“Please, stars of Requiem, if you can hear me, bless me with your magic. Let me rise as a dragon. Let me fly. Let me be strong.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to shift. She imagined herself as a dragon—beating wings, roaring fire. Yet nothing happened. When she opened her eyes, she was a girl again, only a slim thing in a white gown, her dark braid hanging across her shoulder.
She left the balcony and walked through the palace, heading down stairways and corridors. When Mother and Laira had fled, Issari had been only a babe, but she knew the stories. To this day, guards whispered how Raem—then only a prince—had found his wife and child shifting into dragons in the palace cistern. Since then, few had dared enter that dark, wet place, perhaps fearing that the miasma of reptilian disease still lingered there. But this evening, Issari needed to see that place—to think of her family, to imagine dragons.
She walked down a craggy tunnel and stairs, plunging into underground depths, until she emerged into the cistern.
It was a towering cavern, as large as the throne room above. Columns supported a rough, vaulted ceiling. Water rose taller than a man here, still and silent. A cold place, wet, secret, and dark.
Slowly, Issari began to walk down a flight of stairs toward the water. When she saw the shadow ahead, she gasped and froze.
Merciful Taal . . .
Ahead of her, half-submerged in the water, was a dragon.
Instinctively, Issari reached to her belt and clutched the hilt of her dagger.
She did not know this dragon. The beast was black and burly, his horns long. He had not seen her, and Issari quickly hid behind a column and peeked. The dragon stood still in the water; the only movement was the smoke pluming from his nostrils. Finally, with a grunt and shake of his head, the dragon began to shrink. His wings pulled into his back, his scales faded, and a man floated in the water, bald and shirtless.
Issari slapped her palm over her mouth to stifle her gasp.
It was her father.
Slowly, dripping water, King Raem stepped out from the pool. Issari pulled her head back, pressing herself against the column. If he saw her here, he would not merely beat her again; he would drown her in this pool. She crept deeper into shadows, waiting for Raem to climb the stairs and leave the cistern.
But she did not see him leave. For a long moment, she saw and heard nothing. Then a loud crack pierced the silence, followed by a grunt. A second crack followed.
Issari dared to peek around the column. Her father was kneeling by the pool, chastising himself with a belt. Welts rose across his back, much like the ones he had given her.
“Diseased,” the king hissed. “Cursed. Shameful.” With every word, his belt lashed again.
Issari stared in disbelief.
Her father. The man who had banished his daughter and imprisoned his son. The man who had murdered scores in the city, those he called weredragons. The man who had released an army of demons to purify his kingdom with blood and rot.
Her father . . . was Vir Requis.
Issari’s eyes stung.
All those you killed, she thought, trembling. All that you destroyed. All this pain, all this terror . . . because you are ashamed. Because you are one of them.
Her amulet blazed in her hand; it felt like holding an ember. Issari took ragged breaths and raised her chin. She knew then. She knew what she could do, what she had to do. She knew that only she, here in this place, could save Eteer, could save Requiem, could return light to the darkness.
She drew her dagger.
Leaving her hiding place, she walked toward her father, daring not breathe.
He did not see her. He was still kneeling by the pool, chastising himself. Blood dripped down his back.
It will be just one more wound, Issari thought, staring at his blood. Just one thrust of the blade.
Her dagger shook and her heart thrashed, but Issari knew she had to do this. She would sin. She would murder again—like she had murdered the crone. She would save the world.
She reached her father—the man who had beaten her, tortured her siblings, the man who had to die—and raised her dagger.
With a sob, she thrust the blade.
Raem spun around.
The king gasped and raised his arms, protecting himself. The dagger sliced into his forearm, ripping flesh open. The blade scraped against bone.
Issari screamed.
Raem reached out, grabbed her wrist, and twisted. The blade clanged to the ground. A second later, the king’s fist drove into Issari’s chest.
She fell back, unable to breathe. She tried to suck in breath; horror engulfed her when she realized she could not. The pain bloomed through her.
“Father—“ she tried to whisper.
He grabbed her. He twisted her arms behind her back and manhandled her forward, his blood dripping.
“You treacherous whore.” His voice shook. “You worm that crawls with maggots. You betrayed me.”
Issari managed a hoarse whisper. “You killed your own father. You unleashed demons upon this world. You are the traitor to Eteer. You—“
He clamped a palm over her mouth, and she screamed into it. He shoved her up the stairs, his blood leaving a red trail. When she fell, he dragged her. Her hip banged against each step. She tried to fight, to punch him, to kick, but could not. Another blow from his fist rattled her jaw. A slap sent her reeling.
“Father, please!”
Blood filled her mouth. And she knew that begging wouldn’t help. She had stabbed him, almost killed him. Her life was forfeit.
I should have flown north with the dragons, she realized. I should have fled. Now I will die here, alone, afraid.
He dragged her down a corridor, past tall bronze doors, and into the palace throne room.
Once a place of splendor, it had been transformed into a hive of fire and brimstone. The porphyry columns, once pure and pale blue, now stank with serpentine demons that wrapped around them, oozing drool. Once a mosaic had covered the floor, featuring birds and dolphins. Now globs of rot hid the artwork, and demons rutted in the puddles, grunting in their passion. Once the throne had risen in a beam of light; now it rose from a mass of writhing creatures who bit, licked, and clawed one another. Angel herself now lurked here, clinging to the ceiling like a bat, drooling lava and hissing down at her minions below.
Issari gasped as her father tossed her into the chamber. She fell, landing in a puddle of rot.
“Demons of the Abyss!” Raem called out.
The creatures ceased their racket and turned toward him. One paused with another’s leg between its jaws. Others froze, still linked together as they rutted. They stared, hissing, tongues lolling.
“Here lies a traitor.” Raem pointed down at Issari. “She is yours to do with as you like. Mate with her. Eat her flesh if you like. Keep her alive for your amusement or kill her. But one thing I demand: Make sure she never leaves this chamber again.”
With that, he left the hall and slammed the doors behind him.
Issari leaped up, raced to the doors, and yanked at the handles. Locked.
She spun around, pressed her back to the doors, and stared at the creatures. The demons approached slowly, grins widening. Angel detached from the ceiling, landed on the floor, and hissed like a viper. Her tongue reached out across the hall, an obscene tentacle longer than three men, to lick Issari’s cheek.
Issari raised her hand. Her amulet, embedded into her palm, blazed to life.
“By the light of Taal!” she shouted. “I banish you. I—“
Angel spat. A wad of dark drool hit the amulet, hiding its glow. With a scream, Issari tried to rip the glob off, but it clung to her hand, black and sticky.
The Demon Queen leaped toward her, crossing the throne room in a single bound. She landed before Issari, gripped her cheeks, and hissed.
“What a pretty thing.” She caressed Issari’s hair with a clawed hand. “So fair. So fresh. So innocent. You will be mine to break.
I will mate with you, and so will all in my hall. And when we are done, we will feast upon you.” Smoke rose from her mouth, and she licked her lips. “You will live through it. You will watch as we devour your legs, then your arms, then slowly work our way up your torso, sucking up your entrails as you scream. But you will not die.” Angel sneered, holding Issari pinned against the doors. “Not until I say you can.”
Around them, the other demons howled, drooled, laughed, beat their wings, spewed their filth. Their faces spun, eyes red, mouths dripping.
Issari closed her eyes.
A dragon can defeat them. A dragon can blow fire. A dragon can fly away.
She took a deep breath, seeking a magic deep within her. She imagined herself growing wings and claws, rising, flying. Yet nothing happened.
The demons dragged her away from the doors. They slammed her against the floor, stretched out her limbs until they almost dislocated, and held her down on her back. Towering creatures like human vultures cloaked in red feathers leaned forward. Their beaks opened, full of serrated teeth. Worms crawled between their feet, as large as children; they were great leeches, Issari realized, like the ones Shedah had used but many times the size.
“Break her!” Angel commanded.
Issari closed her eyes again.
To shift is not a curse, she thought. My mother could shift. My siblings can. Even my father shifted.
She breathed shakily. For years, King Raem had preached of the evil of the reptilian curse. For years, Issari had feared the magic, thinking the weredragons poor souls to pity. But her father too could shift! It was not a curse. It was not an abomination unto Taal.
It was magic.
Issari took a deep, shuddering breath.
Wings sprouted from her back, shoving her upward.
She opened her eyes to see claws growing on her fingertips. Her body ballooned, knocking demons back. White scales, glimmering like mother of pearl, grew across her body like armor. Demons clawed but could not break through.
A white dragon, Princess Issari rose in the chamber, sounded her roar, and blew her fire.
RAEM
HE STOOD IN THE CHARRED rooftop gardens—the same place he had stabbed his father—stitching the wound his daughter had given him. His lips were tight, and sweat dripped down his face as he worked, sewing his arm shut.
The trees, bushes, and flowerbeds lay burnt around him. The broken lattices rose like blackened bones. Once this had been a garden of life, a place of solitude and peace. The dragons had come. The dragons had burned. The dragons had torn his life apart, torn his children from him.
Two of those children—Laira and Sena—now flew in the north, diseased creatures. His third child, his youngest, he had taught too well.
“Issari is like me,” Raem said softly into the ashy wind. “A traitor to her father. And so she will suffer.”
He violently thrust the needle into his arm, savoring the pain. He was sewing the last stitch when the palace shook. Dust flew. Bricks toppled into a courtyard below. Raem leaned over the roof’s edge and sucked in his breath.
A white dragon crashed out of the palace doorway, shattering bronze and stone, and soared into the sky.
Raem stared, silent.
A cloud of demons burst out of the palace like black blood spilling from an infected wound. They began to fly in pursuit, but the white dragon turned and blasted fire. The inferno blazed across the demons and crashed into the palace, forcing Raem to step back into the charred gardens. Sparks landed upon him, searing his skin; he was still shirtless after his visit to the cistern. When the flames died, he saw demon corpses upon the courtyard below. The white dragon was already flying toward the coast.
Light caught the dragon’s palm, shining against something metallic. Raem knew that light.
An amulet of Taal.
“Issari,” he whispered.
Before he could take another breath, the roof crashed open behind him. Through a cloud of rock and smoke, Angel ascended, shrieking. Claw marks drove down her stony chest, leaking lava. Rings of fire burst out from her.
“Your daughter!” she cried, voice a storm. “Your daughter is diseased!” She landed before him, wings knocking down charred trees, and clawed what remained of the roof. “You have forbidden me to leave this city, and now she flees. Send me after her!”
Raem was surprised.
Not surprised that Issari was a dragon.
Not that his city crumbled around him.
Not that his wound dripped, a failed assassination attempt from his dearest daughter.
Raem was surprised that, despite all these things, he found himself feeling remarkably calm, even casual.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, my dear Angel, it seems she is a dragon. And yes, I have forbidden you to leave this city.”
The Demon Queen screamed. Her fire blazed, a great pillar upon the roof. The palace shook. Demons who flew above, balls of slime, burst under the sound wave of her scream, falling down in tatters.
“Send me after her!”
Calmly, Raem turned to look toward the coast. The white dragon was now over the water, fleeing north. A second beast was flying in the opposite direction, heading from the sea toward the city. As Raem watched, a great oily vulture—larger even than a dragon—flew toward the palace, a rider upon its back.
With a shriek, the roc landed on the palace roof. A Goldtusk hunter spilled off its back, barely landing on his feet. He was a tall, hirsute man with beads threaded into his beard. Three fingers were missing from his hand, the wounds fresh, and a gash ran down his chest. His skin was ashen, his eyes sunken. Blood stained his tattered fur cloak.
“I seek King Raem!” the man said, wavering, looking so weak he barely acknowledged the smoky, fiery Angel.
“You have found him,” said Raem.
The hunter gripped Raem’s arms. “The rocs . . . many dead. Zerra . . . slain. Laira, that maggot of a harlot . . . took over the tribe. The dragons have a kingdom now. Requiem, they call it. All is lost. All . . . lost . . .”
With that, the man collapsed. He breathed no more.
Raem stared at the dead man, at Issari who was barely visible upon the horizon, at the ruin of his palace, and at the panting, sneering Angel.
And he laughed.
His laughter seized him. He could not stop. Angel shrieked again, beating her wings, and Raem laughed so much he had to wipe a tear from his eye.
“Do you see, Angel?” he said. “Do you see the pain of children? Never breed, Angel. Never bear a child.”
She ripped out a chunk of roof and tossed it aside. She lifted the dead hunter in her claws, raised him to her lips, and hissed.
“It is time,” she said. “Time to eat human flesh. Time to grow. Time to kill dragons.”
Raem looked down upon the city. He saw no living souls. All his people—once proud and strong—hid in their homes.
The dragons destroyed my city, he thought. And so be it. Let blood fill these streets.
He nodded.
“A thousand men and women I give to you. A thousand meals. Fly through the city with your demons, Angel. Feast upon them. Grow large. Grow strong. And then . . . then we fly north. To Requiem.”
Angel howled in joy. Her jaw unhinged, her maw opening wide like a python about to swallow a pig. She stuffed the dead tribesman into her mouth, gulping him down, chewing, swallowing, until her belly extended like some obscene pregnancy. Her limbs grew longer. Her head ballooned. She laughed as she grew taller, sprouting to twice her old height, then growing even further. She spread her wings wide like midnight sails.
“Rise, demons of the Abyss!” Angel shouted. “Rise and feast upon the flesh of Eteer!”
She beat her wings, rising, ringed in fire, a woman of stone and lava the size of a dragon. From the palace windows and doors, they burst out, a thousand abominations of the Abyss. They spread through the city streets. They crashed through the doors of homes and shops. And they fed. And they grew.
Scr
eams and blood filled the city of Eteer that day.
Raem watched from the palace roof, a thin smile on his lips.
Before him, the demons grew, extending like boils about to burst. Globs of flesh. Scaled creatures of hooks and horns. Unholy centipedes of many human heads and limbs. All rose before him, growing to the size of dragons. They hovered before the palace roof, swallowing the last bits of human flesh.
It was an army of darkness. It was an army to purify the world.
Upon the roof, Raem raised his arms. He shouted out for them all to hear.
“I have fed you, my children! And you have grown strong. Now we fly! We fly north. We fly to Requiem. We fly to kill dragons!”
They shrieked, howled, sneered, laughed, roared. Their voices rose into a single cry, a thunder that shook the city, that shattered towers, that sent burnt trees crumbling. Raem’s mount—the twisted woman broken, cursed, and stretched into a bat—flew toward him. Once the size of a horse, the deformed creature was now as large as a dragon, and the blood of men stained her lips. Raem mounted the beast and stroked her.
Hiding the sky behind their wings, leaving a trail of rot, the demon army flew across the city and over the sea, heading to the land of dragons.
The story continues in . . . REQUIEM’S HOPE
DAWN OF DRAGONS, BOOK TWO
Available Now
Afterword
DANIEL ARENSON IS A BESTSELLING author of fantasy and science fiction.
Four of his trilogies—Dawn of Dragons, Song of Dragons, Dragonlore, and The Dragon War—are set in Requiem, a world where humans can turn into dragons. He’s also the author of Moth, a series about a world torn in two—its one half always in sunlight, the other always dark. Eight of Daniel’s books have hit Amazon’s overall Top 100 bestsellers list; one has hit the Top 20. In total, his books have sold over 500,000 copies.
Raised on Dungeons & Dragons, The Lord of the Rings, and scratchy Star Wars VHS tapes, Daniel still consumes—and tries to contribute to—geek culture.
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