Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) (5 page)

If I can fly as a
dragon, no collar around my neck, bearing stones to the tops of temples . . . I
can break free.
He clenched his jaw.
I can roar through the seraphim,
charge through their lances and arrows, fly to the palace . . . and save my
sister.

The arrows would cut
him, he knew. The lances would thrust into him. A thousand chariots of fire
would charge against him. But he would take the pain. He had taken the lash so
often, he could endure their blades. He would grab his sister from the demon,
and he would carry her away, carry her into the wilderness like the hero Lucem
who was said to have fled ten years ago. They would fly over the desert, over
the sea, seek freedom in shadows from this empire of light.

I will save you,
Elory. We will escape. Just like Lucem. I promise you.

The overseer stared at
him, and those gleaming orbs of eyes narrowed, the sunburst pupils dilating.
"And what makes you think I'll transfer you to the building crews?"
He lifted his whip again. "What makes you think I won't whip you to death
right here?"

"You could whip me
to death," Vale said, taking a gamble now, his chest thudding, his
fingernails digging into his palms. "But did you hear what Ishtafel's new
slave called me? I'm her brother. The brother of the woman now sleeping in
Prince Ishtafel's bed." He let a chaotic smile twist his lips. "My
family was born to worship your prince."

She might be a
slave,
he thought, sweat dripping down his brow, tears burning down his
cheeks.
But she's the slave who's sleeping with Ishtafel.

At that thought,
sickness filled his gut, so overpowering he had to struggle not to double over
and vomit over the overseer's feet.

Before the seraph could
answer, a voice rose behind Vale, soft yet cutting through the din of pickaxes
and lashing whips.

"Vale."

Slowly, Vale turned around
and stared.

For the second time
that day, he lost his breath.

A tall, ragged slave
came walking across the quarry. He was an old man, clad in rags, his thin
ankles hobbled. His head was shaved, like the heads of all slaves, but his
beard was long, brown, streaked with white. His name was Jaren. He was Vale's
father.

"Vale," the
old slave whispered again, eyes haunted, glassy. In his arms hung his burden—tattered,
red.

This time Vale could
not help it. He doubled over and gagged, losing the paltry gruel the overseers
had fed him that morning.

"No." Vale
trembled, fell to his knees, and tossed back his head and cried out to the sky.
"No! No!"

He stared again, eyes
burning, chest shaking.

"I'm sorry," Jaren
whispered, and a tear fled the old slave's eyes.

In his arms, the old
man carried a mutilated corpse. Two limbs broken. A leg and arm missing. The
face still whole, burnt in the sun, finally at peace.

"Mother!"
Vale cried, then lowered his head and wept.

 
 
ISHTAFEL

He flew in his chariot of
fire, taking his new slave from a land of death to a city of gold.

As the flames roared
around them, Ishtafel caressed Elory's head. She sat before him, ankles hobbled
with a foot-long chain, a collar around her neck. Brown stubble covered her
head, shaved only days ago. Ishtafel preferred his women with long, flowing hair,
but his mother—the damn crone—insisted on keeping the slaves shaven. An easy
decree for the old bitch to pass. She wasn't the one seeking the slaves'
pleasures in bed.

Elory shuddered at his
touch, still not daring to look at him. She was a pathetic little thing, raw
welts across her back, her body sticky with tar, her rags torn. But Ishtafel
had never lacked in imagination. He had imagined the world cleansed of enemies,
and he had cleansed that world. He could imagine Elory cleansed of filth, and
he would cleanse her. He would make her as beautiful as the empire he had
built. And he would conquer her body as surely as he had conquered the world.

"Why do you
tremble at my touch?" he asked, letting his fingers flutter across her ear,
caressing, exploring the shape of it. A small ear, barely larger than the tip
of his thumb.

"I'm afraid,"
she whispered.

Ishtafel's smile grew.
"You should be."

He remembered a time,
five hundred years ago, when he himself had been afraid. He had been only a
young seraph then, no older than thirty summers—a mere child. He had led his
first campaign, a great invasion of the north. With thousands of flaming
chariots, he had flown into a land called Requiem. He had faced the dragons in
the sky. He had seen their mad eyes, their sharp claws, their streams of
dragonfire flowing toward him, felling his fellow seraphim.

And yes, he had been
afraid.

But I overcame that
fear.
He ran his hand down Elory's spine, pausing at the small of her back.
The girl had such a narrow waist; narrower than his arm.
I conquered
Requiem. I slew those dragons who flew against me. I placed cursed collars
around the necks of those I captured, forever crushing their magic. I lost a
woman in the land of reptiles, and so I will claim women from among them.

He leaned down toward
Elory and inhaled deeply, savoring her scent. She smelled of tar, smoke, and fear.
An intoxicating smell. For five hundred years, Ishtafel had kept his playthings
here in Saraph, the heart of his empire, refusing to let them die. Refusing to
fear them again. The weredragons, once proud warriors who could rise as fire-breathing
reptiles, were now nothing but his toys.

They flew over Tofet,
the land Ishtafel's family had given to the weredragons: the pits of tar where
chained dragons dug and collared slaves hauled out the bitumen; rocky fields
where men, women, and children labored in the blinding sun, forming bricks from
clay and straw; fields where slaves labored, sweating and bleeding and dying to
grow produce from the dry earth. The land of Requiem lay in ruins in the
distant north across desert, sea, and forest; here the nation of Requiem
languished in the dust.

The flaming chariot
kept flying, leaving Tofet behind. A river snaked below, gleaming silver. Here
was the Te'ephim River, blessed life giver, shimmering in the sunlight, lined
with rushes, palm trees, and fig trees. Upon its waters sailed countless ships
from distant lands, bearing spices and gemstones and exotic animals in golden
cages.

Past the water, the
landscape changed, and they flew over Shayeen, the City of Kings, capital of
Saraph.

Ishtafel inhaled deeply
again, letting the aroma of the city below mingle with Elory's scent.

"Look below,
child," Ishtafel said. "Behold the glory of Saraph. Behold the land
of gods."

Shayeen was built as a
wheel. Eight cobbled boulevards spread out like spokes, stretching for miles,
the eight Paths of the Gods. Each road was lined with statues of one of the
Eight Gods—towering idols of limestone, gilded, jeweled, forever watching over
their holy pathways. Eight archways lined the outer wall, hundreds of feet
tall, topped with statues of ancient heroes and kings. Within this wheel of
stone rose the marvels of the city: columned temples, manors topped with
hanging gardens, fortresses whose towers kissed the sky, obelisks capped with
platinum, marble bathhouses, and amphitheaters.

It was the greatest
city in the world, Ishtafel knew. A place of wealth, power, a vision of lost
Edinnu reflected upon the earth. Thousands of years ago, his people—the golden
seraphim—had lived in the heavens, dwelling in a land of light upon a distant
star. But the seraphim had grown too mighty in their own eyes. They had
rebelled against their gods . . . and they had lost.

We fell from the
sky,
Ishtafel thought.
Lost children, cast aside from our gods. Yet we
built here a new city of light. A new star to shine upon the cosmos. Here we
will worship the gods until they forgive our sins. Until they call us home,
until we ascend again to our lost paradise.

As the chariot crossed
the sky, Ishtafel saw a statue rise ahead, carved of limestone and gilded, a
hundred feet tall. The statue of a woman, fair and fierce, clad in armor,
raising a sword.

Reehan.

Ishtafel winced. He
always winced when passing by this statue. It had been five hundred years, but
the sight of Reehan still hurt him. The memories still would not let go. And
the slaves would still suffer for what they had done to his beloved.

He looked beyond the
statue. In the center of the wheel-shaped city rose the greatest building in
Saraph, the beacon of the empire. The ziggurat soared, over a thousand feet
tall, its sandstone surfaces engraved with scenes of the seraphim's wars,
conquests, and the ancient banishment. Its crest tapered into a triangle,
coated with purest platinum, and upon it blazed an eye within a sunburst—the
Eye of Saraph, all-seeing, casting its gaze across the world.

Ishtafel whipped his
firehorses, and the flaming equines pulled the chariot across the sky, heading
toward the ziggurat. Two colossal statues, shaped as cats with women's heads,
guarded the staircase that led to its gates. Shaped as La'eri, the goddess of
royalty, the statues stood so tall their eyes were larger than the chariot. The
firehorses descended and landed between the feline guardians.

Ishtafel grabbed Elory,
slung her across his shoulder, and alighted from his chariot. He was tall even
for a seraph, close to eight feet tall, and his shoulders were nearly as broad
as this slave was tall. He carried her like he would the carcass of a pretty
bird, perhaps a peacock with bright feathers. She made not a sound and did not
struggle as he carried her across the flagstones and toward an archway, the
entrance to his family's ancestral home.

A dozen seraph guards
stood before the gates, clad in gilded breastplates, holding spears and round
shields, their wings purest white. They knelt before Ishtafel and bowed their haloed
heads.

"You."
Ishtafel snapped his fingers at one of the kneeling guards. "Come to
me."

The seraph straightened
and stepped forth. A bronze helmet hid his face, and his eyes gleamed, somber,
through the eyeholes. "My lord!"

Ishtafel unslung the
slave off his shoulder and shoved her into the guard's arms. "Have this
one delivered to the bathhouse. See that the other slaves have her scrubbed
clean and prepared for me, then see her delivered to my chamber. Have her
waiting there when I return from tonight's feast."

"Yes, my
lord!" The seraph nodded, beat his wings, and took flight. He soared up
the ziggurat's flank, holding Elory in his arms, ascending toward Ishtafel's
chamber a thousand feet above.

Ishtafel nodded toward
the other guards, who pulled open the jeweled gates to the ziggurat's base.
Ishtafel stepped through the archway, entering the palace.

It was the Day of
Rebirth, the holiest day in Saraph's calendar, and he was late for the feast.

A towering hall greeted
him, a chamber so large that armies could have mustered within it. Golden
columns rose in palisades, supporting a ceiling painted with scenes of lost
Edinnu. A mosaic sprawled across the floor, displaying the hundreds of enemies
Saraph had vanquished since its banishment three thousand years ago: the horned
behemoths of the south, the wild demons of the east, and many more, including
the weredragons, the cruel shapeshifters who now labored in Tofet. As Ishtafel
walked across the mosaic, he stepped on these old enemies, smearing mud across
their faces.

Thousands of seraphim
crowded the hall already, the masters and mistresses of Saraph, lords of all
seraphim, rulers of all conquered lands. They sat at ornately carved tables,
turning toward Ishtafel as he entered. A feast steamed before them: roasted
peacocks on beds of mushrooms and wild rice, their tail feathers reattached;
entire roasted hogs upon baked apples, their crunchy skin glazed with honey;
fruits of every kind, from sweetly scented persimmons to grapes the color of
blood; endless pies of every sort, almost bursting with plums, savory duck,
sweet peas, jams, and every other filling found across the empire; and finally
wine . . . endless jugs, sweet chilled whites, delicate reds, deep strong
crimsons, all pouring like rivers into mugs of ivory, platinum, and filigreed
ostrich shells.

Not a single morsel had
been touched. Not a single drop had been drunk. The seraphim, hundreds of them,
had awaited him. Now they rose from their seats and knelt, wings folded across
their backs.

Ishtafel took a step
into the hall, and two young seraphim—mere boys—raised trumpets to their
lips, and they blew a fanfare.

"Here enters
Ishtafel!" one cried, lowering his horn. "Prince of Saraph! Slayer of
Giants! Destroyer of Requiem!"

"And a bloody
hungry bugger!" Ishtafel called out. "Let's eat."

Laughter rolled across
the hall, and they ate.

Musicians, seraphim in
flowing muslin robes, played lyres and harps upon balconies—the songs of old
Edinnu, the Realm that Was. Dancers performed on a stage, wearing elaborate
horned masks, depicting the beasts that had lived in the lost land. And
everywhere scuttled the weredragon slaves—clad in simple livery, collars
around their necks, their heads shaved, weak mortal beings, no taller than the
seraphim's shoulders.

"Slave,
here!" Ishtafel said, snapping his fingers at one of the beasts. The man
rushed forth with a jug of wine and filled Ishtafel's cup. A second slave, a
thin young woman with green eyes, approached with a tray of grapes. Ishtafel
ate, pulled the slave onto his lap, and inhaled her scent until a third slave
arrived with steamed shellfish, drawing his attention.

Since he had returned
to Saraph a month ago, a great conqueror, the defeater of the giants, he had
feasted here every day. The last enemy in the known world had fallen. Edinnu
was lost, but Saraph—this new kingdom they had built in their banishment—now
ruled the world they had fallen to.