Crown of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  "It's . . . I can't tell you how many times . . .," Lucem began, then rubbed his eyes. He took a shaky breath and embraced Meliora so tightly he nearly crushed her. "Thank you, Meliora. Thank you."

  She laughed through her tears. "Are you going to keep standing here hugging me, or are you going to fly?"

  He blinked. "Blimey, I forgot the most important part. Better step back." He took a few paces away from Meliora and Elory, inhaled deeply, and spread out his arms.

  No light glowed across him. No angelic choirs sang. No beams of starlight fell in a crown of luminescence. And yet a miracle occurred upon the mountain that evening, a miracle that brought fresh tears to Meliora's eyes and song to her heart.

  Scales flowed across Lucem, red as rubies and fire and the blood of dragons. His fingernails lengthened into claws, fangs sprouted from his mouth, and wings unfurled from his back, creaking and leathern and deep crimson like wine. His body lengthened, widened, and he fell onto his hands—only they were no longer hands but great dragon feet. Smoke blasted out from his nostrils, and a tail flailed behind him, tipped with black spikes.

  He stood before them, a dragon.

  Meliora fell to her knees before him. She lowered her head. "A dragon. A dragon of Requiem."

  Elory too knelt. "Requiem rises."

  The red dragon nodded. "Not bad, this. Little mortals kneeling before me." Lucem still had the same voice, albeit stronger, fuller, echoing in his elongated jaws. "Now let's see what these wings can do."

  He spread his wings wide and beat them several times. Dust rose in clouds. Pebbles cascaded down the mountainside. Air blasted Meliora. The red dragon began to rise . . . then wobbled and crashed down onto the mountainside, cracking a boulder.

  "Might take a bit more practice," Lucem said.

  Elory patted the dragon's red scales, then stepped toward Meliora and raised her chin.

  "I'm ready," she whispered.

  Meliora placed a hand on Elory's shoulder, then raised the key in her other hand.

  The light glowed. The collar fell.

  Elory stood before her, her collar gone for the first time in her life. She sniffed and embraced Meliora, resting her cheek against Meliora's breast.

  "I love you, sister," Elory whispered. "Always."

  Meliora kissed the top of her head. Elory's hair was growing out, thick and brown and soft. "I love you too, sweet little sister. Forever."

  Elory stepped back, closed her eyes, and she too became a dragon. Lavender scales gleamed across her, deep purple near her belly, lightening to violet on her back. White horns grew from her head, and white spikes ran down her tail in a palisade. She was a smaller dragon than Lucem, slender and short, but when she puffed out smoke and let fire fill her maw, she looked just as fierce.

  "It's real," Elory whispered. "The magic inside me. It's always been real, waiting all these years." She lowered her head and shed a tear, then reared and clawed the air and roared. Her cry tore across the mountain, rolled across the land—a great wordless cry of freedom, of magic restored.

  Finally Meliora brought the key to her own collar, the light shone, and the collar fell. As she stood in human form, Meliora felt the magic inside her, and she hesitated.

  The one time I summoned Requiem's magic, I still had my seraph wings, she thought. I became a dragon of both scales and feathers, great swan wings growing from my back. If I shift now, will I be wingless?

  "Come on, join the fun!" Lucem said, beating his wings and rising several feet into the air again. "Fly with us, Mel. Fly like—ah!"

  Again the red dragon crashed down, cracking another boulder.

  Meliora sucked in breath, closed her eyes, and reached deep inside her for that warm, tingling magic.

  She felt her body growing. She heard scales clattering. Fire heated her belly. Her claws sank into the mountain.

  When her transformation was complete, she kept her eyes closed, not daring to look. But she could hear the others gasp.

  "Oh, Meliora . . .," Elory whispered.

  "Blimey," Lucem said.

  Meliora cringed. She had been right! Surely her wings were gone! She braced herself, opened one eye to a slit, and looked over her shoulder at her body.

  Such shock filled her that she spurted out fire.

  "Stars," she whispered. "Thank you, stars of Requiem."

  Her body was long, slender, covered in small silvery scales like pearls. No more feathers grew from her tail; that tail was thin and quick as a whip, tipped with ivory spikes. Instead of swan wings, great leathern wings, white as drifts of snow, grew from her back, tipped with golden claws. Fire crackled above her head, its orange light falling upon her snout, and she realized that even in dragon form, she wore a crown of dragonfire.

  I'm a dragon. A true dragon of Requiem.

  She flapped her wings. She soared into the sky.

  She spun as she flew, pointed upward in a straight line, rising and rising, and she blasted up her fire. The flames shot skyward, a white pillar. Her wings spread wide, and she laughed as she spun, sending forth her flame.

  With a cry of joy, Elory flew too. The lavender dragon shot up beside her, laughing, and blasted her own fire—orange flames flaring out into yellow. She was a smaller dragon than Meliora, but when Elory roared again, the mountain shook.

  Grumbling curses, Lucem finally managed to fly up with them. He wobbled, dipped, yelped, beat his wings madly, and finally steadied his flight.

  "I think I'm getting the hang of this," the red dragon said. "I—whoa, careful, Elory!"

  The purple dragon laughed and playfully slammed against him, tossing him into a tailspin. Lucem cursed, righted himself, and kept flying.

  The three dragons spread their wings wide, found a wind current, and glided. The mountains and hills rolled below in an endless landscape, and in the distance, the Te'ephim River spread in a silver line.

  "It's beautiful!" Elory cried over the wind. "All my life, I knelt in the dust, looking up at the sky, dreaming of it . . . and now I'm here, looking down. A dragon. No longer afraid."

  "I'm afraid!" Lucem said, wobbling and dipping in the sky.

  Meliora breathed deeply as she flew and smiled. She had never felt such peace, not in all her years in the ziggurat. She had never seen such beauty, not among all the artwork of Saraph. She had never felt so noble, not even as a princess in an empire's palace.

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

  Elory and Meliora repeated the ancient prayer—the same prayer the children of Requiem had been singing for five thousand years, the prayer of outcasts in forests, of warriors in battlefields, of survivors in ruins, of freed slaves seeking to return home.

  "We fly now in the sky of Saraph," Meliora said. "But we will fly in Requiem's sky again."

  She turned to look north. She could see far from up here, farther than she had ever seen. The horizon lay many miles away, yet that distance was but a fraction of the way to Requiem. Vast deserts, plains, and seas lay between here and her lost home, but Meliora vowed that she would see that home, that she would fly in Requiem again.

  But not yet, she thought, turning away from the northern view. This day we fly south. She let fire fill her jaws, and she growled. This day we fly to Tofet.

  TASH

  He slept beside her on the grass, covered in a blanket of palm fronds, and Tash's heart twisted at the pain she would cause him.

  "Sweetest Vale," she whispered and kissed him.

  The hint of a smile touched his lips, but he did not wake. Tash lay beside him, looking at him. His face was thin, still careworn, but handsome, she thought. She had let so many seraphim into her bed—men tall, fair, of purest form and beauty—yet she had loved no man until this one, until her sweet Vale, despite all his scars and the pain written across his face, even now.

  I began to heal your pain, Tash thought. To see you smile, to hear you laugh. To place love into your heart . . . only for me now to break that heart.

&nb
sp; Silently, she slipped out of their bed of grass and leaves. The landscape rolled around them: hills, valleys, and the river that flowed between them. Somewhere in the west lay Tofet—a hive of disease, chains, agony, death. Somewhere in the north or south lay other lands . . . new lands, unexplored, lands of freedom.

  Tash stared at the Chest of Plenty.

  It lay in the grass beside them, so small. She could have cradled it in her arms. And yet it was wealth. Freedom. Hope. Life—life away from war, from pain, from death. It was the treasure she had dreamed of all her life. So many times as some drunken lord had bedded her, Tash had closed her eyes, ground her teeth, and imagined finding the Chest of Plenty. So many times, Tash had lain awake at night as the other girls slept, working on her map, coming up with a thousand plans: how she'd escape Shayeen, find the chest, build a great treasure and sail away to freedom.

  Tash fingered the jewel in her navel. As Vale still slept, Tash unpinned the jewel and pulled it free. She held it in her palm. A small diamond, impure and pinkish, inlaid in a ring of gold. Some seraph or another had gifted her that jewel in the garden. It wasn't worth much on its own; perhaps enough to trade for a sturdy cloak, boots, and a leather belt, with enough left over for a couple nights in a tavern and a bottle of wine. Hardly a fortune. But with this chest . . .

  Tash closed her eyes. It'll be like I always dreamed. Enough diamonds to bribe seraphim guards at any port in the empire, enough to book passage on a ship—to buy a ship! Enough to sail far away, find an outpost in the distance, someplace far from Ishtafel. Maybe she would even reach the end of the empire, find a land beyond that still stood, where seraphim would not find her. She could buy a mansion, servants, all the fine wines and food in the world. The collar would remain around her neck, but she would gild it, encrust it in jewels, be a queen in a distant land.

  Fingers trembling, Tash opened the chest and placed her jewel within. She closed the chest top.

  Nothing happened. No glowing light. No angelic song. Not even a rattle to the chest. She opened the lid.

  Diamonds spilled out. Thousands of tiny diamonds on golden rings. Tash bit her lip, dipped her hand into the chest, and ran her fingers between them. She was wealthy. Just like that—wealthy. She turned the chest upside down, spilling them all out into the grass, then placed a single diamond back inside. She closed the lid. She opened it. Thousands more diamonds shone inside.

  "Endless wealth," she whispered. "Endless freedom."

  She looked back west and winced.

  And there lies endless pain.

  Tash closed her eyes, shuddering. How could she go back to Tofet—after all she had seen there? After Ishtafel had murdered a hundred thousand souls, after all the pits of corpses, the dead upon spikes, so much pain, bloodshed . . . How could she walk that path when the other way lay freedom and wealth?

  Tash opened her eyes. She lifted the chest, leaving all but one diamond in the grass. Vale would find them, at least. Have a treasure to carry with him wherever he wanted to go.

  "I wish I could take you with me, Vale," she whispered. "But you'd never understand. You'd never go with me."

  She looked away from him. She could not stare at his face for an instant longer; it stabbed her full of pain, as cruel as spears. Holding the chest under her arm, tears in her eyes, Tash began to walk north.

  She took ten steps, then stopped, trembling. Her body shook. Her tears fell. She wanted to return to Tofet. She couldn't. She couldn't.

  I can't go back there. I can't. I've dreamed of this for so long. I can't go back.

  Weeping, she took another step away.

  "Tash?" rose his voice behind her.

  Her heart sank to her pelvis and shattered.

  Stars, no. Stars, don't let this happen.

  She turned around and saw Vale standing there, the diamonds around his feet. At first he seemed confused. He stared down at the treasure, then up at her, head tilted. Then his eyes narrowed, and he understood. Something terrible filled his eyes, something not angry, but more pained than a slave under a whip. The shattering, icy pain of betrayal.

  "Tash," he whispered.

  She wept. She trembled. "Come with me," she whispered.

  "Where?" He spoke so softly she could barely hear.

  "Anywhere." The chest under her arm rattled as she trembled. "Away from war. Away from pain and torture. Away from this empire. We can be rich, Vale! We can be free." She placed the chest down, walked toward him, and tried to embrace him. "We can find a new life, and—"

  "You tried to leave me here." He stared at her with shock and agony in his eyes. "You tried to take it. To steal the chest away. To . . . to leave me and Requiem, and—"

  "There's no hope for Requiem!" Tash shouted. "Don't you understand, Vale? Don't you see? Millions of dragons fought Ishtafel in the old days. Millions of dragon warriors, soldiers in a great army, trained for battle. And he killed them! He killed them all, and he took everyone else captive. And now you think slaves can kill him, even without our collars? He's going to kill us, Vale. Kill us all! There's nothing in Tofet but pain, blood, death—"

  "Then I will die!" he shouted, face red, gripping her arms. "Then I will die again, as I died upon the ziggurat. I will die a thousand times for Requiem. Tash!" His tears fell. "How could you do this? How could you betray us? You're a daughter of Requiem, a Vir Requis, a—"

  "A slave!" She shoved against his chest, trying to break free. "Just a pleasure slave! Not even a whore. Whores get paid. I'm nothing but a slave to them, Vale, and I won't do it anymore. Never again. Never! I won't let them touch me, bed me, toss jewels onto my naked body. I . . . I finally found someone I love, Vale. Someone I love truly. And now you just want to go there, to go back to what we fled. You remember what it was like. The whips, the spears, the fire. You want to go back and die. And I can't see that. I can't see that happen. I can't . . . I can't . . ."

  She wanted him to embrace her, to comfort her, to stroke her hair, maybe even tell her that he'd go with her. But he only stared at her, the pain in his eyes. And a new emotion crossed his face.

  Rage.

  His lips peeled back, his eyes blazed, and his cheeks flushed. His hands balled into fists.

  "Still you lie," he whispered. "Love?"

  "I love you—" she began.

  "You lie!" He raised his fist as if to hit her, and she cringed. "All you do is lie. Love me? You tried to leave me! To betray your people, to leave us to torture, to death. You tried to leave Requiem to ruin. Do you have any notion of what you've done?" He gripped her so tightly his fingers dug into her arms. "For thousands of years, we fought for Requiem, we died for Requiem, we—"

  "Do you know who you sound like?" she shouted, struggling to free herself, her hair whipping around. "You sound like them! Like the ghosts in the shipwreck. Like the cruel Vir Requis of the Cadigus regime. They too boasted of fighting and dying for a cause. But I don't want to fight, Vale. I don't want to die. I don't want to suffer, to bleed, to kill for some ideal, for some nation that fell five hundred years ago. Requiem is gone, Vale. It's gone forever, but I'm still here. We're still here. You and I." She gave up on freeing herself and lowered her head, sobbing. "We can leave all this behind. We can find a better life—a life of wealth. We have all the money in the world now, enough to sail away, to buy palaces, or just buy a humble home if you prefer, somewhere beyond the empire. I only tried to leave without you because . . . because I knew you wouldn't want this, and it broke my heart. It broke my heart, Vale."

  "The only heart you broke is mine." He shook his head, his whisper barely audible. "How could you? After all we suffered . . . knowing that Meliora and Elory are out there, fighting for Requiem, that my father is back in Tofet, that . . . that we finally had a chance. How could you?"

  Tash fell to her knees in the grass. She wept. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She tried to hug his legs. "I'm sorry."

  He lifted the fallen chest. He stared down at her, and she saw it inside those eyes—shattering, ete
rnal pain of betrayal. He spun around and began walking.

  "Wait," she whispered. "Vale, wait . . ."

  But he would not turn back. He kept walking.

  "Wait!" she shouted, still kneeling in the grass.

  He only walked faster, heading west across the land, taking the Chest of Plenty. Tash shoved herself to her feet, shaking so wildly she almost fell again. She followed him, blinded by tears, leaving her jewels behind, and as she walked, it filled her—the crushing guilt.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

  She kept following him, not knowing if he'd ever forgive her, and if she could ever forgive herself.

  VALE

  She kept trailing behind him, calling his name, but he would not look back. She kept begging him for forgiveness, voice rolling across the land, but he would not answer.

  He traveled by night, hidden in shadows, carrying the Chest of Plenty under his arm. Traveling to Tofet, for a hope to reunite with Meliora, to duplicate her key and raise Requiem again. In those long nights, Tash calling behind him, the stars shone above in a great blanket, and Vale felt very alone, very small, carrying the hope of a nation . . . as the traitor of that nation followed.

  "Vale!" she cried out. "Vale, wait. Vale, forgive me!"

  And yet, whenever she called, he walked onward through the darkness.

  In the days, he slept, hidden in caves, in burrows, in tall grass. Tash would creep up to him then, try to stroke his hair, to kiss him, to plead forgiveness. And each time he shoved her away, rose to his feet, and walked onward, leaving her behind.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Won't you forgive me?"

  Yet how could he? He had loved Tash. After so many years of pain, he had allowed himself to feel love, to feel joy. And she had betrayed not only him but Meliora, Elory, Jaren, all of them.

  Had she come on this quest not for Requiem, but only for herself? Had she seen him as only a bodyguard, protecting her until she found the chest, until she could stab him in the back?