Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (17 page)

"Yes," she
simply replied. "I've come to—"

"You should leave.
You're in danger here. No slave is safe around me."

Slowly, Meliora turned
around, and for the first time in her life Elory gazed upon her sister's face.

Elory couldn't help it.
She took a step back, heart thumping.

He lied.
Her
eyes watered
. My father lied. He lied to me. All my life, he lied to me,
trying to comfort me, telling me I have a sister in the palace. Lying. Lying.

Meliora of the Thirteenth
Dynasty, Daughter of Queen Kalafi, Lady of Grace, Great of Praises, looked like
the purest seraph, not a drop of Vir Requis in her.

Her cheekbones were
high, her forehead tall, her skin pale gold. A noble face, the face of a
goddess, immortal, impossibly fair, ringed with soft light. No slave had such
flawless skin, such full lips, such ageless grace. And yet more than anything,
Meliora's eyes scared Elory.

Seraph eyes.

The irises gleamed
golden, shining with inner light, and her pupils were shaped as sunbursts. The
eyes of immortality, the eyes of a fallen angel. Eyes that had never gazed up
at the sky, seeking stars, had never stared down at the dust, seeking the
shackles and blood.

"I . . ."
Elory hesitated. "I've come to . . ."

To tell you that I'm
your sister,
she wanted to say.
To tell you that you're half Vir Requis,
half "weredragon" as you call us. That the blood of a slave courses
through you. That only you can break our shackles, raise Requiem, and lead us
to our homeland.

Yet she could say none
of these things. She felt no more hope, only betrayal.

Lies. Lies.

"Why are you here?"
Meliora rose to her feet and approached her, and an edge of despair entered her
voice. "Didn't you hear what happened to my last slaves? How they nearly
burned in the bull?"

Meliora towered above
Elory, a foot taller. Standing before her, her head stubbly, her frame so
small, Elory felt like nothing but a slave again, just a slave before a seraph
mistress.

Yet here Elory stood,
and she would not flee. Perhaps this woman was not her sister. But she was
still sister to Ishtafel, to the man who would bed Elory, break her, strangle
her if she displeased him. Meliora was, perhaps, still a soul who could help.

I still need her
help. I need to learn the truth. I need to learn who she is.

"I've come because
I'm scared, my lady." Elory raised her head and met Meliora's gaze,
staring into those sunburst eyes. "I've come because Ishtafel, your
brother, slew my friend. Because he will slay me if I cannot pleasure him. I've
come because all the palace speaks of how you saved two slaves from burning in
the bull." Elory knelt and bowed her head. "I've come to pray to you,
my lady, that you save me too."

Meliora stared down at
her, eyes narrowed, the tension slowly leaving her eyes. Her face softened, and
the seraph knelt. She placed a finger under Elory's chin and raised her face
toward hers.

"Did he hurt you,
child?" Meliora whispered.

Suddenly Elory couldn't
stop her tears from falling.

He killed my friend!
she wanted to say.
He murdered my mother! He threatened to rape me! He
destroyed my entire kingdom, and he placed my people in chains! He hurt me in
ways that you cannot imagine, Meliora, in ways that you've never been hurt.

But Elory only shook
her head, tears streaming, silent, unable to speak.

The door opened behind
them.

A seraph stepped into
the room, his light falling upon them.

"I did not hurt
her," Ishtafel said, smiling thinly. "But I will. Oh, sweet sister .
. . I will."

 
 
MELIORA

Her brother entered the
room, and Meliora froze, kneeling by the slave.

For an instant, as
Ishtafel loomed above her, she did not see the brother she had grown up with,
laughed with, sung with, the brother who had taught her to play dice, to dance,
to fly. She did not see her beloved Ish, the man she had always seen as a hero.

She saw the conqueror.

She saw the warlord who
had smitten kingdoms, destroying Requiem and the giants and a hundred nations
between them.

She saw the man they
said kidnapped slaves from Tofet, strangled them in his bed, and tossed the
corpses down for their comrades to see and fear.

Fire burned in his
eyes, white and gold, and in them Meliora saw the fall of Requiem, the burning
lands of Hakan Teer, the crumbling realms of Fe'an, the cries of millions. A
breaking world, shattering under his wrath.

I was lied to,
Meliora thought. All her life—deceived. Wrapped in silk. Hidden from what they
did—from the cruelty of her mother, from the death that flowed from her
brother's hands. All her life—sheltered. All her life—lies. Nothing but lies.

Slowly, she rose to her
feet. She was five hundred years younger than him, countless times weaker, a
mere girl in the presence of a god of light. Yet she met his gaze, and she
spoke clearly.

"You will not
touch her."

Ishtafel stared at her
a moment longer, eyes narrowed, flaming, seething with his wrath. And then his
face softened, and he laughed. His laughter claimed him. He tossed back his
head, surrendering to it. It was a horrible sound. Somehow worse even than his
anger. The young, bald slave scurried behind Meliora like a pup hiding from a larger
dog behind its mistress's legs.

"Sweetest
sister." Ishtafel shook his head and wiped a tear from his eyes. "Do
you think I'm like Mother? That you can stop me from burning a slave in the
bronze bull? Mother loves you, Meliora, and she has always pampered you, has
always surrendered to your whims. But Mother fought one war—a war against the
gods, a war she lost." Ishtafel took a step closer. "I've slain
millions. I ground nations to the dust under my heel, and I showed them no
pity. What makes you think I would pity this slave who defied me? I sent the
wench to the pleasure pits, thinking she cared to learn how to service me, yet
I find her here hiding behind your skirt. She will pay for this crime."

"Crime?"
Meliora refused to look away, though her innards trembled. She was young, but
she would show him that she was no mere girl, that she too was a ruler, strong
enough to resist him. She had defied her mother; she could defy him. "What
crime did the girl commit? Trying to stop you from claiming her body, from
bedding her, from . . . from defiling her? Trying to stop you from strangling
her and tossing her body back to Tofet?"

"She's a
slave!" Ishtafel shouted, voice ringing across the room. Birds fled
outside. "A weredragon! You speak as if they feel, as if they deserve
mercy. They're animals." He reached out, fast as a striking asp, and
gripped her arm, digging his fingers into the burns. "Look at you. Look at
these wounds! You burned yourself to save a pair of the vermin. You've gone
mad."

"I learned the
truth!" Meliora shouted back. The pain flared across her. She felt like
her brother could rip off her arm. "I learned the truth of what Mother
does, what you do. That Tofet is not a land of singing, happy servants, that .
. . that it's a land of bloodshed, chains, whips, disease. That . . . that they
are human. That they can feel pain."

Ishtafel released her
arm. He stepped back. His face softened, and his eyes became almost sad.
"Sweetest sister." He sighed and turned toward the balcony, watching
the birds in the distance. "The weredragons are like birds. Yes, perhaps
they feel pain if you crush one in your fist. And yes, like birds, they can be
pleasant pets, pretty and joyous." He turned back toward her. "But
like the birds whose meat fills our bellies, like the birds whose feathers fill
our pillows, they are ours. They exist to serve us. You would cry if you saw
how chickens are slaughtered, Meliora. All children cry when they learn the
pain that beasts suffer to serve men and women. They learn to outgrow it, and
you will outgrow this. Soon the pain of slaves will be no more meaningful to
you than the pain of birds or beasts."

Birds and beasts
don't come into my chamber, begging for aid,
Meliora thought.
Birds and
beasts do not speak, do not pray to lost kingdoms. No man boasts of slaying
birds and beasts in battle, yet engravings of Ishtafel's conquest of Requiem
cover the halls of this palace.

She looked at the slave.
The girl knelt behind her, thin, almost famished, her skin bronzed from a
lifetime in the sun, her shoulders still bent from the yoke, her ankles still
chafed and scabbed from the shackles, her neck still collared.

Meliora knew what those
collars did. As a child, over and over, she had heard Mother's warnings. Never
remove their collars! Never, not even for a second, not unless a hundred soldiers
with bows and lances gather.

They're weredragons,
Meliora thought.
A race of people with magic. The magic to become dragons.
Only the collars keep them in human forms. Without her collar right now, this
very slave girl could become a dragon . . . could burn both me and Ishtafel to
ash.

Meliora tried to
imagine the Requiem that had been. All the slaves in Saraph—six hundred
thousand of them—flying free as dragons, wings hiding the sun, dragonfire
casting its red light. A proud nation. Strong. A nation that could burn this
city to the ground.

Suddenly Meliora felt
something inside her, a tickling warmth, an urge to become a dragon. To spread
not her feathered wings but creaking, leathern wings, to wear not muslin but a
coat of scales, to roar out fire, to fly with her kin over forest and river,
seeking marble columns. Again she thought of her recurring dreams, those dreams
that emerged only on darkest nights—herself as a dragon, flying under strange
stars, flying with the dragons of Requiem.

"They're not birds
or beasts," she whispered. "They are dragons."

"They are
slaves!" Ishtafel shouted. "Dragons? I slew the dragons! With an army
of fire, I felled them from the sky. I made them what they are, miserable,
wretches, worms—"

"Do not pride
yourself on cruelty." Meliora stared into his eyes, speaking slowly.
"There is no pride in conquest or bloodshed, only in kindness, only in
decency. You enslave six hundred thousand. I saved two from the bull, and now I
will save a third from you. That makes me worth more than all your wars could
ever make you."

He raised his hand to
strike her.

He had never raised his
hand upon her before. All their lives, he had been her protector, her friend,
her hero. As a child, when she would steal his armor and wear the oversized
breastplate as a joke, he would laugh and muss her hair. When she had once
placed a frog on his plate, horrifying their mother, he had roared with
laughter.

Yet now he swung his
hand toward her.

Meliora raised her own
hand, blocking the blow.

Their arms slammed
together, and the pain flared through her, but she wouldn't look away. She
stared into his eyes.

"You've crossed a
line, sister," he said.

"No." She
shook her head slowly, hair swaying. "I did not cross a line but drew one
in the sand. This woman is mine. You will not touch her. No more slaves will
die at your hands. No more will they burn in the bull. I will burn down this
palace, dying in the flames, to save only one."

Ishtafel's eyes
narrowed the slightest. "There are other ways to die. Not only deaths in
great pyres, but quiet deaths . . . as Father died."

"Father choked on
a fig," she said.

Ishtafel snorted out a
laugh. "Yes, child. A fig. You'll find that those who get in the dynasty's
way . . . tend to find the bad figs."

Meliora's eyes stung.
Her head spun. Her entire life was crashing around her, as surely as if the
ziggurat itself could crumble.

My father . . .
murdered?

Lies.

My
entire life—lies.

She took a deep breath.
So I will fight this fire with fire.

"Then let us play
a game." She raised her chin. "You are fond of games, aren't you,
brother? You are proud of your strength, your speed, your chariot of fire that
charges into battle. I have a chariot too. Let us fly. Let us race our chariots
across the city, from this ziggurat to the gates of the desert, to the land of
Tofet. The wager will be this slave."

Ishtafel raised his
eyebrow. "A chariot race?" He barked a laugh. "Sister, what
makes you think I will play with you?"

She allowed a crooked
smile to touch her lips, struggling to stop it from trembling. "Because
you believe you are strong, fast, a hero. You believe that you can beat me.
Race me, brother. Today. If I win, this girl is mine." She glanced at the
girl who still hid behind her, then back at her brother. "She'll be my new
slave, replacing those Mother stole from me."

Ishtafel took a step
back, and amusement seemed to overshadow his rage. He smiled thinly, stared at
the slave, and licked his lips. Then he returned his eyes to Meliora.

"And if I
win," he said, "you will join me in a new feast in our grand hall.
And before the lords and ladies of Saraph, you will kneel before me, and you
will kiss my hand, and you will agree—with all to hear!—to be my wife, to
bear me a son."

Meliora bared her teeth
at him, sucking in air.

"Very well."
She hissed. "We race. When the sun hits its zenith."

Ishtafel caressed her,
running his fingers down her side to her hip, finally placing them on her
belly. "This womb will bear a great prince of Saraph."

Meliora shoved his hand
away. He nodded, winked at the slave behind Meliora, then left the chamber. His
voice echoed from the hallway. "We ride at high noon!"

Meliora turned toward
the slave. She knelt before her.