Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (12 page)

And yet Meliora faced
her. She stared into her mother's eyes, refusing to look away. Something had
broken inside of Meliora today, an innocence had shattered, and she was a
different person. She had never fought against the gods like her mother, had
never conquered realms across the world like her brother. Here was her war: a
war against her family, a war to save only two . . . two slaves who had been
with her for years. Two slaves who needed her.

"Back down,
Meliora—" Kalafi began.

"I will not!"
Meliora shouted. She knew her mother. Kalafi lived for her vainglory, to
present herself as a goddess, infallible, perfect in her grace. More than
anything, her mother feared this image shattering.

So let me humiliate
her,
Meliora thought.
Let the people see that she cannot control even
her own daughter, let alone an empire.

"I will not,"
Meliora repeated. "Do you hear me, Mother?" She raised her voice to a
shout. "I will not let you burn them! I will not marry Ishtafel. I
will—"

"Meliora!"
Kalafi thundered, and flames burst out from her wings and haloed her head,
white fire of her rage. Her voice tore across the land, booming, impossibly loud.
"Stand back, daughter, or I will—"

"Or you will
what?" Meliora shouted. She had never seen her mother so incensed, never
seen the white fire of fury blaze across the queen. But it was too late to back
down. "You lied to me, Mother. You lied!" Meliora trembled wildly,
tears in her eyes. "You never showed me this land. You never told me the
truth about this place. You raised me wrapped in silk, and now try to shatter
my innocence by burning my own slaves? No. I will not allow this. I will not be
a pawn to you, not be your slave, not be an incestuous womb for your heir. I
would rather burn myself!"

"Then burn!"
Kalafi roared. The sound tore across the land, shook the bull, scattered smoke
from the flames, sent slaves falling to the ground. It was a cry louder than
crashing temples, than falling nations, a cry that echoed across the land of
Tofet.

Then burn! Then
burn!

Meliora stared at her
mother, silent. Suddenly her trembling ceased. Her tears dried in the heat. A
calmness fell upon her, and her fear burned away like the flesh of the old man.

"So I will
burn," Meliora whispered.

All my life I've
been sheltered. Lied to. Deceived. So let me sing. Let me sing to save them.

She turned to look at
the guards. "By the ancient rites, I give my life to save theirs. I will
burn in their stead to appease Malok." She turned back toward her mother.
"Sing with me, Mother. As my screams rise through the bull, sing with me.
For your lost home in the heavens . . . and for your lost daughter."

Meliora stepped toward
the bull and climbed inside.

"Daughter, stop
this!" Kalafi shouted . . . but Meliora barely heard anything above her
own screams.

The heat baked her. The
bronze burned her feet, legs, knees, shoulders, every place it touched. She
screamed in agony. Her wings caught fire. She heard her screams rising through
the bull as melodious music, and she wanted to escape, but she would not, she
would
not
, she would not live this life, not serve her mother anymore,
not let her slaves die, not—

All thought faded as
she let out a howl, the fire engulfing her.

Then burn! Then
burn!

Another scream rose.
Hands reached into the bull, grabbed her, pulled her out. She stumbled. She
fell. The sunlight blinded her, and the fire still roared, and somebody was
shouting and other people crying out in terror. Feet stamped on her wings, and
Meliora cried out again.

The fire died.

She lay trembling on
the ground, the bull rising above her, her feathers burnt. The tips of her hair
still crackled. Her brother and mother stood above her, pale, shouting at
soldiers, shouting at her, but she could hear only muffled sounds, see only
mottles of light.

"Let them
go," Meliora whispered. "Let my slaves go."

Through the ringing in
her ears, she thought she could make out her mother's shouts. "Take the
slaves to the tar pits! Slap yokes on them! Put them to work instead of wasting
time here. Malok is appeased. Now go!"

Meliora's eyelids
fluttered. A soft smile rose upon her cracked, burnt lips.

I saved them. I
saved them.

Her ears kept ringing,
and people kept shouting, and it seemed to Meliora that the sounds rose higher,
softened, turned into the music of pipes. A song of old homes lost. A song of
nations falling. A song of truth in a burning world. Her eyes closed, and she
slept.

 
 
ELORY

Elory had spent her life in
the bitumen pit, extracting the precious substance that held the empire
together. When she stepped into the pleasure pit beneath the palace, she found
a world just as dark and dizzying.

Here is a different
sort of mine,
she thought.
A mine for human flesh, perhaps just as precious
to the seraphim as bitumen and brick.

The chamber was buried
deep beneath the ziggurat, a glittering cave carved from the living rock. Rugs
and tasseled pillows hid the floor, and curtains hung everywhere, some woven of
silk and muslin, others formed of thousands of beads. Incense burned
in iron holders shaped as phalluses, and obsidian statues seemed to dance in
the flickering candlelight, shaped as nude people with the heads of beasts.
Hookahs bubbled, their glass vials filled with
hintan
—a spice of the
northern deserts. The purple smoke swirled through the air, already spinning
Elory's head, as intoxicating as the bitumen fumes.

But stranger than the
smoke, the rugs, or the statues were the slaves.

A score of Vir Requis
lounged here, collared like Elory, yet different in every other way. She gasped
to see these young women. She wanted to look away but could not. While her body
was scrawny, the skin bronzed, the hands and feet callused, these slaves were
pleasantly curved, their skin pale, their hands soft. Long hair grew from their
heads—real hair, not just stubble. Henna darkened their eyelids, and the red
of crushed raspberries painted their lips. They wore naught but flimsy silks,
the fabric revealing more than it hid.

Pleasure slaves,
Elory thought.
A pit of them, mere flesh waiting for the seraphim to
consume. How will I find my sister here?

Yet what choice did she
have but to study in this place? Aboveground, in Ishtafel's chamber, he would
claim her body, brutalize her if she resisted, then discard her corpse with the
others. Here she would live—for a week at least. A week to try to find her
sister. To try to find help.

Elory cleared her
throat. "I . . . I was told to come here. To . . . to learn from
you."

Across the pit, a few
of the slaves turned to look at her. One lounged on a pile of pillows, smoking
from a hookah. She gave Elory a dazed glance, then turned toward a statue,
jangled a bracelet that hung from its arm, and giggled as the jewel flashed.
Two other slaves lay together, holding each other, sharing a pipe. They blinked
at Elory, then returned to smoking the spice. Other slaves ignored Elory flat
out, their eyes glazed. A few drooled on the floor.

"I . . ."
Elory gulped. Was this the right place? "I've come here to join you. To
become a . . . a pleasure slave," she finished with a whisper, her cheeks
heating.

One of the slaves
leaped to her feet. Her eyes flashed, and she marched toward Elory. She was Vir
Requis too—no feathered wings grew from her back, no halo topped her head, and
a collar encircled her neck—but fairer than any slave Elory had ever known.
Her hair was long and brown, her eyes dark. She wore baggy silken pants,
slippers, and a top that revealed a jewel shining in her navel. She seemed
young, perhaps only a year or two older than Elory, short and slender but
without the hard, famished look of a Tofet slave.

"You are nothing
like us." The young woman's eyes flashed with anger. "You will never
be like us. We don't want more goddamn filthy Tofet rats here. Last one
infected the place with fleas."

Farther back in the
den, the hookah smoker laughed hysterically, then hit the jangling bracelet and
laughed again.

"She got fleas,
Tash! Fleas! Fleas everywhere." The smoker hit the bracelet, gasped to see
it glinting, and laughed again. "Fleas, fleas, fleas, glinting in the
smoke."

Elory returned her eyes
to Tash, the angry, brown-eyed woman. "I have no fleas. I was told to come
here. I'm no longer a Tofet worker, I—"

"I said rat, not
worker." Tash grabbed Elory's ear and twisted it painfully. "Are
there fleas on that head of yours? Fleas can hide in stubble too." She
groaned. "By the gods, you stink."

"Ow!" Elory
winced. "Let go."

Tash groaned, released
Elory's ear, and turned toward her comrades. "Why do they send these rats
over?" She raised her arms. "What have I done to deserve these rats
invading my cave?"

The smoker took another
puff on her hookah, then laughed again. "Maybe you forgot how to smoke a
seraph's pipe." She sucked deeply on her hookah, puffed out smoke, and
tittered again. "Lost your touch."

Tash groaned again,
even louder this time, and tugged her hair. "You lot are just as useless
as the rat." She spun back toward Elory. "Well, rat, stop standing
there like a goddamn statue. I take pride in my pit. The masters might show up
any time, and I'll not have you scare them off." She grabbed Elory's wrist
and tugged her. "Come on."

Elory stumbled in
pursuit. Her ankles were still hobbled together, but the pleasure slaves wore
no chains, only their collars and silks. Tash dragged her through the chamber,
between the statues of the nude women with animal heads, around live women
lounging on pillows while smoking hookah, and past several walls of curtains.

Finally, past a curtain
of beads, they entered a little nook at the back. A rug hung across one wall of
stone; the other walls were simply formed of curtains. Candles burned in
alcoves, their wax dripping toward the floor, and many silks spilled from three
open chests. A mattress lay on the floor, topped with pillows. A woman slept here,
snoring by an empty hookah.

"Gods above!"
Tash gave her hair a mighty tug and rummaged around the chamber. "They
even left your goddamn shackles on. I try to run a quality establishment down
here, and those dung-sucking guards give me nothing to work with. Nothing but
rats! Now where's the damn key?"

Elory glanced down at
her hobbles. Rings of iron circled her ankles, and a chain connected them, only
a foot long—enough to let her walk but not run or kick. She had worn these
iron shackles around her ankles since her second birthday; they had been opened
only several times to be replaced with larger shackles.

"Only the masters
of Tofet carry the keys." Elory shuddered to remember the cruel overseers
with their whips of fire. "These are my permanent shackles. I've reached
my full size. I—"

"Ah, there!"
Ignoring her, Tash dug under a pile of silks and pulled out a key.
"Haven't had to use one of these since the last rat scurried in
here."

Elory gasped. Her eyes
widened.

"A . . .
key?"

Tash rolled her eyes.
"She has the sense of a baby! Great." She pointed around the room.
"Curtain! Bed! Wall!" She pointed at the sleeping woman on the mattress.
"Useless lump of smoke-addled dung! There, now you can talk." She
knelt and placed the key into Elory's shackles. "Maybe now you'll walk
properly too."

The key turned.

The shackles fell off.

Elory's eyes dampened.

Trembling, she took a
step. Another step. She blinked, eyes full of tears. She froze.

I can run. I can
jump. I can kick if I want to. I—

"Well, don't just
stand there like a statue," Tash said. "Stretch a little, for pity's
sake. You're going to have to stretch those legs in the seraphim's beds."
She rolled her eyes. "You Tofet rats. Useless, you are."

Slowly, Elory stretched
out one leg, moving it a few inches forward . . . then another few inches . . .
then farther than it had ever gone. Pain flared across her muscles, driving up
to her hip, and she winced and her tears fell. It hurt. And it was wonderful.

"Thank you,
Tash," she whispered. "Thank you so much."

"Don't thank me."
Tash glowered, but then her eyes softened. She ran a finger down Elory's cheek.
"You got good cheeks. Good lips. Good eyes. Thank your mother, not me. She
gave you that pretty face."

Suddenly the pain was
too much.

Mother . . .

The memory rose in
Elory again—her mother flying toward her as a dragon, the arrows piercing her,
the chariots of fire surrounding her, burning her, and then Mother losing her
magic, falling dead as a human, and . . .

It was all too much,
too soon. Elory's tears streamed and she trembled.

"Oh for pity's
sake!" Tash groaned. "Will you cut out the waterworks? If the seraphim
come, they—"

"I'm sorry."
Elory wiped her eyes. "It won't happen again. It's just that . . . my
mother. She died, and . . . and I'm so scared all the time. I feel so alone. I
miss her so much and—"

Tash reached out, and
Elory thought that the young slave would stroke her cheek again, but instead
Tash slapped her. Hard.

The pain flared across
Elory's cheek. She gasped.

Tash glared at her.
"Shut your mouth." She jabbed Elory's chest. "If there's one
thing I won't tolerate in my pit, it's self-pity. You won't shed tears here.
You won't blabber on about how miserable you are, how alone you are."
Tash's voice rose to an exaggerated falsetto. "Oh, I'm so alone in the
world! Oh, my dear old mamma is dead!" She snorted. "Guess what, rat?
Everyone here is an orphan. Everyone here is alone, and everyone here is scared.
We're all slaves, if you haven't noticed the collars, and we're all bloody
miserable. You're not special here. If you cry again, I'm going to bash out
your teeth."