of gods that soared hundreds of feet tall. What he first mistook for eagles circling the city he soon recognized as seraphim.
Crown of Dragonfire Page 13