BOOK ONE: BLOOD OF DRAGONS

FIRA

They ran through the dark tunnels, and the creature followed.

The shadow.

The beast.

She.

Evil. Evil in the darkness. Snorting, hissing, laughing, scuttling. Always behind them.

Fire burned in Fira's lungs. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Saws tore at her throat. She wanted to fall, to curl up, to beg. To die. To die here in darkness.

Yet her mother kept pulling her onward, her grip like a vise.

"Keep running," Mother whispered, panting, sweat on her brow. The darkness cloaked her. Only her eyes shone through. Eyes wide and bloodshot. "Don't stop, Fira. Don't look back. Keep running!"

The baby Mother was carrying suddenly mewled. Mother hissed and tightened her grip on the girl.

Fira winced. Her sister was only a year old. Little Miya was too young to remain silent. Too young to know danger. The babe gave another cry.

Deep in the darkness, laughter rumbled. Inhuman laughter. Tumbling stones, rolling thunder, a demonic chorus.

Fira shuddered.

She hears us.

Fira ran. She thought her body would fall apart, her legs snap, a clay doll shattering against the floor. But she kept running, holding Mother's hand. And the creature kept following.

The cackles filled the tunnel. The sound of splintering wood, bending metal. The sound of a forest falling to rot. The sound of great worms tunneling under ancient mountains. The sound of the skeletons of babes, expanding and cracking underground as black rain seeped.

Fira ran and Fira looked.

Defying her mother, she looked over her shoulder. Still running. Still holding Mother's hand. She stared into the abyss.

The dark tunnels spread behind her, nothing but shadows. The few oil lanterns on the walls snuffed out, one by one, going dark like the lives of boys at war. Miles of tunnels wound here beneath Requiem, a kingdom of dragons. But there were no dragons underground. There was no light or heat or dragonfire here. Aboveground, her people possessed the magic to sprout wings, breathe fire, and rise as dragons. Not here. Not trapped among these walls, these veins of a stone giant buried beneath the world.

Here Fira's form was frail. A mere girl. Here was a place of shadows, rot, and evil.

And her.

Yes, she was here too.

And Fira finally saw her.

A shadow.

A shadow without form. A shadow with two blazing golden eyes. A shadow like a thousand shadows, like endless worlds scattered by candlelight, dousing every last flame, leaving only darkness and terror.

Praise me.

A voice in her mind. Fira cringed and looked away. She ran.

Fear me.

Tears filled Fira's eyes, and her eyes, those golden eyes, still pierced her, dug into her back, saw her, claimed her, understood her. The eyes of a demon. A goddess. The eyes of cruelty. The eyes of evil.

Fira's tears fell. How had this happened? Every winter solstice, exactly at midnight, Fira and Mother came here. Midnight. The hour witches and demons rose to dance.

But those were only legends! Every year, Fira's family walked through these tunnels, seeking hidden libraries, looking for treasure hoards, pretending to slay monsters in the shadows. Just pretending! Fira had never believed in monsters. Not truly. Maybe they had lived long ago. But they were certainly imaginary now. Every year, Fira ended up laughing at Mother's silly ghost stories, feeling so safe, so loved.

But this year we found a real monster.

A chill washed over her. Something brushed against her back, and Fira ran faster. Sweat drenched her. Ice seemed to crawl through her bones, to fill her chest, to freeze her skull.

Praise me. I am Goddess. I am her.

Baby Miya wailed.

Mother tightened her grip around the baby. Miya gave another cry. They ran. They ran through darkness, the candles snuffing out, the last one soon gone, leaving only the black, only the terror.

A single word rose to a shriek, cracking stones, shattering Fira's ears … then shrinking, coalescing, shards forming together, coiling like a serpent in her mind, leaving only an echo, only the memory, seared like a brand.

One word. Her name.

Praise her.

Fear her.

Nemoria.

Dim light shone ahead. Their footfalls echoed. The tunnel opened into a vast chamber. A chasm directly below Requiem's royal palace. A cavern beneath the deepest roots, graves, and frost.

The library of Requiem.

Countless shelves rose, holding innumerable books and scrolls. The codices stretched row after row, wrapped in leather. Golden letters shone on their spines, reflecting the light of a few glass lanterns. Books of ancient lore. Books of curses. Books of demonology and secrets that could drive the holiest priest mad. Books were worth more than gold in Requiem, more than gems or ivory or weapons of finest steel. Books were knowledge, power, and a light in a dark world.

And now the lights darkened.

A glass lantern shattered, and the flames roared for an instant before vanishing under a cloak of shadows. Two more lanterns followed, casting out fire and shards of glass.

Books fell. Scrolls rolled across the floor. Laughter filled the library, a living thing, scurrying like bat shadows, a demon of sound and malice, storming between the shelves. Tomes fell, opening jaws of parchment, revealing illustrations of skulls, dissections, and tortured men.

They ran through the library. Mother, holding the baby. Fira, terror driving her on. Another lantern exploded, and glass shards stung Fira, but she kept running.

And she followed.

Fira knew her name now. The word still filled her, echoing, burning like ice on flesh, twisting inside her, a living word, a demon in her mind.

Nemoria.

Praise her. Praise her. Fear her.

The shadows of claws raced across the ceiling. Golden eyes reflected in a glass lantern, shattering it, then stared through the shards. A thousand burning gazes. Boring into Fira.

I praise you. Tears flowed. I praise you, goddess.

Fira wanted to stop, to turn, to kneel. To kiss the floor. To worship the dark goddess. To beg for forgiveness, beg for life, beg for the pain to end.

But Mother kept pulling her onward. They raced between the bookshelves, more lanterns fracturing with every step, glass flying, the creature pursuing.

An entire bookshelf rose into the air, slammed down, and scattered books. Parchment flew like ravens, a thousand pages covered with ancient ink, each spelling the goddess's name. They kept running. Another shelf rose, creaked, screamed like a living thing, and tore apart. Books slammed into them. Baby Miya wailed against Mother's breast. Fira bled, wooden shards in her skin. She ran onward through the storm of parchment and wood.

Praise me.

The voice filled the shadows, ballooning, and those claws reached out, engulfing the chamber, clutching Fira, freezing her.

Worship me.

And Fira knew that they could not escape. Knew that she would die underground. Die so far from the beautiful land of dragons above. Die in the shadows, kneeling on the cold floor, worshipping the goddess.

Her tears fell. Monsters are real.

For the first time since that shadow had risen, Mother stopped running.

Fira skidded to a stop beside her.

They had reached the center of the library. The vast underground chamber rose around them, a globe of stone, its shelves shattered, its books strewn like jetsam. One last lantern shone directly above, a single light in a sea of darkness.

All around, she scuttled. A maelstrom. Circling in the shadows, closing in, a wolf grinning over prey.

Mother placed the baby into Fira's arms.

"Hide," Mother whispered, guiding Fira into a hovel between two fallen shelves. "Hide and don't make a sound. Keep Miya quiet."

The shelves tilted around Fira, meeting at their tops, forming a triangular tunnel of wood, fallen books, and loose parchment. The baby squirmed in her arms. Other fallen shelves spread like a labyrinth, full of shadows and hidden monsters. Mother knelt beside them.

The cackles rose through the library, and wind moaned, shrieked, and coalesced into a voice. A woman's voice. A voice fair, deep, as beautiful as black diamonds, as mushrooms in the rain, growing from corpses.

"Where do you hide, little reptiles?" Laughter rose, snapping wood, cracking stone. "I can smell you, shapeshifters. I can smell your fear. I can smell your magic. The stench of starlight."

Fira shuddered, huddling between the fallen bookshelves.

Magic.

Yes, Fira thought. She might be a goddess. But we have magic.

The magic of starlight.

All children in Requiem, the ancient land above them, possessed this power. This birthright. This blessing. The magic given by the stars. The magic to grow wings, to breathe fire, to become dragons. Fira was only eight years old, but already she had learned this magic, had shifted into a dragon before. She had flown in the sky with her father, the king, with her mother, the queen, with many brave warriors of Requiem.

But her father, wise King Berinor, was far away now. Far aboveground in his palace. All his brave warriors could not help Fira here, trapped underground on winter solstice, on the dark midnight of the soul, evil all around her and a cruel goddess sniffing, reaching out her claws.

"Stay in the shadows," Mother whispered, tears in her eyes. "Do not emerge from this hiding place. No matter what you hear. Remain here under the shelves. Remain silent. Remain with your little sister." Mother wept. "I love you. I love you, my daughters."

Mother embraced her, kissed her cheek, and dampened Fira's hair with tears. Then Mother stepped out from the huddle of bookshelves.

"Mother!" Fira whispered, began to follow, then froze. Miya squirmed against her, whimpering.

I have to stay hidden. I can't move.

Fira sucked in a shaky breath. Her sister gave a single cry, and Fira covered the baby's mouth.

The bookshelves tilted before her, leaning against a fallen statue. Many books still stood on the shelves, crammed together like bricks in a ruined fortress. Fira peeked between them to see Mother walking outside the shelter. The queen of Requiem shivered, still shed tears, yet did not turn back, did not run. She came to stand in the center of the library, exposed within a ring of fallen shelves, lit by the single lantern above.

"In the name of Requiem!" Mother said, voice shaking yet still strong, echoing in the cavern. "By the light of the Draco stars! In the name of Aeternum, Eternal King of Dragons, whose blood flows through my veins! You will leave this realm, cursed one! You will return to your shadows, lady of darkness!"

The darkness laughed.

The cackles stormed, endless demons. The library shook. Around Fira, the bookshelves creaked and dust rained. Parchment pages fluttered everywhere. One page landed before Fira, revealing an illustration of a ghastly face stripped of skin—an old medical drawing, leering, mocking her.

Fira huddled deeper in the shelter of books and shelves, clutching Miya to her chest.

"Please be quiet," Fira whispered to her sister, covering the baby's mouth. "Please. Please. Please."

She peeked between the books. Mother stood there in the lamplight, a queen in a beam of light, surrounded by shadows. All her life, Fira had known Tilania Aeternum to be a kindly mother, a wise queen. Yet now she saw the warrior the poets sang of. The legendary Fire Queen, the heroine who had fought in the ruins of Eretz Orim, who had defended Requiem from countless enemies. Mother was trembling, but she was ready to fight, and at that moment Fira loved her mother more than ever before.

Around the queen, the shadows swirled, darkened, flowed, and bundled together. Strands of darkness interwove, taking form.

She materialized.

Fira's breath died.

Praise her.

Fear her.

The dark goddess. The terror children whispered of in the night. The eater of souls. She walked across the floor, strands of darkness spreading from her feet.

Nemoria.

She manifested as a tall woman, clad in black. Black was her hair, pale gray her skin, and her eyes gleamed, two golden lights, all-seeing. A beautiful woman, lips lustful, hips curved, yet she was decaying. Purple veins spread across her like a map of the abyss, and her skin was papery. She held a lance, its blade engraved with a silver eye. But the eye was alive. Moving. Blinking.

That metallic eye stared at Fira.

She gasped and cowered, pulling Miya back, huddling behind the bookshelves.

"Leave this place!" Mother repeated. "Leave or I will face you here, in the heart of my realm. I will do what I could not last time we met."

The dark goddess grinned, a grin that grew, stretched, reaching her ears, splitting her face, revealing rows of gleaming fangs.

"Yes, I tormented you once," said the goddess, voice flowing, fine liquor poured over wounds, samite over sores. "I'm not done punishing you for your sins. I've come to collect what is mine. Your power. Your fire."

Mother spread out her arms. "Then you will have it."

With a deafening cry, Queen Tilania summoned her magic … and shifted.

Fira watched from her hiding place, holding her baby sister. Again she lost her breath, but this time not from fear. This time wonder filled her.

Shimmering golden scales flowed across Mother's body, clattering, reflecting a thousand shades of firelight. Wings sprouted from her back, leathern, tipped with claws. Her body grew, knocking into shelves, shoving them back. Her face lengthened, growing a scaly snout, and horns rose from her head.

A golden dragon stood in the library, smoke wafting from her nostrils.

With a roar, the dragon queen blasted out her flames.

Light and heat filled the library like an exploding sun.

Fira cowered, covering her eyes, peering between her fingers. Her baby sister squirmed against her. Loose parchment ignited and burned. Through the clouds of sparks and smoke, Fira could see the dragonfire streaming forth, slamming into the goddess, washing over the dark figure.

Caught in the blaze, Nemoria twisted, fell to her knees, and screamed. An inhuman sound. The sound of shattering glass, of cracking skeletons, of breaking souls. The sound of horrible mirth, of steam through metal pipes, of demons dancing in flaming caverns.

The golden dragon let her fire die.

Smoke and sparks drifted through the air. The stench of burnt flesh invaded Fira's nostrils. Scattered books and pages smoldered.

Nemoria knelt on the floor, surrounded by ash—the ash of her own ruination. Her flesh had burned off the bones, spread around, and coated the fallen books like tar. Remnants of muscle clung to Nemoria's blackened skeleton. The jaw leered, draped with flaking skin. The internal organs still pulsed, visible between the bones—inhuman organs, gleaming, quivering, stinking things, woven of glass and dark light and rancid meat.

The burnt, wretched creature rose to its feet, dripping liquid fat, raising foul smoke. It was a hideous mockery of life, but still the goddess's eyes blazed, molten gold in bony sockets, fire in the deep. The fleshless jaws opened, and the bones moved, legs creaking, feet leaving a trail of blood and skin. The organs writhed, rustled, full of internal life, a hundred fetuses in wombs. New muscles squirmed like worms, spreading over bone, and new skin draped across them, the color of a storm, of old corpses in the rain, marbled with deep purple veins, endless rivers in a map of desolation.

"You can no longer hurt me, dragon queen," said the dark goddess, her face once more fair and cruel, wretched and pure. Midnight hair streamed down to her waist, and her eyes shone, lanterns, stars, funeral pyres. "Your magic can no longer burn me. Now all that was yours is mine. Now all your kingdom is laid at my feet, a realm of starlight and flame."

The goddess laughed. The eye on her spear laughed. The shadows laughed. The world wept. With a shriek, Nemoria—dark goddess, empress of shadows—thrust her spear. The silver blade tore the air, screamed, shone, blasted dark fire, and drove into the golden dragon.

Fira cried.

She wanted to run out, to emerge from her hiding place. She wanted to help her mother, to attack the demon, to become a dragon too, to blow her fire. But Miya still cried in her arms, and Fira couldn't move, couldn't, had promised, had sworn to remain hidden. To keep Miya safe. To keep Miya silent. To live. To live!

The baby cried and thrashed, and Fira's tears fell as she clutched her sister close, a hand on her mouth, trying to keep Miya's nostrils free, to keep her silent, to stay hidden in shadows. Even as her mother screamed. Even as golden scales fell. Even as dragon blood spilled.

The golden dragon roared, a deafening sound, a sound that slammed against whatever bookshelves still stood. Books and scrolls tumbled. Dragonfire blasted out, lighting the library, licking the ceiling, cascading down in a rain of burning stars.

The dragon, queen of Requiem, lashed her claws. Each was like a dagger, sharper than any razor, and sliced into the goddess. Yet Nemoria's wounds healed, the cuts closing as fast as they had opened.

Again the spear thrust. Again the blade tore into the dragon. Queen Tilania howled, head tossed back. Deep purple tendrils spread from her wound, lines of infection. Her blood dripped, steaming, boiling.

A third time the spear thrust. The blade ripped into the dragon's chest.

The dragon's scream died.

With a gasp, with a tear, with a shower of blood, the queen of Requiem lost her magic.

Tilania Aeternum fell to her knees as a woman, blood staining her white gown, chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, her lifeblood dripping away.

The dark goddess stood above her, wreathed in shadows, an empress over a kneeling slave. She was beautiful in darkness. She was nightmares taken form, glittering shards of night. She was purity. Purity of evil, purity of malice, distilled, forged as a living blade. She was so beautiful that Fira, peering from the shadows, wept. Praise her. Praise her.

Kneeling, the queen of Requiem raised her head. Blood filled her mouth. Rage filled her eyes. She spat at the dark goddess.

"Curse you," Queen Tilania said. "With my dying breath, with all the starlight still within me, I curse you."

Nemoria reached out a dark gray hand tipped with purple claws. She stroked the queen's bloodied hair.

"Oh, sweetness … curses are as wine to those born in sin."

The goddess grinned, and her mouth opened wide, jaw dropping, dripping, melting, unhinging like the jaw of a python about to swallow a deer. And the mouth kept widening still. The jaw dropped between the goddess's breasts, then fell to her navel, revealing a great chasm, a gorge lined with teeth, the mouth of a lamprey, the mouth of darkness, a tunnel to the abyss. The clawed arms reached out, woven of ash, woven of nightmares, arms of many joints, serpentine, wrapping around the queen of Requiem, the claws gripping, a spider clutching its prey. Those arms lifted the queen. They constricted, snapped bones, and raised Tilania toward the dripping hellmouth. And the goddess fed.

Fira watched, tears in her eyes, as her mother's head vanished into the jaws, then her shoulders, her body, tugged in, sliding down, devoured. Praising her. Worshipping her.

"Praise her," Fira whispered, weeping. "Nemoria, goddess of shadow."

The demon closed her mouth and licked her lips, her tongue long, dripping, blue tinged with gray.

Mother's body was gone. Consumed. Taken into the shadows.

Fira remained hidden between the books, holding her sister close, an emptiness digging through her, a terror freezing her bones, freezing her breath, stars spinning around her, endless night.

The dark goddess raised her head.

The golden eyes stared toward the bookshelves where Fira hid.

Fira stiffened, clutching her sister, daring not breathe. She screwed her eyes shut. She tightened her grip on her sister.

Please. Please go away. Please, please. Don't eat us. Don't claim us. Praise you. Praise you, Nemoria, goddess of hunger.

For a long time—silence in the library.

The last fires burned out, and cold flowed, deep cold, reaching into the body, the soul. Still Fira dared not breathe. But she could hear her own heartbeat pounding, hammering inside her, and Miya's heart answered in kind, and Fira held her sister tight, covering the babe's mouth, until Miya squirmed, kicked, desperate for air.

Don't make a sound. Don't even breathe. She will hear. She will feed.

Finally a creak. Another creak. Footfalls.

Fira opened her eyes to slits. She peeked between the books on the tilted shelf, and she saw the goddess turn, walk away, then disperse into smoke. The strands flowed into the shadows and vanished, leaving mist and blood, leaving the cold, the emptiness, the grief.

Finally Fira could breathe.

"Mother," she whimpered.

For a long time, Fira dared not move. She huddled in the shadows. She had vowed to stay here, to stay safe, to protect her sister. Miya lay against her chest, silent, and for a horrible moment—a moment of pure terror, clutching her, squeezing her—Fira was sure that the baby wasn't breathing, that she had suffocated her.

But Miya's chest still rose and fell, and her tiny heart beat against Fira's chest. Two hearts beating together—the only sound in this chasm of silence.

She's gone. Mother is gone.

Fira could not believe it, refused to believe it. Surely this was a dream. Just the dream of a child on winter solstice, just a trick, that was all. For a long time she huddled, daring not move, waiting for morning, waiting to wake up in bed, to see her mother at her side.

Yet still the darkness surrounded her, and finally Fira emerged from her hiding place, carrying her sister. She tiptoed over scraps of parchment, fallen books, and shattered shelves, until she stood in the center of the library, in the light of the single lantern. Blood and ash stained the floor.

"Mother," Fira whispered, and her chest shook.

She blinked and stared into the shadows. A few books still burned, casting red light. But most of the library was in darkness.

And the creature was still out there. Nemoria still haunted the tunnels.

I have to run.

And she did.

* * * * *

She ran in darkness.

She ran through the library, leaving her mother behind.

She ran from all the horrors of the world. From monsters of ghost stories come to life.

She ran and she fell, banged her knees, and nearly dropped her sister. She rose and ran onward.

The darkness was complete now. Fira might as well have run with her eyes shut. She banged into a wall, cried out, ran again. She held her sister with one hand, trailing her other hand against a wall until she found a doorway.

She exited the library, but the darkness still spread.

She raced onward through the shadows, moving down tunnels, lost in the labyrinth. Lost in grief. Lost in this underground realm, this nightmare beneath the land of dragons, this endless catacomb. Moving from chamber to chamber, tomb to tomb, every lantern gone out, every star in her sky darkened. Fira felt as if she were dead, a ghost, wandering the afterlife, trapped forever in a saturnine maze.

She's gone. Her tears streamed. My mother is gone.

Mira mewled against her breast, and in the darkness, Fira held her sister close, and her tears flowed onto the babe's hair.

"We'll find our way out, Miya," she whispered. "I promise you. I promise. We'll wake up. We're just lost in a dream. We'll find the morning."

She walked on through the darkness, trailing her hand against the wall, moving up steep tunnels, through echoing chambers, always in darkness. After what seemed like eras, like the rise and fall of nations, like the birth and death of generations—light. Light ahead. A glow of fire.

It was dim. But Fira could make out craggy stairs and rough walls of stone. She climbed, emerging from the dark, emerging from the cold.

There she found it. An oak doorway, firelight glowing around the rim.

A way out.

Fira grabbed the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped out from the underground.

She let out a shaky breath. She was back home! Back in the palace, the heart of Requiem.

"We're home, Miya," she whispered, tasting her tears, her chest trembling in relief. "We're home."

It was still night, and an iron lantern hung on the wall, shaped as a dragon, embers in its jaws, and the memory pulsed through Fira—the dark goddess unhinging her jaw, sucking up her mother. A dream. Just a dream. A nightmare Fira was waking from.

She walked down the corridor between marble columns. The palace was silent. Deserted. Normally guards patrolled here, but tonight Fira saw none. Beyond the columns spread the city of Nova Vita, capital of Requiem. Dark. Silent. No stars shone in the sky, and the moon was a faded blur behind the clouds, like the face of a corpse rising in murky water.

Miya slept in her arms, and Fira kept walking through the palace, seeking wakefulness from her dream. She had gone to sleep last night in her parents' bed, troubled by monsters in her closet. She must be a ghost, wandering a nightmare. She had to return to that bedchamber, to return into her body, to lie down in the warmth between her parents, to rise and find the morning. Find her mother back. Find this memory of a demon in the depths fleeing from her memory like water draining from a cracked mug.

She climbed a staircase in the palace, moving between walls adorned with frescos of dragons. Marble columns rose at her sides, supporting a shadowy ceiling. Still she saw no guards or servants. Every footstep echoed in the bowels of the palace. Fira felt so small here, an ant crawling through an abandoned hive.

Finally she reached a shadowy hallway lined with tapestries. It led toward the royal chambers, the wing where her family lived, a place of safety.

It was there that Fira finally saw guards.

Two of them lay outside the doorway to her parents' chamber, desiccated, skin clinging to bones like wet cloth to wood. Their mouths were opened wide, screaming silently, and the eyes had vanished into the sockets.

"Just a dream," Fira whispered, holding her sister tight. "Just a dream, Miya."

She grabbed the doorknob. The handle burned her, so cold, colder than ice in the heart of winter, so cold it seared her skin like fire. Yet Fira did not pull back. She opened the door and crept into her parents' bedchamber.

Her parents were inside, making love on the bed.

The bed was large, carved from mahogany, its bars shaped like coiling dragons, its blankets richly woven and embroidered with silver thread. Her father, the wise King Berinor, lay on his back. His chest was wide and bare, his beard thick. Mother rode him like a stallion, her head tossed back. She too was naked, her hair flowing down to her waist. Her back was turned toward Fira.

Fira stood at the doorway and stared, eyes wide. She had heard of lovemaking before. Even the young princess of Requiem, only eight years old, was not shielded from the talk of stableboys, wet nurses, and cooks. Yet she had never seen the act. She had never imagined seeing a couple making love, not even her parents, here in the bed where Fira so often slept. She wanted to flee, to turn away, yet again she found herself frozen, as she had frozen in the library of her nightmare.

I just have to lie down in that bed, Fira thought. Lie down where I went to sleep, and I'll wake up.

She took a step closer to the bed, and her mother turned her head.

The queen still straddled the king, but her head gave a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn, creaking around to face Fira. Her neck twisted like wet cloth, Mother gazed at Fira for a moment, face noble and beautiful. But then her face changed. Her teeth sharpened into fangs, and her eyes blazed with fire.

"Father!" Fira cried. "It's not Mother! It's Nemoria! It's a demon, it's—"

Everything seemed to happen at once.

The dark goddess leaped off Father, her skin turning gray, purple veins spreading across her, her hair darkening. The king rose from the bed, naked, and reached for a sword.

"Guards!" King Berinor cried as the dark goddess leaped toward the ceiling and clung there, a great bat, hissing.

The goddess was changing, growing, covering the ceiling like a pool of oil. Wings unfurled from her back, sticky, creaking as they spread, tipped with claws. Her voice emerged from her jaws, rattling the furniture, thrumming through the walls and floor, a thousand deep voices, grainy, speaking together. A demon chorus.

"I have the queen's flesh." The goddess laughed. "I have the king's seed. Both are inside me. Requiem will fall. Know this, reptiles. The kingdom of dragons will fall!"

King Berinor roared and summoned his magic. Green and silver scales flowed across him, and his claws gleamed, and fire filled his lengthening jaws. His body grew, slamming into the bed, knocking down vases and statues, cracking a column. He roared, blasting out flames even before his transformation was complete.

The dark goddess laughed, shattered into shards of smoke, and fled out the window. The flames washed against the ceiling, and from outside rose a shriek like a storm.

Fira ran toward the window, holding her sister. She saw Nemoria ascend in the night sky, wreathed in flame, and change form again. The goddess grew even larger, swelling, ballooning like blisters. Black scales grew across her, and her rancid wings spread like sheets of peeling skin. Nemoria became a monstrous dragon, a beast with three heads, one red as blood, one black as sin, the third white as leprosy.

She's using our magic, Fira thought. The dragon magic of Requiem. She stole it.

Father leaped out the window, still shifting and growing, reaching his full size in the sky—a great green-and-silver dragon, largest in Requiem, roaring his fire. His flames streamed over the city of Nova Vita, illuminating the palace, the marble halls and homes below, the forts and forests of the kingdom.

"Arise, arise, guardians of Requiem!" cried the king. "A demon invades! Raise your fire!"

Standing at the window, Fira saw them take flight. Across the outer walls and towers of the palace, guardians of Requiem—brave men and women in armor—became dragons. With a great clatter of scales and beating of wings, they soared. Their dragonfire rose in columns, streaming across the night, lighting the city of Nova Vita. Hundreds of dragons flew up, roaring, filling the darkness with their wrath. Little Miya shrieked in Fira's grip, and the heat bathed them, filling the chamber.

"The dragons of Requiem rise, Miya," Fira whispered. "We're safe. We're safe now."

Across the sky, the dragons stormed forth, blowing their flames. The jets crackled, spun, drove toward the dark figure that ascended before them. Toward the goddess. Toward Nemoria, Queen of Chaos.

The twisted dragon reared, her three beastly heads rising. Each emitted a great cry, a roar that shattered glass across the city, that cracked walls and sent bricks tumbling. Fira screamed, nearly dropping her sister to cover her ears.

The three-headed dragon rose higher, wings unfurling, filling the sky, dwarfing all other dragons. Flames slammed into Nemoria but could not hurt her. The dragons of Requiem clawed her, but no sooner did the wounds appear than they healed.

And the goddess unleashed her wrath.

From the red head streamed forth great fire, searing, melting snow across the city roofs. From the white head blew streams of ice, colder than a blizzard, slamming into dragons, freezing them, casting them down. From the black dragon head flew shards of metal, jagged, spinning, slicing the flesh of dragons.

Across the sky, the dragons of Requiem cried out, burnt, frozen, cut. One dragon lost his magic and tumbled toward the city below, a mere man. A jagged shard sliced through another dragon's scales, and the beast lost her magic, falling as a woman, her belly cut open. Flames washed over two other dragons, burning away their magic, sending two knights crashing down like blazing comets.

Dragons had risen. But humans fell. The dead rained.

Fira looked at her arm. A burn spread there, a mark from the burning books in the library. It hurt.

"There's no pain in dreams," she said. "This isn't a dream, Miya. This is real. Monsters are real."

She looked out the window again, and her tears flowed. More and more dragons flew toward the dark goddess, wave by wave, but all fell before her. Burned with fire. Frozen in ice. Sliced open by shards of metal, entrails spilling, blood falling, dead raining. A sky of death. The ruin of Requiem. And across the distance, in the sky, the three dragon heads of Nemoria turned toward the palace, each blazing with golden eyes. Staring at Fira. Mocking her. A tongue slipped out from the black dragon head, purple, veined, licking its chops. The jaws that had swallowed Mother.

She's gone. Fira sobbed. Mother is gone.

Now Father flew toward the beast. The green-and-silver dragon led a hundred warriors. Their dragonfire flowed forth, but they could not burn the goddess. Their claws lashed, cutting Nemoria's flesh, only for the wounds to instantly close.

Nemoria's weapons flew out with fury. Fire from the red head. Ice from the white. Spinning shards of metal from the black. Tearing into the dragons of Requiem. The greatest warriors in the world, heirs to an ancient kingdom—they fell. They fell in a rain of scales, blood, and showering sparks of flame.

Through the storm, Father still flew. King of Requiem. Greatest of the dragons. Heir to the ancient Aeternum family, the dynasty that had ruled this realm for thousands of years.

King Berinor's flames roared out, blue in the center, washing across the dark goddess, flames so furious they bathed Fira with heat even across the distance. Nemoria's scales expanded in the blaze, cracked, and fell. The skin beneath burned, and the three-headed dragon let out three roars. Watching from the window, Fira dared to hope, dared to dream that the goddess would fall, that no more would die.

Yet Nemoria still flew. New scales rose to replace those that had fallen. The three-headed dragon reached out her arms—long, twisting serpents, clattering with many joints. The claws tore into King Berinor, ripping out scales, digging into the flesh. The green-and-silver dragon thrashed, blew his fire, but could not burn the goddess, could not free himself from her grip. Nemoria's black head opened its jaws, revealing a waiting chasm, a tunnel to damnation. Still the maw opened wider and wider, large as the city gates, large enough to swallow a dragon.

More warriors of Requiem stormed forth. Dragons of every color streamed through the night, trying to reach their king, to free him from Nemoria's claws. But the goddess held them at bay, her white head blasting ice, her red head roaring fire, and still her black jaws widened, and her claws tugged Berinor toward his death.

"Join her, Berinor," said the goddess, voice rumbling across the city. "Join your wife. Her blood is mine. Your seed is mine. Requiem is mine."

Fira turned away from the window.

Gently, she placed baby Miya on her parents' bed. Strangely, the baby was no longer crying, merely gazing curiously at her older sister.

Fira herself no longer wept, no longer trembled. A calmness she could not explain fell across her too. She returned to the window, climbed onto the sill, and leaped outside into the night.

For a moment Fira fell, her hair and dress streaming. For a moment, tumbling toward the courtyard, she felt … freedom. Finally. Free from the confines of the tunnels. Free of this palace of demons, of death. How easy it would be to keep falling! To fall until, in a flash, she felt no more fear, no more pain, no more loss! To fall until either death or wakefulness from nightmare ended this terror!

She wanted me to praise her.

The air shrieked around her, and the ground raced up toward her.

She has my father. Monsters are real.

No, this was not a pain Fira could escape, not even in death. The goddess would haunt her even into the halls of afterlife.

As she fell, Fira reached deep inside her and summoned her magic. An instant before hitting the courtyard, she shifted.

She soared, a red dragon with crimson wings, blasting out flames.

Her wings beat, scattering smoke. She wobbled, rose higher, and her claws banged against a steeple, shattering tiles and bricks. She kept ascending, crying out, wings billowing with the night. Bursts of fire leaked from her jaws, streaming around her, blinding her. But she knew where to fly. She still heard those cries, that laughter, that cruel voice Fira knew would forever haunt her.

She was still young, still new to her dragon form. She had only learned to fly a year ago, and she wobbled, dipped, hit another rooftop, soared again. Above her, she saw the battle. The goddess loomed there, larger than all other dragons. She still gripped Father. Her elongated arms still pulled the struggling dragon toward her waiting jaws. While Nemoria's black head prepared to feast, the white and red heads blew ice and fire, tearing down the warriors of Requiem.

Fira flew closer, eyes narrowed, wings beating.

I will be brave. I will not praise. I will kill.

A jet of ice flew toward Fira. She grimaced, nearly lost her magic in fright, and rose higher. The ice streamed below her, skimming her left leg, freezing her scales. She flew onward. Other dragons, several times her size, flew around her, blasting flames. Shards of ice tore into them, and they lost their magic, falling, frozen, faces locked in silent screams, their bodies shattering against the city below.

Another icy stream flew her way. Fira dodged the ice and rose higher. Iron shards shrieked toward her. She flew up, down, side to side, whipping around them, wobbly but smaller than the other dragons, quicker. A frozen shard scraped across her side, tearing off scales, and she screamed but kept flying. As dragons fell around her, Fira charged through the sky, heading toward the goddess, toward her father.

Before her, three warrior dragons reached Nemoria. They clawed her back, tearing out ribbons of flesh. Yet the wounds healed instantly, and the goddess's tail whipped, tearing into the dragons, knocking them down to the city.

Finally free from enemies, Nemoria managed to pull the flailing Berinor into her waiting jaws.

The mighty fangs ripped into the green-and-silver dragon. The king roared, blasted out flames, clawed, lashed his tail, but could not hurt the goddess, could not free himself. The teeth dug deeper into his flesh.

Fira flew. What chance did she have, a mere child? How could she defeat this terror that destroyed armies? Yet still she flew. Her mother was dead. Her father would soon join the queen in the belly of the beast. And the world would follow.

I will not allow it. I will be brave. I will not praise her.

A small red dragon, Fira flew, roared, and opened her mouth wide.

She closed her jaws around one of the goddess's many-jointed arms.

The goddess shrieked.

Fira dug her teeth deeper, cutting through scales, sinking into rancid flesh.

Nemoria screamed.

The three-headed dragon thrashed. Ice slammed into Fira. Flames washed over her. A shard of metal sliced her. But still Fira dug her teeth into the goddess. It tasted like rotten meat, like overripe fruit, like worms rising from wet earth. Fira's blood dripped, and her body shattered, but still she bit, sinking her teeth deep, tearing out muscle and ligaments, finding a joint and cracking the bone, tugging, yanking, shredding, ripping.

Shadows spread across her, and Fira pulled her head back, pulling bone from socket, tearing skin with a sound like ripping leather, like dying nations.

Fira fell.

Above her, Nemoria's severed arm flailed through the sky, shrinking, losing its scales, becoming the arm of a woman again, gray, veined with indigo.

Torn free from the goddess's grip, Father plunged down through the sky, scales cracked, calling out, calling to Fira, but she couldn't hear him. There was too much pain, too much fire. She fell like a comet. Ablaze and crumbling.

When she blinked, Fira thought she could see Nemoria fleeing into the east, her arm gone, a mere woman again, wreathed in shadows. Fira realized that she too had lost her dragon form, that she fell as a girl, that her body was burnt, frozen, cut a hundred times. That she was dying. That the ground raced up to finally end her pain. Fire wrapped around her like a cloak.

I did not praise.

She smiled weakly, the wind whipping her burning hair, dancing in the sky.

I'm coming to you, Mother. I will ascend.

The city spun below her, around her, and her father cried out, and Fira's eyes closed, and the long, dark, dreamless slumber of night claimed her.

ORYN

On a cold, wet morning, the guards brought Oryn out to hang.

Thousands had come to see the execution. Thousands in this city knew him. Even in the rain, they stood along the cobbled boardwalk, on their balconies, on steeples and tiled roofs. A hundred ships docked in the harbor, and sailors stood in crow's nests, gazing toward the execution ground. Even the seagulls circled above, as if they too longed to see the Prince of Shadows slain.

"You're about to break the heart of every woman in Altus Mare," Oryn said to the guards manhandling him. "Including your mothers."

The guards—gruff men in chain mail—grunted and shoved him forward. One cuffed him. "Be silent, thief, or we'll knock out your teeth before we stretch your neck."

"Thief?" Oryn spat. "Who do you think I am, a mere pickpocket from the docks? It's Prince of Shadows please."

The guard chortled. "Prince of Shit maybe."

Oryn nodded. "Delightful jape. Quite clever really. Did you come up with that pun yourself?" He grimaced as the guard cuffed him again.

The cobbled road stretched uphill toward the gallows. It was a long walk. The city folk lined the roadsides, all dressed up for the occasion. Oryn took grim satisfaction in seeing the rain soak the expensive tunics and dresses. He would have waved to the crowd, but the guards had bound his wrists. Bastards.

A few men in the crowd grumbled. One portly merchant spat at him. Oryn recognized the mustachioed man; he had snatched his fat purse last year. The merchant's daughter watched Oryn walk by, tears in her eyes. Oryn had spent some of her father's money on buying her flowers and a dancing gown. He winked and blew her a kiss. She blushed and wept even harder.

What was her name again? Oryn wondered. Kayla? Kaya?

He could no longer remember. Great kisser though. Pity she was such a poor dancer.

As he walked uphill, the memories mingled in his mind, swirling like the mud beneath his boots. Countless purses snatched. Countless wagons and shops robbed. Countless hearts broken and women bedded. He was only twenty-three, but Oryn had been a thief all his life. He had learned to snatch purses and pick pockets before learning to walk. The Prince of Shadows himself. A legend. Terror of Altus Mare, this city on the eastern coast. Indeed, terror of all Requiem.

Even in the distant capital, the maidens will weep, he thought. Even Princess Miya will shed tears for the loss of Requiem's most dashing outlaw.

His death would go down in history! He vowed it. It would become a day of mourning. Requiem's greatest tragedy since Nemoria's rampage nearly twenty years ago. Even today, people remembered and mourned the bloodshed of that night. They would remember his hanging too.

Finally they crested the hill and reached the gallows. Here was the highest place in Altus Mare. From this hilltop, Oryn could see the entire city. The eastern cove, filled with ships. The shops along the boardwalk. The homes that embraced the harbor, built of wattle and daub. The fortresses and temples that rose toward the clouds. Most of the city folk stood in human form, covering the streets and rooftops, braving the rain. But many flew in dragon form, circling under the clouds, their jaws shedding sparks and ashes.

Oryn tugged his arms, struggling to free them from the ropes, and cursed. For the thousandth time since they'd captured him, he summoned his magic, trying to shift, to become the dragon. Black scales began to flow across him, still small and soft. Sparks of dragonfire filled his mouth. The nubs of wings grew from his shoulder blades. But as his body grew, the ropes around his wrists and torso tightened, constricting him, squeezing out his magic. He fell to his knees, breathing raggedly, just a man again. A hero, yes. A legendary outlaw. The most dashing, heartbreaking man in the kingdom. But still just a man.

A guard slammed the flat of his blade against Oryn's back. "Go on, Prince of Shit! Onto the gallows."

"Prince of Shadows," he said, correcting the man, earning another blow.

They dragged him onto the gallows. The wooden structure crowned the hill, visible for miles.

At least I die famous, with the entire city come to mourn me, Oryn thought.

It was strange. A life spent in shadows. A death before myriads.

The guards shoved him up wooden stairs and onto a platform. A trapdoor creaked beneath Oryn's feet. The executioner was waiting, robed and hooded. But the outfit could not hide the ample gut and pigeon toes.

"I know it's you, Tain," Oryn said to the hangman. "I'd recognize that belly anywhere. The whole damn city knows it's you. You're just a stonemason. Why don't you remove that ridiculous hood?"

That earned Oryn another cuff from a guard. "Silence, Prince of Shit."

"Shadows," Oryn said. "How many times do I—Ow!" Another blow cracked against his nape.

Prince of Shadows. Oryn forgot when he had adopted that sobriquet. Perhaps the daughters of Altus Mare, fantasizing about the legendary outlaw, had named him that. Oryn had always liked the name. Not only because of his profession, but because of his heritage.

Most folk in this city were pureblooded Vir Requis, their skin ranging from white to olive toned. But Oryn was only half Vir Requis. From his mother, a proud woman of Requiem, he had inherited green eyes, a hot temper, and the magic to shift into a dragon. At least when he wasn't tied up. But his father had come from Terra, the southeastern continent. From him, Oryn had inherited brown skin, charcoal-black hair, and an iron heart.

He knew his good looks, an exotic blend of two nations, set hearts aflame. Stubble covered Oryn's cheeks. He shaved the sides of his head, leaving the top longer—just long enough to make the ladies swoon, not long enough to hide his green eyes. With those eyes—peering from under strands of black hair, a crooked smile on his lips—he had seduced plenty a fair maiden. It drove them wild.

Many of those maidens—well, some no longer maidens—gathered around the gallows. They wept as their fathers frowned and grumbled. Oryn knew some of the girls by name, others merely by flesh. One woman tore herself free from the crowd, ran toward the gallows, and knelt in the mud.

"Free him!" she cried. "Please free him. I love him."

Behind her, men in the crowd jeered.

"He's a goddamn thief!" a butcher shouted.

"The prince of thieves!" Oryn called back.

"You're a cursed murderer!" shouted a baker.

Oryn snorted. "All the men I've killed thrust the first blade."

The executioner wrapped the noose around Oryn's neck. And tightened it. Painfully.

Oryn tried to take a deep breath but could not. He was still standing on the closed trapdoor, not yet hanging, but the noose was damn tight. He raised his chin, inhaled wisps of air through his nostrils, and closed his eyes.

On second thought, he opened them and gazed upon his kingdom. This realm he had ruled from the shadows. He would die seeing the beauty of the sea, the bustling streets, and all those who feared, hated, or loved him, who had come to see the legend's final glory.

Here we go, he thought. I'll die brave. I'll die proud.

He tried to ignore the terror deep down, the fear of death. Of eternal damnation or emptiness. The loss of all he owned.

I had a good life, he thought. Short but good. Twenty-three years as prince of the alleyways. More than my mum ever had.

"Any last words?" the executioner said.

"Don't forget me, Requiem!" Oryn called out, hoarse, the noose digging into his neck. "Write songs about me, and weep over my grave." He turned toward the executioner. "Just do a good job of it. A quick tug to the lever. Make sure I snap my neck rather than choke."

Oryn had seen enough hangings to know that some deaths were easier than others. Some hangings were quick—the fall through the trapdoor snapped the neck, killing the victim instantly. But others suffered a worse fate. If the fall did not break the neck, the victims lingered, kicking, suffocating, taking long moments to die, each second an eternity.

The executioner grabbed the lever, prepared to pull the trapdoor open, to send Oryn down to his quick death or torturous strangulation.

The brute began a countdown. "Ten! Nine! Eight!"

"You don't need a countdown!" Oryn said, rolling his eyes.

The executioner slapped him. "Shut up!" He cleared his throat. "Seven! Six …"

Oryn tightened his lips, ready for the end.

His eyes found a woman in the crowd. Reean. A milkmaid. Many a night, Oryn had hidden in her bedroom from the city guard. She stared back, her blue eyes haunted, and stars above, she was beautiful. Her blond braids were woven of dawn. Her eyes were sapphires. Oryn gazed into those eyes, wanting to die seeing beauty, seeing one who loved him.

But then, as the trapdoor creaked beneath him, he saw shadows above the eastern sea.

Oryn squinted.

What the abyss?

"Four!" the executioner announced. "Two! I mean three! Two!"

Creatures were rising over the horizon. Winged, bustling, moving fast. Even from this distance, Oryn could hear faint shrieks, smell a hint of stench, and—

"One!"

The executioner pulled the lever.

The trapdoor opened.

Oryn fell through, and the noose crushed his neck.

His legs kicked wildly. The noose dug into his skin. He gulped for air, found none. His mouth opened like a fish. His nostrils flared. He kicked wildly, finding no purchase.

Damn it, Tain, I told you to snap my neck!

Stars floated everywhere. Oryn sputtered, floundered like a fish on a line. Shadows. Shadows flowed across the world. People were screaming, running, pointing. Was his death so horrifying it caused mass panic?

A shriek.

"Reean!" He tried to call the milkmaid, but his voice was only a weak croak. He kicked wildly, desperate, his life slipping away. "Reean, help!"

The people were fleeing the hill now, pointing toward the sea, screaming. Oryn heard leathern wings beating, smelled dragonfire, felt the heat. The people were shifting, rising up, flying away.

He was blacking out. A cone of darkness was closing in, leaving only a narrow tunnel of light.

A shriek tore the air, deafening, pounding against Oryn's eardrums. As he dangled on the rope, he stared up, and he lost his breath.

Bloody stars.

A massive, rancid creature flew above. At first Oryn thought it a dragon. But no. It was wider than a dragon, bloated and slimy, sporting no scales. Five heads grew from its body, each blowing fire. The creature flew overhead, dripping rot, and flames covered the sky.

I'm dead. I'm dead already. I'm in the abyss. I …

Oryn's eyes went dark.

His lungs seemed to fold in on themselves.

"Reean," he tried to whisper, then could speak no more.

The demons of afterlife grabbed his legs. They pushed him upward. Upward. Up to air. Up to …

He gasped. A trickle of air found its way into his lungs.

He sucked in another raspy breath, the rope sawing at his throat.

His vision cleared. But he still felt death grabbing his feet, pushing him upward. No. Not death! He looked down. Reean stood beneath him!

The milkmaid was clutching his legs, shoving him upward. It was just enough to loosen the noose, to let him breathe—but not to free him.

"Oryn!" she cried. "Damn it, you weigh a ton!"

"Shift into a dragon!" His voice was barely a hoarse whisper. "Shift and cut the rope with your claws!"

"I can't let you go, you idiot!" she shouted. "If I shift, I'll drop you."

"I'll take that chance!"

But the damn girl kept to her human form, her arms wrapped around his legs. With the rope no longer taut, Oryn took more raspy breaths. The stars faded from his vision, and he could see the battle more clearly.

He couldn't see much from here, dangling from the gallows, but he saw enough.

Requiem was under attack.

For the first time in eighteen years, since the dark goddess Nemoria had decimated the capital, war had come to Requiem.

The creatures swarmed from the sea, too many to count. Their wings were wide and leathery, tipped with claws. Their bodies were wet, lumpy, toad-like. Five long necks sprouted from each, topped with horny heads, and fangs filled their jaws. Oryn had heard of such creatures in ancient tales, had thought them only legends, monsters invented to scare children.

Hydras.

Thousands of dragons were rising across the city, blowing fire. Blood rained. A battle filled the sky. But dangling here from the gallows, the wooden platform above him, Oryn could see only glimpses.

"Reean!" he gasped, voice sounding like a rusty saw. "Reean, become a dragon now. Cut the rope, cut—"

Roars rose over his words. Wings beat. Fire rained. Oryn looked up and winced.

He could see it through the open trapdoor above. A hydra came plunging toward the hilltop. It was badly wounded. Burning. Two of its necks flailed, ending with gushing stumps. Leaving a trail of fire, it dived toward the gallows.

Oryn only had time to wince before the beast slammed into the wooden structure.

Beams snapped. Slats of wood shattered. With a shower of splinters, the gallows collapsed.

Oryn fell, slammed into Reean, and both hit the ground. Wooden chips hailed. An oaken beam slammed down, narrowly missing the two. The wounded hydra plowed through whatever beams still stood, shattering them, then slid downhill and crashed into a house.

Oryn rose to his knees, coughing. His wrists were still bound behind his back. The noose still trapped his neck. Reean lay beside him, groaning. A slat of wood had slashed her leg, and her blood seeped.

"Reean, free me." He nudged her. "Shift into a dragon and cut the rope—"

"I'm bleeding." She grimaced. "I'm bleeding, Oryn. I—"

"Shift!" More hydras were shrieking above, and Oryn winced. "Now, into a dragon!"

Reean nodded, swallowed, and took a deep breath. Indigo scales flowed across her, and lavender wings grew from her back. She crouched among the shattered planks, a slender dragon with a bleeding leg. She shook so badly her scales clattered, and her claws nearly sliced Oryn, but she managed to cut his bindings.

Wrists and neck finally free, Oryn leaped into the air and shifted too.

He soared as a black dragon, crashing through the remains of the gallows with a shower of wooden chips.

The sky burned.

The battle raged around him, shadowing the city of Altus Mare. Hundreds of hydras flowed across the sky, necks flailing. Hundreds more lolloped along the city streets, their bloated bodies wobbling. The beasts were blasting fire and whipping their tails at buildings. Ships burned in the port. The creatures' stench filled the air, the smell of worms, of rot in old wooden cellars, of gravediggers in a hot tavern.

And across the sky, dragons died.

The hydras' fire blazed everywhere, five jets per beast, crashing into dragons, melting scales, melting flesh. As Oryn soared higher, he saw three dragons fly toward a single hydra. The dragons were city guardians, clad in massive spiked armor. The hydra fire heated the steel plates and cooked the dragons within. The guardians roared and lost their magic. Three humans fell, their armor melting across their sizzling flesh.

Oryn whipped his head from side to side. But he saw them fall everywhere, soldiers and civilians alike. Dragons tumbled down, wreathed in flame. They became humans again in death, crashing into the city steeples and roofs, into the cove, onto the streets. One corpse slammed onto Oryn's back, rolled off, and plunged toward the rooftops.

I'm dead, Oryn thought. I must be. I died in the noose, and this is the afterlife. This is the abyss.

As he soared higher, one of the hydras saw him. The beast was deep green mottled with gray, the color of rotten leaves in mud. Unlike dragons, it had no scales, and its skin gleamed with moisture. The creature flapped its clawed wings, flying clumsily toward Oryn, its heavy abdomen wobbling. What it lacked in grace, it made up for with cruelty. The hydra's eyes burned with hunger. Its five jaws opened and blasted out flames.

Oryn opened his own jaws wide, spread out his wings, and blasted out his flames.

His dragonfire drove forth, blue in the center, flaring out to white and furious yellow. Before he could see the fire crash into the beast, the hydra's five flaming torrents turned his way. Oryn grimaced, swerved, and dodged one jet—only to fly into another flaming stream.

He roared. Pain flared. The fire expanded Oryn's scales, seared his underbelly, and streamed across his wings. He dipped in the sky, emerging from the inferno. He had spent only a split second in the fire, but the heat had cracked several scales and burned a hole into one wing.

Oryn ignored the pain. He banked again, dodging more flames. He panted and cursed, the wind whistling through his perforated wing.

"Stars-damned beast!" Oryn bellowed. "This is my city."

The black dragon sneered and rose higher.

Oryn knew he was being foolish. He was a thief, not a warrior. He fought in shadows, not in the open sky. And yes, they had tried to hang him. But he was still a Vir Requis. A son of Requiem. And he would defend his homeland.

As the battle raged around him, as the hydras filled the sky, Oryn rose higher. He was burnt. Bleeding. But his wings still beat. The hydra reared before him, and Oryn blew his dragonfire.

The inferno blazed across the hydra, washing over its heads and clammy skin, claiming its wings. The beast let out five shrieks, and Oryn flew closer, opened his jaws wide, and tore into one rubbery neck.

Blood filled Oryn's mouth, tasting like rancid wine and rotten meat. Every instinct in him cried to release his grip, to spit out the foul flesh. But Oryn kept biting, tearing deeper, until he ripped through segments of bone. Then he yanked back hard, severing the hydra's head. It tumbled through the sky, leaving a flailing stump. The four remaining heads screamed.

As dragons and hydras battled around him, as the dead still fell, Oryn flew backward in the sky. He hovered, staring at the wounded hydra.

His flames had washed over the beast, cracking the skin, leaving ugly welts and raw flesh. The neck stump whipped around, spurting blood in a fountain. The other four heads cried out in agony.

Die already, bastard, Oryn thought.

But the hydra did not fall.

Tendrils spread across its burns, bubbling, forming new skin. A wart grew from the stump of its neck, bloating, sprouting eyes and new teeth, becoming a new head. Healed, the creature charged back toward Oryn.

"Dragon balls," Oryn muttered and turned tail.

Flames roared behind him, and Oryn fled.

To hell with being a hero, he thought. I'm outta here.

Fire stung his tail, and Oryn bellowed. As he flew, he slammed into another dragon—a city warrior in armor, a noble sod who was charging into a losing battle. Oryn fell, rose again, and kept fleeing. Let the noble warriors die. Oryn was a louse, but better a living louse than a dead hero.

Another hydra charged toward him. Three more flew above. Fiery pillars filled the sky. Everywhere Oryn looked, dragons were losing their magic, falling as men and women, burnt, torn apart. On the city streets and rooftops, bloated hydras healed within moments, skin stretching over cuts, severed heads growing anew. The creatures rose again.

This city is lost, Oryn though, the smoke stinging his eyes.

"Oryn!" rose a voice from below. "Oryn, damn it, stop escaping without me, you bastard!"

He whipped his head toward the sound. He saw her below, flying between two hydras. An indigo dragon, blood on her leg, burns on her wings.

Reean.

Sudden guilt filled Oryn. She had saved his life. And he had abandoned her.

He let ice encase his heart. So what? He was the Prince of Shadows. He needed nobody. He helped nobody. He was a thief. A loner. A scoundrel. Reean should have known better than risk her life saving his.

Oryn ignored her.

I'll survive on my own. Like I always have.

Where should he go now? He could return to his old home—the alleyways, catacombs, and secret tunnels where he had reigned. He had spent years hiding there from the city guard.

But no place in Altus Mare seemed safe anymore. Not even the underworld of thieves. Not with these damn hydras burning anything that moved. Only one option remained. He would fly far, far away from the city. The entire place was doomed.

Right now no hydras surrounded him. He could make a break for it. He could fly west. Survive for now. Hunker down in the wilderness for a while. Then eventually find another city to rule.

"Oryn!" Reean cried again. "You son of a bitch, help me!"

The hydras closed in around the indigo dragon. The monsters blew fire. A jet washed over Reean's wing, burning holes through the leathery membrane. She screamed.

"Oryn, help!"

Damn it, get out of here, Oryn! The voice spoke inside him. Now's your chance! What's Reean to you? Nothing! Just a milkmaid you bedded once or twice. A nobody.

He cursed himself as he dived toward her. As he blew his fire.

You noble fool, said the voice. You just escaped death as a thief. Now you'll die a hero.

"Shut up, shut up," he muttered.

He blasted out his fire. A thief of shadows and the underground, fighting with flame in the sky. His inferno rained onto one hydra, and the beast screeched and fell. With lashing claws, Oryn tore into the second creature, ripping through the clammy flesh, tearing out chunks.

Trapped between the two hydras, Reean was struggling to stay in the air. The indigo dragon flapped her wings a few more times, gasped, then lost her magic.

She fell, a milkmaid with golden braids, blood on her skirt.

Still in dragon form, Oryn narrowed his eyes and dived after her.

The hydras cried out above, healing from their wounds. Their flames cascaded. Oryn ignored the pain. He swooped, reaching out his claws. Reean tumbled toward a jagged fortress on a hill. An instant before she could hit the battlements, Oryn caught her.

He banked hard, then flew toward a valley, holding the milkmaid like an owl holding a mouse. A hydra slammed into the fortress behind him, shattering a guard tower. Bricks flew.

Oryn still wanted to flee the city, but he had missed his chance. The sky was too thick with hydras now. Thousands of the beasts flew everywhere. He'd never reach the countryside. Not anymore.

Damn it!

Instead, Oryn flew low, skimming the rooftops. He didn't know if Reean was alive or dead. Dragons flew above him, roaring for battle. Hydras screeched. Blood pattered down. An armored corpse slammed against Oryn, cracking the scales on his back.

"For Requiem!" rose the cry of dragons. "Fight for Requiem!"

But they were all dying.

"Hold on, Reean," Oryn muttered, descending.

He flew lower. Lower. Finally he was flying along a city street. His belly almost grazed the cobblestones. His wings flapped, brushing against buildings at his sides. He flew down the urban canyon.

Reean slumped in his claws, still in human form, eyes closed. Maybe dying. Maybe dead already. Oryn's wings slapped against homes and shops at his sides, knocking down laundry and potted plants. An awning tore free, whipped across him, then flapped off like a crazed bat. Above him, the battle still raged. Inside the homes, children wailed, hiding from the inferno. Several houses burned.

At the mouth of an alley, Oryn released his magic.

He shifted back into human form. His feet hit the ground running. He caught Reean in his arms and ran with her.

They left the boulevard, entering the shadowy paths of thieves—his kingdom of shadows.

Above in the sky, the battle still raged, and fire blazed across the city. Between a drug den and brothel, Oryn knelt on cobblestones, holding Reean in his arms. The milkmaid still breathed, and her eyes fluttered open.

"Oryn," she whispered, smiling thinly. "They almost hanged you, you idiot. I had to save your ass."

He winced as a hydra flew over the alleyway. Dragons roared and slammed into the beast. Streams of fire blazed overhead. Dragon scales pattered down onto the cobblestones.

"My ass is still on the line," Oryn said. "Yours is too. Can you stand?"

She nodded and rose to her feet, wobbled, winced, but remained standing. Her apron was torn, and blood stained her golden braids.

"It hurts," she said.

"Good. Pain means you're still alive." Oryn took her hand. "We're getting clobbered up there in the sky. But I know the underground. Come with me. I'll keep you safe."

"My parents—"

"Are dead," Oryn said. "Or will be soon. Everyone aboveground is being butchered. It's every man for himself now. The thief's way. Come on."

He ran down the alleyway. Eyes damp, Reean followed.

There was a second city in Altus Mare. A subterranean realm of tunnels, cisterns, and catacombs. A place of thieves and safety. But Oryn was still several blocks away from the nearest passageway underground.

He ran down the road, pulling Reean along with him. He had taken this path countless times, traversing the labyrinth of Altus Mare, the shadowy domain of outlaws. Today these alleyways collapsed around him. At the entrance to Copper Alley, a hydra slammed down, shattering a smithy, strewing bricks across the road. When Oryn turned toward Beggar's Corner, a dragon crashed down before him, plowed through buildings, and left a path of rubble.

Oryn turned again, raced down another alleyway, seeking a path into the city's tunnels. Even a damn sewer grate would do. But everywhere there was just destruction. Buildings crumbled around him. A column cracked and crashed down, blocking his way. A temple collapsed, and dust blew across him. Bricks buffeted him.

"We have to fly!" Reean said. "It's even worse down here than up there!"

Oryn cursed. She was right. This place was a death trap. The way to the tunnels was blocked. Even if he could reach them, they were likely to cave in.

"Oryn!" Reean said.

"We won't last a second in the sky!" Oryn pointed up. "Thousands of hydras are flying all over the place!"

Inwardly, Oryn cursed his stupidity. Fate had given him one chance to escape. And he had turned away. All so he could save a doe-eyed milkmaid. Now they would both probably die. Curse his stars-damned nobility! What kind of a rogue was he?

"All right, new plan," Oryn said. "We'll run to the city gate as humans, scurrying from hideout to hideout. It's only a few blocks away. We'll fly from there." He nodded. "We'll make it. We have to make it."

Please, stars, help us make it.

They ran onward. A colossal statue of King Benedictus, an ancient monarch of Requiem, fell before them. The marble giant slammed into homes, cracking and scattering dust. Oryn and Reean vaulted over the debris. Hydras swooped from above, roaring down flames. Oryn leaped into a brick tavern, pulling Reean along. The flames washed across the roof and roared through the windows. Casks of ale exploded, spilling their amber treasure. They leaped out the back door, singed and brushing off sparks. They raced down the alleyway, dodging falling corpses. The hydras darkened the sky. More and more corpses of Vir Requis fell.

They won't leave a building standing, Oryn thought. Everyone here will die. Down to the last child.

Thousands of dragons were trying to flee, but the sky was too thick with hydras. Thousands of Vir Requis clogged the streets, opting for human form, desperate to escape the inferno. But they fared no better. Everywhere, they died, dragons and humans alike.

A hydra landed on a stone fountain, lowered its five heads, and grabbed children in its jaws. The monster tore the little bodies apart, and blood mixed with the water. Another hydra trundled down a street, belly wobbling, footfalls thundering. It thrust its necks into homes, pulling out people, scattering their blood and entrails. Dragons flew above, only to lose their magic in the blaze, to crash down. A few warriors of Requiem still fought, but whenever they wounded the hydras, the beasts instantly healed.

This isn't a battle, Oryn thought as he ran. This is genocide.

"What the abyss are those ugly buggers?" Reean asked as they ran down another alleyway, leaping over the dead. "Are they dragons?"

"Hydras," Oryn said. "Damned hydras."

One of the beasts plunged from the sky, three of its heads severed. It crashed down before them, crushing a home, only to sprout more heads and rise again.

"Hydras aren't real!" Reean shouted as they raced around the rubble. "My father told me they're only legends."

"Then you have nothing to worry about," Oryn replied.

They kept running. With every block, the way got less crowded. Fewer people fled here, and more corpses lined the streets.

Finally Oryn saw it ahead: the city's western gate. Beyond lay the countryside. Salvation.

The city's defensive wall framed the gate. Once mighty, the wall was now punched full of holes, crumbling, completely shattered at spots. Corpses lay among the wreckage. Arms, a head, a mangled leg—they rose from piles of bricks, covered with dust.

"My brother is a guard of the wall," Reean whispered, tears welling. "Do you think he's …"

Oryn placed a hand on her shoulder. "I don't know, Reean. Maybe he got out."

The gate itself still stood—a stone archway shaped as two rearing dragons, one sculpted from obsidian, the other from marble. The black and white dragons represented Benedictus and Lacrimosa, the legendary king and queen of ancient Requiem. Within their embrace, the oaken doors were smashed and burnt. Only a few shards of wood remained, clinging to iron hinges. The dead gatekeepers lay in the wreckage.

Oryn crouched behind a fallen column, staring. Nobody was alive near the smashed gate. Not friends or foes. The battle still raged behind and above, but just ahead, the coast was clear.

Finally—a way out.

Reean crouched beside Oryn, panting and ashen. Her blood kept dripping. Oryn had to give her credit. The milkmaid had likely never seen anything more violent than an arm wrestling match. She was handling herself well, all things considered.

"I can't leave my parents," she whispered. "My sisters. My brother. We have to go back for them."

Oryn looked behind him. He felt the blood drain from his face. He cursed and spat.

The entire city was burning. More and more buildings kept falling. Thousands of hydras covered the sky, swooping like carrion crows, picking at bodies, searching for survivors. More of the creatures kept rising from the eastern sea. Barely any dragons flew anymore, only a smattering of warriors. They too were falling fast.

"We have to leave this town," Oryn said softly, holding her hand. "Maybe your family made it out. I saw a few people making their way out the gate, heading west to the capital. Maybe your family is there."

He was lying. He had seen nobody flee. But Altus Mare was a deathtrap, and Oryn had already cheated death enough times for one day. Hell, enough for a lifetime.

He glanced back at the gate. Right now Oryn and Reean were hidden among the rubble. A tilted column shadowed them, and fallen chunks of a marble balustrade offered some shelter. It was a long run to the gateway. They'd have to cross a sizable courtyard, completely exposed, with hydras flying above.

"We run fast," Oryn said. "We can cross this courtyard within a minute."

"A minute is a long time with hydras flying above!" Reean said.

"Then we'll run even faster," Oryn said. "We'll burst out that gate unseen, race into the tall grass, and drop down. The grass will hide us. We'll crawl. We'll crawl and crawl. Once we're far enough, we'll shift into dragons and fly. All the way to the capital." He squeezed Reean's hand. "The courtyard is the only hard part. The final stretch. You ready?"

She wiped away tears. "Ready."

Oryn rubbed his neck—it was still sore from the noose—and took a deep breath. Reean inhaled deeply at his side. They rose together.

Hand in hand, they ran.

The battle raged behind, a symphony of destruction. They did not turn back. Oryn raced over bricks, cracked flagstones, fallen statues, and corpses, heading toward that gate. To escape this nightmare, this inferno, this invasion of creatures that should not exist. To leave the only life he had ever known. A life he had thought—just an hour ago—would end on a rope.

It was ironic. The city had come to see him die. Perhaps he would be the only one left alive.

He was almost at the gate. Oryn allowed himself a savage grin, and his eyes stung.

Goodbye, Altus Mare, my kingdom by the sea. Goodbye.

He was only feet away when shadows fell.

And she emerged.

Oryn skidded to a halt, and his heart seemed to stop in his chest. Reean froze at his side and covered her mouth.

A creature was walking in the countryside, approaching the city gate.

Her clawed feet were tearing up the country road. She was a strange kind of dragon. Not a hydra with clammy skin and warts, but a dragon clad in shimmering black scales, each one trimmed with gold. Yet this was no dragon of Requiem. She was larger, bulkier, and had three heads. One head was red, and fire crackled within its jaws. The other was white, frost clinging to its muzzle. The central head was black, dripping molten metal like saliva. Each head had golden eyes like smelters of liquid stars.

Oryn stared, a chill gripping him.

"Nemoria," he whispered.

All in Requiem knew of this demon. This creature that had invaded Requiem eighteen years ago. That had burned Nova Vita, the capital city. That had burned the young Princess Fira. That had slain the beloved Queen Tilania.

Oryn had been only a boy. And he had been far from the bloodshed. Like everyone, he had heard the tales. He had never known if they were true. Yet now that dark goddess stepped toward the archway, ducked her three heads, and entered Altus Mare.

She's real, Oryn thought. Oh stars above. The bitch is real. And the bitch is back.

Oryn and Reean stood frozen in the courtyard, holding hands, staring.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, Nemoria shrank, her wings contracting, her scales melting away. Shadows writhed around her like serpents, and within their cloak, she morphed. She took the form of a woman—a beautiful woman with gray skin, deeply veined. She wore black armor, and her raven hair cascaded down to her hips. Her eyes still shone, pools of molten gold. Dragon eyes. A third eye blinked upon the blade of her lance.

Her left arm was missing. Severed above the elbow. According to the stories, Princess Fira had bitten off that arm eighteen years ago. A new arm now hung there, a mechanical contraption tipped with metal claws.

"The city is ours," Nemoria said. "But look, my children! Two weredragons still live."

For a second, Oryn thought the goddess was talking to him. But then he realized his mistake.

Through clouds of smoke, two more figures entered the city. Both were angelic beings. Their platinum hair flowed like rivers of dawn. Their eyes shone like sapphires. Their skin was softest, palest cream, their cheeks rosy. Like Nemoria, they wore black armor studded with rubies.

One was a young man, his face sharp and cruel. He held an axe, its double blades shaped like an eagle's wings. The other was a woman, her hair woven with braids, her face delicate yet drenched with malice. She held a silver katana, its hilt shaped like a serpent. The two looked so remarkably alike there was no mistaking it. They were twins. They looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old.

"May I kill them, Mother?" said the golden-haired girl. She pointed her katana at Oryn and Reean. "May I slice off their heads and mount them at home?"

Her twin brother stared at Reean. His eyes narrowed, and his lips curled into a wicked smile.

"I can think of better uses for that one." The young man turned toward Nemoria. "May I keep her, Mother? As my pet?"

His sister's eyes widened. "Pet weredragons! What a splendid idea. We can starve them and force them to fight each other for scraps."

Their mother was taller, darker, her gray skin marbled with deep purple, her hair strands of midnight. A pendant hung between her breasts, shaped as a three-headed dragon—one head made from rubies, the other from ivory, the third from obsidian. Pendants hung around the necks of her children too—an eagle for her son, a serpent for her daughter.

"The things I do for my children." Nemoria sighed. "Very well, you may keep these two, but only if you promise to hurt them. To hurt them so, so much."

Her son licked his lips. The young man took a step toward Oryn and Reean. His sister advanced with him, a hungry smile on her fair face. Lust and hunger filled her emerald eyes.

Oryn turned toward Reean. "It's time to fly now."

The milkmaid was pale, eyes glassy, the hem of her skirt burnt. She had lost a lot of blood. Yet she no longer trembled.

Reean nodded. "We fly."

They summoned their magic together. They soared as dragons. They blasted their fire.

The inferno shrieked, cascading across the sky, raining onto the ruins, bathing the creatures ahead with heat and smoke and searing light. Oryn roared, spewing more fire, draining all the heat inside him. Reean howled, blasting out her fury, no longer the humble milkmaid but an enraged dragon. Cobblestones melted. The dragon archway cracked, collapsed in the blaze. Blue, white, and searing yellow flames bathed the city, a conflagration of wrath.

And from the inferno in the courtyard, from this fallen sun upon the world, gods arose.

A dragon with three heads, blazing but still cackling, wings spread wide, casting out sparks. A golden eagle the size of a dragon, eyes searing stars, beak opened wide in a shriek, a creature woven of metal and fire. And finally a great flying serpent, coated with shimmering black-and-gold scales, eyes like comets. Three deities, rising from fire, gods of retribution and wrath.

It's them, Oryn thought. Nemoria and her twins. The boy became an eagle. The girl became a snake.

"Reean, fly!" Oryn cried, rising in the sky. "Higher! Above them!"

He winced and beat his wings with all his strength, rising higher. The creatures below soared toward him. Nemoria unleashed her fury: flames, ice, metal shards. The metallic eagle screeched and shot lightning from his beak, and thunder boomed from his wings. The golden serpent hissed and coiled higher, jaws spewing rancid liquid, sizzling, reeking of venom. Droplets of the poison splashed Oryn's underbelly, and he screamed, his skin blistering. He flew higher, trying to fly above the creatures, to flee, to hide in the fields, to—

"Keep flying, Oryn!" Reean cried. "Fly west, fly to the capital, and find Princess Fira." The indigo dragon looked at him, tears in her eyes. "Only Fira has ever hurt the goddess. Find her."

The young dragon gave him a last look. A gaze that lasted only a second yet seemed to stretch for eras. A look of love, pain, grief. Of farewell.

With a roar, Reean swooped toward the rising gods, raining her dragonfire.

Her flames washed over the demonic family, ripping through skin, melting scales, burning eyes. The three creatures shrieked, wings beating, struggling to rise through the shower of dragonfire.

Nemoria blasted up shards of metal, slicing through the indigo dragon's underbelly. Reean's blood spilled. The eagle hurled lightning, and the bolts slammed into Reean, racing across her, cracking scales. The serpent spewed venom, and the acid splashed across Reean, melting what scales remained, melting her face, her horns, her wings.

Yet still, with a strength few warriors could match, Reean clung to her magic. Still she flew as a dragon. And still she fought.

Her claws lashed in a fury, slicing into the gods, ripping out their necks. With her mighty jaws, Reean grabbed one of Nemoria's necks, dug deep, ripped through tendons and bones, and severed the white head.

The eagle and serpent screamed, flew toward the dragon, clawed, and ripped out chunks of flesh.

With a last cry, with a last look at Oryn, the indigo dragon lost her magic.

Reean—a ravaged woman, burnt and lacerated and so beautiful—fell.

Before she could hit the courtyard, the creatures grabbed her, tore her apart, and feasted on her remains.

Oryn flew.

Tears filled his eyes. Blood covered his cracked black scales. He flew onward, crossing the city gates, streaming across the countryside. From behind him rose screeches, cackles, and roars.

"A weredragon is escaping!"

"Grab him, bind him, hurt him!"

"Hang him by his entrails!"

Inhuman voices. Demonic, echoing, otherworldly. The voices of wroth gods. Oryn glanced behind him only once, and he saw a city of ruin, of nightmare, the abyss risen into the world. The last walls and towers collapsed. Fires burned in the night. Thousands of hydras rose over the ruins, healing from their wounds, blasting pillars of fire skyward, forming cathedrals of their fury.

Above that unholy army rose the three deities. Nemoria and her children. A wretched dragon with three heads, a rancid eagle, and a coiling serpent. Black flame burned around them, crackling with lightning.

Oryn still wasn't sure that he lived, that this wasn't some hellish afterlife, that his corpse wasn't still hanging from the gallows. But one thing he knew. Alive or dead, he was leaving this city, his little kingdom of the underworld, never to return.

Eighteen years ago, he thought, hundreds of dragons died facing Nemoria. Hundreds of dragons wounded her, only for her wounds to heal. But Princess Fira tore off the goddess's arm. Princess Fira delivered a wound that did not heal. I must find Fira. Or Requiem falls.

He looked back westward, beating his wings, flying as fast as he could. With stench, howls, and echoing laughter, all the horrors of the world followed.

BERINOR

Berinor Aeternum, King of Requiem, stood in the dungeon cell, staring at the severed arm of a goddess.

This was not a dark, grungy cell like those where prisoners rotted away. No mold spread across the walls. No spiders wove their webs. No rats scurried, and no manacles rusted on rough brick walls, holding ancient bones. This chamber was well lit, white, austere, buried beneath countless tons of rock. Gates, portcullises, and barbicans guarded tunnels that twisted underground, leading to this cell. A hundred guards defended this labyrinth, and hundreds of dragons flew aboveground, patrolling the sky, ready to rain down fire.

This cell, dug into a heart of stone, contained the most dangerous relic in Requiem.

The arm hung from chains in the center of the chamber. A woman's arm, severed just above the elbow. The skin was gray, and purple veins ran across it, as twisted as the underground labyrinth leading to this cell. The fingernails were long, clawlike, tinged with indigo, eternally bruised.

Blood dripped from the arm, drop by drop, into a bronze vessel below. It had been dripping here for eighteen years. Every day the guards replaced the full vessel with an empty one, then carried the blood through the labyrinth, out into the sunlight, and spilled it into distant canyons. Wherever the blood flowed, no more grass or trees grew, the insects died, and even birds would not fly overhead. Rivers of the foul, rotten earth now flowed down the land.

She is poisoning our land, Berinor thought. Even this piece of her, mindless, stuck in a half-life, is killing Requiem.

As if the arm could read his thoughts, it twitched. The chains holding it jangled. The clawed hand twisted, the bones creaking, and turned to stare at Berinor. It had no eyes. It could not stare, not truly. And yet Berinor swore that those fingers, reaching toward him, were peering into his soul. Mocking him.

A memory shot through Berinor. He cringed. This hand—this very hand before him—had stroked him years ago, had grabbed his chest, squeezed his flesh in passion. He shuddered to remember. The dark goddess, disguised as his wife, kissing him hungrily, tearing off his clothes, riding him in her passion … and her head twisting around, her skin turning gray, her mouth filling with fangs, and—

No. Berinor sucked in breath. Do not conjure that memory now.

Guards stood in the chamber, wearing plate armor, their faces hidden within their helms, their swords drawn. Many more guards filled the tunnels behind Berinor. Yet he did not feel safe here. Not anywhere near the flesh of this creature. Long ago, his daughter had bitten off this arm. Since then it had hung here, twisting, bleeding, tugging against its chains, never rotting.

It cost the lives of a hundred and twelve men to chain this arm underground, he thought. And its mistress slew hundreds of others before we drove her off. So no, Requiem will not be safe so long as any piece of the dark goddess still lives.

"It's been a year," Berinor said to the guards. "We'll try again."

The guards glanced at one another, then back at him.

"My king," said one guard. "We've tried swords, acid, fire. We've tried crushing the arm with stones. We've tried drowning it in water, shattering it with hammers, chopping it with axes. Every year, we try and fail. We—"

"—will keep trying," Berinor said. "I will come here every year. I will not rest until we rid our kingdom of this cursed thing. Leave the chamber."

The guard opened his mouth, seemed ready to object, then nodded. He straightened and left the prison cell. The other guards followed, gripping their swords, armor clanking. They vanished into the labyrinth of tunnels.

Berinor remained alone in the white chamber. He stared at the chained arm. It seemed to stare back, two fingers pointed at him, the dark nails like eyes on stalks. The hand curled the slightest bit, the palm wrinkling, forming the hint of a smile.

Berinor closed his eyes. The memories rose, unbidden.

His daughter fell, burning, bloody, tumbling toward the city.

The bodies rained, dragons losing their magic, helpless to slay the goddess.

His wife, beautiful and warm, making passionate love to him. Then revealing herself to be false, a demon, digesting the true queen in her belly.

Berinor sucked in air, fear and hatred battling inside him. He walked backward, still facing the arm. He exited the cell into a dark corridor.

He stood in the shadows, staring at the bright cell ahead. The arm hung there from its chains. Watching him. Mocking him.

Berinor looked around. The corridor was empty around him, the guards standing far behind. The place was just wide enough.

We've tried steel, he thought. Water. Acid. Fire. But not dragonfire.

He summoned his magic, and he shifted.

Green and silver scales flowed across him, the colors of Requiem's banners, symbolizing the holy birch trees and the Draco constellation. Wings sprouted from his back, banging against the ceiling. Claws sprouted from his fingers and toes. As his body grew, Berinor lay down on his belly, filling the corridor. He became a massive dragon, a king of dragons, flames burning in his gullet.

It was a tight squeeze. But he just fit. He lay in the tunnel, his scaly body pressed against the walls, staring at the light ahead.

There, in that lit chamber, the arm twitched on its chains.

Berinor sucked in air and roared out dragonfire.

The inferno shrieked, blazing, roaring down the tunnel and filling the chamber ahead. The flames in the center were blue, flaring out to white, yellow, and furious reds. Berinor kept spewing his dragonfire, a shrieking storm, louder than thunder, washing across everything before him, turning the chamber into a forge hotter than in any smithy.

From inside the chamber, a scream rose.

For a horrible instant, Berinor thought a guard had remained in the chamber, but no. This was an inhuman shriek, higher than steam rising from a kettle, louder even than the fury of dragonfire. A scream of pain. Of hatred.

Berinor kept blowing his flames. He needed air. He needed to breathe. But he refused to stop the blaze, and still he roared out his dragonfire, blasting the chamber ahead, sending his fury washing across everything before him, melting the floor, melting the walls, filling the hall with horrible heat that cracked his own scales, that seemed ready to melt his eyeballs.

Finally—after what seemed eternities of fire—the scream ahead died.

Berinor blew out the last sparks of flame within him, then took a deep breath. He stared at the devastation ahead.

He lay in the tunnel, still a dragon, emptied of flames. Before him, the cell was a ruin. The walls had melted, the very stone dripping like wax. The chains, which had hung from the ceiling, were gone, mere rivulets of molten metal on what remained of the floor.

The arm was gone too.

Berinor took a shaky breath and released his magic. He crouched in the hot corridor, a man again. Smoke wafted around him. The last sparks of the dragonfire landed on his cloak and armor, hissing. Slowly the king rose to his feet, drew his sword, and stepped into the chamber. Behind him, his guards followed, their own swords raised. Their boots sizzled against the hot floor, the leather soles cooking.

In the center of the chamber, Berinor stared at the floor. They lay in a congealing soup of molten stone and metal: charred bones, coated with scraps of burnt flesh.

I killed it, Berinor thought, hatred and satisfaction flaring inside him. Finally after years, I killed—

The charred bones moved.

Berinor cursed. The guards cried out.

The wretched bones rose, leaped into the air, and extended their claws. The skeletal remains flew toward Berinor, and there was no room here, not with the guards. He could not become a dragon.

In human form, Berinor swung his sword.

His blade slammed against the bones. It felt like hacking at iron bars. His sword chipped.

The skeletal arm flew back to the ground, leaped up again, and clawed through a guard's breastplate. The man screamed as the arm tugged out organs. The other guards cried out, swung at the arm with their blades, unable to slice the bones. The fingernails dug into a man's head, plucking out the eyes, shoving them into the man's mouth, then ripped off the head. Blood flooded the floor. With every man slain, the arm healed some more, the flesh regrowing, the gray skin covering the muscles, the purple veins spreading like coiling serpents.

"Get more chains!" Berinor cried. "Chains! Bring chains!"

The guards' footfalls sounded behind in the tunnels—too far. The arm twirled higher in the air, dead guards strewn around it. Fully healed now, Nemoria's arm ripped off the head of the last guard, then turned toward Berinor.

He stood before the demonic limb, sword raised, barely able to breathe.

The arm dipped down, reached into the cracked head of a man, and scooped out a handful of blood and brains. It began to draw across a wall, forming red letters.

I WILL DEVOUR YOUR CHILDREN.

The new guards burst into the room, bearing chains and holding shields.

Fira fell, burnt.

The goddess's naked body pressed against him, disguised as his wife.

Hundreds fell from the sky as the goddess laughed.

Berinor leaped forward, slamming into the arm, knocking it down. It twitched. Its fingers tore into his breastplate, cutting the flesh beneath, but still Berinor pinned it down with his weight.

"Chains!" he bellowed.

He was bleeding, coughing, on his knees, and three more guards had died before the arm hung chained again. The limb thrashed, the blood on its palm forming a lurid face, grinning, scorning him. And still those letters haunted Berinor, drawn in blood.

I will devour your children.

Another year. Another failure. Another day of pain, terror, and memory.

Breathing raggedly, blood dripping, Berinor limped out of the chamber. He made his way through the labyrinth of tunnels, not even stopping to rest and bandage his wounds. He had to get out. To see the sky. He passed under an archway and into the city above—Nova Vita, fair marble capital of Requiem. There he fell to his knees.

Requiem lay before him: boulevards lined with columns, icy birches, a temple on a hill, and beyond them blue mountains and pale forests. A land of beauty. An ancient kingdom of dragons. A place of peace and safety.

Until she returns for her arm, he thought. She's still out there. We're all still in danger.

For thousands of years, Requiem had shone here. An ancient kingdom. A land of magic. Through war, devastation, despair—they had survived. Requiem had faced armies of griffins, demons, unspeakable horrors.

But never a goddess.

Berinor feared that he would be the last king.

His men bandaged his wounds, and Berinor became a dragon again. He rose into the sky, flying home, desperate to hold his daughters in his arms.

DURIAN

"Happy birthday, son." Durian looked down at the grave, wiped a tear from his eye, and took a swig of booze. "Happy birthday."

He lowered his head and sobbed.

The cemetery was empty—at least of other mourners. But the spirits were here. Thousands of them. Millions maybe. All the fallen warriors of Requiem, stretching back for generations, row after row, tombstone after tombstone. A cold place, the trees barren, snow on the graves. A place of whispers. Of memories. Of a son gone, a hole forever in Durian's chest.

He took another swig. The booze was strong, spicy, a drink that would knock out most men. But Durian wasn't most men. Nothing about him was ordinary.

Durian Eleison commanded the City Guard, a garrison of warriors tasked with defending Nova Vita, capital of Requiem. He was the shortest man in the force, barely taller than five feet. His big bald head didn't even reach his king's shoulders—the very man he was tasked with protecting. Yet Durian was burly, almost as wide as he was tall, all muscle over big bones. His beard was thick, silver and gold, braided and bound with metal rings. It flowed down to a belt buckle the size of his hand.

But most impressive, even more than his prodigious beard, was his weapon. Durian's war hammer hung across his back, its head shaped as a ram. Nobody else in the City Guard could lift the weapon. Durian had always been strong. Among the strongest in Requiem. Strong enough to wield his hammer. Strong enough to endure the drink from the flask that always hung at his belt.

But not strong enough to save you, my son, Durian thought, gazing at the grave through the fog of spirits.

"You're forty years old today, son," Durian said, choking on his grief. "But you'll always be twenty-two in my mind, lad. Always that young, smiling man who flew out with me to fight her. To fight the goddess. Always the son I love, the—"

He could say no more. The sobs wracked Durian's body. There he stood, the strongest warrior in Requiem, weeping, his wide shoulders slumped.

That day had never left him. That day the foul goddess had invaded Requiem, murdered its queen, and slain so many dragons. Durian had faced her, had soared as a bronze dragon, fighting with the City Guard, with his son.

Perin had fallen that day. Burned in the goddess's fire.

"My only family," Durian whispered. He fell to his knees and placed his wide, callused hands on the grave. "I love you, Perin. Always. I'm an old man now, but I never forgot you. Not even for a day."

With trembling fingers, he reached for his flask. He drank. He drank again. The spirits warmed him, made the pain fade, the memories dim. His head fuzzy, Durian examined the flask. Wide, worked with silver, engraved with a dragon. He never parted from his hammer, and he never parted from this—his elixir of life, his dearest friend, medicine to make the pain go away.

"Berinor tells me to throw you away," Durian said to the flask. "And I should. I should. My son fell, but my king still lives, and I must serve no other. Least of all you, you cursed thing."

His hands shook around the flask, this new demon. One beast had slain his son, and another was slowly claiming Durian's own life. In a sudden fit of rage, he raised the flask overhead, prepared to toss it aside, to let the dead drink. His arm shook. He wanted to do it, craved to do it, to finally rid himself of the beast.

But today is my son's fortieth birthday, he thought. I need to drink to that. For him.

He drank again. He emptied his flask. He fell asleep—sitting in the snow, leaning against his son's tombstone, his dearest friend in his arms. And in his slumber, Durian dreamed of the goddess, dreamed of his son falling, dreamed of the bottle taunting and cutting him and drowning him in a sea of forgetfulness.

MIYA

"You have to do it." Her handmaidens tightened their grip on her arms. "You have to, Princess. Go on! Into the darkness. Face your fears. Go to where your mother died. Or are you a coward?"

Miya's eyes flooded with tears. She stood at the edge of the stairway. The steps plunged down into shadows, delving into the belly of the earth, the vast network of tunnels that coiled below the kingdom of Requiem. A place of shadows, secrets, and ancient shame.

Miya sniffed and looked at Kinara, one of her handmaidens, a girl with a pug nose, buckteeth, and mocking lips.

"Can we go back to my chambers now?" Miya whispered. Her lip wobbled. She hated when her lip wobbled. "Please."

Kinara scoffed. "Can we go back? Pwease?" She mimicked Miya in exaggerated falsetto. "No. We can't. It's my job to toughen you up, and that's what I'll do, Princess." The handmaiden spoke that last word like an insult.

Miya swallowed and looked to her other side, seeking salvation from Ashaena, her second handmaiden. A tall woman of twenty-five years, Ashaena had long dark hair, olive skin, and mocking brown eyes. Hailing from the southern land of Terra, she was pretty and still unwed. Boys across the city adored her. Many times Ashaena had brought boys into the eastern wing of the palace where Miya lived.

"Ashaena, can we—" Miya began.

"No!" said the dark-haired handmaiden. "You must go down there. To the library where your mother died. We'll go with you downstairs, but when we reach the library, you must enter alone." Her voice softened. "It's for your own good, Princess. You can't be a coward forever."

Miya lowered her eyes and nodded. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She cursed herself for her cowardice. Cursed with words so vile she'd never dare utter them aloud. Why was she so scared of everything? So scared of her handmaidens, of the shadows, of that lurking memory?

She was a princess of Requiem. The heiress to Requiem. Her older sister, the legendary Fira, had fled into exile years ago. Her mother was gone. Her father was growing old. Miya was nineteen, a grown woman, a true adult, and she would be queen someday. But she was still so afraid, so timid, still winced at just the hint of mockery from her servants.

I need to be strong, she told herself. Strong like Fira is, wherever she now roams. Miya swallowed another lump in her throat. I'll show them. I'll show my handmaidens that I'm strong, that I'm not scared of them, that I'm not scared of the memories in the shadows.

"Very well." Miya raised her chin. "I'm not afraid."

"We shall see," said Kinara, smiling crookedly.

With a deep breath, Miya took one step down the staircase.

Her chest constricted.

Miya froze.

Her breath quickened, and her heart pounded against her ribs. She stared down there—down into the shadows. The darkness. The memories.

When I was just a baby, Mother took me down there, Miya thought. Tears flooded her eyes. It was there that the dark goddess killed her.

"Go on!" Kinara said, gripping Miya's arm. "Go on, you coward. Take another step. Down there! Down to where the goddess killed your mum."

Beautiful Ashaena leaned closer, and a wicked light filled her eyes. "They say the goddess ate her, my princess. They say that Nemoria grabbed your mother, gobbled her right up, and that the queen still screams in her belly."

Miya's tears flowed. "Stop it," she whispered, lips trembling. "You have to stop. I'm your princess, you—"

Both her handmaidens laughed.

"You're nothing but a spoiled, cowardly princess, it's true," said Kinara. "How will you ever be queen if you're a craven? Go on. Down!"

Her handmaidens tugged her arms, pulling Miya down another step. Even just two steps down, it was already so much darker. Only a few scattered candles burned here in alcoves. Miya couldn't see more than a few steps ahead. Darkness lurked down there, complete darkness, a living, breathing entity, waiting for her, hiding countless demons.

"She's down there," Ashaena whispered, leaning close. The handmaiden's fingers trailed down Miya's arm, tipped with long nails. "The evil goddess … waiting to grab you." The fingers closed around Miya's arm, squeezing. "To eat you!"

Miya couldn't help it. She burst into tears. She yanked herself free from her handmaidens' grip. Ignoring their laughter, she fled back upstairs, leaving the shadows behind.

She ran through the palace, tears splashing her blue gown. Guards turned to stare. A servant covered his mouth as Miya ran by. A priest frowned, and a nun reached toward Miya, crying out to her, her words garbled. The marble halls spun. The frescos on the walls and ceiling, depicting rampant dragons, became paintings of demons, of cruel goddesses, of dead mothers. The laughter echoed in Miya's ears—the mockery of her handmaidens, and the cackle of a dark goddess in the depths.

I'm a coward. A coward! Her tears flowed. Just a pathetic baby for everyone to mock, even my own servants.

A wet nurse reached toward Miya, concern in her eyes, but Miya fled. Her cheeks stung with humiliation, and her eyes watered anew. She wanted them all to stop. To stop looking at her. To turn away from her shame. From her grief. Perhaps she should have plunged into the darkness, should have let those demons eat her, let the underground swallow her.

She was the princess of a great kingdom, a land whose people could become dragons, blessed with magic. She was the most important woman in the world. And yet Miya felt so afraid, a cracked doll. This palace had become a labyrinth of nightmares, all eyes upon her, a nation witnessing her failures, her undoing.

Why did you leave me, Fira? she thought. I can't do this. I can't take your role. I'm not as strong.

And yet her sister had fled. Her sister was not coming home. Miya was trapped here. The heiress of Requiem. A coward.

She climbed a spiraling staircase, moving up one of the palace towers, seeking fresh air, seeking light, seeking an end to the terror that constricted her chest. Finally, out of breath, Miya reached the tower's top. She stepped through a hatch onto the roof.

In the open air, Miya stumbled toward the parapet, leaned against a marble balustrade, and took deep breaths of the high, cold air.

From up here she could see for miles. She stood atop Meliora Tower, named after Meliora the Merciful, the prophet who had freed the Vir Requis from slavery in the desert, who had led the dragons home. Below Miya lay the palace rooftops and steeples, capped with snow. Requiem was ancient. But most of these structures were only a century old, built by the people Meliora had freed.

She was a brave leader, Miya thought. Not like me.

Miya was descended of Meliora. Of the legendary King Benedictus who had fought the griffins. Of a long line of kings and queens of the Aeternum dynasty. All the way back to King Jeid Aeternum, founder of the nation. Miya was a scion of a great royal house. But so much weaker than those leaders of legend. When Miya inherited Requiem someday, would the kingdom fall to ruin?

She took a shaky breath and stared across the city of Nova Vita, capital of Requiem. It was a city built within a birch forest, the marble and limestone mingling with the wood and leaves. Humble homes rose among the trees, built of white bricks, and cobbled paths coiled between them. Several temples rose on hills, lined with white porticos. Their rotundas featured large oculi, openings to view the stars. Here were places to worship the Draco constellation, the stars that blessed Requiem, that gave the Vir Requis the magic to become dragons. To the Vir Requis, the stars were gods, and temples were observatories.

When Miya looked northward, she saw it there. Rising into the sky, carved of purest marble, pale and luminous as starlight. As always, her eyes dampened to see it.

"King's Column," she whispered.

The pillar was thousands of years old, rising hundreds of feet—the tallest structure in the world. The marble was smooth, soaring above the palace, crowned with a capital shaped like rearing dragons. It predated the slavery of Requiem and Meliora the Liberator. It was eras older even than King Benedictus, a figure of ancient history. This column was as ancient as the very first dragons.

Once, they said, King's Column had been part of a palace, one of many columns this tall. Today a more humble palace housed the monarchs of Requiem, leaving King's Column to stand alone. It rose from a courtyard of marble tiles, guarded by sentinels in silver armor. The center of Requiem. The heartbeat of every dragon.

According to legend, it was King Jeid Aeternum himself, founder of Requiem, who had carved and raised this pillar, and it was Issari Seran, the Priestess in White, who had blessed it with ancient magic. So long as a single Vir Requis lived in this world, the sages taught, the column would stand. Even when the cruel Dies Irae had invaded Requiem with an army of griffins, slaughtering all but seven Vir Requis, his hosts could not so much as scratch this column. Even the vicious Solina, Queen of Fire, had failed to topple this beacon of dragons.

Throughout history, tyrants and warlords had tried to topple Requiem's column. Through wars, genocide, and slavery, it had remained standing. Even when the entire kingdom burned around it, King's Column had risen from the fire, its marble pure and glimmering.

Issari's soul had risen to the firmaments. It now shone as Issari's Star, the eye of the celestial dragon. The Priestess in White still watched over her people and her pillar.

Miya spoke softly into the wind. "I want to believe that those days are over. That no more monsters exist in the world. That no more enemies can kill us." She hung her head low. "But a monster killed my mother, and my sister fled, and someday this land will be mine to rule … and I'm too weak. I'm not strong like those before me. Should monsters rise again, I cannot defend this column."

A low voice rose behind her, rumbling and comforting like thunder in a receding storm. "All monarchs of Requiem have felt such fear, daughter. They all found their courage. So will you when your time to lead comes."

Miya turned around, and she saw him there, clad in dark green and silver, a sword hanging from his belt. Her father. Berinor Aeternum. King of Requiem.

She ran toward him, embraced him atop the tower, and laid her head against his wide chest.

He held her close, his strong arms wrapped around her. Berinor was a tall, broad man. Miya thought him strong enough to shatter boulders and lift mountains. His brown beard was now strewn with silver, his temples had gone to purest white, and wrinkles marred his wide brow, but he was still the greatest warrior in Requiem. Still the man who kept her safe.

"Are you all right, Miya?" he asked, his voice so deep, so comforting. "Have your handmaidens been …"

"They've been very kind," Miya lied.

She didn't like lying to her father. But Fira had fled into exile. The great Princess Fira, the heroine, the warrior who had bitten off the dark goddess's arm. She was gone. And so Miya had to show her father that she was strong, a capable heiress, a woman who could someday rule a nation, not someone afraid of a few recalcitrant servants. If Father knew the truth, knew how weak she was, knew that her own handmaidens bullied her, he would fear for Requiem's future.

He already lost my mother, Miya thought. He already lost Fira. I cannot burden him with my own worries. I must be strong. Or at least pretend.

Still in her father's arms, Miya looked at the northern forests. The birch woods sprawled into the distance, white with snow. The sun began to set, gilding the canopy, spilling rivulets of silver and gold across the indigo sky.

"Do you think Fira is ever coming back?" Miya asked, gazing at the forest her older sister had fled to. The sister who had saved her life long ago. The sister who had, perhaps, saved all of Requiem from the curse of the dark goddess. The heroine who had fled—burnt, haunted. The Fire Princess. The broken legend.

For a long time Father was silent, gazing with her at the forest. Finally he spoke, voice barely more than whisper. "Fira must find her own path." The king laid his large hands on the marble balustrade that encircled the tower top. "Perhaps her journey will lead her back home someday. Or perhaps her path will lead elsewhere."

You left me, Miya thought, gazing north. You left me, Fira. You are strong, noble, and brave. You could have been a great queen. But you left me. Perhaps you are more cowardly than I am.

Miya was about to turn away, to flee to her chamber, to seek solace in her books, when she saw a dragon flying in from the distance.

The dragon was puffing out smoke, wobbling in the air, barely flying at all.

Miya squinted, leaning over the balustrade. She gasped.

He was a young dragon, slender and graceful. But badly hurt. Blood seeped between his black scales. He was perhaps dying. He flew over the city, heading straight to the palace. Miya sucked in breath, and her father pushed her behind him, instinctively seeking to protect her.

Across the palace battlements, guards leaped into the air, shifted into dragons, and flew toward the lone intruder. Their fire filled the sky.

"Halt, son of Requiem!" a guard cried.

"Halt or burn!" cried another guard.

Miya narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "He's not an assassin. He needs help. He's hurt."

She stepped away from her father. Before he could stop her, Miya shifted into a dragon and took flight.

She rose as a blue dragon, her scales the color of sky before sunset, of the sea before dawn. Terror pounded through Miya. Her heart fluttered against her ribs like a bird trying to flee its cage.

This was not her. Every fiber of her dragon body screamed to turn around, to flee, to hide. But she had vowed to be strong. She had to be strong now, to prove them all wrong. Perhaps to be foolish. To be brave.

"Guardians of Requiem, hold your dragonfire!" Miya cried. Her voice sounded too loud. It frightened her. Yet she flew onward. "Wait!"

She reached the wounded black dragon, and she winced. Gashes ran across his back, and burns spread along his belly. Many of his scales were cracked. The guardians of Requiem flew all around, smoke blasting from their nostrils, the sunset gleaming on their spiked armor. They scared Miya—their eyes, their sharp teeth, the fire that still crackled in their mouths.

The world spun.

Her father was watching her from the tower top, still in human form. They were all watching her. Miya's breath rose to a pant, and her heart wouldn't slow down, and she trembled. Everyone could hear her clattering scales. They would mock her, call her weak, think her such a poor replacement for Fira, such a poor replacement for a dead queen. Miya was now shaking so badly she worried she'd lose her magic, become a girl again, fall to the city, and die upon the rooftops.

She forced herself to look at the young, dark dragon. Flying beside her, he met her gaze. He was panting, puffing out smoke, bleeding, yet still flying. Still strong.

I will do this. I might be a coward, but I will save him. I could not enter the darkness below the palace, but I can do this.

Miya guided him onward. The two dragons flew together, surrounded by guards, back to the tower where King Berinor waited. The black dragon crashed onto the tower top, cracking a merlon, and lost his magic.

Miya landed beside him, released her magic too, and knelt by the man. He lay bleeding before her.

He was young, only a few years older than her. His skin was brown, the color of those Vir Requis from the deserts across the southern sea. He had shaved the sides of his head, leaving only a flop of hair to fall across his eyes, and stubble covered his cheeks. The hair was pitch-black, black as the shadowy tunnels beneath Requiem. It scared Miya.

The king cried out to his guards, "Fetch a healer!"

The dragons in the sky snorted and nodded, and several flew off. Miya barely spared them a glance. She placed her hand on the young man's brow; it was hot as dragonfire. Blood dripped from his wounds, ugly burns covered his torso, and—Miya shuddered to see it—red marks wrapped around his neck, like those from a garrote or noose.

The young man opened his eyes and met her gaze. His eyes were green, startlingly bright against his dark face. Miya trembled but couldn't look away.

"They're coming," the man whispered and clutched her hand. Blood stained his fingers. "They're coming here."

"Who?" Miya whispered, tears in her eyes.

"Nightmares," the young man whispered, eyes wide. "Nightmares, and her … her … the goddess."

His eyes closed, and Miya gripped his hand like a drowning woman gripping a rope, and all the shadows of night and memory wrapped around her like demon arms.

NEMORIA

They flew across the wilderness—a goddess, her children, and the hydra army that would bring Requiem to its knees.

They hurt me.

Nemoria hissed, her three dragon heads flailing, her wings beating back smoke and sparks of fire.

They tortured me. She screamed, blasting out her fury. They still burn my arm.

The pain. The pain flared. The agony. The wretched, twisting punishment the Reptile King inflicted upon her flesh every year. She could feel it all, even from a distance. Blades. Acid. Hammers. Dragonfire. Crushing, twisting, burning, mutilating her stolen arm again and again.

Demons!

Nemoria howled in agony and rage.

Reptiles!

She rose higher, and her host rose with her, thousands of hydras, thousands of beings she had grown from chunks of her own flesh, filling them with hatred, with flame.

We will destroy the vile weredragons.

Smoke from the hydras' nostrils hid the stars and moon. But their firelight burned bright, raining upon the hills and forests of Requiem, kindling ancient oaks, racing across grasslands. Their saliva dripped, searing the soil, melting stones. The land of Requiem burned and rotted below.

Nemoria gazed ahead. She was almost there now. At her prize.

Nova Vita.

The capital of dragons.

The city still lay beyond the horizon. He would be there. The man whose seed she had claimed. The man who tortured her arm every year. And with him—his daughter, the little whore who had cut off that arm. Berinor and Fira. Lord and lady of reptiles.

"We will crush them." Nemoria's tongues slipped out from her three jaws, and she licked her teeth. "We will not let them die. We will torture them for eternity upon the great Icelos Mountain above the clouds. Their screams will become the song of our hall."

Scales chinked, and a hiss like steam slithered across the sky. Nemoria turned to see a great serpent, large as a dragon, coil through the air toward her. A coat of black-and-golden scales shimmered across the snake, and her eyes blazed, the pupils mere slits. Her tongue slipped from her mouth, forked, dripping venom.

"Does it hurt a lot today, Mother?" asked the serpent.

Nemoria looked down at her body. Eighteen years ago, she had devoured the queen of dragons, absorbing her magic. Now Nemoria too could take dragon form—a dragon larger than any in Requiem, three heads sprouting from her body, the magic augmented, perverted, twisted.

But her new form was flawed.

Her front limb, her left one, the one that always hurt—was gone. Taken by Fira. The only enemy who had ever hurt her.

"Yes, my daughter," Nemoria hissed, speaking with her central head, the black head, metal crunching between her jaws. "I can still feel my missing arm. It hurts so much that I'm nearly blinded, that I nearly fall." She stared into the serpent's eyes. "But pain brings strength, Lintari. Pain brings glory. Pain is my fuel. And it will be pain that I bring to the weredragons."

Lintari licked her chops. Venom spilled from the serpent's mouth, dripping to sizzle through a hydra's wings, then patter onto the forests of Requiem, wilting trees, burning the soil.

Nemoria gazed at her serpentine daughter, love rising over the pain. Nemoria had claimed more than the queen's dragon magic. She had claimed the seed of the king. That seed had quickened within in, forming twins—foul, cursed, beautiful siblings, the magic of starlight mingling with the ichor of the gods.

Neither of her children could become a dragon, their magic too perverted. But Lintari's form was crueler than any dragon. The serpent's venom could eat through steel, and her powerful jaws could shatter towers. In her human form, Lintari was a woman of divine beauty, her hair like molten gold, her eyes like jewels, a true goddess. As the serpent, she was a terror of both sky and underground. Someday soon, this great snake would wrap around King's Column and send it crashing down.

"We will hurt them," Lintari said, her forked tongue flicking. "We will hurt them so much." The snake's eyes glittered, and a smile stretched across her scaly face. "Look down, Mother. A village of the creatures. Let us begin."

Nemoria followed her daughter's gaze. There below, cloaked in night, nestled a village of weredragons. A handful of homes along a river. A few fields. A humble temple barely fancier than a barn. Already villagers were leaving their homes, turning into dragons, and flying away. A hundred souls, no more. Appetizers before a feast.

The hydras picked up the stench of weredragon. The creatures writhed in the air, bloated, rancid. Their necks flailed, and their jaws snapped. Their clammy bodies glistened, warty, dark green speckled with red and gray. The creatures were famished. They had feasted on the coast. But already they hungered for more.

Nemoria had grown this host slowly, year by year, cutting off chunks of her own flesh, letting them grow, nurturing, loving them, raising them into these beasts, into this army. The hunger of every hydra's belly pulsed inside her. The hunger for dragons.

Above the hydras, soaring higher than any dragon could fly, glided the golden eagle. The Prince of Icelos. Nemoria's son. His eyes glittered like two stars. His wings spread wide, burnished gold, metallic, each feather a blade. Thunder boomed with every beat of those wings, and lightning flashed from the storm. The great bird of prey swooped, the hydras parting before him, and Ramiel came to fly by his mother and sister.

"Time to play!" said the eagle. "Let's compete, sister. Think you can beat me this time? I believe I slew more dragons in Altus Mare."

The serpent hissed and spat at her brother. The venom sizzled against the metallic bird. "You did not, Ramiel! But let's collect skulls. We'll count them afterward. For Icelos!"

"For Icelos!" cried her brother. "For the glory of the gods!"

Pride swelling in her breast, Nemoria flew with her children and her hydras. They charged across the sky toward the fleeing dragons.

The feast began.

Lintari undulated across the sky and coiled around a fleeing dragon. She tightened her grip, cracking the beast's bones until the dragon lost his magic. The serpent tossed the broken man into the air, grabbed him in her jaws, and swallowed him whole.

Ramiel, god of storm, cast lightning from his beak. The bolt hit a blue dragon, and a woman fell where a reptile had flown. Ramiel tore her apart, swallowing the torso and letting the limbs fall to the forest.

Around the twins, the hydras stormed, faster than dragons, grabbing the reptiles, ripping off scales, tearing out bones, swallowing men, women, and children, squabbling over the remains.

Some of the dragons, the older beasts, tried to fight back. They wheeled in the sky, charged at the hydras, and blew their fire. The fury roared across hydras, stripping flesh off bones, only for the wounds to heal. One dragon slammed into Lintari, ripping off scales, clawing at the serpent. But no sooner had the claws retreated than Lintari healed. The serpent sprayed her venom, then caught the blistering victim in her jaws.

Nemoria watched from above, allowing her children to feed—the children of her womb and the children of her carved out flesh. Hunger burned in her own belly, but Nemoria did not feed. What kind of mother put her own hunger ahead of her children? Her lovelies were ravenous. She would let them have their fill. She would keep her hunger, foster it, let it grow. Like the pain of her missing arm, it would strengthen her. Pain and hunger were like man and woman, birthing fury. She would save her fury for Nova Vita.

For you, Berinor, she thought. For you, Fira. For you who torture me still.

Her three heads inhaled sharply. The pain of her missing arm flared. Only yesterday they had burned it, searing it with dragonfire, and still the agony filled her. Her arm had healed, but the pain remained.

Soon I will torture you, Berinor, as you've been torturing me all these years. Soon I will devour your children.

When the last dragons had been devoured, the twins descended. They landed on a moonlit hill. Ramiel opened his talons, releasing a cache of severed heads. Lintari, mighty serpent, regurgitated her own trophies—faceless heads, partially digested, dripping.

The twins returned to their human form. They were beautiful youths, clad in black armor, their hair molten platinum, their eyes sapphires. Lintari held her katana of gleaming silver, and Ramiel held his axe, its blades shaped as eagle wings. Both got to counting their heads, bickering over which grisly prize belonged to whom.

Nemoria released her stolen magic. Her scales vanished, her body shrank, and two of her heads melted into her shoulders. She walked across the hill as a woman, a goddess, her dark hair streaming behind her, her black armor reflecting the stars. In her one remaining hand, she held her spear—Ananke, the Decimator—an eye blinking upon its blade.

"Children, children, do not quibble!" Nemoria said. "You both fought well."

Lintari was hissing on the hill, sounding like a serpent even in her human form. "You cheat, brother! You counted one of your heads twice."

Eyes blazing, she swung her katana at her twin. Glaring, Ramiel raised his axe, parrying her blow. Sparks flew.

"I should slice off your head and add it to my collection!" he said.

His sister growled. "Come try. Perhaps I'll slice off your manhood and begin a new collection."

"Children, enough!" Nemoria stepped between them. "Must I discipline you as I did in your childhood?"

The twins froze, faces pale. Both were almost eighteen, fully grown, but not too old to remember the wrath Nemoria had inflicted upon them throughout their childhood. Both had inherited her godly powers, able to heal from any injury. That had made disciplining them so much easier. With every infraction—crying as babes, stumbling as toddlers, failing to hunt as children—Nemoria had shattered their bones, flayed their skin, burned them in fire, stripped off their flesh with acid, and ignored their screams. Each time they healed within moments. But the pain remained inside them, deep scars.

Like the scars inside me, Nemoria thought. Scars make us strong.

She looked down at her left arm. A prosthetic limb grew from her stump, constructed of metal rods and gears, tipped with claws. She flexed the steel fingers.

You took my arm, Fira. You will scream more than them all.

"I don't see the boy from Altus Mare," Lintari said, scanning the pile of heads. "The dark one who fled us. I wanted to toy with him." She tossed back her head and let out a great whine. "I want him!"

Nemoria whipped her head toward her daughter, stepped closer, and drove her metal claws into Lintari's stomach.

Her daughter screamed.

Nemoria tightened her metal grip, tugged back, and tore out Lintari's organs with a shower of blood and flailing veins.

The girl screamed and screamed. Her blood showered across the hill. She fell to her knees, spilling entrails.

"You mewl like a lovesick girl." Nemoria tossed the organs at Lintari's chest. "And you whine like a spoiled brat. Are you a goddess or a tavern wench?"

Lintari doubled over, weeping, her blood splashing Nemoria's feet. Yet as Nemoria watched, the organs reformed within the ravaged cavity. The wound healed. New skin grew. Soon all that remained was a hole in Lintari's armor, the flesh within it whole.

The girl knelt in the blood and bowed her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mother. Please forgive me."

Nemoria held out her metal claws—they were still coated with blood and flesh—and Lintari kissed them.

Ramiel watched, smirking. "Personally, I won't toy with that black dragon from Altus Mare." The unholy prince hefted his axe. "A waste of good pain. A swift blade to the neck should do it. I'll save the torture for Berinor and his daughters. Can I take a turn torturing them, Mother? I especially want to torture the younger princess."

Nemoria turned toward her son and stroked his cheek. "Of course, my darling boy. I would not deprive you of the pleasure."

Ramiel grinned and shot his sister a victorious glance.

Lintari glowered, crossed her arms, and seemed prepared to whine again. Seeing one of her discarded organs on the grass, she shivered and swallowed her rage.

A whimper rose. Not from Lintari this time but from nearby shadows.

Nemoria and her children turned toward the sound. They all smiled.

There, behind a tree, lay a living Vir Requis child. He seemed too young to become a dragon. Perhaps the whelp's mother had carried him here, only to drop him as the hydras savaged her. The boy wept.

"I want the legs." Lintari salivated and licked her lips.

"I want the legs," said Ramiel. "You know legs are my favorite."

His sister roared, shifted into a serpent, and slithered toward the child. Ramiel cursed, became the golden eagle, and pounced.

Nemoria watched, sighing, as her children tore the child apart. They squabbled over whatever little meat there was, like wild dogs fighting over a morsel.

They're so young, Nemoria had to remind herself. Mere pups leaving the teat for the first time.

These two had spent their lives in Icelos, the great realm of the gods, a mountain that soared from the eastern clouds above the sea. The twins had never before flown over the world, had never tasted the blood of mortals. Now the blood of Requiem would be theirs.

Nemoria gazed at them, her precious little godlings. The two returned to human form, leaned against the tree, and their eyelids grew heavy. Mere pups, weary after a day of play.

"He hurt you, my darlings." She stroked their hair. "Your father, the cruel King Berinor, rejected you, hated you, tossed you into the cold world. We will meet him again soon, my darlings."

"And we'll hurt him," Lintari whispered, eyes narrowed to slits, belly distended with many meals.

Ramiel nodded. "We'll make him pay for how he hurt us."

"Sleep now, precious children. Soon the dawn rises. Soon we fly onward—to Nova Vita, to our greatest triumph."

All across the hills and valleys, the hydras descended, curled up, and slept. They too were her children. Yet Nemoria did not sleep this night. The pain would not allow it. The closer she drew to Nova Vita, the more her phantom arm ached. And with every mile, her hatred blazed all the hotter. Hatred for she who had stolen that arm.

Fira.

We'll meet again soon, old friend. Soon, Fira, we'll be together again.

BERINOR

Berinor did not sit often on his throne.

The seat was comfortable enough, carved from the trunk of an oak, polished, smoothed by generations of kingly backsides. Roots and branches twisted out from the chair, stained and knotted, relics of life in this cold marble hall. Berinor had inherited the throne as a young man—too young—and had never seen it as his own. Not truly. Here was his father's seat. And his grandfather's. And the seat of his great-grandfather, the legendary King Vale, who had rebuilt Requiem after salvation from slavery. The seat of great kings and queens who stretched back for thousands of years.

There had been many Oak Thrones in Requiem. The first had belonged to King Aeternum himself, founder of the nation. Another had belonged to King Benedictus, who had fought the griffins. Queen Gloriae, who had rebuilt Requiem after the Griffin Wars, had carved her own Oak Throne, the stories told. Chair after chair. Every century—a new oak tree felled, carved, polished, and stained, replacing a chair that had burned in war. Oak Thrones destroyed. Oak Thrones carved. Cities fallen and risen again. The story of Requiem, flowing back thousands of years. All in the light of the eternal pillar.

And now I, heir to this unbroken dynasty, sit on an Oak Throne, Berinor thought. I was not a king who built a throne. Will I be a king who sees one burned?

And so today he sat here. Today he needed to be in this hall of marble, upon this throne of old oak. Today he needed to be more than the widower, than the man who had lost a wife to darkness, a daughter to fire. Today Berinor needed to be the king his people believed he was. Strong. As eternal as the column that rose outside his hall.

He looked down from his throne. The battered young man stood on the marble tiles before him.

"Tell me, young Oryn," said Berinor. "Why should I believe a man with the marks of a noose around his neck and the tattoos of thieves' guilds on his arms?"

Oryn looked down at the tattoo on his forearm, which showed a dragon coiling around a dagger—symbol of the Crimson Steel thieves' guild. He tried to pull down his sleeve, to hide the mark, but his clothes were too tattered. The rest of him looked scarcely better. Bruises, burns, and cuts covered his skin. That skin was dark, hinting at a heritage from Terra, the continent south of the sea. Not many Vir Requis today came from Terra, but according to legend, Queen Laira herself—the Mother of Requiem—had come from that land. The young man's hair was pitch-black, shaved down to stubble at the sides, but his eyes were green, eerily bright under his dark eyebrows.

"Berinor, we don't have time for this," Oryn said. "That goddess bitch and her children are flying here now, and—"

"Show respect for your king!" shouted a guard. The man slammed a spear's shaft against the back of Oryn's knees, forcing the thief to kneel. "Bend the knee before King Berinor! You will call him 'Your Majesty' and keep your mouth clean. If you spew your filth again, my spear will cut out your tongue."

Oryn cursed, spat right on the marble floor, and struggled to rise. But the guards, men wearing burnished plate armor and green cloaks, held him down.

Marble columns lined the throne room, revealing views of snowy birches. Everyone's breath frosted, and with every gust of wind, snow scattered across the marble tiles of the hall. Often Berinor thought the design of this hall foolish, an open-air stage, no walls to shield it from the forest beyond. The ancient Vir Requis had built such a hall—it appeared in many books and songs. And so the freed slaves, those who had returned to northern Requiem after centuries of slavery, had built this hall to match the ancient tales.

Yet in those ancient tales, King's Column itself was one of the columns that rose in the palace, Berinor thought. Now King's Column stands alone, a great monument, an obelisk like those in the land of Saraph where we were slaves. And now we freeze here in an imitation of our lost glory.

Berinor himself had been born in Requiem, a kingdom reborn. So had his father and grandfather. Only two Vir Requis today, both over a hundred years old, had been born as slaves in Saraph. They too would soon rise to the stars, and the generation of slavery would be lost. Yet the memory was still so fresh in this hall. This attempt to recapture the days of myth and lost glory.

"It's all right." Berinor raised his hand. "Let the thief stand. Let him speak freely."

Oryn stood up and brushed his rags. He fixed Berinor with a steady gaze.

"Altus Mare is destroyed, Berinor." Oryn clenched his fists. "The entire city—a city of fifty thousand Vir Requis—is gone. And this city will be next unless you evacuate every damn soul out of Nova Vita. An army of hydras is flying here. Creatures with five heads who heal instantly from every wound. I barely fled them. And she leads them." Oryn's eyes darkened. "The dark goddess. Nemoria."

A chill flooded Berinor, icy claws grabbing his spine, invading his gut.

She.

For years now, Berinor had tried to shove that memory out of his mind. To forget that night, that most horrible of nights. Yet like the shadows underground, that memory lurked, coiled up inside him, a dark worm, dormant but always ready to feed.

And now she is risen.

That night, she had come to him in the image of his wife, nude and seductive, long golden hair like silk in his hands. They had made love, a night of more passion than any before—lovemaking like wildfire, lovemaking that now shamed him, a fire hotter than any his true wife had ever kindled.

But she had been Nemoria, and within her belly—even as she had ridden him in her lust—she had been digesting the corpse of Queen Tilania.

You hurt her, Fira, Berinor thought. You did what the strongest warrior could not. You bit off her arm, a wound that did not heal. You sent her fleeing while hundreds died in her flames. Yet now, Fira, you hide in your own shadows, and now Nemoria returns.

As Berinor stared at the young thief, the ice flowing through him, it was Durian, Master of the City Guard, who stepped forward and spoke.

"Nonsense!" The squat man scoffed. "The lies of a thief fleeing from hanging."

Berinor turned toward the gruff old warrior, one of his oldest, dearest friends. Durian was not a tall man—he stood a foot shorter than Berinor. But the master guard was wide and beefy, his shoulders massive, his arms like columns, his fists like hammers. His head was bald and shiny, but a thick beard flowed down to his chest, silver and gold, bound with metal rings. A great war hammer hung across Durian's back, the head shaped as a ram, so heavy even Berinor could not lift it; he had tried several times. The faint odor of liquor clung to Durian's breath, and his cheeks were red. The damn old fool forever kept his flask hanging from his belt, claiming that the spirits gave him strength and courage.

Perhaps only a fool's courage, Berinor thought. But this old fool is my dearest friend.

Oryn took a step toward the burly guardian, and fire kindled in his green eyes. "Yes, I am a thief. And you are a drunk. And he is the king. And around me are buffoons who call themselves guards. Now that we all know one another's professions, it's time to summon some other fellows: the damned army."

Durian's bald head flushed crimson. He reached for his hammer. "Impudent fool!"

Oryn shook his head and pointed at himself. "Thief." He pointed at the guards. "Fools."

Durian grumbled, hawked, and prepared to spit. He seemed to remember where he stood, swallowed, and turned toward the king. "The boy's lying." He barked a laugh. "Escaped the noose somehow, probably with help from fellow thieves, and now he thinks to drain the palace of guards and soldiers, then try to steal the royal jewels. His lies mock the memory of Queen Tilania, mock the memory of my son, mock all of us in Requiem." His voice cracked with sudden grief. He scowled and hefted his hammer. "Since he escaped the noose, let me shatter his head."

The burly guardsman hefted the hammer. Oryn—taller than the guardian but far thinner—hissed and flicked his wrist. A small throwing knife, no longer than his forefinger, appeared in his grip. The blade had no hilt, was so slender the thief must have kept it hidden in his sleeve.

"Take one step closer, old drunk, and this knife enters your throat," Oryn said.

Guards cursed and drew their blades. Durian roared and raised his hammer overhead. Berinor stepped off his throne, bellowing for calm, his voice rolling across the hall and the forest beyond.

But it was a different voice—higher, fair as harps—that cut through the noise and silenced the crowd.

"Stop it! Stop. Lower your weapons. Please."

Trembling, Miya emerged from the forest, stepped onto the marble tiles, and came to stand between Oryn and the guards.

The princess wore a green gown embroidered with silver stars, and diamonds shone on her tiara. Her golden hair flowed down her back, and her pale skin turned pink in the cold. She had strapped a dagger to her belt. Berinor had never seen her bear a weapon before.

Berinor gazed at her, and deep sadness filled him.

You're not ready for this, my daughter. He wanted to embrace her, to keep her safe, but he could not. Not now. Not with Fira gone. Not with so much white invading his beard. Not with evil tidings from the east. Miya would have to find her strength, as perhaps they all would, or that column beyond the birches would fall.

"The thief speaks truth," Miya whispered in the silence that filled the hall. She shivered and clutched the hilt of her dagger. "I can feel it. I … I don't want to believe it. All my life, I tried to tell myself that Nemoria is gone forever. That my sister wounded her too gravely, that this evil that slew my mother would never return." Tears filled the princess's blue eyes. "But I've always known she would return, a nightmare I cannot escape." She gazed between the columns toward the eastern forest. "She flies there. And we must stop her." Miya tightened her lips and raised her chin. "I fear the shadows, but I will face them. We all will."

Berinor held his daughter's hand. He had never been more proud of her. With his free hand, he drew his sword and gazed across the hall.

"We will take no chances," the king said. "Perhaps this thief cannot be trusted, and perhaps he lies, but I see earnestness in his eyes." He turned toward his old friend. "Durian, summon the City Guard, every last warrior. Man every wall, tower, and gatehouse, and cover the sky with scales."

The squat, bearded warrior nodded. "Yes, my king." He trundled off, nearly as wide as he was tall, barking orders at his guards. The armored men and women followed, leaving only five guards in the hall.

"Are you insane?" Oryn stepped closer to the throne, eyes wide, face flushed. "Didn't you hear me? Altus Mare—destroyed! You can't fight those damn things. Anytime you cut them, they heal right away. You have to escape. Now! Everyone in this city has to escape. To hide."

"A hundred thousand people live in Nova Vita," Berinor said. "How do you propose we hide so many? No. I will not flee while I can still fight. I will lead the Royal Army east. We will fly across the forests and hills, and we will face this enemy above the wilderness." He began walking toward the forest, then paused and turned toward Miya. "Daughter, I want you to sit on the Oak Throne until I return. Command this city while I fly to war."

And if I do not return …

He didn't need to speak those words. She understood.

Miya's eyes widened, and the blood drained from her face, leaving her as pale as the snow around her feet. "I … Father, I …" She trembled so wildly Berinor thought she would fall, and her eyes flooded with tears. She tried to speak again, could not. Her lips shook.

Berinor walked back to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. He gazed into her eyes. "Miya, have you heard the tale of Queen Laira?"

She blinked tears from her eyes and nodded. She spoke in a whisper. "Of course. The Mother of Requiem. Our first queen. She fought the demons of the abyss, and she battled the Demon King Raem himself. She was very brave. She was never afraid, not like me."

"I would wager that Laira was very much afraid. But still she led Requiem, even in her darkest hours. Her blood flows through our veins. You are Miya of House Aeternum, descended from the first kings and queens of this land, this realm that has stood for thousands of years. We are never ready for command, never ready to sit on a throne. But I promise this to you, Miya: You are just as strong and wise as any warrior of Requiem. When the time comes, you will find this strength inside you. Keep this city safe. I promise to return soon."

She embraced him and nodded. "I'll keep this city safe. I'll be as strong and brave as Laira … and as Fira."

A new chill filled Berinor. Ten years ago, his eldest daughter—broken, haunted Fira—had fled to live wild in the forests. Those forests the dark goddess might now be flying over. The icy claws tightened inside Berinor, ripping at his innards.

Where are you, Fira?

"You're a madman," Oryn said, stepping toward Berinor and his daughter. He pointed a shaky finger at the king. "Don't you remember what happened last time? If you try to fight, you'll die." He looked across the hall. "Everyone in this city will die! All we can do is escape. Hide in forests. In caves. Flee as far as we can. Fighting is dying, and I—"

"Guards," Berinor said, turning to those men who remained in the hall. "Take the thief into the dungeon. Lock him in a cold cell, but treat him well." He stared into the Oryn's eyes. "Perhaps your warning is true. Perhaps you lie. Whatever the case, the mark around your neck tells a story of past misdeeds. You will remain in our prison until we know if you're a hero or liar."

"What?" Oryn's eyes widened, and he kicked and thrashed as the guards grabbed him. "Berinor! Dammit, man, I—"

A guard slapped a hand over Oryn's mouth. They manhandled the thief from the hall.

Miya gazed at the thief being dragged away, then at her father, and a strange composure fell across her face. That face was deathly white, her eyes like frozen pools. She moved like a ghost, her gown barely rustling, and sat on the Oak Throne of Requiem. From there she gazed upon her realm, a princess of ice in a land of rising flame.

When Berinor looked at Miya, a memory flashed across his vision—his other daughter, Fira, burnt and bleeding, falling from the sky.

He turned away lest Miya see the turmoil on his face. He left his hall.

Is Oryn right? Berinor thought. Should we flee? Am I dooming this city to death?

No. He had to believe there was hope. Eighteen years ago, his daughter—a mere child—had managed to wound Nemoria, to send her fleeing. Berinor had to believe that with an army of five thousand dragons, all trained for war, he could finally slay the creature. That he could keep his people safe.

Among the birches, he summoned his magic—the ancient magic passed down from the founders of Requiem, through war, slavery, despair, splendor, and ruin. The magic of dragons, the gift of the Draco constellation. Green and silver scales flowed across him—green as the forests of Requiem in late summer, silver as the stars that blessed his nation. His wings spread out, flames filled his jaws, and the dragon rose.

He flew over Nova Vita, the ancient capital of Requiem, a city nestled within a forest. An ancient city, destroyed and rebuilt time after time, a palimpsest of Requiem's despair and hope. The place where the very first Vir Requis, hunted across the world, had raised a column, forged a nation. The place that griffins, phoenixes, demons, countless others had tried to crush. The place now under his stewardship—a fragile city, a mere dream his people clung to, the heartbeat of a nation, the pulse of magic.

He flew over homes, temples, and libraries, heading toward Castrum Draconis, a fortress on a hill. The castle rose above the birches, above the homes below, dwarfing nearly every other structure in the city. If King's Column was the backbone of Requiem, here was her drawn sword, for Requiem had ever been a nation embattled, hunted, enslaved, a nation that relied on the light of its holy stars--but also on dragonfire.

"Arise, warriors of Requiem!" Berinor cried—the same words he had cried the night his wife had died. "Arise, arise, warriors of starlight! Darkness gathers, and shadows loom. Arise, dragons of Requiem, and raise your light!"

They emerged from the fortress, sons and daughters of Requiem, clad in armor, bearing shields and swords—weapons for fighting in homes, halls, and tunnels. Tonight they would need no such steel. Tonight was a night of dragonfire. Together, the warriors of Requiem—the Royal Army, defenders of the realm—shifted into dragons, spread their wings wide, and rose in a clatter of scales. Their fire lit the sky.

Berinor flew at the vanguard, leading thousands of dragons. Thousands who had been awaiting this day for years. Thousands who, perhaps, would never be flying home.

They flew across the city, above the outer wall, and over the forests. They flew east toward a dark horizon. In the distant shadows, the memories rose again. Terror, evil, and loss. Those old, icy claws dug through Berinor, but he kept flying, vowing to finally burn those memories with dragonfire.

SIRANA

Lady Sirana was at home, painting her fading memories, when those memories stormed back into her life with horns, shouts, and blazing dragonfire.

The day had begun like any other, like all the days since she had joined the City Guard, since she had picked up sword and shield, vowing to win the battle her parents had lost.

Sirana was smaller than the other guards, weaker, younger, but with fire in her belly. And with honor in her blood. She was the daughter of Lord Corwin Oldnale, slain Master of the Guard. She had his red hair and fiery heart. And she would follow in his footsteps. She would honor his memory.

For hours that morning, Sirana had swung her sword, drilling in the yard. For hours that afternoon, Sirana had flown as a silver dragon, roaring fire, training with the others, imagining that she blew her fire against Requiem's ancient enemies. Lady Sirana Oldnale—just a young woman, twenty years of pain in her sad hazel eyes. All that day, she had shouted in her fury, pretending to be so much stronger than she felt.

The evening too had begun like any other, like all those bitter evenings since Nemoria had slain her parents. Sirana had returned to her house in Nova Vita—this large, sad marble house. Once Lord Corwin had lived here with his wife and children. Once many from across Requiem would visit here: the nobles from great families, the royal Aeternums, the noble Eleisons, and many humbler people too, bakers and farmers and cobblers. All had come to dine with her father, to fill the villa with laughter, song, and joy.

Sirana had been only a toddler that horrible day when it all ended. When Father and Mother died in battle.

At first the villa's stewards had invited many guests, and Sirana had memories of many voices filling this home. Yet as she had grown older, as Sirana Oldnale had taken her own stewardship of this house, of this dynasty, she had ceased inviting guests. Now this house felt empty, so many of its rooms barren of life but not of memory.

This evening she stood in her studio, her favorite chamber in the house—the only chamber where she truly found solace. Her paintings filled the room: hanging from walls, resting on easels, and curled up on tables. Most were portraits of her parents as Sirana remembered them—memories of memories, memories of earlier paintings, earlier statues. With every painting, they changed. With every painting, they were less a true memory, more just a copy of a previous painting, until all Sirana remembered was the stroke of a brush, the scrape of charcoal, and those eyes—drawn countless times—gazing at her from the canvas, from beyond time.

And in some paintings, she herself appeared. Sirana. A woman of two lives. A young warrior, clad in plate armor, swinging a sword or flying as a silver dragon, blowing fire. A fighter like her parents, a proud soldier of the City Guard, the heiress of a dynasty. And in other paintings—the other her. The Sirana away from the fortress or city walls. The Sirana of this villa, these sad halls. A somber girl, freckled, with hazel eyes that were too serious, with short red hair that fell across her brow. Sad. Desperately trying to cling to a fading memory.

This evening she was painting again. A painting of her family. Her father—tall, strong, noble. Her mother—golden of hair, wise of eyes. They were holding her, a young Sirana—a child in this home, back when this had been a home.

"A dark goddess stole you from me," Sirana whispered. "But you will always live here. Always."

The sound of padding feet rose behind her. Laughter. Squeals of joy. And for the first time today, Sirana smiled.

My parents are gone, but I've filled this home with some laughter. With some joy.

She turned from her paintings to see them race into the room. Five children, elbowing one another, laughing, shouting, falling down and rising again. After years of silence and solitude, Sirana had let them into her home. Five orphans. Five new faces alongside the two she had vowed to never forget.

"Lady Sirana!" cried the youngest, a three-year-old girl named Caela. "Vered stole my blocks, and I want to play with them."

An older child, five years old, shook her head. "They're my blocks. She's confused again. Mine are the blue ones."

The children began to argue, and tears flowed, until Sirana gave each child canvas, brushes, and paint. Soon they were all creating artwork together.

Sirana looked at them, and she couldn't help but smile. A little bit of light. A little bit of joy.

Orphans, she thought. Like me.

Three had lost their parents to illness. Two had never known their parents, had been abandoned outside temples. All had been born years after Nemoria had attacked and orphaned Sirana.

I'm one of you, she thought. Sometimes I still feel like a child too. But I'll look after you as a mother.

The oldest child approached her, eyes solemn.

"Have you asked them?" he said. "Have you asked if …" He gulped. "If it would be possible?"

Sirana looked at him and sighed. Tey was a slender boy with brown hair and dark eyes, a boy who never smiled. When she looked at his canvas, she saw that he had painted a dragon roaring fire, surrounded by a host of demons.

Sirana knelt and placed her hands on his shoulders. "I did, Tey. I spoke to Lord Durian. But he says you're too young."

He bristled. "I'm eleven."

She nodded. "And when you're thirteen, you can join the Youth Guard. And when you're eighteen, you can join the City Guard and be a true soldier. Patience!"

Tey's fists clenched, and anger flashed across his eyes, but then that anger faded. He lowered his head and nodded.

Sirana embraced the boy. "Be a child while you can, Tey. Enjoy these years. Here with us. You'll be a man soon enough, a warrior of Requiem. And you'll miss these days."

He looked back at his painting, at the other children who were creating their own masterpieces, their fingers and faces already covered with paint. He looked at Sirana's paintings too, the ones depicting her parents.

"Your parents were great warriors," Tey said. "I never knew my parents." He looked back at her. "But you're a great warrior too. You're my inspiration, Lady Sirana. I'll be strong like you."

I don't feel like a brave warrior, Sirana thought. But what I do here—tending to these children, giving them a home, giving them some of the light that I lacked as a child—that is greater than anything I do in the sky.

She was about to put the children to bed, then pour herself a glass of wine and read a book, when the horns blared outside, and the world came crashing down.

Fire. Dragonfire blazed outside, its light falling through the windows, painting the studio red. Wings beat. The roars of dragons rolled across the city. Bells clanged, and still those horns blared.

"City Guard, City Guard!" rose a deep rumble—the voice of Lord Durian Eleison, new Master of the Guard, the man who had replaced Sirana's father. "All guards to your posts!"

Sirana froze for just a moment in the studio. The children stared at her, eyes wide.

Another attack? Sirana thought. My stars …

"Tey." She gripped the boy's shoulders and stared into his eyes. "You're not old enough to be a soldier. But you're old enough to defend this house. Look after the young ones."

The younger children began to cry. The sounds of wings, roars, and clattering scales rose louder outside. The horns were deafening.

Tey stared into her eyes, face pale but gaze steady. He nodded. "I'll look after them."

Sirana unclasped the dagger she always wore on her belt, even here at home, for her demons never left her. The hilt was shaped as a dragon's claw clutching a crystal, and silver stars were worked into the black sheath. She placed the weapon into Tey's hand.

"This was my father's dagger." She stared into the boy's eyes. "Keep the others safe."

He nodded.

Sirana turned and ran.

She ran through the halls of her home, this manor that had been empty for so long, that she had filled with life. Down hallways. Past her parents' bedroom. She stopped at her own bedroom, rushed inside, and grabbed her armor. She strapped the breastplate across her chest, tugged on her greaves and vambraces, and grabbed her sword. She brushed her red hair back from her forehead, placed on her helmet, and raced out into the streets of Nova Vita.

Bells clanged across the city. Dragons filled the night sky, clad in silvery armor, bearing banners. They were rising from Castrum Draco and flying east. Here were not dragons of the City Guard. Here were warriors of the Royal Army, following their king to battle.

For millennia, Requiem had maintained two military forces. The City Guard, where Sirana served, protected king and column. The Royal Army fought beyond the city walls. Its warriors had served in the southern lands of Terra, the eastern realms of Leonis, even the far north where the ice never melted. Sirana stood in the courtyard, watching the Royal Army follow King Berinor toward the eastern forests, leaving the city.

But Nova Vita was not undefended. Other dragons were rising too. Their armor was a dark gray, and their helmets sprouted spikes. Birch leaves were engraved onto breastplates that covered their underbellies. Here was the noble City Guard, ancient and proud. If the Royal Army was the sword of Requiem, the City Guard was her shield—unwavering, eternal, resisting any attack.

A squat bronze dragon flew above, and the city guardians rallied around him. Sirana recognized Lord Durian, the toughest, gruffest warrior she knew.

Sirana raised her chin, shifted into a dragon, and soared.

The armor she wore in human form shifted with her, vanishing into her dragon form. Like her clothes, her armor was a part of her, able to shift with her like her hair or fingernails. It would be waiting for her when she returned to human form—critical for fighting along streets or inside buildings, places too small for a dragon. Silvery scales now covered her, hard as steel, and her bone-white claws thrust out instead of swords. Fire crackled in her maw.

She wore no dragon armor. No helmet to protect the smaller scales on her head, no breastplate to protect her underbelly where no scales grew. Those awaited her in Castrum Adium, the fortress of the City Guard. Some Vir Requis had learned to shift with the larger dragon armor, absorbing it into their human form. Once they became dragons again, they were already armored and ready to fight. It was a skill Sirana had never mastered.

"Lord Durian!" she cried, flying up toward him. "Lord Durian, what's going on?"

Hundreds of guards were flying around the bronze dragon, forming units. Soon flights of five dragons were flying together, organized into phalanxes of a hundred. Durian flew from unit to unit, inspecting the troops. Meanwhile, the Royal Army had already crossed the wall and was flying over the eastern countryside.

"Sirana, get your armor and join your unit!" Durian flew over the roofs of the city, crying out. "City Guard, rise, rise!"

Sirana's belly curdled. Fear flowed through her, but so did dragonfire, melting the ice. Eyes narrowed, fangs bared, she flew as fast as she could. Streets, workshops, libraries, temples, and theaters all spread below. She kept glancing around, seeking enemies, seeing none, but the warning horns kept blaring.

It's war. It has to be war. Her scales clanked as she shuddered. She's back.

Somehow Sirana knew it was true—knew it by the fire and ice inside her.

She looked at King's Column, a great obelisk, the only surviving remnant of Requiem's original palace that King Aeternum had built. So long as a single dragon lived in the world, the column would stand.

I vow to defend you forever, King's Column.

Finally Sirana reached Castrum Adium, the fortress of the City Guard. As she dived toward the courtyard, she cried out, "Hurry! Squires, hurry, armor! Dragon armor!"

Wreathed in smoke, she landed in the courtyard between walls and towers. Her claws clattered against the cobblestones. Squires ran forth in human form, pushing a cart full of dragon armor. They placed a spiked helmet on Sirana's head, then strapped a breastplate across her belly. Across the courtyard, a few other dragons were arming up too. Within instants, Sirana soared again, covered in iron.

The rest of the City Guard had reached the city's outer walls. There they perched—at the battlements, upon towers, on rooftops. Others flew above, creating a dome of flame over the city. Sirana joined her unit, the Draco Battalion, on the eastern wall.

She perched on the battlements between her fellow dragons. Smoke rose from their nostrils, and sparks spurted from their jaws, reflecting in armor.

"What is it?" Sirana said, staring into the shadowy countryside.

The warrior at her side, a wiry copper dragon, gave her a wry glance. "Haven't you heard? The bitch is back." He grinned, showing all his sharp teeth. "The dark goddess herself. Nemoria."

And now even the fire in her belly could not warm Sirana. She stared into the eastern darkness. She could just make out distant lights—the Royal Army flying to war.

Nemoria. The monster who murdered my parents.

Sirana gripped the battlements so tightly her claws dug into the stone, and that memory returned to her. A child at the cemetery, crying over her parents' graves, left alone in a dark, cold world.

RAMIEL

He stood on the dark hill. The storm clouds hid the stars, and he gazed toward a city beyond the horizon. Toward him.

My father.

The cold wind blew, scattering snow around Ramiel's boots, tousling his golden hair, and caressing his cheeks. His leather gloves creaked as he tightened his grip on his axe. He wondered if his father had golden hair too, if his father also had blue eyes, was also deadly with an axe. If his father ever thought of him, ever loved him.

"We'll meet soon, Father." His breath frosted. His words rose like ghosts. "For the first time, we'll meet. With fire. And with steel."

Ramiel looked behind him at his host, the wrath that had streamed out from the Hall of Shadows. Thousands of hydras covered the landscape, lumps of darkness and fire like a carpet of embers, rolling for miles, asleep in shadows. At dawn they would rise, would strike the city of dragons, would topple the palace. Would slay him.

Ramiel looked back west. "Who are you, Father?" he whispered. "Why do you hate me so?"

A shadow stirred beside him. A soft voice spoke. "King Berinor hates the ichor that flows through you. He believes you impure. A bastard. A monster. He banished me. And he would slay you if he could."

Ramiel turned to see his mother walking uphill toward him. He was eighteen and still so confused. Nemoria was centuries old, infinitely wise, a goddess of power and knowledge he would perhaps never possess. She wore black armor like his, and she too carried sharp steel. But there the resemblance ended. Mother had long, black hair strewn with stars, and her eyes shone deep gold. Her skin was gray, and lavender lines coiled across it, marks of power, luminous in the shadows. Suddenly Ramiel was ashamed of his blond hair, his pale skin. The blood of weredragons had given him these mortal colors.

"Does he truly hate us, Mother?" Ramiel asked, belly twisting. "How could a father hate his children?"

Nemoria stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. "Does it matter? I love you, Ramiel."

"It matters." His anger flared, and his fists shook around the shaft of his axe. "He's my father! My own father. A man I've never met. Who never flew to visit us in the Hall of Shadows. Who banished us from Requiem." Tears stung his eyes. "Why, Mother? I want to understand."

His mother kissed his cheek. "My sweet son, I myself can't understand such hatred. King Berinor Aeternum is a cruel man. He cast me out into the cold. When I tried to leave with grace, he sent his vicious daughter—the Princess Fira, a red beast—to bite off my arm. He could not stomach the thought of his children, of two beautiful twins, growing in my womb. He tried to kill you while you were still inside me. Like they killed …"

Nemoria hesitated. She winced with sudden pain.

"What, Mother?" Ramiel said. His fists clenched. "What did they do? Who did they kill?"

Nemoria took a shuddering breath. Her eyes dampened. "It happened before you were born, my son. Queen Tilania committed a terrible crime. One I dare not speak of. One that still tears at my heart." Her eyes blazed with fire, searing away her tears. "I punished the Reptile Queen for her crime. But I'm not done punishing Requiem."

Tears streamed down Ramiel's cheeks. His rage was a forge, threatening to overflow, leaking from his eyes, burning his insides. "I will kill Berinor. No. Actually, I will keep him alive. I will make him suffer for what he did! I will make them all suffer for how they hurt you!"

Mother smiled, and her luminous eyes lit the shadows. "There, son. Let hatred fill you. Never pain. Never shame. Your father is ashamed of you, for my ichor—the blood of the gods—mingles inside you with his blood, the blood of Requiem. He sees you as an abomination. A creature to crush. But he cannot hurt you. You will make him pay for what he did. He scorns you now. But soon he will fear you."

Ramiel fell to his knees, overwhelmed. His skull felt so tight. His chest constricted. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe! He clawed at his face, at his neck, tearing the skin, and when it healed, he cut himself again, ripping out strands of muscle, bashing out teeth, weeping, healing. Always healing, the ichor of gods not letting him suffer wounds for long, not letting him die. Nemoria watched him, smiling thinly, and he saw the pride, the love she bore him.

"Hate," she whispered. "Always hate, son. Never fear. Never cower. Foster your rage." She pointed toward lights on the southern horizon. "Show them your wrath. Cleanse all the pain inside you with blood."

Ramiel roared, leaped into the air, and shifted. It was the blood of Requiem that gave him that power, the magic to grow, to change. But it was the ichor of gods that purified it. Ramiel could not become a dragon, a scaled, wretched reptile. No. Blessed with the glory of gods, he rose as a great eagle, dragon-sized, metallic and shimmering, his wings spreading wide. A great cry emerged from his beak.

He flew in the darkness. With every beat of his wings, storms brewed and thunder boomed. Lightning flared beneath him, slamming into the hills and valleys, shattering trees, setting the grass aflame.

He flew toward the southern lights. A village. A village of weredragons. Of people like his father. People with pure blood. People who scorned him. People who would fear him.

I must hate. I must always hate and let others fear.

He swooped toward the village, shrieking, and cast his lightning.

Bolts slammed into houses, setting them ablaze. His thunder boomed, so loud trees cracked and collapsed. Wails rose from the village. Ramiel flew above, bringing hailstones and wind, tearing the homes apart.

From below they emerged. The peasants. Vir Requis. Weak creatures.

"I am a god!" Ramiel shouted, churning the storm. "You will die for your arrogance."

He shrieked as he killed them. He shrieked as he wept.

They rose as dragons, and Ramiel chased them, smote them with lightning, tore into them with his talons. Their dragonfire washed over him, and the pain was terrifying, ripping the flesh off his bones, but still he flew, still he killed, healing, crying, biting, casting down corpses. They could not stop him. Not with an army of dragons could they hurt him. He was Ramiel, son of Nemoria. A god. Immortal. He knew no pain. He knew no shame.

All I know is this, he thought as he cut the last dragons down. This blood. This retribution.

He landed. He returned to human form. He walked among the corpses, gazing with wonder at their beauty, stroking the hair of the women, drinking their blood, feeding on the warmness, nourishing, the blood flowing from them into him. Feeling close. Feeling pure.

He returned to his mother, blood on his lips, strands of flesh dripping from his fingers like honey. She embraced him, kissed him, wiped the blood away. That night he slept in her arms like he had as a child. Feeling safe. Feeling warm. Feeling loved.

ORYN

Everyone in this city is going to die.

Oryn knelt in his prison cell. A chill gripped him. He couldn't stop seeing it. The hydras rising from the sea, necks writhing, fire blazing. The thousands of dragons falling over Altus Mare, returning to human form in death, burnt, torn apart. The dark goddess and her children, deities of unending malice. Reean dying, mutilated, falling, devoured.

Altus Mare fell. Destroyed. ground into dust. Oryn clenched his fists. And now Nova Vita will follow.

Oryn raised his head and roared, his voice echoing through the craggy cell. He was in human form, but he roared like a dragon, fury burning through him.

That fool of a king! That brute who thought himself a hero, who flew now with an army of dragons, determined to save Requiem like the warriors of old.

But even the greatest heroes in history had never faced gods.

Oryn let his roar die and breathed heavily.

"You should have run, Berinor," Oryn hissed between clenched teeth. "Now you will die, and all your warriors, and everyone in Requiem. The hottest dragonfire, the sharpest claws—useless! Nobody can harm Nemoria."

Nobody but Fira, he added silently.

"Be silent!"

Footballs echoed down the corridor. Oryn peered between the rusty bars. A prison guard was marching toward his cell. She was tall and muscular, clad in brown leather, and held a club. Her face was cold and stern, a winter cliff of jagged ice, and her eyes were pale blue like frozen seas.

"Hey, Ice Queen." Oryn blew her a kiss.

The guard hefted her club. "If you want to scream, I can give you something to scream about."

Oryn raised an eyebrow. "A night of pleasure, screaming in our passion? Very well, I accept. What do you charge?"

The guard's eyes narrowed, and she sneered. Too fast for Oryn to react, she swung her club between the bars. The wood slammed into his arm.

"Stars damn it!" he shouted.

The guard nodded. A thin smile cracked that icy face. "See? Something to scream about."

Oryn rubbed his bruised arm, muttering. The guard turned and left. Oryn spat after her and shot her the finger, but she didn't turn around. He leaned against the bars, watching until the guard vanished from view.

Torches crackled in the corridor, illuminating other prison cells. An old man sat in one cell, picking fleas from his beard and eating them. A young woman lay in another cell, curled up into a ball, weeping and mumbling about being innocent. In a third cell, a man was busy shifting into a dragon again and again, but the cell was too small. He kept banging against the walls and shrinking back into human form.

"Miserable lot," Oryn mumbled. "Probably better off dead. The hydras will do you a favor."

He squeezed his face between two bars—he couldn't get much more than his nose through—and peered from side to side, searching for guards. He could just make out Ice Queen at a back chamber, rolling dice with another guard, a slovenly brute twice Oryn's size.

Oryn snorted. Was this truly the best security the capital could manage? Even little Altus Mare, half the size, had better facilities than these. Then again, Altus Mare had been dealing with him—Oryn, Prince of Shadows—for years now. The capital wouldn't know what hit them.

Sudden pain stabbed Oryn, and he winced.

But Altus Mare is gone.

His skin felt too tight, his bones brittle, and his wounds blazed as if new fire washed across them. His friends, his fellow thieves—gone. The women he had loved, Reean and many others—gone. Nights in the shadowy alleys, gambling, drinking, ruling the taverns and brothels and dockside gambling dens. Raucous laughter at the thieves' guildhalls, deep beneath the city. A life of shadows, of light, of song, or danger, of glory.

Gone.

Gone like this city would soon be. Maybe the entire kingdom. Maybe the world.

I'm getting out of here, Oryn thought.

If he couldn't save Nova Vita, so be it. He would run, survive in the wild like Fira, and keep moving west. Just keep running and running. Until the dark goddess's appetite was sated, until she had killed enough, until he was safe.

He held out his arm. He looked at his tattoo—a dragon coiling around a blade, covering the length of his forearm, scaly and black. Oryn winced, anticipating the pain. He pressed down on his arm, shoving his fingers against the tattoo.

"Show me your claws, dragon."

And his tattoo obeyed. Shards emerged from under his skin, claws of steel. Oryn hissed as the metal poked holes through his skin. Every damn time he hid the shards, the skin healed over the opening. Every damn time guards locked him up, he bled again. He grabbed the metal slivers, tugging gently, twisting, pulling them free. Finally he held four needles in his palm, splotched with blood.

He glanced between the bars. The other prisoners hadn't noticed. The old man was busy digging in his nose for buried treasure, while the curled-up woman was speaking to an invisible judge, perhaps reliving her trial. The third prisoner had given up trying to shift into a dragon. He lay in the corner, covered in bruises. The two guards, Ice Queen and Butterball, were still playing dice in the back.

Oryn got down to business, sticking his tools into his cell's lock. Easy. Truly, the capital was obviously unused to criminals of his caliber. It was such a simple lock it was insulting. Within moments the lock clicked, and Oryn shoved the barred door open. He sauntered into the corridor.

The other prisoners gaped as he walked down the hall. As he passed by the two guards, Oryn nodded and smiled.

"My lady." He tipped an invisible hat at the icy guard. "Sir." He nodded at the slovenly brute. "Good day to you both."

The guards leaped from their seats, scattering dice, and raised their clubs.

Oryn shook two sachets into his palms, one from each sleeve. With quick flicks of his wrists, he opened both small bags and blew.

As the guards lunged, powder blasted toward them. One scented cloud against Butterball, the other against Ice Queen. Both guards coughed, eyes turning red and heavy. Their clubs dropped to the floor.

"Goodnight, sweet prince and princess," Oryn said as both fell, snoring before they hit the ground. They lay at his feet, deep in slumber. "And remember—it was Oryn, Prince of Shadows, who spared your lives today."

Only for the dark goddess to kill them later, he thought with a wince.

Careful not to breathe the powder, he knelt and grabbed a club from one guard, a ring of keys from the other. Then he palmed the fallen dice.

"It really is too easy," he muttered as he unlocked the other cells. "No security in the capital. None at all. And these jokers think they can fight back an army of nightmares?"

He shuddered to think of the dragons—thousands of dragons—flying east under King Berinor's command. Gruff men, vicious women, and many of them just youths, no doubt. Oryn was not one for hierarchies. He mistrusted guards, soldiers, judges, kings. They all wanted to harm him. Hell, even his own mother had abandoned him. But damn it, those soldiers didn't deserve to die out there. Like the thousands who had died at Altus Mare. Like Reean had died.

Nothing I can do about that. Oryn steeled himself. I can only look after myself. It's all I've ever done. It's always kept me alive.

He walked down the hallway, found a craggy stairway, and climbed. Lanterns shone at his side, shaped as snarling dragons. The shadows morphed on the walls, forming dragons with many heads. Oryn shuddered.

As he climbed higher, a guard came walking down. The man's eyes widened and he drew his sword. Too easy. Damn too easy. Casually, Oryn tossed the dice.

As the guard tumbled over them, Oryn swung his club, shattering the man's arm. The guard clattered downstairs. Oryn kept climbing, whistling now.

Prison breaks—even simple prisons like this—always lifted his spirits. It was a pity this city would soon fall. It would have been fun to rebuild his criminal empire here.

At the top of the staircase, a bronze door led into the palace. A hallway stretched ahead, tiled with marble, tapestries and portraits hanging from its walls. The place was empty. Oryn kept walking, but nobody confronted him. All the guards were probably manning the city's eastern walls right now, awaiting the dark goddess, leaving only a skeleton crew behind. By the stars above, this city would be a dream for thieves tonight. Oryn could probably snatch the crown jewels right from under the princess's nose, and—

He paused.

"No." He shook his head. "No. Oryn … no."

Yet as he walked down the marble hallways, the temptation grew. That little voice he could never resist.

Go on, Oryn. This will be the heist of a lifetime.

"I can't!" he whispered. "The dark goddess is on her way."

The voice mocked him. It's always the same with you. Whenever an opportunity to steal something truly big arises, it's excuses, excuses. There are too many guards. There are too many locks. A genocidal dark goddess leading a legion of hydras is on her way. Always excuses!

Oryn rolled his eyes. He hated that damn voice … hated and yet loved it. The voice of temptation. The voice that had driven him to conquer Altus Mare. Listening to that voice, Oryn had stolen the finest emeralds from merchants in the port, the most precious silks from maidens in temples, even an ancient griffin's egg right from the grip of the city constable.

But this heist …

Oryn licked his lips. He was walking in the very palace of Requiem. The heart of the kingdom. A treasure trove! And its guards were either slumbering in the dungeon or manning the city's walls. A thief's dream!

As if to tempt him further, Oryn passed a huge painting on the wall. The artwork depicted Queen Luna the Traveler, daughter of the legendary Gloriae, wearing the crown jewels of Requiem. Oh, those beautiful jewels!

And the real jewels are here. In this building. They will be mine.

He walked onward through the palace. He remembered the way. A guard walked by, one of the few remaining in the palace. Oryn hid behind a column, then walked onward.

An archway led to a grove of birches within the palace grounds. Oryn walked between the trees, boots crunching icy snow. The moon shone above, only a thin crescent, but it cast enough light for his sharp eye. Oryn was the Prince of Shadows, after all, and no darkness would hold him back. Marble statues rose around him, depicting the ancient heroes of Requiem, from King Aeternum, founder of the realm, all the way to Meliora the Merciful, the prophet who had freed the Vir Requis from captivity in the desert.

He crested a hill, and Oryn beheld King's Column in the distance. The pillar soared above all other structures in Requiem, pale and glowing like a shard of moonlight. There was something about the age of that column that unnerved Oryn. All other structures in this city—the triumphant archways, the elaborate fountains, the temples that rose among the birches—were modern. The Vir Requis had spent generations in exile, slaves in the desert, their homeland in ruins. King Vale, Meliora's brother, had rebuilt this city only a century ago, reimagining Requiem's ancient glory. Some called it a revival. Oryn called it a re-creation.

But that soaring pillar ahead? That was Requiem's ancient glory. During Requiem's centuries in captivity, when all this snowy land had lain in ruin, that pillar had still stood, as it had stood for thousands of years, from the very dawn of dragons.

Will it finally fall now, in our lifetime? Oryn wondered, remembering the old myths. They said that so long as a single Vir Requis lived, the pillar would stand. And I might be the only one left alive when all this blows over.

Oryn shivered. And he never shivered. It must be the cold weather in this distant city, far from the sea's warm breeze. He turned away from the column.

He kept walking until he saw other columns. These too were carved of marble, and they too soared, but they seemed more earthly, fully in this world. Beyond the portico spread a floor of marble tiles, drifts of snow upon it. The hall was exposed to the gardens like a grand gazebo.

At the back of this hall, in the light of white lanterns, rose the Oak Throne of Requiem. There sat Princess Miya, clad in green and silver, a sword upon her lap.

There they are. Oryn gulped. The crown jewels.

A platinum tiara topped the princess's head of golden hair, inlaid with diamonds. A necklace of emeralds shone around her neck, and a sapphire ring winked on her finger. On her lap, beside her sword, rested a bejeweled scepter.

The greatest heist in Requiem's history, Oryn thought.

Two guards stood by the throne—women in silvery armor, silver stars worked into their green shields. They were bellators—knights of the realm. Thank the stars above, that brute Durian was off defending the city walls. And most of his warriors had gone with him. It was the best chance Oryn would get.

The world is burning, he thought. Might as well go down in flames.

Oryn placed his club in the snow—too crude a weapon. He preferred to rely on his charm, deadlier by far. Unarmed, he walked between two columns and sauntered into the hall.

"Hullo, Princess!" Oryn said. "They let me go, have you heard? Sweet freedom at last, after long, devastating minutes of captivity!"

The princess leaped to her feet, and her scepter fell with a clatter. Her guardians stepped forward, pointing their blades at Oryn.

"Stand back, thief!" a bellator said, eyes blazing within her helmet.

"Stand back?" Oryn raised an eyebrow and kept walking forward. "I don't intend to stand back. I intend to run for my life. Evil is flying toward this place." He stared between the bellators at the princess. "Miya, hear me out. Please. Walk with me in the forest and let's talk." His voice dropped. "I saw her. I heard her voice. Your father would not listen to my warnings. I beg that you hear me now."

He wasn't lying. But he withheld his true motivation. He needed to get closer to Miya, close enough to snatch her jewels. All while avoiding the guardians. Bellators were elite warriors, noble-born and trained since childhood to kill—far too tough for Oryn to defeat. Those shield-maidens had sharp swords and mean eyes.

Miya paled, and tears filled her eyes.

"Tell me what you know," she whispered, standing before her throne. She trembled.

Oryn glanced at the bellators. The women glared at him, swords raised. He looked back at Miya.

"I've had enough people trying to kill me these past few days. Your guards make me uncomfortable. All that sharp steel. Walk with me. Alone."

Miya bit her lip, and a tear flowed down her cheek. She glanced around her, as if seeking protection from the trees, then looked back at Oryn. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"No," she whispered. "You … you have to talk to me here. I can't be without guards. Please. Can you tell me here?" Her voice shook, and she wrung her hands.

Bloody stars, Oryn thought, narrowing his eyes. The damn girl seemed frightened of her own shadow. Strangely, pity filled Oryn. He was used to women who laughed raucously, drank with abandon, and feared nothing but sobriety. He wasn't used to these delicate princesses in their marble halls.

The powerful are weaker than the downtrodden, he thought. A prince of shadows is stronger than a princess of light.

He tried to take a step closer, but the bellators thrust their swords. One blade poked Oryn in the shoulder, nicking his skin.

"Back!" said the guard. "Kneel! Kneel and speak."

Oryn wished he still had his sachets of sleeping powder. Even that damn club. There might be no way to speak to the princess without her guards. Perhaps the only answer was force—to become a dragon, burn the bellators, rip off the jewels, and fly away. So crude! So amateurish. The methods of a thug, not the Prince of Shadows.

There's only one way to still get her alone, Oryn thought. I'll have to take her with me. The princess along with her jewels.

"Miya, I faced her myself." Oryn cringed as the memory dug through him. "So did thousands of dragons in Altus Mare. Nothing can hurt Nemoria, at least not for long. Any burn, cut, so much as a scratch—she and her gruesome host heal within an instant. Dragonfire strips the flesh off their bones, only for that flesh to grow anew. I saw it. Every cut of claws healed before a dragon could take another bite. Your father is going to die, Miya. Him and everyone in his army and everyone in this city."

"Impudent coward!" shouted a guard. She raised a sword above him. "Do you dare threaten our king?"

"I threaten no one," Oryn said, and he was surprised to find his chest rising and falling, his eyes stinging. He was losing control, damn it. He never lost control. "Miya, hear me. You're not safe here, not behind your two guards, not even with a thousand guards on the city walls, not with thousands of your father's warriors flying to face Nemoria over the forests. I've come to tell you that I'm leaving. I'm flying west to hide in the wilderness. Come with me. I'll keep you safe. You no longer need an army. You need a prince of shadows."

Tears flowed down Miya's cheeks, and the girl trembled, frightened like a baby bird fallen from the nest. "I … I can't. I can't abandon my people. I can't be like Fira who fled. I …" She lowered her head, sobbing. "I must stay, even if I die. Here is my post."

Damn fool, Oryn thought. He hated the pity that swelled in him. He was here to steal her jewels. Nothing more. To lure her into the forest so he could snatch her treasures and abandon her. Wasn't he? So why did such a sad, warm feeling fill his chest? He didn't really care about this pampered princess's life, did he?

And yet there it was. Warm and sickening. Compassion.

"Miya," he said softly, "you don't have to die here. There's nothing wrong with hiding from danger. It's what has always kept us thieves alive. Come with me. Live."

And now Oryn wasn't so sure he just wanted her jewels. Stars damn it, the girl was perhaps a fool, but she was a noble fool.

You're stronger than I thought, Princess Miya Aeternum.

"I don't want you to die," Oryn said, and he spoke truly. "There's still time to flee. We can't face the goddess and live."

Miya raised her chin and met his eyes. Her eyes were still damp, but no new tears flowed from them. She squared her shoulders.

"Fira faced her," Miya said. "Fira lived."

"Fira fled!" Oryn said, remembering the legends.

Princess Fira, the eldest princess of Requiem. The girl who had attacked the dark goddess eighteen years ago. Who had bitten off her arm. The only one to have hurt Nemoria.

But Fira had fled the palace years ago, they said. Had vanished into the wilderness, too hurt, too haunted to face the world. Fira was nothing but a coward.

Miya stepped off the dais and made to walk between her guards, to approach Oryn, but the two bellators held her back.

"Don't approach him, my princess," said one.

The other guard nodded. "He's a venomous snake who's likely to strike."

Miya stared between the guards and met Oryn's gaze. For the first time, she held his gaze steadily, perhaps seeking conceit. Her eyes were deep blue, tinged with gray, damp, frightened … yet strong. The strength of the sea, fluid and eternal.

She is the heiress of Aeternum, Oryn thought, a bloodline as ancient as King's Column and perhaps as strong. I do believe, Miya of Requiem, that you are braver than you know.

"Stand back," the princess said to her guards. "Let me through. I command you."

The bellators seemed ready to object, but at a stern look from their princess, the pair bowed their heads and stepped back. They kept their swords drawn.

Miya stood before Oryn, only a foot away. She gazed into his eyes, then seemed overwhelmed and glanced down at her toes, perhaps all her courage spent. Oryn had the feeling that these acts—meeting his gaze if only for a moment, issuing orders to her guards—were monumental achievements to her.

"Eighteen years ago," Miya whispered, "I was only a baby. I only remember shadows, pain, terror, a memory like a demon deep inside me. So many died. We have graves for them outside the city." She clutched her gown, her fingers digging into the green fabric, and a drift of snow flurried around her slippers. "Yet when everyone died, Fira lived. The wound she inflicted upon the goddess did not heal. The goddess fled that day, but Fira was never the same." Finally Miya raised her eyes and looked at Oryn again. "All my memories of Fira scare me. I remember her being so hurt. A broken youth. Screaming at night, tormented with nightmares. So angry during the days. Until, when I was only a child, Fira fled. But now she must return." Miya raised her arm, hesitated, then touched Oryn's shoulder. "If you truly care for Requiem, Prince of Shadows, you must find her. Find Fira in the wilderness and bring her home. I don't know why, and I don't know how, but only she can defeat the goddess."

Oryn looked at the princess's hand, which still rested on his shoulder. Her sapphire ring shone there. Her tiara gleamed on her golden head, those diamonds winking at him.

Take us, they whispered. Reach out and grab us! We're yours for the taking. Snatch us and fly!

Oryn's throat felt dry. He swallowed. That damn voice again.

"Oryn?" Miya pulled her hand back. "Are you feeling ill?"

He licked his dry lips. The emeralds shone around Miya's neck, calling out, desperate for his touch, more intoxicating than wine, than the allure of a beautiful woman. It would be so easy. He just had to reach out, grab them, then shift into a dragon and fly from here. He was a fast flyer.

We're the greatest treasure in Requiem! those jewels said. Take us. We want you. Why do you hesitate? Do it!

Oryn looked into his princess's eyes.

Reean died, Oryn thought. She died while I lived.

A realization filled Oryn then. The last survivor in a war, even with precious jewels, was better off dead. Perhaps that was how Fira felt.

"Fine," Oryn muttered. He clenched his fists and looked away. "I'll go find your damn sister. But it's a big forest. It'll take a while."

Fool, fool! said that voice inside him. Instead of wealth, you choose death.

I've cheated death enough times already, he answered that voice. Once more won't kill me.

"It's a big forest," Miya agreed. "For many years, my father and his men tried to find Fira, and they could not. But I know where she hides." Miya smiled tremulously. "I've never told anyone, not even my father. It's a secret place. A place she and I used to visit as children, the only place where Fira ever found peace. Find a great, twisting oak tree by a stream. It grows by a hillside shaped like an old man with a beard of ivy. Three leagues north of the escarpment. Find the hillside shaped like a face, find the oak, and you'll find Fira. Bring her back, Oryn." She hesitated, embraced him, then quickly stepped back, and her cheeks flushed. "Bring us hope."

Before Oryn could reply, the two jailers—dear old Ice Queen and Butterball—burst into the throne room, brandishing clubs.

"There he is!" cried Butterball, spraying saliva. "Club him!"

Both jailers raced forward, weapons swinging.

"Wait!" Miya cried, stepping between them and Oryn. "Stop. Lower your weapons."

"Step away from him, Princess." Ice Queen narrowed her eyes, hissing. "He's a dangerous criminal. We'll drag him back to the dungeons."

Miya glanced at Oryn, raised an eyebrow, then looked back at the jailers. "You mean you let him escape? You didn't let him go as he claims?"

The jailers stammered. Butterball licked his lips. "Let him escape? No, no. Of course not." He gulped. "Nobody ever escapes our prison. We, um … did let him go of course. Just to stretch his legs. His holiday is over now." The portly guard nodded. "Yes, that sounds reasonable."

Miya looked back at Oryn, amusement in her eyes. "You won't just escape into the wilderness and not return, will you, Oryn? Like you wanted to do with my jewels?"

Oryn's mouth dropped open, and he forced it shut. He let out a mirthless chuckle. "Is the Prince of Shadows that obvious?"

She sighed, pulled her necklace of emeralds off her neck, and handed it to him. "Here, Oryn, dreaded Prince of Shadows. The crown jewels you craved. I'm sure they'll look delightful around your neck, especially with a matching green gown." She winked. "Take these. Not by theft, but as payment for your services. Find Fira." Her eyes darkened. "That is your quest. Find the only person who's ever hurt Nemoria, the only one who can stop her again."

As Oryn flew, a black dragon in the night, he looked back toward Nova Vita. The city's domes, temples, and towers shone in the moonlight, white as bones. The memories would not leave him: the walls and towers of Altus Mare collapsing, the hydras rising from the sea, and the goddess and her children feasting upon Reean. Oryn rose higher on the wind, black wings spread wide.

"You better still be out there, Fira." He took a deep breath of the cold, snowy air. "And this time you better be ready to bite off Nemoria's head."

King's Column rose before him, a great pillar of starlight, rising toward the Draco constellation. Oryn rose higher until he flew above the column, a single dragon between marble and stars, between the holy relic of Requiem and the holy stars above. For thousands of years, both those lights had blessed Requiem, a light shining down and another light rising toward the sky.

This column won't fall, Oryn vowed. I was once a thief in shadows, but damn it, right now I'm a dragon in the light of Requiem.

He glanced at the emerald necklace he held in his claws—a third light, twinkling—and he thought of Miya's eyes.

"I won't let you die, Miya."

He let fire fill his belly, and his eyes stung. He raised his eyes to the stars.

I couldn't save Reean. Please, stars of Requiem, let me save Miya.

He looked over his shoulder, gazing back toward the east. On the horizon, a fire burned in the night. Whether it was the fire of hydras or dragons, he could not say.

Oryn banked and flew northwest, seeking hope in shadows.

BERINOR

The Royal Army of Requiem flew through the night, heading east, praying for dawn.

Berinor flew at their lead, green and silver, a king of dragons. As he glided on the wind, he kept glancing above, hoping to see the Draco constellation. The priests taught that the magic of dragons flowed from those stars. That Issari's Star—the eye of the celestial dragon—was woven from the soul of Issari herself, Requiem's first high priestess and a mother of the nation.

But dark clouds covered the sky tonight. Deep crimson. Foul. More like smoke than storm. The only light came from the dragonfire filling the jaws of his soldiers.

Five thousand dragons flew behind Berinor, ready for blood, for flame, for victory or death. Like him, they wore armor, even in dragon form. Helms crested their scaly heads, thrusting out spikes like extra horns, the steel sharpened and ready to tear into enemies. Breastplates covered their underbellies where no scales protected them. Five thousand of Requiem's finest. Some elder warriors, others mere youths, all trained and hardened for battle.

Their ancestors had fought in many wars, from the earliest battles against the demons, to the great struggle against the griffins, to the devastation of the phoenixes, to the war for freedom and the quest home from slavery. Every generation, an enemy had arisen to destroy Requiem. Every generation, the Vir Requis rose into the sky, ready to defend their realm. To bleed, even die for their motherland. For a dream. For a torch of starlight, a beacon they had been carrying for thousands of years.

"For Requiem," Berinor whispered. "Now is my hour. I am proud to carry this torch. To bear this eternal burden."

Always Requiem had been a nation of starlight and firelight. Always a nation of peace and of war.

He stared into the distance, and he saw the fire.

Tonight was a night of war.

As Berinor kept flying, leading the army, details emerged in the east. Thousands of figures flailed in the flames, covering the sky. Spurts of fire rose and died and rose again. A stench blew on the wind, a mixture of rotten meat, old blood, and worms after rain. Soon Berinor could hear the shrieks, the horrible sound of them, cackling, rising and cracking. The smoke thickened, and lightning flashed above the distant host, illuminating countless creatures, winged, large as dragons, each sprouting several necks.

The thief had spoken truth. Berinor's heart sank, and he sneered, letting fire fill his gullet. An army of hydras, and leading them …

Ahead of the hydras, she flew. Larger than them. Larger than any dragon of Requiem. A demonic dragon, clad in black scales, sporting three heads, one red as blood, one white as bones, one black as midnight. Shadows gathered around her, and her eyes shone. The land wilted below her, trees falling, grass dying, rivers boiling. There flew the goddess who had invaded Requiem nearly two decades ago. Who had slain Berinor's wife. Who had burned and nearly killed his daughter.

"Nemoria," Berinor whispered, the word stabbing him with memory, with pain.

Behind him, his five thousand dragons clattered, cried out, and blasted spurts of fire. Some growled with rage. Others wailed with fear. Requiem's history was bloody. But the Royal Army had fought no battle since Nemoria's last invasion. Many of these soldiers knew of war only from stories or vague childhood memories.

"The dark goddess rises!" cried a young soldier.

"What are those?" shouted another dragon. "What are those things with many necks?"

Berinor stared at the host ahead. A host to dwarf his own.

Death, he thought. They are death.

As his army flew, Berinor swerved in the sky to face his troops. They beat their wings, hovering before him. The firelight—from the flames in their own jaws and from the distant hydra fire—reflected in their armor and scales. A few of the younger dragons shook in the sky, scales clattering. Others stared with raised chins, eyes determined, claws at the ready.

Was Oryn right? Berinor thought, gazing at them. Should we flee? Should we disperse across the world, abandon our city, and hide in the wilderness?

As he stared at his warriors, dragon by dragon, memories of that night returned to him. The hundreds of dragons falling dead—unable to slay the goddess. And now this goddess led an army. Oryn had reported Altus Mare completely destroyed, all its people slaughtered, the hydras healing from every wound. And Berinor felt it inside him. What he saw in his warriors' eyes.

Fear.

"Hear me, Requiem!" he called. "An enemy flies toward us. An enemy determined to kill, to ravage, to destroy. An enemy unlike any we've ever faced. We will cast them back!"

"What chance do we have?" cried a young warrior, a silver dragon with black horns. "We must flee! They're too many."

Other dragons raised their voices in agreement.

"Yet we will face them nonetheless," Berinor said. "Behind us, in Nova Vita, live our mothers, our fathers, our children. When the griffins attacked this city thousands of years ago, the Royal Army faced them. When the phoenixes burned Nova Vita to the ground, we fought. When the wyverns, the nephilim, the firedrakes, the seraphim, and countless other enemies attacked our realm—we fought! Sometimes we lost battles. But we never surrendered. We fought and survived! We will fight now too, for the memory of those old heroes, for generations that will come after us. This is our fight! For our stars, for our homeland!"

A few dragons roared for battle. But some still called out in fear.

"But we can't wound them!" cried a scarred dragon, his one horn missing, a warrior old enough to remember the last battle. "I heard what the thief said. The beasts heal instantly!"

"Then we must not wound them!" Berinor replied. "We must kill them. Kill them instantly. Every hydra we see—let five dragons attack together, cutting five necks at once. Let our claws plunge through their chests, directly to the hearts. If we kill them fast as lightning, before they can heal—they will die. They will not rise again."

Berinor did not know if that was true. According to the legends, that was how ancient heroes slew hydras. But those legends came from distant lands beyond oceans and eras.

Again the temptation rose in Berinor to flee. To evacuate his realm. To scatter across the wilderness.

Yet what hope did they have then? All their halls would shatter. Their nation would vanish. The hydras would hunt them across the world, and their column would come crashing down. No. His ancestors had not fought for thousands of years for him, King Berinor, to cower and let this realm fall. The legendary Meliora had not freed the Vir Requis from captivity, and led them across desert and ocean to their homeland, for him to let the dream fade.

Be with me, stars of Requiem. He looked up, hoping to see them, but found only shadows. If you can hear me, if you can still gaze upon me, grant us strength. Grant us courage.

He looked back to the east. The hydras were close now, only several miles away.

Berinor beat his wings, tossed back his head, and raised a great pillar of flame.

"For Requiem!" he bellowed. "Requiem, onward! To blood! To light! To starlight!"

"To starlight!" the five thousand cried out, raising their flames.

With deafening roars, with a storm of scales, with an inferno of flame, the dragons of Requiem charged across the sky toward their enemies.

The hydras shrieked. The goddess laughed. With her flew a great serpent and a golden eagle, each the size of a dragon. The hydras rose in the sky, forming a great wall, and blasted forth their fire.

"Wall formation!" Berinor cried.

The dragons of Requiem rose, row above row, forming their own wall, shimmering with scales. They breathed their flames. Shrieking, spinning dragonfire stormed forth.

For every dragon, there flew several hydras. And every hydra blasted five flaming torrents from five jaws. The fury of Requiem was like a campfire next to a blazing, expanding sun. The fiery pillars filled the darkness with blinding light, searing heat, and deafening roars, then slammed together in an inferno like a shattering world.

Flames washed across Berinor. He roared, dipped in the sky, and rose higher, eyes narrowed to slits. Around him, dragons screamed, lost their magic, and fell as humans. Armor melted in the inferno. Helmets dripped molten steel over scaly heads, then over human skulls, and more warriors of Requiem tumbled toward the earth, bodies aflame.

"Fight them!" Berinor roared. "Dragons, slay them, hold them back!"

With showering blood, with raining scales, with screams of death and shattering metal, the hosts slammed together.

The hydras barreled through the lines of dragons, slamming into soldiers, ripping off wings, tearing out throats. Their flames spewed out in all directions, forming rings of fire. Their claws lashed, descaling dragons. More Vir Requis fell. Shimmering scales hailed toward the forests like spilled coins.

"Fight them!" Berinor howled. "Flights of five! Fight!"

They had trained for war, but always in the classic flights of three, never formations of five. They would have to adapt now. Or die.

The dragons joined into units of five and stormed forward. Each flight became like a hydra—five heads blowing fire together, jaws biting together. Ready to slay their enemies. Five dragons for five hydra heads. They roared to battle.

Near Berinor, a flight managed to destroy three heads on a hydra. But the beast kept fighting, biting and blowing flames, slaying dragons. The flight shattered. The hydra sprouted new heads and fought on. At Berinor's other side, five dragons dived toward another hydra, raining fire, slashing through its thick hide, only for the wounds to close at once.

"Cut off five heads at once!" Berinor cried. "Faster! With me, with me! Red flight, with me!"

Below him flew five dragons, their scales red. The army organized its units by scale color, making orientation easier in battle. The red dragons rose toward Berinor, swerving between jets of hydra fire. The battle raged all around them, and bloody mist filled the night. Berinor charged forth, the red flight with him. A hydra charged toward them.

"Flight, attack, sever all heads!" Berinor cried.

As the battle roiled around them, Berinor and his flight of dragons stormed toward the hydra, blew fire, and tore into the beast.

Berinor flew through splashing fire, scales charred, and closed his jaws around the hydra's central neck. He bit deep. Hot liquid filled his throat, tasting like bile, like vomit, like charcoal and oozing illness. He struggled against the instinct to spit, to pull back. He kept digging, gnawing, shaking his head madly, and finally tugged out a great chunk of neck. With a slash of his claws, he completed the task, severing the head.

The hydra's head tumbled down, slammed against dragons below, and vanished into smoke and flame. The headless neck writhed, spurting blood. Across the hydra, Berinor's flight of dragons were tearing off the other heads, sending them down to the scorched earth.

Yet one head remained.

It was enough. The hydra was still alive. On the four neck stumps, boils began to grow, already showing the features of new heads. The hydra reared, claws lashing at Berinor, desperate to protect its last head.

"Cut off that head!" Berinor cried, struggling to make it past the hydra's slashing claws.

Two dragons lashed at the remaining head, but the hydra blasted fire, knocking one dragon back. Its tail flailed, hitting the second dragon, ripping the magic from him. A soldier fell in human form, armor cracked.

Berinor charged through the claws, ignoring the pain. He landed on the hydra's back, grabbed the last head, tore it free, and sent it tumbling.

Yet the hydra did not fall.

Its remaining four necks had completed regrowing new heads. The beast cried and blasted flames his way.

Berinor cursed and soared, the inferno blazing against the armor on his underbelly. The steel heated, burning him, nearly wrenching the magic from him.

"Again!" he cried. "Tear off all five heads! Dragons, with me!"

The dragons charged. Others joined them. A few perished in the flames, falling as men and women. Berinor grabbed another head, ripped it free, and blasted the stump with dragonfire. The other dragons savaged the other necks, ripping through tendons and spines, then cauterized the stumps.

Finally—headless—the hydra fell.

It tumbled toward the ground.

Berinor watched, hovering above, until the beast hit a rocky hill and splattered, spilling its innards across the land.

"They can be killed!" Berinor cried. "Requiem, they can be slain! Fight them! Kill them! Tear off all five heads—and cauterize the stumps with dragonfire!"

Yet when he looked around, even in the heat of battle, iciness washed over Berinor.

He had flown here with five thousand dragons.

Barely a thousand remained.

The hydras were charging through the host, some missing a head or two, others down to one, healing within instants. Their fire washed across the dragons, melting armor, cracking scales. Everywhere, dragons lost their magic in the inferno. Men and women fell, screaming, only for the hydra claws to rip them open. Berinor saw one flight of dragons manage to rip off all five hydra heads, and the beast fell dead, but it was only one among thousands.

We cannot win this, Berinor realized, hovering in the sky, the wind shrieking through a hole in his wing. We should have fled. I should have listened to Oryn.

Great cries tore across the sky. Berinor raised his eyes and could barely breathe.

Charging through the battle flew two terrors, larger even than hydras, two creatures of wrath, fury, and retribution.

The first was a colossal serpent with black-and-golden scales. It spewed venom that melted dragon wings and burned through armor. The snake whipped across the sky, wrapping around dragons, snapping their spines, shattering their magic, then feasting upon the humans that remained. Dragonfire, claws, and fangs kept wounding the serpent, but it healed at once.

Across the battle flew another great beast, a metallic eagle, all in gold and bronze and shimmering black. As it beat its wings, thunder boomed and lightning shot across the sky, slamming into dragons. The gargantuan bird circled the sky, crying out in horrible wrath, and the corpses of Vir Requis shattered within its beak.

As Berinor flew, both serpent and eagle saw him, turned toward him. Their eyes pierced him, those golden gazes like beams.

"Hello, Father!" cried the serpent.

"We've come home to you, Father!" shrieked the eagle.

Father?

Berinor stared, and his scales clattered.

Could it be? Stars above, no. Please, no.

That night returned to him. The temptress entering his chamber, disguised as his wife, kissing him hungrily, loving him like fire. Had that night created these creatures?

Are they my children?

"Father, Father!" they cried, a serpent and eagle, stained with the blood of dragons. "You will scream for us!"

A cackle rose from high above, and Berinor raised his head and saw her there. A great, dark dragon, wings spread across the sky, overseeing the battle. She was the might and wrath of a storm, enveloping them. The goddess. The great dragon with three heads. Mother to these creatures, perhaps mother to this entire swarm.

Under her shadows, the dragons fell. Dead. Burnt, cut open. The Royal Army—destroyed in the inferno. Hundreds falling. Thousands.

Again Berinor castigated himself. The thief was right. We should have run.

Berinor reared in the sky and raised a pillar of fire.

"Dragons of Requiem!" he cried. "With me! Rally here! We fly back to the city! Fly west, with me! Fly!"

The last survivors banded together, scales chipped, wings torn, their flames down to sparks. They flew together. They died together.

They flew through darkness, through fire, through raining blood. They flew back to their homes—to their mothers, fathers, children, a people awaiting death. All around them flew the hydras, tearing dragons apart, burning, casting down corpses. Soon the dragons did not even fight back, merely fled. Merely died. Their bodies littered the land, a path stretching home.

Dawn rose behind them. A dawn of death, a dawn of desolation, of despair, soon vanishing under the wings of the goddess. Darkness once more covered the land. And still the dragons fell, down to mere hundreds. Then dozens.

The Royal Army. An ancient, venerable military. The great defender of the realm. It shattered with screams, with tears, with boys calling for their mothers, elders weeping, and the tears of Requiem fell upon a bloodied earth.

In the distance ahead, Berinor saw it, rising from shadow. King's Column, a luminous pillar of moonlight. The city of Nova Vita, the ancient heart of Requiem, spread around it. A city Berinor had to evacuate. A city that would fall tonight.

Will this pillar fall too? Will the last dragons perish?

Berinor flew home, and behind him chased a host of nightmares and the shadows of gods.

ORYN

He flew over the wilderness, a midnight dragon, seeking hope in the dawn.

When Oryn looked over his shoulder, he could no longer see Nova Vita. He wondered if the city still stood. Dawn rose around him. He had been flying for hours, crossing many miles, heading north. For all he knew, by now Nemoria might have reached the capital, destroyed it like Altus Mare.

Wait for me, Miya, Oryn thought, holding her jewels in his claws. Don't die yet.

The image flashed through him again—Reean attacking the gods, letting him flee, then screaming, torn apart, devoured.

Oryn grimaced, the pain rising through his throat.

I should just keep flying. Fly for days, for months, fly to the edge of the world.

He had faced death countless times, had hung from a noose only days ago. But he had never felt this: pure terror, filling him like poison. It was not merely his death that sprawled across the land.

This was the end of the world.

"Only you can save our asses, Fira," Oryn said to the wind. "Only you've been able to hurt the goddess."

He scanned the wilderness, seeking the place. Miya had given him no map, only vague instructions. To find the escarpment, and beyond it a hillside shaped like a bearded old man. Oryn could navigate effortlessly through the labyrinth of Altus Mare's alleyways and tunnels, but to him the wilderness all looked the same. Just endless trees, a monotonous carpet of birches, white with snow.

Just fly into the distance, said the old voice inside him. You have the crown jewels! Now flee for your life! Retire as the most legendary thief in the world.

Oryn grumbled.

"What use is infamy when all those who adore me are dying?" he answered. "Am I to be legendary among squirrels and beetles?"

At least you'll live, the voice countered.

"And everyone else will die."

So what? said the voice. Let them die. You've never cared about anyone else, and nobody has ever cared about you. So to the abyss with them.

"That's not true." Oryn's eyes stung. He hated when that happened. "Reean cared for me. She died to let me escape."

So keep escaping! Give her death meaning.

"And then let Miya die too?"

He thought back to the princess of Requiem. She could have ordered her guards to slay him. Yet she had given him her jewels, had given him his life, had sent him on a quest for hope. Berinor, meanwhile, had flown off on a suicide mission. The old king was not coming home. Oryn was sure of that.

"Only I can still save Requiem," Oryn said. "And still save Miya. Well … only Fira can, if you want to get technical. But I'm the one looking for her! And that's what counts."

When the voice protested inside him again, Oryn let out a roar, silencing it. That voice had led him to the noose. He would listen to it no more.

He flew onward, seeking the escarpment. He had never seen the place, but every boy in Requiem had grown up hearing the tales. Oryn didn't have fond memories of childhood. His mother, a prostitute, had abandoned him as a boy. His father had been a petty thief, dying in a scuffle with the White Vipers thieves' guild. But even young Oryn, raised by thieves and assassins, had grown up hearing the lore of Old Requiem.

He still remembered the songs, the stories. In those tales, there was always King's Column. And there was always the escarpment.

The ancient songs, books, and stories of Requiem taught that thousands of years ago, the very first Vir Requis lived wild in the forest, blessed with dragon magic. The demons of the abyss had hunted them, jealous of their power. The wicked King Raem, lord of the underworld, had led a demon army across forests and mountains, seeking to snuff out the magic of starlight. It was at the escarpment, a great cliff that rose from the land, that the Vir Requis had made their stand. Had won their freedom.

There the ancients had first forged a nation, calling their homeland Requiem—named after the slain daughter of Aeternum, the founder of the kingdom. At the escarpment, Requiem was born.

And it was here, thousands of years later, that Oryn came to seek hope, a last flicker of dragonfire to rekindle the dying light.

Finally, his wings aching, his breath heavy, Oryn saw it ahead. A cliff snaked across the wilderness, plunging down toward a frozen river. Beyond the cliff sprawled elevated plains. It was like a great stair upon the world. In the cliff's center, a frozen waterfall rose like a column, a twin to King's Column in the south.

Three leagues north of the escarpment, Miya had said. Find the hillside shaped like a face, find the oak, and you'll find Fira.

Oryn remembered her words. He also remembered the touch of her hand on his shoulder. Her brief, trembling embrace. Her blue eyes gazing into his. In human form, Oryn was all stubble, scars and tattoos, rakish hair and smirks. He looked like a stray black cat. A child of alleyways, of hunger, a thug of the shadows. But Miya … Miya was the opposite. A fairy of pale skin, soft blond hair, the bluest eyes. A fragile princess, so timid, so afraid in the face of death. Oryn was used to wild women, free and unafraid, women who could fight with tooth and nail and broken bottles. Miya was softer, and Oryn was filled with a need to return to her, to save her.

He snorted.

Fool, said the voice inside him. You're a lowlife who steals treasures, not a prince who could steal her heart. This isn't a fairy tale, and you're not a hero. This is genocide.

Oryn shook his head, scales clattering, as he flew past the escarpment.

"This is war," he said. "And right about now, every living dragon in Requiem is a hero."

As he flew, he scanned the land for hills shaped like bearded old men. Miya had said the hill had a beard of ivy, but it was winter now. Surely any ivy would be dead. Damn it! How would Oryn find the place now? Many hills rolled below. None of them looked very much like a face, but perhaps Miya's imagination was wilder than his.

He kept flying, searching. One hill, he thought, looked a little like a bearded dog or goat. But when he flew closer it seemed formless, topped with ice and snow, hiding no heroines. Soon he saw no hills at all, just the frozen forest. Just the vast, empty wilderness.

Turn and fly west, said the voice. Leave Requiem and find the nations beyond. Find a new life.

He shook his head. "I need to find a hill shaped like a face."

There's no such place. Miya just wanted to get rid of you.

He blasted fire. "Shut your mouth."

He sighed. He must be going insane. All his life the voice had tempted him, a little devil inside him, the wicked part of his personality. But now it seemed almost like a real, living presence. He wondered if he was finally, utterly mad. If he had envisioned the goddess, the hydras, the whole damn war. Perhaps he was still hanging from the noose, and this was the afterlife, a madness of monsters, of being lost in the wilderness.

When he finally saw the massive, stony face rising ahead from the forest, he was certain he was going insane.

"A face." He blinked. "A damned face of stone."

The hill rose ahead, taller than any Oryn had seen over the past few miles. One half of the hill seemed to have fallen. It now lay as broken boulders across the forest. A jagged cliff remained, vaguely shaped like a face, the eyes cracks in stone, the nose jutting, the mouth a frowning slit. No ivy grew here, but ice draped across the stony cheeks and chin, forming a white beard, and snow flowed like hair.

Ugly bastard, Oryn thought.

He glided lower in the sky. Snow began to fall, swirling around his wings.

"Fira!" he called, voice rolling across the forest. "Fira Aeternum! Your sister sent me. Are you here, Fira?"

No answer came. A deer fled between the trees. Snow slid off the hilltop. Oryn flew lower. He skimmed the treetops, scattering chips of ice off the branches, seeking her.

Nothing.

"Stars damn it."

Had Miya truly sent him on a wild-goose chase? He saw no camp, no cave, no hut. No Fira. No heroine to save Requiem.

He flew toward a clearing between the trees, landed on the frozen earth, and shifted back into a man. Old Ugly rose before him in all his frozen splendor, the limestone face glowering. Birches and oaks grew by the cliff, coated with ice. Miya had said to seek a tall oak, but there were hundreds of tall oaks here, each as miserable-looking as the last.

Oryn shivered. It was too damn cold here in the heartland of Requiem, far from the warm sea breezes of Altus Mare in the east. He wore only his old, tattered clothes of wool and leather, and his teeth chattered. His belly rumbled. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten.

He stuck his hands under his armpits, stamped his feet, and spat. Maybe the voice had been right. Maybe he should just flee, explore whatever lands awaited west of Requiem, and find a new home. With the princess's jewels, he'd have enough money to get started, to find a new life as a thief.

He sighed. "Where are you, Fira?"

But before abandoning hope, he needed to eat. He remembered seeing a deer from above. The animal would give him the energy he needed for another long flight.

He walked between the trees, keeping to human form, trying to ignore Old Ugly up there. The stony eyes seemed to follow him. The craggy face glowered at his every move. Oryn gave it the finger.

Tracks in the snow caught his eye—small tracks, perhaps those of a squirrel or rabbit. The little critter would satisfy some of Oryn's hunger until he caught a larger prize. He followed the trail, trudging through the snow until movement drew his attention.

A rabbit lay ahead on the snow, twitching, trying to rise, falling again. The animal was wounded, its one leg twisted.

"Poor little bugger," Oryn said. "Lost your way from the burrow? I'll give you a new home." He patted his belly and approached.

He knelt by the rabbit. The poor thing tried to flee, but with its twisted leg, it couldn't move very far. Oryn knelt and frowned.

That leg wasn't twisted.

He dusted aside the snow, revealing a string holding the rabbit to a root.

Oryn leaped up and began to shift into a dragon.

Before he could grow two scales, the trap sprang.

The net fell onto him, tightening and squeezing his limbs. Rocks were woven through the net, secured with tight knots. The stones buffeted him, knocking his magic away.

Unable to become a dragon, Oryn cursed and thrashed, only entangling himself further. The net spun, and his curses rang through the forest. He tried to shift again, to tear the ropes, but the trap was too tight. He could no more shift here than when hanging from the noose.

"Goddamn it, somehow I always end up strung up," he muttered.

He tried to reach his arm, to draw the lockpicking tools from his under his tattoo. Perhaps he could saw through the ropes. But his arm was pinned behind his back. He was groaning, twisting, and trying to pull it free when he noticed a figure walking through the forest below.

It was a tall figure, cloaked and hooded in gray, its face invisible. A gloved hand peeked from one sleeve, holding an ugly wooden club.

Oryn froze. He winced. "Um … I found your net."

The cloaked figure leaped toward him. The club swung, light exploded, and stars shone, and Oryn plunged into a bottomless pit.

DURIAN

Durian stood on the wall of Nova Vita, axe in hand, and beheld the hosts of evil flying toward the city.

Stars damn it, he needed a drink.

Ahead of him, thousands of hydras were swarming across the landscape, chasing a handful of dragons—the remainder of the Royal Army—back toward the city.

The Royal Army is gone, Durian thought, staring in disbelief. Only the City Guard remains to defend Requiem.

Three deities flew high above the army of hydras. A great golden eagle, its wings booming with thunder and casting out lightning. A serpent the size of a dragon, coiling and flying with no wings, spitting venom. And the dark goddess herself, a massive dragon with three heads, wings covering the sky.

There she is, Durian thought. The creature that killed my son.

All across the wall, Durian's warriors—men and women of the City Guard—pointed, cried out in horror, and prayed to the stars.

But Durian was silent. He kept struggling not to drop his axe and shield, draw his flask, and drink the fear away. Even as true demons flew toward him, that demon still clawed inside him.

"Durian, get everyone into the tunnels! Durian!"

It was Berinor calling. His king. The green-and-silver dragon was flying across the land, leading his ragged band of surviving dragons. Every moment, another dragon fell—burned in hydra fire, slain by lighting, poisoned by venom. The host of the goddess covered the sky, hiding the dawn.

"Durian!" cried the king. "Everyone—into the tunnels! Get them down!"

Draw me, whispered his flask. Drink me. Drink until the fear goes away.

Durian's arms shook. His fellow guards cried out, pointing, some fleeing, others rising as dragons. Chaos reigned across the ranks.

This isn't real, said his flask. This is just a nightmare. Just a dream of sobriety. Drink me. Drink! I'll bring you back control.

Hammers. Hammers pounded in Durian's skull. Shaking, he dropped his shield and reached for his flask.

"Durian!" cried the king ahead. Burnt. Bleeding.

And above Nemoria laughed. The goddess gazed from the sky with three heads. Staring right into Durian. Peeling him open. Seeing the pain inside him. The pain of childhood, ridiculed for his short, portly frame. The pain of his loss, the devastating death of his son, a boy Nemoria had slain with her own claws. And, finally, the pain of his eternal demon, the terror of sobriety, of a world that always seemed so gray, so bleak without his flask.

He could not help it.

He drank.

The booze filled his mouth, and the hammers receded, but the dragons still died ahead. And all around him his guards on the wall still cried out in fear.

Durian sealed his flask, shame and humiliation burning through him. He leaped from the wall and shifted into a dragon. He rose as a bronze, burly beast, not long but wide and muscular, blowing fire.

"You heard the king, you useless lumps of scales!" Durian howled. "Rise, City Guard! Rise, dragons! Draco Battalion, fly across the city, herd everyone into the tunnels." He swerved above the battalion, two hundred dragons with claws painted onto their helms. "And I mean everyone—every last mother and babe—underground." He rose higher, flying above the walls and towers of Nova Vita. "Issari Battalion! Gloriae Battalion! Relesar Battalion! You sons of bitches fly with me. We're going to hurt those bastard hydras and give Draco some time. Arise, arise! For guts and glory!"

This felt good. This lifted the fog. This gave him strength, gave him courage, fueled his dragonfire.

Behind him, Draco Battalion flew over the city, sounding their cry, shepherding the people of Nova Vita into the tunnels beneath the city. Flying with hundreds of guardians, Durian looked toward the countryside. The goddess and her host were crossing the last few leagues toward the walls.

"All right, you bastards." Durian grinned and spat. "You might have routed the army. But you haven't yet faced my group of filthy guards."

With a roar, he charged, blasting fire. His warriors howled and flew with him.

Outside the city walls, the hosts slammed together—a few hundred dragons against the wrath of the gods.

The damn buggers were everywhere. Thousands of the hydras. Tens of thousands. So many they covered the sky, covered the world. Their flames blasted, slamming into dragons, washing across the city walls, and above them their goddess cackled.

The last survivors of the Royal Army joined the City Guard. King Berinor came to fly by Durian.

"My lord!" Durian called to him.

He had never seen the king look more ragged. Half his scales were cracked, some completely missing. His armor was dented, and a deep gash ran across his side.

"We managed to kill a few of them, but only a few," Berinor said. "You have to cut off all five heads at once!"

Durian looked around at the countless hydras. With only a few hundred dragon warriors, victory didn't seem likely. But he snorted. "Easier than plucking weeds. Come on, Berinor, you old bastard. You got the Guard with ya now. Let's show these beasts the wrath of Requiem."

Leading hundreds of warriors, the old friends rose. Durian and Berinor. Guard and king. Brothers-in-arms. Their fire streamed together against the darkness.

The last defenders of Requiem spread out, forming a wall of scales and claws, a dome of dragonfire above the city. Below, Requiem's civilians shouted, ran, fled. Most were busy scurrying into the tunnels that coiled beneath Requiem. Many others—humble tradesmen, citizens of the city—rose as dragons too, wearing no armor, untrained, yet flying and blowing fire against the hydras. The makeshift army roared and flew in disarray, fighting to give the people below more time. Thousands of dragons rose. Thousands forming a flaming shield over their home, holding back the hydras. And falling. Dying. Hailing as corpses onto the walls and roofs of Nova Vita.

Durian had fought the goddess before, back when he'd been a younger dragon, hotter fire in his belly. Back before the booze had claimed him. Before loss had broken him. Durian had blown his fire against the goddess then, had cut her flesh, but had failed to kill her. Had let down his king and column. And his son.

Durian raised his gaze and saw her above. Nemoria, her wings like storm clouds, covering the sky.

"You stole my son from me." He sneered. "You stole my sobriety. I will not let you steal my kingdom. It's payback time, you bitch."

He bellowed as he charged between the hydras. His claws flew in a fury, slicing necks open, ripping gashes into clammy flesh. His flames roared, burning the beasts. With his king and several guards, he tore the heads off a hydra, all five within seconds, sending the beast tumbling down dead. Durian roared with rage, with pain—for a night years ago, for two decades of battling his demons, a never-ending war.

It ends now.

As around him the dragons fell, as more dragons rose, as more civilians fled underground, Durian soared. Toward her. Toward the goddess.

"Nemoria!" he bellowed. "Nemoria, do you remember me? I bit out your neck last time. I come to slay you now!" Durian turned toward his king and flashed a smile. "Fly with, my king, my friend. Fly and we slay the bitch."

They rose together, a guard and his king, and their soldiers rose with them. Charging through the hydra fire. Smashing their way between the beasts. More dragons dying. The last defenders, raining down, shattering against the roofs. And still Durian soared, grinning, blasting flames, bleeding from countless cuts, burnt yet still rising.

I died years ago. You cannot kill me now.

As he soared toward the goddess, two of her minions swooped. A great eagle, shimmering and metallic, thunder and lightning blasting from its wings. A slithering serpent, large as a dragon, its forked tongue dripping venom, its scales black and gold, its eyes boring through him.

A bolt of lightning slammed into Durian, and he cried out in rage.

His magic left him.

He tumbled through the sky, a squat man in heavy armor, bald and bearded and still, even as he fell, desperate to reach his flask, to drink away the fear.

Above him the goddess laughed.

"Durian!" cried King Berinor.

Yet Durian could not grasp his magic, could no longer fly toward his king. Again he had failed. Had failed his friend. Had failed his nation. The eyes of his slain son still gazed at him, the boy's smile still bright.

Tears streamed from Durian's eyes.

I'll join you soon, son.

The serpent swooped toward him, spewing her venom. As he fell, Durian raised his shield, holding back the spray. Before he could hit the ground, the massive python wrapped around him, halting his fall. The creature squeezed, constricting him, bending his armor. The ground had almost killed him; this beast wanted the job.

I'm almost there, son.

The snake tightened. Durian's joints cracked. Already his mind fogged and starlight shone—the light of afterlife.

Father. No. Fight them.

A figure of light shone above. A boy who loved him.

Fight, Father. You are a guardian of Requiem. Fight!

His son. Tears streamed down Durian's cheeks. His son was watching over him.

Durian roared. Wrapped inside the snake, he could not shift into a dragon. But even as a human, Durian was strong. The strongest man in the City Guard—short and old as he was. The only man able to lift his massive war hammer.

Bellowing in the grip of the snake, Durian shoved against the scaly trap. His joints screamed in protest. His muscles bulged. He roared, shoving the snake, loosening its grip. He pulled his way free from the vise, leaped into the air, and became a dragon again.

His flames roared down against the beastly serpent.

The creature changed.

It shrank, becoming a young woman—a beautiful young woman in black armor, her hair golden, her eyes full of shock, of pain.

Durian hesitated for just an instant, then bathed her with dragonfire.

She burned. She tumbled down. She hit the ground below as charred bones.

For an instant, Durian celebrated his victory. But so fast he could barely register it, the ashes and bones rose into the air, swirled, and formed the shape of a woman. She stood before him, healed, once more in black armor. The foul creature gave Durian a crooked smile, then shifted back into a giant serpent.

Bloody stars, Durian thought.

The great snake hissed, spewed venom, and raced over the city walls. She slithered along the streets, snatching people, swallowing them whole, and always her eyes stared up at Durian, baleful.

It's her daughter, Durian realized. Nemoria's daughter. Another evil goddess.

A hydra flew toward him. Durian whipped his tail, knocking one head aside. A few other dragons torched the creature. With a shriek, it fell, rose again, and turned to attack civilians racing down the city streets. Fire bathed the fleeing families.

Thousands of hydras were now swooping into the city, shattering towers, sending walls tumbling down, slaying Vir Requis be they in human or dragon form. The golden eagle was attacking a temple, snapping its columns. The building collapsed with a shower of dust. Above the city, she lurked like a dark sun—Nemoria, overseeing the destruction.

"Durian!" Berinor cried. "We must get the last people underground. With me, into the tunnels!"

Durian grunted. So his son would have to wait for a few more moments. He nodded, swooped toward a city street, and landed by a group of fleeing children—the younger ones too young to summon magic and become dragons. Durian released his own magic, shrinking from bronze dragon into squat man.

He raised his shield above the children as a hydra rained down fire. The young ones screamed and ran, and Durian ran with them, shield held overhead. The hydra landed before them, shrieking, and Durian roared, swung his hammer, and shattered the beast's leg. He ran around the wounded monster, herding the children as the city collapsed.

Finally Durian reached an archway. It led underground to a second city, a labyrinth of tunnels that crawled under Requiem. He shepherded the children down the staircase, sending them to safety, then paused. He turned back toward the city.

The world was burning, a nation was falling, and Durian grabbed his flask with shaking hands. He drank as all the horrors of the world danced above.

ORYN

When he came to, he found himself lying in a cave, once more bound with ropes.

Damn ropes, Oryn thought. Will the world ever stop tying me up?

He looked around, eyes narrowed to slits. This was no mere cave. It was somebody's home. Fur pelts hung on the rough stone walls and covered the concave floor. Clay bowls and dented cutlery topped a table constructed from branches and rope. An alcove in the wall served as a fireplace. A fire was crackling, its smoke rising toward a hole in the cave's ceiling.

It was a humble home. Oryn would have gone mad living here. He had lived a lavish lifestyle in Altus Mare. He missed his old home—the catacombs he had commandeered beneath the city, grand halls filled with his glittering treasures. That had been a home worthy of an emperor. This cave was the home of a brute, a place of squalor.

Squalor—aside from one item.

A sword hung on the cave wall, one of the finest weapons Oryn had ever seen. His breath caught. His mouth watered.

The sword was beautiful, a work of art that only a master thief could appreciate. Its hilt was shaped as a dragon, each scale a gemstone, its black wings spread to form the crossguard. The dragon's head served as a pommel, biting an emerald the size of a peach. The blade itself was the most beautiful part—forged in dragonfire, displaying wavy patterns from many layers of folded steel. Golden runes shone along its groove.

The weapon came from ancient Requiem, predating the centuries of slavery. The Vir Requis had rebuilt their kingdom a century ago, mimicking the ancient days. The slaves had built new halls, forged new weapons, wove new fine clothing, recreating their land of myth. But almost no artifacts today remained from Old Requiem.

This was one of them. Oryn had spent his life dealing with treasures. The blade? Possibly reforged. Steel that was centuries old, buried under ruins, would likely have decayed by now. But the hilt, the crossguards, the jewels? Those were original pieces from the ancient days. Oryn was sure of it.

Or at least it was the best damn forgery he had ever seen. Good enough to pass off as real.

It would fetch a fortune.

Oryn licked his lips.

Oh mommy.

He no longer had Miya's necklace of emeralds. His captor must have stolen it. But all thoughts of those jewels faded at the sight of that sword. An ancient sword. The sword of royalty.

That was worth ten times more than the crown jewels. Ten times more? Hell, an original sword from ancient Requiem was priceless.

Footsteps thumped outside. With almost physical pain, Oryn tore his gaze away from the sword. A rug pulled back from one wall, revealing the mouth of the cave. Snow gusted inside. The figure from earlier—tall, cloaked and hooded in gray—entered the cave.

Oryn closed his eyes, leaving just the thinnest of slits. He lay still on the floor, feigning unconsciousness.

The cloaked figure carried a bundle of firewood and a fresh leg of deer—perhaps the deer Oryn had been hunting. The hood cast deep shadows. Oryn could make out only a strand of brown hair, and …

He gasped.

Scars. Scars from fire.

The devastation crawled along the jawline, vanishing into shadow. It was hard to tell with so many scars. But Oryn thought it was a woman's jaw.

The woman stepped closer to the fire. She rearranged the embers, then placed the meat onto an iron grill. When the venison was crackling, the cloaked woman stood still, shoulders squared, head lowered, staring into the flames. Her back was turned to Oryn, and her fists clenched. One of the hands was mangled with scars.

Finally the woman spoke, voice low and tense.

"I know that my sister sent you." Still she did not turn toward him. "You carried her necklace. You bear the tattoos of Crimson Steel, the thieves' guild of the east, but you did not steal her jewels. No. This is my sister's favorite necklace, which she almost never removes. It was a gift I gave her. You'd never be able to steal it. She gave the necklace to you, along with directions to this place." Finally the woman turned her head, just slightly, revealing strands of her brown hair. "I haven't decided yet if I should kill you or question you." A dagger slipped from her sleeve into her hand. "I think I'll do both."

Oryn cleared his throat, still lying bound on the floor. "And it's a pleasure to meet you too, Fira Aeternum. Should I call you my princess or your royal majesty?" He looked around. "Or maybe just cavewoman?"

She spun away from the fire. She leaped toward him, drove her knee into his belly, and placed her dagger against his throat. Oryn grimaced.

"You will call me nothing." Her eyes blazed. She sneered, her face mere inches from his. "Or I will carve out your throat."

Her hood had fallen back, finally revealing her face. Oryn had seen hard faces before—the faces of thieves, two-copper whores, thugs, and enforcers. But Fira's face made them seem soft. Her teeth were bared, her canines long. There was something draconic about her jaw, even in her human form.

Burns ran up her neck, along her left cheek, and claimed one ear. Gifts from Nemoria's fire. Her long brown hair hid most of the scars, but those scars extended beyond the flesh. There were scars inside her—inside those blazing brown eyes. The kind of scars Oryn perhaps carried now too.

She has seen death, Oryn thought. Like I have. Those ghosts still dance in her eyes.

"So, cavewoman," he said. "No chance of getting my jewels back then, is there?"

She drove her knee deeper into his belly. He grunted, struggling for breath. Her blade was cold against his neck.

"I told my sister I was never going back." Fira narrowed her eyes. "Does Miya think a miserable, stinking thief can change my mind?"

Oryn sniffed himself. "I don't stink! And no, she doesn't think this thief can change your mind. After all, you have a lovely little home here, far better than a measly palace. Miya was hoping, though, that a dark goddess leading a host of hydras would, just maybe, convince the greatest heroine of Requiem to return to fight for her homeland. What with this heroine being the only one who can hurt our nemesis, that is. Tiny detail—but it did seem important to Miya and about a million other people in Requiem."

And there they were—the ghosts in her brown eyes.

Fira blanched. Her chest rose and fell with quick breaths. In her eyes danced the shadows—the battle from eighteen years ago, when she'd been just a child, when the goddess had devoured her mother.

"She gave you those scars," Oryn said softly. "And now she's back, Fira. Now Nemoria is—"

Fira roared. Her fist swung and slammed into his jaw.

Stars exploded and blackness fell across Oryn again.

Through the fog, he struggled to hang on to consciousness. Vaguely he was aware of hands—strong hands, wiry, the fingers digging—tugging him to his feet. A boot drove into his side. He banged his knees against stone, and those hands grabbed his hair, yanked him up, and shoved him. Another kick sent Oryn sprawling.

His face hit the snow. He slid for several feet and hit an oak trunk. He coughed, tasting blood. Red droplets speckled the snow. He blinked, struggling to bring the world into focus.

Fira stood above him, the wind billowing her cloak. The cave's mouth loomed behind her. She spat and stared down at him.

"I'll spare your life, thief. My gift to you. I suggest you treasure that measly gift. Leave now. Your arms are still bound. You won't be able to fly. Get to walking, and go die on your own terms. If you come back again, I won't be this generous."

She gave him a swift kick to the ribs, then turned and reentered her cave.

Oryn lay in the snow, groaning.

Stars damn it.

He was tired of this. No matter where he went these past few days, somebody was tying him up, stringing him up, shoving him into dungeons, shoving him out of caves, and kicking and punching the living daylights out of him. If it wasn't some insane goddess from another world, it was a fellow Vir Requis. Oryn groaned and rose to his knees, breathing raggedly, blood in his mouth.

He'd had enough. By the stars above and the demons below, he'd had enough. First they had hung him from a noose. Then that damn Nemoria destroyed his entire city, slaying everyone he knew. Then the damn king had tossed him into a dungeon. Finally this—the final humiliation.

Oryn spat and turned to leave.

"I'm out of here." He snorted. "Go rot in your cave, Fira. Go rot in some killing field, Berinor. Go rot in your palace, Miya, and—"

He bit down on his words. He stood still in the snow, and a sigh ran through him.

A breeze blew, and the birches rustled around him. Snow glided, spreading like a field of stars under the blue sky, and he thought of Miya's blue eyes, of her hand on his shoulder, of her embrace. And he imagined her dead, ribs sticking out, limbs torn off—like Reean had died, devoured by cruel gods.

Oryn tightened his lips. "Oh, dragon balls."

He trudged back toward the stony hill shaped like an old man. He stomped into the cave. Fira stood there, sword drawn, flames in her eyes.

"I was waiting for you." A crooked smile touched her lips. "I figured you'd come back to die at my blade."

She stepped toward him, that beautiful sword pointed his way.

"You want to kill me?" Oryn scoffed. "Fine. Go for it! Guess what? This isn't the first time somebody's tried to kill me. Pretty much, over the past few days, everyone and their mother has been trying to kill me. So go ahead. What's one more death when a million Vir Requis are dying, when our entire kingdom is being destroyed—all because you hide here, refusing to help? So sure, by all means, stab me. Kill me instead of letting Nemoria do it. Perfect plan." He raised his chin. "I'm ready. Just do me a favor, Fira. When you kill me, think of your little sister. And think of your father. And think of a million Vir Requis. Because you'll be killing them too."

He stood, panting, staring into her eyes.

Fira stared back, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. "I am not a heroine." Her sword inched closer to him.

"I'm no hero either." Oryn glanced down at his tattered clothes and bruised body, then back at Fira. "As you can see, I'm just a ragged thief. And you're just a broken, half-mad beast of the wilderness who forgot who she is. And yet here we are. The goddess has returned, and she's leading a whole bunch of friends, and they're nasty fellows. Fira, I saw them. I fought them. The bravest soldiers of Requiem burn, cut, and crush the enemies, but their wounds heal at once. But you, Fira—you hurt her." He sucked in breath and dared take a step closer. "You did what the strongest dragons could not. You ripped off Nemoria's goddamn arm, and you sent her fleeing. I don't know how or why. But only you can hurt her. And we need you to hurt her again."

Fira stared at him, face reddening. Her sneer twisted into something so horrifying, so cruel, that Oryn thought she was shifting into a dragon. She let out a howl—torn with agony, with memory, with more pain than Oryn had ever heard in a voice—and hurled her sword.

The blade flew at Oryn. He winced and ducked, and the weapon whistled over his head, clattered against the cave's wall, and hit the floor.

"I don't even know what I did!" Fira shouted, and tears streamed down her cheeks. "I've spent eighteen years trying to forget it. To forget that night. To forget the scars that still burn me. Even now the pain crawls across my arm, my side, my neck, my face." She fell to her knees, shaking. "And you people just keep coming back here. My sister. My father. His soldiers. You. All of you. So I keep running, keep hiding, and I just want you to leave me alone." She roared, head tossed back, raising her hands like claws. "Leave me alone!"

As sobs wracked her body, Oryn looked at her. The long brown hair, tangled and damp with snow. The tears that flowed down to her ragged cloak. The scars that crawled up her chin and neck, claiming one ear. The pain in those eyes.

Wincing with his own pain—bruises still covered his body—Oryn sat beside her. He stared at the crackling fireplace.

"I came to rob her," he said, watching the fire. "Your sister. I came to steal her jewels." He saw the emerald necklace twinkling on the tabletop. "Then, when she sent me to find you, paying me with what I would have stolen, I was just going to keep flying. To fly and fly until I was beyond Nemoria's reach, and let all the world burn behind me. To the abyss with everyone else, right?"

Fira still knelt, head lowered, tears falling onto the fur rug. Her fists clenched. One fist was scarred so badly one finger was missing.

"So why are you still in Requiem?" she whispered.

"Because I realized something," Oryn said. "Something that I think you realized years ago. That you can't run from demons. They get under your skin. Into your head. And they just keep laughing, dancing, torturing you in your sleep. I saw those demons in the eyes of a burly, drunk guard in your father's palace. I saw them in your father's eyes. I see them in your eyes too. And those demons are inside me now too. So I say let's stop running and hiding. Let's fly back—you and me—and face that bitch goddess and her minions, and this time, instead of an arm, let's rip off her goddamn head."

Fira raised her head and looked at him, her eyes full of tears.

"I don't know how I did it," she said. "I don't know why everyone else died while I lived. Why my own mother died. I saw brave warriors tear into Nemoria, only for her wounds to heal. It was like she felt no pain. But when she had my father in her grip, when I bit her arm, I … I hurt her somehow. I felt her pain. I can still hear her scream." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What am I?"

Oryn raised his chin. "You are Fira Aeternum, daughter of an ancient dynasty. In your veins flows the blood of Meliora, the leader who freed us from slavery, and King Benedictus who fought the griffins, and King Aeternum who founded our nation. And a whole bunch of other heroes I can't even remember right now. Maybe it's your noble blood. Maybe it's the starlight that blesses you. Or maybe you're just the toughest damn warrior in Requiem. To be honest, I don't care. I don't care how you did it. I just want you to do it again." He placed a hand on her arm. "Fly with me, Princess. Right now. We have no time to waste. It's time to go home."

Fira knelt silently for a long moment, staring at the fire. Then she rose, lifted her fallen sword, and approached Oryn. She raised her blade, grabbed his arms, and slashed the ropes that bound him. As he rubbed his sore wrists—the rope had chafed them bloody—Fira left the cave.

Oryn grabbed the roasting deer from the fire, chomped down on the hot meat, and followed.

She stood in the snow, her cloak and hair billowing in the wind.

She looked like her father, Oryn realized. There was something of Berinor's tall frame, noble bearing, and strength in Fira. While Miya, the youngest princess, was soft silk and jewels, Fira was steel and flame and stone.

Staring into his eyes, the heiress of Requiem shifted. Red scales rose across her body—red like fresh blood, like dragonfire, like death in battle, red like the memories that still filled Oryn's mind. Her horns and claws were white as bones, and flame—swirling, crackling, searing flame—filled her jaws. She was a dragon woven of pure heat and rage, wildfire taken form. Wordlessly she spread her wings and rose into the sky, roaring out her fury.

Oryn sneered and shifted too. He rose as a black dragon—black like the alleyways of Altus Mare, like the deepest dungeons. He crashed through the frozen canopy of birches, rising to fly by Fira.

"Fly with me, thief," she said. "Fly fast."

Oryn blasted out flame. "Let's go kill gods."

They roared together. They beat their wings. Wreathed in smoke, the two dragons flew over the forest … heading toward the fire.

MIYA

Terror.

Terror fell upon the city of Nova Vita, ancient capital of Requiem.

Miya stood by the throne, her sword in hand, watching the fire rain, watching her kingdom fall.

The monsters hid the sky. Hydras flew in the storm, disappearing and reappearing between the clouds, bodies warty, necks writhing, mouths spurting flame. Between them fought the dragons of Requiem, roaring, blowing streams of dragonfire. And falling. Everywhere—falling.

An armored dragon spiraled down, one wing ripped off, and crashed through the royal hall's roof. With a storm of marble shards, the dragon plunged downward, becoming a man seconds before hitting the floor. He lay before Miya, crushed, broken, head split open.

The world is falling, Miya thought.

Children ran through the forest. Burning children. Broken children. A great serpent slithered after them between the trees, splintering their bones.

Requiem is dying.

A woman crawled into the hall, smearing blood across the tiles. She had no legs. A hydra landed between the columns, thrust a head forward, grabbed the woman, and sucked her into waiting jaws.

Nightmares have risen into the world.

"Bring me your children, daughters of Requiem!" rose a voice in the sky, a voice of thunder, of damnation. Echoing. A voice from another world. "Bring forth your children, and sacrifice them before me. I am the Devourer. I am the claimer of children's souls. I am Nemoria."

Miya raised her head. Through the hole in the roof she could see the sky. She could see her.

The dark goddess.

The creature who ate my mother.

Miya could not move. Such terror filled her that it was beyond fear. Fear was a racing heartbeat, twitching fingers, cold sweat, shivering limbs. No. This was not fear. This was a horror so far beyond mere fear that Miya felt almost nothing. Her body was stone. She was as a marble statue.

All around her, the world fell. Columns cracked and tumbled. Homes collapsed, raising clouds of dust. Tree after tree fractured, and corpses fell from the sky, and the world burned, and Miya stood frozen by her throne, clad in green and silver stars.

"Miya!" rose a voice above, distant, pained. "Miya, into the tunnels! We go underground!"

Her father.

She looked up, and through the smoke, she saw him. Faded. A shadow beyond the clouds, green, silver, shimmering. Berinor. King of Requiem. Bleeding. Wreathed in fire, crashing down.

Miya took a step.

It hurt. It hurt like tearing off a limb. She took another step. She walked across the marble tiles of Requiem's royal hall, holding her sword as the world burned, as the columns crumbled, as the hydras darkened the sky. Her gown rustled, its hem brushing over snow and ashes. She walked between two columns, and the roof collapsed behind her, crushing the Oak Throne, and she entered the forest.

She walked among the birches, through snow and fire and melting ice and blood and corpses and strewn chunks of meat. A python coiled through the forest, rubbing against trees, tongue darting. Children, too young to shift, were fleeing the serpent. The reptile slithered. The reptile hissed. The reptile coiled around trees, around men, snapping wood, snapping bones. Staring with golden eyes. A serpent as long as a pillar, dripping venom that rotted the soil.

Miya moved between the birches, still in human form. The mud and offal stained her gown, and her sword shone in her hand. The children screamed. A child fell, and the serpent slithered toward it, plucked it into its mouth, sucked, sucked, sucked it up, and the child slid through its long belly.

Like the goddess ate my mother, Miya thought. A dream. This is just a dream, that's all. This cannot be real. This cannot be real again.

"Help us!" cried a child, weeping, leading other children. "Princess, help us!"

Hydras filled the forest. Dragons fell and died. Everywhere the children turned, the creatures swarmed, and the serpent coiled toward them.

Miya raised her sword.

"No." She pointed the blade at the snake. "No!"

The serpent turned toward her, forked tongue flicking. Its eyes shone, golden, hungry.

"Hello, sister," said the serpent, voice feminine, smooth as poison.

A dream. Just a dream.

The serpent undulated toward her.

"My mother fed upon your mother," the creature said. "Now I will feed upon you, Miya Aeternum."

Just a dream.

The serpent lashed forth.

Miya screamed and swung her blade.

It was an ancient blade of Requiem. Lemuria, a blessed sword—a sword carried by Queen Kaelyn Eleison, by Elory Aeternum, by many great queens of dragons. The blade was forged in dragonfire, blessed by starlight, and it cut clean through the serpent's head, slicing off half its jaw, cutting open the skull, as smoothly as through silk.

What remained of the serpent's head gaped open. An eye gone. The brain exposed.

The creature howled, spurting blood, and writhed. Children twitched within it. With a squeal, the serpent shrank.

It became smaller and smaller, like a slug under salt, until the children burst from its contracting belly, most dead, one still twitching. And still the serpent shrank, becoming a woman—a woman with her belly open like a blooming flower, her spine segments scattered, half her head missing. It was a corpse so gruesome that Miya couldn't help it. She fell to her knees and vomited, a hot, acidic, horrible thing that emerged from her with a demonic sound.

The mutilated corpse moved.

Miya stared in disbelief. The ravaged, horrible thing was still moving. Its abdomen had burst open, and its arms were now ten feet apart, attached by mere tendrils, yet still those arms twitched. The head rose, spilling out the brain, staring with one eye. The organs pulsed. The ribs moved closer together like fingers reaching toward one another.

The woman struggled to her feet. Golden hair flowed from half her head. The other half was sliced open, but the skull was fusing. Half her jaw was hanging loose, the teeth dangling like a lurid necklace, but still the woman smiled.

"Hello, sister," she said. "I'm Lintari. I'll enjoy your flesh."

The woman leaped forward, ballooning into a serpent again.

Miya screamed and shifted into a dragon.

Her transformation was quicker, and Miya blazed forth her fire, and the inferno slammed into Lintari.

The creature was still only halfway through becoming a serpent, and she burned. She screamed. She fell, twitching, and Miya kept blowing her fire, howling, torching the goddess, burning off scales, burning off flesh from bone. Caught in the blaze, Lintari screamed. Half woman, half serpent. A woman's skeleton with a snake's skull, growing new flesh only to burn again, growing new skin that instantly flaked off, growing new fingers only for them to curl up and wilt, and still Lintari screamed in the dragonfire.

A shriek like steam rose from the inferno. "Curse you, Miya, the whore of Requiem! I am Lintari, daughter of Nemoria, daughter of Berinor. Requiem will fall!"

My sister, Miya thought. She's my sister. Oh stars, she's my sister.

Miya wept as she blew her dragonfire, finally exhausting her flames. Her sister stood before her, laughing, a charred skeleton, already regrowing muscles and skin.

Miya swung her tail, slamming it against the skeleton, sending Lintari flying in a shower of bones. Yet the bones moved, scuttling across the burnt earth, and began to reform the skeleton.

It's impossible to kill them, Miya realized. Even reducing them to individual bones doesn't do it. They're gods. Truly immortal.

Miya spun away from the skeleton, released her magic, and ran as a woman toward the surviving children. They cowered by a boulder, weeping.

"Hurry, children!" Miya said. "With me! Run!"

They ran through the forest, and laughter rose behind. When Miya looked over her shoulder, she saw Lintari already slithering forth, a serpent again. The children wailed, and they ran through the forest, onto a shattered road and between crumbling buildings.

They ran through a ravaged city. A city swarming with hydras. A city strewn with corpses. The ancient heartland of Requiem, collapsing around them. As she ran with the children, Miya kept scanning the sky, seeking her father, but she no longer saw the green-and-silver dragon. She barely saw any dragons at all. Everywhere across the streets they lay: the defenders of Requiem, slain. Men and women, armor shattered, faces ashen, staring with lifeless eyes. Everywhere the hydras fed upon corpses.

Miya ran until she reached the Temple of Issari, one of the largest buildings in Requiem. Its rotunda had collapsed, and several of its columns had fallen. The front portico still stood, and corpses lay strewn across its pediment. A marble statue remained, depicting Priestess Issari, a Mother of Requiem, her braid lying across her shoulder, her eyes gazing upon her kingdom. A hydra hissed by the statue, turning its heads toward the children.

Miya became a dragon again and blew her flames. The hydra screeched, and its own fire blazed. Miya soared, dodging the jets. She blasted down an inferno, torching the creature.

"Into the temple!" Miya cried to the children who wailed below. "Into the temple and head underground. Find the stairs and head down!"

The hydra rose toward her, healing from her flames, spurting its own fury.

How did this happen?

Miya's head spun. She screamed as fire washed over her scales, as around her the city fell.

A dream. Just a dream.

She swooped through flame, scales cracking, and lashed her claws, ripping into the hydra, tearing one head open. Below, she could see the children race between the columns, entering the ruins of the temple. One child lay dead by the marble statue of Issari.

With a swipe of her tail, Miya knocked the hydra aside, then landed on the ground. The hydra rained down new fire, and Miya ran, released her magic, and leaped between two columns. She raced into the shadowy temple, the hem of her gown aflame. She fell, burning, became a dragon again, and rose inside the temple. Dozens of Vir Requis ran there, all in human form, heading down a staircase into shadows, seeking some safety underground.

Miya spun back toward the columns and stared between them at the city. Most of the buildings had fallen. Most of the trees had burned. From the inferno, it rose: King's Column, a single pillar still unblemished, a single light in darkness. Atop the marble capital, hundreds of feet above the earth, she perched: a dragon with three heads, gazing down at Miya.

Nemoria.

For a moment, the goddess and princess made eye contact.

Nemoria grinned.

Miya turned away, returned to human form, and raced downstairs into the shadows.

FIRA

She flew across the dark sky, a dragon lost in shadow, but in her mind she was a girl again, running through the underground.

Run.

The creature scuttled behind her, cackling, chasing.

Run.

The tunnel walls closed in around her, and Mother cried out, and the baby cried, and Fira ran, ran, holding her sister, her heart shattering against her ribs, the claws grazing her back.

She was lost.

Lost in clouds. Lost in memory. Lost in an eternal night. Flying. Still running. And still the goddess chased.

Fira forced herself to breathe. Forced herself to return to the present, to feel the fire inside her, hear the scales chink across her, feel the wind stream.

I'm no longer that frightened girl, she told herself. I'm a woman now. Twenty-six years old. Strong. Brave.

And yet that frightened, innocent girl still screamed inside her, forever trapped in the labyrinth.

Fira looked at the black dragon who flew beside her—at Oryn, the thief from Altus Mare. How long had it been since Fira had spoken to another soul? Years. She had almost forgotten how to speak before Oryn had shown up at her cave.

For a decade now, Fira had been living in the wilderness, shunning any who sought her, moving from cave to cave. Finally her father's men had lost her trail. Finally even Miya—the only one who knew her location—had stopped visiting, terrified by the beast Fira had become, a thing of fire and rage and haunting ghosts.

She rose higher in the sky, emerging from the clouds. The stars spread above her, brilliant on a moonless night. Back in Nova Vita, in her tortured youth, she had never seen much of the stars. The sky in that city was often obscured by roofs, towers, awnings, the light of lanterns and torches. In the wilderness, the stars had become her closest companions, her guiding lights. The Draco constellation shone above, shaped as a dragon, Issari's Star forming its silver eye.

Some Vir Requis believed the constellation a true dragon, a wise deity of the firmaments, that it blessed Requiem. That Issari herself watched from Draco's eye. But to Fira these had always been only stars—beautiful lights, comforting lights, but still only stars, not some celestial god. A god of Requiem would not have let her mother die, let Fira burn.

Gods were creatures to be feared, not worshipped.

You are my lights in the darkness, guiding me when I'm lost in shadows, Fira thought, gazing at the celestial dragon. But I will never worship you.

"Where are we going?" Oryn cried over the wind. The black dragon raised his eyes to the stars, then looked back at her. "Nova Vita's south from here. You're taking us west!"

Fira nodded. "We're going west."

The black dragon swerved closer to her, spurted out flames, and growled. "I thought we weren't going to run, damn it."

"We're flying, not running." Fira snorted, and smoke trailed from her nostrils. "Little detour. Trust me. Fly with me, little one."

She banked hard, turning to fly along the celestial Dragon's Path, following the flight of the Draco constellation above. Below, between the clouds, she could make out rocky mountaintops and the silvery River Ranin. The night spread before her, leading to that place. The place she had feared for so long. A place of whispers, of rot, of danger. A darkness she now needed to enter.

"Cavewoman, we don't have time—" Oryn began.

"Don't call me that." She spurted fire his way. "This is time well spent. Keep quiet. Keep close to me. We fly to a dangerous place."

Fira took a deep breath, staring into the shadows ahead. They were there. Waiting. It had been a decade since she had fled them, burnt, scarred, hurt. A decade since she had abandoned hope of taming them.

Tonight I must tame them.

She flew for hours through darkness, through her memories. Memories of a lost child, racing through darkness. Of a lost youth, racing through the wild, seeking a new home far from fear. Of a woman racing from terror, hiding, hiding, emerging again, fire from ashes.

Finally she saw it again, and Fira couldn't help it. She shivered, and flames filled her jaws, furious, spilling from her in a red rain.

The ruins sprawled across the mountaintop, a great fortress, once a beacon of light, now shattered and destroyed across the mountain.

The ruins of Eretz Orim. The place Fira had sworn to never visit again.

She winced, again feeling that old pain, again feeling the flaming whips tearing into her skin.

Feel no fear, Fira told herself. You are no longer sixteen, no longer a frightened youth fleeing home, lost and seeking shelter. You are a woman. Strong. Proud. You will face them again, and they will not hurt you.

This had once been a grand city. Its glory was long gone. Fires burned below, filling ravaged windows, crackling in the stubs of towers like candles, burning in archways like dragonfire in reptilian gullets. A great spire, once among the tallest in the world, lay cracked across the mountainside like a shattered spine. On the mountaintop, an extension of the peak, rose the ruins of a ziggurat—a hall large enough for armies to muster in, its gateway like an anguished mouth, its facades crumbled like a scarred face, like Fira's own ravaged face.

A decade ago, Fira had come to this place. Just a girl. Sixteen years old and so afraid, running from home, seeking shelter. Finding terror.

Oryn flew at her side, eyes narrowed. He looked at her. "Fira, is this …"

She nodded. "Their home. The place we gave them."

She stared back at the ruins, suppressing another shudder.

Once I thought I could find a new home here. I was so wrong.

Hundreds of years ago, the demigods of Saraph had conquered, ravaged, and brutalized this land. The seraphim. Angelic beings in chariots of fire, haloed with holy light, their swan wings wide, their lances cruel. The deities had taken everything from Requiem, had shattered its marble halls, had captured its children. For centuries, the Vir Requis had toiled in the southern deserts, collared, unable to become dragons, serving their seraphim masters.

Requiem had overthrown those oppressors, but the seed of Saraph, the cruelty of the angels, remained.

"Here they languish," Fira said softly. "The children born in Requiem's wombs from Saraph's seed. Half Vir Requis. Half seraphim. The children of slaves and masters. Half-breeds. Banished." She shuddered. "Cambions."

Once I thought them outcasts like me, Fira thought, eyes stinging. Once I thought them family.

"Fira!" Oryn's eyes widened, and he halted in the sky, hovering, daring not get any closer. "Cambions? Bloody cambions? Not fully Vir Requis. Not fully angel. They're monsters. Cruel. Beastly."

That Fira knew. That Fira had discovered herself. That still haunted her dreams.

The two dragons hovered before the dark ruins. Fira smiled wanly. "Just the allies we need."

She glided toward the ruins.

Oryn sighed. "I've already survived a hangman, a host of regenerating hydras, and an insane goddess from the sea. Might as well have bloodthirsty half-angel outlaw maniacs try to kill me too." Wearily, he glided along with Fira.

As they descended toward the ruins, Fira saw signs of Saraph's historic dominion over Requiem. An eye within a sunburst, sigil of that ancient empire, was engraved into an archway. A statue of a winged man lay toppled, draped with ice—a likeness of Ishtafel, the cruel Prince of Seraph, the enslaver of dragons. Once the seraphim had lived here, playing harps in golden halls, their halos glowing, their swan wings brilliant in the light. Fira had heard their tales a thousand times, seen those cruel overseers illustrated in many books. Today the seraphim were gone from Requiem. Only their bastard children remained, born from Vir Requis wombs, and their halls were places of shadow and ruin.

As the two dragons dived in the night, a chorus rose below. Drums beat. Boom. Boom. Doom. Brass horns blared, a sound like wounded animals. Across the crumbled walls and fallen towers, Fira saw them: creatures of fire, woven of cruelty, of shame. Their forms were human, but taller, too slender, ravaged with disease. Their drums beat across ruined battlements. Boom. Doom.

With shrieks, the creatures rose into the darkness, leaving wakes of flame. In the air, they grew, becoming dragons—but not like the dragons of Requiem, scaled and noble. These were haggard creatures like crows, black scales across their flanks, black feathers bristling on their backs. Halos of dragonfire crackled around their heads, crowns of flame, and their eyes were red stars.

"Fira, Fira!" they cried. "Dragoness of Requiem! Princess of purity! Turn back from the night."

She hissed, the fear and memories thrumming through her, consuming, rising, flames in an oven, overpowering, paralyzing her.

She was sixteen again. And their brands burned her.

Their knives cut her.

Their faces leered, mocking, drooling above her as she screamed.

"Cambions!" Fira cried. "Sons of Saraph and Requiem! Daughters of dragonfire and angelic light! Hear me! I come to summon you. To call you to war. An enemy rises. Fight for Requiem. Fight for your home."

They shrieked. They rose higher. They flew around her, spinning, rings of scales and feathers. They danced. They blasted fire. Their eyes blazed. They stared at her, flying closer and closer, becoming a storm. Their halos crackled, casting light, but the shadows thickened around Fira, a storm of black feathers, a noose, a python constricting her. All around her spread the night, full of serpents and ravens, full of secrets, jaws ready to bite.

"Requiem!" They laughed. They hissed. They hated. Their lurid beaks opened, revealing sharp teeth, red tongues, fire, smelters of fire, and still the cambions danced through the darkness, and she could see nothing but those beaks, those eyes. "Requiem is not our home."

Oryn flew from side to side, trapped in the storm, growling. Fira rose higher. She blasted up her flames, a shrieking geyser, a column of fire, rising toward the stars, and her light illuminated the creatures. She cast back the shadows. She revealed their wretched forms—emaciated birds, starving reptiles, their feathers oily, their ribs pushing against scales like arches pushing against curtains of mold. Scavengers. Hunger in their eyes.

"Requiem is your home now!" Fira snapped her jaws, holding them at bay. "Your mothers were Vir Requis. Your fathers, the seraphim of old, are dead. This is your homeland! My family, the house of Aeternum, sheltered you. We gave you life in Requiem, life in—"

"We live in the splendor of Saraph!" one of the creatures replied, swooping, rising. His halo spun around his head, woven of dragonfire. "Life in a glorious city of ancient might."

"A city in ruins!" Fira said. "A city whose masters died a century ago. You live as ghosts, yet hot blood still pumps through you—the blood of Requiem. And now Requiem may fall to ruin. Now an enemy flies against us, crueler than any we have faced. Fly with me! Fly to save Requiem, lest the halls of your mothers crumble as did the halls of your fathers."

The feathered dragons, spawn of angels, writhed around her, clawing, blasting white fire—beams of light, humming, godly and unholy. The night turned bright, and the air thrummed and reeked with ozone. Upon the clouds, the shadows of the feathered dragons took humanoid form, swan wings spreading in piety, halos golden rings. The glory of Saraph lit them. For a moment, they were beautiful. They were holy.

Then the light vanished. Once more they were wretched. Drooling. Able to chase that angelic light but never seize it.

The cambions dived toward their ruins below. They grabbed Fira, tugging her with claws, slamming into her back, shoving her down. Oryn thrashed at her side, snapping his teeth at the creatures who tugged him.

"I don't like this, cavewoman," he said.

Fira glared at him. "I told you, don't call me that. We'll fly with them to their hall. Be silent. Be calm."

Be brave, because I'm afraid, she added silently.

Memories of her time here returned to her—searing like the brands they had used on her flesh. Fira had been only a lost youth, fleeing her city, the palace where she had grown up, a home so full of memory. Years after Nemoria had left Requiem, Fira had still been fleeing her. Peace had returned. But not to Fira. Not to a scarred, scared girl with the weight of a kingdom on her shoulders. She had found no solace in the city where her mother had died.

Haunted, scarred, Fira had made her way here, to these ruins, seeking a life far from her pain. Far from that library underground that still called to her. Far from the fields where hundreds had died in Nemoria's fire while she—she, Fira Aeternum, a mere girl—had lived to linger in guilt and pain.

So yes, I came here to you, cambions, she thought. To join you. To seek comfort in your halls among fellow outcasts. And you hurt me so much.

Surrounded by the flock, like two finches in a cloud of pecking crows, Fira and Oryn reached the ruins on the mountain. The half dragons, creatures of scales and feathers, cackled, spinning, swarming like a maelstrom through an archway and into a hall carved into the mountain. The creatures banged against Fira and Oryn, herding them onward.

A grand cavern awaited them, carved into the belly of the mountain, larger than the greatest temple or palace in Nova Vita. Countless braziers hung from the walls, holding crackling fires. A pool of red water swirled below, and men and women bathed within, nude and thrashing like flies in blood, their heads topped with rings of fire. Wings grew from their shoulder blades, black and feathered and dripping oil. Many other cambions flew in the hall, forming ring after ring, swirling, dancing, clad in black armor and wielding serrated swords.

A tower rose in the center of the hall, carved from obsidian, thrusting out steel scythes, widening into a ring of battlements hundreds of feet above the red pool. It reminded Fira of some great lamprey rising from water, mouth open in a silent scream. A dark mockery of King's Column in the forest.

On the tower's crest, engraved into the black stone and filled with red metal, shone a great eye within a sunburst. The Eye of Saraph, symbol of the fallen empire, the angelic nation that had once ground Requiem under its heel. Yet within the eye, instead of a pupil, there shone a star, bright and silver. Issari's Star, the eye of the Draco constellation. Here was the sigil of the cambions, the spawn of angels and dragons. Saraph and Requiem. Masters and slaves. Belonging to none.

The feathered dragons flew toward the tower top, still herding Fira and Oryn. Their claws scratched, and their tails whipped, their feathers hiding bony spikes. Oryn groaned in protest, trying to shove the beasts off, but they only cackled and snapped their shiny black beaks. All around the hall, more cambions stared—some flying as feathered dragons, others as winged men and women in dark armor, holding lances and scimitars.

When Fira and Oryn reached the tower top, they landed within a ring of battlements and released their magic. They stood together, a tall, brown-haired woman in a raggedy gray cloak, her neck and ear faded into scars, and a young thief, the sides of his head shaved, his cheeks stubbly, his green eyes staring balefully from under black eyebrows.

The feathered dragons who had led them there landed beside them, and they too shifted, shrinking into their own human forms. With the blood of seraphim flowing through them, they stood over seven feet tall—far taller than purebred Vir Requis. They wore black plates of armor, and their eyes were golden, the pupils shaped as sunbursts. While pure seraphim had snowy white wings like swans, these half-breeds sported black wings, raven-like, tipped with claws. Rather than soft halos like those that lit the brows of true seraphim, they wore crowns of spinning, shrieking dragonfire.

Two thrones rose ahead, carved of obsidian and inlaid with rubies, overlooking the mountain hall. Upon one sat the warlord of the cambions, a tall and burly man, his beard wild and red, his fiery eyebrows shadowing golden eyes. He wore black armor and boots tipped with claws, and his halo flamed above a crown of gleaming jet. At his side sat his wife, her skin black as obsidian, a crooked smile on her lips. Her hair flowed down to her hips, woven of living flame, and a whip of fire burned in her grip.

Fira sucked in breath, wincing to remember that bearded warlord watching, grinning as his wife burned Fira with that whip. Ten years had gone by, but Fira had never forgotten the pain.

Ignoring the tremble in her chest, Fira stepped closer to the thrones and raised her chin.

"Eresh, who styles himself King of the Mountain, and Ilisda, his wife, so-called queen of cambions." Fira stared at them, head held high. "I've returned to you—I, Fira Aeternum, heiress to Requiem, your ruler by right. I've come to summon you to my service. I call upon your banners! You will rise and follow me to war."

For a long moment … silence.

The warlord studied her, leaning forward in his throne, brow furrowed. His wife stared, her smile widening into a toothy grin that stretched from ear to ear, revealing sharp teeth. She licked her lips and stared into Fira's eyes. All around the hall, the cambions watched silently.

Then the warlord burst into laughter.

Across the hall, the thousands of others cackled with him, a chorus that rang through the mountain, that shook the hall. Even the flames in the countless braziers seemed to laugh, casting dancing shadows.

"You … call upon us?" The warlord roared with laughter, rose from his throne, and stomped toward her.

Fira was a tall woman, but Eresh towered over her, eight feet of steel and fiery hair. His wings spread out, draped with black feathers, and his halo spun, spewing sparks and smoke. He raised his sword above her—a serrated weapon, engraved with runes of molten metal.

Fira hissed and drew her own sword—the blade Arinor. A legendary blade.

When the freed slaves had returned from Saraph, they had found Requiem in ruins. All its halls fallen, its treasures lost. The fabled blades of kings and queens had been dug from the wreckage, shattered into countless pieces. A jewel here. A shard of steel there. The freed Vir Requis had collected those pieces—and forged from them new blades for the Aeternum family.

The hilt Fira held had once belonged to Amerath, the Amber Sword, the fabled longsword of King Relesar. The blade was new, constructed from many ancient shards, each blessed with starlight, forged together in dragonfire. The blade had been reborn like Requiem itself.

Arinor that had been Amerath. A phoenix of steel. Reborn only a century ago but whispering of antiquity. Here was the sword wielded by King Vale Aeternum, first to rule in Requiem following the exodus from Saraph. Arinor was history and rebirth, myth and rededication, ancient steel and phoenix fire. It was holy.

Eresh hissed at the sight of the blade. The warlord squinted in its light.

"Yes," Fira said. "I call upon you! I bring with me Arinor that was Amerath, the sword of kings and queens. Saraph was defeated, the seraphim—your fathers—slain. We raised this sword from the ruins. We—the children of Requiem! It is Requiem that now rules this land. I am Fira Aeternum, scion of an ancient dynasty. I am no longer a frightened child for you to torment. I am the heiress of Requiem, and you will bow before me, sons of dragons."

The cambion soldiers shrieked, flew around the tower in rings, mocking her, shouting, laughing, spurting fire. Behind Eresh, his wife leaped from her throne, flapped her wings, and landed before Fira. There stood Ilisda, Mistress of Stone and Lava, daughter of Ishtafel himself, Prince of Saraph. A demigoddess. She stood nearly as tall as her husband, her black armor sprouting spikes, her hair a river of crackling fire. The queen of cambions grinned toothily and raised her flaming whip.

"I remember you." Ilisda sucked in air between her teeth, and her grin widened, tapering to points so high up her cheeks they nearly touched her ears. A hideous, inhuman grin. Demonic. "You entered this hall ten years ago, a pretty little girl, almost a woman, a princess running away from home." Ilisda laughed. "You dared command us then too, demanding we give you a new lair. I hurt you then. Your screams were like music! I will hurt you again today. You will sing for me!"

Fira could feel that pain again. The pain of a youth, still haunted by Nemoria, fleeing her home, seeking a new family. For years in the palace of Requiem, Fira had wept at night, had grieved, had felt such guilt. That she should live while so many had died in Nemoria's jaws! She had come here, a lost child, scarred from her battle with the goddess, seeking sanctuary.

"Yes," Fira said softly. "You hurt me. I sought your love, but you only hurt me. All because of my blood, the blood of Aeternum. All because I'm a princess of Requiem, daughter to a king, heiress to a throne you spit on. You thought me arrogant when I was scared. You thought me a tyrant when I was an outcast. But know this, Ilisda." She turned toward the brutish, bearded warlord at her side. "Know this, Eresh! It was Meliora Aeternum, the daughter of a dragon king, the daughter of a seraph queen, who freed my people from slavery, who led us home. Meliora the Merciful, most blessed in Requiem's lore, was a cambion. Her blood was mixed with ichor, yet she chose to fight for the Draco constellation, and she is among Requiem's greatest heroines." Fira raised her chin. "No, I do not command you. I do not come to you as a tyrant. I come to you as an equal, and I ask you to fight with me. Fight with me against the evil that burned me, that burned me worse than Ilisda ever did."

Fira doffed her cloak, letting it fall around her feet, remaining in a sleeveless tunic. The firelight fell upon her scars—the old scars from Nemoria's fire, running from her temple, down her neck, and along her arm, claiming one ear and one finger. At her side, Oryn was looking at her, and she expected to see sadness in his eyes, even pity. But she saw something else: admiration. Strangely, that comforted her.

"You hurt me," Fira said to the cambions. "But now our fates are entwined, for the goddess Nemoria has returned, and with her a host of hydras. This enemy threatens Requiem. It also threatens this kingdom you have built in the mountain. It threatens even the life I built in my own exile. This is a time for all free beings to rise together. To fight together. Fly with me. You hated that I called myself a princess. Now fight against one who calls herself goddess."

Eresh and Ilisda stared at her, halos crackling.

"Good speech, cavewoman," Oryn whispered at her side, speaking from the corner of his mouth. "I don't think these are the type who appreciate good speeches though. I think they're more into whips than words."

Fira stared at the warlords, and her heart sank. Oryn was right, it seemed. Hatred filled the cambions' eyes.

"You call upon us to fight with Requiem?" said Eresh. "With the kingdom that still lays claim to our domain? If Requiem is weak, let her perish! Perhaps we should fight with Nemoria instead. Perhaps we should wipe out the arrogant blood of the reptiles, those who think themselves superior to us, those who call us half-breeds and bastards."

Fira raised her chin. "Requiem is not weak. Requiem is ancient and stronger than you know." She raised her sword. "One last time: Fight with us! Fight with me."

Eresh stared down from his throne, disgust in his eyes. "You shame yourself. Ten years ago, you came into our hall, a broken, pathetic creature. No pride within you. Do you know why I hurt you then, girl? Because you disgusted me. You begged for aid instead of taking what you wanted." He spat. "A century ago, we cambions were also broken things, ashamed of our mixed blood. We all returned from slavery together, dragons alongside cambions. But the Vir Requis built a kingdom, and we half-breeds, the blood of the fallen masters in our veins—we were cast out! But as iron and carbon form steel, so did we become stronger, purer, our sum mightier than our parts. I will not fly to battle with one who is broken. Only with one who can prove herself as mighty as we are."

"Then I will prove it!" Fira said, finally seeing some hope, some light. "Ten years ago, you beat me. You whipped me. You tortured me because you thought me weak. Fight me now! I'm no longer a child. Fight me, and I'll prove my might, prove that I'm a warrior worthy to fight alongside."

Eresh shook his head. "True strength does not come from defeating an enemy. Any brute can kill. True strength comes from defeating the demons inside you. From pride. From inner steel. Last time you came here, you were nothing but tears and nightmares, oozing weakness, broken inside, worthy of scorn. Are you stronger now? We shall see."

Fira panted and snarled. "How can I prove my strength if not in battle?"

The warlord and his wife looked at each other, then back at her.

"The true battle rages within," said Eresh, face twisting into a grin. "You will not fight me. You will fight yourself."

The warlord shifted, becoming a dragon of crimson scales, his wings black and feathered, his snout beak-like, and fire ringed his head. He beat his rancid wings, scattering stench, and rose above his tower. All other cambions retreated from his wretched glory, and Eresh cried out, voice echoing through the mountain. "To the Dream Arena! Let us strip her bare, and let the shadows gather, and let the nightmares rise!"

The cheering filled the mountain, and the cambions flew all around.

Fira glanced at Oryn. He looked back, loosened his collar, and gulped.

"Lovely idea coming here, Fira." Oryn nodded. "I think it's working really well. I—"

Cambions grabbed him. Others took hold of Fira, and soon hundreds swarmed around them, dragging them through shadows and light.

NEMORIA

"Where is she?" Nemoria grabbed the soldier, digging her fingernails through the steel, through the skin, through the man's flesh. Her voice rose to a scream so loud the man's ears ripped and bled. "Where is Fira?"

The man died in her arms. Nemoria snorted and tossed the corpse aside. Such weak, sniveling creatures, these weredragons. There were like glass toys, shattering at the slightest touch. She looked around, seeing their corpses everywhere, covering the ruins of Nova Vita.

Her son leaned against a column—one of the few that still stood in the city—and yawned. He held a human heart in his palm, hefting it absentmindedly.

"I told you, Mother." He spotted a fleck of dry blood on his dark armor, winced, and brushed it off. "Fira isn't here. The girl probably died in your fire eighteen years ago. That or she hanged herself soon after."

Nemoria sneered. She stepped over corpses toward her son. Ramiel was a tall, beautiful young man, his hair long and golden, his eyes gleaming blue. His features were sharp, his shoulders wide, a true god of sunlight.

Nemoria drove her fist forward, bashing in that beautiful face he was so proud of.

Her son screamed. Nemoria drove her fist deeper, claws cutting, shattering his nose, his eye sockets, then pulled back, ripping off the skin, the lips, the eyes. She tossed the wretched mess onto the ground.

Ramiel screamed again—a horrible, gurgling sound that emerged from what had been his head. He fell to his knees, coughing, vomiting, spitting up blood. For long moments he knelt, head lowered. When finally he rose again, his face had regrown, but pain still filled his eyes.

"Really, Mother." He looked down at what remained of his old face, grimaced, and looked away. "Disgusting. Was that really necessary?"

"Fira is alive." Nemoria glared at her son. "I can feel it. I can smell it. This land stinks with her fear. The girl who ripped off my arm—she's still here, still in Requiem. We will find her. And we will rip off her face too."

Ramiel raised an eyebrow. "What if she's good-looking? The mortals can't regrow their faces." Ramiel bit his lip. "If she's good-looking, I would rather like her as a pet."

Nemoria looked around at the ruins. The birches still smoldered. The dead Vir Requis lay everywhere. Buildings lay shattered. Only King's Column rose from the ruin, a beacon of marble and starlight. A hundred hydras were busy attacking the column, burning and clawing, but they could not so much as mar the pillar. The stars, the ancient gods of Requiem, blessed the column. So long as a single Vir Requis lived, the column would stand. Even Nemoria, goddess of pain, could not undo that magic. Could not defeat the Draco god.

But she could kill that god's creations.

She could slay them one by one. And Fira would be last to die, only after sweet suffering. Then the column would shatter like the rest of this city.

"No, son." Nemoria licked her lips. "You may take slaves from among the Vir Requis, but not Fira. She will be mine, and if she is pretty, she will not remain so for long. I burned her years ago, but she still does not know true pain. She will live for a long time in my claws."

FIRA

Dawn rose, and the cambions accompanied Fira into the Dream Arena.

The amphitheater had been carved into a natural valley between jagged peaks. Tiers of seats covered the mountainsides, stony and dark. The valley was flat, a circular stage, dusted with snow. Ancient towers, arches, and fallen statues crested the mountains all around, gazing down into the valley, a crown of ruin.

Thousands of cambions filled the seats. Thousands more, those who could not fit into the amphitheater, stood in the ruins beyond, watching from crumbling fortresses. Still others flew above in their dragon form, circling the sky like vultures, beasts of scales and feathers and horrible black flame.

Fira stood under an archway of polished obsidian. Before her, just beyond the archway, spread the arena—a circle of packed soil, still empty. Waiting for her.

On that stage, as they all watch, I will face my greatest battle. I will face my dreams.

She inhaled deeply, struggling to calm herself, to slow the beating of her heart. She tightened her grip on her sword, a holy blade of Requiem, forged from the shards of ancestral steel.

I must do this. She swallowed. I must face what I've always run from. I can no longer hide.

With another deep breath, Fira stepped through the archway and into the arena.

The crowd roared around her, countless leering faces, laughing, spinning around her, their wings beating, and their voices seemed inhuman to her, clattering voices like the calls of crows. High upon the tiers, upon a black throne worked into the mountainside, sat the warlord Eresh, clad in black armor and wreathed in fire. His wife, the cruel Ilisda, stood at his side, holding her flaming whip. Their slaves cowered beneath their feet, living footstools, drooling and groveling.

"Hear, fellow cambions!" Eresh stood up, crushing his slaves, and held out his arms. His beard streamed like a red banner, and the dawn shone against his black armor, a beacon, a second sun. "For centuries, the children of Requiem have called us impure. For centuries, they scorned us."

The crowd booed, hissed, spurted flames. Their halos of fire blazed. Countless eyes stared at Fira, burning her. Above, cambions in dragon form shrieked and blasted white fire across the sky.

"For years, they called us half-breeds!" Eresh boomed. "For years, they called us bastards. Our mothers are proud Vir Requis, unchained and fierce. Our fathers are mighty seraphim, angels of light and godliness. Yet the Aeternum family sees us as broken! They banished us to these mountains."

The crowd roared with fury. Fira sucked in breath, gripping her hilt. Those were falsehoods. Had to be falsehoods! The cambions had fled Requiem, abandoned its cities, cowered here in the mountains. Like Fira had fled. They had not been banished. For generations, it seemed, the cambions had been telling a different narrative, had been fostering their hatred.

Fira wanted to shout, to deny the accusations, but she remained silent. How could she undo a century of lies? No words she could speak would help. She would prove herself in the arena, fighting, strong, brave. She would achieve more here with silent courage.

I will show them that I'm brave. I will bring them back to Requiem. Today we all return home.

As she reached the arena's center, silence finally fell. The cambions leaned forward in their seats, staring. In the sky, the birdlike dragons blasted their beams of white fire, a net of light, blocking any escape. Fira stood alone, wearing only her tattered tunic and cloak, the jeweled Arinor in hand.

I'm ready to dream.

Around her, the shadows gathered.

Some said that the Dream Arena was built atop a spring of invisible mist. That fumes percolated up from the earth, filling visitors with visions. Yet those visions were not only in the mind. They were visible to all, a circus for the masses of spectators, dreams that came alive for the amusement of the crowd … and the terror of the performer.

"All right," Fira muttered, spinning from side to side, sword raised. She could already smell the rising fumes. "Take a good look, friends. Welcome to my nightmare."

The shadows swirled, darkening, thickening, wrapping around her. A million lines streaked across the sky as if drawn by a madman's quill. Dark flames roared. Charcoal turrets rose from the earth. Smoke coiled. Fira stood in the center of the maelstrom. She couldn't breathe. Her heart thrashed, and she cringed, head spinning, skull contracting.

She grunted.

Just a show. Just a dream.

She swung her sword, trying to hold back the shadows, but the blade wilted and fell from the hilt. It hit the floor, became a serpent, and slithered away.

The hilt bit her. It had become a small dragon made of jewels, and Fira dropped it. It beat metallic wings and rose, leaving her hand red and swelling. The shadows wrapped around her, closer, tighter. Screaming. The shadows were screaming. The darkness was screaming.

Fira closed her eyes.

Just a dream. Don't show them fear.

But no, this wasn't a dream, was it? It was them. The crowd of cambions. Thousands of them. Eyes all staring at her, demanding. Demanding and demanding. Oryn—calling her to fight. Her sister—calling her home. Her hunger—calling for her to feed. Her goddess—calling for her to scream.

Voices. Forever inside her. No, not dreams. Not dreams. This was real, had always been real. All of them. Sister, father, priests, servants, soldiers, enemies, memories. The dead. The dead called to her. The dead who had fallen eighteen years ago, burning, rotting, skulls and bones in the ground, screaming for her. Screaming. She had left them.

I didn't want to. Fira covered her ears. I didn't want to leave you.

Yet they danced around her in the shadows now. Hundreds of fallen, cut by the goddess, burned by the goddess, and Fira fell. She fell through the night, burning. She fell through the sky, a child.

You left us!

You should have died with us!

All of them—dancing, spinning, tugging at her. Hating her like she hated herself.

"No!"

She fell. She fell through darkness for miles, and she banged against the floor, knelt, and covered her ears. She pushed her head down, covering her head with her arms, her knees bloody, her back bent under the weight.

"No! Stop it. Be silent! Go away. Go away …"

The darkness breathed around her, pulsing, a curtain, a cloak, a cave. No, not a cave.

A prison cell. Fira could see tiles beneath her feet, gray and cold. Walls rose toward distant shadows. High above, as high as the highest clouds—a small window, barred. Only a single beam of moonlight fell through the window, shining on her, illuminating her to all, exposing her. And all around the beam, the shadows gathered, an endless darkness. Staring. Condemning. Judging.

Fira closed her eyes and covered her head, trying to silence them. It was too much, too much, too many voices screaming in her head. The prison cell walls loomed, tightening, and that single beam of moonlight wouldn't leave her, wouldn't turn away from her shame.

See her! See the coward.

The memories, the thoughts, the accusations—they drew closer, the darkness as thick as congealed blood. She saw movement. Her fallen blade had grown into a massive snake, a python that circled her, hovering, its white eyes the only lights to break the darkness. Her hilt had grown into a massive reptile too, multiplying until many snakes moved through the shadows around her, daring not enter the light but closing in.

Just a dream. Just a dream.

No.

Fira grimaced.

This was not a dream. This was her … her mind, the inside of her skull, everyone trying to break in, to tear her apart, to drag her out from her cave. From her cell.

"I just want to hide. I just want to be alone. Stop looking at me. Stop!"

She ran, trying to flee the beam of light, entering the shadows. The snakes shrieked, eyes peering into her, biting her, tugging her left and right. Demanding that she fight them. Demanding that she die. Demanding guilt, tearing off her cloak, exposing her. Everyone saw her scars. She ran naked and pale through their shadows, and the light followed.

She had to leave this place, seek safety, return to her cave. Her old darkness hid everything. Fira moved blindly, found a staircase, climbed, moved down tunnels. She knew this place. Here was the underground, the corridors and chambers that ran below Nova Vita. She would come here every winter solstice with her mother. She knew this place, knew how to leave, yet she felt trapped, lost, and all the familiar paths now led to dead ends.

Hands. Hands reached toward her from the shadows.

Dreams.

"Stop this!" Fira shouted. "Let me out!"

Somebody had placed her here. This wasn't real, just an illusion. Memories filled her of a man with a red beard, a woman with a flaming whip, a dark archway and a crowd, but those memories faded, just old dreams, old visions, leaving her alone in the darkness, navigating the labyrinth.

No, not alone. From everywhere the hands reached out, dark, shriveled, tipped with claws. They tore at her skin. They grabbed her face, thrust into her mouth, tugged her lips into a smile, then gagged her, silenced her. She tried to scream. To shout of the guilt, the old pain, the memories of the hundreds falling, the ghosts that forever haunted her. But the hands would not let her speak, would not let her wake up, and she was forever silenced, forever trapped, nobody—not her father, not her sister, nobody in Requiem—knowing of the demons that forever danced inside her.

Arms were attached to the hands that gagged her. But the arms were severed. They ended above the elbows, dripping black blood. Fira recognized them. They were the arms of the goddess, still inside her.

"I bit off your arm, Nemoria," she said. "But I could not cast it off."

She lay abed, burnt, her bones broken. Her ear gone, her finger gone, all her joy, her innocence, her childhood gone. The healer peered down at her, telling King Berinor that his daughter would die, that no child could be expected to survive such injuries.

But Fira had cast back a goddess. Fira fought.

She fought against the pain. The shattered bones. The burns, the mocking memories, the guilt. She fought until she rose, walked, flew again.

Yet still those arms reached out. Still those dead danced.

And now she stood here again. In the library, the vast bowels of knowledge beneath the palace. The place where her mother had died. The place where Fira's life had shattered.

And before her … she.

Nemoria rose in the center of the library, growing taller, a dragon of darkness, sprouting three heads. Yet they were not the heads that had slain so many in Requiem's sky. One was the head of King Berinor, crying out to Fira, his voice muffled, unable to reach her. The other was the head of Miya, her little sister—but not in dragon form. Hers was the head of a baby, crying, suffocating under Fira's hand. The third head constantly changed, faces morphing into other faces, bleeding, the eyes gone, the teeth shattered, breaking and reforming countless times. Here were the faces of those who had died in the battle, all those who had fallen—her mother, Durian's son, hundreds of soldiers—forever staring at Fira, judging her, condemning her.

You lived. You lived.

"Yes. I lived." Fira stared up, tears on her cheeks. "I lived. I lived and you died! And I'm not going to apologize for that. I was stronger!" Fira shifted into a dragon. She soared, beating her wings—burnt wings—and her cracked scales chinked. "I was stronger than you! I lived! I lived and I don't know how, and I don't know why, and I don't know what I did, and I don't know why you're dead. I don't why I was stronger. I don't know why I lived and you died. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you died. I'm sorry that I couldn't save you." Her tears kept flowing, and the faces spun around her. "But I'm not sorry that I lived!"

The goddess reared before her, shrieking, and now she had hundreds of necks, hundreds of heads—all the faces of those who had died that night, who had died attacking Nemoria eighteen years ago. The faces of sons, daughters, warriors of Requiem, brothers, sisters, parents. Her father's head cried out to her, but he was fading, vanishing in the crowd, could not be heard over the din. They were all crying out to her, judging her, condemning her.

But among them, barely visible among the multitudes—her mother's face. Sad. Love in her eyes.

"I couldn't save you," Fira whispered, beating her wings, flying before the goddess with hundreds of heads. "I couldn't save you, Mother. I couldn't save any of you. I was strong enough to live, but not strong enough for that. And now I must let you go. Now I must part from my guilt. Now I must tell you: I am not sorry. I am alive. I am alive!"

And we are dead!

We will always be inside you!

You abandoned us!

You must join us!

Shame! Shame!

All the fallen—castigating, spinning around her—and Fira wept, and she looked beyond them. Looked at her mother's face. And there Fira saw forgiveness. She looked at her father's face, and finally she heard his voice.

I love you, Fira. Always. Unconditionally.

As Fira wept, her tears fell to wash away the ash and blood on the floor, and wherever a teardrop fell, grass grew. A light shone from above—no longer a cold beam from a barred window but warm starlight, blessing her, healing her. The Draco constellation shone above. Those stars spoke to her too, their voices like harps, like warmth in the coldest winter nights.

We are with you, Fira. Always.

"You're real," she whispered. "You're not just lights. You are the stars of Requiem."

The darkness parted around her, and the serpents fled, and the arms retracted, and once more the goddess fled before her, until Fira stood—a woman, strong, alive, proud—back in the arena.

"I'm alive," she whispered. "I survived. And I'm not sorry."

The crowd stared at her from all around, and the jeering, the booing was gone. They were silent, watching her, some with damp eyes.

One man in the crowd leaped up, shifted into a black dragon, and flew down into the arena. He landed beside Fira and became human once more—a young man with brown skin, black stubble, the sides of his head shaved. Oryn smiled at her crookedly, winked, and punched her arm.

"Good job, kid." He nodded. "That took guts."

Two more figures flew from above, dragons with crimson scales, beaks instead of jaws, and black feathers that grew from their wings, backs, and tails. They landed before her and shifted into human form—Eresh and Ilisda, tall and armored in black, their weapons sheathed, their eyes somber.

Ilisda—cruel, vicious Ilisda with the hair of fire, daughter of Ishtafel the Enslaver—stepped forward and embraced Fira.

Fira stiffened, her head pressed against the taller woman's shoulder, and she remembered that time a decade ago when this cruel demigoddess had cut her.

"We had to know," Ilisda said. "We had to test you—with cruelty, with exposure, with shame. We had to display your fear to the crowd, to let them all see you crush your demons." Fire ignited in the cambion queen's eyes. "You're strong. Stronger than you were ten years ago. You're ready."

Eresh approached, holding Fira's fallen sword, the blade of Requiem. He handed it to her, and Fira's hand closed around the dragon-shaped hilt. Then the burly, bearded warlord drew his own sword, a mighty claymore longer than Fira was tall, and touched his blade to hers.

"You defeated the goddess once as a child." Eresh stared down from his towering height, eyes somber. "You defeated her again in your dream. Now you will face Nemoria a third time. And this time you will slay her."

Fira bared her teeth. "Will you fight with me?"

Across the amphitheater, the thousands of cambions rose from their seats, shifted into corvine dragons, and rose into the sky. They blasted their pillars of white flame, a city of light and heat and wrath.

"We will fight," said Eresh, his blade still locked with hers. "All of us. We fly today. We fly to Nova Vita. We fly to glory, to blood, and to the death of a goddess."

BERINOR

His city burned and crumbled, and Berinor flew through fire and rain, lost, fleeing the ghosts of the kings and queens of Requiem's past.

Hydras rose before him, jaws opening wide in the dawn, and Berinor saw the demons from the most ancient stories, the creatures that had ravaged Requiem in its war of independence thousands of years ago.

More hydras swooped, shattering homes below, and flying through the battle, Berinor saw the griffins, the beasts who had shattered Requiem's ancient halls, ending the kingdom's golden age.

The children of the goddess, the serpent and eagle, tugged corpses back and forth, devouring, and Berinor saw the seraphim who had enslaved his nation in the desert.

Legendary kings and queens, monsters from antiquity—flying, fighting, dying around him. King Aeternum, founder of the kingdom and royal dynasty. Queen Gloriae, fighting the nightshades and mimics, rebuilding Requiem from ruin. King Valien, leading the rebellion against the tyrant Frey Cadigus, returning Requiem to its righteous path. Meliora the Merciful, blessed prophet, the daughter of a dragon and a seraph, leading Requiem home from captivity. So many names, so many heroes, saviors who had defeated the enemies of Draco, who had kept the torch of starlight burning.

They watch me now, Berinor thought. Am I one among them, a monarch who will save Requiem from ruin? Or will I be the last, the king who finally lets Requiem fall?

Below spread the ruins of Nova Vita. Fallen columns. Shattered temples. Shell after shell of homes, like cracked eggs. Uprooted trees, smoldering, and rivulets of melting snow mingling with blood. And everywhere lay corpses—across walls, around fallen statues, in courtyards. The hydras moved about the wreckage, feasting on the dead. A few children still ran, falling fast to the beasts. A few dragons still flew, only a handful, last defenders with no hope for victory, choosing to die in the sky rather than underground.

Many had fled underground, Berinor knew. The warriors of Requiem had done their task. They had held the enemy back long enough. They had died, shattered, entire battalions fallen. But with their sacrifice, the warriors had given the civilians time. The mothers, elders, and children of Requiem had fled into the tunnels.

Yet how much longer can they hide? Berinor thought, flying through the smoke and fire and mist. How long before the goddess invades the tunnels again, devours them like she devoured my wife?

She loomed in the clouds, faded in the distance, draped in smoke and vapor. Nemoria flew in her dragon form, wings wide. The magic she had stolen.

Some dragons—brave souls, perhaps foolhardy—attacked the goddess, then fell, fell to her flames, her ice, her shards of steel.

Nemoria's three heads turned toward Berinor, jaws bloodstained. She stared at him across the battle. She smiled a triple smile. Lurid, toothy smiles, dripping.

"Come to me, King of Requiem." She spoke in his mind. "Come make love to me again."

The goddess flapped her wings, cracking trees below, scattering snow and bricks and bones across the ruins. She flew toward him.

Berinor knew he should flee, should vanish into the tunnels, should be with his people. Yet some dragons still fought in the sky. He would not abandon them.

If we all must die, I will die in the sky, he thought, giving the last children a chance to reach the tunnels, to find hope.

Nemoria flew toward him, and Berinor hovered, standing his ground, waiting.

Scales clattered, and a squat, bronze dragon rose to fly beside him. Durian grinned and puffed out smoke.

"We can take her, lad," said the Master of the City Guard. The smell of liquor wafted on the old warrior's breath. "She's got three heads. We cut off all three at once, and she'll fall like a good corpse. Piece of cake, lad. We'll be done by breakfast."

At that moment, Berinor loved his friend as much as he had ever loved anyone.

"You'll need an extra set of jaws." The voice rose from below. "Three jaws for three heads!"

A silver dragon flew up to join them, clad in armor. She was a small dragon, no longer than Durian and far more slender. Her green eyes gleamed, and a star shone on her spiked helmet. There flew Lady Sirana Oldnale, a warrior in the City Guard. Her family was ancient and powerful, and she was the last among them.

Nemoria killed her parents, Berinor remembered. She wants vengeance.

"Sirana, go defend the people in the tunnels," Durian said.

The young silver dragon shook her head. "To the abyss with that! I'm not going to hide underground while all the fun's up here." She blasted a jet of fire. "Here she comes, boys! Get ready. I'll take the red head."

Durian grunted. "I'll bite off the white one."

Hovering in the sky between the two guards, Berinor stared at the approaching goddess. He would have to kill the black head. The central head. The head that had devoured his wife.

"For Requiem!" Berinor roared and shot forward.

"For Requiem!" cried Durian and Sirana, charging with him.

Three jets of dragonfire streamed toward the goddess. As the fire slammed against her, Nemoria unleashed her own weapons. Fire. Ice. Metal.

Berinor rose higher, and shards of metal scraped across his belly armor. At his sides, Durian and Sirana banked, howling as flames and ice washed across their armor and scales. The three dragons kept flying, blowing dragonfire, slamming the jets into the goddess.

Nemoria screeched, awash with dragonfire. Berinor roared, blasting all the rage and heat inside him, melting her scales, her muscles, her eyes. The goddess screamed, thrashing, her tail flailing.

We're hurting her. She's a goddess, but we can hurt her.

With a howl, Berinor slammed into the goddess, clawing and biting. His flames exploded, a fireball in the sky, and around them the hydras wailed. Durian and Sirana crashed into Nemoria too, clawing madly, burning her.

"For my boy!" Durian cried, then closed his jaws around Nemoria's red neck.

"For my parents!" Sirana shouted, voice choked with tears, and bit Nemoria's white neck.

The goddess floundered in the sky, whipping her tail, lashing her claws. A spike drove into Berinor's back, cracking scales, digging through him. He ignored the pain. Claws clutched him. Metal shards flew from Nemoria's jaws, slamming into him, slicing off scales. Pain was irrelevant. Pain could no longer stop him.

For my wife.

Berinor bit, clawed, ripped out flesh, tore out a segment of spine. Sizzling ichor washed across him, stinging his wounds, but still Berinor cut, bit, tugged, tearing out the neck of the creature. Blood and meat and bone in his jaws, Berinor yanked back his head, ripping the neck apart.

And it was done.

He severed Nemoria's black head.

Eyes glassy, the head tumbled down to the ground.

At his sides, Durian and Sirana cut off the remaining two heads.

The goddess's body hovered, wings beating, necks flapping, headless … and then she tumbled from the sky.

The hydras cried out in pain, their mother fallen, and flew in disarray. Berinor hovered, bleeding, watching the corpse fall.

It's over. He breathed raggedly. He would be, after all, a savior king, not the last king.

"Requiem stands," he said. "Requie—"

Below him, the goddess's headless corpse beat its wings, rising again.

Atop her stubs of her necks, her three heads were regrowing.

No. Berinor stared, terror twisting inside him. No. This worked with the hydras!

When severing all of a hydra's heads, the beast died. And yet now Nemoria soared, heads regrown, laughing. As Durian cursed, and Sirana screamed, the goddess charged toward them, spraying fire and ice and metal. The stub of her front limb, which Fira had bitten off years ago, had not regrown, but that old injury would not stop Nemoria's conquest.

It's hopeless.

Berinor stared as the hydras, invigorated by their goddess's resurrection, rallied and swarmed alongside Nemoria.

The column will fall, and none will remember my reign. All in Requiem—gone to dust, meat for beasts.

He closed his eyes, prepared for the end.

Light.

White light fell on his eyelids, warming him. Soft and warm like dawn.

Horns.

Horns sounded in the distance.

Berinor opened his eyes.

The white light streamed across Berinor, and drums beat. The music soared. Horns blared in the east.

Nemoria screeched and whipped her heads away, cowering from the light.

"She returns, children!" cried the goddess, terror in her voice. "She returns, the one who hurt us!"

Berinor looked eastward, and his eyes dampened.

Hope, as pure as sunrise, filled his breast.

They flew from the dawn, thousands of them—cambions, those who had left to the mountains years ago. Vir Requis with the blood of seraphim in their veins. Dragons touched by angelic light. They flew, feathered, blowing streams of white fire. Hydras fled before them.

She flew at their lead. A red dragon, charging toward the goddess once again. The lost heiress of Requiem.

Fira was back.

FIRA

Once more I fly to you.

With Oryn by her side, with thousands of cambions, Fira flew to battle. A red dragon. Eyes narrowed. Her flank and neck scarred. She sliced across the sky.

Once more I will face you.

Streams of white light flared around her like sunbeams, the radiance of the cambions, knocking hydras back, felling the beasts from the sky. Fira ignored them—ignored the multitudes, the hydras falling and rising again, the cambions screaming in fire, the ruins, the corpses below. She stared ahead. Stared at but one thing. She was like that beam of light from her dream, falling from the window, illuminating a single figure.

There ahead she flew.

Once more I will fight you.

Nemoria.

"We end this now, bitch," Fira muttered.

The goddess was burnt and cut but healing fast. She rose in the sky, surrounded by her minions. But Fira saw that one wound had never healed. The goddess was still missing a limb.

I hope it still hurts, Fira thought. I'm hungry for more.

Fira flew onward.

The goddess grinned—three horrible, bloody grins—and flew toward Fira.

"Welcome home, little princess!" cried the goddess. "Come to me now! Come to scream."

"All right, cavewoman, now rip out her throat and let's end this thing!" Oryn shouted, flying at her side. "Just do what you did last time!"

Fira snarled, beating her wings, charging at maddening speed, a red spear through the sky.

She did not know what she had done years ago. She did not know why she, Fira Aeternum, could inflict a wound that did not heal. But if there was a secret power inside her, Fira—heroine of Requiem, exiled princess, hurt, enraged, grieving, stronger than she had ever been—would use that power today.

"Fira!" cried the voices of surviving dragons, only a handful that still flew or fought on the ground. "Fira returns!" The cry echoed across the city, and Vir Requis in the ruins cheered. "Fira returns! The heroine of Requiem returns! The Fire Princess flies!"

Grinning, Nemoria crossed the last stretch of distance toward Fira, wreathed with hydras.

Surrounded by the cambions, Fira charged toward the goddess, roaring and blowing fire.

The two armies crashed together with an explosion of fire, blood, scales, and sound that shattered the last standing buildings and burned the sky.

Thousands of hydras and thousands of cambions burned, bled, died around them. But Fira paid them no attention. She saw only the goddess.

Nemoria shrieked, biting, roaring fire and ice. The heat and frost flowed across Fira, but still she flew, blasting her flames, blinding Nemoria, and she lashed her claws, cutting the goddess's scales.

Again we meet, Nemoria. And I'm no longer a frightened girl. We end this now.

Fira clawed through scales. She bit, sinking her jaws into rank flesh. She screamed as more fire washed across her, as claws tugged at her scales, as shards of iron sliced her. She refused to release the goddess. She dug her teeth deeper. Biting. Burning.

And Nemoria screamed.

Fira growled, yanked, tore out flesh. They spun, surrounded by fire and ice. They tumbled, entwined, locked together. They fell through the sky, a ball of scales and smoke. Fira could not even beat her wings, but still she hung on. She kept biting deeper, clawing, trying to sever a neck, to dig to the heart.

With clouds of dust and flying stones, with a crack that seemed to shatter the world, with pain that nearly knocked the magic out of Fira, the princess and the goddess slammed into the ruins of Nova Vita.

A fallen statue of Benedictus the Bold shattered beneath them. A nearby wall, the remains of a courthouse, crumbled. Trees cracked and fell. Nemoria floundered upon the ruins, struggling to rise. Her tail knocked down an archway, and the heavy stones crushed corpses.

Fira struggled to her feet, barely clinging to her magic, and roared out dragonfire. The blaze washed over Nemoria, engulfing two of her heads. The third head spewed a winter storm, and icicles slammed into Fira, slicing her cheek, her snout, her neck.

This time I kill you.

No more shame.

Fira roared, shoved herself off the ruins, and slammed into the goddess. They plowed through rubble, fallen statues, and the dead. A child's corpse shattered beneath them. Fira kept clawing, blowing fire, ignoring the pain, ignoring the cuts. Ice froze her. Metal sliced her. But Fira kept her grip, tugging Nemoria down whenever her wings beat. They rolled through the ruins, locked together, a ball of scales, flame, blood, until they slammed into a pillar of marble that would not crack.

King's Column rose above them, a beam of starlight, its capital wreathed in smoke. Ash and blood stained the marble, but no scrapes marred it.

Nemoria groaned, her necks wobbling, her tail whipping. Fira held the goddess down. Wounds covered Fira, and her blood seeped between her scales, but she clung to her magic. Here was the battle of her life. Here was the battle she had begun eighteen years ago, the battle she would now end.

"My ancestors built this pillar," Fira said. "It is eternal. Requiem will always stand. This is our realm, and I defend it."

Nemoria screamed from all three heads and lashed her claws. Pain flared, and blood spurted from Fira's snout, but still she thrust her head forward. She closed her jaws around Nemoria's remaining arm, and she bit down, tearing through scales, muscle, tendons, bone. With a howl, Fira yanked her head back, severing the limb.

She spat out Nemoria's second arm, took a few steps back, and stared, panting, at the mutilated creature.

Leaning against the column, Nemoria shrank back into human form. Her wings retracted. Her scales melted into her gray skin, leaving only indigo veins. She lay as a woman in dark armor, both her arms gone—one stump healed over, the other spurting fresh blood.

Fira could barely cling to her magic. She was losing too much blood, was too weak. Yet she managed to remain a dragon. She stood before the wounded goddess, panting, smoke pluming from her nostrils.

"Call off your hydras," Fira said, voice hoarse. "Return with them to your eastern realm above the sea. Do this and I will spare your life. Resist me and I will tear out your throat. I am Fira Aeternum, the one who can hurt you. I am the bearer of an eternal flame. I am the heiress of Requiem, a realm you cannot crush."

Leaning against the column, Nemoria began to laugh.

"Fool." The goddess spat out blood and rose to her feet. "Still you do not understand."

Stars.

Fira watched, eyes damp, chest constricting with horror.

Stars, please, no.

As Nemoria cackled, her spurting stump began to heal.

The halved humerus lengthened, grew a new joint, then sprouted a new radius and ulna, finally new finger bones. The sliced veins regrew, wrapping around new muscles, until finally ashen skin covered the red flesh.

As the severed arm still twitched on the ground, Nemoria flexed her new right arm. The left one—the arm Fira had bitten off years ago—had not regrown, but the rest of the goddess was healed.

Again Nemoria rose into the sky, a three-headed dragon, and the hydras regrouped around her.

Fira stared, horror a demon inside her, then spun around and flew, the hosts of nightmares at her back.

ORYN

The goddess soared, and the cambions fell, and the world burned.

I should have run.

The last buildings toppled. The last trees fell. Thousands of hydras still flew. Only a handful lay dead on the ground, headless, barely denting the massive host.

I should have kept flying.

The goddess and her children ascended. The golden eagle cast lightning and thunder. The serpent hissed and sprayed venom. Nemoria spewed her steel, ice, and dragonfire. Cambions attacked them, only to fall in the barrage.

I should have hidden.

As the skies burned, Oryn rose higher. He flew through smoke, through red rain, through storm clouds and crashing thunder.

I can still escape.

He looked around. Most of the hydras flew lower in the sky, battling the cambions. The half-breeds fought furiously. Halos crackled around their heads, and their searing white fire tore through hydras. But the damn monsters kept healing. Their fire washed over the cambions, kindling their feathers. The birdlike dragons burned, lost their magic, and plunged down in human form. Tall, powerful, haloed, armored … and dying.

The cambions could not win. But they could distract the enemy long enough to let Oryn flee.

He beat his wings. He flew over the battle, scuttling from cloud to cloud.

I can escape. I can make my way east, seek other lands. Lands far from death. From nightmares. I can find a cave, hide like Fira did. Hell, I can fly to the same damn cave. A perfect hideout.

He nodded. He knew the way. Fira's cave would be a far cry from his shadowy kingdom in Altus Mare. But Altus Mare had fallen. Nova Vita had fallen. All of Requiem would fall, from the southern sea to the arctic north. In the cave, Oryn would find shelter, food, a fireplace. Life.

He turned in the sky. He began to fly northwest.

"I'm sorry, friends." Oryn tightened his jaw, swallowing his guilt. "I'm not a hero after all. I'm just a thief. I—"

With a cry of pain, a red dragon flashed beneath him. Hydras followed, blasting fire her way.

Fira.

And the damn dragon was hurt. Fresh burns spread across her red scales, and cuts bled across her. Crying out, Fira vanished into a cloud of smoke. The hydras followed, shrieking.

"Bring her to me, friends!" cried Nemoria. "I want her alive!"

Oryn paused and hovered.

He cursed. Damn her. Damn Fira and damn Miya and damn all of them! Oryn was tired of risking his life for that family. Tired of it! All he earned was more misery, more violence.

He grumbled as he swooped, following the red dragon, knowing he should just flee, knowing he could not.

"Hey!" Oryn shouted, plunging toward the chase. "Hey, you goddamn maggoty toads! Yes, you. Up here."

Hydras raised their heads, sneered, and soared toward him. Bleeding and panting, Fira looked up too.

"I'll hold them off, cavewoman!" Oryn shouted. "Get your ass into the tunnels!" He spewed dragonfire onto the hydras. "And you stinking toads, come on! Yeah, that's right. After me! Pick on someone your own size!"

The hydras turned away from Fira to chase him.

Cursing his damn heroism, Oryn soared higher.

As hundreds of hydras pursued him, he beat his wings, flying as fast as he could. Below him, Fira flew toward an archway that rose from the ruins. Past the archway, a staircase plunged into shadows and safety.

If anyone in Requiem survives, they better write some goddamn songs about me, Oryn thought. I better become no less a hero than King Aeternum himself.

A shriek rose behind him—horrible, twisting, louder than the hydras. Oryn turned to see the massive serpent—Lintari, that insane spawn of gods—chasing him.

Oryn grimaced. He had seen the creature devouring children in the forest, had seen warriors fall before her. If there was anything worse than death by hydra, it would be that snake wrapping around him.

Dodging jets of fire, Oryn plunged down.

A stream of fire washed across his tail. Oryn yelped and kept swooping. The serpent screamed, undulated after him, and blasted out venom. Oryn banked hard, dodging most of the spray, but a drop burned a hole through his wing. Wind whistled through the opening. Oryn kept flying lower, whipping between snapping hydras' jaws.

Below, he saw Fira reach the archway, shift into human form, and stumble into the darkness.

"You better write that song, poets!" Oryn cried.

He tried to reach the archway too, but hydras surrounded him, swooping from above, soaring from below. Lintari spat more venom, burning his tail. Oryn yowled.

He swerved over the ruins. His claws banged into a wall, and he cried out, rose higher, smashed into a statue, and wobbled onward. Hydras skimmed the ruins behind, knocking down roofs and walls.

Oryn thought things couldn't possibly get worse. So of course they did. The golden eagle rose above. Ramiel.

A lightning bolt slammed down, shattering a tower ahead of Oryn, sending it tumbling.

Oh, stars damn it …

Oryn swooped toward a ruined temple and released his magic.

A human again, he landed among the ruins. He ran down a tunnel formed from fallen columns and walls, then along cracked alleyways. Bricks hailed around him.

Hydras crashed through the ruins, shattering stones. Oryn ran, crawled, leaped, vanished into shadows. Let the army fight in the sky. Here, in ruin and shadow—this was a thief's domain.

He ran into a home that still stood. He leaped through a window. He scurried along a portico and under tilted statues. He scurried through workshops.

"Find him!" shrieked Lintari, laughing maniacally. "It's the one from Altus Mare. Bring me my pet!"

But Oryn knew they couldn't catch him. When warriors died, thieves thrived.

Finally Oryn found his way toward the archway—the one Fira had entered. The sun was setting, and barely anyone still fought above. A cluster of hydras clawed at the archway, trying to enter the tunnels. Dragonfire blazed from within, holding back the creatures.

Oryn crouched behind a pile of bricks. He looked up at the sky. He saw an opening. He could fly again. He could vanish into the clouds—then into exile.

Fly, Oryn. Fly to safety! Leave them all!

He looked back at the archway. At the hydras trying to break in.

Fira and Miya were in there.

Stars damn it.

Oryn reached into his pocket and felt Miya's jewels. He remembered her soft touch, her blue eyes. She was down there now—in the tunnels, in danger, maybe hurt.

I promised to protect you, Miya. Oryn sighed. A long song. It better be the best damn epic song in the world.

He emerged from cover, stood in the rubble, and coned his palm around his mouth. "Hydras! Here, boys! Here!"

The hydras turned away from the archway, hissing, and grinned toothily. Oryn gulped and rose as a dragon.

The creatures flew toward him, jaws snapping, their heavy bellies wobbling.

Oryn blasted dragonfire at them—then released his magic.

He fell as a man, hit the ground running, and raced beneath the rising hydras. Flames washed across his boots, and he howled.

The hydras roared behind him, stumbling and knocking into one another, clumsily turning back toward him.

Oryn kicked off a fallen column and vaulted into the air. Fire blazed behind him. Legs kicking, he tumbled through the archway and down a staircase.

A cobalt dragon lay on the stairs, eyes shining like forges. The dragon's jaws widened. With a deafening roar, dragonfire flamed outward.

Oryn flattened himself against the wall. The fire raced by him, flowing through the archway into the ruins. Outside, the hydras screamed.

Bathed with sweat, eyes narrowed to slits, Oryn walked around the dragon. He headed downstairs.

"I think a whole book of heroic songs is in order." He wiped ash off his brow. "The Epic Tale of Oryn the Brave, Prince of Shadows, Hero of Requiem."

Past the dragon's tail, he found a tunnel full of survivors. Countless Vir Requis hid here in human form, many burnt and wounded. Oryn moved through the crowd, walking through tunnels and chambers until he glimpsed a flash of green silk in a chamber ahead.

He stumbled through the doorway, entered an armory, and saw her there.

"Hullo, Miya." Oryn waved at her. "I brought your sister back! Don't think it helped much though."

Miya ran toward him, her green gown burnt.

Oryn suddenly felt woozy. He realized his thigh was bleeding. His head spun. Miya caught him, her blue eyes wide with fear, and Oryn slumped to the floor. He leaned against her, closed his eyes, and cursed his stupid, stupid nobility.

FIRA

She limped through the darkness. Broken. Bleeding. All her hope lost.

I failed. I failed.

Thousands of survivors moved around her, filling the underground city, reaching out to her, recognizing her, praying to her.

"Fira! Fira has returned!" some said, speaking in awe.

"Fira has failed!" shouted others. "Fira has failed us."

She moved onward. Lost in the darkness. Lost like she had been in her childhood. Back then, she had fled the goddess through this labyrinth, seeking light. But now there was no light. Now she fled deeper, burying herself in this nightmare, knowing there was no end to the shadows.

I am lost and without hope.

"Fira!" rose another voice, deep, concerned.

"Fira!" cried another, softer, loving, scared.

She moved toward them in the darkness. Her father. Her sister.

Fira didn't want them to see her. She was ashamed. Of her scars. Of her failure. Of her long years in exile. And yet the king of Requiem moved toward her, then pulled her into his arms. And Miya—sweet Miya, so young and already facing death—joined the embrace.

"Fira, you're back," Miya said, tears streaming. "My sister is back. I love you. I love you."

Fira stood, stiff, her family holding her, shame inside her.

I failed. And now we'll all die.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, face pressed against her father's chest. "I'm sorry, Father. I'm sorry."

The king placed a finger under her chin and raised her head. He stared into her eyes. Still strong. Still proud. Even after all these years, the strongest man Fira knew. Her king. Her father.

"You have nothing to apologize for," Berinor said. "You are my daughter. You are my Fira, my fire in the storm, my light in the shadow. And you are home."

MIYA

They stood underground beneath the ruins of the palace, in darkness, in fear, buried alive.

It was the place Miya had always feared. The place where the goddess had first appeared, had slain Mother. And it was here that Miya sought safety, still sought a beam of hope.

The chamber was large, crowded, and dark. A massive oak table stood in the center, overlain with scrolls, daggers, and helmets. Swords hung on the walls between torches. Here, deep underground, stood the high command of Requiem. King Berinor Aeternum. His daughter, Fira—wounded, bandaged, ashen. Durian Eleison, Master of the Guard, and with him many of his warriors, including Lady Sirana Oldnale, her armor splashed with blood. Even Oryn the thief now stood here, the one man to have survived the destruction at Altus Mare.

And me, Miya thought. The youngest, the weakest here, but now I must be strong.

The sounds of battle echoed through the tunnels. Far above, past many feet of stone, echoed the sounds of battle. Hydras screeching. Brave dragons roaring, defending the archways, holding back the monsters.

Farther down the labyrinth, in the deeper chambers, huddled Requiem's civilians—mothers, children, elders, weeping and praying. Miya could hear their songs, their sobs. Thousands of survivors underground, awaiting death or salvation.

"Those goddamn hydras will break in," Oryn said. The young thief paced the armory, fists clenched. "Stars damn it! We plunged into these tunnels for safety, but this will be our tomb."

"Calm yourself!" Fira snapped. Her skin was ashen, her bandages red, but still her eyes blazed. "This is not the time to succumb to fear."

"Isn't it?" Oryn tugged his hair. "I think this is a perfect time. You were supposed to kill her." He pointed at Fira. "You're supposed to be Fira Aeternum, the heroic Fire Princess, the inflictor of wounds that do not heal. Why didn't it work? Why did Nemoria still heal from your bite?"

Everyone turned to stare, falling silent. The king. The guards. The thief. Even Miya stared at her older sister, at this heroine who had fled into exile, become a legend, and finally returned home … only to fail.

Fira looked at them all, one by one, and finally spoke softly. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Oryn guffawed, a sound full of more pain than mirth. "You don't know. Perfect." He sighed and turned toward the wall. "I should've just kept flying. I knew it! Now instead of dying at the end of a rope, I'm going to die underground with a bunch of buffoons."

King Berinor pounded the tabletop, jostling the scrolls, candles, and daggers. "Enough! Oryn, be silent or put on a helmet, grab a sword, and go defend an entrance. Be useful instead of fearful." The king glared at the thief, then turned toward Durian. "There are five entrances underground, Durian. I want fifty guards at each. Rotate them in shifts."

The squat Durian, shorter even than Miya, nodded. The burly, bald man eyed the flask that hung at his belt, reached toward it, cringed, then pulled his hand away. He looked back at his king.

"We'll need to recruit more men." Durian grunted. "We lost too many warriors up there. The thief'll make a good start, but we'll need more. Every able-bodied man and woman in these tunnels must now become a soldier."

Berinor nodded and turned toward Sirana, one of the Guard's few survivors. The king's voice softened. "Lady Sirana, go deeper into the tunnels. Move among the civilians who hide there. Anyone strong enough to wield a sword, to become a dragon and blow fire—I want them recruited. Elders. Youths. Anyone who can fight."

Sirana's eyes widened with rage. She seemed ready to spit, then swallowed. She was a young woman, only a couple of years older than Miya; the two had been friends since childhood. But while Miya was timid, Sirana was fearless. Her hair was the color of dragonfire, just long enough to fall across her freckled brow. Her hazel eyes peered over an elfin nose. Her plate armor was dented and bloody but still strong, and she clutched the hilt of a longsword, the pommel shaped as a dragon's claw.

She's woven of dragonfire, Miya thought.

"No." Sirana shook her head. "I will not plunge deeper into these tunnels while my brothers and sisters fight at the entrances. I will return to battle. To the temple archway, where the hydras still try to break in. I will relieve the men there. I will not spend a minute more away from the fighting."

As Miya gazed at the young noblewoman, she envied her. Sirana was so brave! All her life, Miya had wished she could be more like her friend. A warrior. Not scared all the time.

She remembered fighting the great serpent in the forest, and Miya's fingers trembled, and cold sweat washed her. She knew the memory would never leave her. Forever would Lintari's evil haunt her dreams.

Berinor was looking at Lady Sirana, and such sadness filled the king's eyes that Miya wanted to weep. In her father's eyes, she saw the countless young warriors who had fallen.

"Very well," Berinor said, voice soft, and Miya knew the pain those words cost him. "Go, Sirana Oldnale, light of Requiem, and may the stars forever guide you."

He's sending her to her death.

Sirana raised her chin, eyes damp, and placed her fist against her chest, a silent salute. Before the warrior could leave the chamber, Miya stepped toward her—her dearest, her only friend. Clad in a tattered gown, Miya embraced the armored guardian.

"Be careful up there, Sirana," she whispered.

The young lady smiled thinly and kissed Miya's forehead. "Issari's Star shines on me. I have nothing to fear. Soon I will join my parents in the starlit halls of afterlife, and I will fly there proudly."

With that, the soldier—so young, too young—turned and left the armory, heading up a tunnel to battle.

Durian watched her leave, tears in his eyes. The burly guard tugged his beard, reached for his flask, and his hand shook. Instead he grabbed his mighty hammer.

"I'll join the lass," Durian said, blinking rapidly. He turned toward another guard—a stern, gaunt man with a scarred cheek. "Turien, go into the tunnels and find anyone who can fight. Return with five hundred new warriors."

The tall soldier nodded, saluted, and plunged deeper into the tunnels. Hefting his hammer, Durian left the armory too, heading higher up. The sounds of battle—roaring dragons, shrieking hydras, screaming men and women—still rose there.

Only a few souls remained in the armory now. The king. His daughters. The thief. A handful of bellators, knights of the realm and guardians of the king.

"We can't hold them back much longer," Oryn said, fists clenching and unclenching. "How long do you think we can block the entrances before the hydras shatter them, before they bring these tunnels crashing down? Before Nemoria herself invades the shadows?"

Berinor's face flushed. With a roar, he shoved the thief against the wall. "For as long as it takes!" The king bared his teeth. "For as long as we can still fight. As long as we draw breath, we fight. Vir Requis do not surrender."

The young thief stared steadily into the king's eyes. "This is a losing battle, old man. Better to slit our own necks and die painlessly. Nemoria will not be as kind." Oryn looked around and peered down tunnels. "There's got to be another way out, some exit not clogged with hydras." He groaned. "Stars damn it, I was out! I was alive. I just had to get myself stuck down here …"

Ignoring the thief, Miya turned back toward her older sister. She had not seen Fira in years. For a decade now, Requiem had awaited this moment, the heroine's return. But Fira looked so haggard, so weak, her skin ashen, her brown hair matted. If not for her sword, the jeweled blade Arinor, Fira would have looked like nothing but a vagabond.

"How do you fight an enemy that cannot die?" Fira whispered, staring at the daggers, swords, and axes that hung on the wall. "How do you kill an enemy when no fire or blade can harm them?"

Miya stepped toward her sister and held her hands. They were so different, Miya reflected. One sister tall, wild, scarred, her hair dark and her eyes haunted. The other sister short, meek, clad in silk, her hair golden and her eyes always timid. Yet now Miya raised her head and stared into her sister's eyes.

"I love you so much, Fira," she said. "I love you more than gold and jewels. More than the stars above. More than life. No matter what happens, know that I love you, that you're always my heroine."

Fira embraced her and kissed her head. "And I love you, my little sister. Always. But I'm no heroine. I couldn't do what I thought I could."

"You're right." Miya looked up into the taller woman's eyes. "We can't hurt the goddess with steel, with fang, or with fire. And so we must go back to where we started. Where this battle began eighteen years ago. Where you and I first faced her." Miya took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing down the fear. "The library."

DURIAN

The bronze dragon breathed fire, spraying the blaze out the archway and across the ruins. Hydras screamed and fell back.

Lodged in the tunnel, Durian gasped for air and coughed out smoke. With a shuddering breath, he released his magic, returning to human form—a wheezing old man, his beard hanging down to his belt. He stumbled a few steps down the tunnel, moving away from the archway.

At once another guard—a good lad, son of a blacksmith—replaced him. The young soldier shifted into a dragon, so large he nearly filled the entire tunnel. The new dragon blasted fire onto the ruins, repelling the hydras.

Breathing heavily, Durian stumbled downstairs into the shadows, leaving the archway, firelight, and hydras far above. Damn it, he was too old for this. He'd been too old the last time too. And that hadn't even been with these slimy hydras, that birdbrained eagle, and that slithering serpent.

I shouldn't be here, Durian thought. Why should I—old, haggard, and drunk—still live while my son lies buried?

Durian's eyes dampened. As he lollopped downstairs between his guards, he couldn't stop thinking of his son, his dear Perin. A laughing young man, so full of life and joy—falling, burning, dying. Perin, the light of Durian's life—buried under snow, flowers, snow again, year after year as Durian lingered.

Before he realized what he was doing, Durian was drinking, letting the amber liquid fill him like fire. He shouldn't. He knew that. He was Master of the City Guard. A leader. A pillar of the nation.

To the abyss with it, he thought. We're all going to die today anyway. I might as well die gloriously drunk.

He drank again. He had refilled his flask before the battle. It was enough spirits to last most men a month. Durian would drain it tonight, then seek more in the cellars. The world was burning. Let him douse those flames with booze.

I'll be with you soon, son. Tears flowed into his beard. I'll soon wrap you in my arms, hold you so close, and never let you go again.

He lowered the flask for air, and through the blur of liquor, he saw her standing before him. She stared with huge eyes, and her red hair fell across her brow. Blood stained her armor, and she held her dragon-claw sword.

For an instant—a horrible instant with the booze fogging his mind—Durian forgot her name.

She stepped closer, looking at him with those sad hazel eyes, seeking strength, seeking leadership, seeking hope.

Then he remembered. Of course. One of his bravest, dearest soldiers.

"Sirana," he said, voice barely slurred. "My lady."

She looked at the dragon at the exit, then down at the tunnels that snaked below, crowded with survivors. Finally the young guardian looked back at Durian. He was used to craning his neck back to speak to anyone, but Sirana stood only slightly taller.

She spoke softly. "The priests taught me that when we die our souls rise to the Draco constellation. That we fly there forever as dragons of starlight along with our fallen heroes." She looked at the tunnel ceiling, as if seeking those stars, then back at him. "Do you believe that's true, Lord Durian?"

Through boozy clouds, Durian remembered more. He remembered her parents. Powerful nobles. Dear friends. Her father had once commanded the City Guard, had mentored Durian.

With clumsy hands, Durian corked his flask and returned it to his belt.

"Aye, lass." He nodded. "I believe it's true."

She hesitated, then stepped closer and embraced him, her head against his shoulder. Then she quickly stepped back, cheeks red, and pressed her fist against her chest.

Above them, the battle still raged. Another dragon replaced the guardian at the gates, blowing more dragonfire at the hydras. The beasts kept roaring and clawing at the entrance. Bricks tumbled down the stairs.

"It has been an honor to serve with you, my lord," Sirana said. "If we die today, if we rise together to the stars … know this on our final flight. It has been an honor."

"No," Durian said.

Sirana blinked. "No, my lord?"

"No. No, we do not die yet. We do not give up yet. For thousands of years, lass, we've faced enemies. For thousands of years our forebears did not lose hope. Perhaps we will rise to the stars tonight, yes. Perhaps our souls will soon join the fallen." Now his voice choked. "Your parents. My son. They await us in halls of starlight. But so long as we draw breath, we will think only of life. The fallen can wait for us a little longer."

Sirana tightened her lips and nodded. Together they faced the archway. Guardians. Behind them huddled the people of Requiem. Before them spread the nightmares, waiting to break in.

MIYA

Once more, as she had countless times, Miya stood atop the staircase that plunged toward the underground library.

She stood frozen and took a shuddering breath. She stared down the dark staircase, and her heart thudded, and her head spun. Cold sweat trickled down her back.

"I …" Miya gulped. "I'll be strong. I have to do this." She thought of how her handmaidens had brought her here, how they had mocked her cowardice. She looked at her sister. "You won't mock me if I'm afraid, will you?"

Fira stood at her side, taller, so much stronger. For the first time in years, Fira had donned armor—beautiful, silvery plates filigreed with golden dragons. Arinor hung from her belt, gemstones shining. Ash from the battle still stained Fira's face and hair. That hair hung low, framing her face, hiding the scars that had claimed her temple and ear.

"I'm afraid too." Fira held her sister's hand. "That place below, where Mother died … I spent years dreaming about it. In my dreams, I'm still lost there, holding you, like I held you years ago when you were a baby. But this isn't a dream. This is a waking nightmare. Tonight we will face our memories. I learned something from the cambions. We must battle the evil within us before we can battle the evil outside."

Miya nodded.

I faced Lintari, daughter of a goddess, Miya thought. I survived a great battle. I can do this.

She took the first step, and Fira walked with her. Hand in hand, they stepped downstairs—into the shadows, into the memories.

Oil lanterns shone on the wall, and the stairway descended into colder, darker shadows. Miya had no concrete memory of this place—she had been so young. Only stories, dreams, fears. The great pain of her life had begun here, and here it would have to end. Here she would seek answers.

The stairway led to an archway, and the sisters stepped into the great cavern. The library of Requiem.

Few people ever entered the library. The books here were worth more than gold and diamonds, more powerful than swords and arrows. Even in olden times, only the greatest sages, nobles, and priests were allowed in here, allowed to touch the holy pages of ancient parchment. And since the goddess had appeared here, even those few puissant visitors no longer dared delve into this place. The library had become a cursed, abandoned hall, rife with shadows, memory, and the fears of a nation.

But today I will face my fears, Miya thought. Because knowledge has always been the greatest weapon of Requiem, mightier even than dragonfire. Weapons cannot save us. Maybe books can.

Miya's only memories of this place were faded screams, lurching shadows, the smell of death, perhaps only memories of memories, dreams in her darkest nights. She found a vast chamber, abandoned. There were no guards. If any guards normally stood here, they were now fighting above. Columns towered, their capitals vanishing into shadows. A handful of lanterns lit the darkness. Countless shelves spread out, row by row, supporting millions of books and scrolls.

Miya and Fira glanced at each other, and Miya knew they were thinking the same thing.

It was here. Here that Mother died.

An oil lantern, shaped as a dragon, hung from an iron peg. Miya took the lantern and walked between the shelves, casting light and dancing shadows. The books rose around her. Many of the codices were ancient, predating the age of slavery. Most were wrapped in crinkly leather, and some were bound within wood or metal. Letters gleamed on their spines, etched in flaking gold and silver.

"What book are we looking for?" Fira asked, clutching her sword. Sweat beaded on her brow, and her eyes darted.

This is no easier for her than for me, Miya realized.

"A book with answers." Miya kept walking, exploring the spines. "A book about Nemoria."

Yet there were thousands—maybe millions—of books here. Many were in ancient languages Miya could not read. The shelf she walked along held books about herbalism and healing. She saw titles such as Garden Herbs and Spices, Master Ralivor's Battlefield Surgeries, The Muses of Maladies, The Banishment of Bad Blood, and others. She would find no answers here. She kept walking.

The next shelf held books of naval warfare and shipbuilding. Titles included The Warships of Pahmey, The Naval Battles of the Cadigus Regime, The Sailing Ships of Luna the Traveler, The Aelarian Armada, and many other books detailing the building, sailing, and battling of ships. Again, this would offer no solutions.

The sisters kept walking through the library, passing shelf after shelf, passing thousands of books, but the quest seemed hopeless.

"We'll never find what we seek." Miya sighed. "How can we—"

Creaking sounded ahead, and Miya bit down on her words. Fira drew her sword. They sisters froze, staring ahead.

The creaking died.

Miya dared not breathe, and her hand inched toward her own sword. She was not a great warrior like Fira, and she bore no legendary blade. But she was ready to fight as best she could.

Another creak sounded, then heavy breathing.

She's down here, Miya thought. Her heart thumped. Nemoria. She's down here again.

Cold sweat washed her as the creaking drew closer, as the heavy breathing rose in the shadows, snorting, wheezing. Eyes shone in the darkness, peering, moving closer.

"Stand back!" Fira warned, holding her blade high. Her voice shook with fear and rage. "I am no longer a child. If you take one more step closer, I—"

"A step?" rose a voice in the shadows, followed by a wheezy laugh. "No. I think not."

Miya inhaled sharply, drawing a foot of steel, as the figure emerged from the shadows.

She exhaled and let her sword drop back into its scabbard.

No. It was no dark goddess this time.

It was a young woman, strapped into a wooden chair. Two wagon wheels were attached to the seat, and the woman wheeled them forward with a steady grip. A wheelchair! Miya had heard of such contraptions, but she had never seen one. Usually disabled Vir Requis spent their days in dragon form, relying on their wings instead of their legs.

"I'm sorry to have startled you," said the young woman in the wheelchair. "I was having a nap, and I heard you, and …" She tipped her feathered cap. "I'm Lenora, descendant of Queen Fidelity herself, librarian of this little establishment."

The woman had very large, thick spectacles, and blond hair peeked from under her hat. Her earrings were shaped as two silver scrolls, and she wore a necklace of letters—metal letters like those used in printing presses. They spelled out her name.

Miya remembered the stories of Queen Fidelity, who had begun her life as a humble librarian in Altus Mare, eventually becoming queen of Requiem. It was Fidelity, they said, who had built this library—a library that had lasted for centuries, even surviving the domination of Saraph.

Miya stepped closer to the librarian, Fidelity's descendant. "I've come here seeking a book."

Lenora smiled. "That's usually why people visit a library." Her smile faltered. "Then again, not many people have visited since I became librarian. Not since what happened, back when I was only a child, when my parents …" She shuddered, shook her head as if to clear it, and wheeled her chair around. "Come, follow me."

The sisters walked, following the librarian, passing many shelves. Not only books filled this library. Statues of ancient kings of queens stared, seeming almost alive in the shadows. Grand paintings, larger than life, depicted the heroes of Requiem. Artifacts from ancient Requiem, swords and shields and helmets, rested on pedestals—precious items from before the centuries of slavery in Saraph. All in shadows. All hidden away.

As they walked, Miya could still hear the battle above—just a faded, distant sound, barely more than white noise. But she knew that soon, if they could not find answers, the goddess would make her way down here again.

They kept walking, following the librarian until they reached an empty space within a ring of shelves. It reminded Miya of an arena, and the shelves seemed like tiers of seats. Fira paused, and her face paled.

"It was here." Fira lowered her head. "This exact spot. Where Mother died."

"I wish I could remember her," Miya whispered.

Her older sister slung an arm around her and held her close—her scarred arm, the one burned that horrible night. Miya leaned her head against Fira's shoulder.

"We were both so scared," Fira said. "I held you so close, and I … I saw Mother as she …" She shook her head. "No, I will not remember her like that. Not on her last day. I choose to remember a kind, smiling woman, a wise woman who loved to visit this library, to read me books, to sing to me. A woman who loved us so much." She looked into Miya's eyes. "Like I love you."

Before Miya could reply, the library trembled. Dust fell from the ceiling. The bookshelves shuddered, and a scroll rolled across the floor.

"The hydras are breaking in!" Miya said. She turned back toward the librarian. "Lenora, can you help us find knowledge … about what happened? About her?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "About Nemoria."

Lenora clutched her wheels. She glanced up at the ceiling. A crack had appeared there, and dust still fell. The librarian paled.

"I've been living in this library for years now," Lenora said. "It's a place everyone else shuns. Because of what happened. For years I've guarded these halls, the only one brave enough to dwell in this place, to keep the wisdom of Requiem safe. But I've never feared the shadows. The open air, other people, the sky—for me, those have always been things to fear. I feared monsters in the world aboveground. And now she's back. She's really up there, isn't she?" Lenora's voice shook. "The goddess. That's who I hear above."

For years I've been afraid to enter this library, Miya thought. And for years, Lenora has been afraid to leave.

Miya nodded. "She's back."

The librarian shuddered, tightened her lips, and wheeled her chair toward a bookshelf. She grabbed a ladder, hoisting herself up from her chair. Lenora climbed with thin but strong arms, her legs dangling uselessly. She finally reached a shelf high above. She pulled a book free—a massive codex, large as a tombstone. Miya thought the little librarian would drop the tome, but Lenora managed to climb down, holding the book with one hand. She returned to her wheelchair, rolled toward a table, and thumped the book down.

The codex was wrapped in crimson leather, and upon its cover appeared a snake eating its own tail. The title was but one word.

Miya whispered that title, suppressing a shudder: "Gods."

Hesitantly, Miya reached toward the book, then paused and looked at Lenora for approval. The librarian nodded, her eyes large and frightened behind her thick lenses. Fira stood nearby, her blade still drawn.

Here. This very place. Here she died. Here I will avenge her.

Miya took a shuddering breath and opened the book.

The pages were brittle, parchment that seemed centuries, maybe even millennia old. The alphabet used ancient letters, hard for Miya to understand. The first page displayed an illustration of a silver man, bald, his arms at his sides, palms open and facing outward.

"This is Ta'al," Miya said. "Known as the Lord of Light. An ancient god of Terra, the southern continent. The place Oryn is from. Some call Ta'al the greatest of gods, the All Father."

She flipped the page again and shuddered. That page displayed a demon, female, wreathed in fire, towering over mortals and consuming a corpse.

"Her name is Angel," Fira said, staring at the page. "I've heard of her. An ancient demon who tormented the Vir Requis long ago, back when we lived wild in the forest, before we had a kingdom."

Miya kept flipping the pages, leafing past entries of many gods, some kindly, others cruel. A great sphinx of the abyss. A god shaped like a bull with wings. One page even showed the stars of Requiem, the Draco constellation, the protector of this realm.

As Miya gazed at the illustrated stars, silver and beautiful, she felt some hope. She was buried underground, and smoke and monsters hid the sky, but those stars were still up there. Still shining. Still blessing her people.

I don't know what power you have to help us, stars, Miya thought. I don't know why we suffer so much, why our kingdom falls again and again, why so many of our sons and daughters suffer. But I believe. I believe that you watch over us. I believe that under your light, Requiem is eternal.

Miya flipped another page, then pulled her hand back as if bitten.

There she was—inked onto the page in gray and indigo.

"Nemoria," Miya whispered.

The goddess appeared on the page in her human form, black hair flowing down to her hips. She wore obsidian armor and held a spear, an eye upon the blade. Dark clouds and boulders were drawn around her, coiling in a maelstrom as if the world itself bowed before the goddess. In the drawing, she still had both arms.

Miya read the words that appeared on the page, while Fira and the librarian leaned close.

"Nemoria. The Devourer. The dark goddess lives on Icelos, a mountain that rises from clouds far above the eastern sea. Her father is Ta'al, the Lord of Light. Her mother is an ancient ghost of the abyss, a treacherous spirit who tricked Ta'al, who lay with him while he slept, then grew his seed in her astral womb. The Devourer consumes her victims alive, absorbing their powers and magic. With every victim devoured, Nemoria grows stronger."

Miya stopped reading and shuddered. Sweat dripped down her back.

"So that's how she can become a dragon," Miya whispered. "Because she … she devoured Mother. She gained her magic. The ability to shift."

Fira pursed her lips. "And she learned well from her own mother. A ghost who tricked Ta'al into impregnating her? Nemoria did the same to Father, creating Lintari and Ramiel in her womb."

Miya shuddered to remember the words Lintari had spoken.

My sister.

Eyes damp, Miya lowered her head. Was it true? Were the golden eagle and the slithering serpent her siblings, born to Nemoria and King Berinor?

"Look, there's more," Lenora said, flipping the page. The librarian peered through her thick glasses.

Miya squinted in the lamplight. The second page showed Nemoria lying wounded, stabbed with swords, arrows, spears, axes, and crossbow bolts. Yet a second illustration showed her healed, arms raised, a cruel grin on her face.

Miya read the text that appeared beneath the illustrations.

"The Devourer's greatest power is her ability to heal from any wound. The mightiest warriors cannot harm her. The strongest fighters have cut her, burned her, and crushed her bones, only for Nemoria to heal within heartbeats. No might, no strength, no cruelty can harm the Devourer, no bloodlust or courage or the sharpest blade. Only innocence."

They all stared at one another. That last word echoed through the library.

Innocence.

Lenora stared with huge eyes, magnified by her lenses. Fira stared at the page, jaw tight, fist clenched.

Miya's chest trembled.

"Innocence," she whispered.

From above sounded another shriek. Voices echoed, flowing even down here to the library.

"The archways are falling!"

"They're breaking in!"

"The serpent's in the tunnels!"

Clanging steel, screams, and roars sounded above. The ceiling shook. More dust fell.

Miya turned toward her sister and held her hands.

"That's how you did it, Fira," Miya whispered. "That's how you bit off her arm. That's why it didn't grow back. You were a child. You were innocent."

Fira stared back—tall, shattered Fira, scarred, haunted, so strong yet so broken. And no longer innocent. Her dark eyes dampened, and a tear streamed down her cheek.

"We have to gather the children," Fira whispered. "We have to send them to war."

BERINOR

>

He stood in the dark armory, deep underground, facing the most impossible, the most devastating decision of his life.

"Father, it's the only way," Fira said. "The only way we can hurt them. Hurt her."

Standing in the cellar, Berinor clenched his fists and lowered his head.

So it's come to this, he thought. Sacrificing our children on the altar of a dark goddess.

From where he stood, Berinor could hear the battle drawing closer. The upper tunnels had fallen, crushed by hydra claws. Hundreds of guards—dead. Thousands of survivors, here in the deepest corridors—awaiting the enemy.

The door to the armory banged open. A young soldier barged inside, panting, splashed with blood and caked with ash. She was so filthy it took Berinor a moment to recognize her. It was Lady Sirana Oldnale.

"He's in the tunnels!" Sirana said, terror in her eyes. Sizzling ichor, the blood of gods, covered her sword, corroding the steel like acid. "Ramiel. Son of the goddess. He's moving through the tunnels in his human form, slaying all in his path. None of our weapons can hurt him."

Everyone in the chamber looked at Berinor. His daughters. His guards. Even young Oryn was here, silent for once.

Damn it, where are you, Durian? Berinor thought, missing his friend. The old man had gone to fight in the higher corridors. They had not heard from him in hours. Berinor prayed that his dear old friend was still alive.

"Father." Fira stepped gripped his shoulder and stared into his eyes. "That's how I did it years ago. As a child. That's how I gave her a wound that would not heal. Innocence. I was an innocent child." She raised her chin and squared her shoulders. "So now we must do what will shatter our hearts. Because it might save what remains of our nation. We must send forth our children."

Berinor looked at the burns across her, her missing ear, the pain in her eyes, and he remembered her falling, engulfed in the fire, a mere child, screaming in pain. Innocent. Her innocence had shattered that night nearly two decades ago.

"We test it first," Berinor said.

Fira's eyes narrowed. The screams of battle rose louder, drawing nearer.

"We don't have time—" she began.

"We test it first," Berinor repeated. He turned toward Sirana. "Lady Sirana, get me children. Just a few. Now."

The young guardian stared at him with horror, eyes huge and haunted, and her lips trembled. Then she saluted, slamming her fist against her chest. She turned and ran down a tunnel, heading toward the granaries and cisterns.

Long moments passed, tense, agonizing. Berinor stood in the stone chamber. Fira stared at the floor, shoulders squared, jaw clenched. Oryn and Miya huddled in the corner, whispering to each other. The royal family's elite bodyguards, the noble bellators, stood with drawn blades, listening as the battle above moved closer.

Screams rose from above, the words too muffled to understand, but there was no mistaking the pain, the terror. And even louder: demonic laughter.

Ramiel, Berinor thought, nausea churning his belly. My son.

His gut clenched to remember that night Nemoria had tricked him, had made fiery love to him, the most passionate night of his life. Then she had fled, growing twins inside her. Ramiel. Lintari. His children. Children that were now slaughtering his people, crushing his nation, moving closer. Coming for him. To break him, to drag him back to their land, to torture him for their amusement.

Finally Sirana returned to the armory. She had five children with her. Four had huge, damp eyes, and they trembled with fear. The fifth child, a boy of ten or eleven years, had hard, somber eyes.

"My family," Sirana whispered. "My fellow orphans."

Berinor knelt before the children. He stared into the somber boy's eyes. "What's your name, son?"

"Tey," the boy replied.

"Come with me, Tey." Berinor looked at the younger children. "Come with me, all of you. You are young, but tonight you will serve Requiem."

They walked deeper down the tunnels—Berinor, his daughters, his knights, and the children. They moved among other survivors. Graybeards holding canes. Old women huddling together. Mothers and their babes. Barely any fathers left—most of them had died in the war. Thousands prayed here, whispered, waiting for salvation or death. Berinor hurried his step. Soon they were running. The battle cries still rose above.

They moved downward. Down into the deeper pits, deeper even than the library. Past metal doors. Past more guards. Past three portcullises. And finally—finally into that pale, bright chamber in the heart of the underworld.

The chamber of her arm.

The severed limb of the goddess hung on chains, twitching, fingers wriggling. It was here that, once a year, Berinor used blades, fire, acid—any weapon he could imagine to hurt the arm, only for it to heal, to taunt him again.

Fira paused at the doorway, sucking in air between her teeth. Her face paled. Miya stared with huge eyes and her knees shook.

"You … you kept it," Fira whispered, turning toward Berinor. Disgust filled her eyes.

"We could not destroy it," Berinor said. "Nemoria's arm does not rot. Does not die. It attacks whoever draws near. Like its mistress, it is evil, hell-bent on destruction. We've tried crushing it with heavy stones. Drowning it in acid. Burning it with fire. Slicing it with steel. Any wounds inflicted—within moments, it heals." His voice softened. "But we haven't tried innocence."

The children looked at one another. The battle could not be heard down here. But they could all still hear those echoes, still smell the death.

Tey—young, somber Tey—stepped forward, shoulders squared. He drew a dagger from his belt, the hilt shaped as a dragon's claw clutching a crystal.

"Sirana gave me this dagger," the boy said. "To watch over the younger ones. I asked to join the City Guard, and she said I wasn't ready. But maybe I'm ready for this."

The boy took a step toward the hanging arm, chest puffed out, fist tight around his hilt, all courage and bravado. Then he paused and looked back at Sirana, his eyes full of sudden fear. Sirana nodded at him, and Tey took a shaky breath, turned back toward the severed arm, and stepped closer.

The arm gave a sudden jerk, then flailed on its chains. The links clattered. The hand reached toward the boy. The fingers curled inward, tore into the palm, cutting, etching letters into its flesh. Blood dripped and sizzled against the floor. When the fingers uncurled, they revealed a single word cut into the palm.

DIE.

Tey paused. Everyone watched from behind. Berinor drew a foot of steel, ready to swing his sword.

Then Tey let out a cry. A cry so loud, so jarring, that Berinor started. The boy ran forward and buried his dagger into the goddess's palm.

The arm screamed.

Above, past tunnels and chambers and countless tons of stone, another scream rose, echoing the cry below.

Blood spurted, and Tey tugged his dagger out, then lashed it again, slicing the arm's artery. Blood gushed out, thick, dark, sizzling—the ichor of the gods.

The arm floundered. Dust rained from the ceiling where the chains were attached. Tey thrust again, lacerating the gray flesh. The slices opened up, leering like mouths, and a voice emerged from the arm, echoing, buzzing, demonic.

"Requiem will fall. All weredragons will scream in pain. I will devour your children. I will devour you, Tey the orphan, like I devoured your parents."

But the wounds were not healing.

Tey took a few steps back, dagger still in hand. He looked back at the others, eyes haunted but hard.

"Give me room," the boy said.

He's still an innocent, Berinor thought, gazing at the boy. But not for long.

They stepped back. Tey stood at the entrance to the chamber and shifted into a small white dragon, no larger than a horse. His dragonfire streamed forth, washing over the wounded arm, boiling the blood, searing the flesh, finally crumbling the bones into ash.

When Tey's fire died, the arm was gone, a mere charred pile on the floor.

Tey shifted back into a boy and knelt, breathing raggedly. Sirana ran forward and embraced him.

Berinor walked around them. He drew his sword and approached the charred remains, remembering the last time, how the arm had healed even from ashes, leaped up, and slain his men.

He stared down at the ashes.

He kicked them, scattering slivers of bone.

The arm was finally dead.

Berinor turned around, facing the others. Sirana, noble guardian of Requiem. Oryn, young thief, who stared with wide eyes. His daughters, the lights of his life. Berinor looked at them all, and he uttered the most difficult words he had ever spoken, perhaps the most difficult words of any king of Requiem.

"We need more children."

FIRA

They moved through the darkness, gathering the children for war.

As Fira walked through the labyrinth beneath Requiem, she remembered traveling here as a girl, feeling lost, trapped in shadows, a mere innocent child, afraid of creatures hunting her in the dark. Now she had become a huntress of children. One to drag them from safety, to send them into fire. Now she had become the monster she had once so feared.

Oryn walked with her, silent, eyes grim. Her sister, her father, the guards—they were traversing other chambers, raising their own armies of innocence.

Soon this innocence will shatter, Fira thought. Soon there will be no more childhood in Requiem.

"Fira, I don't know about this." Oryn leaned closer to her, his green eyes feverish. "There were children in Altus Mare too. All dead."

They entered an underground silo crowded with parents and children. Fira paused and stared at the thief.

"Many of these children will die too," she said. "Hundreds. Maybe thousands." Her voice caught, and she had to force out the words. "We are sacrificing our children to a dark goddess. For life. For a chance for our nation to continue. The children of Altus Mare cowered and fled, and they fell. Ours will rise with dragonfire at the end."

Oryn seemed ready to object. His mouth thinned into a line. He balled his fists. Finally he looked aside and nodded, and she was surprised to see red rimming his eyes—him, the cutthroat Prince of Shadows, close to tears.

Fira released her breath slowly, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I will not say that we must be strong now," she said. "I will not say that we shouldn't cry. Let there be tears. Let there be pain and grief. Let our hearts not harden but shatter in our chests. We are Vir Requis, able to become dragons, to blow fire and take flight. But in our breasts beat human hearts. And those hearts break tonight." She looked back toward the children in the shadows, and her eyes dampened. "But let us gather the children nonetheless."

They moved through the cavern, pulling children from the arms of their mothers.

The tears of Requiem fell.

Cavern by cavern, Fira moved, shepherding them onward. Cavern by cavern, Fira shed tears as guards held mothers and fathers back. As children cried out for their parents. As mothers fell to their knees, weeping, reaching out, wailing in grief. The guards too wept while pulling the children away—away from their families, away from life.

Innocence.

Innocence soon to shatter.

This is Nemoria's greatest crime, Fira thought as she led the children through the underground. We could, perhaps, forgive her for slaying our children. But we can never forgive her for making them soldiers.

In armories, in dark hallways, she armed them for war. She placed the helmets of grown men on heads that were too small. She placed spears and swords into soft hands, hands barely strong enough to hold them. She kissed their brows, wiped away tears, and she lied to them—lied that they were safe, lied that hope awaited them, lied that they could win this war.

Because there was no longer any victory for Requiem, Fira knew. Only a lost generation. Only a culling, a grief that could never be forgotten.

"Walk with me, children of Requiem," Fira said, facing them—an army shorter than her shoulders, an army of shaking swords, wobbling helmets, an innocence to be lost. "The march of the children begins. March with me through darkness. To light. To fire. To our stars."

She marched and they followed. She knew that across the underground, her father, her sister, her soldiers—they were gathering children of their own, leading them to the exits. Leading them to the dark goddess, the devourer of children.

Soon Fira and Oryn were walking through the upper corridors, heading toward the battle. She could hear the hydras clearly from here—their squeals, snorts, blasts of fire. She could smell them, smoke and rot and burning flesh. A few of the children cried, tried to flee, only for Fira to grab them, soothe them, lead them onward.

"You will fly as dragons," she told them. "You cannot be hurt."

She could not tell them the truth, could not shatter their innocence, for their innocence was Requiem's only shield.

They were passing through a treasury, nearing the open air, when a god of retribution stormed toward them through the darkness.

A narrow corridor sloped upward, lined with vaults. A round bronze door stoppered each vault. Within each chamber shone the gold and treasures of Requiem. Normally only Requiem's treasurers could enter this place. Today blood washed the floor, heralding the arrival of a dark god.

The corridor shook, and coins and jewels chinked inside the vaults. Cloaked in black light, he advanced down the corridor, holding a bloody spine in one hand as a whip. In the other he held an axe, its twin blades shaped like eagle wings. He walked between the vaults, stepping over corpses, awash with blood, a mad grin on his face. When he saw Fira, he paused and stared, and his grin widened.

He licked the blood off his lips. "Hello, sister."

"Ramiel," she whispered.

Fira stared at him—at this tall, beautiful youth.

He looks like Mother, she realized. And he looks like Miya. He is a cruel god. But he's also an Aeternum.

His hair was long and golden, his eyes blue. He was only eighteen, conceived the night Nemoria had donned Mother's skin. But Ramiel seemed ageless, ancient, for the ichor of gods flowed through him alongside the blood of Requiem.

Oryn stepped up to stand by Fira. The thief raised his dagger, and Fira raised her sword. The children stood behind them, shaking and clattering in their armor, nearly dropping their weapons.

"My, my, but the weredragons have truly grown desperate," said Ramiel. "They bring pups to fight their battles while their men cower."

The demigod tossed aside the spine. The bony serpent clattered against the ground. Ramiel gave his axe a few swings. The steel wings whistled as they sliced the air.

Fira screamed and charged toward him.

Arinor—the dynastic sword of Aeternum, forged from the shattered blades of ancient heroes—arched toward the cruel god.

Ramiel swung his axe, howling like a beast, and the steel eagle sang.

The blades slammed together with a shower of sparks—the axe of a god and a sword of starlight.

Ramiel laughed, pulling back his weapon. "Ah, little Fira! You're the one Mother burned." He swung his axe again. "You're still scarred, I see. Disgusting. Such a hideous freak!"

Fira parried, feeling those burns again, feeling the fire—the fire that had engulfed her years ago as she had fallen. She screamed and lashed her blade, and Ramiel parried. They fought in a tunnel too narrow for anything but a duel. Oryn and the children stood behind her, unable to help.

"To live so long with pain …," Ramiel said. He swung his axe, and Fira barely checked the blow. Agony reverberated up her arm. "To suffer for eighteen years with scars, your ear gone, your finger gone, your skin a revolting mess." The steel eagle flew again. "Killing you is a mercy, dear sister."

"I am not your sister." Fira's blade drove forth. "Any blood of Requiem that flows through you, a diseased creature, is corrupted beyond redemption. In the name of Requiem, in the name of Draco, I banish you from this realm!"

She leaped forward. With a quick swing, she knocked aside his axe, then thrust her blade with all her strength. The sword crashed into his neck, cutting deep, emerging from the other side. Panting, Fira tugged the sword back.

Ramiel gurgled. He brought his fingers to his neck. He tried to speak, could not, and spat out blood. Finally words reached his mouth. "That one actually hurt, sister. You wound me." He swung his axe, almost lazily. "For that I'll slice off a piece of you."

One of the axe's blades, the steel eagle's wing, nicked her shoulder.

Fira screamed as her blood splattered a vault.

She nearly dropped her blade. Every instinct in her cried to leap back, to flee. Instead she charged.

I'll cut off his damn head!

Yet he parried her blow.

Behind her, Fira heard the children gasp, heard Oryn curse. The tunnel was so narrow they could not get around her, could not reach Ramiel. She had to face him alone. She swung again. He parried. Sparks showered across her. Almost nothing could hurt a blade forged in dragonfire, but her sword chipped.

"You want to cast me out from your realm," Ramiel said. "But this realm is mine. Requiem is my birthright, for I am the eldest son of King Berinor Aeternum. I am heir to Requiem! This kingdom will be mine to torment, like Berinor tormented my mother."

"Your mother is an insane tyrant!" Fira lashed her blade again. "She's a murderer!"

"Is she?" Ramiel laughed. "No, sister. My mother is strong, kind, noble. You should never have bitten off her arm. Your family always loathed us. Our father raised you in a palace, but he never acknowledged me. He was ashamed of me." Ramiel sneered, and his eyes blazed. "My mother told me how he'd scoff, call Lintari and me wretched creatures. But he will become a creature, a collared slave, limbless, a worm who crawls in our hall. And you will crawl there too!"

His axe swung and Fira leaped back, narrowly dodging the blow.

She stared at him—this wretched god, beautiful and foul, her brother and her tormentor.

We share blood. We share shame.

She glanced behind her at Oryn and met his gaze. Then she looked back at Ramiel. She let her sword drop.

The demigod tilted his head, confused.

Fira lowered her head. "You're right, brother. You're right. We cast you out. We were ashamed of you. I'm sorry."

"Is this a trick?" Ramiel's eyes narrowed. He raised his axe. "I will cut you again."

She nodded. "And I would deserve it. Mutilate me. Take me back to your realm in the sky. I will crawl there and beg for forgiveness." She knelt before him. "I'm sorry, brother. Forgive me."

He stared at her, confusion writ across his face, but slowly he smiled.

Fira knelt even lower. It had to be low enough.

"Yes." Ramiel reached down to stroke her head. "Yes, I like you kneeling, worm. I—"

The dagger slammed into his neck, burying itself down to the hilt.

Fira looked over her shoulder to see Oryn standing there, his hand held out.

"Children, now!" the thief shouted.

The kids tossed their own daggers.

Blades whistled over the kneeling Fira. The weapons slammed into Ramiel, cutting his face, cutting his raised hands. One dagger took an eye.

"For my parents!" Tey shouted, ran up Fira's back like a ramp, and vaulted forward.

The boy thrust a spear. The blade shattered Ramiel's armor with a shower of fire, then drove into the corrupted flesh.

The demigod stared with one eye, the other eye gone, his face ravaged. Blood flowed from his open mouth.

His axe clattered to the floor.

Ramiel fell to his knees.

As Fira rose to her feet, the wounded Ramiel thrashed on the floor, spurting, spitting, puking blood. These wounds, delivered by innocence, would not heal. He tried to rise, the spear still skewering him. He fell, snapping the shaft. He reached up to Fira, a dagger in his eye, buried down to the hilt.

"Please," he whispered, weeping blood. "Please. I'm your brother. Please, Fira. Please. It hurts. I hurts so bad. I'm scared."

He grabbed her leg, and Fira grimaced and stepped back, kicking him away. He fell, tried to crawl forward, his blood flowing. He vomited. His ichor sizzled.

"I'm scared." His eye gazed at her from the ruin of his face. "Please. I'm sorry."

Fira stared at him. She stared at the spine he had discarded. She stared at the corpses behind him, felled by his axe.

"Die now," she said to him. "Die in pain."

Ramiel shrieked. His lips uncurled, revealing sharp canines. His one good eye blazed. With a shaking hand, he reached up, grabbed his face, and pulled at the skin, the muscles.

"I cannot die!" he cried. "I am immortal!"

He ripped off his face, tearing flesh from the skull, laughing, bleeding, the dagger still in his eye. He began to shift. His skin grew metallic. Wings sprouted from his back, banged against the walls, and shattered. A vault door cracked and swung open, spilling a river of golden coins. The ravaged god looked up, his body still human, his head sprouting a beak. He twitched, caught between man and bird, wailing, weeping. Dying.

"Now you crawl before me," Fira whispered.

She reached down toward the dagger that still stuck out from his head—a dagger thrust by innocence, by a child. She pressed against the hilt, shoving it deeper, until the hilt vanished into Ramiel's skull and the blade emerged from the back of his head.

He gave a last, shuddering gasp, then fell.

He lay still.

I slew my brother, Fira thought, gazing down at him. But I feel no remorse. I slew a cruel god.

She kicked his corpse aside, then turned back toward the children. They stood there, eyes wide, cheeks damp with tears.

Their innocence will not last much longer, Fira thought. Perhaps it's already too late for them.

Tears flowed down her own cheeks.

"Do not let this ugliness scar you," she said. "Do not believe that evil will forever fill this world. There is ugliness around us now, and there is evil, but there is goodness too. There is so much light, love, and wonder in the world, and it's worth fighting for." Her chest shook, and she no longer knew if she was speaking to these children or to another child—the child she had been years ago, burnt, broken. "Always, even in the utmost darkness, even trapped in a labyrinth of shadows—always seek the light."

They stared at her with huge eyes. They walked onward. Their helmets wobbled, and their weapons were too large, dragging along the ground. They followed her, stepping over the corpse of Ramiel, over the corpses of fellow children, over horror, seeking a way out from darkness, seeking light.

BERINOR

On a cold dawn, the children of Requiem rose from darkness into light. On a dawn of snow and shadow, the fire of Requiem blazed its brightest.

They emerged into the morning light and walked through snow and blood, huddled together. Frightened. Lost children emerging from shadows, blinking, pale. The helmets of their fathers and brothers nearly covered their eyes, and in hands too small, too soft, they held swords and spears crafted for larger warriors. But this dawn, the children of Requiem were warriors too. Here was the war of the children. Here was the most devastating war in the history of a torn, bleeding, haunted nation. Here was a sacrifice of innocence to the gods of cruelty. Here was hope.

Berinor, king of Requiem, emerged with them from the tunnels beneath the city. They stood in the snowy ruins, hundreds of children emerging from each archway. And they beheld nightmare and desolation.

The fair city of Nova Vita lay fallen, its columns shattered, its halls destroyed. Corpses lay in the wreckage, overlain with snow. Some of the dead lay whole; most had been ravaged, their limbs and flesh scattered across the ruins. In death, the Vir Requis and their half siblings, the cambions with seraph blood, were indistinguishable. In death, they were all fallen heroes of Requiem.

Above the dead loomed the enemy. A few hundred hydras had died; the warriors of Requiem had managed slaying all five heads at once, not giving the creatures time to heal. But thousands still lived, standing over the corpses, covering the ruins, flying in the sky. They drooled, saliva burning the earth, and flames gathered in their jaws. A few cambions and dragons still fought—only a handful, last pockets of resistance in the sky, hopeless to stop the onslaught.

In the distance, King's Column rose from the ruins, the only structure in the city still standing. Upon its capital she stood in human form—Nemoria, dark goddess, Devourer. Profaning Requiem's holiest relic. Black fire burned at her feet, and all the clouds and stars spun around her, spreading in ripples, repelled by her malice.

Berinor, standing among his children, stared at her across the distance. From the pillar high above, the goddess stared down, her eyes two stars.

The goddess rose into the air and shifted, becoming a demonic dragon with three heads, and her hydras rallied around her. Their flames lit the sky and their roars shook the ruins.

Berinor looked back at his children, hundreds of them, emerging from the underground. The warriors of Requiem.

Forgive me. Please forgive me.

He shifted.

King Berinor took flight, a green-and-silver dragon, among the largest in Requiem. Behind him they rose, hundreds of smaller dragons, smaller lights, so small, so fragile. Yet they all roared. In fear. In fury. High voices, the voices of childhood. They blew their dragonfire. The war of the children began.

Above the ruins, they fought. Hydras blasted their flames, melting the scales of dragons, sending children—burning, screaming children—tumbling to their deaths. In death they lost their magic, and their bodies—so small, so frail, so beloved—shattered against the ruins. As Berinor fought with them, clawing and burning the hydras, he wept. If there was ever glory to war, it was not this war. If there was ever nobility to battle, it was not this battle. Here was a war of tears, of childhood's end.

And the flames of childhood burned bright, and the fires of innocence burned hot. And in their light, the shadows fled. The monsters died. For monsters in the darkness were real. The creatures that hid under beds, that scurried in cellars, that haunted closets, that filled nightmares on coldest, darkest nights—those monsters truly breathed, truly killed, as true as the scars of the soul. This was the war of the children, the war where the children fought back. The war in which they slew the monsters under the bed.

Before them, immune to steel and might but not to innocence, the monsters fell.

One by one, the hydras tumbled from the sky, their wounds no longer healing. As they fell, they still blew fire, and their tails still lashed, and their claws still cut through dragons. They killed even as they died. They claimed a terrible price, even as they perished. They were grown from the flesh of a goddess, and they demanded their sacrifices even as they bled, as they burned, as they crashed down to the ruin they had wrought. They were the flesh of their mistress, and they had her strength, and they had her weakness. Before the innocent, they shattered.

Across the sky of Requiem, they died that dawn—children and monsters, innocence and shadows, dreams and nightmares. Upon their ancient city, in the light of their column, the children of Requiem killed and died, and a nation wept.

Across the ruins, Berinor saw the others emerging from the tunnels. Fira flew in the north, a red dragon, blasting out fire, leading hundreds of young dragons, cutting a path through the hydras. In the east flew Durian and Sirana, guardians of starlight, leading many more children. Miya—precious Miya, perhaps bravest in Requiem—flew beyond King's Column, leading a thousand small dragons who weren't much younger than her. Across the city, they kept rising, a generation, and the forces of the eastern shadows fell in flame.

A cry rose ahead—cruel, flowing with fury. Berinor looked up, and he saw her there.

"Nemoria," he growled.

The three-headed dragon bled from many wounds that would not heal. Burn marks spread across her scales. She swooped toward Berinor.

When several hydras flew toward her, trying to guard their goddess, Nemoria clawed at them, tore them apart, sent them tumbling down. Her three heads roared, eyes blazing, as she charged toward Berinor. From her jaws flew her fury: fire, ice, and metal.

Berinor flew toward her, vainly trying to dodge the assault. Flames washed across his back, melting his dorsal spikes. Ice and steel cut him. And yet he flew onward, flew toward the creature who had murdered his wife, who had destroyed generations of dreams, of hope, of starlight.

"You are banished from this realm, Nemoria!" he said. "Leave now. Return to your lair in the east. This land is forbidden to you."

"This land is mine!" she screeched. "This land is the birthright of our children! Our son will inherit Requiem, and—"

"Our son is dead," Berinor said, surprised to find grief filling him. "Ramiel fell. He fell underground."

Nemoria screamed, rearing in the sky, raising her claws. "You lie! You lie!"

But in her eyes it was clear: she knew the truth.

And she wept.

Nemoria—the Devourer, the dark goddess—wept in the sky.

"My son, my son!" She stared at Berinor, eyes red, chest heaving. "You slew our son! You will always be cursed, wretched, foul. You slew your own son!"

Screaming from all three heads, she charged toward him.

They emerged from behind Berinor, and they soared toward her. The children of Requiem. This day they were all his sons and daughters.

Their fire streamed forth, hundreds of thin jets. They were the bravest warriors in Requiem. As the goddess screamed, the young dragons flew through her fire, her ice, her horrible, spinning shards of steel that tore through wings and scales. The children flew toward her, hundreds, from all sides, from above, from below, blasting their dragonfire, weaving a ball of flame.

In the holocaust, she screamed.

Nemoria, goddess, daughter of the Lord of Light—burning.

"Daughter!" she cried from the blaze, wings scattering fire, wings burning. "Lintari, daughter, where are you? Where are you, daughter?"

The golden serpent flew toward her, bleeding, many scales missing, her exposed flesh red. Tears streamed down Lintari's scaly cheeks. She rose toward her mother, flying even through the fire that burned her, the fire of children.

"He is fallen!" wept Lintari. "Ramiel is dead!"

From the fire they rose, flying higher—a three-headed dragon and a great serpent, burnt, cut, shedding tears. They soared, and as their tears fell, Berinor felt the grief crushing him.

My son is dead. He looked around, saw the countless bodies on the ruins below. They are all my children.

"Burn her!" shouted Fira in the distance, beating her wings, flying higher, blasting dragonfire at the goddess. "Children, fly higher!"

"Burn her down!" Oryn shouted, a black dragon, soaring in a straight line.

The children rose, flying straight up, spurting out flame, their tails pointing toward the ground, their snouts facing the sun. Thousands of dragons rose, leaving wakes of smoke, thousands of fiery columns. Berinor rose with them, barely able to breathe, barely able to beat his wings in the thin air.

The goddess and her daughter still flew above, ascending, and the air thinned, and ice coated the dragons. The ruins became like toys below, then just a faded patch, and Berinor could not breathe, his head spun, and he saw blackness.

"Burn her!" he tried to shout, finding no voice, and still the goddess and her daughter rose higher.

The clouds were now just a distant blanket below. And still the goddess ascended. No dragon had ever flown so high. The curve of the world spread on the horizons, and the ground became but smudges of faded colors, the city a stain. Berinor found no air for his lungs, no air for his wings. He roared up fire, but the flames sputtered, and still Nemoria and Lintari soared higher.

The young dragons fell.

One by one, like leaves in autumn, they glided downward, tumbling, unable to fly so high.

Berinor kept rising, eyes narrowed to slits, tail lashing. Rising higher. At his side, Fira gasped and fell. Oryn and Miya tumbled down. Berinor flew alone, still rising, still chasing the goddess.

The blue sky faded. The stars spread above.

He couldn't breathe. He could barely see. He reached up, and with his claws he grabbed Nemoria's tail.

She stared down at him, wounded, burnt, but her eyes still blazed with hatred.

"You murdered our son," she said, and her ice rained across him, cutting him.

And Berinor fell.

He spun, wings frozen. He tumbled, finding no air. He fell from the sky, the wind shrieking around him, a dragon with green and silver scales, a king, a father mourning. He fell like Fira had fallen years ago. He fell toward the ruins, toward shattered stones, toward ice and blood, toward a little hope in a world where so much hope was lost.

They caught him. His daughters. His soldiers. They laid him down among the ruins, by the column that still stood, and when Berinor gazed up into the blue sky, he could no longer see her, but he knew her words would forever echo in his mind.

ORYN

Once more he stood among ruins. Once more he stood among death, a home destroyed.

Nemoria had fled. Requiem was victorious. Yet the cost seemed too high to bear.

I failed, Oryn thought, head lowered. I tried to get them to flee. To find safety. Yet thousands lie dead around me.

He walked through the wreckage of Nova Vita. Fallen walls and pillars. Dead hydras whom even the crows would not touch. Desolation and despair, even in victory. Walking through a city's destruction, Oryn thought of Altus Mare, his hometown by the sea. He had grown up in those cobbled alleyways, by that warm coast, had seen the city ravaged, all its inhabitants slain. He had fled from ruin to ruin, and Oryn wondered if he could ever rebuild a life in this land.

All his life he had been an agent of chaos. All his life he had survived by thieving, hurting, tearing things down. But now, here in the wreckage, Requiem would have to be rebuilt.

And so will my life, Oryn thought. Stronger.

He lowered his head, and the wind tousled his hair. He reached into his pocket and felt the jewels Princess Miya had given him. The jewels he had tried to steal, the jewels he could have fled with, the jewels he had returned here with.

I can no longer be that old thief, Oryn thought. Instead of one who steals, I must become one who gives. Instead of one who breaks, I must be one who builds.

He looked around. At the dead being carried on litters. At the survivors praying together, bandaging wounds, building campfires and tents—Vir Requis and cambions working together for the first time in generations. This was a city Oryn could have once ruled from the shadows. This was a battlefield he could have once fled. But he had returned here as a soldier. He had chosen this fate freely, not a life of shadows but of dragonfire.

Let me no longer be a thief. He rubbed his neck where the marks of the noose were still sore. Let me be one who gives rather than takes.

A flash of green caught his eye. Oryn looked up to see a woman walking through the ruins, gingerly stepping over strewn bricks and fallen archways.

Miya.

The young princess still wore her green gown. The embroidered fabric was tattered and dusty. Her golden hair hung across her shoulder in a braid, stained with blood. She tried to climb over a fallen column—a remnant of the royal palace—and wobbled.

Oryn raced toward her. He caught her as she fell. She blinked up at him.

"I … I came looking for the throne," she said. A scratch bled across her brow. "The Oak Throne of Requiem. I can't find it."

Oryn looked aside. He saw a few charred, fallen roots, the only remnants of the chair. He looked back at Miya.

"Looks uncomfortable anyway." He reached into his pocket, pulled out her emerald necklace, and handed it to her. "But this survived. Here. It's yours."

She stared at the jewels, then back at him. "I gave it to you."

He shrugged. "Eh, they look better on you anyway. Besides, nowhere left to sell it, I reckon." He placed the necklace around her neck. "Just … when there's a medal ceremony, make sure they name me the greatest hero in Requiem's history. And make sure they mint me some really nice medals. Pure gold. No, wait! Platinum. Platinum's worth more than gold, you know. Not everyone knows that." He frowned. "Better make it two medals—one of gold, so I can show it off to the ignorant. And they'll have my beautiful face engraved on them, of course. A state will be nice too."

Miya sighed, embraced him, and rested her head against his shoulder. They stood together for a long time, ash blowing around them. Across the ruins, other survivors climbed and stood together, some weeping for their dead, others praying for those who lived.

This is why I stayed, Oryn thought, holding Miya close. For Miya. For thousands of others across Nova Vita and the rest of Requiem. Reean died. My comrades in the thieves' guild died. My home lies destroyed along the coast. But here, in the heart of destruction, I found new life—for the people of Requiem, and for myself.

In a fallen world, Oryn was prepared to rebuild.

DURIAN

He lay underground. Buried. Broken. He lay alone in darkness, in memory. The weight of the world crushed him.

I'm dying, Durian thought. Maybe I'm dead already.

He groaned, struggled, trying to move. But something heavy lay across his chest, denting his armor, pinning him down. With one free arm, Durian pushed the object, but it wouldn't budge. His hand pressed against a stony face. It was a statue. Marble.

A statue of King Berinor, he realized. That bastard.

"Crushed to death by your ugly mug," Durian muttered. "What a way to go."

Speaking hurt. He tried to cough but could not. The damn statue kept crushing his chest. If not for his armor, it would have crushed his bones.

He tried to move his legs. Couldn't. More stones, burying him. Durian was probably near the surface. He had been climbing out from underground, had seen daylight when the whole damn tunnel had caved in, knocking him down, burying him alive. So damn close.

So this is my tomb, he thought. It wasn't a bad place to die. It beat being burned in the sky. It beat dying an old man ravaged with disease. Well, he was an old man, a full sixty-two years of age, but not yet frail. And he had died fighting in a great battle. Yes. This was a good death.

He twisted as much as he could, trying to reach the flask on his belt. His fingers just grazed the surface.

Just need one more swig before I die.

He groaned, unable to draw the flask, unable to reach its precious elixir. It would soothe away all the pain, all the fear. So close—just beyond his grip. He cursed, spat, then sighed.

"I'll see you soon, son," he said, and tears dampened his eyes. "Maybe in an hour. Maybe in a few days, depending how bad my body is crushed. But I'll see you again, lad. Soon all the pain will be gone, and I'll hold you in my arms for the first time in years. I miss you. I love you."

He blinked those tears away, anxious for the reunion. Perin had been only twenty-two. Just a lad, that was all. Not even married yet, just a happy lad with twinkling eyes and a ready smile. Father and son—killed by the same enemy, eighteen years apart.

"Soon I'll rise to the stars," Durian said. "Soon I'll see their light, and I'll see you there, a proud son of Requiem, awaiting me."

A rumble sounded above.

Strange. Durian had always imagined the starlit halls of afterlife to sound like harps, like song. And yet the rumble continued.

A single star shone above, so beautiful that fresh tears flowed into Durian's beard. It was Issari's Star, the eye of the dragon, the brightest in Requiem's constellation. Its light intensified, and a beam fell upon Durian. He had always imagined the starlight of afterlife to be silvery and soft, but this light was bright yellow, landing straight on his eyes. He winced.

The light and rumbling intensified, and a voice spoke above, muffled. Somebody was moving up there. Durian blinked in the light, trying to see who it was.

"Son?" he whispered, reaching up a shaking hand. "Son! It's me. It's your father."

A voice rose above. "I found one! A survivor!" The figure leaned down, a silhouette in the light. A gasp sounded. "Durian!"

The figure grew, becoming a dragon. Claws grabbed the statue crushing Durian and pulled it off. Gently, the claws wrapped around Durian, raising him from the rubble. He blinked in the dust and sunlight, barely able to see. The dragon laid him down on a litter, and Durian coughed, struggled to bring his eyes back into focus.

"This isn't the afterlife, is it?" he muttered.

Finally he could make out his surroundings. A young woman in armor knelt by him, clasping his hand.

Love—warm, healing, fatherly love—filled Durian.

"Sirana," he said softly. "You just couldn't let an old man die in peace, could you?"

The guardian blinked away tears, smiling, and stroked his cheek. "Never."

Durian pushed himself up from the litter, woozy and struggling to rise to his feet. Other guards rushed forth.

"Lord Durian!" said one. "Lie down, sir! You must rest."

He waved them aside, grumbling. "Calm yourselves, dammit. Give an old man room to breathe. I'm fine, I'm fine." Durian stood on wobbly feet. His head spun, and he felt like passing out, but he'd be damned if he gave his soldiers the satisfaction.

He took a wobbly step toward Sirana, grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her into an embrace.

"Thank you, lassie." His damn tears wouldn't stop flowing. "Thank you." He brushed dust off her face, and his breath shook. "I thought I would see my son again. I thought that I would rise to the starlit halls and be with him in death. I lost a son years ago, lass. But this war, I gained a daughter."

Sirana held him close. "I lost my parents in the last war. My father was Master of the City Guard." She smiled tremulously. "My new father is too." Suddenly her smile vanished, and her eyes filled with tears. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Durian, one of my children … Vered, only seven years old. She …"

Sobs claimed her, and she trembled.

For a moment, Durian froze, the horror and grief too great. Then he pulled Sirana into an even tighter embrace, letting her weep against him. His arms were wide and strong, and he was a brave warrior, but he couldn't fix this. He couldn't heal this pain, couldn't undo all this death.

"I'm sorry, lass," he said. "I'm sorry."

They stood together among the ruins for a long time, until finally Sirana stepped back, shifted into a dragon, and resumed digging through the rubble, seeking other survivors.

Dusty, bloody, his armor dented, Durian looked back at the hole she had pulled him from. Down there, among the rubble, lay his silver flask.

Durian kicked dust and stones over it. With a deep breath, he turned away. He became a dragon, and he began to dig for life, leaving his slow death underground.

FIRA

Three days after devastation and triumph, after the fall and victory of Nova Vita, the red dragon flew high above, so high she appeared like a comet to those below. In the cold air, alone, the dragon gazed down at a city rising from ruin, and her chest felt tight enough to crush her heart.

I couldn't save you, Nova Vita, Fira thought, gazing at the ruins. I faced my nightmares in the arena. I returned to you from exile. But I could not defeat you, Nemoria, not without sacrificing our children—and my childhood—to your fire.

She flew farther north, and there, beyond the old city walls, she saw it. The new cemetery.

Thousands of graves had been dug. Thousands of makeshift tombstones, built from the marble of the fallen city, rose there. Many of the dead were cambions, slain defending a realm they had never fully belonged to. Many others were brave warriors of the City Guard and Royal Army.

And many were the graves of children.

"Forgive me, children of Requiem," Fira whispered, a lump in her throat, tears in her eyes. She looked up toward the sky, seeing no stars in the daylight, the Draco constellation hidden from her, perhaps forever. "Forgive me, stars of my forebears. I could not do what I had thought. I could not slay the goddess."

The stars were invisible, silent. For years, Fira had felt abandoned, felt that the stars were just lights, just legends, fake gods. For a brief moment of hope, facing her demons in the arena, she had thought the starlight real, had thought that Issari herself, the great priestess of Requiem, was watching over her. But now her faith faltered. If the stars were truly gods, why had they not descended, not fought Nemoria?

"Why did you demand this sacrifice, gods?" Fira stared at the sky, eyes blurred with tears. "Why did you demand innocence slain?"

A light streaked above. A brief flash. White, vanishing within a blink. A daytime meteor, that was all, so brief Fira might have imagined it.

Her tears fell.

"I don't know if you're watching, if you bless us," Fira whispered. "I don't know if you punish us, or if you watch our death with grief, desperate to help, powerless to save our fragile lives. I don't know why we suffer. I don't know why there's so much pain in the world, yet still we fight, claw, cling by our fingernails to life." She looked down below at the ruins, at Nova Vita, at the thousands who still lived, moving through the wreckage. "But I know this. This is my home. This is my birthright. This is a life I will no longer flee."

She pulled her wings closer to her body, and she spiraled down toward the ruins, toward the heartland of Requiem. As she descended, King's Column grew larger in her vision, another line of light, like the one she had seen in the sky, a starbeam rising from hallowed ground. Perhaps Requiem would not survive forever. Perhaps the goddess would return, or another enemy would strike. But so long as that column rose, as dragons flew, Fira knew that this was her home—not the cave in the wilderness, not the shadowy labyrinths in her mind, but this place. This light.

A large dragon toiled below, dragging fallen bricks from a courtyard. His scales were green and silver, but so dusty that it took Fira a moment to recognize her father. Other dragons worked around the king, clearing the wreckage. A few Vir Requis stood among them in human form, pulling artifacts from the rubble—dented vases of precious metal, cracked statues of ancient kings and queens, dusty and torn tapestries, and—Fira cringed to see it—more bodies.

She landed on the rubble by her father. The green-and-silver dragon turned toward her, smoke rising from his nostrils. The two walked across the pile of bricks, claws scratching the stone, and came to stand in a clearing by an orphaned archway and half a column. They released their magic, returning to human form.

"Father, you're still hurt." Fira pointed at the wounds that covered Berinor. "You should be resting."

The king was dressed in the humble clothes of a builder. More white than ever streaked his brown beard, and his temples had gone silver. New lines wrinkled his brow. The war had aged him, but he was still tall, still strong, his shoulders squared, his jaw wide.

"I'm fine, Fira," he said, but she saw that he was lying. There was still much pain in him. The pain of his wounds, but a deeper pain too, a pain of loss.

Fira looked aside at a crumbling archway, one that led underground. The archway she had emerged from with the children.

She spoke softly. "He was not one of our family." The wind caressed her hair, scented of ash. "Whatever blood of Aeternum flowed through him had been corrupted beyond healing. When we slew him, he was fully evil. An abomination who had murdered many children." She looked back at her father. "I grieve, Father. I still grieve for Requiem. I grieve for the thousands who died. I don't think that I will ever stop grieving. But I do not grieve for Ramiel."

She looked at the sky, wondering where Lintari was now—her younger sister, the serpent who had slain so many in the forests.

Will you return to us, Lintari? Will we meet again in battle?

Berinor looked up too, then back at Fira. His eyes were somber. "They will return someday. Nemoria and Lintari. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not for decades. But that is another day. Today we rebuild. Today we live. Today my daughter is home." His eyes narrowed just the slightest. "You will stay with us, Fira. Won't you?"

Fira leaned against him, gazing with her father at the workers who bustled across the city, clearing rubble, already building new homes. King's Column shone above them, as eternal as the wind.

"When I was a child, I faced her, and I burned, and I fell." Fira spoke softly, staring at the ruins of the palace. "For many years, I hurt, my innocence lost. For many years I hid in shadow. Today there are many children here who are like I was. Many children hurt, lost in shadows. Their innocent gone. I will stay. I will no longer hide in my cave. I will help these children, for they are lost in dark labyrinths, and they need a guide. They need one who knows the way out—to the light of day, to the light of stars, to the light of Requiem."

They stood side by side, king and princess, father and daughter. Fira thought of many things. Of looming war. Of recovery and healing. Of a Requiem that would no longer be Miya's to inherit but hers—a land she would someday govern, many years from now, after her father had risen to the stars. She stood by him, this father, this great king, until those stars emerged above.

The Draco constellation shone, ever watching, ever her light in shadow. And Fira knew that Requiem's light would always be a beacon to her, even in her darkest hours, lost in memory and fear. She would never more hide alone.

NEMORIA

They flew for days.

They flew through storm, through searing sunlight, through rain, through grief. They flew over ruins and over water and over darkness. Mother and daughter. Goddesses. Broken. Torn. They flew from the world, eastward, upward, and their tears and blood fell.

He's gone, Nemoria thought, not even feeling the wounds across her, the cuts and burns the children of Requiem had given her. My son is gone.

It seemed the passage of eras that they flew. They crossed Leonis Islands, where griffins flew above the trees. They crossed the great gray ocean. They rose higher, flying toward the eternal storm that ever darkened the eastern sky, swirling, rumbling like a beast. Thunder boomed, and lightning flashed, and Nemoria thought of the golden eagle, the terror of the sky who had gathered storms beneath his wings. Of Ramiel. Of her son.

Nemoria flew higher, beating her wings, a three-headed dragon covered with scabs and burns. Lintari flew with her, a coiling serpent, many of her scales cracked or missing. They flew through the clouds, the rain, the lightning that seared them. They ascended higher, and there above, it loomed, rising upon the clouds—Icelos Mountain, the ancestral home of the eastern sky gods.

The dark mountain rose taller than any mountain upon the world, its slopes lifeless and rocky, and a starry sky spread above its peaks. A labyrinth coiled across the mountainsides, dark, twisting. A place of silence. Of cold. Of eyes that peered from many holes. Tonight—a place of mourning.

An acropolis crowned the mountain, built from obsidian, a walled city of many roads and shadows. A temple rose upon the peak, lined with black columns, its pediment shining with gilded engravings. It was to this silent, glimmering hall that Nemoria and Lintari, goddesses of Icelos, now flew. At the portico they released their magic, returning to their human form. A woman with gray, veined skin and streaming black hair, beautiful and terrible to behold, her left arm missing, her body covered with cuts. An angelic girl with golden hair, bruised, burnt, tears on her cheeks.

They stepped between the columns and into their home.

The Hall of Shadows was empty, austere, a place of obsidian, of crackling braziers, of starlight that shone cold and sharp between the columns. Three thrones rose at the back of the chamber. One would forever remain empty.

Nemoria took a step toward the thrones. Another step. Then she dropped her spear, fell to her knees on the obsidian tiles, and cried out in grief.

"They murdered him," Nemoria said, bloody tears streaming down her cheeks. "They murdered my son."

Lintari knelt before her. There was no room for grief on Lintari's pale face. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips peeled back in a snarl so wide it split open her cheeks, spread to her ears, and revealed rows of sharp teeth. Her blue eyes blazed with fire.

"We will avenge him," Lintari said. "We will avenge my twin."

Nemoria pulled her daughter into her arms. They clung together, bonded by blood and tears and hatred.

"I love you, my daughter," Nemoria whispered, grasping Lintari's hair, clinging, pulling, nearly ripping it out. "I love you so much. I love you more than hot fire, more than cold steel, more than our Hall of Shadows and our land of stone and storm." She pulled back and stared into Lintari's eyes. "But not more than I hate them."

They stood up. They walked across the tiles, leaving a trail of ashes. They stood between the columns of their hall, staring into the western darkness. The labyrinth sprawled down barren mountainsides and faded into clouds. Beyond lay the endless shadows of sky and sea. Requiem was too far to see from here, but still it taunted Nemoria, and still the dragonfire screamed across her flesh.

"Yes, we will avenge him, daughter." Nemoria stared into the shadows, then turned to look at Lintari, and she grinned so widely it hurt her cheeks, a savage grin, tasting of tears. "We will summon them. The sisters."

The rage vanished from Lintari's face. She blanched. Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. "The sisters …"

Nemoria nodded. "We will not fear them, Lintari. We will not balk at commanding them. We will unleash their fury upon Requiem, and we will laugh as the last dragons die."

Trembling, Lintari gripped her mother's hand. They stood together, staring into the shadows.