Pillars of Dragonfire (29 page)

"He is dead! He is
fallen! Ishtafel is no more!"

Vale flew on the wind
with the last survivors of the Royal Army, a ragtag group of dragons—so
few—with dented armor and bloodied claws. Til flew near him; the orange
dragon's armor was cracked, her scales broken beneath it, and her eyes were haunted.
Her brother flew with her, a black dragon, tears in his eyes. Only a handful of
other warriors still flew. Most lay dead below.

The harpies no longer
attacked. The warty creatures turned and tried to flee, to fly back south, but
the storm caught them. The clouds churned above, darkening, flashing with
lightning. An eye opened in the storm, revealing the sky. An eclipse burned
above, the moon hiding the sun, forming a ring of fire like a halo.

"Our master is
dead! Ishtafel is no more!"

The eclipse seemed to
stare down through the storm, all-seeing, a great eye—the Eye of Saraph,
staring from the lost realm of the gods. The harpies wailed as the storm caught
them, pulling them upward toward that eye. They were as ants in water, drawn
into a drain, but sucked upward, into the funnel, toward the waiting eye.
Thousand by thousand, they rose, battling it, flapping their wings, clawing the
sky, unable to resist as the gods reeled them upward. They kept emerging from
the tunnels, from the forest, rising and rising, slamming into those dragons who
still flew, then rising some more, vanishing into the hole in the sky. The wind
shrieked. Broken branches and rocks flew through the air. Lightning slammed
into the earth, and fire raced across the frozen soil of Requiem.

And then they were
gone.

The last harpy vanished
into the eye of the storm.

The maelstrom settled,
and the clouds calmed. Rain began to fall, pattering against the dragons' armor
and cleansing the earth of blood.

Vale looked around him
at the sky. Several thousand dragons still flew here, some soldiers in armor,
others civilians.

Far more Vir Requis lay
dead below, their bodies shattered, torn apart, burnt, their light forever darkened.

"Father,"
Vale whispered. "Elory. Meliora."

He could not see them.

He cried out,
"Father! Elory! Meliora!"

Across the rest of Requiem,
a few cheers rose. A few voices sang in triumph. But more of the Vir Requis
called out in pain, seeking their loved ones. Dragons flew above in circles,
scanning the toppled forest, crying out the names of family and friends. Other
Vir Requis ran through the forest in human form, moving between the bodies,
weeping and seeking their loved ones—sometimes finding them dead.

Vale dived down.

He landed on the forest
floor outside a tunnel's entrance—the archway shaped as two rearing dragons,
claws touching. Many Vir Requis were emerging from the tunnels, clutching
wounds, faces ashen.

Vale's heart thudded,
and his fingers trembled.

Maybe they're in
there,
he thought.
Maybe my family made it into the tunnels, maybe they
lived, maybe—

Four soldiers came
stepping out from the underground, carrying a makeshift litter made from a
cloak and spears.

Vale's heart seemed to
stop and shatter.

Before he even saw her,
he knew.

The soldiers of Requiem
walked toward him, faces grim, armor dented, eyes hard. The birch leaves and
stars shone on their armor in the sunlight, but no beauty could fill the world
this day. No light could shine through this darkness. Upon the litter she lay,
her eyes closed, her face peaceful in death. Meliora Aeternum, Princess of Requiem.

My sister.

Vale fell to his knees,
raised his head to the sky, and cried out in agony.

The storm above parted,
revealing blue skies, and the sunlight shone on a ruined world.

 
 
ELORY

"Lucem!" she
cried. "Lucem, where are you?"

Elory moved through the
forest of the dead, back in human form, calling out his name. She wore dented,
rusty armor. The wind blew ash into her hair. All around her spread the dead.
Dead harpies, rotting in the sunlight, bloated bodies cut open. Dead soldiers
of Requiem, armor cracked, eyes dark. Dead women, children, elders, some bodies
unrecognizable. Countless dead. A victory drenched in blood. Hope buried under
grief.

"Lucem!"

The trees lay fallen
around her. Barely any still stood. Never had Elory seen such devastation, not
even in Tofet. Perhaps Requiem would rise, perhaps Requiem had found its
kingdom, its peace, its rededication, but here was a cursed victory. Here was a
tragedy, not a triumph.

She limped across the
hills, her wounds burning. Hundreds of others walked around her, calling out
the names of their lost ones. King's Column rose a mile away, the sunlight
shining on its marble, the dead piled up around its base, and even this ancient
pillar—soaring so high, so bright—could not soothe the children of Requiem.

"Lucem!" she
cried, tears in her eyes.

She had seen him fall.
She had seen him vanish into smoke. It had been here! Right here! Yet she could
not find him. Was he one of those bodies too burnt and ravaged to recognize?
Had the harpies consumed him, or had—

"Elory."

A hoarse whisper.

Fresh tears flooded
Elory's eyes.

She ran forward.

"Elory," rose
the whisper again.

Several bodies lay
ahead. Elory ran toward them, pulled the lifeless aside, and saw him there.
Lying on the ground. Face gray as if coated with paste. Eyes sunken.

"Lucem," she
said, voice trembling.

His leg was gone, and
he clutched the stump. He had managed to pull off his belt, to fashion a
tourniquet, but so much blood drenched the soil around him.

"I need a
healer!" Elory cried, staring skyward. "A healer, please!"

Yet none answered. Few
knew healing in Requiem, and those who did had too many to treat. She had to
find her father, if he had lived. She had to find somebody who could pray, fix
this, stop this bleeding.

"Elory," he
whispered, reaching out a trembling, bloodless hand toward her. "Elory, be
with me. Don't leave me."

"I won't."
She knelt by him, caressed his cheek, and kissed his lips. Those lips were so
cold. "I'm right here, Lucem. I'm right here. You stay with me. You don't
leave me either."

He managed to smile—a
weak, shaky smile. "We showed 'em, didn't we?"

She nodded, her tears
splashing his face. "We did. We won, Lucem. Requiem is saved. You have to
stay with me. You have to be with me when we rebuild. We have to build that
little house, remember? The one with the garden. And have children. And grow
old together."

"You'll have a
house," he whispered. "And a garden. And children. Maybe not with me.
I—"

"Hush!" She glared
at him, still weeping. "You're going to live. You're going to be fine. I'm
going to take care of you, I promise. I'm going to heal you."

He was fading. His
blood kept dripping, his skin grew colder, his face more pale. Elory trembled
and looked up to the sky.

She was no priestess.
She was no healer. She had never heard the gods speak to her, as they had
spoken to her father and to Vale.

"But I am a
daughter of Aeternum," she whispered, staring at the sunlit sky. "If
you can hear me even in the daylight, and if my name and my grief mean anything
to you, please, stars of Requiem. Please, Issari. Let him live. I love
him."

The sunlight was bright
and she could not see the stars. She looked down at Lucem, and she placed a
hand on his brow.

"Heal him, stars
of Requiem," she whispered. "Don't let him leave me. He is the hero
of Requiem. The first to resist. The man I love. And I need him. I can't fight
on without him."

As she held his hand,
his trembles eased, and he grew limp, and Elory sobbed, sure that his life was
slipping away. She leaned down and kissed his lips.

"Live," she
whispered.

And she felt his
breath. It was shallow, but it was still there, steady, calm. Strong.

Ash rained from the
sky, and dragons flew above, and Elory remained with him, holding his hand,
praying, whispering to him, never letting him go.

 
 
VALE

It rained as they buried the
dead.

The dragons labored
through the day and night, digging graves, and at dawn they said their
goodbyes. At dawn they wept. At dawn they beheld the price of their victory:
row upon row of graves, stretching across the ravaged forest, hundreds of
thousands of lost lights.

Most of the dead were
never named. Some could no longer be recognized. Many others had lost all those
who might have known their names. They had no tombstones. They lay nameless, no
markers on their grave, yet perhaps in future springs new trees would grow
here. Perhaps saplings would rise from these graves, pushing through the ash
and shattered branches, and a forest would rise here again. A forest of the
dead. A forest of new life. The forest of Requiem.

Yet there were still
some tombstones in this land.

Upon a hill rose the
ancient graves of Requiem's kings and queens. King Aeternum, founder of the
nation, and Queen Laira, the Mother of Requiem. King Benedictus, who had fought
the griffins. Queen Gloriae the Gilded, who had rebuilt Requiem from ruin.
Queen Lyana who had slain phoenixes. King Valien Eleison and his wife, Queen
Kaelyn Cadigus, who had healed a Requiem torn by civil war. Queen Fidelity,
defeater of the Cured Temple, who raised the dragons again after their magic
had nearly been lost. The names from the books. From the legends. From the old
songs. The great heroes and heroines of Requiem's history, those souls who had
fought so many enemies, who had led Requiem in war, who had rebuilt her halls
so many times.

The graves of our
past,
Vale thought.
The graves of those who carried on a torch of
starlight and dragonfire.

It was here, upon the
hill, that Vale buried his sister.

Not many came to the
funeral. Most had lost too many of their own. Most were at other graves,
grieving. A few hundred gathered here on the hill, standing silently. The rain
died down to a drizzle, and the sun peeked between the clouds, and a rainbow
shone above, flickering, struggling to form a bow. The last snows had melted,
the ice was gone, and a few finches darted above, heralds of an early spring.
Yet the day seemed too dark to Vale, and he did not know how spring could ever
warm this land.

Elory stood at his
side, clutching his hand. Lucem lay there on a litter, his stump bandaged, his
face still pale. Til and Bim stood at his other side, faces stern.

But you're not here,
Father,
Vale thought, and the pain seemed unbearable. They would bury
Meliora today, but they had never found Jaren's body, and it took all of Vale's
strength to remain standing, not to kneel and weep.

Holding Elory's hand
tightly, he looked down at Meliora.

She lay on a litter,
clad in the polished armor of Requiem, her sword in her hands. Her face was
pale, peaceful in death, her hair a soft gold, her eyes closed. For the first
time, no halo shone above her head.

She was so
beautiful,
Vale thought.
She was so pure.

Vale raised his eyes.
Across the grave, the Vir Requis stared at him, more gathering from the valleys
below. Vale spoke to them, voice deep, soft.

"Both the blood of
Requiem and the ichor of Saraph flowed through her veins, but her heart was
pure. Hers was a dragon's heart. She fought for Requiem, and she died for
Requiem. She fought for her family, and she died for her family. She was too
young. She was too pure. She was too righteous, too holy, too blessed to leave
us so soon. Her soul has risen, and she rests now with our forebears among the
stars of Requiem, yet that is little comfort for us, those who remain. Who miss
her. Who mourn her. She was born to a queen of a foreign land, and she would
have been queen of Requiem, and we would have been blessed by her grace."
He placed his hand against her cheek. "Farewell, Meliora Aeternum,
daughter of Requiem, my sister. May the stars light your final journey, guiding
you to your sleep."

He draped a flag across
her, which Kira—her former handmaiden—had sewn from fabrics collected from the
camp, many taken from the fallen city of Keleshan. The flag was woven of rich
green cotton, the color of birch leaves, and embroidered with silver stars
shaped as the Draco constellation.

"Rest now in the
kingdom that you loved," Vale whispered. "You're home now, Meliora.
You're home."

He shifted into a
dragon, and he lifted her gently. She felt so light in his grip. He placed her
down in her grave, and finally he wept.

That day, after burying
their dead, the survivors of Requiem found themselves facing life.

They never counted the
dead, and some claimed that half of Requiem was gone, but hundreds of thousands
still lived, for the first time facing a future, for the first time facing a
life without chains, without battle, a life that seemed daunting. And they were
afraid.

Many Vir Requis began
to build crude huts from the felled trees. Others collected rain water and
melted snow. Some dragons flew far to the north, where trees still stood, and
hunted wild deer and boars that were emerging from their long winter. Kira and
Talana were busy at the Chest of Plenty, duplicating food for the people.

There were no songs
that day. No grand coronations. No dances or celebrations. One war had ended
and another began—a struggle for simpler things. For food, water, shelter. Survival.

That day, Vale rose as
a dragon, and he flew high and gazed down upon his kingdom.

Issari's words returned
to him.

A great battle
awaits you, son of Requiem,
the Priestess in White had told him, healing him
with her hands of starlight.
Live, child of Aeternum. Your war has not yet
ended.