Dragons Lost (7 page)

Domi's saddle was
missing; she had used the straps to bind Cade. Mercy rode bareback. The
paladin dug her spurs into the tenderspots, and Domi winced; the burnt spot
especially ached. She kicked off the mountain, beat her wings, and rose into
the sky. Around her, the other firedrakes took flight too. Two no longer bore
riders, their paladins dead in the forest.

"Keep scouring the
mountains!" Mercy shouted toward the other paladins. "Uproot every tree and
turn over every stone. Do not return to the capital until you've found the boy!"

The other paladins
nodded upon their firedrakes. The beasts fanned out, traveling across the piney
slopes. Already they swooped to uproot trees.

Mercy dug her right
spur deeply into Domi. "You turn north, beast. We fly back to Mother. Fly!"

Domi flew.

Leaving the mountains
behind, she glided on the wind, leaving the others behind. Whenever she slowed
down, Mercy's spurs dug again. The paladin had always been an impatient flyer,
but today she spurred Domi onward with extra urgency.

She's not just mad
at me,
Domi realized.
She's mad about Cade. That he exists. That she
lost him.

As they passed over the
village, Domi looked down at the ruins. Night had fallen, but scattered fires
still burned below, and Domi's eyes were sharp. Nothing but the shells of huts
and scattered skeletons remained. She could no longer see Cade below. Hopefully
the boy was traveling east toward Sanctus, toward the library, toward the aid
he'd find there. Hopefully he wouldn't be foolish enough to shift into a dragon
again.

Don't die, Cade,
she thought.
Damn you, don't be an idiot. Stay alive.

She sighed as they flew
onward, traveling across grassy plains and leaving the ruins behind. All her
life, Domi had known only four other Vir Requis. For years, they believed there
were no others. All her life, Requiem had been just them, a secret carried
within five hearts. Now another rose. Now the paladins were on the hunt. Now,
Domi thought, everything would change.

Mercy will fetch
reinforcement,
Domi thought.
She'll scour the land. She'll seek Cade in
every town and city.

Again Domi felt the
fire rise inside her. She rolled back her eyes to stare up at Mercy. Riding on
her back, the paladin stared ahead with narrowed eyes, the wind streaming her
white hair. Eliana lay before her in the saddle; the baby seemed to be
sleeping.

I can kill Mercy
now,
Domi thought.
I can grab her with my jaws and toss her down to her
death. I can fly off with Eliana, become a human, vanish into the world, maybe
find Cade and run with him forever.

She looked back ahead,
eyes stinging.

No. I cannot.
If
Mercy were found dead, Domi too would be hunted. Mercy was cruel, but without
her Gemini would become heir to the Cured Temple, and then the Commonwealth
would truly bleed. Mercy perhaps was heartless, but Gemini had a heart of
wildfire, a mad heart that would burn down the empire. Better the tyrant of
steel than the tyrant of fire. If Domi cut one head off the hydra, another
would grow, and her life—this life she had fought so hard for, a life as a dragon—would
forever end. And so Domi flew on, suffering the spurs, suffering the shame.

Dawn was rising when
she saw the city of Nova Vita ahead.

As always, whenever she
flew home, the sight of the city filled Domi with awe and longing.

Thousands of years ago,
Domi knew, the first Vir Requis—wild shapeshifters of the forest—had raised a
marble column in this place, founding the kingdom of Requiem. For thousands of
years, this holy ground had been the heart of that kingdom, a kingdom for those
who can grow wings, blow fire, and take flight as dragons.

Then, a mere hundred
years ago—the blink of an eye!—the Cured Temple had risen.

And everything had
changed.

The city of Nova Vita,
once capital of Requiem, had become a bastion of the Temple.

In the old books in the
library, the ones the others kept hidden, Domi had seen illustrations of the
old city—its proud towers, its marble columns, its great statues of old heroes,
its pale homes with their tiled roofs, its banners displaying the Draco
constellation.

All that was gone.

In a mere hundred
years, all that had been forgotten.

The old towers had been
knocked down, their height seen as heretical, daring to challenge the Spirit
above. The old homes, dwellings of marble and lush gardens, had been torn down
and replaced with clay huts, their roofs domed—dwellings of pious austerity.
The statues had been smashed, the gardens burnt. Even the fabled birch trees
which had grown among the homes, symbols of Requiem, had been cut down. All
beauty—of sculpture, architecture, even trees—was now sinful, an affront to the
beauty of the invisible Spirit.

The city now looked
much like the village of Favilla, but a thousand times the size. Rows and rows
of clay huts—thousands of them—sprawled across Nova Vita, their domes reflecting
the sun. From up here, the city looked almost like the scales of a great pale
dragon. Cobbled streets snaked between the homes, and people walked among them.
The commoners wore burlap tunics, simple garb to purify the soul. Jewelry,
cosmetics, even colored fabrics were outlawed, punishable by stoning. The
priests—Domi saw several of them walking down a street—wore white cotton robes,
the fabric simple but of finer quality than what commoners wore. Only the
paladins, holy warriors of the Spirit, wore steel; Domi could see none of those
noble warriors from up here, for they rarely mingled with the other classes.

While the city was a
model of humbleness, one building shattered the austerity with the might of a
sword shattering a heart.

The Cured Temple rose
in the city center, a massive monument reaching up toward the sky. There was
only one temple in the Commonwealth, only one center of power for the Cured. It
soared here with light and wonder, scratching the clouds, dwarfing all other
buildings.

The building was built
of white stone, round at the bottom, flaring up into many shards of crystal and
glass. Some days it reminded Domi of a crystal fist reaching its fingers toward
the sky. Other times it looked to her like a gaudy crown. Today she imagined it
as a great crab, stretching many claws toward the sun; indeed it seemed an
organic structure, as if it had sprouted from the rock, a natural formation of
stone and crystal. Its spikes were of different sizes and shapes, a jungle, but
all glittered in the sunlight, and even the smallest would dwarf the mightiest
oak in the northern forests. Several firedrakes flew around the monolith,
guarding its holiness; they seemed smaller than bees hovering around their
nest. Here was a great jewel, a center of light, of holiness, of power.

Here was the bright
fist that clutched the memory of Requiem, refusing to release it.

Here, hidden within the
Temple, invisible to Domi, rose King's Column.

Her eyes dampened.

King's Column,
she thought.
The pillar of our fallen kingdom. The ancient relic of Requiem.

In the old book—
The
Book of Requiem
—it was written that King Aeternum had raised the marble
pillar, that it would not fall while Vir Requis lived. Every night, Domi prayed
to the stars, the old gods of Requiem, that the column stood forever, even if
it was trapped within the Temple.

And every day, the
priests and paladins prayed for the Falling—the day they slew the last
weredragon, the day the column fell, the day they believed would bring the
Spirit himself down to the world, ushering in an era of peace and plenty.

"Down, beast!" Mercy
said, digging her spurs deep and twisting them inside Domi's flesh. "Fly to your
stable."

Her eyes widened with
the pain, but Domi obeyed. She glided down, approaching the splendor of the
Temple. The spikes of crystal and glass rose before her, and Domi saw herself
reflected in their polished surfaces. Many firedrakes flew around her, paladins
upon their backs, guardians of the Temple. As Domi descended farther, she glided
by the wide, round base below the spikes. Many narrow windows peered open upon
the white stone, and within them, Domi caught glimpses of priests and priestesses
walking along pale corridors.

She passed by the last
few stories and landed in a courtyard, claws clattering against the white
cobblestones. To her right, a great staircase—wide enough for a dozen people to
walk abreast—stretched up toward a white archway, leading into the Temple. To
her left, a gaping tunnel led beneath the Temple into darkness.

A man stood outside
this tunnel, watching Domi with a thin smile on his face.

Domi's heart sank.

Gemini,
she
thought, belly curdling.

He looked much like
Mercy, his older sister. He too wore the white armor of his order. He too
shaved the left side of his head, and he too bleached the long hair growing
from the right side. His eyes too were blue and cruel. But while Mercy's eyes
bore the cruelty of ice, Gemini's malice was a thing of fire, of passion. Mercy
was ruthlessly efficient; her younger brother delighted in causing pain.

"Have you given birth
while you were away?" he called toward Mercy.

Mercy dismounted and
stood in the courtyard, holding Eliana under her arm. "Creating babies is your
job, my dear pureborn brother. Mine is to purify the sick ones." She narrowed
her eyes. "What are you doing outside the firedrake pits? You are a paladin of
the Cured Temple. You are the son of the High Priestess. You should be off
hunting upon the back of a firedrake, not lurking outside their lair."

Gemini's eyes flicked
toward Domi, and a strange light burned in them. He licked his lips, then
looked back toward his sister. "I've developed a taste for tending to the
drakes. I dismissed Ventris, the poor caretaker of the beasts. I've taken
control of the firedrake pits, dear sister. I'll teach these creatures the
proper discipline."

Domi's heart sank
deeper. Ventris had been a kind master in the cruel Temple. He often brought
the firedrakes fresh meat to eat, clear water to drink, and even played them
music on his flute. Whenever Gemini was in the drake pit—and lately the paladin
had been visiting more and more often—he would take out all his malice and
aggression on the beasts. Many times, Domi had yelped under his rod.

"So the son of the high
priestess becomes a glorified stable boy," Mercy said and shook her head sadly.

"Hardly." Gemini
approached Domi and placed a hand on her snout. "Firedrakes are far greater than
horses. Noble beasts. Mindless, yes. Temperamental. Disobedient. But noble . .
. when trained properly."

"This one is certainly
not trained properly," Mercy said, looking back at Domi. "The stupid reptile
flew off on its own; it was hours before it rejoined the others. Lost its
saddle on the way too. Probably chewed it off." She sighed. "Brother, if you
insist on becoming their caregiver, at least make yourself useful. Retrain this
one. I'll not be flying out again upon a beast so wild."

With that, Mercy turned
and marched away, taking baby Eliana with her.

Gemini watched her
leave, his smile widening, then looked back at Domi. "Pyre, come!"

He grabbed her horn and
tugged. She followed obediently, many times his size, large enough to easily
crush him, but she followed. They entered the tunnel and plunged down into
darkness. Only a few torches on the wall cast their light. Gemini led the way,
tugging her along as she followed, her wings pressed close to her body, her
knees bent, and her back scraping along the ceiling.

"Lost your saddle!"
Gemini barked as they walked. "Flew off on your own! What kind of lack in discipline
was Ventris showing you beasts? I can tell you, Pyre, your good times are over."

The tunnel opened up
into a wide chamber, several stories tall, lined with cages. Thirty firedrakes,
the personal mounts of the Deus family, lived here in cells so small the beasts
didn't even have room to turn around inside them. Domi stared at the animals;
they were banging against the bars, hissing, puffing out smoke.

Over a thousand
firedrakes lived in the Commonwealth, and most lived out in the open sky,
protecting the Temple's forts, monasteries, and borders. Yet here in the city
lurked the pets of the High Priestess herself. With no open fields in Nova
Vita, theirs was a life of darkness. Domi had often shown recalcitrance to
Mercy, hoping to be transferred to the provinces; there she would have open
skies and open fields, fresh game to hunt, and no bars around her. Ventris had
just begun to recommend that Domi be moved elsewhere, calling her too wild to
serve in the city. Now, with Gemini taken over, Domi's hopes to ever leave this
pit seeped away.

One of the cellars was
empty, its portcullis raised—her chamber. Domi began walking toward it, hoping
to curl up and rest, but Gemini tsked his tongue.

"Halt!" he barked. "I'm
not done with you, Pyre." He grabbed a whip that hung on the wall. "My sister
requested your punishment, and I intend to deal it."

Domi stared at the whip
and hissed. A normal whip would not harm her; the lash would crack uselessly
against her scales, hurting only when hitting her tenderspots. But this was no
ordinary whip. This was a tool Domi had never seen in the pit before, certainly
not under Ventris's reign.

A lightning lash,
she thought and hissed.

"Yes . . ." Gemini
unrolled the whip. "You know what this is, don't you? You're not as mindless as
my sister thinks. There is cleverness to you, perhaps more than in any other
firedrake. That's why you cause so much trouble, isn't it?"

Domi stared at the
whip. The lash ended with a crackling ball of electricity. She did not know
what magic or machinery operated the lightning lashes, but she had seen their
scars upon firedrakes brought in from the skirmishes against the Horde across
the sea.