Pillars of Dragonfire (28 page)

She did not wish him a
life in luxury. She did not wish him to fester in the south, growing his
forces. But Meliora knew that she could not defeat him. He was too strong, his
forces too great. She could only hope against hope to scare him away, as a cat
might scare a larger predator by bristling.

But Ishtafel only
laughed.

"Your father
offered me the same deal." He snorted. "The fool Jaren, the brute who
had bedded our mother. Do you know how I answered him?" He hefted his
lance. "With this blade." He stepped closer to Meliora, and his voice
dropped to a dangerous hiss. "I carved him up, and I fed his corpse to the
harpies."

Meliora stared at him,
and the tunnels seemed to collapse around her.

Her heart seemed to
stop beating.

Her world seemed to
die.

No. Oh stars, no.

"It's true,"
Ishtafel said, as if able to read her thoughts. He tilted his head. "I
just realized this means I killed both your parents. Interesting, isn't
it?"

No. Stars, no.

Meliora's chest shook.
She had to force herself to draw breath. Her eyes dampened. She knew he was
telling the truth. She had always been able to tell when Ishtafel was lying.

My father is dead.

She wanted to rage. To
scream. To race forward, swing her sword, cut him down.

But she could only
force herself to whisper. "Why?" Her tears flowed. "Why,
Ishtafel? You loved me once. I loved you. We played in the gardens. You read me
stories. I rode on your back, and you taught me how to fish and . . . why do
you do these things? Who have you become?"

He stepped closer to
her. He now stood only a couple feet away. He towered above her, so much
larger, made of metal and wounds.

"I am who I've
always been," he said. "Who I've been for centuries. Long before you
were born, I fought the weredragons in these tunnels. I stand now in the very
place where Reehan died, where I vowed to enslave and torture the creatures.
When you were a child, Meliora, I played with you in the gardens, then returned
to slaughtering the barbarians of the east. I read you stories, then flew south
to battle the giants. You never knew the true me. Not until you became a woman.
And you are a woman now, and you know me, and we're going back home. Both of
us. Never to return to Requiem. You will be my wife, Meliora, and we will rule
the empire together."

She shook her head.
"No."

He placed a hand on her
shoulder. "We can end this, Meliora. We can end this war now, this
youthful rebellion of yours. I am willing to forgive you. For many days now, I
vowed to drag you home in chains. To sever your limbs and feed them to the
harpies. To keep your torso and head in a cell, to impregnate you again and
again, to keep you bringing me heirs for millennia. But I was wrathful. I am
willing to forgive, to spare you that fate. To love you again. To see you love
me as you once did. We can be as we were, my sister. To live again in the
ziggurat. To play in the gardens. To laugh. To read stories. And to rule, to
see our heirs rule."

Meliora trembled. She
could end this. She could stop this war, this death. She could go home.

I can be as I once
was,
she thought.
A princess. A pampered girl who knows nothing of war,
of death, of slavery, of conquest. I can sleep again in my old bed, and I can
have my beloved brother back. All this can become but a bad dream.

A small voice resisted
inside her, but what choice did she have? To fight him? She would lose. To
resist him? He would imprison her again, and this time there would be no Tash
to save her.

She wanted to say yes.
She wanted to forget all this pain, this death, this whole world outside of her
palace.

But she still saw the
starlight.

And still that voice
whispered in her mind.

Requiem is eternal.

"No," Meliora
whispered. "No, we cannot be as we were. You changed, Ishtafel. You're no
longer a prince of seraphim. You've become a monster of metal. When you cut off
my wings, you thought to hurt me, to shame me, but you purified me. I am no
longer a seraph. I am no longer your sister. I can never be what I was, a
beautiful princess in a palace. I am Vir Requis. I am the singer of an ancient
song. I am a leaf in a forest of birches. I am heiress to a legacy too great,
too holy, too strong for you to understand. Requiem's roots run deeper than you
can reach, and though you may take our lives, you cannot silence our song.
Requiem is eternal. I will fight for her, and I will die for her if I
must."

His eyes narrowed,
blazing with rage. "I will not allow you to die."

She raised her sword.
"But I will allow you to."

He shouted and thrust
his lance toward her.

Halo crackling, Meliora
swung her blade, parrying the attack.

There was no room in
this narrow chamber to become a dragon, not without the walls crushing her.
Here Meliora would fight as a woman, bearing the ancient blade of her people.

"We once danced in
a ballroom," Ishtafel said. "Now we dance with blades."

And they danced.

In the darkness
underground, in the place where his lover had died, in Requiem—they danced.

Meliora had been a
warrior for a season; Ishtafel had slain enemies for centuries. She was no
match for him. She knew this. She could not defeat the seraph who had cleansed
the world of so many. But she fought him nonetheless. She fought him for her
kingdom. She fought him for the memory of her father. She fought him for Tash,
slain in war. For her mother, slain in slavery. For sixty thousand decimated
over the City of Kings, for countless more slain here in Requiem. For her
stars. For the hopes and memories of an ancient race. For one child who cowered
in the corner. For them all, she swung her sword, parrying his lance again and
again, thrusting her blade, trying to kill him, knowing she could not.

Across Requiem, she
knew, the great war still raged. And she knew that Requiem, like her, no longer
had hope. That all dragons would perish under the harpies, as she would perish
underground. And here—here in this chamber beat the heart of the war. A
seraph. A Vir Requis. Brother. Sister. Master. Slave. Blade and blade. The old
dance of her people.

His lance thrust,
cracking the armor on her arm, cutting open the flesh, revealing the innards.

Meliora screamed and lashed
her blade, slamming it against Ishtafel, but she could not dent his steel.

His lance thrust again,
cutting through her armor, piercing her thigh. She cried out and nearly fell,
swung her sword, knocked his lance aside, and brought her blade down hard onto
his arm. Yet the steel would not even dent.

Again he attacked, this
time swinging his shield. The sharp edge slammed into Meliora, cleaving through
her steel armor as if it were tin, cutting into her side under the ribs. She
cried out, voice weaker now, her blood dripping down her thigh and arm. His lance
struck yet again, scraping across her cheek, and pain blazed, and more of her
blood spilled.

"The blood of
weredragons mixed with the ichor of the immortals," Ishtafel said.
"Have you bled enough yet, Meliora? Are you ready to let the pain end? You
can still live."

She screamed and
charged, sword flying. She swung her blade down, and it scraped across his
helmet, doing him no harm.

His shield drove
forward and slammed into her face.

Meliora fell.

Even before she hit the
ground, she felt teeth knocked out from her mouth, felt her nose shatter. She
hit the stone floor, crying out in agony, tasting blood.

She lay on her back,
dazed, consumed with more pain than she'd ever felt. Her vision blurred, but
she could make him out standing above her. He raised his lance, placed it
against her thigh, and stared down at her.

"Drop your
sword," he said. "Or I take your leg. Then your other leg. Then both
your arms."

She wanted to shift
into a dragon, even if the chamber were too small, even if she slammed against
the walls and crushed herself. But the child was still here, weeping in the
corner. She could not crush him, not even to kill Ishtafel. She wanted to call
to the child, to tell him to flee, but she could not speak. Blood and shattered
teeth filled her mouth. Even if she wanted to, perhaps she was too weak to
shift now, too hurt, dying.

I'm sorry, Requiem.
I failed. I'm sorry.

She gave a wordless,
gurgling cry and raised her sword.

The spear drove down,
cleaving metal and flesh, driving through her thigh and into the floor.

She screamed. Her sword
clanged uselessly against his armor, and Ishtafel grabbed the blade with his
gauntlets, yanked the sword free, and tossed it again.

Meliora could barely
cling to consciousness. The lance still pierced her thigh, pinning her to the
floor. Ishtafel twisted the blade inside her, and Meliora screamed.

"I once pinned
your brother to the ziggurat, you remember," he said. "I do enjoy
pinning my precious little butterflies. Now that you're safe, I have a gift for
you. Do you want to see?"

He reached for
something that hung from his belt, tugged it free, and displayed it to her.

A collar.

A slave's collar.

No.
Meliora's
tears mingled with her blood.
Oh, stars of Requiem, no.

He leaned down, pressed
his knee against her belly, and closed the collar around her neck.

"Now you are my
slave again." He kissed her bloody, shattered mouth and licked his lips.
"Now you are mine forever."

"And . . ."
She coughed, struggling to speak, just barely managing to push out the words.
". . . I . . . have a . . . gift . . . for . . . you."

She reached above her
head.

When you cut off my
wings, Ishtafel, my halo of pure godlight died. That day, a halo of dragonfire
crackled to life around my brow. That day you gave me a weapon.

She closed her hand
around the ring of fire.

It burned her palm but
she did not scream.

She yanked her halo,
tearing, ripping, severing. It felt like ripping off a limb, like cutting off
her own scalp. She raised it before her—the same halo that had once burned
Ishtafel's face—and smiled to see him recoil. She closed her second hand
around the flaming ring, bent hard, and snapped the halo.

The flames shrieked as
she tugged the halo, twisting the circle into a fiery horseshoe.

Requiem is eternal.

She screamed and shoved
the dragonfire forth.

The two flaming prongs
drove through the holes in Istafel's helmet, pierced his eyes, dug deep into
his skull, and seared through the back of the helmet.

She released the halo
and lifted her sword. Slowly, she rose to her feet.

Ishtafel fell to his
knees, the broken halo embedded deep into his head. He was still alive. A
hissing, horrible whine rose from him, an inhuman sound. He pawed at his metal
mask and tore it free.

Meliora took a step
back. He had no face left. Only raw, rotting muscle over bone, infected and
dripping.

She cringed and shoved
her sword forward. The ancient blade of Requiem drove into his neck and
shattered within.

Light pulsed out from
him, searing, blinding her, knocking her against the wall. His armor shattered,
blasting out from him. The shards drove into Meliora, piercing her own armor,
piercing her flesh, searing hot, melting inside her. The light turned black but
still flowed, oozing out of Ishtafel like demons, cackling, slamming into her.

"I curse
you!" rose his voice from the inferno. "I curse you, daughter of
Aeternum! You will never see Requiem."

Only it was no longer
his voice; it had become the voice of Leyleet, speaking in her memories.

Ishtafel shattered and
fell, broken apart, his light gone dark, his halo fading to a wisp and
vanishing. Meliora fell with him, her own halo gone, her own body broken. She
still clutched the hilt of her bladeless sword.

And Meliora understood.

She knew now. She knew
the meaning of the curse.

I saw the land of
Requiem, and I saw King's Column rising from ruin. But I will not see Requiem
reborn. I will not see her in peace. I will not see children running through
the forest and flying above, laughing. I will not see my family grow old and our
children holding our torch. I will not see spring in Requiem, and I will not
see the marble halls rise anew.

Tears filled Meliora's
eyes, and she smiled tremulously.

But I know now that
Requiem will rise. That those columns and temples will stand again in the
forest. That our kingdom will endure. I know that Requiem is eternal and that I
will forever rest in her starlit halls.

Her eyes were going
dark now. But as she lay on the ground, she could still turn her head, and she
saw him there. The boy. He stared back at her, weeping, trembling. Living.

I saved at least one
life. I saved a world entire. I brought light to this world, though I lived
through much darkness. I sought righteousness though I saw much evil. I love
you, Vale. I love you, Elory. I love you, Father. Always. Always. I will
forever fly in the light you gave me.

Meliora Aeternum's eyes
closed, and her world faded to starlight and a soothing end to pain.

 
 
VALE

He flew in the storm,
bleeding, broken, close to death, when the harpies shrieked and the sky opened
up to swallow them.

The bloated, feathered
creatures spun in a maelstrom, eyes bugging out, talons scratching the sky.

"He is gone, he is
gone!" they shrieked. "The master is gone!"

They flew in the wind,
yanked backward, calling out in fear, hundreds of thousands of them. Their
wings buzzed madly, shedding a rain of black, sticky feathers. Their voices
rose in a deafening shriek, a sound that snapped the last trees below, that
sent rocks tumbling, that cracked the earth itself. They rose from the tunnels
below, sucked up into the sky, thousands and thousands emerging from the
underground, all screeching in fear.