FORGED IN DRAGONFIRE

FLAME OF REQUIEM, BOOK ONE

by

Daniel Arenson

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: ELORY

CHAPTER TWO: VALE

CHAPTER THREE: ISHTAFEL

CHAPTER FOUR: MELIORA

CHAPTER FIVE: VALE

CHAPTER SIX: ELORY

CHAPTER SEVEN: MELIORA

CHAPTER EIGHT: ELORY

CHAPTER NINE: ISHTAFEL

CHAPTER TEN: ELORY

CHAPTER ELEVEN: JAREN

CHAPTER TWELVE: KALAFI

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ELORY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: JAREN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: ELORY

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: MELIORA

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: VALE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: MELIORA

CHAPTER NINETEEN: VALE

CHAPTER TWENTY: ELORY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: MELIORA

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: ELORY

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: ISHTAFEL

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: MELIORA

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: JAREN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: MELIORA

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: ISHTAFEL

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: MELIORA

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: LUCEM

CHAPTER THIRTY: MELIORA

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: VALE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: MELIORA

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: KALAFI

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: MELIORA

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: ISHTAFEL

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: ELORY

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: MELIORA

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: ELORY

AFTERWORD

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

KEEP IN TOUCH

ELORY

Blood.

Searing sunlight.

The cracks of whips on flesh.

With cries of agony, with sand and tar, with twisted shoulders and breaking backs, the children of Requiem toiled.

"Faster!"

The flaming whips flew, ripping through skin.

"Up!"

The chains rattled. Slaves fell. Masters roared.

"Toil!"

The sunlight beat down, as merciless as the whips. Across the pit, a nation broke. A people shattered. Thousands spread across the crater, hobbling forward, feet chained. The whips cut them. The sun burned them. The yokes hung across their stooped shoulders, secured with chains, bearing baskets of bitumen. The tar bubbled up from the wells, filling the pit, burning bare feet, churning the air, invading lungs with noxious fumes.

"Faster!"

Blood.

"Up!"

Whips ripping skin.

"Toil!"

Golden masters of light. Shattered, dying slaves.

Requiem—a nation broken. A nation in chains.

Elory trudged across the tar pit, chains rattling around her ankles. The seeping tar burned her feet. The yoke shoved against her narrow shoulders, cracking the skin, threatening to crack the bone. Sticky clumps of bitumen filled the baskets hanging off her yoke, the fumes filling her nostrils and lungs, spinning her head, leaving her always dizzy, always numb. The sunlight beat down, baking her shaved head, burning her arms and neck, nearly blinding her. Her collar squeezed her neck, leaving her wheezing, struggling for every breath.

"Faster, worm!"

She could not see the overseer, but she felt his whip. The lash slammed against her back, and Elory yowled. Even over the stench of bitumen, she smelled her own blood. She wobbled. She fell to her knees, nearly spilling her baskets, burning her knees in the seeping, sticky blackness.

"Up! Toil!"

The whip slammed down again. Elory screamed. She wept. She pushed herself up. She hobbled onward.

Faster. Up. Toil. The words rattled through her mind, an endless chant. The prayer of her people. The only words that would perhaps allow her to cling to this flickering life. A life of blood. Of pain. Of tar.

Of hope, Elory thought, eyes stinging with tears.

"Move, maggot!"

Her master's whip lashed again. Again her back tore. Elory shuffled onward, chains rattling, blood seeping, the ancient word on her lips.

"Requiem," she whispered as she struggled across the pit, carrying the bitumen. "Requiem. Requiem."

"Faster! Up! Toil!"

Requiem.

Tears stung her eyes. Elory looked around her. Through the fumes of tar, the blinding sunlight, and the sweat in her eyes, she couldn't see far. All around her, her nation broke. Men. Women. Children. Chains around their ankles. Collars, cursed with dark magic, keeping their old magic at bay. Slaves. Wretches. No more than maggots by the blinding light of the beautiful masters.

But once we were proud, Elory thought. Once we were dragons.

She shut her eyes, and tears streamed down her cheeks. She tried to imagine it. She tried to believe. Her father had taught her that five hundred years ago, their people—the Vir Requis, an ancient race—had lived in a distant, northern land. Lived a life of peace and plenty. Lived in palaces of marble and forests of birches.

Lived free to fly as dragons.

Elory opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder. It still lay there. She had to believe. Past the tar pits. Past the great wall and the seraphim upon its battlements. Past the desert. Past the sea. Past the wilderness of forests and mountains. A realm lost but not forgotten. A realm where her people had flown. A realm called Requiem.

For thousands of years, Elory thought, we flew free . . . until they came. The masters.

She blinked tears and fumes out of her eyes. She saw them there, around her and on the wall. Beautiful beings of light. Towering men and women, their hair long and golden, their eyes shining with inner light, their pupils shaped as sunbursts. They wore gilded armor, carried lances and shields, and swan wings grew from their backs. Haloes shone around their heads, pale gold, barely visible in the searing sunbeams.

The destroyers of Requiem. The masters. The seraphim.

"Move, you wretch, or I'll toss you into the tar!"

Her own seraph, a beautiful deity who shone in the sunlight, swung his whip of fire. Again the lash slammed into Elory, knocking her down. Again she struggled to her feet. Again she shuffled onward. For ten years now—since she had been only eight—she had labored here in this pit. Carrying the bitumen, this black gold, the viscous tar that held the bricks of palaces and temples, that waterproofed ships, that glued mosaics to floors and gemstones to chains of gold, that gave Saraph its power and kept Requiem in chains.

"Requiem," Elory whispered. "Requiem. Requiem."

With every utterance of the word, her collar squeezed her neck. The collar that kept her in this form—a scrawny youth, her limbs bony, her head spinning, barely five feet tall, barely heavier than the yoke she carried, her back whipped, her skin burnt. The cursed collar engraved with runes of dark magic. The collar that let them rule her people. The collar that kept a proud nation enslaved.

The collar that chains the dragon inside me.

Elory looked behind her again. There, in the center of the pit, she could see them. A group of dragons. Only five. Vir Requis with their collars removed.

The great reptiles labored in chains. Seraphim stood around them, pointing lances and swords, swinging their whips. The five dragons dug with claws, ripping into the hard earth, seeking the reserves of bitumen within. Elory's own mother, the silver dragon Nala, dug there into the rock, her scales cracked, her wings wrapped with chains. Soon more of the tar would rise into the pit, filling the crater with its hot, sticky, precious gift. Soon the rest of Requiem, myriads of collared souls, would refill their baskets.

Day after day.

Year after year.

Generation after generation.

Five hundred years of blood. Of whips. Of prayer.

Once I too could become a dragon, Elory thought. She took step after step, feet burning, knees buckling. She tried to imagine that she was one of those great reptiles now, that she flew on the wind. Once none of us had collars. Once millions of us flew in the north, proud and strong. Before the seraphim came with their chariots of fire. Before they toppled our temples, brought us to this distant land. Once we too were an empire.

She stared up at the sky. The fumes stung her eyes. The sun beat down, a white inferno. She could not see the stars of Requiem, the Draco constellation that her father believed still watched over their people. But Elory still prayed to those mythical lights. The ancient prayer of her people. The prayer her people had been singing for thousands of years in the northern forests, for five hundred years in this desert of blood, of whips, of toil.

"As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home." Elory's voice cracked, barely a whisper, and she tasted blood and tears. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

She trembled as she shuffled onward, carrying her burden. She had to believe that those birches still grew somewhere. That leaves still fell upon marble tiles. That blue mountains still rose above marble halls. That Requiem awaited her, that she could see it someday, that she could someday tear off her collar, become a dragon, and find her lost sky.

"Silence, slave!"

No trees grew here in her captivity. The only palaces that rose were not the marble halls of dragons but the vicious fortresses of Saraph. The only wings here were the swan wings of seraphim. No dragons flew here in the south, only the whips of the overseers, and again those whips tore into Elory.

Again she fell.

"Bloody wretch." The overseer stepped closer, whip flailing. "Useless. If you can't stand up, I'm going to beat you into the tar."

As the whip lashed, Elory screamed.

Her back tore open.

She cried. She begged.

"Sir, please!" said another slave, hobbling forward, an old woman with gray stubble on her head. "I'll help her rise. I—"

The overseer swung his whip toward her, lashing the grandmother across the face. She fell, spilling her baskets of bitumen. The overseer roared with rage. Elory lay in the tar, unable to rise, her blood seeping, wondering if this was the day she would die here, die like slaves died every day in the pits, die without ever seeing Requiem.

She ground her teeth.

I must live. Tears burning, she struggled to her feet, limped toward the grandmother, and helped her rise too. Blood dripped from the old woman's cheek.

"We toil onward," Elory told the overseer. She saw her own blood boiling on her flaming whip. "Always. Always."

For that hope, Elory thought. For that dream of dragons. For that dream that, after five hundred years of our backs breaking, we will someday fly again.

"Requiem," she whispered as she made her way out of the pit.

Ahead of her, across the haze, sprawled the dry land of Saraph. No trees grew here. No rivers flowed. A barren, cruel land of sunlight, of stone, of gold, of tar. Across the rocky field, thousands of her people labored in chains. They mixed clay with straw and bitumen, poured the mixture into molds, formed bricks. In the northern distance grew the wall, eternal, towering, topped with seraphim, forever a cage around her. Far in the south, swaying in the distant heat, Elory could just make out the city of the masters. There these bricks rose into great palaces and temples, cobbled roads and bathhouses, statues that soared hundreds of feet tall. There the labor of Requiem raised wonders for the glory of the seraphim. There was a land forbidden to Elory, a land she built yet would never visit, a wondrous empire made from this bitumen, this clay, from the blood and tears of Requiem.

We will never enter the city of the seraphim, but someday we will fly into Requiem again, Elory thought. Someday we will remove our collars, rise again as dragons. Someday the stars will guide us home.

She was carrying the bitumen toward a squat stone refinery when the archangel arrived in his chariot of fire, forever changing Elory's life.

The chariot streamed across the sky like a falling sun, casting out heat and light. Four firehorses pulled the vessel, beasts woven of flames, their manes flaring, their eyes white stars. Shoulders stooped under the yoke, Elory stared up at the chariot, as lowly as an ant witnessing a swooping phoenix.

Five hundred years ago, Elory knew, an army of such fiery chariots had streamed into Requiem. Thousands of seraphim had fired their arrows, tossed their javelins, shone their light. The hosts of fire had felled the dragons from the sky, crushed the marble halls, burned the trees, collared the Vir Requis to contain their magic, and taken them south to a burning land. Thousands of such chariots had covered the sky that day, the Day of Burning. Today, here under the blazing sun of southern Saraph, it took only this single chariot to strike terror into the hearts of all who saw it.

A banner flared out from this chariot, wreathed in flame yet not burning. Upon it shone a sigil embroidered in gold, shaped as an eye inside a sun. Sigil of the Thirteenth Dynasty. Sigil of Requiem's ruin. Sigil of Saraph's royal house.

Across the tar pit, the refineries, and the rocky fields where brickmakers toiled, the Vir Requis slaves knelt. Even the overseers, seraphim in gilded armor, folded their swan wings against their backs and knelt in the muck. Even these towering beings of light, haloed and immortal, were as lowly as worms by this flaming chariot.

The light flared out, nearly blinding Elory as the chariot descended. Sweat washed her, stinging the open cuts on her back, dripping into her eyes, soaking her canvas rags. With shrieking fountains, the chariot of fire landed upon a hill ahead, and its rider emerged.

Now new sweat washed Elory—cold, sticky, trailing down her back like the fingers of a ghost. She stared, unable to look away, terror squeezing her heart.

A towering man alighted from the chariot and stood on the hill, staring down at the pit of despair. No, not a man. A seraph. An angelic being, closer to a god than a mere mortal like her. Elory had been laboring in the pits all her life, whipped, beaten, surviving on gruel and whatever brackish water the masters allowed her. At eighteen years of age, she was barely larger than the yoke she carried. Yet the seraph ahead stood seven feet tall, his shoulders as wide as Elory's burden of wood and chains. His hair flowed in the wind, and his eyes shone, just as golden and bright, the pupils shaped as sunbursts. He wore a gilded breastplate molded to mimic a bare, muscular torso, and he held a lance and shield emblazoned with the Eye of the Sun. His feathered wings spread out, purest white, reflecting the true sun. Upon his head, gleaming in the light of his halo, perched a steel crown.

Elory knew this seraph. All in this barren land knew him, the son of the queen, the god of the desert. Three years ago, when he had traveled south to fight the giants of the mountains, the slaves had sung and prayed in joy, finally free—if only for a while—from his terror. A month ago, when this seraph had returned from his conquests with fire and a vow to raise great palaces in his honor, the slaves had wept.

Here was the cruelest of the masters, the fairest, tallest, brightest, the golden son of Saraph. He was known by many names. The Sunlit Conqueror. The Son of Sunlight. The Blade of the Desert. Kneeling before him, her lips bloody, Elory whispered his true name.

"Ishtafel."

The Prince of Saraph stood on the hill, staring down upon the Land of Tofet, these pits of slavery. As lowly as the slaves were—broken, chained, collared, beaten—this idol of gold was lofty, a being of beauty, light, and eternal dominion.

Once we too were beautiful, Elory thought. Once we flew free, beings of dragonfire and scales, gliding above marble halls. Now we toil. Now we serve. Now we pray to fly again.

Her eyes narrowed. She clenched her fists, and she squared her shoulders even as the yoke threatened to crack them. She glared up at this beautiful being, and a new feeling rose in Elory. Not fear. Not pain.

Rage.

She raged against the brightness of his armor and the stripes across her back. She raged against his palaces and her pit of broken bones and sweat and blood. She raged against his beauty and her wretchedness. She raged for a nation stolen away, chained, enslaved, their homeland in ruins. Raged against a rising empire of light and sandstone built upon shattered spines.

One day we will fly again, Ishtafel, she vowed, staring up at his light. One day Requiem will rise. One day we—

Her heart clenched. Her breath caught in her throat.

Ishtafel lifted something from his chariot. At first Elory thought it a scrap of red cloth, then when she saw the draping limbs, she thought it the carcass of an animal. The corpse seemed so small in the seraph's arms, like a child in a mother's embrace.

Then red stubble caught the sun, growing from a caved-in head, and Elory knew it was her.

Tears filled her eyes.

"Mayana," she whispered.

The young woman had toiled in the bitumen pits with Elory until only a month ago. Ishtafel had landed his chariot here that day too, freshly returned from the war, seeking a house servant for his palace. He had chosen Mayana—young, fair Mayana with the red stubble on her head, green eyes, a rare beauty in these pits of ugliness.

"You will serve in a palace now," Elory had whispered to her friend last month, holding her close. "You will no longer have to haul bitumen, only jugs of wine. You will no longer wear a yoke, only soft livery of cotton. You're blessed, child."

Mayana had trembled against her that day, so afraid, tears streaming down her cheeks.

And now you return to us, Elory thought, shedding her own tears. Now you're back among your people.

Ishtafel raised the corpse above his head. His voice rang across the pit, deep, sonorous, a voice of dark beauty tinged with menace like a panther lurking in a shadowy forest.

"I took a slave from among you!" the seraph cried. "She is used up."

The slaves cried out as Ishtafel tossed the corpse down into the pit.

Elory winced and scurried backward, chains rattling. Her heart thrashed against her ribs. Her belly churned. One of her buckets tilted, nearly spilling the sticky clumps of bitumen.

Her friend's body slammed down onto the rock beside her, bones snapping.

Elory wanted to look away, to close her eyes, to do anything but look. And yet she found herself staring at that corpse, her eyes wide, her breath frozen.

Bruises spread across Mayana's face. Rough hands had torn at her clothes, and fingernails had dug into her flesh. The marks of fingers wrapped around her throat, leaving raw welts. Somebody had beaten her. Slowly. Inch by inch, finally strangling her. Elory had seen death before. When you worked in the tar pits, you saw death every day—death by whip, by starvation, by exhaustion. Yet here was a different sort of death, something more meticulous, something wrong, something that should never have been.

You will serve in a palace now! Elory's own voice echoed through her mind. You're blessed, child.

Elory forced her gaze away. Slowly, fists trembling, she turned back to stare at Ishtafel.

The Prince of Saraph still stood on the hill, but even from this distance, it seemed to Elory that his golden eyes stared into hers, his gaze haughty, amused. Across the pit, the slaves and overseers knelt as one, heads bowed, trembling in Ishtafel's presence. Yet Elory forced herself to stare into his eyes.

I am a daughter of Requiem, she thought, fingernails digging into her palms. If not for my collar, I could become a dragon. I am descended from a great nation, blessed by starlight. I will not cower before you, false god.

From the distance, it seemed as if he smiled—a thin, knowing smile.

"Slaves, step forth!" he cried, never removing his eyes from hers. "I will choose a new servant from among you."

Across the tar pit, the stone refineries, and the fields of brickmakers, the lesser seraphim—the overseers—straightened and cracked their whips.

"Up, slaves!" they roared. "Rise before your lord! Heads bowed. Rise! Stand still."

Elory struggled to rise to her feet. The noon sun blazed overhead, searing hot, burning her skin. She had been laboring in the pits since before dawn, and she hadn't eaten or drunk in that time. Straightening cracked her back and made her limbs shake with weakness. The yoke still hung across her shoulders, chained to her collar, its baskets of bitumen threatening to rip off her arms. Their fumes spun her head. But she forced herself to stand as straight as she could, to stare at the deity ahead. To hate him. Never to fear him. Hate was better than fear.

Yet as Ishtafel beat his wings, soared skyward, and then descended toward the valley, cold sweat washed Elory, and her heart twisted with that old feeling, the feeling that even now, broken and whipped so many times into this lingering wretch, she could not crush.

Fear.

The Prince of Saraph landed in the dust, yet it seemed that no dirt could ever cling to him. Not a scratch marred his armor. Not a speck of sand clung to his sandals, his flowing golden hair, nor his snowy wings. He walked among the slaves, towering above them, seven feet of light, of gold, of immortal beauty. They said that Ishtafel was centuries old, that he had lived and ruled even back on the Day of Burning, the day when Elory's ancestors had been captured and taken to this land. And yet, as he drew nearer, Elory saw that he seemed ageless. His face was smooth; at a glance, it seemed no older than the face of a thirty-year-old man, the skin bronzed, the lips full, the cheekbones high. Yet his eyes were old. Eyes with pupils like suns. Bright yet shadowed. Seeing all. Ancient eyes.

"These slaves are scrawny." Ishtafel frowned as he walked through the pit. "They stink of sweat and tar."

One of the overseers nodded. She was a cruel seraph named Shani of House Caraf, high ranking among the masters, her eyes and hair shining gold and her wings purest white. "They are weredragons, Your Excellence. Wretched beasts worthy of little more than crawling in the mud. Offensive to the nose and distasteful to the eyes."

Ishtafel grimaced and held a handkerchief to his nose. "And fragile. Discipline them and they shatter, their mortal life fleeing their frail forms."

Elory glowered at the seraphim walking before her. Frail? Wretches who crawled in the mud?

She placed her hands upon her collar. The iron ring squeezed her throat when she gulped. A dark light coiled within the metal, a magic only the seraphim held, a magic that crushed her own power. Without these collars, they could rise as dragons. Magnificent and mighty. Beings to soar, blow fire, as beautiful and powerful as any seraph. How dare these beings of light mock her people, the children of starlight?

Elory took a deep breath, trying to summon that memory—a memory passed through the generations, perhaps just a dream. A memory of Requiem. A memory of dragons.

For thousands of years, we flew above the birch forests of our home, she thought. Our marble halls gleamed in the sunlight, and blue mountains rose in the dawn. We flew free, millions of dragons of all colors. No collars around our necks. No chains to hobble our wings. No seraphim to whip us, grinding us into the dirt. A proud, ancient kingdom, a land of beauty, of white halls in green forests. Her eyes stung. A kingdom of dragons, a home where we were free.

She had never seen those marble halls, those birch forests, those blue mountains, those golden dawns. Nor had any of the slaves. Only their ancestors, beyond the generations, had ever dwelled in Requiem. Yet the tales had passed from parents to siblings. Her own mother—a dragon chained, whipped, forced to dig for the bitumen—had told Elory the tale a thousand times, the same tale her mother had told her. In her mind's eye, Elory could see Requiem, as if she herself had flown there. Every night before she huddled in her mud hut, before she fell into a slumber that would last only a few hours before the overseers woke her for more labor, she would imagine Requiem. In her dreams, no collar squeezed her neck, and she could summon her magic, grow wings and scales, rise as a dragon.

In some dreams, she was a dragon of gold, like the great Queen Laira, Mother of Requiem. In other dreams, Elory's scales were black—black like King Benedictus, one of Requiem's greatest rulers. In other dreams, she was red and fiery like the great Princess Agnus Dei, a heroine of Requiem who had defeated the griffins. Elory had never become a dragon before, for her collar had never been removed—only diggers were allowed to become dragons, their claws seeking the tar reserves, never the bearers of yokes. She did not know what color her scales would be, but the land below never changed in her dream. Requiem was always a realm of sprawling birch forests, of great marble columns, of statues and fountains in pale squares. Of beauty. Of peace. Of pride. A land whose sky she found every night in her sleep, a land she prayed every day to see with her waking eyes.

"This one does not cower like the others." Ishtafel's voice tore through Elory's thoughts. "Nor is she quite as wretched to behold."

Elory's heart thrashed. She realized that he was talking about her, that he had come to stand before her. Her head spun, and she gulped. She struggled to raise her chin, to square her shoulders, even as the yoke shoved down upon her.

She was scrawny, short. He towered above her, easily thrice her size, his shoulders broad, his chest wide. Her wings were hobbled, her magic hidden. His swan wings spread wide. She wore rags and chains. He stood clad in priceless gilded armor. She was a creature broken, whipped, her soul shattered. He was a being of pale beauty and light and dominion. And yet Elory thought of Requiem and stared at him, refusing to kneel again, refusing to cower, refusing to be a slave.

I stand in chains, the daughter of many generations of slaves, and yet I still remember Requiem. I am still proud.

Ishtafel's brow furrowed as he stared at her.

"Look at how she raises her chin, how she stares at me, not at her feet." Ishtafel tilted his head. "A proud one. Not yet broken."

Ishtafel's companion, Shani the overseer, snarled. "I will break her, Your Excellence."

The seraph raised her whip and Elory winced, expecting the pain, but Ishtafel reached out, staying Shani's hand.

"Wait."

Elory released a shaky breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She stared up at the seraph, her chest rising and falling, her arms shaking. Sweat dripped into her eyes, and she felt blood trickling down her back, and the damn fear wouldn't stop crawling along her spine.

Ishtafel stepped closer. Elory felt as small as a child before this giant of a god. He reached down his hand, a hand large enough to encase her head. While the rest of him was all wealth and might—the gilded armor, the pale wings, the flowing hair—Elory noticed that his hand was not soft. Calluses covered his fingers, and thin scars trailed across his palm. The hand of a warrior.

With that large hand, he rubbed tar off her brow, the movement almost like a caress. He stared down upon her, and in his golden eyes, Elory saw herself reflected—covered in tar, sweat, and blood, a young collared woman with a shaved head and dark eyes, a slave, only a slave with dreams of ancient glory.

"You do not look away?" Ishtafel said, his voice soft, his words only for her. "Most slaves avert their eyes from the sight of a god."

"I did not avert my eyes from Mayana's corpse," Elory said. "I will not avert them from you either."

"Impudent worm!" Shani raised her whip again, teeth bared. The seraph stood nearly two feet taller than Elory, her arms strong, her whip crackling with fire. "I'm going to flay you alive and toss your skinless corpse into the tar."

"You will do no such thing," Ishtafel said, voice calm. "Lower your whip, Shani. This slave intrigues me. Not yet broken. Still some spirit to her." He smiled thinly, and he stroked Elory's cheek. His fingers came back sooty. "Once the dirt is removed, and she's clad in livery, her hair growing longer, her body perfumed, she would do well in the palace. There's fire to this one. There's strength to her. I like that." His smile widened—a thin, predatory smile, the smile a wolf gives a sheep before devouring it. "She will last longer than the previous one."

Elory's eyes stung. Her heart felt ready to shatter her ribs and thump into the dirt. She turned her head and saw the corpse still there. Mayana's eyes were still open, staring at Elory, her face twisted with pain. Her teeth had been bashed in. Her eye socket had shattered. Drying blood soaked her fine cotton livery. The finger marks around her throat were long, powerful—the same fingers that had just caressed Elory's cheek.

"Sir, I . . ." Elory gulped. "I know not of the palace's ways. I'm only a yoke bearer, sir. I—"

"You will address him as 'Your Excellence!'" Shani said, and now her whip did lash. The fiery throng slammed into Elory's chest. Her rags tore. So did her skin. She cried out, wobbling, nearly dropping her yoke. If she spilled the bitumen, she knew the overseers would not allow her a quick death. Bitumen was the glue that held the empire of Saraph together. To lose buckets of the black gold meant a burning in Malok, the bronze bull on the hill. Recalcitrant slaves cooked within the belly of the idol, their screams flowing through pipes and rising from the bull's mouth as a melodious song.

"Shani!" Ishtafel's voice barely rose above normal volume, yet it carried the rage and authority of a great cry. His hand—that hand that had beaten Mayana to death, that had stroked Elory's cheek—swung and backhanded the overseer.

Shani hissed and clutched her cheek. Ichor dripped down her alabaster skin. Her golden eyes flashed with pain, with surprise, with rage . . . then dropped to stare at her feet. The mighty seraph, the overseer who had beaten so many slaves into submission or to death, knelt in the mud. She lowered her head, letting her hair hang down.

"Forgive me, Your Excellence," she whispered.

"Nobody will hurt this one anymore," Ishtafel said to the kneeling overseer, then looked back at Elory. That thin smile returned. "Nobody but me." He reached out his hand. "Come, child. Take my hand. Join me in my chariot of fire, and I will take you to live in a great palace, a place of jewels, of fine wine, of wealth you cannot imagine. A place away from the tar and filth and stench of this place."

But not away from the whip, Elory thought. Not away from the rage of a master. Not away from my chains, my collar, and the threat of death every dawn and dusk.

The fear grew in her. She had known nothing but the tar pits all her life. For eighteen cruel summers, the palaces of Saraph had been but a glimmer in the distance, a land of wealth on the southern horizon, a place whence came the masters, came death and pain. The place where the bitumen she mined held together bricks, roofs, jewels, mosaics, cobblestones, an empire. To walk upon those cobbled streets? To live in one of those palaces? To serve a seraph not as a yoke bearer but as a personal servant, a girl to wash his feet, polish his armor, pour his wine, serve his food, perhaps warm his bed at nights? To suffer his hand—stroking her, beating her, choking her when he pleased?

Elory glanced behind her. To leave her family?

Her breath shuddered. The land of Tofet, these pits of slavery, sprawled into the distance, a realm of nightmares, of sweat and blood and agony. Hundreds of thousands of slaves toiled here. Many, like her, bore yokes and baskets. A handful, like her mother, served as dragons, digging the wells of tar. Others, like her father and brother, labored in the rocky fields to form and bake bricks. Elory did not see her family much—only for five precious hours a night, a time to pray, to nurse one another's wounds, to huddle together, to sleep in their mud hut. And yet Elory could not imagine her life away from them. Her kind mother. Her wise father. Her strong and noble brother. How could she leave them here to a slow death while she flew off in this seraph's chariot to a new life—a life only a few miles away, yet a life different from any she had ever known, a life she would return from only in death?

She looked behind her. Across the torturous landscape, they were watching her. Men, women, children, elders, all in chains and collars. The yoke bearers. The brickmakers. Farther back, in the center of the pit, even the diggers—those few Vir Requis allowed to remove their collars, to dig in dragon form—were watching her. Her own mother stared across the distance, a chained silver dragon.

Elory's eyes burned.

"I cannot leave," she whispered. The land of Tofet, home of the slaves, was a land of blood, chains, and endless death, but it was her home now. The only home she had ever known. Here was the only family she had ever known. She would not abandon her family, not even to escape the yoke and tar for a palace of gold.

"I cannot leave," she repeated, turning back toward Ishtafel. "Please, Your Excellence. Choose another."

Ishtafel's brow furrowed. A flash of anger crossed his eyes. He reached out and grabbed her arm, his grip like a vise. He tugged her forward.

"Do you think that I take orders from weredragons?" He stared down at her, his smile stretching wider, revealing his canines, a smile almost like a snarl. "Do you think that I crushed your kingdom, dragged your ancestors here, and chained you in the muck so that I, defeater of Requiem, slayer of giants, a god of Saraph, should take orders from a worm that crawls in the dirt?" He backhanded her, rattling the teeth in her jaw. "You will do as you're told, or you will end up like your friend, a crushed wretch in the tar."

Pain flowed across Elory's jaw. She tasted blood. She knew she should kneel in the dirt, kiss his feet, beg for mercy. She knew she must obey or she would be cooked in the bronze bull, dying slowly as she screamed. She knew she should cower, worship him, fear him.

Yet Elory stared into Ishtafel's eyes, and she spoke softly.

"Our name is not 'weredragons.' We are Vir Requis, children of Requiem, a great nation that still blazes in our hearts. Requiem still lives, even in chains. You cannot extinguish her light."

And now Ishtafel's smile stretched into a grin, showing more teeth. He grabbed her yoke, that hunk of wood and iron that had weighed upon her shoulders for years, and he snapped it between his hands. All her life, Elory had struggled, bound to this burden; the seraph shattered it like a man crushing twigs. The baskets of bitumen fell to the ground, spilling their precious contents. Chips of wood and metal showered. Before Elory could feel any relief, he grabbed her, twisting her arms, nearly snapping her too.

"No!" she cried out. "No! I won't go. Release me! I won't!"

She kicked, but her ankles were still hobbled, and she could not reach him. She tried to strike him, but he held her wrists, laughing, mocking her resistance.

She growled.

I can become a dragon. I can fly, blow my dragonfire, burn him.

Elory sucked in air, trying to summon that ancient magic, the magic only the diggers were allowed to use, the magic that had once let millions of her kind find the sky.

She felt it deep within her, a reservoir of starlight, there since her childhood, waiting to tap into like the bitumen buried underground.

She let it fill her.

Held in the grip of this cruel angel, she felt the magic flow through her.

She felt the nubs of wings begin to sprout from her whipped back. Her skin thickened, hardened, began to rise in scales. Her fingernails lengthened into the hints of claws, and she felt her teeth bite into her lip, forming fangs. Flickers of fire filled her mouth, and her body began to grow, lengthening, ballooning into a dragon that could fly, slay her enemies, escape to—

She gasped for air.

As her body grew, her collar tightened further, constricting her, nearly snapping her neck.

Keep shifting! she told herself. Tear through the collar! Fly! Burn him!

She croaked for air, yet she clenched her fists and kept tugging on her magic, kept growing, and—

Something seemed to crack in her neck. Blackness spread across her. Stars exploded and spun. She lost her magic. Her body shrank, and she gasped for air, sucking it greedily. She would have fallen to the ground were Ishtafel not still holding her.

He dragged her across the dirt, then lifted her and slung her across his shoulder. Elory screamed, struggling against him, crying out to Requiem, to her stars, to her mother. He walked across the barren hill. They moved toward the chariot of fire, prepared to fly away from this place, fly to a palace of gold and danger and death. All around, the slaves knelt again, yet their heads were raised, and their eyes stared into hers. Those eyes shone with tears.

"Farewell, daughter," one old woman whispered, her shoulders stooped under her yoke.

"Farewell, Elory!" said a child, a young boy carrying a yoke larger than himself.

One slave broke free from the others, hobbled forward in his chains, and cried out for the camp to hear. "Requiem!" The man's voice tore with agony, a voice broken like the backs of a thousand slaves. "Requiem, may our wings forever find your sky!"

The prayer of their people. The ancient prayer of dragons, of starlight. A prayer for a home lost, a sky they must reclaim. The seraphim overseers raced forward, whips lashing, spears thrusting, cutting the slave who had prayed aloud, then dragging him off—to the bronze bull Malok, to a burning in the belly of the beast.

"Requiem!" Elory called out, answering the cry. Let them burn her too in Malok. Let them all cry out together, one voice, one prayer, one—

A roar.

A roar tore across the camp, rising louder, shaking the earth.

Iron chains snapped.

Leathern wings beat.

A dragon, silver and thin, scales chipped, wings punched full of holes, soared through the air.

"Mother!" Elory cried.

Nala, a digger of Tofet, a dragon of Requiem, flew across the sky toward her. Shackles still encircled her legs, their chains snapped and dangling. The marks of countless whips covered her scales and underbelly, and her horns had been sawed off, her teeth uprooted. And yet still fire flickered in her mouth, and still her claws reached out—claws sharp enough to dig through rock for bitumen, claws sharp enough to tear even through a seraph.

"Elory!" the silver dragon cried. "Elory, I'm here! I'm here, I—"

The javelins of the overseers flew. The shards of steel stormed across the sky, pale and reflecting the sun, to drive into the dragon.

Scales cracked. Blood spilled. The dragon cried out in agony, yet still she flew.

"Elory!" she cried. "Daughter!"

"Mother!" Elory shouted, still caught in Ishtafel's grip. She reached out to her mother. "Fly back, Mother! Back to the pit. Please!"

Tears filled Elory's eyes as she watched more javelins drive into the dragon. Seraphim beat their swan wings, flying around the silver dragon, thrusting lances, firing arrows, thrusting swords. The weapons cracked more scales, drove deep into the flesh, shed more blood. A lance ripped into Nala's wing, tearing through it, making a horrible sound like ripping leather. A cry, equally torn, emerged from the dragon's throat.

"Mother," Elory whispered, tears flowing. "Mother, turn back . . . please . . ."

But it was too late.

Laughing, Ishtafel spread his wings and took flight. The seraph soared, carrying Elory across his shoulder. They rose higher. From up here, Elory could see for miles—the tar pit, the field of bricklayers, the refineries, the limestone quarries, the city of huts, the endless agony of a nation forgotten.

And a single silver dragon, gazing at Elory with damp eyes.

"Remember Requiem," Mother whispered. "Remember that I love you. Always."

Gripping Elory with one hand, Ishtafel hefted his lance in the other.

He threw the weapon.

A shard of light, the lance streamed through the air, fast as lightning, slower than generations of slavery. It cut through a lost sky. It drove into the silver dragon with a blast of light and red mist. It tore into Nala's throat, emerged from the other side, and the dragon lost her magic.

Nala fell as a woman. A chained slave. Haggard. Torn with many blades.

"Mother," Elory whispered, shaking in the grip of the seraph.

The seraphim swooped. Their lances thrust. They ripped into the falling woman, tearing her apart, severing her limbs, gutting her innards. Nala thudded onto the ground in pieces and shattered . . . shattered like Requiem, like Elory's heart, like all her hope, all her prayers.

She closed her eyes. She wept.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mother.

She wanted to scream, to rage, to curse the stars that had abandoned her, to curse Ishtafel the Cruel. Yet her strength was gone.

The seraph's lips touched her ear.

"Remember what you saw here, precious doll." His breath brushed her head. "Remember what happens to those who defy me."

He carried her away from the camp. He took her into his chariot of fire. He cracked his whip, and his firehorses bucked and soared, carrying the chariot across the sky.

Elory sat in the chariot, chains around her ankles, the seraph's arms around her frail frame. They left the land of Tofet behind—left a place of screams, of endless blood and tar, of a memory that Elory knew would forever haunt her. Ahead, across the barren distance, rose the city of limestone, steel, and gold, a place of splendor, of might, of a new home.

VALE

Vale was chipping rocks in the quarry, cutting bricks for his masters' temple, when the chariot of fire flew above him with heat and light, and his world went dark.

He had been working since before dawn. The chains chafed his ankles, the sun beat down on his shaved head, and the whips had torn into his back. Blisters bloomed across his hands, but he kept working, chipping limestone with his chisel. The walls of the quarry soared around him, taller than temples.

Ishtafel, Prince of Saraph, had returned from war, and the empire celebrated. In Shayeen across the river, the city of the seraphim, feasts and dances were held all day and night. Parades would be marching down the limestone streets. Dancers and singers would be performing for the masses. And across the city, great monuments were rising for Ishtafel's glory: statues of the hero, obelisks tipped with precious metals, and a great temple to the Eight Gods bearing the prince's name.

And so Vale toiled.

And so thousands of his kinsmen, the men and women of fallen Requiem, swung their pickaxes, carving out bricks that would rise for their lord's glory. And so Requiem, a once-proud nation, cried out in pain, whipped, worked nearly to death, praying to stars that no longer shone at night.

Vale wiped the sweat off his brow. He was a young man, only twenty-one, but he felt old, weary, haggard. His arms seemed so thin to him, and his head swayed. The sun kept beating down. He wanted water—only a few drops to soothe his parched throat—but dared not ask. The last slave to have begged for water now hung upon the quarry wall, hands and legs nailed into the limestone, the crows pecking at his living flesh.

Maybe he's the lucky one. Pausing for breath, Vale flicked up his eyes. He saw them there. They stood upon the quarry's rim above. Twenty seraphim masters. As thin, dirty, and wretched as Vale and his comrades were, the seraphim were noble. The sunlight shone on their gilded armor and swan wings, and their golden eyes stared down into the pit, all-seeing.

"Work, worm!" one master shouted, raising his firewhip.

Vale returned to chipping the stone. Rage burned in his throat like the thirst. The collar itched around his neck, worse than the weariness, the thirst, the pain. More than anything, Vale wished he could take the pickaxe to that collar, break it off, summon his magic. With every swing of that pickaxe, Vale imagined that he was beating leathern wings. With every chip of stone that flew, he imagined claws lashing. As the sunbeams beat him, he imagined streams of dragonfire.

All around him, the thousands of slaves labored. Some fell with exhaustion, even the whips of their masters unable to rouse them. Others prayed under their breath—prayed to the Eight Gods of Saraph when the masters drew near, prayed to the old stars of Requiem when no seraphim could hear.

"Requiem," Vale whispered, swinging his pickaxe, the sun and dust and sweat in his eyes.

He tried to imagine it. His ancestors, millions of Vir Requis, no seraph masters to whip them, no collars around their necks. Thousands of men and women who could summon the ancient magic of starlight, grow wings and scales, breathe fire, and take flight as dragons.

We need to rise again. Vale clenched his jaw, banging against the limestone walls with all his rage. We need to shatter our collars. To rise as dragons. To blow our fire, fight again, to—

"Stop hacking like a butcher at a hog!" shouted an overseer. The seraph swooped, landed behind Vale, and lashed his whip. "These bricks are for Ishtafel's temple, not one of your wretched maggot huts."

Vale screamed as the whip hit his back, ripping the flesh, cauterizing the wound with a sizzle.

With a grunt, the seraph moved to swing his whip at another slave, a mere boy of ten years who had accidentally cracked a brick in two. The whip swung again and again, the boy screamed, and Vale's hands shook around the shaft of his pickaxe. So many nights he had tried to swing that pickaxe against his own neck, to shatter the collar, but couldn't break the ancient curse that held it together, that buried his magic—the magic of dragons. So many nights he had prayed for the courage to swing that pickaxe just an inch higher, to drive the blade into his neck, to end the pain.

And so many nights he had seen those who had fled this nightmare. Those who had summoned the courage to do what Vale could not—to end their lives.

Vale ground his teeth, slamming the limestone again and again, carving out the bricks, the stones that would raise great monuments for the seraph who had crushed Vale's kingdom.

I live so that one day I can drive this pickaxe into your throat, Ishtafel. He snarled as he worked. I live to see that day when we rise in rebellion. When we do what our ancestors could not. He drove the axe so deep into the stone the shaft cracked. For the day we burn you all.

Just as he was imagining dragonfire raining down on the masters, fire crackled above. Vale raised his head and saw him there.

A growl rose in his throat, and his knuckles whitened around his pickaxe's grip.

"Ishtafel," he hissed.

The chariot of fire streamed above the quarry. Its royal banner unfurled in the wind, displaying the Thirteenth Dynasty's sigil—an eye within a sunburst, the Eye of Saraph. Steeds woven of living flame pulled the vessel across the sky, heading away from Tofet, the land of slaves, toward Shayeen, the distant city of seraphim. Even from here below, Vale could see the tyrant's torso and head rise from the chariot—the gilded pauldrons and breastplate, the golden hair that streamed like another banner.

There he was, so close! The immortal creature who had destroyed the realm of Vale's ancestors, who had brought Vale's people here, who doomed him to a life in the mine, breaking the very stones that built temples in Ishtafel's name.

Vale tugged at his collar, wishing—as he had since childhood—that he could rip it off, summon his magic, soar, blow his fire, avenge his people.

But, like all others across the quarry, he only knelt. Thousands of quarrymen, scores of seraphim overseers—all bent the knee as the chariot of fire flew overhead.

But as the others all lowered their gaze, Vale stared up at the flames, eyes narrowed, stinging with sweat, with hatred. His pickaxe trembled in his hands—the axe he would someday drive into that tyrant's golden, beautiful flesh.

"Praise Ishtafel!" cried an overseer. "Praise the Prince of Saraph, the Slayer of Giants, the Destroyer of Requiem!"

Curse you, Vale thought. Curse you, foul murderer, and curse your family, and curse your empire, and curse—

"Brother!"

The cry rose from far above, torn in pain.

Vale looked back up at the chariot and his world seemed to crash around him. Were the walls of the quarry to tumble, the sky to fall, the ground to open up to swallow him, Vale could not have felt more shock.

Above in the flaming chariot, held in the tyrant's grip, was his sister.

"Elory," Vale whispered.

"Brothe—" she began, leaning over the edge of the fire, eyes wide, and for a horrible instant, Vale was sure she was going to jump, to leap from the flames and crash down dead into the quarry. Then Ishtafel grabbed her. The seraph pulled her back into the flaming vessel.

The chariot flew onward, vanishing from view over the quarry's rim, heading toward the city of seraphim.

"Go on, back to work, scum," an overseer said, cracking his whip. "Stop kneeling like worms, and get to cutting stones for your lord's temple."

Across the quarry, the slaves rose and resumed their work.

Vale rose too, but he couldn't bring himself to swing the pickaxe. His head spun. His breath rattled in his lungs. His knees felt weak.

Ishtafel, the conqueror, the son of Queen Kalafi herself, the creature who had killed so many Vir Requis . . . has my sister.

Vale could barely breathe.

He had heard tales of Ishtafel's bedchamber. Any man with a sister or daughter had. They said that Ishtafel's chambers made the quarry, the refineries, and the bitumen pit seem leisurely. They said that Ishtafel took pleasure from his slave's bodies, a pleasure so barbaric he snapped their bones, tore up their insides, later discarding the corpses and fetching fresh meat from Tofet.

And now he has Elory. Vale let out a strangled gasp. The quarry swayed around him. Now he has my baby sister. Vale had already lost one sister to the seraphim—a sister they rarely spoke of, only in whispers, in darkness. Losing Elory too was a pain too great to bear.

A seraph marched toward him, dust staining his armor and wings, a helmet hiding his head. His sunburst eyes flared through the eyeholes, and he lashed his whip of fire.

"Back to work!"

Vale grunted as the whip stung his arm. But the pain of that wound was nothing compared to his fear.

He has Elory.

Memories flashed before Vale's eyes: Elory as a babe, born in their hut, an innocent child who had never asked to come into this world. Elory as a toddler, fitted with a yoke, sent to the bitumen mines. Elory coming of age, turning eighteen, a young woman who would never know freedom, who would always know nothing but the lash, the tar, the old prayers of a fallen land.

And Elory above him, only moments ago, crying out to him, taken to the only place in Saraph worse than the bitumen pits.

The seraph master growled, lowered his whip, and raised his lance above Vale. "Gods damn it, maggot, I'm going to spill your guts."

"Wait."

Vale stared at the seraph, refusing to flinch even as the lance thrust forward, stopping only inches from his belly.

"You dare talk back?" The seraph cracked his whip in one hand and thrust the lance closer. Vale was tall for a slave, almost six feet, a rare height among the malnourished, weary Vir Requis, yet this seraph soared a foot taller. The tip of the deity's lance bit into Vale's side, scraping a red line beneath his ribs.

I have to do this. He forced in a deep, dusty breath. I have to save her. Stars of Requiem, I have to stop this.

"I want to serve Ishtafel!" Vale said, letting his rage fill his voice, twisting it into something he hoped sounded like religious zeal. His voice sounded too loud to him, torn with pain, a crazed voice. "I want to serve the golden god of Saraph!"

The seraph grunted and lashed his whip. The throng drove into Vale's side. "Worship him by digging limestone. Your bricks will form a temple to him. A temple you'll never worship at." The seraph barked a laugh. "You can pray to him as you cut into the stone."

Vale raised his chin, ignoring the agony of his wounds. "My mother is a digger. She digs for bitumen as a dragon. The claws in our family are sharp. I would serve Ishtafel as a dragon in the City of Kings, flying above the scaffolds of his rising temples, holding the stones in my claws." He forced himself to stare into the seraph's burning eyes. "I spent the past ten years cutting bricks here. Now let me bear those bricks into the sky."

His breath shook in his lungs, but he refused to look away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Vale."

Slowly, Vale turned around and stared.

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

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

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

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

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

He stared again, eyes burning, chest shaking.

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

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

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

ISHTAFEL

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

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

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

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

"I'm afraid," she whispered.

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

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

And yes, he had been afraid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reehan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laughter rolled across the hall, and they ate.

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

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

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

After two more mugs of wine, he rose to his feet. He raised his mug, and across the hall, seraphim and slaves alike fell silent and turned to stare.

"Seraphim!" Ishtafel cried to them. "Raise your mugs with mine. Today is the Day of Rebirth. On this day, four thousand and four years ago, the Eight Gods punished us for our pride. They struck down our parents, those who had rebelled against them. They burned my own mother—your queen!—inflicting a wound upon her so dire that even today, so many years later, she languishes in pain rather than drinking with us here."

The faces grew dour. Seraphim lowered their heads. The banishment—it was an open wound upon his mother, the Queen of Saraph, but no less an open wound even to those, like Ishtafel, who had been born here in exile, who had never seen the lost paradise. The fall of Edinnu still cast a shadow upon all in Saraph.

"But we built a new kingdom!" Ishtafel said, louder now. "We fell to this world scared, scarred, cast out from paradise. But we fought. My father vanquished many enemies, building a great city in this land before his death. And I completed his work! Five hundred years ago, I crushed the kingdom of Requiem, taking the weredragons here to serve us as gods. Since that time, I fought every enemy that has risen against us, and I cast their bones into the dust. The last giant fell last moon, and now—now we in Saraph are masters of this world, gods of a new Edinnu!"

The seraphim roared in approval. Their eyes shone like their haloes. Their wings spread out. Only the slaves did not join the cheers; the little weredragons lowered their eyes, perhaps remembering their own fallen kingdom, a realm they would never more rebuild.

"So drink, friends!" said Ishtafel. "As my mother suffers from her wound, as our enemies lay dead around us, drink and be joyous, for we are gods. We—"

The hall doors slammed open with a clang.

Hissing in annoyance, Ishtafel spun to see who had dared interrupt his speech.

A woman stepped into the hall, clad in light, and Ishtafel's anger melted like snow under spring's dawn.

"Meliora," he whispered.

His sister was short for a seraph, no more than six feet tall, a childlike princess, cherubic and soft. She was not yet thirty, a babe among the immortals, the youngest in this hall. She gazed around with huge eyes like pools of molten gold—innocent eyes, eyes that had never gazed upon blood or war. She wore a muslin kalasiri dress, the white fabric embroidered with ibises, and a medallion of the Eye of Saraph shone upon her throat. Her hair flowed down to her hips, the color of dawn, and her wings were the white of purest snow. Her halo was so thin Ishtafel could barely see it, a ring of gold no wider than a thread.

Ishtafel paused, simply staring at her. Whenever he gazed upon his beloved sister, he lost his breath. Here was the purest among them—a seraph unsullied by war, by the fall from heaven. The most beautiful being on this world, a precious goddess to cherish, to worship, to forever protect. Ishtafel had lived for five hundred years, had hated many, had slain more. But since Reehan had died in the tunnels beneath Requiem, centuries ago, Ishtafel had not loved another soul. Not until twenty-seven years ago, when Meliora had been born.

It's not only the Day of Rebirth, he thought. It's my sister's birthday. It's the holiest day of the year.

"Meliora!" he called to her, holding out his hands as the other seraphim knelt before their princess. "Come to me. Dance with me."

A grin split her face, and she ran toward him across the mosaic, feet padding against the dragons of many tiles. Her two personal slaves followed—a pair of young, bald women whom Meliora took wherever she went like a girl with favorite pets.

"I love to dance!" Meliora said. "Can Kira and Talana dance with us?"

Ishtafel laughed. "Your pets are weredragons, my dear. Let them join the other slaves and help clean the empty plates."

Meliora bit her lip, looked at the two collared weredragons, then back at Ishtafel. "But . . . I want to teach them to dance too! I taught them already to sing the Song of the Silver Tree, and—"

"Meliora!" Ishtafel frowned. "That is a holy song of Edinnu. You had your slaves profane it with weredragon lips? Mother would have them burned in the bronze bull if she knew."

Meliora's bottom lip wobbled, and tears flooded her eyes. "No," she whispered. "Please don't tell Mother. Please! I'm sorry. Don't send them to the bull!" She lowered her head, tears flowing.

"Sister!" Ishtafel pulled her into an embrace. "Don't weep. I forget that you're but an innocent, silly thing with barely more sense than a child."

Meliora nodded. "I know that I'm silly, but don't scare me like that. I get so scared, Ishtafel! So scared of the bull. I dream of him sometimes, that he invades my bed, that . . ." Her cheeks flushed. "I promise not to teach Kira and Talana any more songs. I promise! I'll dance with you alone."

Ishtafel nodded at the musicians on the balcony, and they began to play his favorite song—the Burning of Requiem. It was a song of his first victory, a song commemorating that glorious war five centuries ago—he had been barely older than Meliora was now—when he had crushed the weredragons, toppled their halls, and brought them here in collars. Normally a robust marching song, the harpists played a soft, slow version of it, letting Ishtafel and Meliora sway gently in the hall. The other seraphim watched, heads bowed, giving their prince and princess the first dance of the night.

"When I was away in the south, fighting the giants, I missed you every day." Ishtafel tucked an errant strand of Meliora's hair behind her ear. "I thought of you every night before I went to sleep, and I remembered your face every morning as I slew more of our enemies."

Meliora's eyes shone. "I thought of you too, brother! I drew paintings of you, did you know? I went into the gardens every morning to paint you, and to watch the birds and the butterflies, and sometimes I'd try to count the flowers. I could never count them all, though. We have some new flowers this spring! I'll show you tomorrow, and there are some baby birds in the fig tree by the fountain."

He kissed her forehead. "Such a silly thing you are!" He laughed. "I speak to you of war and conquest, and you speak to me of birds and butterflies. But that's how I love you, sister. Pure. Your hands unstained with blood. Your eyes unsullied by the sight of death and war."

Meliora nodded, grinning. "War is for boys! I'm a princess of flowers. You can have the blood. I'll keep the baby birds."

The first song ended, and more music played, and more seraphim joined them in the dance. The sunbeams falling through the oculus gleamed on the golden tables, jeweled dishes, and the statues of gods that rose between the gilded columns. The birds painted onto the domed ceiling and the mosaic beasts glittered and seemed almost to be living things. The feasting, the drinking, and the dancing would continue all day and long into the night. By the time Ishtafel returned to his bedchamber and sought pleasure from his new slave, he would be well fed, a little drunk, and as weary as after a battle.

Yet despite the splendor of this place, despite the glory of his victory, a nervousness filled Ishtafel.

The time has come, he thought. After five hundred years of war, the time is here . . . the time to tell my sister.

He could hesitate no longer. He took a deep breath, cupped his sister's cheek in his palm, and spoke softly.

"Meliora, today is a special year for us. It's not only five hundred years since I crushed Requiem. Not only the year I defeated the stone giants, our last enemies in the world. It's also the year that I will marry. That I will give Saraph an heir."

Meliora's eyes widened, and she grinned and bounced. "A wedding! A royal wedding! Who will you choose? Perhaps Lady Teelan? She's very beautiful, and she loves baby birds too! Or—I know!—you can marry Lady Merishan! She's a friend of mine. She lets me play with her puppies sometimes. Oh, I can't wait! I can help her choose fabrics for her wedding gown, and—"

"Meliora." Ishtafel's voice dropped, grew solemn. "You've heard tales of the old dynasties."

Meliora tilted her head. "Of course." She recited as if reading from a book. "Ours is the Thirteenth Dynasty, the Dynasty of Kalafi. Twelve dynasties have ruled Saraph since our banishment. The first, the Telaka Dynasty, wandered the wilderness. The second, the—"

"Meliora, do you know how those dynasties ruled for thousands of years? With purity of blood. With a refusal to dilute their nobility. Those who failed at this task, who married for love or lust, saw their dynasties fall." He sighed. "If you ask me, that's foolishness. A mere superstition. In all my wars, I saw humble soldiers of low blood slay many beasts, while nobles of old families perished in the mud. A man rules by the blood he spills, not the blood in his veins. And yet Mother is a superstitious woman. All those who still remember Edinnu, who were born in our old realm in the heavens, are so." He stroked Meliora's hair. "It's Mother who commands this. You must understand that this is her wish, not my own. Yet she is our queen, and we will obey her."

A small line appeared on Meliora's brow. "What do you mean, brother? What . . . whose blood could be purer than the ladies of the court?"

"The blood of a princess." Ishtafel placed his finger against her throat, feeling her pulse. "Your blood."

Still Meliora seemed confused. "But . . . how . . .?"

Ishtafel sighed again. Meliora was beautiful, innocent, yet a silly thing indeed. "It will be for the good of Saraph, my sister. An heir of pure blood, a child purely of our dynasty, undiluted, will bring a glory to Saraph to last a hundred thousand years."

Slowly understanding dawned in her eyes. "You wish . . . to marry me?" Meliora gasped, stepped back from him, and blanched. "Mother commands us to marry, to . . . to make a baby?" Confusion and disgust battled on her face.

Ishtafel glanced around him. Damn it! Other seraphim had heard her. People were staring. Even slaves. He had hoped to break the news to his people on another night, but it seemed the secret was out.

He cleared his throat. He stepped toward the table, grabbed a goblet of wine, and raised it overhead.

"My friends!" he cried. "Hear me! My sister and I have an announcement to make." The seraphim turned toward him, and Ishtafel stared across the crowd—those he would someday rule as king. "For five hundred years, my family has ruled Saraph, a dynasty that saw us finally conquer this world we fell to, that brought us the weredragons to serve us, that saw us create a new kingdom of wealth and prosperity. The time has come to create a new heir, a third generation for our family. Our royal blood will be preserved for a hundred thousand years. On the summer solstice, two moons hence, I will marry my sister. Meliora and I will bear Saraph a prince!"

The seraphim cheered. Even a few of the slaves cried out his name. Many seraphim here had lived five hundred years ago, back when Reehan—his first betrothed—had died. They rejoiced that their prince found new love at last. Wine now flowed and the trumpets blew. All celebrated . . . all but Meliora.

The young princess stepped closer to Ishtafel, tears in her eyes, and slapped his cheek.

As he sucked in air and stared with shock, the girl spun on her heel, grabbed her slaves' hands, and fled the hall.

The cheering died.

Everyone stared.

Gods damn.

Fury—hot and unadulterated—filled Ishtafel. He forced it down with all his might.

He cleared his throat. "Well, my friends have warned me that wives are harder to defeat than dragons."

He forced himself to laugh. It wasn't much of a joke, yet the crowd laughed. He was their prince; they'd laugh at anything he himself laughed at. Yet as his laughter rolled across the hall, the rage flowed through Ishtafel, and his fingernails dug into his palms.

You humiliated me, Meliora. He drank deeply from his cup. You will bear my child, and you will pay for your insolence.

The feast continued. It would be a triumphant feast that never ended.

MELIORA

"I won't do it." Meliora pouted and stamped her feet. "I won't, I won't, I won't! I won't marry my own brother."

She stood in a chamber of opulence. A mosaic of precious stones covered the floor, depicting colorful fish swimming in a sapphire sea. Lines of silver and platinum coiled around limestone columns, rising toward capitals of purest gold. A fresco sprawled across the vaulted ceiling, recreating the lost paradise of Edinnu. And yet, despite all the gemstones and precious metals, despite the golden vases and ivory statuettes that covered her shelves, despite the scent of frankincense and the haze of wine, Meliora felt trapped here. A prisoner. Lower than a slave.

"Your Excellence, Ishtafel is most handsome." Kira, a young slave, looked up from painting Meliora's fingernails. Her eyes were large and dark, her skin light brown, and black stubble covered her head. She spoke with awe in her voice. "His eyes shine like suns, and his hair flows like molten gold. All the women of the realm whisper of his magnificence."

"He is most handsome," agreed Talana, her second slave, who was busy brushing Meliora's hair. While Kira was dark and demure, Talana had skin as pale as milk, strewn with many freckles, and stubble the color of fire covered her head. "You are most fortunate, Your Excellence."

Meliora fluffed her feathered wings and emitted a long, loud whine. "You don't understand, you fools."

She pulled her hands back, though only half her fingernails were painted. She leaped up from her bed, though her hair was only half-brushed. She whined again—a high, wailing sound, letting out all her frustration and pain. Those silly slaves would never understand! Their lives were easy. All they ever did was coo, gossip, giggle, brush her hair, paint her nails, wash her body, tend to her clothes, serve her wine—an easy life, a life free from the pressures Meliora faced.

My life is harder than that of any slave, she thought.

Meliora perhaps wore a platinum necklace sporting diamonds and pearls, but it was worse than any slave collar. She perhaps wore a kalasiri dress, the soft white muslin shining with sapphires and emeralds, but it was rougher on her skin than her slaves' coarse cotton.

My mother wants me to marry him . . . Ishtafel. My own brother.

Meliora shuddered.

She flounced across her chamber between platinum statues of ibises, jeweled vases blooming with orchids, and ebony tables topped with gold and silver mancala pieces. She came to stand before her bronze mirror, looked at her reflection, and felt like the poorest wretch to have ever crawled upon the earth.

She was still beautiful, Meliora thought. Wondrously beautiful. The most beautiful woman to have ever lived in this palace—no, the most beautiful to have ever lived anywhere, at any time. She was a seraph, an immortal being of light, a princess of seraphim—a deity among deities, a goddess of gods. Her golden hair flowed like molten dawn down to her hips. Her eyes shone, just as golden and bright, the pupils shaped as sunbursts. Her lips were full, pink, pouty. She was short for a seraph, standing just over six feet tall, but still tall enough to tower over her weredragon slaves. Most beautiful of all, she thought, were her wings. They spread out from her back, their feathers snowy white, gleaming in the light that shone through the windows.

I am magnificent, Meliora thought, gazing at her reflection. Yet now this legendary beauty will be caged, broken. Now I will become but a womb, a garden for my brother's seed.

Tears gathered in her eyes and flowed down her flawless cheeks, coming to rest on her flawless lips—lips her brother would soon be kissing.

"Your Excellence!" Kira cried. The slave rushed forth, her cotton shift rustling, and held out a silver jug and cup. "Would you like me to pour you more wine?"

"No," Meliora said. "I've had enough of wine. Enough of you. Enough of this life!"

Her lips quivered, and she swung her arm, knocking the jug and cup out of the slave's hands. They clanged onto the floor, spilling their crimson liquid. Meliora felt as if her own blood were spilling.

"Clean it up!" Meliora said. At once Kira and Talana grabbed towels, knelt, and began soaking up the wine. Easy lives. All those two had to clean up was some spilled wine—not the mess of a royal family. All they had to do was serve her, not serve a cruel brother, not serve an entire empire.

She was cursed, Meliora thought, fingers trembling. Cursed to be born to the Queen of Saraph. Cursed to be the younger sister of a prince returned from a war. Cursed to have this royal ichor coursing through her veins, pure blood that must be passed into an heir.

Those damn tears kept falling.

"Wine," she whispered. "I want wine. Bring me new wine!"

"Of course, Your Excellence," said Kira. The little slave—oh, so innocent, so sheltered!—rose to her feet, rushed to fetch another jug, and poured Meliora a cup.

Meliora drank. The wine was awful. Too acidic; it must have been sitting in the open for a day at least. But she guzzled it down until the warm haze coated her thoughts. When the cup was empty, she tossed it to the floor, wobbled forward, and stepped between porphyry columns onto the balcony.

The sunlight fell upon her, and Meliora gazed at her realm. She placed a hand on her belly.

They want my womb to produce an heir for this land.

The hot wind blew across Shayeen, scented of frankincense, sandstone, and the distant pits of bitumen that bubbled on the horizon. The breeze caressed Meliora's hair, kissed her lips like a lover, and ruffled the long white feathers of her wings. Her kalasiri, inlaid with jewels and golden disks, chinked like laughing spirits. The muslin caressed her skin, soft to the touch, almost sensual.

If my mother has her way, Meliora thought, it will be my brother who kisses my lips, who strokes my skin, who removes this muslin from my body and plants his heir within my womb. She clenched her fists. I will not allow it!

She studied the city below. Shayeen. City of Kings. Jewel of Saraph. The capital of an empire. Her birthright, the city this marriage would let her rule someday as queen.

The eight Holy Paths flared out like sunbeams, lined with statues of the Eight Gods. Between these cobbled boulevards rose columned temples, lush gardens, bathhouses, amphitheaters, and menageries. Here was a realm of opulence, of pleasure, Edinnu rebuilt upon this world of exile. Standing upon the ziggurat in the city center, a thousand feet above the surface, Meliora could see all the way to the city's outer wall. She felt like a goddess, a deity among deities, an immortal ruler . . . yet one who was afraid. One who felt chained—as surely as the slaves beyond the horizon were chained in the land of Tofet.

"I wish I were a slave," she whispered into the wind. "I wish I were not born into this bondage, the daughter of a queen."

She envied her slaves. Envied them! She had never been beyond the horizon to Tofet itself, the land where thousands of slaves dug for bitumen and built bricks. But Meliora knew that their lives were easier than hers. They walked free in the open air, basking in the sunlight, singing as they dug and built. How Meliora wished she could join them! How she wished to spread her wings, flee this palace, join the weredragons in Tofet, live free in the open air! Far from this ziggurat. Far from these golden chains, this gilded cage.

A long time ago, they said, the weredragons had lived in a distant realm, a place called Requiem, a land her brother had crushed. Back then, the weredragons had worn no collars, could become dragons at will. Millions of them had flown in the skies. Sometimes, on long dark nights, huddled under her silken blankets, Meliora would dream that she herself lived in Old Requiem, could become a dragon too, that she flew in a cold sky under distant stars. Sometimes, even during the days, Meliora remembered those dreams, wished they were real, wished she could become a dragon, fly away to a distant cold kingdom, escape this life of torment.

Her fingers curled into fists. A rage boiled within her.

"Why should I allow my mother to torture me?" Meliora snarled. "I'm strong. Wise. Fair. I'm the strongest, most beautiful woman in the world. I won't do anything I don't want to." She stamped her feet. "I won't! I'll tell her. I'll tell Mother I refuse. And if she doesn't like that, I swear I'll just fly away. I'll fly so far that I'll die of starvation in the wilderness, and then they'll be sorry." Her tears flowed. "Then they'll all be sorry for torturing me."

She turned away from the view. She left the balcony, reentering the ziggurat, the palace her dynasty had ruled since the great uprising five hundred years ago, the year her family had crushed Requiem, taken the weredragons captive, and overthrown the old dynasty to usher Saraph into its golden age.

I will tell her, Meliora thought, fists clenched. I will tell Mother that I refuse. That I'll run away and die in the wilderness!

She walked through the palace. Columns rose alongside, inlaid with silver and gold, their capitals jeweled. Frescos covered the ceiling, depicting scenes of Old Edinnu, the realm that was lost. Mosaics spread across the floor, forming a great blue river where swam stone fish of every kind. Ferns grew from painted vases, rustling in the wind that flowed through the skylights.

Seraphim soldiers stood at attention between the columns, clad in steel breastplates, their wings folded at their sides. Gripping spears and shields, they bowed their heads as Meliora walked by. Slaves scurried about the palace, bearing jugs of wine, trays of fruit, fresh linens, and ointments and spices. Clad in simple white livery and metal collars, they knelt before Meliora, whispering praises of her glory.

"Move!" she said. The damn slaves—such lazy creatures—were blocking her way.

The slaves scuttled back, letting Meliora pass. She left them behind, moving down the glittering corridors, seeking her mother.

Finally Meliora reached the Ivory Chamber, her mother's favorite place in the palace. A portico of columns spread across the northern wall, leading to a balcony lined with potted palm trees. Beyond spread the blue sky and distant, golden mountains. Light flooded the chamber, shining on a mosaic floor, walls painted with scenes of ibises and crocodiles, and vases full of sweetly scented rushes. Ivory statues of La'eri, feline goddess of royalty, rose along the walls, giving the chamber its name.

A heated pool steamed in the middle of the chamber, and in the water, facing the sunlight that streamed through the balcony, bathed Queen Kalafi.

"Mother," Meliora said.

The water rose to the queen's shoulders. Three slaves stood in the pool with her, young female weredragons, their collars gilded. Two of the slaves were filing and painting the queen's fingernails. The third was combing and oiling Kalafi's long, golden hair. The queen seemed not to have heard Meliora; she remained in the water, staring out at the sun and sky beyond the columns.

"Mother!" Meliora stamped her feet. "I will not be ignored."

Kalafi spoke softly, still not rising from the water, still not turning toward her daughter. "The turtledoves fly early this year. I can hear them from this chamber. It's strange, is it not, daughter? That spring begins with the song of birds, yet their melody heralds the cruel heat of summer. Thus did the gods curse us—to forever glimpse beauty, never to fully grasp it." She sighed. "It was always spring in Edinnu. There was no pain in Edinnu."

Meliora rolled her eyes. She was only twenty-seven, a babe among the immortal seraphim. She had been born and raised here in this exile, in this palace, within the reign of this very dynasty. Yet Queen Kalafi was thousands of years old, a seraph who had fought the gods, who had fallen from heaven, who still yearned for days long gone.

"Mother, I will not do this. I will not. I refuse. You cannot make me." Meliora's anger left her lips with a serpentine hiss. "Send my brother back to his wars. If you make me marry him, I'm going to run away and die of starvation in the desert, and then you'll all be sorry."

Slowly, Queen Kalafi turned and rose from the pool, climbing underwater stairs. The water ran down her lithe body in rivulets. Kalafi was perhaps an ancient being, thousands of years old, yet she looked no older than Meliora. Her eyes shone, two suns. Her hair cascaded down to her hips like molten gold. Her wings unfurled, the water gleaming upon their white feathers. The sunlight shone upon her nude body.

She was a being of light, of perfect beauty—perfect but for the scar on her side.

The burn spread beneath her left ribs, down toward her navel and across her hip, raw and red, an oozing sash. The ancient gods had given her that wound thousands of years ago, searing her with godlight. That had been the Day of Banishment. The day the seraphim had lost their rebellion, the day the gods had exiled them down to the earth.

The wound will never heal, Meliora knew. Only the hot, salty water could soothe the pain, giving relief between bouts of flaring agony. Most monarchs ruled from thrones; Kalafi ruled from pools and baths.

Slaves rushed forth and clad Kalafi in an embroidered robe, hiding her nakedness, hiding the wound, the ugly reminder of their failed uprising.

"Daughter," Kalafi said, stepping toward her across the mosaic. "For thousands of years, Saraph's dynasties have wed brother to sister to preserve the royal blood. My own husband, may the gods forgive his soul, was also my brother. Only thus can we remain pure beings."

Kalafi reached out to caress Meliora's cheek.

"Don't touch me." Meliora shoved her mother's hand away. "Pure beings?" She barked a laugh. "When Ishtafel brings weredragon slaves into his bed, is he a pure being? When you soak in water to hide that ugly, dirty wound of yours, are you a pure being? I refuse to marry any man, least of all my brother." Meliora let out a whine, almost a scream. "Bed him yourself if you wish to keep the blood pure. I will not! I—"

Kalafi struck her.

White light flashed across Meliora's vision. She hissed and clutched her burning cheek.

"How dare—" Meliora began.

The queen struck her again, a blow to the second cheek. "You will not defy me, child." Kalafi's eyes flared like exploding suns. "For five thousand years, I roamed this earth. For five hundred of those years, your brother fought wars to conquer this world, to give us—to give you!—a home of light and splendor. You are but a child. Twenty-seven summers old, a mere babe, spoiled, impudent. What do you know of pain? What do you know of the agony of our long banishment, of the fires of war, of the triumphs your brother gave our race?"

Meliora held her burning cheek, struggling to keep the tears from her eyes. "I will defy you! Yes, I am young. No, I never knew our fall from paradise, and I never knew our long exile in the desert. Yes, I was born into a life of splendor, slaves to wait upon me. But that doesn't mean that I will serve you as a slave. I—"

"Slaves?" Kalafi laughed. "You take them for granted, as if they're as inherent a part of our lives as our wings. It's thanks to Ishtafel, the conqueror of Requiem, that slaves now serve you. Yes, thanks to this brother you spurn. And so you will learn to live without them." Kalafi's lips stretched into a thin grin. "Your two house slaves will die tomorrow. Come see them burn in the bronze bull, daughter. Come hear them scream, then return to your chambers where you can make your own bed, pour your own wine, and wipe your own backside."

Meliora gasped. "Mother!"

She thought of Kira and Talana, her two slaves, young women who served in her chambers. The two were meek things without sin—aside from the sin of their lesser race. To burn them in the bronze bull?

Meliora had heard Ishtafel speak of the bronze bull before—of Malok. Her brother used to terrify her with those stories. As a child, Meliora had believed them and would cry and cower. Ishtafel had described how soldiers pulled an unruly slave into a great, hollow statue of a bull. Fires were lit under the bull until the bronze heated, boiling the slave within. The slaves' screams would rise through a network of pipes, emerging from the bull's mouth in a melodious song.

If you're a bad girl, Ishtafel had once taunted her, I'm going to toss you into Malok's belly and dance to your screams.

Meliora had cried so much that Ishtafel had hugged her, soothed her, confessed that he had lied. Yet now her mother resurrected that old threat. How could Malok be real? How could the cruel bronze bull truly exist in Saraph, this realm of light and beauty?

"You lie," Meliora said. "Those are just stories Ishtafel invented. There is no Malok."

Queen Kalafi laughed. "Yes, daughter. Mere stories. And little fairies conjure up our bitumen with the snap of their sparkling fingers, and unicorns bear us the tar on their backs. I have sheltered you for too long, girl. You will accompany me tomorrow at dawn to see your precious slaves sing in the bull. And then you will return to your chambers, where you will pray to never see true horror as I have seen. And in two moons, on the blessed summer solstice, you will marry your brother. And nine months later, you will bear me a pure heir. You will do this or it will be you burned in the bull."

Meliora's chest shook, her head spun, and her eyes burned with tears. She spun and fled the chamber.

VALE

He stood in the blood, dust, and agony of Tofet, burying his mother.

My people languish in chains. Vale's eyes burned, and his fists trembled. My sister was taken captive. His breath shuddered, and the chains around his legs rattled. My mother is dead.

For all his twenty-one years, Vale had labored in this place, making bricks with his father while his mother and sister mined the bitumen that would hold those bricks together in palaces and temples. For all those twenty-one years, Vale had sweated, wept, screamed when the masters whipped him, yet still clung to hope—clung to a desperate dream that someday Requiem would rise again, that someday he would fly free with his family.

Now that family is broken. Tears burned in his eyes. Now I bury my hope along with my mother.

The grave yawned open before him. A pit. A mass grave for all the slaves killed that day, over a hundred souls. A hundred slaves worked, starved, beaten to death. Some mere children, the whips of their masters too cruel for their frail bodies. Others were elders, slaves who had toiled for decades under the sun, clinging to a hope to see Requiem again, finally to end up here, bodies in a land of despair.

And one woman, torn apart, her severed limbs and battered torso wrapped in a shroud. A woman who had dared to fly, dared to fight. A lost light of Requiem. A mother.

"I'm sorry, Mother," Vale whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, that I couldn't fly with you, fight with you."

A soft voice spoke at his side. "Her soul will rise to the celestial halls of Requiem. She will shine there in palaces of starlight, drink wine, and sing among our ancient heroes. She is at peace now. She is at peace."

And yet pain filled that voice. Vale turned to see Jaren, his father, standing at his side in the crowd of mourners.

"There is no such thing." Vale's voice was a hoarse whisper, yet the pain of an anguished cry filled it. "Celestial halls? An afterlife of starlight? Just dreams. Just stories." His tears burned in his eyes. "Maybe Requiem itself is but a dream, a land that never was."

He saw how those words wounded his father. Jaren winced and his lips tightened into a line. Dust coated the priest's long grizzled beard, and chains hobbled his ankles. Years of brickmaking in the sun had weathered his face; Jaren was only in his fifties, yet he looked like a man of eighty—wrinkled, weary, his hair gray. Despite the chains, despite his rags, despite his years of labor, Jaren still clung to the old stories. Still called himself a priest of the Draco constellation, the stars that supposedly had once blessed Requiem, that would someday save them again. Still believed in that lost, distant realm the seraphim had burned five hundred years ago.

But Vale no longer believed, no longer cared if he hurt his father. There was so much pain in this place, so much anguish. What was more pain? Why even live on, why linger, why cling to stories? Perhaps his mother had taken the only sensible path. Perhaps it was best to rise up, to fight, to die in battle rather than linger here in chains.

Vale expected Jaren to argue, to insist that Requiem was real, that stars truly blessed them, that a dragon constellation truly shone in the northern skies. But the old priest merely lowered his head, and tears streamed down his cheeks into his beard.

Vale felt all his anger fade. He stepped close to his father, his own tears falling, and embraced the old man. They stood together, crying together, their chains rattling, watching through the veil of tears as the corpses were lowered into the pit.

Several dragons, their collars removed but their limbs chained, pulled forth the wagons of corpses. Upon a hill, an old slave with a white beard chanted prayers to the Eight Gods, the vengeful deities the seraphim worshipped, the religion forced upon the Vir Requis slaves in the land of Tofet.

"Praise the Eight!" the white-haired slave cried upon the hill. "Blessed be their light! Praise the seraphim masters for their mercy, and may their light guide the souls of our dead to rest."

"Praise the Eight!" answered slaves in the crowd, hundreds come to see their dead buried, as the dragons tilted the wagons, as the dead spilled into the mass grave.

Curse the Eight, Vale thought, staring at the bodies sliding into the pit. One among them was his mother; he didn't even know which one anymore. Curse the foul gods of this place. Curse the seraphim. Curse the land of Tofet. Curse these chains. And curse Ishtafel.

The memory filled Vale, burning inside his skull. It had happened only hours ago, yet it seemed eternal, an event ancient and current, a flame consuming all time, a terror that he knew would always fill him. His father stepping into the quarry. Mother dead in his arms.

Vale closed his eyes, and his fists shook at his sides.

"You killed her, Ishtafel," he whispered. "You killed my mother. You kidnapped my sister."

I should have been there, Vale thought. I should have flown with you, Mother.

He should have flown, blown his dragonfire, lashed his claws. Yet this collar kept him chained. Kept him in the dust, a worm, a wretch.

"Praise the Eight!" the priest on the hill cried. "May the gods bless their souls."

At Vale's side, his father closed his eyes and whispered so softly Vale could barely hear.

"As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home." Jaren took a shuddering breath, raised his head, and gazed up at the sky. Tears filled his eyes, and awe filled his whisper. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

The ancient prayer of Requiem. The words that, the stories claimed, King Aeternum had sung six thousand years ago in a distant land, forging a home for the Vir Requis. A home for dragons.

Vale raised his eyes, seeking the Draco constellation, seeking those stars his father claimed blessed Requiem. But he saw no stars that looked like a dragon, only a field of cold lights like so many dead eyes.

The stars had abandoned them. His mother was gone. His sisters were gone—both Elory and the sister they never spoke of. All hope was gone.

The wagons dumped the last corpses of slaves into the pit. The dragons—the few slaves allowed to shift into their ancient forms—began shoveling dirt into the grave, hiding the dead, hiding the shame. Soon Vale would return to his hut with his father, but his mother won't be there, nor his sister, and in a few hours he would rise, and he would toil in the sun, and the chains would chafe his body, and the whips would cut his back, and it would continue. Year after year. Generation after generation. Endless pain in the land of Saraph as Requiem remained but a memory, fading to myth.

"Come, son." Jaren placed a hand on his shoulder. Tears still streamed down his lined cheeks to dampen his beard. "Let us return to our hut. Let us pray. Let—"

Laughter.

Laughter rolled across the darkness, interrupting Jaren's words.

"Mother!" A voice rose in mocking falsetto. "Mother, please!"

Slowly, his chains rattling, Vale turned around.

He saw them there on a hill. Two seraphim, a woman and a man. Both wore gilded armor, the breastplates curved to mimic bare torsos. Both carried round shields and lances. Vale was tall for a Vir Requis, almost six feet tall—a giant among the malnourished slaves—yet these seraphim dwarfed him. The immortals were beings of beauty, hair long and lustrous, pupils shaped as sunbursts in their golden eyes, lips full and pink, wings the color of milk. Fallen angels. Masters. Destroyers.

"The little whore whined like a babe," said the male seraph. He raised his voice to falsetto again. "Mother, Mother, please don't let the bad seraph take me! Don't let him spread my legs and thrust his holy spear into me!"

The female seraph laughed. She raised a flaming whip. Vale recognized her. Here stood Shani, an overseer of the tar pit, a woman who had beaten Elory with her whip too often to count. So many nights, Elory had lain shivering on her straw bed, feverish and moaning with pain, as Vale rubbed ointments into the wounds on her back—wounds Shani had inflicted.

"Ishtafel's new whore was in my work team," Shani said to her companion. "Worked as a yoke bearer. I striped her back many times. Squealed like a pig every time."

Rage flowed through Vale, a fiery explosion. His fingernails drove into his palms, shedding blood.

They're talking about Elory. About my sister.

"Come, son," Jaren said, voice still choked with grief. He placed a hand on Vale's shoulder. "Let's go. Leave them be."

But Vale could not look away from the laughing seraphim on the hill. The pair were still talking, laughing as they stared into the grave.

"Little harlot will be back in Tofet in no time." The male seraph snorted. "The weredragons never last long with Ishtafel."

Shani barked a laugh. "Not weak as that one is. I beat her bloody too many times. She'll be back as a corpse soon. Next time the wagons roll around, we'll spit on her body."

Jaren was speaking behind him, urging calm. But Vale could no longer hear. The fury blasted through him, shaking his limbs, constricting his chest, painting the world red.

He could not fly as a dragon, not with the cursed collar around his neck, the metal engraved with runes to crush his magic. But he could still fight with tooth and nail.

Better to die fighting. Better to end this now, to die young rather than languish into old age. The pit awaits us now or after years of pain.

With a roar, Vale raced forward.

He charged uphill, fists raised.

In the old stories, the ones passed from father to son, the Vir Requis would rise as dragons, fight in great armies in the sky, blowing dragonfire. Vale had never become a dragon; the collar had constricted him since birth. But in his mind, as he charged forth, he was a dragon roaring, a beast of fury and fire.

The two seraphim turned toward him, eyes widening.

"For Requiem!" Vale shouted. "For stars and dragonfire!"

He leaped forward, fists swinging.

He was weakened by years of servitude, feeding on gruel while building bricks for eighteen hours a day, but the wrath of an ancient nation burned within him, and he moved fast. He reached the seraphim and landed the first blow, driving his fist into the male's chin.

It felt like punching a cliff.

Vale's knuckles cracked, and pain blazed through him.

"Rabid dog!" Shani shouted. The beautiful seraph, her blond hair flying in the wind, swung her whip.

The lash of fire slammed into Vale, tore across his back, and wrapped around him to sting his chest. His skin tore, and the fire cauterized the wound, burning his blood.

"Vale!" Jaren shouted, racing uphill. "Vale, no!"

But Vale ignored his father. Too much pain. Too much fury—the fury of a dragon, dragonfire blazing even within his famished human form. He roared and attacked again, driving his fist toward Shani.

Smiling savagely, Shani grabbed his fist in her hand. She squeezed, her grin stretching into a rabid, toothy snarl.

Vale screamed, his hand crushed.

"Yes, you will scream like she did." Shani tightened her grip. The seraph was taller than Vale, stronger, ancient beyond measure. Vale howled and swung his other fist, only bloodying his knuckles against her.

Agony exploded across his back. He screamed, falling to his knees. Another blow hit him, knocking him down. Vale tried to turn around, glimpsed the second seraph raising his fist, and then another blow slammed into him. Light flared. Vale hit the ground.

"Cease this!" Jaren cried somewhere in the distance—miles away. A fading sound. Vale could barely hear his father, barely hear anything but his own screams. The blows kept raining onto him.

"Father!" he cried. "Father! Requiem!"

"Enough!" Jaren shouted, but the voice was a muffled cry from another world, a whisper, then nothing. The world washed away under the blood.

"Wait." Shani spoke somewhere in the haze. "Stop. Keep him alive. We'll burn him in the bronze bull tomorrow." She laughed. "I'd like to hear the bull sing."

The blows stopped but the pain still bloomed across Vale. In his memories, he could see that bronze bull again, the fires burning below it, the screams rising through its pipes to emerge as a melodious song—a song of burning flesh, burning souls, of his death in the forge.

So I will burn. A thin smile stretched across his lips, and he tasted blood. It's a good death for a Vir Requis.

So hurt he could barely see, barely hear, he managed to spit blood onto Shani's feet.

The seraph cursed and drove her foot forward. Light exploded, then died to darkness, and Vale felt no more.

ELORY

She knelt in the dark, chained, shivering, the fear like a living beast coiling within her.

He's coming for me. He's coming to hurt me. The man who killed my mother.

She tried to stop the tears from falling. She tried to be brave, to be like the old heroines of Requiem from her father's stories. To be brave like Mother had been, defying the masters with her last breath. Yet still those damn tears fell, and still Elory trembled.

The past few hours were a blur, a dreamscape of color and sound, so hazy and surreal Elory wondered if it hadn't been a true dream, if she wouldn't soon wake back in her hut in Tofet. She recalled the heat of the chariot of fire, a flight over the desert, the smudged glimpses of a great city below. And then jeweled columns shining with light. Mosaic floors depicting all the fish of the seas. The labyrinthine corridors of a palace, a realm as confusing as another world.

And she recalled other slaves too. Other Vir Requis. But not ones like those from Tofet. Here, in this realm of gold and jewels, the slaves' skin was paler, for the sun did not burn them. Their shoulders did not stoop under a yoke, and their legs did not bend under baskets of bricks, and no hot tar stained their feet. Elory flushed to remember them stripping her naked, scrubbing her tarred skin until it reddened, shaving the downy hair that grew on her body, soothing her wounds with ointment, and finally cladding her in this cotton shift.

She knelt now in the dark chamber. Cleaned. Bandaged. Shaved. Perfumed with a hint of frankincense. Yet still her ankles were hobbled, and still the collar encircled her neck.

Still a slave. Still a daughter mourning.

Elory lowered her head. Still that vision played in her mind, again and again. She knew it would never leave her. Her mother, a silver dragon, calling her name, flying toward her . . . and the lances, the arrows, the swords . . . the blood raining . . . the severed limbs, the anguished eyes, and . . .

"No," Elory whispered. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. I will not let that vision fill me. I refuse.

Instead, she conjured up older, kinder memories. Her mother comforting her after the overseers would whip Elory's back. Her mother holding her, singing to her the old songs of Requiem, whispering of the day when the dragons would rise again, overthrow their masters, and fly home. Elory would remember that woman instead: the kindly mother, face sunburnt and weathered but still beautiful, eyes still dreaming, still hoping, loving her.

You rest now in the halls of afterlife, Elory thought.

Requiem had fallen; the cruel seraph Ishtafel, her captor, had burned down the forests and toppled the marble halls. But a Requiem woven of starlight still shone above, Elory knew. And in that Requiem all the dragons from Mother's stories—King Aeternum, the founder of Requiem, and all those kings, queens, and heroes who had followed—lived there in the starlight. One could not see the Draco constellation from so far south, here in the empire of Saraph, but Elory knew that those stars shone beyond the horizon. That the celestial halls shone among them. That her mother was at peace.

I have to believe. I have to or my will to continue would flee me. I have to believe that the celestial Requiem shines above, and that we can someday rebuild the earthly Requiem in our fallen forests.

It was only hours ago that a guard had led her here in a blindfold, chaining her in the shadows, then leaving her. Elory had removed the blindfold, but she might as well have kept it on. She looked around her, trying to see through the shadows, but it was too dark. She could make out only the blobs of furniture. A chain ran from her ankle, securing her to a bedpost. She dared to walk a few steps back and forth, to hear the chain clank, to feel around her.

A bed topped with the softest fabric she had ever felt, even softer than her newly scrubbed, lotioned skin. A table with a bowl of grapes she dared not eat. A mosaic on the floor. Beyond that she couldn't reach, only gaze into darkness.

For a long time, Elory simply waited.

He'll come for me, she thought. Somebody will.

She shuddered to think what Ishtafel would do to her. Would he force her to pour him wine, file his nails, comb his hair? Or would he desire more from her—desire to know her . . . as a man knows a woman? Elory swallowed. She had never known a man. The thought of the tall, golden-haired seraph claiming her body, claiming her virginity, perhaps even planting a child within her womb—it made her shiver. Ishtafel was a creature of beauty, his eyes bright, his shoulders broad, a god of grace, yet the thought of him touching her sickened Elory. She would give up all the beauty in the world to return to her hut in Tofet.

She tried to think of that clay hut now, to think of her family. Was Jaren, her wise father, thinking of her now, praying to the stars of Requiem to protect her? Was Vale, her angry and torn brother, railing against the masters, speaking as always of rebelling?

More than she wanted water for her parched throat, more than she wanted food for her tight belly, Elory wanted to speak to her father and brother again. To tell them she was all right. To say goodbye. Tofet, realm of the slaves, was a land of sweat, of breaking bones, of breaking dreams, yet now Elory missed it. Her yoke was gone, her body cleaned, yet she felt more lost, more afraid than ever. She missed her family.

And there is more to my family.

"I have a sister too," she whispered in the dark, tears flowing down to her lips. "A lost sister I've never met. A sister in this very palace. A sister who can help me, who—"

Before she could say more, the door opened.

Lamplight flooded the chamber.

Elory winced, staring into the light. Her heart burst into a gallop. Her instinct was to cower, to cover her eyes, to hide behind the bed and beg for mercy. She resisted that urge.

I am a daughter of Requiem, heir to a proud race. I will not cower.

She squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and stared into the light.

He stepped into the room, a towering seraph, his wings as white as purest snow, his armor a priceless work of gold and jewels, a silver lamp in his hand. The destroyer of Requiem. The heir to Saraph. The murderer of her mother.

"Ishtafel." The word tasted foul on her lips.

The seraph placed his lamp on a table, and for the first time, Elory got a look at the chamber. The place glittered. Murals of seraphim battling sea serpents and demons covered the walls, inlaid with gold and platinum. Gemstones shone on vases, tables, and armchairs. Platinum statues of jackals and ibises glared at her with diamond eyes. Swords hung on racks, and massive skulls—each one so large Elory could have climbed into the jaws—stood in alcoves. In the center of the room rose a canopy bed; the chain from her ankle ran toward its ebony post.

It was a chamber of opulence, every inch of it priceless, yet to Elory it seemed more like a mausoleum.

Wordlessly, Ishtafel approached a table and poured himself a mug of wine. Elory stared at him, wondering why he was pouring his own wine. Was serving him wine not to be her duty? Did this mean she was here for another purpose?

She wanted to speak, to break this silence, to ask him what he wanted of her. But she dared not. She merely stood chained, watching him drink.

He lowered his jeweled cup and began to remove his armor. Again, as he worked the clasps, he asked for no aid. Again Elory's fear grew.

I'm not here to pour his wine. I'm not here to remove his armor. She glanced at his bed. Am I here to service him in that bed?

She glanced back at him. He had removed his breastplate now, and he was working at unstrapping his vambraces. His bare arms were massive; each one seemed larger than Elory's entire body. His chest was wide, muscular, the skin tinted gold; he seemed like a gilded statue brought to life. But he was not perfect, she saw. Four scars, as from claws, ran across his chest, old and white.

Dragon claws, Elory thought.

Still he did not speak. Still he did not glance at her. He removed his greaves off his legs, his last pieces of armor, remaining in a cotton skirt that fell halfway down his thighs. His hair flowed down his back between his wings, a mane of dawn, and Elory was reminded of the flaming manes of the firehorses that had borne her here. The seraph acted as if she were another piece of furniture. Ignoring her, he returned to his mug of wine, drinking as he gazed out the window at the night.

Finally Elory could bear it no longer. She raised her chin and stood straight, trying to stand as tall as she could; she still didn't even reach Ishtafel's shoulders.

"Why did you bring me here?" she said. "How am I to serve you? Will you not speak, will—"

He spun around. She felt his hand before she saw it move. His palm slammed into her cheek, and she cried out and fell to the floor. Blood filled her mouth.

She coughed, struggling to breathe, and stared up at him. He had returned to the window. Once more, he was calmly sipping his wine.

Slowly, Elory rose to her feet. Her chain clanked. She glanced toward the table and she saw Ishtafel's sword there. The blade was longer than she was tall, and it looked heavy, but Elory had been raised bearing yokes and baskets of steaming bitumen. She was small and thin but strong. She could lift this sword, drive it into his back, slay him, and—

And what then? she thought. Remain chained here until the guards entered the chamber, found Ishtafel's body, and dragged her to the bronze bull?

She swallowed, eying the blade. Perhaps there was another path. She could kill Ishtafel, then fall upon the sword. She would have her revenge, then her soul would rise to join her mother. What else did she have to live for? Why even draw breath? She would never see her father and brother again, never see the stars of Requiem or her fallen halls, and—

But I can still see my sister, whispered a voice inside her.

Elory's throat clenched.

My sister.

She did not know if she believed those stories. Stories of a sister who lived here in this palace, who could help her, who could help all the children of Requiem. A lost light.

She looked away from the sword.

I will live. I must. I will find her.

Finally Ishtafel spoke, his back to her, still staring out the window. "You will address me as 'Your Excellence' or 'my lord.' You will remember this or my next strike will not leave you as pretty. Do you understand?"

Elory touched her lip. Her fingers came back bloody. "Why am I here, my lord?" She couldn't help but add a hint of scorn to those last two words. She would do what she must to survive, but she would defy him when she could, even with just the hint of an insolent tone. "What do you want, my lord?"

He turned toward her. He stared down from his height, eyes gleaming. Those eyes were inhuman. Eyes like those of a bronze statue with fire within its shell, casting out their own light.

They were gods once, Elory thought. Angels in the heavens, fallen, cast out. Broken gods.

In her mind, she saw the Requiem that had been. The Requiem from the old tales. A kingdom where the Vir Requis wore no collars, where they could fly freely as dragons. A kingdom of marble columns in a birch forest. That Old Requiem, fallen five hundred years ago, was a realm of ancient legend, a realm past great distances of time and space, a mere memory of myth. Yet here before her, here in this very chamber, stood the same seraph who had led that old charge, who had crushed Requiem and borne Elory's ancestors to captivity.

"What do I want?"

Ishtafel's voice was soft. He stepped toward Elory. She felt the heat of his body. She struggled against every instinct not to flinch, not to flee. He stood only inches away now, and again she was struck by his size, and how small she felt before him, a mere child. He lowered the hand that had struck her, and she saw droplets of her blood on the palm. Gently, he tugged at the lacings on her cotton shift, undoing them.

"Do you not know, child?"

Again, his voice was smooth, barely a whisper. Her shift fell to the floor, and she covered her breasts with her hands.

"I know of such things." She stared into his eyes; staring at them was an act of defiance. "I know of—" She bit her lip when he raised his hand, then spoke again. "My lord."

"Then come into my bed," he said, "and pleasure me tonight, and sleep in my arms, and I will not hurt you again. Do your duty, daughter of Tofet, and you will find a life of wine, food better than gruel, a roof to shelter you from the sun, perfumes and ointments to smooth and scent your skin. Grant me pleasure or I will grant you pain." His eyes narrowed, burning with just the hint of menace. "Now lie on the bed."

She glanced at that bed. She swallowed. She had endured years of slaving under the sun. She had endured countless lashes of the whip. Why was she so afraid of this?

Perhaps Elory, with her dreams of Requiem and old heroes, had also clung to a different sort of dreams. Dreams of romance. Of love. Dreams of someday meeting a man—even just another slave. Of falling in love. Of living together in a home of their own—even just a hut in the land of Tofet. A fool's dream. Those days of love had ended five hundred years ago; Ishtafel had ended them.

Yet Elory had been raised on stories of old lovers in Requiem: the great King Aeternum and Queen Laira, founders of Requiem; the hero Kyrie Eleison and his beloved, the fiery Agnus Dei; even the stories of the doomed love of King Elethor and Queen Lyana who had led Requiem in war against the phoenixes. Elory wanted such a love for herself. A love of passion and fire and triumph over evil. How could she debase herself here, give her body to this murderer?

The anger grew in his eyes. She saw that. His hand rose again, prepared to strike her, and an image flashed through Elory's mind: the battered, strangled corpse of Mayana, a slave who had failed to please this god of wrath. How could Elory defy him? How could she, so weak, the collar stifling her magic, hope to resist him?

"You tremble." Ishtafel stroked her cheek, then wrapped his hands around her wrists. He lowered her arms, exposing her bare breasts. Elory felt her cheeks flush, felt goose bumps rise across her.

Again she glanced at the sword on the table. No. Even should she grab this sword, she could not hope to overthrow this cruel empire. Even the hero Lucem, the only slave who had ever escaped, had been unable to kill any seraphim. Perhaps only one person could still save Requiem—only her sister. But Elory could still fight, with words if not with the blade.

She looked at Ishtafel, having to crane her neck back to stare into his eyes.

"My lord, I don't know how to pleasure you. But I would learn. There are pleasure slaves in this palace. I know that the seraphim collect fair maidens from the lands of Tofet, take them here, and they are trained in the arts. I'm a virgin, my lord, and my gift of virginity can be given only once. Let me give you this gift not as I am, uneducated in the ways of the flesh." She bit her lip. "Send me to the pleasure slaves, my lord. Let me learn from them the secrets of pleasuring a man. Then I'll return to you, learned, experienced in their ways, and you can claim the virginity of one who can make you cry in pleasure, not one who is meek and afraid."

He frowned. Elory's heart thrashed against her ribs so madly she thought it would leap onto the floor.

Please say yes, she thought. I need time. Time away from this chamber. Time to find my sister. Time to find hope.

"What makes you think I cannot use your body to take my own pleasure?" he finally asked.

"You could conquer me," Elory said. "You could take me roughly, and I would lie beneath you as you groan above me. I know what sex is. I've seen it enough times in the dust of Tofet. But you would gain only the briefest pleasure, the briefest conquest." She kept staring into those golden eyes, though they burned her. "But if I were to learn the true ways of pleasure, my lord, you would find me a gift far greater than Mayana was. Let me go to the pleasure slaves, and let me learn from them. Let me feel their lips against mine, their hands upon my body, and let me learn how to pleasure them so that I may pleasure you."

There. She saw something new in his eyes. Not merely menace, not merely anger, but lust. She had made him desire her, more than he had before. With only a few words, she had kindled new fires inside him.

I have some power over him. He chained me, struck me, rules over my life and my nation, yet I have power over him.

He stared into her eyes as if searching, seeking deceit. He was an ancient being, a god fallen to the earth, and for a moment Elory's breath trembled, and she was sure he could read her mind, see right past her ruse. But perhaps his lust was too great, her naked body too alluring to those scrutinizing eyes. He nodded.

"I will have a man lead you to the pleasure pits," he said. "You will have one week there to learn the art from its mistresses. Then you will return here to this chamber, and you will prove yourself useful to me, or the next pit I toss you into will be a grave in Tofet."

Elory nodded. "I will learn well, my lord."

She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath of relief. She had one week—one week to learn how to love . . . one week to find her sister.

MELIORA

On a spring dawn, Meliora left her palace, flying in a chariot of fire to see her beloved slaves burn.

She didn't want to be here. She wanted to leap out of the chariot, beat her wings, and fly far away—fly to the desert and die of thirst, and let the vultures eat her flesh. That would teach her mother. That would teach them all! If she died in the desert, fleeing her family, they would finally realize what monsters they had been. They would cry and cry, and Meliora would just laugh from the afterlife.

And yet she flew here in this chariot of fire. Because Meliora had to see. She could not believe that Mother's threats were true, that . . . that this bronze bull truly existed. That Mother could truly be so cruel.

She's only trying to scare me. Meliora raised her chin and sucked in air, putting on a show of bravery. I'll show her that I'm not afraid of her. That I don't believe her silly stories.

She looked around her. In all her twenty-seven years, Meliora had never flown this far from the palace.

Several other chariots of fire flew around her: her mother in one, her brother in another, and lords or ladies of Saraph in a dozen more. The firehorses galloped across the sky, a great cavalcade, their manes scattering sparks. Below, Meliora could see Shayeen, the capital of Saraph—the City of Kings. Its eight boulevards spread out like spokes, lined with statues of the gods. The Temple of Kloriana, the Goddess of Wisdom, rose directly below her, columns capped with gold. Farther east, she could see the Temple of Bee'al, god of victory and war, its towers like blades. Soon the chariots flew over the Te'ephim River, and Meliora tried to count the ships below but could not; hundreds were sailing here, returning from distant lands with the sweets, spices, and perfumes she craved.

When Meliora looked behind her, she could see the ziggurat, growing farther and farther—the only home she had ever known. The palace soared a thousand feet high, dwarfing even the city's temples. Two massive statues, shaped as cats with women's heads, guarded the staircase that led to its gates. Each of the statues, depicting the goddess La'eri, stood so tall their eyes were the size of chariots. The ziggurat tapered into a triangular tip, covered in platinum, and upon it shone an eye within a sunburst—the Eye of Saraph, sigil of the empire.

A prison, Meliora thought. No better than the huts of slaves.

She returned her eyes to the north. The chariots were nearing the city's outer walls now, and soon, for the first time in her life, Meliora would fly above them. For the first time, she would leave this city. She would see the land of Tofet, the land her slaves came from.

Meliora took a deep breath. Tofet! So many times she had wished to fly there. To doff her painful, squeezing sandals. To remove the damn golden necklaces and bracelets that always clinked and got in the way. To live free. Free of her mother's incessant brooding about the lost old days. Free of her brother, the man she was to marry, to bear heirs for. Free of all the pressures of the palace. In Tofet, Meliora knew, the weredragon slaves lived a humble yet joyous life. Singing in the sun as they drew from rivers of flowing bitumen. Dancing upon grapes to make wine. Living like birds or butterflies, beings of no wealth yet a rustic happiness.

Meliora scoffed. My mother thinks she can scare me with stories of bronze bulls. I'll show her I'm not afraid of anything.

"Are you ready, daughter?" Queen Kalafi asked, riding in the chariot beside her. "Ready to see your slaves burn in the bronze bull, a punishment for your defiance?"

The queen had put on a show, sending troops to grab Meliora's slaves from her chamber. Meliora had not seen the pair—the dark, demure Kira and the pale, petite Talana—since last night.

"I'll see what I'll see," Meliora replied.

She did not believe this theater for an instant. Oh, perhaps Mother would arrange some fake bull. Perhaps she would even have Kira and Talana waiting there in chains, soldiers guarding them. A show, that was all.

Mother wants me to cry, to beg, but I won't. I'll force her to keep going, to keep performing this theater, until she's forced to stop, forced to admit I'm brave. She balled her hands into fists. I'll never marry my brother. Never. Not even if Mother steals away every last slave in the palace.

She was going to tell Mother that, to tell her that she'd run away if forced to marry, to scream and cry and stamp her feet, maybe even hold her breath until she turned purple. But before Meliora could speak another word, the cavalcade of chariots flew over the outer walls of the city, and Meliora found herself staring at the land of Tofet on the horizon.

Meliora lost her breath.

The land of slaves still lay beyond several miles of wilderness, but every heartbeat, it grew closer. Every mile the chariots crossed, Meliora's brow creased further. Whenever she had thought of Tofet, this land whence the palace slaves came, she had imagined a great garden. A place of brooks bubbling through meadows, of fig and palm and apple trees to shade resting slaves, of gleaming orbs of bitumen that shone like jewels in carts, the miners whistling joyously as they rolled forth the treasure. But ahead of her, Meliora saw no trees or streams, heard no singing or birds, smelled no sweet perfume of flowers.

Ahead of her, she saw a nightmare.

There were no jolly, bearded miners, whistling as they wheeled carts of black gemstones. Instead, she saw dragons—real dragons, the weredragon slaves without their collars on—digging in a massive pit nearly the size of the entire city behind Meliora. Meliora had only seen dragons several times in her life before, chained beasts who hauled great stones while building temples in the city. As the dragons below dug with claws like swords, tar gushed up from the depths, seeping across the pit. Even from up here, still flying in the distance, Meliora could smell the stench.

Thousands of skinny oxen moved about the pit, yokes around their necks, hauling the bitumen in baskets. Seraphim stood around the animals, lashing whips of fire at any who dallied or fell. Meliora rose in her seat, inhaled sharply, and balled up her fists. No animals should be treated so! Animals were made to be patted, cuddled, kept in the gardens, not whipped and forced to labor in the blinding sunlight. Meliora would speak to these seraphim below, she would—

She lost her breath.

Gods.

She stared down, eyes burning. Her hands loosened.

Those poor, whipped creatures below, laboring under the yokes, weren't oxen.

"They're slaves," Meliora whispered. "Weredragon slaves."

Countless weredragons covered the land of Tofet below. They hauled bitumen from the pits, the sticky tar that was used to caulk ships, form bricks and mortar, and hold together jewelry and mosaics. They labored in rocky fields, shaping clay into bricks using wooden molds. They dug irrigation ditches and plowed fields, no animals to help them, the masters whipping their backs every step. And they died. Everywhere Meliora looked, they were dying. Their corpses stank in wagons. The whole place reeked of death, of sweat, of blood, of terror.

"No," Meliora whispered, tears in her eyes.

How could this be? She knew weredragons! She herself owned weredragons! In the palace, they were meek little things, a foot or two shorter than the seraphim, slender little servants with shaved heads and collars to keep their dragon forms at bay. Not . . . not these filthy, beaten creatures, covered in tar and sand and blood. Not this hive of agony.

"You grow pale, daughter." Queen Kalafi smiled thinly, flying her chariot closer to Meliora's. "Finally, the pampered child of the palace gets a whiff of the world. Are you going to cry, little girl?"

Meliora growled at her mother. "You think I'm weak because I'm young? Because I didn't fight in wars like you and Ishtafel?" She snorted. "I'm stronger than you know."

The queen nodded. "Aye, very strong, child. So strong you think you can defy my wishes, throw tantrums, and refuse to bear me a pure heir. We'll see how strong you are when your little slaves sing in the bull. Ah!" Kalafi pointed. "There it is. We draw near."

Meliora stared back down at the land of Tofet, and she saw it there. For the second time since leaving the city, she lost her breath.

The bronze bull. Malok.

The idol stood on a hill, twice the size of a regular bull, its head lowered, its horns raised, a beast ready to charge. Its bronze body gleamed in the sunlight, blinding. Firewood and kindling were arranged below it, soaked with oil. Meliora had seen statues before—the City of Kings was full of them, idols far larger than this one—yet this bull filled her with dread. Its red eyes seemed to stare at her from below.

The stories are true, Meliora thought, trembling. They cook people inside it, they—

She tightened her lips.

No. Foolishness. She wouldn't let her mother win this one. Meliora tore her gaze away from the bull and glared at the queen. This was all a ruse. All a show. No doubt, Kalafi had placed the yokes on these slaves, covered them with fake blood, placed this silly bull here to torment here, and had arranged the whole thing. It was just bad theater, that was all. Just some elaborate punishment concocted to terrify Meliora into marrying her brother. The slaves below were just actors. As soon as Meliora turned and left, they would doff their yokes and return to their songs.

Meliora nodded. I won't be fooled.

"Let's hear the bull sing, Mother." She forced herself to laugh. "I'd love to hear it."

Meliora swung her lash, and her firehorses began to descend, pulling her chariot of fire down toward the bronze bull. She smiled thinly. Mother would be forced to stop this charade soon, forced to admit that she had lost. And Meliora would only laugh, proving her strength.

I will trick the trickster.

As she descended, she saw that many slaves were gathering on the hill around Malok. All were hobbled and collared, and seraphim overseers stood among them, flaming whips in hand. Most of the slaves wore rags, but a handful were naked, standing together in a wooden corral beside the bronze bull. Their backs were whipped, their arms shackled.

The condemned to be burned, Meliora realized.

Across the hill, both the weredragon slaves and seraphim overseers knelt as the royal chariots descended. Meliora's chariot landed first, and she emerged from the flames to stand on the hilltop by Malok. The bronze idol shone above the pyre of wood and kindling, and still its eyes seemed to stare into Meliora. Cruel eyes. Carved of metal yet somehow living, taunting her. She could see that a door was fitted onto the bull's flank.

They burn the prisoners within. Meliora remembered the stories. They cook them in there, cook them until they scream, and the screams flow through pipes to make the bull sing melodiously, and—

She shook her head wildly and forced herself to laugh. She was not fooled by this fake idol! It probably wasn't even made of real bronze, just painted wood. As for these slaves around her, kneeling and broken? Actors! That was all. Fake blood taken from a troupe of performers.

The other chariots landed around her, and the lords of Saraph emerged. Ishtafel inhaled deeply as if savoring the scent of blood, and a smile stretched across his face. The golden prince gave Meliora the slightest of winks. Queen Kalafi winced as she alighted from her chariot, sudden pain twisting across her face. Too far from her salted baths, her wound always began to ache.

"Nice try, Mother," Meliora said. "But I'm not scared of this place. I—"

"My lady!" rose the anguished cry behind her. "My lady Meliora, please!"

Meliora spun around and felt the blood drain from her face.

"Gods," she whispered.

Kira and Talana, her dear palace slaves, stood in the corral with the other condemned weredragons. Meliora had looked past them only moments ago, not recognizing them. The two had been beaten. Their faces were swollen, the skin purple with bruises, cuts bleeding on their lips and foreheads. Firewhips had striped their backs, tearing into the skin and cauterizing the wounds. Kira—sweet little Kira who had painted Meliora's fingernails so many times—was shivering, her arm hanging at an odd angle, dislocated and swelling.

"Please help us, my princess," Talana said, voice slurred, barely seeping past her swollen lips.

Even with her limbs chained, Kira managed to kneel. "We're sorry, my princess! We're sorry for our sins. Spare us the bull."

Meliora trembled. Cold sweat washed her. She panted, her head spun, and blackness began to spread across her vision. No. No! How could this be real? This had to be an act, just a show, but why did the blood smell real? Why was she trembling so? She was going to faint. Going to faint right here, but she had to save them, had to help her slaves, had to—

"Soon they will scream," Kalafi said. The queen approached and placed a hand on Meliora's shoulder. "Soon the bull will sing."

Meliora gasped for breath, forcing herself to suck in air. The world kept spinning around her. She was going to faint, here before her brother, before her mother, before the watching slaves. She couldn't. She had to stop this! This had to be fake, had to. How could this be real?

Meliora was consumed with the overwhelming urge to flee. She wanted to rush back into her chariot, to fly home to her palace, to never emerge again—to hide among her statues, her jewels, her mosaics and murals, her gardens and her libraries, to never return into this world. To never see the yokes, the whips, the blood. She was princess of Saraph. She could leave this place. She could escape all this pain. She could marry Ishtafel as Mother had commanded, return to her gilded cage, and—

"No," she whispered, breath shaking in her lungs.

She could not abandon Kira and Talana. They were only slaves, it was true. Only mortal weredragons, creatures no more important than cats or dogs. But they were her slaves. And Meliora could not see them suffer.

Though the sight shot terror through her, Meliora forced herself to look back at her slaves. At the bruises swelling across their faces. At the burnt welts on their backs. At the chains cutting into their limbs. This was real, Meliora realized. Her mother's soldiers had truly beaten her precious pets.

But I'm going to save you, Meliora thought.

She took a step toward the slaves.

A hand gripped her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

"Wait, daughter!" Kalafi tightened her grip, holding her from behind. The queen stood several inches taller than Meliora, stronger, thousands of years older, her hands like vises. "Wait and listen. The first slave is about to sing!"

Meliora stared, cold sweat dampening her jeweled muslin dress, as seraphim dragged forth one of the naked, chained slaves from the corral. He was an old man, haggard, shoulders slumped and back crooked. One of his eyes vanished into an ugly scar. The seraphim manhandled him toward the bronze bull.

"Do you know what his crime was?" Kalafi leaned down to whisper into Meliora's ear. "He failed to make two thousand bricks a day. He made only half that many. Now he will sing for us, and you will listen."

Meliora wanted to flee, wanted to leap forward to help, wanted to do anything but stand here and watch, but her Mother's grip was iron. Meliora stood, tears in her eyes, watching as the seraphim opened a bronze door on the bull's flank.

The old weredragon stared into the bull and tried to resist, tried to free himself from the seraphim soldiers, but he was so frail he could barely even stand. He tossed back his head and opened his mouth, revealing toothless gums. He cried out, voice torn, hoarse, cracking, yet loud enough to roll across the hill.

"Remember Requiem!" The slave raised his manacled arms toward the heavens. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

"Impudent reptile!" One of the seraphim guards kicked the man. Meliora grimaced to hear the crack of a snapped rib. The soldiers gripped the slave, lifted him into the air, and shoved him into the bull. They slammed the bronze door shut, sealing the slave within.

"He tried to sing to Requiem," Kalafi whispered, lips touching Meliora's ear. "Now he'll sing the melodious song of Saraph's glory."

The seraphim guards held a torch to the pyre beneath the bull's belly. Soaked in oil and stuffed with kindling, the wood burst into flame at once. Sparks showered out, logs crackled, and the heat bathed Meliora, so potent she winced for fear of her eyeballs burning.

The bull's underbelly began to redden. The heat spread across the flanks, down the legs, across the lowered head. Malok's eyes burned, and the bull began to sing.

The slave inside was the one screaming, Meliora knew—screaming as his flesh boiled. But the screams, passing through the pipes inside the bull, emerged from its mouth in a beautiful, astral song. The music of flutes, ethereal, a sound like the song of the seraphim back in the heavenly realm of Edinnu.

And across the hill, the seraphim began to sing with the bull. Their voices rose together—the queen's, Ishtafel's, the dozen nobles, all singing to the music, their voices fair and sad. A song of their lost realm, the paradise their gods had banished them from. A song of lost fields of clouds gilded in the dawn, of rivers of silver that flowed through meadows, of trees that bore a thousand kinds of fruit, of fields that yielded endless crops, a land with no pain, no toil. A land lost. A prayer never forgotten.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Kalafi whispered to Meliora. "The song of our people."

Yet Meliora did not sing with them. She stared, tears on her cheeks, as the fire burned, as the bull's song died. When the last note had sounded, the seraphim opened the bronze door.

Bones and red-hot chains spilled out onto the pyre.

Meliora looked away, wincing. Her fists trembled at her sides.

This was no show. The god Malok. The brutality of Tofet. The looming death of her slaves. It was all real.

Meliora felt as if her own ribs were shattering.

Something changed in her life this morning, Meliora knew. Even if she returned to her palace, to her life in that gilded cage, she would never forget this place, never forget that song of her people—a song woven from the screams of Requiem.

"Cook the next ones!" Kalafi cried, voice shrill. The queen grinned madly, a grin that showed nearly all her teeth down to the molars. Her cheeks flushed; whether from the heat or excitement, Meliora did not know. "Toss in the pair! Make them sing."

The soldiers grabbed two more slaves—Kira and Talana.

Before she even realized what she was doing, Meliora tugged herself free from her mother's grasp, leaped forth, and shouted for the crowd to hear.

"No!"

The soldiers froze, holding the beaten slaves a foot away from the heated bull. The other slaves, thousands across the hill, turned to stare. The noble seraphim, standing before their chariots of fire, whispered amongst themselves.

"No," Meliora repeated. Her chest shook, her knees knocked, but she forced herself to raise her chin, to square her shoulders, to keep speaking loudly. "Stop this. Enough. Enough!"

The soldiers stared between Meliora and the queen. Tears were flowing from Kira and Talana's bruised eyes, along their broken cheeks, and to their bloody mouths.

"I'm going to save you," Meliora whispered to them. "I'm going to bring you home." She spun away from the bull to face the queen. "Mother, enough of this. I've learned this lesson you tried to teach me. Release them and end this."

The queen was resplendent in the sunlight, clad in a kalasiri woven with precious gems and golden beads. A tiara topped her blond hair, shaped as a serpent with ruby eyes. Her wings spread wide, blindingly white in the sun. Kalafi—Queen of Saraph, fallen angel—smiled in delight.

"You would have me renege on my promise?" Kalafi tilted her head, jewels jangling. "I vowed to teach you a lesson, daughter. You defied me. You refused to marry Ishtafel. You robbed our family of a future heir. So I will rob you of your slaves. Sing with us this time, Meliora! Sing with the bull as the weredragons burn!" The queen nodded at the soldiers who held the slaves. "Place them in the belly of Malok."

The guards began to drag the slaves back toward the bull.

"No!" Meliora shouted.

She raced across the hilltop, leaped forward, and placed herself between the bull and the slaves. Her heart thrashed. Her hair whipped in the wind. The sparks from the flames bit her ankles, and the heat of the bronze bull—only inches away—baked her back. She glared at the seraphim before her.

"Return these slaves to their homes," she told the seraphim, then spun toward the queen. "I refuse to let this happen. Yes, I defy you again, Mother." Her heart seemed ready to escape her throat, her knees shook wildly, and breath rattled in her lungs, but she refused to back down. "End this."

Kalafi's smile vanished. She stared at Meliora, and the amusement died in the queen's eyes, replaced with cold, murderous venom. Here was a woman who had defied the gods themselves. What chance did Meliora have facing her?

And yet Meliora faced her. She stared into her mother's eyes, refusing to look away. Something had broken inside of Meliora today, an innocence had shattered, and she was a different person. She had never fought against the gods like her mother, had never conquered realms across the world like her brother. Here was her war: a war against her family, a war to save only two . . . two slaves who had been with her for years. Two slaves who needed her.

"Back down, Meliora—" Kalafi began.

"I will not!" Meliora shouted. She knew her mother. Kalafi lived for her vainglory, to present herself as a goddess, infallible, perfect in her grace. More than anything, her mother feared this image shattering.

So let me humiliate her, Meliora thought. Let the people see that she cannot control even her own daughter, let alone an empire.

"I will not," Meliora repeated. "Do you hear me, Mother?" She raised her voice to a shout. "I will not let you burn them! I will not marry Ishtafel. I will—"

"Meliora!" Kalafi thundered, and flames burst out from her wings and haloed her head, white fire of her rage. Her voice tore across the land, booming, impossibly loud. "Stand back, daughter, or I will—"

"Or you will what?" Meliora shouted. She had never seen her mother so incensed, never seen the white fire of fury blaze across the queen. But it was too late to back down. "You lied to me, Mother. You lied!" Meliora trembled wildly, tears in her eyes. "You never showed me this land. You never told me the truth about this place. You raised me wrapped in silk, and now try to shatter my innocence by burning my own slaves? No. I will not allow this. I will not be a pawn to you, not be your slave, not be an incestuous womb for your heir. I would rather burn myself!"

"Then burn!" Kalafi roared. The sound tore across the land, shook the bull, scattered smoke from the flames, sent slaves falling to the ground. It was a cry louder than crashing temples, than falling nations, a cry that echoed across the land of Tofet.

Then burn! Then burn!

Meliora stared at her mother, silent. Suddenly her trembling ceased. Her tears dried in the heat. A calmness fell upon her, and her fear burned away like the flesh of the old man.

"So I will burn," Meliora whispered.

All my life I've been sheltered. Lied to. Deceived. So let me sing. Let me sing to save them.

She turned to look at the guards. "By the ancient rites, I give my life to save theirs. I will burn in their stead to appease Malok." She turned back toward her mother. "Sing with me, Mother. As my screams rise through the bull, sing with me. For your lost home in the heavens . . . and for your lost daughter."

Meliora stepped toward the bull and climbed inside.

"Daughter, stop this!" Kalafi shouted . . . but Meliora barely heard anything above her own screams.

The heat baked her. The bronze burned her feet, legs, knees, shoulders, every place it touched. She screamed in agony. Her wings caught fire. She heard her screams rising through the bull as melodious music, and she wanted to escape, but she would not, she would not, she would not live this life, not serve her mother anymore, not let her slaves die, not—

All thought faded as she let out a howl, the fire engulfing her.

Then burn! Then burn!

Another scream rose. Hands reached into the bull, grabbed her, pulled her out. She stumbled. She fell. The sunlight blinded her, and the fire still roared, and somebody was shouting and other people crying out in terror. Feet stamped on her wings, and Meliora cried out again.

The fire died.

She lay trembling on the ground, the bull rising above her, her feathers burnt. The tips of her hair still crackled. Her brother and mother stood above her, pale, shouting at soldiers, shouting at her, but she could hear only muffled sounds, see only mottles of light.

"Let them go," Meliora whispered. "Let my slaves go."

Through the ringing in her ears, she thought she could make out her mother's shouts. "Take the slaves to the tar pits! Slap yokes on them! Put them to work instead of wasting time here. Malok is appeased. Now go!"

Meliora's eyelids fluttered. A soft smile rose upon her cracked, burnt lips.

I saved them. I saved them.

Her ears kept ringing, and people kept shouting, and it seemed to Meliora that the sounds rose higher, softened, turned into the music of pipes. A song of old homes lost. A song of nations falling. A song of truth in a burning world. Her eyes closed, and she slept.

ELORY

Elory had spent her life in the bitumen pit, extracting the precious substance that held the empire together. When she stepped into the pleasure pit beneath the palace, she found a world just as dark and dizzying.

Here is a different sort of mine, she thought. A mine for human flesh, perhaps just as precious to the seraphim as bitumen and brick.

The chamber was buried deep beneath the ziggurat, a glittering cave carved from the living rock. Rugs and tasseled pillows hid the floor, and curtains hung everywhere, some woven of silk and muslin, others formed of thousands of beads. Incense burned in iron holders shaped as phalluses, and obsidian statues seemed to dance in the flickering candlelight, shaped as nude people with the heads of beasts. Hookahs bubbled, their glass vials filled with hintan—a spice of the northern deserts. The purple smoke swirled through the air, already spinning Elory's head, as intoxicating as the bitumen fumes.

But stranger than the smoke, the rugs, or the statues were the slaves.

A score of Vir Requis lounged here, collared like Elory, yet different in every other way. She gasped to see these young women. She wanted to look away but could not. While her body was scrawny, the skin bronzed, the hands and feet callused, these slaves were pleasantly curved, their skin pale, their hands soft. Long hair grew from their heads—real hair, not just stubble. Henna darkened their eyelids, and the red of crushed raspberries painted their lips. They wore naught but flimsy silks, the fabric revealing more than it hid.

Pleasure slaves, Elory thought. A pit of them, mere flesh waiting for the seraphim to consume. How will I find my sister here?

Yet what choice did she have but to study in this place? Aboveground, in Ishtafel's chamber, he would claim her body, brutalize her if she resisted, then discard her corpse with the others. Here she would live—for a week at least. A week to try to find her sister. To try to find help.

Elory cleared her throat. "I . . . I was told to come here. To . . . to learn from you."

Across the pit, a few of the slaves turned to look at her. One lounged on a pile of pillows, smoking from a hookah. She gave Elory a dazed glance, then turned toward a statue, jangled a bracelet that hung from its arm, and giggled as the jewel flashed. Two other slaves lay together, holding each other, sharing a pipe. They blinked at Elory, then returned to smoking the spice. Other slaves ignored Elory flat out, their eyes glazed. A few drooled on the floor.

"I . . ." Elory gulped. Was this the right place? "I've come here to join you. To become a . . . a pleasure slave," she finished with a whisper, her cheeks heating.

One of the slaves leaped to her feet. Her eyes flashed, and she marched toward Elory. She was Vir Requis too—no feathered wings grew from her back, no halo topped her head, and a collar encircled her neck—but fairer than any slave Elory had ever known. Her hair was long and brown, her eyes dark. She wore baggy silken pants, slippers, and a top that revealed a jewel shining in her navel. She seemed young, perhaps only a year or two older than Elory, short and slender but without the hard, famished look of a Tofet slave.

"You are nothing like us." The young woman's eyes flashed with anger. "You will never be like us. We don't want more goddamn filthy Tofet rats here. Last one infected the place with fleas."

Farther back in the den, the hookah smoker laughed hysterically, then hit the jangling bracelet and laughed again.

"She got fleas, Tash! Fleas! Fleas everywhere." The smoker hit the bracelet, gasped to see it glinting, and laughed again. "Fleas, fleas, fleas, glinting in the smoke."

Elory returned her eyes to Tash, the angry, brown-eyed woman. "I have no fleas. I was told to come here. I'm no longer a Tofet worker, I—"

"I said rat, not worker." Tash grabbed Elory's ear and twisted it painfully. "Are there fleas on that head of yours? Fleas can hide in stubble too." She groaned. "By the gods, you stink."

"Ow!" Elory winced. "Let go."

Tash groaned, released Elory's ear, and turned toward her comrades. "Why do they send these rats over?" She raised her arms. "What have I done to deserve these rats invading my cave?"

The smoker took another puff on her hookah, then laughed again. "Maybe you forgot how to smoke a seraph's pipe." She sucked deeply on her hookah, puffed out smoke, and tittered again. "Lost your touch."

Tash groaned again, even louder this time, and tugged her hair. "You lot are just as useless as the rat." She spun back toward Elory. "Well, rat, stop standing there like a goddamn statue. I take pride in my pit. The masters might show up any time, and I'll not have you scare them off." She grabbed Elory's wrist and tugged her. "Come on."

Elory stumbled in pursuit. Her ankles were still hobbled together, but the pleasure slaves wore no chains, only their collars and silks. Tash dragged her through the chamber, between the statues of the nude women with animal heads, around live women lounging on pillows while smoking hookah, and past several walls of curtains.

Finally, past a curtain of beads, they entered a little nook at the back. A rug hung across one wall of stone; the other walls were simply formed of curtains. Candles burned in alcoves, their wax dripping toward the floor, and many silks spilled from three open chests. A mattress lay on the floor, topped with pillows. A woman slept here, snoring by an empty hookah.

"Gods above!" Tash gave her hair a mighty tug and rummaged around the chamber. "They even left your goddamn shackles on. I try to run a quality establishment down here, and those dung-sucking guards give me nothing to work with. Nothing but rats! Now where's the damn key?"

Elory glanced down at her hobbles. Rings of iron circled her ankles, and a chain connected them, only a foot long—enough to let her walk but not run or kick. She had worn these iron shackles around her ankles since her second birthday; they had been opened only several times to be replaced with larger shackles.

"Only the masters of Tofet carry the keys." Elory shuddered to remember the cruel overseers with their whips of fire. "These are my permanent shackles. I've reached my full size. I—"

"Ah, there!" Ignoring her, Tash dug under a pile of silks and pulled out a key. "Haven't had to use one of these since the last rat scurried in here."

Elory gasped. Her eyes widened.

"A . . . key?"

Tash rolled her eyes. "She has the sense of a baby! Great." She pointed around the room. "Curtain! Bed! Wall!" She pointed at the sleeping woman on the mattress. "Useless lump of smoke-addled dung! There, now you can talk." She knelt and placed the key into Elory's shackles. "Maybe now you'll walk properly too."

The key turned.

The shackles fell off.

Elory's eyes dampened.

Trembling, she took a step. Another step. She blinked, eyes full of tears. She froze.

I can run. I can jump. I can kick if I want to. I—

"Well, don't just stand there like a statue," Tash said. "Stretch a little, for pity's sake. You're going to have to stretch those legs in the seraphim's beds." She rolled her eyes. "You Tofet rats. Useless, you are."

Slowly, Elory stretched out one leg, moving it a few inches forward . . . then another few inches . . . then farther than it had ever gone. Pain flared across her muscles, driving up to her hip, and she winced and her tears fell. It hurt. And it was wonderful.

"Thank you, Tash," she whispered. "Thank you so much."

"Don't thank me." Tash glowered, but then her eyes softened. She ran a finger down Elory's cheek. "You got good cheeks. Good lips. Good eyes. Thank your mother, not me. She gave you that pretty face."

Suddenly the pain was too much.

Mother . . .

The memory rose in Elory again—her mother flying toward her as a dragon, the arrows piercing her, the chariots of fire surrounding her, burning her, and then Mother losing her magic, falling dead as a human, and . . .

It was all too much, too soon. Elory's tears streamed and she trembled.

"Oh for pity's sake!" Tash groaned. "Will you cut out the waterworks? If the seraphim come, they—"

"I'm sorry." Elory wiped her eyes. "It won't happen again. It's just that . . . my mother. She died, and . . . and I'm so scared all the time. I feel so alone. I miss her so much and—"

Tash reached out, and Elory thought that the young slave would stroke her cheek again, but instead Tash slapped her. Hard.

The pain flared across Elory's cheek. She gasped.

Tash glared at her. "Shut your mouth." She jabbed Elory's chest. "If there's one thing I won't tolerate in my pit, it's self-pity. You won't shed tears here. You won't blabber on about how miserable you are, how alone you are." Tash's voice rose to an exaggerated falsetto. "Oh, I'm so alone in the world! Oh, my dear old mamma is dead!" She snorted. "Guess what, rat? Everyone here is an orphan. Everyone here is alone, and everyone here is scared. We're all slaves, if you haven't noticed the collars, and we're all bloody miserable. You're not special here. If you cry again, I'm going to bash out your teeth."

Elory wanted to cry again, to cower, to submit. But instead, she found herself staring back steadily into those angry, brown eyes.

"And we're all Vir Requis." Elory squared her shoulders. "We're all children of Requiem. We're all dragons, not rats. Did you forget that, Tash? Did you forget who you are, where we come from?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Did you forget Requiem?"

The rage in Tash's eyes only grew. "I forget nothing. Requiem?" She scoffed. "A dead land. As dead as your precious mother. Dragons?" She tugged at her collar. "Not so long as we wear these, my darling, and there's only one key in the empire that can open this lock. And that's one key I don't own."

The Keeper's Key, Elory thought. A key imbued with ancient magic. The key that had removed her mother's collar, letting the woman shift into a dragon to dig for bitumen. The key that fit into no padlock, but whose runes of power could unlock the collar around her neck. The key that removed the collars of the brick lifters, those who hauled stones as dragons, carrying them to the tops of temples. Just a single key, only one ever made, the most precious one in the empire.

If Elory could somehow steal that key—surely it was kept here in this palace!—and if she could remove enough collars . . . if enough dragons could fly against the chariots, blow their dragonfire . . .

But no. Elory dismissed that idea. Back in the war, five hundred years ago, tens of thousands of dragons had fought Ishtafel and his chariots. Tens of thousands had fallen from the sky. Even an army of dragons could not stop the seraphim. They were a race of immortal demigods. To them, even dragons were no more dangerous than animals were to men. As men in olden days had ruled beasts several times their size, so would the seraphim forever rule the Vir Requis, collared or not. Even should Elory find the Keeper's Key, it would not save them.

"Stop daydreaming!" Tash said. Her eyes rolled so far they almost looked into her skull. "Gods above, a simpleton, this one is. Now get out of my room. Go!" She pointed at the curtain of beads. "Go, go! Out with you."

"But . . ." Elory hesitated. "I was told that I'll learn the ways of . . ." She felt her cheeks flush, and she couldn't speak louder than a whisper. "Of pleasuring a man."

She glanced around her. Between the curtain's beads, she could see the rest of the pit. The women slumped across pillows, smoking the hintan that muffled their minds, waiting for men to claim them. Did Elory truly want to join them, to learn from them? She had come here to gain time, to hope to find a way to sneak through the palace, to contact her sister. Not to learn how to become a . . . pleasurer.

Yet if I don't learn, Ishtafel will know. He'll send down his men to check on me, or he'll come down himself. She gulped. I'll have to learn this trade or I won't even last a week here.

She looked back at Tash. "Will you teach me?"

Tash let out a groan so loud it was a wonder the sleeping woman in bed didn't wake. "Does a tigress teach a rat to hunt? Get out of my room. Go ask one of my girls to mentor you. I can't be wasting time on a hopeless cause."

Elory glanced through the curtain beads again. The other women barely seemed conscious enough to breathe, let alone teach her the skill. The one by the statue was jangling the bracelet again, laughing hysterically as it chinked.

"I'll try to learn from them." Elory sighed. "I promised Ishtafel that I would. The prince said that I have only a week here, and then I'm to return to his chamber in the ziggurat's crest, and—"

Tash grabbed Elory's cheeks and tugged her face toward her. "What did you say?"

She gulped. Tash's fingers were digging into her cheeks, as painful as talons. "I said that I'll try to learn from them. Maybe once the smoke clears, they can teach me, and—"

"Not that part!" Tash's eyes flashed. "What you said after that."

"That I promised Ishtafel that I'd study here for a week, that—"

"Liar!" Tash shouted, raising her hand to slap Elory again.

"I tell the truth." Elory pulled the scroll from her pocket; it bore Ishtafel's seal. "I bear a letter from him."

Tash snatched the scroll, examined the seal, and blanched. The slave could almost certainly not read—virtually no slaves could—but all knew Ishtafel's seal, the eye within the sunburst. Tash shoved the scroll back at Elory, unopened.

"Bloody stars," the pleasurer whispered. "Oh bloody stars above." She stared at Elory, eyes narrowed. "It's true. He chose you. A rat." Suddenly her eyes softened. "You poor thing. You poor, poor little rat."

Elory remembered Ishtafel returning her friend to the bitumen mine, how her friend Mayana had slammed down at her feet, beaten, strangled. She wondered how many other slaves Ishtafel had stolen from Tofet, how many of them Tash had trained, and how long they had lasted.

Elory gulped. She turned to step between the strings of beads. "I'll find a little spot of my own, I'll watch what the others do, and—"

Tash grabbed her arm, pulling her back. "No you won't." Her eyes flashed again. "Ishtafel himself chose you. Prince Ishtafel, the Fire of Saraph, the Breaker of Worlds. Do you know what this means? Do you know how dangerous this is? Do you know what would happen if you don't please him?" Tash shuddered. "He'd blame me. Me! I run this place, and you're my responsibility now. I will teach you. From now on, you follow me everywhere. From now on, you are my ward." She sighed—a huge sigh that flowed from head to toes. "Why do the gods curse me so?"

One week, Elory thought. One week to linger here in smoke . . . to find a way out.

She lifted one foot, placed it down, and lifted the other. No more shackles. Free to walk, to slink through shadows, to roam the palace . . . to find her sister. To find hope for Requiem.

ISHTAFEL

He walked through the shadowy halls of his palace, feeling like a wolf trapped in tunnels, hungry for flesh, thirsty for blood, ravenous for a mate.

He was not meant for this. Not for dark halls, gilded and jeweled though they might be. Not for languor, for splendor, for the pampered idling away—the languishing!—that his sister favored. No. Ishtafel had been born, bred, breastfed for conquest. For the conquering of lands. For the conquering of women. For the conquering of a world and all that was in it.

I should not have let the slave leave. Roaming the shadowy halls, Ishtafel clenched his fists so hard blood dripped from them. To let her learn how to pleasure him? Was he some weak king who lies on his back, like a turtle unable to right himself, seeking a harem to deliver their pleasures upon his withering flesh? No. He should have taken what he wanted from the girl, shattered her body if she resisted. He should shatter them all. Reptiles. Sick, disgusting, slithering snakes who hid in human forms, who—

"My lord!"

Several of the slaves—young women, collared, barefoot—appeared in the corridor before him. They knelt in the shadows.

Ishtafel did not slow his step. "You, up!" he barked, pointing at one.

The woman rose to her feet, quivering. "My lord? How may I—"

He shoved her head against the wall, a movement so fast she never saw it coming. Palm open, he grinded her skull against the limestone, crushing the bone, sending the blood and brain spurting out like juice from a shattered melon. The stone cracked, and still he grinded the mush of flesh and bone fragments until nothing was left, nothing but a body topped with ruin.

"Clean it up!" He walked onward, leaving the corpse to slump to the floor. "Slaves, clean!"

The other women screamed. Shrill sounds. Infuriating. Screaming and weeping, fretting about the hall, crying out wordlessly—terrified animals, that was all. No more than livestock.

Hand dripping, Ishtafel walked on, leaving them behind. The dark halls spread before him, and as Ishtafel kept walking, he imagined that he was back in Requiem, back in his first great war. A young man—not much older than Meliora was now. Many of the glorious battles, the famous ones, the ones engraved onto walls and columns and sung of in glittering halls, were the battles in the sky. Battles of countless chariots of fire flying against countless dragons. Battles of fire, rain, lightning, glorious battles for tapestries, paintings, epic poems. But the true battles, Ishtafel remembered, the true horror that had tested his mettle, had happened in places like this. In dark halls. Surrounded by stone. Underground.

In the last days of the war five hundred years ago, in the tunnels of Requiem, he had roamed like this in darkness. Battling the weredragons' human forms in their burrows, claiming step by step, life by life. Trapped in darkness, shining out his light, tasting their blood.

Watching his beloved Reehan die.

As Ishtafel walked in his palace, he raised his fingers to his lips, and he licked them, tasting the blood of the weredragon he had killed. Coppery. Sweet. An intoxicating wine, finer than all the vintages that poured from the jugs of the empire.

There is nothing sweeter than death, Ishtafel thought. There is no finer nectar.

Finally he paused by a portico of columns that afforded a view of the city beyond. Ishtafel stood here, staring out at the night, at his empire.

Saraph.

Ishtafel had been born on this world, this desolate rock floating in the darkness. He had never lived, killed, conquered back in the fabled realm of Edinnu, had never seen its fields, meadows, its trees that gave forth endless fruit. He had never fought the gods, never suffered their wounds, never been cast out from paradise.

But I built a new paradise here. I built a new realm with us as the gods. He clenched his fist, feeling the blood and brains squishing within. Where we are the masters.

And Ishtafel knew why he felt trapped.

After five hundred years, his war had ended. His paradise had been a paradise of blood, tunnels, death, and now—with the giants fallen, his last enemies slain—he too had been cast out from his realm of endless delights. He too was lost.

"I built this empire, but do I have a place within it? How do I live without killing? How do I stay strong in a realm of peace?"

There was only one answer, he knew. Had always been only one answer.

"With you, Meliora," he whispered into the night. "With the heir you will bear me."

He would not see himself soften, grow weak like his mother, a decadent queen who languished in a salted bath, a pathetic strip of meat still dreaming of the olden days. No. He would seize Meliora's womb. He would plant his seed there. He would grow a son within her, and he would raise a great prince, a great heir, a god.

"You will be mine, Meliora." He bared his teeth, sucking in the hot night air. "I conquered the world for our dynasty. Now I will conquer you."

ELORY

"No, rat!" Tash's brown eyes flashed with anger. "You have to ease into it. Slowly. To stroke him . . . gently."

She grabbed Elory's wrist and lowered her hand. Guided by her mentor, Elory stroked Tash's thigh, slowly running her fingers up and down.

"Like this?"

Tash groaned. "You're moving like an automaton! You have to relax. To be like a musician. A musician doesn't just play the notes rigidly, she feels the music. Feel me."

"I am!" Elory kept stroking the woman's leg.

"I don't just mean feel me physically, I mean . . . feel me. Who I am. Who he will be." Tash moved closer to Elory. "Let me show you."

They sat on a bed between the curtains of beads. The candles burned in their alcove, wax dripping. The hookah smoke flowed through the pleasure pit. On the bed beside them, two women lay asleep, drooling, deep in the slumber of hintan. Elory didn't know the hour. There was no sunlight here, only the candlelight and the light in Tash's eyes.

Slowly, the dark-haired pleasurer ran her fingers along Elory's body, trailing them up her legs, up her back, toward her ears, along her shoulders.

"See?" Tash whispered. "I want to explore you. To know who you are. To see all the little places where you're sensitive." She let her fingertips stroke Elory's earlobes, then move down her neck. "I want to know you. That is what lovemaking is. Any brute can thrust into a woman, and any woman can grab a man's stick and make him feel good for a moment. That's not art. What we do, my little pet, is music."

Tash's hands moved down her body, and Elory closed her eyes. She had to admit that it felt good. She had never loved anyone before, not a man or a woman. In the pits of bitumen, who had time or strength for such pursuits? Yet now, as Tash stroked her, new feelings awakened in Elory, then grew inside her, trickling across her body—her legs, her lips, everywhere that Tash touched. The woman's fingers were indeed the fingers of a musician, playing her every part, igniting her, lighting the notes upon her.

"I don't know if I can do this." Elory opened her eyes. "I feel so clumsy."

Tash nodded. "You are. Your hands are used to hauling buckets, not awakening fire in flesh. Try again."

Elory nodded and tried again, running her fingers along Tash, but she felt like a lumbering brute who had stumbled upon a lyre, unable to produce any chord.

"Oh, stars above." Tash groaned. "You really are useless. I'm doomed. Doomed! The seraphim will have my hide. Have you ever even kissed a man?"

Elory shook her head.

Tash rolled her eyes. "They sent me an idiot." She scuttled closer. "I have a lot to teach you. When you kiss a man, you have to start slowly. Not just leap onto him. First . . . you kiss his ear. Nibble it a bit. Blow on it. Move down to kiss his neck, just brushing your lips along, so lightly. Just like this. Slowly. Tease him until he's mad with desire, but let him linger." Tash moved her lips up, whispering now. "Kiss the corner of his mouth, and then—"

Elory kissed her, just a peck on the lips, that was all, then pulled back, blushing. "I'm sorry." She gasped. "I don't know what I did."

Tash laughed. "Gave me a little bit of hope."

That night—at least, Elory thought it was night—the pipes and hookahs were laid down, and the pleasurers slept. Some lay on mattresses, others on the floor, and some slept sprawled across piles of pillows.

A few times, bells rang on the doorway, and a seraph or two wandered in, sometimes drunk, always loud. They never lingered. They chose a woman. Sometimes they took her back to their chambers, sometimes they bedded her right here in the den, and the cries and groans kept Elory awake until the men were done, until the slaves all slept again.

Not that she would have slept much even in silence. Her mind was a storm. Over and over, she kept seeing it—her mother dying, torn apart. Over and over, she kept remembering them—her father and brother, wondering if she'd ever see them again. Over and over, she kept feeling it—Tash's hands and lips upon her, the fire it had kindled in her, that she couldn't extinguish. How could she hope to sleep when her world collapsed around her?

Finally the stream of seraphim died down. Elory lay on the bed, waiting for more to arrive. Yet they never did. Tash slept to one side, and two other pleasurers slept on a mattress a few feet away, one of them snoring, the other drooling. The candles burned low and guttered out, and darkness filled the pit.

Finally, when nothing stirred, when all the world was stillness and shadows, Elory rose to her feet.

She left the bed.

She tiptoed in the darkness.

I still wear a collar and I can't shift into a dragon. But my legs are free. I can walk, climb, run.

She inched between the sleeping women, hands held out before her.

I will find her—my half sister. She swallowed the lump in her throat. I will find the child my father created before he met my mother, the child who had grown up in this palace, the child of Queen Kalafi.

Tears filled Elory's eyes as she found the exit, as she crept into a corridor, as she climbed a dark staircase that rose into the ziggurat.

I will find my sister. I will find Meliora.

JAREN

Night had fallen, and the toil of the day ended, yet the Draco constellation did not shine above. Not in this distant land. Not in the land of Tofet in the empire of Saraph. Not here in the dust, captive, forgotten, in the dark.

The huts of Tofet spread around him, simple clay dwellings, their walls a mix of mud, straw, and bitumen. Unpaved roads spread between them, and the stench of tar rose on the wind; the pit lay only a mile south. Just over the horizon, only a quick flight for a chariot or dragon, rose the City of Kings—the jewel of the empire, a wondrous realm of soaring temples, golden palaces, lush gardens, wonder and wealth. Here in its shadow lurked the underbelly of Saraph, surrounded by walls, the realm of a broken nation, of dragons collared into human forms. Of death. Of loss. Only shadows and no starlight to light them.

"But we still remember you, stars of Requiem," Jaren whispered, kneeling in the dust. "The memories of your light have passed through the generations. As my forebears worshipped you in Requiem, as our first king prayed to your light thousands of years ago, so do I pray." He looked up toward the sky, seeing only the stars of a different land. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

For thousands of years, he knew, the Vir Requis had sung that prayer. It never had more meaning, Jaren thought. Throughout all of Requiem's wars—against the demons, the sphinxes, the griffins, the phoenixes, the thousands of others who had risen to slay Requiem—the Vir Requis could always look up, see their sky above. Yet now that very sky was lost. Those very stars, which had blessed Requiem for millennia, shone across the horizon, invisible to him.

"But your light still shines within me." Jaren clutched his amulet, a simple piece of tin. Upon it he had engraved a constellation shaped as a dragon. Brightest among its stars was the dragon's eye, Issari's Star, its light woven from the soul of an ancient princess of Requiem. "I still remember you, stars of Requiem. I will find your sky."

"The stars are only a myth." The voice rose behind him, hoarse, torn with old pain. "Requiem itself is only a myth. Only a story slaves tell to cling to a fool's hope."

Jaren rose to his feet, turned around, and saw his son walking between the clay huts toward him. Manacles encircled Vale's ankles, the chain between them only a foot long. The collar circled his neck. His tunic was ragged, reduced to little more than a loincloth. Ugly, charred lashes striped his chest, arms, and shoulders, and bruises covered his face.

The seraphim had beaten him. They would have burned him in Malok had Meliora not climbed into the bull, aborting the day's burnings. Yet Vale looked little better than a burn victim, a flicker of life in a raw shell.

Such pain filled Jaren that even the memory of starlight could no longer soothe him.

My firstborn daughter lives in a great palace, pampered, surrounded by gold and jewels. My son barely clings to life, and all his hope is lost.

Jaren lowered his head. The memories seemed too great to bear. Twenty-eight years ago, he had worked in the palace, a house slave, a young man to tend to the queen in her pool of heated, salted water. A young man to brush her hair, paint her nails. A young man she had taken into her arms, had loved.

A young man who had given her a daughter. A young man she had cast out into the heat, the dust, the agony of Tofet.

A young man who had grown into this old, weary man. A father mourning. For lost Meliora, unaware of her heritage, raised as a princess of Saraph. For lost Elory, kidnapped, taken to serve the cruel Ishtafel. For Vale, his son, perhaps more lost than even his sisters.

"You must believe." Jaren hobbled toward his son. "That the stars still shine beyond the horizon. That King's Column, our most sacred pillar, still rises from the ruin. That we can return to Requiem someday. That we can be saved."

They stood together on the dusty road outside their hut—the home that only the two of them now shared.

Vale's eyes were as chips of heated stone. "We've waited for five hundred years in Saraph for salvation. The stars have abandoned us, if they ever existed at all. No savior will rise to lead us back to Requiem. We must save ourselves. Or die." He took a step closer to Jaren. "Father, I leave before dawn to work in the city. The masters will transfer me. I will work on the new Temple of Ishtafel, hauling limestone in my claws." His eyes blazed with fire. "I will fly as a dragon."

Jaren had not thought it possible to feel more pain—not with his life shattered. Yet now new fear flowed through him. He gripped his son's arms.

"Vale, you must always obey the masters." His eyes dampened to see the wounds still covering his son. "You were saved once from the bronze bull. If you defy the seraphim again, they—"

"—will kill me." Vale nodded. "Good. Maybe I want to die fighting. Better than this. Better than to die as a slave in chains. But no, Father. I won't die." A chaotic smile stretched across his lips. "I must stay alive for Elory. To save her."

Jaren stared into his son's eyes, and he saw the desperation there, and iciness filled his belly.

"Son," Jaren whispered. "You cannot do this. You cannot hope to fly to her, to find her in the palace, to save her. They will kill you, son. I cannot lose you." Jaren dropped to his knees, shaking. "I already lost a wife. I already lost my daughters to captivity in the palace. I cannot lose you too."

Vale only stared at him, eyes hard. "You already lost me," he whispered. "We've all been lost. Always. Since we were born into this cursed land. But I will not fade into shadows. The fire of Requiem will rise again . . . one last time."

Fists clenched, the young man turned and walked away.

"Son!" Jaren cried. He tried to follow. His legs were too weary, too old. He tripped. He pushed himself up, elbows bloody. "Vale!"

He tried to find his son, but Vale disappeared into the labyrinth of huts, dirt roads, and chained slaves. Gone into shadow. Gone to fire.

Finally Jaren could walk no more, his legs too bent, too weak from a lifetime of toil. He fell to his knees in the dirt between the huts, despair coursing through him.

I lost my wife. I lost my daughters. Do I lose you now too, my son?

Chest shuddering, Jaren raised his head. He had reached the edge of the camp. From here, when he stared at the horizon, he could just make out the tip of the dynasty's ziggurat. The rest of the City of Kings lay hidden, but the ziggurat soared, its top coated in platinum, gleaming, displaying the Eye of Saraph—an eye within a sunburst. Always watching over him.

You're there in that palace, my daughters. You fly there now too, my son.

Jaren raised his eyes to the heavens, and he prayed, and he did not know if any gods heard, if any light but the light of Saraph could ever shine upon him.

KALAFI

She lay in her heated pool in her chamber of gold and jewels, the candles burning low.

Her slave blood is rising. Kalafi winced as the burn across her belly flared, even in the salted water. Already Meliora sees the slaves as her people.

Kalafi's memories rose like the steam. Long centuries of enduring her husband in bed, praying every year for another child, a child that never came. For centuries, her husband had railed against her, had railed against Ishtafel, claiming that his son had sucked Kalafi's womb dry.

How he raged!

For so many years, King Harash—her husband, her brother—had sunken into his wine, his stupor, his hatred of his son, his hatred of his wife's womb that would not bear him a daughter, a woman to mate with his son, to preserve the blood.

Lying in her pool, her walls of opulence glittering around her, Kalafi clenched her fists.

"But my womb was not barren. Your seed was as weak as your mind."

It was here in this very chamber. In this pool. Nearly thirty years ago, the slave Jaren had tended to her, a young man, handsome, tall for a slave, and she had taken him into the water. She had loved him. She had fostered his seed in her womb, growing a daughter, the daughter her husband could not give her.

Lying now in the same pool, the water soothing her wound that would not heal, Kalafi passed her hands down her legs, remembering his touch, the forbidden pleasure of slave flesh. She knew that her son took slaves into his bed, that many of the seraphim did, plucking beauties from Tofet and hiding them in the den beneath the ziggurat. Kalafi had succumbed to her temptation just that one time, then cast the man aside, let him grow weary and old in Tofet, to die far from her sight.

But her husband . . .

A smile rose on Kalafi's lips.

"I wanted to see you die."

She inhaled sharply, remembering how wonderful it had felt, seeing the king eat the poisoned fig, hearing him choke, watching him fall to the floor. A child in her womb—a slave's child—Kalafi had laughed as her husband died, and she had spat on his body. She had taken his throne. And now, under her reign, Saraph rose to its greatest glory—the empire's last enemies defeated, the world theirs, Edinnu reborn in exile.

Kalafi rose from the pool. Her wound, the ugly burn she had endured falling from Edinnu, bubbled on her side, rising like a red serpent from her waist to her ribs. The pain was a dull throb now, but she knew that within hours, it would flare again, never healing, fading only when she soaked in the hot water again. Alone, her slaves dismissed, she stepped out of her pool and walked toward the balcony.

She stood between the gilded columns, naked in the night, the warm spring breeze drying her. From the height of her ziggurat, she gazed at her city. Lanterns burned in the night, a field of stars, their light falling upon the Paths of the Gods, the temples and palaces, and the desert beyond. There, in the land of Tofet on the horizon, he still lived. She had seen him at the bronze bull.

"Jaren," she whispered.

Kalafi winced.

She too had wanted a daughter—a woman to breed with Ishtafel, to give her an heir of pure blood. Yet now the blood of weredragons flowed through Meliora. The girl did not know her heritage; she thought that her father was the fallen Harash, that the king had choked on a fig, not that Kalafi had pumped the fig fill of hemlock.

"But something inside you calls out," Kalafi whispered. "You saw the slaves . . . and you saw yourself. You burned yourself to save them."

Kalafi's fists clenched. She spun around from the balcony, pulled on a muslin robe embroidered with golden sunbursts, and strapped a dagger to her side. She left her chamber.

She walked through the palace, still wet, water dripping from her wings onto the mosaic floor. Oil lanterns glowed on the wall, illuminating ivory statues and murals of the gods. Finally she reached a door of giltwood. Armored guards knelt before her, and Kalafi stepped into the room.

She walked between jeweled vases and statues and stood above the bed, staring down at her slumbering daughter.

A rich, embroidered blanket covered Meliora, but Kalafi could see the burn marks stretching up to her exposed shoulders—the burns endured in the bronze bull to save her precious slaves.

You are beautiful, daughter, Kalafi thought. Your hair is a river of gold, your lips are ripe fruit, your wings are clouds in sunrise. I thought that my purity would sear away the slave's blood, that you would be as I am . . . yet his blood still taints your heart.

Standing above the bed, Kalafi drew her dagger.

Meliora stirred in her sleep, mumbling something about fires that burn, about pain and song.

"I must do this, daughter," Kalafi whispered. "If the slave blood spreads through you, one day you will discover their magic. The magic to become a dragon. To rise against me. To burn us all."

Meliora kicked in her sleep, brow furrowed. "Run, Kira! Run, Talana! I saved you . . . I saved you . . ."

With a deep breath, Kalafi raised her dagger above her sleeping daughter.

"Mother," Meliora whispered, eyes still closed. "You saved me, Mother. You saved me from the fire. I love you. I love you so much. Forgive me, Mother."

Tears fled Kalafi's eyes. She dropped the knife. It thumped onto the bed.

I love you too, my daughter.

The tears streamed, and Kalafi could not stop the memories—her slave knowing her, her husband dying at her hands, her daughter born, sweetest Meliora, smaller than the other babes yet just as beautiful.

"I will keep you pure," Kalafi whispered. "I will cleanse the weakness from you."

She turned away. She left her daughter's chamber. As she walked down the corridor, Kalafi's hands balled into fists, and rage simmered in her belly.

Meliora would have to see that slaves were unworthy of sympathy, that they had no hearts, no feelings, that they were barely better than beasts. At dawn, Kalafi would make the creatures work harder, doubling their workload. She would insist that the weak be culled. That the old and frail were burned in pits of fire.

"You wanted to save them, my child," Kalafi whispered. "But you will see them ground into the dust like the worms that they are."

ELORY

She tiptoed through the shadowy ziggurat, unchained for the first time in her life, holding her scroll before her like a shield.

As a child, Elory would hop at night between the huts where the slaves lived, as fast as she could move in her hobbles. She'd stretch out her arms, pretending to be a dragon, a magnificent beast flying through canyons. The thousands of huts had spread out, forming a great labyrinth, yet Elory had never gotten lost, not even navigating the darkness for hours.

Here, the innards of the ziggurat formed a maze far more convoluted.

She walked up a staircase—it was still strange to walk on stairs, which she had never seen in Tofet. Lanterns glowed on the walls, illuminating murals depicting seraphim battling sea serpents. With every flicker of the lamps, Elory started, sure that the seraphim on the walls were real, that they were about to strike.

Finally the staircase emerged from the underground, and Elory found herself walking along a colonnade. A wall rose to her right, built of sandstone bricks cobbled together with the bitumen she had spent her life hauling. More murals appeared here, showing scenes of tigers, hippos, and birds of every kind among rushes and palm trees. To her left stretched a portico of columns, exposing the open night. Between the limestone pillars, she saw a dark stream, lush gardens, and the lights of the city.

Elory paused and stared.

Several seraphim guards stood in the dark gardens, still, silent, facing the city. They did not see her, all their attention focused outward.

I can escape, she thought. I can sneak between them, disappear into the city, find my family again.

Her hand trembled, crinkling her scroll so loudly she thought the guards would hear. Her heart thudded even louder, pounding in her ears. And why should she not escape? She was small and fast. She could vanish into shadows in the night, leave this place. She perhaps could not escape Saraph itself; a great wall rose in the north, blocking her passage to the distant ruins of Requiem, and only one slave—the legendary Lumen—had ever scaled that wall and lived. But Elory could still flee the ziggurat at least, still find her family in Tofet.

And leave my sister? Elory thought.

She closed her eyes.

She had never seen Meliora before, the fabled Princess of Saraph, daughter of Queen Kalafi. Daughter of Elory's own father, the humble slave. But she had heard tales of Meliora a thousand times. Her father would whisper of her at night, making Elory vow not to tell, not to repeat the story, telling her that even Meliora herself did not know that she was half Vir Requis. The seraphim soldiers in Tofet would speak of Meliora too, singing her praises, worshipping her name, calling her a deity of beauty and endless piety.

"She doesn't know that I'm her father," Jaren would whisper to Elory at night, telling her tales of her famous half sister. "Meliora thinks that her father was the late King Harash. She doesn't know that she's half Vir Requis, and she doesn't have the magic to become a dragon. But someday, Elory . . . someday a child of Requiem will sit upon the throne of Saraph. Someday your sister will rule the world."

And now I must find that sister, Elory thought. I must tell her who she is. I must beg her for aid. Not just for me. For my father. For my brother. For everyone suffering in chains. She turned away from the gardens, from the path to freedom. I will not escape while my people suffer, while I can find them a savior.

She kept walking, found another staircase, and climbed.

She found herself walking down a dark corridor, leaving the hot night air behind her. Lanterns glowed on the walls, illuminating polished tiles. Engravings covered the walls, depicting scenes of seraphim slaying dragons, felling the halls of Requiem, and bearing collared slaves back into Saraph. In the land of Tofet, it was a tragic tale—the fall of Requiem, the breaking of a proud nation. Here, in the palace of Saraph, the story appeared heroic, the engraved seraphim handsome and proud, the dragons rabid and cruel, the slaves hook-nosed and hunched over, ugly demons thrashing in their collars like beasts.

At the sight of the engravings, Elory's heart wrenched.

Requiem is real, she thought. It has to be real, if even the seraphim engraved it. We will fly there again, free, no collars on our necks. We will find our sky.

As she kept walking down the corridor, the scenes continued to roll across the walls, showing piles of dead dragons and triumphant flights of flaming chariots. After walking for a hundred yards, near the end of the scene, Elory saw an engraving of a towering column. It soared all the way to the ceiling, dead dragons lying at its base. If engraved to scale, it must have soared hundreds of feet tall in real life.

Elory paused and stared.

"King's Column," she whispered.

This was only an engraving, of course, paling in comparison to the true King's Column from the tales. In the stories her father told her, King's Column rose in the heart of Requiem, the pillar around which the kingdom had been built. They said that King Aeternum himself, founding father of Requiem, had raised this column in a birch forest five thousand years ago, that since that time the kingdom of Requiem had worshiped it. They said that the Draco constellation itself, the stars Elory could not see from this land, blessed the column, that it would stand so long as Vir Requis lived in the world. Indeed, even in this engraving in the halls of Saraph, seraphim were attacking the column with lances and arrows, unable to topple it, even as lesser columns lay shattered at its feet.

"So long as a single Vir Requis lives, the column will stand," Elory whispered. She hesitated, then gingerly placed a hand against the engraved column. The limestone was cold and rough, not polished marble like the true column, but she imagined that she was touching the real King's Column, that she felt its magic flow through her.

You are blessed, child, a voice seemed to whisper within her. You are a child of starlight. We watch over you from the stars. Always, Elory. Always.

Elory bit her lip, eyes damp, hand against the column. She felt the ancient magic, a warm, soothing feeling that flowed through her. Her collar kept that magic at bay, not letting her summon it, but it filled her nonetheless like bitumen lying under the surface, waiting to be drawn. Even here, centuries after the fall of Requiem, captive and collared, the old magic filled Elory.

A magic of dragons.

"Requiem!" she whispered. "May our wings forever find your sky."

"Slave!" The voice boomed down the corridor. "What are you doing there? Where is your night pass?"

Elory spun away from the wall, heart leaping into her throat. She gasped to see two seraphim guards marching toward her. Their sandals clattered against the floor's polished tiles, and their halos' light reflected against their burnished breastplates and helmets. Their shields displayed the Eye of Saraph, and their spears dipped to point toward her.

Struggling not to faint from fear, Elory raised her scroll. She held it before her, her own weapon, the only weapon that could save her in the bowels of the ziggurat.

She knelt before the seraphim, lowered her head, and held out the scroll.

"Here is my pass, my lords! It bears the seal of Prince Ishtafel himself. He commanded me to bear this scroll to his sister—unopened."

She pulled back the scroll, afraid the guards would grab it. If they demanded to read it, they would read Ishtafel's orders that she report to the pleasure pit.

Thank goodness you don't know how to read, Tash, Elory thought. Unable to read the contents, the pleasurer had seen no point in breaking the seal. Perhaps, with this seal intact, the scroll still rolled up, Elory might just make her way through.

The soldiers stared at the seal, and their eyes darkened. Their wings stiffened.

"Prince Ishtafel's seal," whispered one.

Elory nodded. "I must deliver this scroll to Princess Meliora. Will you allow me to continue on my way, my lords?"

The seraphim glanced at each other, fear in their eyes. They nodded. "Go!"

They continued walking, passed by her, and quickly vanished into shadows.

Elory breathed out a shaky sigh of relief. She trembled, and cold sweat dripped down her spine. She had almost lost her life. She had almost lost the hope of Requiem.

We need a savior. We need one who can remove our collars like Tash removed my shackles—who can save me, who can save a nation. We need you, Meliora, the sister I've never met.

Standing here in darkness, alone, afraid, lost in the heart of her enemy, Elory raised her eyes and stared up at the dark ceiling. And there she saw it. Tears flooded her eyes.

"The stars of Requiem," she whispered.

It was only an engraving, an image of the northern sky. The Draco constellation was small, barely visible, a few stars worked into the stone, filled with silver, their shine dull. One constellation among a hundred. Her stars.

Our stars.

Our sky.

Elory raised her chin and kept walking, new strength in her heart, and as she walked she made a vow to herself. A vow she would cherish like the dream of Requiem.

"I will not just save myself, sparing my body from the cruelty of Ishtafel." The stars seemed to shine in her eyes, perhaps only her tears. "I will save all of you. I will save Requiem. We will see that sky again, and we will fly under those stars as dragons."

She kept walking through the palace until she found another slave, an old woman moving through the halls with a basket of laundry. The elder gave Elory directions, and she walked on, asking again a few stories up, this time from a boy slave who was sweeping the floor. In the shadows of night, as the seraphim slept, the slaves were everywhere—washing, dusting, polishing.

"Remember Requiem," she whispered to them.

They nodded, afraid, glanced around for their masters, then answered the prayer. "Remember Requiem."

As she passed by a window, Elory saw that she was so high up now that she could see Tofet, just a hint on the horizon. A shadow. A darkness where only the odd candle lit the night.

Remember Requiem, my people, she thought, staring at them, at the hundreds of thousands crying out in chains.

Already she saw trails of lights, clay lanterns held in trembling hands—the slaves leaving their huts, heading to their work. Dawn was only two hours away, and then the seraphim too would wake, filling the ziggurat's halls.

She turned away from the window. She kept walking until she reached a golden door where stood two seraphim guards.

Meliora's chamber.

Elory raised her scroll toward the sentries, showing them the seal, her amulet of power.

You gave me this seal, Ishtafel, so that I could enter the pleasure pit, so that I could train to pleasure you, Elory thought. But you gave me the key to every chamber in this palace.

The guards stepped back and Elory entered the chamber of her princess, her mistress, her sister.

JAREN

In the darkness of night, no moon in the sky, Jaren walked through the tortured land of Tofet.

The towering limestone walls, topped with seraphim guards. The huts of slaves. The bitumen pits where his wife had died, where his daughter had labored. The quarries where his son toiled every day, back almost breaking. The refineries and fields where bricks were made, the fields where slaves struggled to raise crops from the dry land—crops they would never eat. A land of misery, the Abyss risen onto the earth, a prison surrounded by hosts of seraphim, an enemy they could not slay.

A land of tears, Jaren thought. The land where I lost my wife, where I saw my daughter kidnapped by the demon.

He grimaced to think of Ishtafel. In the lore of Requiem, he was a tyrant, the seraph who had destroyed Requiem, who had slain a million of their kind, who had taken myriads here to slavery. In the lore of Saraph, he was a hero, the noble and handsome warrior who had conquered the world.

"And to you, my beloved Kalafi . . . he is a son."

As he walked through the darkness, Jaren lowered his head. All his life, he had tried to give hope to the children of Requiem, to cling to that hope, to cling to morality, to decency, to joy—even here, even in chains. Yet that day . . . that day long ago, he had shamed his people. That shame still lived inside him, even now.

I loved you, Kalafi, and I will always hate myself for it.

Jaren kept walking, and finally he saw the bridge ahead, spanning the Te'ephim River. The edge of Tofet. Beyond that arching stone bridge it lay—Shayeen, the City of Kings. The place where their bricks, bitumen, all their labor went. The great wonder of the world. The place that was now forbidden to him. The place where he had first met her—the first woman he had loved.

He glanced toward the sky. By the position of the stars, it was midnight, a week before the summer solstice. Just another night, not a festival to any god or hero. A forgotten night in the calendar. The same night he came here every year.

It was time.

Chains clanking, he stepped onto the bridge and walked, the water flowing below him. The bridge was wide enough to let twenty men walk abreast, built of sturdy stone. At its far side stood walls and towers and seraphim upon them, but Jaren would not walk that far, perhaps never again. When he reached the center of the bridge, he paused.

A figure was walking across the bridge from the opposite bank, approaching him.

The figure was tall and slender, clad in a dark robe and hood. It held no lamp but walked in darkness, barely visible, head lowered. A shadow among shadows, appearing only when it blocked a distant city light. Finally the figure reached him at the center of the stone bridge, raised its hooded head, and revealed two gleaming eyes, the pupils shaped as sunbursts.

Jaren bowed his head. "Another year, my lady. Another night of whispers."

The figure pulled back the hood, unveiling a fair, ageless face, the skin a golden hue, the hair long and flowing and the color of spring dawn. Her halo shone like fireflies, and her eyes seemed ancient—eyes that had gazed upon distant realms beyond the stars—but her face was smooth, eternal, the face of a statue, pure but cold and timeless.

"I've come to you again," Queen Kalafi said, voice cold and smooth as a dagger slipping between shoulder blades. "All year, I keep you chained across the river. This night you pull my own chain, dragging me here."

"I hold no chain, only truth," Jaren said.

"Truth can be a stronger chain than links of iron. The truth of our daughter has chained my hands for twenty-seven of these nights." Fire gleamed in her eyes. "I felt a flicker of affection for you once—a few moments ago for me, half a lifetime ago for you—but now I feel only hatred. I should slay you now. I should slay you and your children, Elory and Vale—yes, I know their names—and bury this truth in the sand."

Your son already murdered my wife, Jaren thought, the grief twisting inside him. Your son already kidnapped my daughter. What would be death to me now?

Jaren nodded. "You could kill me, my lady. You could have slain me countless times, as your son slays those women he beds. Many times, I've seen Ishtafel pluck a maiden from Tofet, plant his seed inside her for his pleasure, then discard her body—sometimes a body gravid with child—back in our land. Yet you, my queen, still meet me here every year, the man you took into your bed. Your son is cruel but yours is a gentle heart."

She sneered and drew a wavy dagger from her robes. "And your heart will lie at my feet if you anger me. I suggest you do not."

Jaren smiled thinly. "Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, how is she? Give me news of my daughter."

"Meliora is the same as always." Kalafi snorted. "Weak. Addle-headed. No more sensible than a pup. And yet . . . different this year. I showed her a glimpse of the truth. A burning in the bronze bull, though I had to abort the ceremony when she stepped into the flames herself. Rebellion brews in her heart where once only softness dwelled. Perhaps this dagger should carve out Meliora's heart as well. That heart is tainted with your blood."

She needs no dagger, Jaren thought. The Queen of Saraph needed only her words to cut his heart. Whenever she spoke of Meliora, Jaren grieved.

My daughter.

In the darkness of night, the memories of a different night flooded him, a night almost three decades ago. His back had not been crooked, his shoulders not stopped from years in the quarries. His face had not been lined, and no beard had adorned his face. He had been young, strong, perhaps even handsome, a house servant in the palace of the queen. In chambers of endless wealth, the walls and floors themselves made of precious metals and gems, he had tended to the queen. Gently washing her in her warm pool, treating the wound on her side, rubbing her feet, feeding her grapes, a servant to see to all her needs.

And those needs grew.

Her husband's heart was still beating when Kalafi had taken Jaren into her arms, into the hot pool where she soaked. She had stripped off his clothes, leaving him in but his collar. In the salty water, they had made love, her head tossed back, her fingernails digging into him, her wound sticky against him. She had cried out in her pleasure, a beastly sound, like the roar of a dragon. Jaren had closed his eyes, imagining that he himself was a dragon, flying home, flying far to Requiem, to old pillars among ancient trees.

But she had taken everything from him. She had taken the daughter he had planted in her belly. She had taken all his hope, all his dreams, all comforts he might have had in her palace. She had slapped him in chains, discarded him, tossed him into Tofet, letting him keep only his life—perhaps a curse, perhaps her cruelest act of all.

He looked back at the queen who now stood before him, robed on the bridge. She had not changed, still fair and cold as always, while he was a wreck of a man now, haggard, stooped, only in his fifties but feeling twice as old.

"Every year, I come here to ask about my daughter," he said to his queen. "I ask the same this night, but this year, I ask about a different daughter. I ask about Elory."

Elory. A light in his life. The girl who gave Jaren new hope.

I married a woman in Tofet, and she is gone now, slain by Ishtafel. Elory is new life, new light. Elory is a great star in my sky.

Kalafi tilted her head. "Elory is stuck where she belongs, laboring in the bitumen pits, and—"

"My lady, Ishtafel has plucked her from the pit. Elory now serves in the palace . . . serves him. The prince. The man who slew her mother before her eyes. My queen, I beg you." Jaren fell to his knees before her. "I bow before you, and I plead. Give Elory back to me. You have Meliora; let me have my other daughter."

Kalafi narrowed her eyes, considering, calculating. Finally she barked a laugh. "The hypocrisy of weredragons! You thrusted your manhood between my thighs, yet when your daughter craves the manhood of my son, you would refuse her?"

"My daughter craves nothing of him!" Jaren said, unable to curb the rage from entering his voice. He forced himself to breathe deeply, to calm himself. "My queen, please. Elory is a tender child, not yet twenty. She watched Ishtafel slay her friend, then slay her mother before her eyes, and now Ishtafel would . . . would do to her as he would, then discard her body too. Please, my queen. If not for Elory's sake, for mine."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what of my son? Should I ignore his wishes over yours? Should I deprive him of a play thing?" She tilted her head. "Or would you rather Ishtafel take another from among the slaves? That your precious child would be safe, but another's daughter endure him? I thought you nobler than that."

Jaren lowered his head. "All nobility flees before the bonds of family. You know this, my queen. That is why Meliora now lives in splendor. That is why you stand here before me."

"I stand here before you because Meliora is my daughter, because you are her father." Kalafi's lips peeled back into a lurid, carnivorous grin. "But Elory is nothing to me, born from a different woman's womb, and Ishtafel is my son."

Jaren did not want to use threats. Threatening a queen was a dangerous thing. But Elory needed him.

"And you will let me live?" he said. "You will let me, who knows the truth about Meliora, who could speak of her heritage, roam free among the slaves?"

She sneered at him, eyes narrowed. "You try to blackmail me while I hold a blade before you?"

"You could have thrust that blade countless times, my lady. But there is goodness to your heart. I've always seen it. Your heart is encased in iron and steel, and the yoke of your crown is as heavy as the yoke of a slave, but deep within you, the girl from Edinnu still sings. A seraph of righteousness. A seraph whom I once loved . . . who perhaps once loved me. Who perhaps still feels some lingering warmth toward this old, haggard slave."

"I feel nothing but disgust toward you. You are a filthy worm, a dirty creature, and I am ashamed of that night. Ashamed!" Her fists balled up, and she lowered her head. "But yes, Jaren. I loved the man you were. Thus is the curse of immortality—that I linger on, forever fair, watching you here every year . . . fading away, withering, dying before my eyes." She looked back up at him, eyes damp now, her fury gone, replaced with sadness. "Perhaps you're right, and my heart is still full of Edinnu's light and mercy. I would return Elory to you . . . but I cannot. I can no longer resist my son. Even I am frightful around him; he's become more powerful than I had ever imagined. He does as he would; I cannot control him, cannot take his toys from him, and Elory is his new toy. Beware, Jaren . . . he is becoming strong." Now fear filled Kalafi's eyes. "Ishtafel is a fire I cannot contain, and someday he will be stronger than I am. And he will grant you no mercy."

With that, the Queen of Saraph spun on her heel and walked away, leaving the bridge and returning to Shayeen.

Jaren remained standing on the bridge long after Kalafi vanished into the night.

All I have left is Vale, my son. Meliora—a daughter I've never met. Elory—a daughter I might never see again. He raised his eyes to the sky, imagining that he could see the Draco constellation there, the stars that did not shine here in the south, that ancient tales from the north spoke of in awe. Please, stars of Requiem, if you can hear my prayers from here, grant Elory safety and grant her strength. Grant us all strength.

Slowly Jaren turned, and slowly he walked away, leaving the bridge behind, returning to his hut. In only two or three hours, his labor would continue—a day of the whip, of the pickaxe, of sweat and tearing muscles under the cruel sun. For now, this night, he lay in darkness, thinking of starlight.

ELORY

When Elory stepped into the chamber, Meliora was already awake, sitting by the window, staring outside at the first light of dawn.

Surely the princess had heard the door open, had heard the guards announce Elory's entrance, had heard those guards leave and the door close again, and yet Meliora did not turn around, did not stir. She faced the light, staring between the columns of her balcony, her back to Elory.

The princess of Saraph was perhaps half Vir Requis, but she had the swan wings of a seraph. Those wings now draped across her back, dipping so that the tips rested on the floor. Meliora's hair flowed down between them, a waterfall of molten gold, topped with a thin halo. Elory could not see her sister's face, but she could see ugly burns stretching across her arm.

"My lady?" Elory whispered.

For a long time Meliora did not reply, only sat with her back to Elory, gazing out between the columns. The dawn's light rose, glowing around her like a second halo. Elory's heart quickened; soon the rest of the palace would awaken. What if Tash noticed her absence and reported it? What if Ishtafel heard? Elory stood still, pondering what to do. Should she speak again? Should she flee this chamber? Should she step forward, walk around Meliora, and face her?

She was still debating when finally Meliora spoke, her back still to Elory.

"You are a slave." Her voice was barely a whisper. "You are a weredragon."

Elory winced. She hated that word—weredragon. It was what the seraphim called her kind, what the enemies of Requiem had called her kind for thousands of years. She was Vir Requis, a proud child of Requiem, not a monster to kill or enslave. And yet how could she explain this to Meliora, to a woman who thought herself the purebred daughter of seraphim royalty?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seraph eyes.

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

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

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

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

Lies. Lies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly Elory couldn't stop her tears from falling.

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

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

The door opened behind them.

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

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

MELIORA

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

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

She saw the conqueror.

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

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

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

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

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

"You will not touch her."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He raised his hand to strike her.

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

Yet now he swung his hand toward her.

Meliora raised her own hand, blocking the blow.

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

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

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

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

"Father choked on a fig," she said.

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

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

My father . . . murdered?

Lies.

My entire life—lies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meliora bared her teeth at him, sucking in air.

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

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

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

Meliora turned toward the slave. She knelt before her.

"What's your name?" she asked, voice soft.

The girl's trembling had ceased, and her eyes shone. "Elory. Daughter of Jaren."

Meliora took Elory's hands in hers and squeezed them. "You will be safe, Elory. I promise you. You will be safe with me."

The girl hesitated for a moment, then embraced Meliora. It shocked Meliora at first—slaves were never this brazen!—but perhaps . . . perhaps Meliora had to stop thinking of her as a slave. Perhaps she was a new friend.

"You're safe, child," she whispered, holding Elory in her arms. "You're safe."

Yet as she held the girl, Meliora wondered. Ishtafel was the greatest rider in Saraph, a man who had led hosts of chariots to war. Was Elory truly safe, or would the girl sing in the bull on Meliora's wedding day?

VALE

For the first time in his life, Vale was going to turn into a dragon.

Dawn rose around him across Shayeen, glinting off the platinum crests of obelisks, the gilded capitals of temples' columns, and the ziggurat that rose in the distance, soaring above the city. Though he had toiled all his life in the quarries, carving the bricks to build this glory, Vale had never seen the City of Kings. It was a place of wonder, of might, of magic.

Yet it paled in comparison to the magic inside him.

Since before he could remember, Vale had worn a collar infused with a seraph curse, holding his magic at bay. He now stood in a construction site, columns rising around him. Scaffoldings clung to the pillars, and slaves toiled across the site, digging, chipping, mortaring, climbing. Seraph slave drivers surrounded Vale, armed with whips, arrows, and spears. He was still trapped, still a slave in a foreign land.

But for the first time, he wore no collar, and no chains hobbled his feet.

For the first time, he felt his magic well up inside him.

He closed his eyes, savoring it. He didn't want anything to interfere with this, with the ancient magic of his people, the power he had always felt itching, had never been able to draw. Vale had come to this city to fly to battle, to save his sister, perhaps to die in war, but right now he didn't want to think of blood or flame.

He thought of starlight.

They said that a constellation shaped as a dragon shone in the northern skies of Requiem. Vale had never believed those stories, yet now he saw stars behind his eyelids. Now he felt silver light fill him. It was a feeling like mulled wine on a cold night, like gliding on the wind, like everything good and right in the world.

Vale inhaled deeply, suddenly wanting to weep. For twenty-one years, he had suffered under the cruel sunlight, under the whip, under the heel of his masters, but now . . . this moment . . . this moment was wonder.

He was changing. Even with his eyes closed, he knew that. Growing taller. His fingers lengthening. His body widening. He heard the chinking of scales, and in his mind, he was flying over Requiem, and that ancient kingdom was real. The halls of his forebears rose toward the stars, carved of purest white marble. The birch trees rustled. His family flew at his side, and a thousand other dragons flew around them. The Draco constellation shone above, and they were blessed. They were free. They were Vir Requis.

"Requiem," he whispered, tasting fire in his mouth, smelling smoke. "May our wings forever find your sky."

He heard a chinking, a creaking, a scraping against the cobblestones. Vale opened his eyes.

He looked down upon small slaves and seraphim, no taller than his belly. When he tilted his head farther down, he saw claws and legs coated with gleaming blues scales—not the faded, azure of the sky but a rich cobalt, shining like sapphires, like the sea in the tales of his father.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled. Smoke blasted down onto the cobblestones.

By the stars of Requiem.

Eyes damp, he looked over his shoulder and saw his body—the body of a dragon. Powerful. Covered in the same blue scales, each a jewel. A tail flicked behind him, tipped with spikes, and he spread his wings—leathern wings, indigo colored, tipped with brilliant white claws covered with azure mottles. He smiled, then laughed, a deep laughter, tears in his eyes, and sparks of fire left his maw. When he turned his head forward again, he saw himself reflected in a seraph's shield: a blue dragon, his jaws lined with sharp teeth like daggers, his head tipped with alabaster horns.

For that moment, all his pain, all his rage, the fall and captivity of Requiem—all was forgotten for the length of a few breaths. All was as it should be.

This . . . this is how we were meant to live.

The seraphim cracked their whips and aimed their lances and arrows.

"Chain him!" barked one seraph, and others raced forth with heavy shackles. "Chain the left leg!"

The feeling of peace vanished, and rage flared in Vale. Rage had always been a sickening feeling to him, a helpless fury, a wild animal in a cage. Yet now . . . now rage was fire, a fire that rose in his belly and filled his gullet. Now rage was a wonderful thing, no longer the warmth of starlight but the searing heat of dragonfire.

For the first time in his life, Vale was mighty.

For the first time in his life, he could fight back.

As the seraphim raced forward with chains, Vale bristled. His wings creaked. Why should he let them chain him? He wore no collar. He was a dragon. He was a warrior of Requiem. He could blow his dragonfire; he felt it in his throat, ready to expel. He could lash his claws, snap his jaws, whip his spiked tail. He could slay these seraphim; they were larger than his human form but so small by a dragon.

A growl rose in his throat, and sparks left his maw, reflecting in the seraphim's armor. The overseers carrying the chain paused, hesitating.

"Easy, beast." One of the seraphim—Shani, the same woman who had beaten Elory so many times—cracked her flaming whip. "Be a good little reptile, or we'll rip off every one of your scales. We slew a million of your kind in Requiem. I think we can handle you. Men! Slap the chain onto his ankle. Now!"

Vale growled again. He stretched out his wings, their leathern membranes creaking, and raised his tail with a clatter of scales. His claws scratched the dirt. Smoke puffed out from his nostrils. The overseers tugged back their bowstrings and raised their lances.

"Now, now, little reptile." Shani smiled thinly, standing before him. "Are you going to haul stones like a nice beast of burden, or are we going to have to shatter those pretty blue scales with our arrows?"

Vale lowered his wings and tail.

I must live for now. I must fly with the stones to the temple's crest. I must save Elory, not die here in a construction site.

A single glance at the ziggurat in the distance quelled his anger. The Eye of Saraph upon its crest stared back at him across the miles. It was there that Elory was trapped, serving Ishtafel. It was to reach that palace that Vale had to live.

The seraphim approached, and the manacle snapped around his ankle.

"Good . . ." Shani cooed. She approached and stroked his snout. "Now, you might get an idea into your mind that, once airborne, you could release your magic. That you could fall out of the chain, then shift into a dragon again and fly free." Her smile widened into a grin. "I urge you to try it. The shackle around your leg—do you feel how it squeezes? If you try to shift back into a human, and your leg shrinks, this manacle will tighten at once. Before your human leg can slip out, it will grab you, and you will crash down—unable to become a dragon again without ripping off your leg. I will enjoy seeing you smash onto the cobblestones. Many slaves have." She tugged the chain taut. "You're on my leash now."

Vale grunted. He had indeed contemplated that very plan. In his dreams all night, he had soared as a dragon in chains, released his magic in the air, and slipped from the manacles as a man . . . falling, falling . . . then soaring again, free, unchained. Now that dream crashed around him.

"Do you understand?" Shani cracked her whip. "Answer me!"

Vale grumbled his reply, speaking for the first time with his dragon throat, his voice deeper, rumbling, a sound of boulders rolling. "Yes, my lady."

"Now lift the stone. Fly!"

He moved toward the stone, a heavy disk, the segment of a column. It was so wide that, were he still in human form, his arms would not wrap around it. He gripped the stone in his claws, grunted, and flapped his wings.

Air blew across the yard, raising dust and pebbles and billowing the seraphim's hair. Vale rose a foot into the air. He gave his wings a mighty flap, rose another foot. The stone still lay on the ground, his claws around it. A few more flaps of his wings, a tug, and he was flying.

For the first time in his life, he flew as a dragon.

He laughed.

He was still a slave. A chain ran from his ankle to Shani's hand. He carried a great stone that threatened to dislocate his front legs. But by the stars of Requiem—he was a dragon, and he was flying.

He kept beating his wings, scattering dust below, rising higher. The shell of the Conqueror's Temple—Ishtafel's new monument of victory—rose before him. Its columns were still growing, built of round stones placed one atop the other. Scaffolding grew around the columns like scabs of leprosy, and slaves stood there in human forms, holding buckets of mortar.

Vale flew until he reached the top of a half-completed column. The chain tightened, and when he glanced down, he saw Shani a hundred feet below, holding the other end of the chain.

"That's high enough, reptile!" she shouted. "Lower the stone."

A sudden, searing need filled Vale to toss that stone down, to crush Shani under its weight. Yet dozens of other seraphim spread around him. He could crush one, maybe two with his burden. The rest would shoot him down.

I must live. I must survive for you, Elory.

Beating his wings and hovering, Vale lowered the limestone segment onto the top of the column. The workers on the scaffolding hurried to adjust the stone and apply more mortar, while other slaves drove metal spikes through holes in the top, further securing the segment. The column now rose two feet taller, with another two hundred feet to go.

Panting, Vale hovered in the air and looked around him. From up here, he could see a better view of the city. Several other structures were under construction: a massive archway, a hundred feet tall; a statue of the god Bee'al, a warrior with the head of a cobra, as lofty as a palace; and a new port along the river, its piers bustling with builders. When Vale glanced north, he could just make out the edge of Tofet.

Sudden guilt filled Vale. His father still languished there, alone—his wife dead, his children all missing.

I parted from you in anger, Father. But I will see you again. He ground his teeth. When I escape from the palace with Elory, I will grab you too.

He looked south toward the ziggurat. It rose across the city, the tallest building here, as large as a city itself. Somewhere in there, Elory was chained. Somewhere in there, Meliora—also his sister—ruled as a princess. Vale had to find them, had to—

"Down, reptile!" Shani tugged the chain. "Down to fetch another stone."

With a grunt and puff of smoke, Vale flew lower. He lifted another stone. He flew up again.

He labored on.

As he worked, he kept thinking. He had to escape. He had to fly across the city, reach the ziggurat, find his sister. Yet whenever he so much as glanced that way, Shani tugged the chain, and the other overseers cracked their whips.

Even if I break free from this chain, how will I ever reach the ziggurat? The seraphim would shoot him down. A million more lived across the city, each with wings that could fly—faster than dragons, if the stories were to be believed. Many of them were armed with arrows and lances. And even should Vale reach the ziggurat, how would he make it inside? How would he survive navigating the labyrinth of corridors within?

Is Elory lost to me?

"Faster, lizard!" Shani shouted. The seraph beat her wings, flew up toward him, and lashed her whip. The flaming thong slammed against Vale's back, cracking several scales, and he yowled with pain. "Keep working, worm."

Her whip lashed again, and Vale snarled. Shani smirked, hovering before him, so small he could have snapped her between his jaws.

Burn her, sounded a voice within him. Crush her.

"That's right." Shani nodded. "Hate me. Try to burn me." She hefted her shield, and below on the ground, her comrades tugged back their bowstrings. "I want to see you try."

Vale growled, hovering before her between the columns. He could do it. He could blow his fire. He would take a few arrows, but his rage would drive him on, and he'd fly across the city. He'd charge against the ziggurat himself. He'd slay all those in his path.

As Shani smiled wickedly, Vale noticed something for the first time. Each segment of the column contained the piece of an engraving. As the segments piled up, they formed a sprawling work of art, a scene coiling up the column. It depicted Ishtafel and his many battles, his chariots slaying the giants, crushing the demons, and finally felling dragons from the sky.

Millions of dragons fought the chariots of fire, and we died. Vale lowered his head. What chance do I have, a single dragon?

"Move!"

Shani whipped him again, cracking another scale. Grimacing, Vale flew down to lift another stone—this segment showed an engraving of Ishtafel lancing a beastly dragon. Vale's claws, wings, and legs all ached, just as much as he had ached as a man toiling in the quarry. Another bite of the whip had him flying higher, carrying the stone.

But as Ishtafel is hero to Saraph, so does Requiem have a hero, he thought, placing the stone down atop the column.

One among them had escaped.

Ten years ago, he had risen—a hero named Lucem, a young Vir Requis, a maker of mortar. He had scaled the wall surrounding Tofet. He had fled to freedom. He had given hope to a nation in chains.

Only one in five hundred years . . . one that proved it could be done.

Vale took a deep breath, staring at the ziggurat in the distance.

If Lucem fled, so can I. So can Elory. I will do this. I will fly to her. He looked back at Shani. I will burn this seraph, burn them all, and fly. Fly as fast as I can. And if I die above the city, I will die in fire. I will die free.

"Faster!" Shani cried, hovering before him, her swan wings spread wide. "Down, worm. More stones. Go!"

Her whip lashed, slamming against his cheek, cracking the small scales that grew there. His blood dripped.

Burn her.

Vale took a deep breath, prepared to blow his dragonfire.

Horns.

Horns blared across the city, a magnificent fanfare.

Hovering above the columns, Vale turned toward the sound, and saw the ziggurat bathed in light. Fire blazed as two chariots emerged from archways on its crest like bees leaving a hive.

Dragon eyes were sharp, and even from this distance, Vale saw the banner fluttering from the chariots. An eye within a sunburst. The Eye of Saraph. Sigil of the Thirteenth Dynasty.

Ishtafel's chariot.

Vale swallowed his fire, forgetting about Shani, saving his flames for another foe.

There is my true enemy.

MELIORA

At high noon, the lords and ladies of Saraph emerged from the ziggurat to drink wine, watch the chariots race, and see a life destroyed.

On a balcony high upon the ziggurat, Meliora stood in her chariot of fire, forcing herself to take deep, shuddering breaths. She clutched the reins so hard they dug into her palms. Her gilded breastplate felt too tight—she had never worn one before—and her shield was too heavy. A spear stood at her side, ready to grip, a weapon she had never wielded.

A life ends today, she thought, gazing at the city below. If I lose this race, my brother will claim Elory, fulfill his desires, then when he's grown weary of her, crush and discard her corpse. Meliora shuddered. And then he will do the same to me.

She glanced over at Ishtafel. He stood in his own chariot of fire upon the ziggurat, lance and shield in hand, breastplate so polished its light blinded her. His four firehorses nickered and kicked the air, scattering sparks. Most firehorses, those used for daily flights, spread wide wings of flame. Not the steeds of the races. These ones, woven of fire like their comrades, sported no wings; these ones would gallop on hooves of brimstone, tugging the chariots over every cobblestone, crack, and pebble between here and Tofet.

"Race well, sister!" Ishtafel called out to her. "Like the javelin flies!"

Ishtafel seemed more alive than Meliora had ever seen him. His teeth shone in his grin, blindingly white. His hair streamed like a banner. He wore no helm, but a gilded breastplate enclosed his torso, leaving his arms bare. He was a study in beauty, an epitome of youthful vigor, the warrior from the legends, the hero countless women across the empire desired.

Once I too thought him a hero, Meliora thought. Once I thought him the greatest, handsomest, noblest warrior in Saraph.

Now, looking at him, Meliora saw not a deity of light but a cruel god.

If she lost this race, she would grow to envy Elory, perhaps. The girl would last a week, maybe a month in Ishtafel's chamber, her corpse then discarded.

But I . . . Meliora winced. She herself would linger for centuries in his service, have to birth his son, have to see that son grow into a tyrant, have to watch that son grind the weredragons under his heel. And should Meliora so much as speak a word of resistance, she too would find a bad fig on her plate—or a dagger in the night.

She forced herself to take a deep breath, to raise her chin, to square her shoulders.

So I must win this race.

She looked around her. Her chariot stood on a balcony that thrust out from the ziggurat, a thousand feet above the city, tethered to four wingless, crackling firehorses, beasts of living flame. It was a small chariot, large enough for only a single rider, fire over coals, crackling and casting out light and sparks. The limestone facades of the ziggurat sloped below her toward the city, and above her soared the palace crest, a platinum triangle, large enough to be a palace in its own right, brilliant in the sunlight, engraved with a massive Eye of Saraph, the sunburst pupil larger than a man.

Many seraphim flew around the palace, dressed in white and gold. Soldiers hovered in breastplates, helms, and sandals, holding lances and shields. Lords and ladies flew in flowing muslin, wheeling in the sky, wings spread wide, drinking from horns of wine. A million more seraphim—people of the city—stood below, spreading into the distance, watching from the roofs of temples and forts, from the decks of ships, from the balconies of homes, from the cobbled streets. Even the slaves below—collared workers and a handful of chained dragons—turned to stare toward the ziggurat.

In the distance, so far she could barely see it, the city gates led to the desert, and there—just beyond the horizon—lay the land of Tofet. There stood the bronze bull, the god Malok. There rose the golden idol Meliora must reach before her brother . . . or see Elory burn, and see her own life shatter.

At Meliora's sides, two young seraphim, cherubs with soft wings, raised silver trumpets and blew a fanfare. As the sound rolled across the sky, Queen Kalafi herself emerged onto the balcony. The queen wore a resplendent kalasiri, the white muslin inlaid with ten thousand diamonds that caught the sun and shone. Upon her brow she wore her serpent tiara, forged of platinum and inlaid with jewels taken from the fallen halls of Requiem. The queen spread out her wings, displaying the jewels that shone there, woven into her feathers, and she raised her arms with them.

"Children of Saraph!" the queen cried. "We bask in glory. Here in the center of an empire that sprawls across the world. Ishtafel has returned, and a new Edinnu rises!"

Across the city, the people cheered.

"The Eight Gods cast us out from the heavens," Kalafi continued. "But we have risen again! To celebrate our triumph, to worship the Eight Gods with our new light, we mark our victory with a great race—a race of nobility. Ishtafel and Meliora, children of the glorious, eternal dynasty, will ride with fire through Shayeen—to the god Malok, to eternal joy and victory."

As the people cheered, Meliora stared across the distance. There was no glory to Malok, the cruel bronze idol who sang as he digested his victims. There was no eternal joy in an empire built upon the blood and broken backs of slaves. But there was hope, just a sliver—hope to save a life.

Every life is a world, Meliora thought. Whatever gods might hear my prayers, give me strength, give me speed, help me save Elory . . . and help me save myself.

She stared toward the horizon again. She couldn't see Malok from here, her destination, only a glint in the distance. The bronze bull rose ten leagues away, a full thirty miles. Last time Meliora had ridden there in a chariot of fire, she had flown leisurely above the city, and it had taken her three hours to reach the land of Tofet.

Now, by the laws of the race, she would ride on the ground. Now she would race her firehorses as fast as they'd go.

Ishtafel leaned toward her from his chariot. He gripped the reins with one hand, his whip with the other. "Ready, sister?"

She stared at him, holding her own whip and reins. "Let's ride."

The cherubim raised their horns again. Silence fell across the land.

Even the wind stilled, and the only movement came from a flock of sparrows flitting ahead.

With a blast that made Meliora start, the cherubim's trumpets blared.

The firehorses bucked.

The race began.

With showering flame, with thundering hooves, with a roaring crowd, the firehorses galloped down the ziggurat's slope.

Meliora grimaced, clenching her jaw so tightly she thought her teeth would shatter. The chariot rattled madly down the brick facade of the palace, like a sled down a rocky mountainside. Her neck felt ready to snap, her head to fly off into the distance, her arms to dislocate. Every segment in her spine knocked together, and the sound was deafening, a horrible storm of her firehorses' hooves, of brimstone thundering against the ziggurat, of her chariot bouncing, of her body slamming back and forth. All around her, the crowd roared, and Meliora felt ready to pass out. She could see nothing—only fire, only sparks, smoke, streaks of color.

"Ishtafel!" the crowd roared, muffled beyond the thundering. "Ishtafel!"

Meliora could not see her brother. It was all she could do to cling to the reins, to remain in her chariot. The speed was terrifying. Meliora had flown in chariots of fire before—leisurely flights, the breeze stroking her cheeks. Now a shrieking wind, hot as the flames of the Abyss, stinging with sparks of fire, slammed against her face, whipped her hair, screamed in her ears. Still she rattled down the ziggurat, a boulder down a mountain.

"Ishtafel! Ishtafel!" the crowd chanted.

Meliora's firehorses galloped down a staircase built into the ziggurat's slope, and her chariot leaped into the air, slammed back down onto the rock, leaped again. Fire showered in a great fountain, and Meliora was tossed from her seat. She flew through the air, clinging to the reins, nearly falling out.

I can't do this. I can't. I can't.

Terror flooded her, and still they roared down the ziggurat, the horses screaming, the fire washing across her. The chariot tilted and Meliora screamed.

Her chariot slammed onto its side, nearly spilling her from her seat. Still they clattered, stormed, flamed down the ziggurat's facade.

"Ishtafel! Ishtafel!"

The firehorses kept galloping. They reached the bottom of the ziggurat and kept racing, pulling her across a cobbled boulevard. Meliora cried out in pain. The road scraped across her shoulder, tearing the skin. He chariot still lay on its side. Sparks showered. Fire and smoke engulfed her. She could see nothing but the inferno, hear nothing but the roar of hooves and her own screams.

She wanted to let go. To fall from the overturned chariot, to roll across the road, to die.

I can't do this.

"Ishtafel!" they chanted. "Ishtafel!" And among them, a single voice, high, distant. "Meliora! Meliora!"

She fell from the chariot.

She dragged across the cobblestones, screaming as the road tore into her, as the horses kept galloping. She clung to the reins with all her strength, the chariot bouncing across the road with her, still scraping along its side, showering flame, scattering coals.

"Meliora! Meliora!"

Dragging behind the galloping firehorses, she saw them.

The slaves.

They stood on roofs, in gardens, in construction sites. They stood among their masters, and they were chanting. Chanting her name.

"Meliora the Merciful! Ride, Meliora!"

She gasped in pain. Her blood dripped. Her skin tore. Their faces streamed before her, blurred into smudges, but she still saw their eyes. Their collars. Their hope.

"Meliora the Merciful! Ride, ride!"

Meliora screamed, shoved down her wing, tugged the reins, and dragged herself back into the fallen chariot. The firehorses kept racing down the boulevard, and Meliora thrust her hand against the cobblestones, ripping her skin, shoving the chariot back up.

She cried out in pain. Blood spurted from her hand, but she kept clinging to the reins. She had lost her whip, but the firehorses kept charging forth, and Meliora stood in the chariot again—bloody, cut, still in the race.

"Meliora, Meliora!" the slaves chanted, even as their masters shouted and whipped them. "Ride, Meliora, Savior of Slaves!"

She rode.

Sparks of flame roaring around her, smoke engulfing her, her blood dripping, her hair streaming, she rode.

She was heading down the Boulevard of the Victorious, one of the city's eight main arteries. Statues of the god Bee'al, a man with the head of a cobra, rose at her sides, hundreds of feet tall. Slaves and seraphim stood on the roofs of homes and temples, chanting and cheering.

Ishtafel rode in the distance ahead of her. He must have been a mile away.

Even in the heat of her flaming chariot, cold fear flooded Meliora.

She gritted her teeth. She clutched the reins. She had no whip, but she cried out to her firehorses, "Ride! Ride!"

The four beasts of flame galloped.

Meliora streamed across the boulevard like a comet, trailing fire—a creature of light, of heat, the wind in her hair, the sparks searing her skin. Her muslin kalasiri was torn, burnt, her skin red. She pulled her wings closer to her body, leaned forward, and charged forth. An immortal. A warrior.

I'm no longer the sheltered, pampered girl that I was. I am the wind. I am fire.

In her eyes, she saw starlight.

She saw birch forests below her, a dragon constellation above, marble columns in the distance.

The vision was so real, a vision of darkness and cold air and starlight, that she gasped.

I will fly like a dragon.

She thundered onward down the boulevard. Ishtafel still burned in the distance like a sun, charging across the miles toward the city gates.

Meliora narrowed her eyes.

No. I will not let you win. I will not let you claim Elory and break her body. I will not let you claim my womb for your son. I will win. I will fly like a dragon.

She reached toward the straps of her breastplate. She tore the armor off. She cast it aside, and it clanged onto the boulevard behind her.

She tossed off her shield.

She cast her lance aside.

She was not strong like her brother. He was nearly eight feet of muscle, clad all in steel, his shield and weapons heavy. She was weak in comparison. A thin girl, barely six feet tall, short among the seraphim.

And lightweight.

Clad only in scraps of muslin.

A spirit of fire. I am fire.

She punched the walls of her chariot, cracking them, tearing them off, remaining with only a floor and wheels.

I am fire on the wind.

The firehorses raced onward . . . and they were gaining on Ishtafel.

I am fire.

The firehorses charged.

I am the wind.

The chariot leaped over a crack on the road, flew through the air, slammed down and kept charging forth.

I am dragonfire.

With exploding flames and a wordless cry, she reached her brother. The two chariots charged side by side down the boulevard.

The statues of the gods streamed at their sides. The city homes and temples blurred. They were halfway through the city now, charging toward the gates.

"You're looking rather ragged lately, sister!" Ishtafel called from his chariot.

Meliora snarled at him. "And you're looking as pretty as always."

Not a scrape covered Ishtafel. His hair still streamed like a perfect banner of silken gold, and his armor still shone. His whip of fire still flew, slamming into the four firehorses pulling his chariot onward. That chariot still crackled with pure flame.

Meliora's chariot, meanwhile, looked like a guttering campfire, its walls gone, its wheels scattering black smoke and sparks. She herself looked no better; scrapes and burns covered her flesh, peering between the tatters of her kalasiri. And yet her firehorses still charged, faster than his now, less weight for them to carry.

She inched ahead.

"You are falling behind, brother!" she cried and laughed.

Ahead of her, beyond the flaming manes of her steeds, she could see it. Still distant but looming. The city gates. Beyond them lay a bridge over the water, a desert, and finally the bronze bull, her destination, her triumph. The hooves still roared, a deafening sound. The chariot rattled beneath her, knocking her teeth together, clattering her spine, whipping her head up and down. But hope soared in Meliora.

I'm going to win.

"You're forgetting something, sister!" Ishtafel called to her. "I never lose a battle."

His chariot charged forward, then swerved and slammed against her wheel.

Flames exploded.

Meliora screamed.

Her chariot scraped across the road, showering sparks, nearly tilting over. Chips of coal and brimstone scattered, and fire roared.

Grinning through the fire like a demon risen from the Abyss, Ishtafel swerved again, slamming his heavier chariot against her.

Black smoke burst out.

Blades thrust from his chariot's wheels, she saw. Black. Spinning. Shrieking. The scythes slammed into her chariot, tearing through the floor, shattering a wheel.

Meliora screamed as one corner of her chariot hit the ground. As her firehorses kept charging, her chariot scraped across the cobblestones, gushing smoke.

"Ishtafel, stop this!" Meliora shouted. "Sto—"

His chariot slammed into hers again, ripping chunks off, spurting fire that flowed across her. She screamed.

"Firehorses, ride!" she cried. "Faster, faster!"

Her chariot charged forth with a new burst of speed. Scraping across the stones. Tearing apart but still storming forward at maddening speed, the world blurring around her. She was slowly moving forward, leaving Ishtafel behind, escaping his scythes.

I have to escape him. To keep going. To—

Ishtafel's whip cracked.

The lash of fire flew from behind and slammed into her shoulder. She yowled as her flesh tore, as her blood sizzled.

The whip flew again, wrapped around her wrist, and yanked.

She cried out. The whip pulled her from her crumbling chariot, and she slammed onto the cobblestones.

The world shattered.

She bellowed—a hoarse, animal sound.

Her chariot raced onward, leaving her behind on the road.

No.

Meliora snarled, yanked her arm free from the whip, beat her wings, and flew through the air.

The whip lashed again, biting her side, ripping her skin. She kept flying, dived down, and landed back onto what remained of her chariot. She grabbed the reins. The crowd roared at her sides.

The whip kept beating her, but she refused to fall again. She gripped the reins with both hands. She kept charging forth, her firehorses galloping. The gates rose ahead of her now. Only moments away. Massive gates, their archway tall as a temple, opened to reveal the desert.

Only a bit of floor remained on her chariot. One of its wheels was crooked, swaying madly, screeching, casting out sparks. But she was still fast. She leaned forward, eyes narrowed, staring at the city gates.

I am fast. I am dragonfire. I will win.

A wordless cry pierced the air, rising even louder than the roar of hooves.

A shadow fell upon her, and Meliora looked up to see Ishtafel flying above, wings spread out, blocking the sun. Beams of sunlight flared around him, and he plunged down, a swooping god, his lance tipped with light.

Meliora stared, and for an instant life froze. She stared upon her brother. Upon her death.

His lance thrust toward her.

With a cry, Meliora swerved.

The lance slammed down, scraping across her hip, shedding her blood, then driving into her chariot's wheel.

The wheel exploded with a shower of coal and brimstone.

Ishtafel soared, and finally the last remains of her chariot collapsed. The second wheel detached and slammed down. The floor crumbled.

The firehorses ran free.

Meliora's lips peeled back in a savage snarl. She still gripped the reins. Her wings spread out. Her feet scraped the cobblestones, then rose to stream behind her through the air.

She rode onward, no chariot left, her body bleeding and broken. Still racing.

I am the wind. I am fire. I am a dragon. I will win.

His whip flew again, slamming into her wing, tearing out feathers, biting the bone.

Meliora cried out hoarsely. Pain, white and searing, blinded her.

The wind whipped her wings like more lashes. She slammed down against the cobblestones. Her knees tore, and she howled in agony. Through narrowed eyes, she saw Ishtafel charging onward. Leaving her behind.

The city gates loomed ahead.

Meliora tried to spread out her wings, to fly behind her firehorses again. She could not. She dragged along the cobblestones, clinging to the reins, refusing to release her horses, refusing to surrender, knowing she had lost. Every stone on the road tore through her skin. Her brother charged forth in his flaming chariot, leaving her in his wake. He streamed toward the gates, toward victory.

I've lost. Tears burned as she dragged behind her horses. I've lost Elory's life. My own life. I've lost everything. I—

Fire.

White hot, screaming, streaming across the sky, fire greater than the flames of any chariot.

A roar shattered the sky.

Fire.

A great pillar of heat.

Dragonfire.

From the inferno it soared—a blue dragon, wreathed in flame, jaws open, wings wide. A dragon of Requiem.

Meliora gasped.

Suddenly, it seemed to her that she saw Requiem—the Requiem of old, the Requiem that had existed centuries before her birth, the Requiem that Ishtafel had shattered. The beast before her did not look like a slave; he was a noble warrior, proud, strong . . . and charging toward her brother.

Ishtafel cried out and raised his lance and shield.

The blue dragon stormed forth. A chain stretched from the beast's leg, dragging a seraph overseer. Arrows rose from the dragon's back, and its blood seeped, but still it roared, and it blasted more dragonfire.

The inferno crashed into Ishtafel, showering around his shield, and the prince screamed.

Ignoring the pain, Meliora stretched out both wings, even the wounded one. She rose above the ground. With both hands, she still gripped the reins, flying behind her four galloping horses.

The dragon slammed into Ishtafel's chariot, lashing claws, snapping its jaws. The seraph overseer on the chain, dragging behind the beast, flew through the air. Meliora ducked as the overseer flew above her, only inches away; the two nearly slammed together.

Shani, Meliora realized. I know this overseer.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the blue dragon and Ishtafel's chariot of fire entangled together, blasting out light, a battle of heat and sound and fury.

And then Meliora was charging onward, leaving them behind.

She stormed out the city gates.

Her firehorses pulled her across the bridge spanning the Te'ephim River, and there—there in the desert, upon the hill, rising from the land of Tofet, he shone. The bronze bull. Malok.

Her triumph.

Her firehorses raced uphill, and in the shadow of the bull, Meliora released the reins.

She slammed onto the dirt.

She glanced up, eyelids fluttering, and saw the sun reflecting in Malok's bronze hide, blinding her, searing, overflowing her vision, a field of endless white.

You are safe, Elory. Blood filled her mouth and the light filled her eyes. You are safe.

VALE

We flew in the darkness, in the cold wind, the dragons of darkness.

In his mind, Vale flew with them, with the old heroes of Requiem.

We hunted in the sky, tearing them down, burning their wings.

He could almost see those shadows and lights around him. He was fighting in the great war, the last war, the war of Requiem against the seraphim. With his comrades, with a million dragons roaring flame, he slew the enemy. He fought them hard—in stormy skies, in skies of fire, under the sun and in the shadows, in the tunnels underground. Killing the deities. Slaying the immortals. Watching his comrades die, his columns fall, willing to give his life in a great final stand.

We were their greatest enemy. We fell with glory.

Vale had been born in chains. He had never seen the great days of glory, the war of heroes.

But Ishtafel, this shining demon before him, had fought in that war. It was Ishtafel himself who had led the chariots into Requiem. Ishtafel whom Vale's ancestors had battled.

And now I fight with you, my forebears. Now I fight for your honor. To join you in the halls of afterlife, to sing forever in your mighty company. One last battle in our war.

With a roar, he blasted forth his flames, showering the Destroyer in his chariot. His claws scratched at the seraph's armor, and his jaws slammed against his shield. Arrows pierced his back, and seraphim swooped from above, but still Vale roared, still he fought.

To kill Ishtafel.

To redeem Requiem.

To die in fire.

And that fire roared—his own fire and the fire of the chariot. It burned him. The arrows cut him. Thousands of seraphim descended from the sky—as they had in the days of old, falling from their cursed realm above the stars, falling upon Requiem.

Their lances cut him.

Ishtafel rose in his chariot, charred, laughing, thrusting his own lance.

The blade cut Vale.

And he roared.

As the arrows and spears shattered his scales, he roared for old Requiem, for his sisters, for his slain mother, for his enslaved father, for a nation chained. For Requiem.

"For Requiem!" he howled, wings spread wide, blood falling, fire streaming. "Remember Requiem!"

And across the City of Kings, they answered his call.

They wore no armor. They bore no weapons. Their collars kept their magic at bay, but their souls still shone with starlight. They stood on the roofs, on the roads, on mountains, in deserts, across an empire, and they raised their hands to the sky, and they called out with him, their voices rising as one.

"Remember Requiem! Remember Requiem!"

The voices of slaves in chains. The voices of a proud nation, an ancient magic.

For Requiem.

His fire roared in a pyre, and Ishtafel's lance drove into his wing, and Vale fell.

He fell from the skies of the Requiem that had been.

He fell through skies of dragons.

He fell under the light of his stars, the Draco constellation, under the gaze of the dragon's eye. Issari's star. The lodestar of his people. Of his soul.

He slammed against the cobblestones, and the pain was too great. The pain drove his magic out of him, like a punch to the chest drives the air from the lungs.

The visions vanished.

His magic faded.

He lay on the ground, a human again.

Firelight blinded him, and the seraphim swooped down, cutting, kicking, shouting, laughing. Their chains swung around him. Their manacles snapped around his limbs. Shani herself snapped his collar around his neck again.

"Fight me!" Vale cried. "Kill me! Let me die in battle."

They hoisted him onto his feet, and Vale roared, tried to summon his magic, to become a dragon again, but he was collared once more, his magic lost.

"Hold him up," Ishtafel said, stepping off his chariot. "Bring him before me."

Vale's eyelids fluttered. Blood covered him. He struggled to remain conscious. Shani gripped his arm, digging her fingers into an open wound, manhandling him forward. Other seraphim goaded him with spears. They dragged him across the cobblestones, wrapped in chains, bringing him before the prince.

Ishtafel stared at him—more than a foot taller, twice as heavy, but no longer fair. His armor was charred, and welts rose across his bare arms—the burns of dragonfire. Blood seeped down his cheek from a claw's strike.

They are deities of light, immortals, godly creatures, Vale thought. But I hurt one. They can be hurt. They can be killed.

"Do you cower from battle?" Vale spat blood. "Will you not fight me, chariot to dragon, man to man?"

"Kneel before your master!" Shani shouted. She twisted Vale's arm and kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel.

Ishtafel stared down at him, ignoring his wound. "Dragon? Man?" He shook his head. "I see only a slave . . . and slaves are not worthy of death in battle. No. Yours will be a far more amusing death." A grin spread across the prince's face. "Load him onto the chariot! We will nail him onto the ziggurat's crest, and we will drink wine as the vultures drink his blood."

The seraphim roared with joy. They tugged Vale up. They shoved him into the chariot, kicking his back, and all he felt was the pain, and all he saw was the fire.

ELORY

Elory huddled in the shadows of the pleasure pit, fear coiling inside her like an icy serpent.

"You're not paying attention!" Tash glared at her. "I'm trying to teach you how to seduce a man, yet you're just staring at the ceiling. Eyes to me!"

Yet how could Elory focus on her lessons? As always, the pleasure pit was a den of shadows, candlelight, and the purple smoke that swirled from the hookahs of bubbling hintan. The other pleasure slaves lounged on rugs and piles of pillows, eyes glazed, some giggling, others barely able to do more than drool.

"Focus!" Tash said. Anger filled her brown eyes, but fear too. The slave—ruler of the pleasure pit—knew that if Elory failed to learn, failed to please Ishtafel, it would be both of them burned in the bull. "Now, show me what you've learned. Seduce me with your eyes alone. Flirt with those lashes!"

Elory tried, demurely lowering her gaze as Tash had taught her, then glancing up, blushing, and looking away with a shy smile. But her movements felt forced, fake, clumsy. How could she possibly focus on seducing Tash now when above her, upon the surface of the city, the chariots raced, and her fate was being decided?

Meliora could help but only if she won. If Ishtafel beat her . . .

Elory had the feeling that all the batting eyelashes, sweet caresses, and gentle kisses Tash had taught her would not save her from Ishtafel's wrath for long.

"You look like an alley cat who stumbled across a bulldog." Tash flicked Elory's forehead. "Think! Focus! We've only a few days left of training, and I'm not sending you up to the prince like this. I—"

The door slammed open across the pit.

Tash and Elory spun around. The other slaves raised their heads, blinked feebly, then flumped back onto their beds.

Two seraphim stepped into the smoky den—palace guards in breastplates, helmets hiding their faces, only their glowing eyes visible. They wore the Eye of Saraph upon their shields—the personal guards of the dynasty.

Elory felt the blood drain from her face.

She knew at once: the race was over.

"We seek the slave named Elory," one seraph said. "Who among you is Elory of Tofet?"

Elory stared, frozen in terror, unable to even breathe.

Tash, however, leaped to her feet, placed her hands on her hips, and glared at the seraphim. "It hasn't been a week yet!" She stomped forward, stepping over smoking slaves, and came to stand before the seraphim—two feet shorter, half their width, but raising her chin high. "I was given a week to train her. We're not ready. We—"

The seraph struck her with the shaft of his spear.

Tash cried out, lip bloody, and stumbled to the ground. She lay, staring up in horror and rage, blood dripping.

"If you don't shut your mouth, we bash it." The seraph spat. "Don't think because you were given dominion over this den of hintan that you're anything but a slave." The seraphim marched over the fallen Tash. "Elory! We seek Elory. Step forward, slave."

Elory rose to her feet. Her heart thumped in her chest, and her legs felt weak.

It's time. One of them won. One of them will claim me.

"Is the race over?" she whispered, stepping toward the seraphim. "I'm Elory. Who won?"

"Silence!" The seraph who had struck Tash reached toward her. "To me."

Sweat on her brow, Elory stepped closer, knelt, and tried to help the fallen Tash. Both guards, however, grabbed Elory's arms and yanked her forward. "Come with us."

She gave Tash a last look. The bloodied slave stared back, eyes huge with fear, and then the guards dragged Elory out of the pit.

As they climbed the stairs, Elory's mind raced as surely as the chariots. Who did these guards serve—Meliora or Ishtafel? Would she find haven with her half sister, a Princess of Saraph with the blood and kindness of Requiem within her, or was Elory doomed to suffer Ishtafel's cruelty—cruelty she might be unable to hold at bay even with her charms and seduction?

They emerged from the belly of the earth. They walked along a promenade, its northern side lined with columns, revealing the city. This was the place Elory had once walked at night, contemplating escape. Now sunlight fell through the portico, and the city roared.

Elory couldn't see far past the gardens, but she glimpsed people standing on roofs, and she heard a great cry from thousands. Chariots of fire flew above, and seraphim circled in the sky.

"Slay the beast!" people cried. "Slay the dragon!"

Before Elory could see or hear more, the guards dragged her away from the corridor and onto another staircase. They kept climbing through the ziggurat, floor after floor, the guards silent, and still the chants rose outside the window.

"Slay the dragon, slay the dragon!"

The thousands of voices cried as one.

They're killing one of us. Elory shuddered. Someone who rebelled. A dragon who stood against the masters. She stared out into the sky as they passed a window, staring north—north toward the land of Tofet, toward Requiem, a land of pain and a land of memory.

Ease his pain, stars of my forebears, she silently prayed. If a dragon is to die, let him die easy, and let his soul rise to your light.

Finally, when Elory was winded and her legs ached, they reached a golden doorway near the ziggurat's crest.

Over the past few days, Elory had been to both Ishtafel's and Meliora's chambers. She could not remember whose door this was, and her heart galloped, and sweat trickled down her back.

"Go kneel before your new owner!" the guards said.

The door opened.

Elory stepped into the chamber . . . and fell to her knees. She lowered her head. Her breath shook, and her tears flowed.

Thank the stars. A sob escaped her. Thank the stars of Requiem.

Before her in the chamber of gold and jewels stood Princess Meliora.

"You won," Elory whispered. "You won, my lady. You won the race."

Welts, blisters, and cuts covered Meliora. A bruise stretched across her cheek, and the tips of her hair were burnt. Her kalasiri was tattered and charred. Perhaps worst of all, one of her wings was cloven, bleeding, missing many of its feathers. But despite her sordid condition, the princess stepped toward Elory and pulled her into her arms.

For a long moment, they stood together in silence, holding each other. Elory pressed her cheek against Meliora's chest, closed her eyes, and for the first time in her life, she felt safe.

Finally Meliora spoke. "You're in danger here, Elory."

Still held in Meliora's arms, Elory raised her head and looked up into Meliora's eyes. "My lady? Will Ishtafel try to—"

"I will protect you from Ishtafel." Meliora's face hardened. "It's my mother whom I fear. She tried to have my last two slaves burned in the bronze bull. She forbade me from bringing more slaves here. If she finds you . . ." Meliora shook her head. "I'll have to find you work in the ziggurat. Far from Ishtafel and my mother. Somewhere where they won't see you, but where I can visit, help you, find you a good life. I'll do everything I can to protect you, Elory. I don't know how, but I will."

Elory pulled back from the embrace and looked toward the balcony. She took a few steps forward, moving between a giltwood table, a silver statue of a crane, and a vase full of dried rushes. She stood between porphyry columns and gazed out at the sunlit city.

Shayeen. The City of Kings. A glorious city of light and beauty, of temples that soared to the sky, lush gardens, obelisks tipped with platinum, soaring statues of the gods that rose as tall as the fallen columns of Requiem.

A city of chains.

A city of blood.

And on the horizon, across the river—Tofet. Six hundred thousand of her kind labored there in chains, digging the bitumen and forming bricks that had built this city.

"Slay the dragon!" the crowd of seraphim still chanted below.

They're going to kill one of us. Elory lowered her head, the hot wind billowing her cotton shift. They're slowly killing all of us.

"Elory?" Meliora asked.

Elory spun around to face the princess again. The sunlight shone upon the seraph's pale hair and the tips of her wings. And for the first time, Elory saw it. Meliora had the golden eyes of a seraph, the pupils shaped as sunbursts. She had the wings, the tall frame, the beauty, the golden-toned skin of a seraph. She looked so much like one of those cruel deities that at first Elory had doubted her father's story, had doubted that this immortal princess could share her blood.

But now, finally, Elory saw it.

It was the softness to Meliora's face—not the iciness in the faces of other seraphim. It was the kindness in her voice. It was the light in her eyes—not the searing light of the sun but a soft, good light. Starlight.

It's true, Elory thought, and fresh tears budded in her eyes. She's half Vir Requis. She's my father's daughter. My older sister. She's the Princess of Saraph, yet she's one of us.

"My lady." Elory's voice was barely a whisper. "I'm saved, but six hundred thousand Vir Requis cry out in pain, in chains. Across your empire, the people of Requiem cry for aid." Elory stepped closer, trembling now. "Our people, Meliora. They need you. They need their daughter."

Meliora's eyes narrowed. Pain, fear, and confusion seemed to battle within them. "I cannot save all weredragons." She lowered her head, the charred tips of her hair brushing her chest. "I'm not as powerful as you think, Elory. I've never even been to Tofet until a few days ago, and I cannot save the weredragons there, I—"

"Vir Requis." Elory stepped closer, hesitated, then dared to reach out and hold Meliora's hands. "The word weredragon is cruel to our ears. A slur. The name our enemies have used for millennia to demean us, to portray us as monsters. We are Vir Requis, Meliora. Children of Requiem. Our nation." Elory blinked, her eyes damp. "Our nation, Meliora. Yours and mine."

Meliora pulled her hands free from Elory's grasp and stepped back.

"I did not create the land of Tofet." Meliora's eyes narrowed further. "That is the work of Ishtafel and my mother. Not mine."

"Yet it is your land!" Elory stepped closer again, heart hammering, knees swaying. "Your people! Meliora . . ." Elory took a shuddering breath. This truth had to be told. This was a secret she could no longer bear. "My father told me, and when I first saw you, I didn't believe him. But I see it now. I see it in your eyes. You're one of us. Meliora . . ." She trembled. "We share the same father. You're half Vir Requis. You're my sister."

MELIORA

She stared down at her slave, tilted her head, and couldn't help it.

Meliora guffawed.

"What did you say?" she whispered.

Sunlight flowed between her columns, glittering on a room of splendor: silver vases, statues of gold and ivory, giltwood tables, platinum candelabra, priceless mosaics, jeweled incense holders, and all the comforts of an empire. Among this wealth stood Elory: a thin slave, shorter than Meliora's shoulders, collared and scarred.

A weredragon. A mere child.

"You're my sister," Elory repeated, reaching out to again grasp Meliora's hands. "Your father is Jaren, a slave from Tofet. He's my father too. He knew your mother when he worked in the palace thirty years ago, and—"

"Stop it!" Meliora shouted, surprised at herself. She should be laughing at this, shaking her head in wonder, not shouting. And yet the shock coursed through her, and she couldn't curb her anger. She hissed and balled her hands into fists. "You've gone too far, Elory. I've saved you from my brother, but you cannot say such things."

The tears flowed down Elory's cheeks, and the girl was shaking so wildly she looked ready to fall. "But it's true! I can see it in you. I can see the stars of Requiem in your eyes. Your father is not King Harash, Meliora. He's Jaren of Requiem, a man who once loved your mother, Queen Kalafi. You can help us! You can join us!" Elory sobbed, reaching out to her. "You can save us."

"I am not one of you!" Meliora shoved Elory's hands away, and now she too was trembling. "My father died. He died when I was a girl." The old pain, the fury rose inside her. "My mother killed my father. She poisoned him, murdered him! How dare you mock his memory?"

Elory blinked, shaking her head. "I . . . Meliora! You—"

"You will not call me that!" Meliora glared down at the girl. "You forget yourself. You will call me 'my lady' or 'Your Grace,' not my name. I saved you from Ishtafel, but I am not your friend, and I am certainly not your sister." Through her tears, Meliora laughed bitterly. "And I am not a weredragon."

Elory stared at her, eyes wide, cheeks pale. "A weredragon?" she whispered. "Is that what you still think of us? Of the blood that runs through your veins? You can become a dragon too. I know it. I know it must be true. You wear no collar, and the magic fills you." Elory stepped forward yet again, reaching out to hold Meliora's arms. "Reach for it! Reach for the magic, summon it, become a dragon. You'll know then that I speak truth, Meliora, that—"

Meliora struck her.

She had not meant it. She shocked herself. She had never struck anyone before, not in all her life. She gasped with the surprise, and her hand stung, and Elory fell to the floor, her cheek white and red. The slave gazed up at her, eyes wide, mouth open.

I'm sorry, Meliora thought. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

She did not understand. She could not! None of this made sense. Why was Elory saying these things? Why did fear grow in Meliora, fear that . . . that this was true?

No. No!

She closed her eyes, shaking.

My father was King Harash! My mother murdered him!

She dug her fingernails into her palm, eyes screwed shut.

I flew in shadows, flew over birch forests, flew toward marble columns, a great dragon, my comrades at my sides.

"No." Her breath shuddered in her lungs. "No. No! You're lying. You're lying!" Her eyes snapped open, and she stared at Elory. The slave still lay on the floor, staring up at her, blood beading on her lip. "You have to leave."

Elory rose to her feet, clutching her hurt cheek. "My lady." Her voice was soft, hurt, frightened. "You don't have to believe me. You only have to believe your own magic. You only have to try. Our people cry out to you. They cry out for a savior."

"I am not one of you." Meliora's rage seared her tears dry. "I cannot be your savior. I have no magic within me, no blood of dragons in my veins. I'm only a sheltered, innocent princess who learned that the world is falling around her, that she has no power over an empire her family rules. Now leave. Leave this place! Return to the land whence my brother grabbed you. Return to Tofet. My chariot will take you there."

When Elory reached toward her again, Meliora grabbed the slave's arms. She pulled her out onto the balcony. She all but shoved Elory into the chariot that waited there, and Meliora could barely see, barely stand straight. All the world was the light of stars, the flames of war, the light of the bronze bull, the darkness of her fear.

"You have to believe me!" Elory cried from the chariot.

"Go!" Meliora shouted. "Firehorses, take her to Tofet! Take her from here. Take her away. Never come back. Never."

The firehorses reared and took flight, wings of fire hiding the sun, and the chariot left the balcony. Elory cried out from within, reaching down to Meliora, calling her name. But the firehorses were swift, carrying the slave off the balcony and across the city.

"Remember Requiem!" Elory cried, reaching out to her as the chariot flew into the distance. "Use your magic, become a dragon. Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

"Slay the dragon!" chanted the seraphim below. "Slay the dragon!"

Meliora stood on the balcony, tears on her cheeks, shaking so badly she had to clutch the railing, staring at it all—the vanishing slave, the city of hatred, the land of chains beyond, and it was too much, too much. Lies. All her life—lies. All her life—crumbling around her.

Meliora turned away from the view. She tried to stumble back into her room, but she was shaking too badly. She fell to her knees, banging them on the floor, and her wings draped around her, feathers missing and charred. She lowered her head. She wept.

Lies. All her life—lies.

Remember Requiem!

Slay the dragon!

Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky.

She knew those words. That prayer. That holiest of prayers. It had filled her dreams since her childhood—her dreams of dragons. Her dreams of stars.

Meliora knelt on the balcony, burnt, broken, and so afraid, lost in a city of blood and gold and tar. And all around, the chants still rose, pounding against her ears, shaking the balcony, shaking her life.

"Slay the dragon! Slay the dragon!"

ELORY

"Meliora!" she shouted from the chariot of fire. "Remember Requiem! Use your magic!"

But the princess no longer stood on the balcony, and Elory could barely see from within the chariot. She stood here alone, the firehorses spreading wings, galloping across the sky, carrying her back to the chains, to the yoke, to the pit of bitumen, to the death of hope.

How had this happened? The fire burned her tears. Meliora was supposed to save her. To save all of them. Now her sister had banished her—back to a slow death in chains, for her, for myriads of her kind.

"Meliora," Elory whispered, reaching toward the ziggurat, not knowing if any light could still shine upon her life.

Thousands of seraphim flew across the city, gliding on the wind, still chanting for death. Elory saw that a great chariot of fire, larger than hers, was flying toward the ziggurat's crest, moving close to Meliora's balcony and then soaring higher. Hundreds of seraphim flew around this chariot, chanting, singing, blowing horns. Thousands more stood in the city below or soared to behold the flaming carriage. The banners of the Thirteenth Dynasty unfurled and caught the wind.

When the distant chariot reached the ziggurat's crest, two figures emerged.

Elory had not thought her life could shatter further, but as she stared, whatever remained of this world collapsed around her.

Wreathed in light, his armor and hair woven of purest gold, Ishtafel emerged from the chariot, carrying a beaten, chained slave.

Vale.

My brother.

Elory screamed.

"Stop!" she cried to the firehorses dragging her chariot. "Take us back. Turn around! Take us back! Please!"

Yet the firehorses kept flying away from the ziggurat, and Elory screamed again. Something tore in her throat. She tasted blood. Her eyes burned. She reached out to the ziggurat, crying his name.

"Vale! Vale!"

She watched, her soul ripping apart, as Ishtafel slammed Vale against the platinum facade of the ziggurat, pinning him against the engraved eye within a sunburst.

She watched, barely hearing her own scream, hearing only the blood in her ears, as Ishtafel drew a hammer and nails, as the seraph laughed, as he swung the hammer, nailing Vale's hands into the ziggurat.

She watched, weeping, screaming, as Ishtafel swung his hammer again, nailing Vale's feet into the platinum.

The Prince of Saraph flew backward, his swan wings spread wide, laughing, a gilded god, triumphant. Before him, upon the ziggurat's crest, Vale hung, nailed into the platinum, arms spread wide, bleeding, still alive.

"Requiem!" Vale managed to cry. "Remember Requiem!"

And then his voice faded . . . drowning under the roar of the city, the chanting of seraphim, the horns of victory, and Elory's own screams.

"Vale! Vale!"

The firehorses kept dragging her chariot away, and she could only stare, weeping, reaching out to him, as the ziggurat grew more distant behind her.

Elory tried to shift into a dragon. She summoned all her magic, and her skin began to harden into scales, her fingernails to grow into claws. But the collar—the damn collar—shoved her back into human form. She tried again. For the first time in her life, actual scales appeared on her body—they were lavender, she saw, lavender scales like the ancient Vir Requis heroine Piri, the Healer who had fought the nephilim—but the collar again dug into her neck, cutting her skin, constricting her. She became a human again, a mere slave trapped in a chariot.

She wanted to jump off. To fall to the city below. To die. To never see it again. To never hear her brother's tortured cry. To forget. To die. To die. She wept.

The chariot kept racing across the sky, taking her away from her brother, away from her sister, away from the city, away from hope, away from light, away from the blood and screams, away into despair.

Meliora will not help me, Elory thought, turning northward. She saw it ahead: the huts, quarries, and tar pits of Tofet. But one man still can. Our father.

ISHTAFEL

"Behold the blood of Requiem!" His voice rang across the sky. "Behold the wretchedness of the reptile!"

Ishtafel hovered in the sky, a god of light, wings wide. Arms spread out, Vale hung upon the ziggurat's crest, a dying wretch.

Master and slave. Ishtafel grinned, sucking in air between his teeth. God and worm.

"So shall happen to any who strike a seraph!" Ishtafel cried to the city. "Any slave who defies a master will hang upon the Eye of Saraph, and the vultures will eat his flesh."

The crowd of seraphim roared across the city, cheering, worshiping him, praising his name. Ishtafel rose higher, a god among gods, and in his mind he was flying in Requiem again, slaying the beasts, shattering their halls, burning their forests. He had wanted to find a new enemy, and here he found one—the slaves, the miserable descendants of those warriors he had once crushed.

I will make you suffer, weredragons. Ishtafel licked his lips and gazed at Tofet on the horizon. The empire will run red with your blood. The cries of your anguished souls, breaking under the yoke, will rise to Edinnu itself.

As he looked down at the city, he saw them staring. Thousands of them. Slaves. The house slaves of the seraphim—cooks, gardeners, tutors, pleasurers. Thousands of reptiles in human forms, collared, staring at him. Silent. Among them rose the towering statue of Reehan, gilded and beautiful in the sunlight—his precious beloved whom the reptiles had slain. They would pay for that sin, now and every generation.

"Kneel!" Ishtafel shouted to the city. "Kneel before your god. Kneel, slaves!"

Yet across the city, they still stood. Still stared.

One among them raised his hand, and his voice rang across the city. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky." The man stood on a roof, legs chained, hoarse voice rolling across the city. "Remember Requiem!"

Ishtafel's grin stretched his cheeks. "Yes." His voice was too soft for any to hear. "Remember Requiem. I want you to remember, slaves. To remember how I broke your kingdom."

He raised his lance. He tossed it. The spear shot through the sky, a beam of light, streaming down toward the city, and pierced the slave below. The creature fell, silenced.

"Make them kneel!" he cried. "Seraphim, make them all kneel."

He held his arms out wide, and the seraphim charged. Once more, they flew to battle. Once more, fire and light filled the sky.

"Remember Requiem!" a slave called, even as the wrath of Saraph descended upon them.

"Requiem!" cried another. "May our wings forever find your sky."

Their voices rose together across the city. "Requiem! Requiem!"

With flailing whips, with thrusting spears, the seraphim descended upon them. Blades drove into flesh. Whips tore into skin. The blood of the vermin splattered the city.

"Kneel!" Ishtafel cried. "Kneel before your gods!"

They bled. They cried out in anguish. And across the city, they knelt before him, the living among the dead. Once more, vanquished. Once more, worshiping him.

Good, he thought. That is what they are. Nothing but worshippers. Nothing but his slaves.

A voice spoke behind him, hoarse, cracking.

"A fire has been kindled. Starlight shines. Requiem will rise."

Ishtafel turned in the sky. His smile grew. "Still alive, are we?"

Vale hung upon the ziggurat's crest, a thousand feet above the city, his hands and legs nailed into the platinum. His blood dripped from many wounds, but he fixed his eyes on Ishtafel.

"Something has started here which you cannot stop," Vale said, the words bringing blood to his mouth.

"Good." Ishtafel nodded. "The city was getting a little dull."

He drew a dagger from his belt. He flew closer to Vale and scraped the blade across the slave's side. Vale screamed.

"Call out louder!" Ishtafel said. "Call so the vultures will hear. Ah! There they are. Look! They've come to dine."

Gazing into the sky, Ishtafel laughed and opened his arms, welcoming them down. The vultures circled above once more, then swooped to feast.

MELIORA

The chanting and screaming rose from outside, and Meliora covered her ears, wanting to silence the city, the screams, the songs, the endless din that would not cease its roar.

Lies. Lies.

Elory's words thrummed through her. Meliora stumbled across her chamber, fell onto her bed, covered her head with a pillow. She wanted to silence it all. The shouts and songs of seraphim outside, the screaming, the endless voices in her mind, the endless memories.

Memories not her own.

Memories of ancient lives.

Memories of dragons.

"No. No!"

She covered her ears, shoved her face against the bed, but even if she could silence the sounds, she could not silence her thoughts.

You are one of us, Meliora! You can become a dragon.

"I am a seraph!" she shouted into her bed. "I am a Princess of Saraph!"

You are a dragon.

Her fists shook.

I am the wind. I am fire. I am dragonfire.

"Remember Requiem!" the voices chanted outside . . . then fell silent.

Meliora rose from her bed.

She walked back onto her balcony.

She stared outside at the city and cried out in horror.

Seraphim were storming across the sky, swooping to the city, killing slaves. Blood dripped onto the balcony, and Meliora looked up to see a slave nailed to the ziggurat above her, moaning, barely alive. The city screamed in anguish, and the seraphim cheered, and above the carnage flew Ishtafel, laughing, his arms spread wide.

No.

Meliora's head spun.

Gods, no.

She let out a roar, wings spread out.

"No!"

She had not thought herself capable of more fear, more shock. She had not thought the world could tear any wider. Yet this seemed a storm, a shattering, a tragedy worse than anything Meliora had experienced. She howled with her fury, howled for the blood of Requiem, for the cruel light of Saraph, for a nation tearing apart, and Meliora flew.

She soared through the sky, a seraph of light, crying out her fury.

She soared toward the sun, a dragon roaring in rage, a dragon blowing fire.

Seraphim turned toward her, gasping, crying out in fear.

Meliora roared and blasted her flames.

Dragonfire.

Dragonfire screamed, spinning, crackling, gushing forth, slamming into seraphim, burning them down, and Meliora roared, and she wept, and her heart thrashed.

I am the wind.

I am fire.

I am dragonfire.

She spread her wings wide, wider than they had ever spread. She reached out her claws. Her tail lashed and her scales clattered, and she was dreaming, had to be dreaming, this couldn't be real, this was a dream, a dream, a lie, a dream . . .

"Requiem rises!" the slaves cried below. "Meliora the Merciful! Meliora of Requiem flies!"

Her tears fell, and Meliora wheeled in the sky, back toward the ziggurat, and she saw herself reflected in the platinum facade.

I am dragonfire.

She flew as a dragon, long and slender, a dragon with colors of starlight and sunlight, silver tipped with gold. Her scales were small and round like pearls, and long white feathers grew from her wings, from her tail, along her back like a mane. A halo still shone above her head. A great creature of light, half reptile, half bird, a dragon like a swan, white and long, eyes golden, roaring white fire.

I am a dragon of Requiem.

Her tears fell as jewels, and her fire stormed forth.

It was true. She beat her wings, a dragon in the wind. Elory was speaking truth.

"For Requiem!" Meliora cried out, her voice deep, roaring across the sky.

And above she saw him, swooping down, a god of light in a chariot of fire.

Her brother.

"You too will be vulture food, dragon!" Ishtafel cried. "You too will feed the birds!"

She growled, flying up toward him. "You will not kill him, brother. And you will not kill me."

In his chariot of fire, he hesitated. His eyes widened. "Meliora?"

She blew her white fire.

He raised his shield, and the flames engulfed it, screaming, showering around him, exploding like a sun.

With a roar, with showering flame, with smoke, with blood, with flaring light, dragon and chariot slammed together.

I am dragonfire.

Meliora did not know if this was real or a dream. She did not know how this could be, how she could be flying as a dragon, how she could have carried the blood of Requiem within her for so long. But she knew that she had to fight him. Had to kill him. Had to stop her beloved, horrible brother. And so she roared, and she fought him—fought him like the dragons of old—lashing her claws, snapping her jaws, calling out.

"Requiem! Requiem!" She roared out in her rage. "I won't let you hurt them, Ishtafel. I won't let you hurt another soul. It ends now."

Her claws grabbed his shield, trying to yank it free. Her tail lashed, slamming into his chariot. Her wings spread out, burning, and she felt like a phoenix, like a creature woven of living flame, of starlight and firelight.

He rose in his chariot, burnt, his armor dented, and stared at her. Their eyes met. She saw her face reflected in his golden eyes: the head of a white dragon, a creature risen from myth. And she saw the shock in his eyes, the understanding, the realization.

"It is you, Meliora." He shook his head in disbelief, then narrowed his eyes and raised his lance. "Of course. Of course. Mother poisoning Father, the secrets in her eyes, the weakness in your heart . . ." He sucked in air and snarled. "Of course."

With a roar, he thrust his lance.

The blade crashed into Meliora's shoulder, cracked her scales, and bit into her flesh.

Ishtafel loomed above her, leaning from his chariot of fire, driving the blade deeper.

"So you will die with them, sweet Meliora." He grinned—a maniacal grin, showing nearly all his teeth. "Instead of marrying you, I will smite you upon the city you profane."

He tugged the lance free and prepared to thrust again. Meliora screamed and blasted her fire.

Ishtafel's chariot rose higher, its firehorses rearing, screaming like storms. Meliora flew higher, dragonfire showering forth, claws lashing.

His chariot swooped, and his lance slammed into her again, digging into the same wound.

Meliora roared with pain.

Something shattered inside her.

Her magic spilled out like her blood, a mist of starlight.

She fell through the sky, a seraph again, swan wings beating uselessly. She spun. She tumbled. The chariot dived after her, Ishtafel sneering within, aiming his lance.

I am dragonfire.

She summoned the magic again—the ancient magic of Requiem, forever a part of her, hidden but now hers to wield. She soared, a dragon again, and slammed into him.

Her claws lashed in a fury. Her jaws snapped. Her fire sputtered.

I have to stop him. I have to destroy him, to . . . to kill him. Her tears and blood mingled as she fought. For Elory, for poor Elory whom I banished, my sister. For the slave nailed into the ziggurat behind me. For all the slaves across this land. For a free people. For the Vir Requis.

She lashed her claws, tearing into Ishtafel's breastplate, scattering the gilt, shattering the steel, cutting his skin, shedding his blood, the ichor of Saraph, burning her paw.

He's an immortal god, but I am a dragon of Requiem.

He shouted, rose in his chariot, and drew a sword—a long, curved blade, a shard of sunlight.

He thrust the blade, driving it into her chest.

Meliora screamed silently.

Her white fire rose, becoming a pillar of light. Her head rolled back. Her breath died.

She fell.

She fell as a dragon, pierced with his light.

She fell as a woman, her wings shedding feathers.

She fell as Meliora, as a princess of seraphim, as a daughter of Requiem, as a sister. A sister.

Forgive me, Elory. Forgive me.

Fire shone above her, and the sun blinded her, and the roar of the crowd flowed across her. She crashed through stone and wood and light and darkness.

JAREN

He walked through the city of Shayeen, chains around his feet, a collar around his neck, his head held high.

Coated in tar and dust, his back whipped, his frame frail, he walked with squared shoulders. He carried a staff of twisting wood, but his back was straight. He stared ahead, walking unafraid even through the land of the masters, for even in the searing sunlight of Saraph, he walked upon a path of starlight.

"The stars of Requiem will guide our way, daughter," he said to Elory. "Fear not and stray not from my side. Issari's Star shines upon us."

Elory walked at his side, trembling, afraid, but still walking with her head held high. No chains hobbled her feet. Several days' growth of hair covered her head, and her eyes shone with tears. Together, side by side, father and daughter walked along the boulevard between the statues of old gods.

"They will stop us." Elory glanced around nervously, fists clenching and unclenching. "They will slay us."

Jaren kept walking, chin raised, staff tapping, chains jangling. "We walk upon starlight. They will not stop us."

Indeed, it seemed that barely any of the seraphim noticed them. The golden masters flew above, heading toward the ziggurat in the distance. Other slaves bustled all around, some chanting for Requiem upon roofs, others kneeling in the dust, others dead, seraph arrows in their chests. Shayeen spun around them, flaring with fire, with blood, with starlight.

Ahead, before the ziggurat, a great, beautiful creature fell from the sky. Her scales gleamed like pearls and gold, and her wings spread out, white as swan feathers, a being halfway between dragon and swan. As she fell, she became a woman, a seraph with broken wings, tumbling down and vanishing in light.

"Meliora!" Elory said, gasping. "Meliora fell!"

Jaren kept walking, never faltering, never removing his gaze from the ziggurat ahead. "And Vale still lives upon the Eye."

Ahead he saw his son. Nailed to the great engraving of the Eye of Saraph, an eye within a sunburst, a thousand feet above the city. Barely visible from here. A speck of life. Flickering. Dying.

My son.

Seraphim streamed above them. Slaves roared on the streets and roofs, crying out to Meliora, to the "Princess-Slave!" The city bustled, flooded with death and hope, and soon others joined Jaren. A young boy, an arrow in his shoulder. A girl carrying her sister. A mother with her babe. An old man and woman. Collared. Beaten. Cut. Slaves.

A dozen slaves marched behind him. Then a hundred. Then a thousand marching together—ankles hobbled, backs whipped, heads shaved. The people of Requiem.

"Kneel, slaves!" cried a seraph, swooping toward him. He thrust his lance, spearing a slave child.

"Turn back, worms!" shouted another seraph and fired an arrow. The missile slammed into a woman. She clutched her chest and fell.

Jaren kept walking. Elory walked at his side. The thousands walked behind them.

"Kneel, slaves! Turn back."

More arrows flew. More spears thrust. More slaves fell.

Jaren kept walking, staff held before him, and more slaves joined them, emerging from homes and alleyways, forming a great throng. They wore only rags, but they carried shields of starlight.

"Remember Requiem!" cried one man.

"Remember Requiem!" rose the voices across the crowd.

They walked until they reached the base of the ziggurat, and there Jaren stopped and raised his staff. He stared up to the building's crest. To Vale. He could barely see his son from the distance. He did not know if Vale still lived. But he believed. He thought he heard his son call out, his voice flowing on the wind. Calling him. Calling his father.

Jaren held his staff high. "Kalafi! Queen Kalafi, hear me!"

The seraphim flowed down toward him in flaming chariots, arrows firing. Ishtafel led the charge, roaring like a wild, rabid demon of sunfire.

Be with me, stars of Requiem.

Jaren inhaled deeply, raised his staff, and thought of the Draco constellation, the great dragon in the sky, the protector of Requiem. The gods of a cruel world flew toward him, but he worshipped an older god. A god of distant lands. A god of dragons.

Light.

Starlight flared out from his staff, the Shield of Requiem. The fire of the seraphim blasted against it, scattering. Their arrows flew aside. The chariots tumbled backward, and the starlight spread out in a great dome, protecting the children of Requiem within its glow.

"Kalafi!" Jaren shouted, voice booming now. "Queen Kalafi, come speak to me, to Jaren Aeternum of Requiem. Come speak or the truth of Saraph and Requiem will spill forth like my light!"

The city seemed to freeze. Jaren stood on the road, staring up at the ziggurat, at his dying son, at the center of Saraph's power, at the palace where he had loved a queen, where his daughter had been born, where a son would live or where the truth of a daughter would roll across an empire. Everyone stared now—seraphim, slaves, all listening, all waiting to hear his words.

"The empire will hear me speak!" Jaren cried. "Seraphim and slaves will hear of Meliora, will hear of you, Kalafi! Free my son. Free Vale of Requiem! Free him or all will hear of a night long ago."

Of a young slave, Jaren added silently. A young man who had served a queen. A queen who had slain her husband, who had loved the young man, who had betrayed her dynasty, who held a secret . . . a secret that could save a life.

And onto the balcony she came, clad in muslin and diamonds, a crown on her head, fear in her eyes. Queen Kalafi, Great in Graces. Mother of his child.

She stood in the distance, so far he could barely see her, but he gazed upon her with the light of his stars. He stared into her eyes.

"Enough!" Jaren said. "Free him. Free my son!"

Free him or the empire will know who fathered your daughter, Jaren added silently. And he knew she could hear those words too. She stood in a great palace, a queen of gold and plenty, beautiful and immortal. He stood below on bloody earth, a slave in chains, ragged and aging. Across the distance, they stared into each other's eyes.

Thirty years ago, when I was young and fair, a servant in your palace, you took me into your bed. I gave you a daughter. Give me back my son.

Kalafi nodded.

She spoke two words—words for her servants, words he could hear even down here.

"Free him."

As the city watched, seraphim flew toward Vale. He screamed as they tugged the nails from his hands and feet . . . then fell silent. On the wings of seraphim, he glided down toward the ground, and the cruel masters of light laid Jaren's son at his feet.

"Oh, Vale," Elory whispered. She knelt by her brother and placed her hand on his cheek.

The other slaves gathered around, crying out in dismay, and seraphim laughed and shouted. Jaren knelt too before his son—the poor, ravaged thing they had turned his son into.

Vale lay shuddering, struggling for breath, his lifeblood leaking away, cut a thousand times. Dying. Ashen. Barely any life still in him.

"Vale!" Elory cried, trying to staunch his wounds. "Oh sweet Vale."

Beaten, broken, bleeding, Vale opened his mouth. He tried to speak, but only hoarse words left him. His teeth had been bashed in, his eye socket cracked, and a cut on his side exposed his organs. Vultures had pecked at his flesh, ripping bits off, tugging bits out. Elory wept, closed her eyes, and held Vale's ravaged hands.

Jaren looked up at the sky. The sun of this cruel southern empire beat down, white and blinding. But that sunlight was only a curtain, only a cage. Beyond it, far beyond the distance, shone the stars. The stars of Requiem were not visible from this land, but Jaren knew they were up there, knew they could hear him, blessed him.

"Stars of Requiem," Jaren prayed, staring up into the light, past the light, into darkness, to the gods of his forebears. "Shine upon him, Draco constellation. Shine your light. Heal your son."

Jaren thought that he could see them above, even past the sky of seraphim: the halls of Requiem, woven of starlight, twins to the fallen marble halls in a burnt forest. And they were waiting there: the heroes of Requiem, great kings and queens, warriors and poets, his own wife. Waiting for Vale, waiting to welcome him into their embrace.

"Now is not his time," Jaren whispered to them. "Let him live, stars of Requiem, souls of the Vir Requis. Heal his body. Let him live longer under the sun."

It seemed to Jaren as he stared skyward, as Elory wept, that he heard the song of harps from above, that he heard the souls of the fallen.

Let him rest, they said. Let him no longer suffer in chains.

Jaren shook his head. "He still has work upon this world. He still must walk at my side. He will not rest while his people languish. Let my son live. Let him fight."

The Draco constellation shone above, stars forming a great dragon with a gleaming eye.

Strands of starlight fell like rain.

The tears of Requiem shone upon the world.

The light of those who had come before. The light of stars. The light of dragons. It fell in curtains, gleaming, healing in the cruel sunlight.

"Breathe, Vale!" Elory shouted, the light cascading across her. She looked toward Jaren, eyes wet, holding her brother in her arms. "He's not breathing!"

The light kept falling, a silver rain, breaking apart, scattering, lifting Vale like a mother lifting a lifeless child. He hovered before them, limp, broken, wrapped in strands of starlight. The song of harps played in the wind, the song of Requiem.

You will always find our sky.

"Heal him, stars," Jaren whispered. "Heal my son so that he might walk your path upon the world."

As he stared at the hovering body of his son, it seemed to Jaren that he saw a figure all in white, woven of starlight. A young woman, angelic, clad in flowing robes, her braid hanging across her shoulder. Her eyes shone like the stars, gazing down upon Vale, and she laid her hands upon him. When Jaren looked up, back to the stars, he saw that the dragon's eye—Issari's Star—had gone dark, had descended to this world.

Jaren fell to his knees before the woman of light.

"Issari," he whispered. "Princess Issari, Priestess of Starlight, Eye of the Dragon. Blessed be your name, Issari Seran of Requiem."

Her hands rested upon Vale, rivulets of light spreading from them, wrapping around the broken body, mending, healing. Issari—among the greatest heroines of Requiem's first days, a founder of the nation, a great healer and priestess—raised her eyes from her task and stared at Jaren.

And then she was gone.

The light faded.

The song died.

Once more, the cruel sunlight of Saraph slammed down against the cobblestones.

Vale lay on the ground, wrapped in Elory's arms. Blood still coated him. A collar still encircled his neck. His clothes were still torn.

"He's alive," Elory whispered, sobbing, pulling him close against her. "Vale, Vale. Sweet brother."

His chest rose and fell with breath, and Jaren knelt and wiped the blood away, revealing healed flesh. Only scars remained upon his side, his hands, his legs, old white wounds, washed away.

Thank you, Issari, healer of Requiem.

Then Jaren could retain his composure no more. His body shook with sobs, and he pulled his son close, squeezing him, never wanting to let go. Vale's eyes fluttered open, and he smiled softly and held his father and sister.

The other slaves gathered around, gazing with wide eyes. Men, women, and children who had defied the seraphim, who had endured whip and spear, refusing to kneel before Ishtafel—now they knelt before Jaren and his family. Now they bowed their heads.

"A miracle," one old man whispered, back scarred from decades of servitude.

"The stars shine again!" said a young man, raising chained arms.

Elory nodded, staring skyward, the Draco constellation reflected in her eyes. "We are not forgotten."

MELIORA

"She fell from the sky."

"Fell like a star of Requiem."

"She fell like a dragon! A dragon all in silver and gold, of feathers and scales, of sunlight and starlight."

Meliora blinked. The world was fuzzy, the light like feathers, scattering around her, mottled with dust. She coughed, and pain raced across her. Everything hurt—her belly, her chest, her spine, her eyes, her head. She blinked again, struggling to bring the world into focus.

She lay in an alleyway between weedy brick walls. Laundry hung on strings above, and an alley cat hissed. Graffito sprawled across one wall, showing a crowned seraph—presumably Ishtafel—with a baby dragon chomping on his backside. Two hundred yards away, the alley opened up onto the main boulevard; a crowd marched there, crying out in many voices.

"She's awake!" rose one of the voices, one near Meliora. A shadow fell across her.

"I know she's awake. Step back, give her some room."

Meliora pushed herself onto her elbows and her eyes widened. She gasped.

"Kira!" she said. "Talana!"

Her two old slaves, saved from the bull and banished into Tofet, smiled at her.

No, not slaves, never again, Meliora thought. Vir Requis. My people.

The memories flooded her, as powerful as a storm. Elory telling her the truth. Leaping off her balcony. Flying as a dragon—a real dragon of Requiem.

My father is Vir Requis. Meliora trembled wildly. The blood of dragons flows through me. I'm not the king's daughter.

The shock flowed through her, spinning her head, and yet . . . and yet somehow Meliora had always known. Her short stature—only six feet tall, shorter than almost all other seraphim of the courts. Her childhood dreams of dragons. Her longing gazes at the stars at night. Her kinship with her slaves. Her people.

"You are my people," she whispered.

She winced. Every word shot pain through her. She looked down at her body, and she saw bandaged wounds, scratches, burn marks.

"We caught you when you fell," Kira said, dark eyes shining. "You almost died. You flew as a dragon, Meliora! How did you do that? A real dragon like the Vir Requis of old."

Talana—pale of skin, her stubbly hair red—shook her head. "Not like a Vir Requis. We have wings like leather. She had feathery wings and feathers on her back instead of spikes. And she still had a halo, even as a dragon."

Kira—darker than her companion, her skin olive and her stubbly hair black—groaned. "You've never even seen a real dragon."

"I have!" Talana stamped her feet. "They fly all the time over construction sites, and I watch them." She sighed wistfully and tugged at her collar. "I wish I could become a dragon someday. I can feel the magic inside me, itching."

"That's the cricket you ate yesterday." Kira glowered at her friend. "I told you not to eat it."

"Crickets are good!" Talana pouted. "If you stick 'em on a stick and fry 'em, they—"

Meliora rose to feet, wobbly. "Your collars," she whispered. "Your collars! You can become dragons without them."

The two young women, collared and hobbled, stared at their former mistress, lost for words. Meliora sucked in a breath and clutched her spinning head.

I have to remove their collars. I have to find the Keeper's Key.

Meliora had to lean against the alley's wall. She had seen the key before—a long, crimson key engraved with golden runes. It was imbued with ancient magic, tying it to the curse of the collars. It fit into no padlock. At a mere touch, its old, dark power let it break the curse upon the collars, then cast it again. For five hundred years, her family had safeguarded this key—the key to their power.

"The Keeper's Key," Meliora whispered. "A way to remove the collars. I have to find it."

Kira and Talana glanced at each other, then back at Meliora.

"But . . . my lady." Kira shuddered. "They say that only the highest ranking seraphim ever carry the key."

Talana nodded. "They say only one Keeper's Key even exists! That it's only carried by—"

"—the royal family," Meliora whispered.

She spread her seraph wings.

She flew.

Leaving her slaves—no, not her slaves, her fellow Vir Requis—Meliora soared into the sky and flew above the City of Kings. Many slaves were gathered around the ziggurat, and many seraphim flew above. Blood stained the steeple of the ziggurat, a red pupil in the great Eye of Saraph, but the slave who had been nailed there was gone.

And there, on the balcony beneath the bloodstain, she stood—Queen Kalafi.

Meliora flew toward her.

Her lips peeled back, her eyes narrowed, and her hands balled into fists.

The woman who lied to me. Meliora snarled. The woman who blindfolded me, who kept me in a darkness of gilt and gemstones. The woman who raised me to spit upon the people whose blood flows through me, whose blood she spills upon our fair city.

Kalafi stood in fineries, resplendent—her golden hair flowing and lustrous, her tiara gleaming, her kalasiri strewn with thousands of diamonds. Wings spread wide, feathers charred, blood staining her bandages, Meliora landed before the queen. They stood facing each other—an ancient seraph of immortal beauty, and a young daughter with dragon blood in her veins, only just awakened to the world.

"Daughter," Kalafi said, reaching out to her.

Meliora took a step back. "Mother."

"Meliora," Kalafi whispered, reaching to her again.

Again Meliora stepped away. The city spun below her, and the chanting pounded against her skull. She stepped into her mother's chamber, leaving the balcony. The heated pool steamed before her, and the splendor of the chamber glittered: columns of silver and gold, jeweled vases, statues of precious metals, artifacts from distant lands, priceless rugs, murals, mosaics. Everywhere Meliora looked: the luxury of an empire.

Meliora thought back to the land of Tofet, just across the river. A nightmare. A hellish landscape of cracked earth, pits of steaming tar, of slaves crawling, limping, suffering under the yoke and the whips of their masters, crying out. Slaves laboring to carve bricks for palaces such as this one. To dig up the bitumen that held those bricks together, that glued jewels to gold and stones onto mosaics, that waterproofed the ships that brought these treasures from distant lands. Black tar and the red blood of slaves—the fuel of the empire, of the dynasty Meliora had been born into, the dynasty that was a lie.

"They're my people," she whispered to her mother. "The slaves. The slaves in chains. The slaves whipped. The slaves burned in the bronze bull. My people. My blood. My father."

Kalafi stepped toward her, wincing, still reaching out to her. "My daughter—"

"Don't touch me!" Meliora shoved the queen's hands away. "Don't call me that."

Pain twisted Kalafi's face. "Meliora, all that I did, I did to protect you. To shelter you from the cruelty of the world, from—"

"From the truth!" Meliora shouted, and now she could not curb her tears. "You lied to me!"

"To protect you!" Kalafi swept her hand across the chamber. "To raise you like this—in comfort, in wealth. Not . . . not out there!" The queen barked a bitter laugh. "Would you have preferred to grow up in chains, collared, whipped, suffering in the dust like a slave?"

"I am a slave!" Meliora shouted, tears flowing. "All my life I've been a slave, kept in a gilded cage, collared with necklaces of gold, hobbled by ignorance. All while my family suffered. While my sister carried a yoke until her shoulders twisted. While my father—my true father—screamed under the lash. While hundreds of thousands of my people cried out in anguish, begging for mercy that would never come. While your son—your own son!—slew them for his sport. Would I have chosen chains? I would have abolished the chains! I would have smashed the cruel god Malok, and I would have sent the Vir Requis to their homeland, far from this accursed city, this accursed empire, this accursed family—"

Her voice died with a strangled cough as Kalafi gripped her throat. The queen sneered, tightening the grip, crushing Meliora's windpipe.

"You will not speak disparagingly of this family—this family that raised you." Kalafi's eyes burned. "I've given you everything, Meliora. The life of a princess."

"I would rather have the life of a slave." Meliora wrenched off Kalafi's hands and lifted a jug off a table, its porcelain painted with hunters and pheasants. "I would choose chains over wealth." She slammed the jug down; it shattered. She lifted an ostrich egg inlaid with jewels and golden wires. "I would choose the whip over jewels." She shattered the artifact and grabbed a jewelry box. "I would choose the collar over necklaces of gems." She tossed the jewelry box to the balcony; it shattered against the floor, its jewels spilling toward the city below. She fell to her knees, and she howled with her pain. "You lied to me!"

Kalafi stared down at her, calm now.

"Are you done having a tantrum?" the queen said. "Do you see why I withheld the truth from you, Meliora? Because you're still a child. Still only a pampered child."

"Yes." Meliora nodded and rose to her feet. She stared into her mother's eyes—a mother taller, fairer, endlessly older, a pure seraph, a pure being like Meliora would never be. "I'm a child. Nothing but a child. You made me this way. Ishtafel was my age when he conquered Requiem. Yet you kept me in a state of infancy, Mother. Deceived. Pampered. Crippled by fineries. But it ends now; that life is over. Elory came into my life—my sister!—and she started something, Mother. Something you cannot stop." She took a deep, shuddering breath and raised her chin. "The slaves will be freed. You will give me the key to their collars. My brother stole them from Requiem, but I will lead them home."

Her mother stared at her silently for long moments, face blank.

Finally the queen spoke in a whisper, "I should have killed you." She gave her head the slightest of shakes. "So many times I wanted to, was going to. When you were in my belly, a mixed child, I was going to see the women in the temples, to drink their poison and flush you from my body. When you were a little girl, when I could see your weakness, your short stature, your eyes that gazed upon your slaves as pets rather than livestock, I wanted to drown you in my pool, to hold your little body—so small, so weak!—under the water until you stopped flailing. When you stepped into the bronze bull, I wanted to let you burn, to hear you scream; if not for the embarrassment it would have caused me, perhaps I would have. Just last night, I stood above your bed as you slept, a dagger in my hand . . . and oh, sweetest daughter." She reached out to caress Meliora's cheek. "I wanted it so badly. More than I wanted anything, I wanted you dead."

Meliora stared at her mother in horror, seeing a different person, not the queen she had known, not the mother she had loved . . . but the bane of Requiem. A tyrant. A monster.

"Who are you?" Meliora whispered.

Kalafi smiled thinly. "Something you will never be. Pure."

Lies. All my life—lies.

Meliora closed her eyes, and she thought of the years idled away, twenty-seven years blind. Almost three decades wrapped in silk and gold, a princess in a tower. And she thought of her dreams. Of wings in the night, of marble columns rising from a birch forest, of the stars—a million stars in a different sky, brilliant in the night, and among them a great celestial dragon. She flew with her kind. With Elory. And Kira and Talana. With millions of other dragons. Free in Requiem.

"Requiem," Meliora whispered, tears on her lips. "May our wings forever find your sky." She opened her eyes and stared at her mother through the veil of her grief and her joy. "Yours is the purity of poison, the purity of the finest steel blade thrust into an enemy's back. But I am a child of starlight. I am a child of Requiem. I am a dragon."

And in this chamber of wealth, this heart of an empire, Meliora summoned her ancient magic.

Starlight spun around her, glowing, spreading out, finally gathering into scales as small and bright as pearls, in claws like alabaster, in great wings of white feathers, larger than her seraph wings. She stood before her mother, a dragon—not a dragon like the others, a creature of spikes and wide scales, but a dragon nonetheless. A dragon of Requiem.

"This is not purity," Meliora said to the queen, her voice flowing through her long neck and jaws. "But this is truth. This is righteousness. You will open the slaves' collars, Mother . . . or all the empire will see that your daughter stands among them."

Kalafi screamed—a wordless, beastly cry of pain. She drew a secret dagger from her dress and thrust the blade.

Meliora beat her wings and rose in the chamber. The dagger scraped across her scales, chipping them. With a thrust of her claws, Meliora knocked her mother down.

The queen fell with a scream, her dress tearing to reveal the ugly, never-healing wound beneath.

Meliora stared down at the fallen seraph. Smoke blasted from her nostrils. Kalafi stared up, fear in her eyes, blood on her dress.

"Where is the Keeper's Key?" Meliora growled, white fire crackling in her maw. "Give me the key, Mother. The key to the slaves' collars. Where is the key?"

Kalafi began to laugh. Lying on the floor, pinned down beneath Meliora's claws, her wound exposed and dripping, the queen laughed as if watching jesters fight for sport. "You will have to kill me, daughter. So long as I breathe, the key will never be yours. Do what I did! I slew a husband. Slay a mother. Show me that you're a killer too."

Meliora's claws rested on her mother. How easy it would be, she thought, to simply lean forward, apply just the slightest more pressure, to pierce Kalafi's flesh. To make the queen suffer. To pay for all she had done.

With a deep breath, Meliora removed her claws off her mother.

"I stand above you now," Meliora whispered. "And I could kill you as easily as a child crushes a bug. But I grant you life, Mother. I grant you shame. A shame all the empire will know. Next time you see me, I will wear rags, my head shaved, my back whipped, for I am a child of Saraph no more. I am a child of Requiem, and we are a nation in chains . . . but we will be free."

As Kalafi lay on the mosaic floor, staring up in silent fear, Meliora beat her wings. She knocked over vases and statues, her claws clattered across the floor, and she burst out onto the balcony. She leaped into the air, and Meliora soared, flying high above the city, high toward the sun and across the wind . . . flying to the land of Tofet. Flying home.

ISHTAFEL

My sister. My sweet Meliora. The future mother of my children. Ishtafel trembled with rage. A weredragon.

He marched through the palace, fingernails digging into his palms. A crack split his breastplate, and his chest dripped ichor. The golden blood, the pure blood of the gods, sizzled as it dripped, forming a trail. In one fist, he clutched a feather, long as a sword, white as leprosy—Meliora's feather, the feather from her dragon form.

A creature half seraph, half dragon. Ishtafel sneered, bile rising in his throat. A disgusting freak. A monster I almost impregnated.

He stormed down a portico. To his right rose a wall, its murals depicting his ancient victories. To his left rose columns, and between them sprawled a view of the city. The crowds were dispersing, and an eerie calmness fell across Shayeen, but inside of Ishtafel the battle still raged—the battle against his sister, his battle against Requiem five hundred years ago . . . a battle he still fought today.

The weredragons rebel. He squeezed the feather in his hand, his blood staining it. I will crush them. I will crush every one. I will grind them into the dust. Their sickening blood stains my family. That blood will spill across the empire.

A slave appeared in the corridor before him, rushing forth with a jug of water. The man froze and knelt. Ishtafel stomped toward him.

Their blood will spill.

Ishtafel grabbed the man's skull. He shoved his thumbs forward, gouging out the creature's eyes, squeezing, crushing the skull, sneering as the man's screams died, as the brains dripped. He lifted the body and slammed it against a column, shattering its bones, then lifted it again and threw it again, tossing the dripping remains to the city beyond.

They will pay.

He left the columns, and he roamed the corridors of his palace, and he was roaming the tunnels again, the labyrinth beneath Requiem, the hives of the creatures, the greatest battle of his life, the war that still raged within him, that he would never stop fighting. He grinned and licked his lips.

My war will never die.

He found another slave sweeping a corridor, and Ishtafel laughed as he tore out the woman's organs, held them overhead, bit into the sweet meat. He roamed onward, a hunter, a conqueror. A weredragon lurked in the shadows ahead, a vile creature with shining eyes, and Ishtafel shattered its spine, tossed it down, crushed its skull under his heel. He roamed onward, covered in blood, finding the weredragons in their burrows, slaying them one by one, a god of light, a god of vengeance.

You dirtied my sister. Your poison infected my legacy. Your blood will forever spill.

He roamed the halls of the ziggurat, roamed the tunnels of Requiem, covered in the blood of weredragons. He lifted a heart in each hand, still beating, crushing them, his trophies of flesh and victory.

MELIORA

She walked into the land of Tofet, her dress tattered and burnt, her wings bleeding and missing half their feathers, her eyes dry, her shoulders squared, an emptiness in her heart. She walked into ruin, into a land of agony, into her home, into the place that had always been her home.

For twenty-seven years, this land hid just beyond the horizon, Meliora thought. For twenty-seven years, she had gazed upon the edge of Tofet from her balcony, seeing nothing but a haze. She had imagined a land of happy miners, whistling as they shoved trolleys on tracks. A land where slaves sang in lush fields and vineyards, laughed as they danced upon grapes, picked fruits from rustling trees, retired in lazy afternoons to fish in streams and lounge in meadows. Often Meliora had wanted to flee her palace, to come to this wondrous land she had envisioned.

Now she walked into Tofet, into the shame of Saraph, the agony of Requiem.

She walked through a rocky field where slaves, chained and beaten, labored under the cruel sunlight. They mixed clay with straw and bitumen, forming bricks in molds, crying out as their masters whipped them with lashes of fire. She walked along a quarry where, deep in the earth, slaves labored with pickaxes, chipping stones for the columns of temples and palaces, coughing in the dust, falling in exhaustion only to suffer the kicking boots of their masters. She walked along a pit of tar where slaves shuffled, heavy yokes chained to their shoulders, bearing baskets of bitumen. The fumes spun Meliora's head, and every moment, another slave fell, burning his or her knees in the bubbling tar, crying out as the whips tore into their flesh.

I lived in wealth, a palace grown from the toil of these people, a throne upon their broken shoulders.

All around her, for miles, they cried out in pain, in memory, begging for mercy, praying for a lost home. As Meliora walked between them, charred and bruised, her tears fell onto the dry earth.

"I'm sorry, children of Requiem," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my brother. For my mother. Forever, I'm sorry."

Finally, past the miles of pain, Meliora reached a city of clay huts. A great limestone wall surrounded the place, topped with seraphim guards. There were as many Vir Requis in the empire as seraphim, and yet their city was so much smaller, over half a million souls condensed into an area barely larger than the palace grounds south of the river. Each hut was small, smaller than the carriages Meliora used to ride in with her mother, molded of crude, flaking mud. Gutters ran between them, overflowing with filth.

No children played here as they did in Shayeen; here children hobbled in chains, scrawny, their ribs pushing against their skin, digging for beetles, worms, scraps of food in the dry earth. No happy mothers idled in gardens here, playing with plump babies; here mothers sat in what shade was available, heads shaved, too weak to even brush aside flies, their breasts ravaged as their babes suckled for whatever drops of milk they could drink. No flowers grew in Tofet, filling the air with sweet perfumes; Meliora smelled only disease, filth, death. No birds sang; she heard only the clanking chains, crying babes, distant whips lashing, and screams.

She kept walking through the nightmare, the guilt and horror battling for dominance within her. She was deep in the labyrinth of huts when she heard a nearby scream, stepped around a bend in the dirt road, and gasped.

A seraph overseer stood ahead, his back to her, clad in a fine breastplate and flowing white robes. No dust or blood marred his wings of purest white feathers. His whip of fire flailed, the blows landing on a slave in the mud. The slave raised her arms, begging for mercy, gravid with child.

"Silence, you guttering rat!" the overseer shouted, landing his whip again, the thong tearing into the pregnant slave's arms.

"Stop!" Meliora marched forward. Her chest shook and she could barely breathe. She had never seen such cruelty. "Seraph, stop!"

The overseer spun toward her, snarling, not recognizing her in her filthy rags. "Stand back, girl. This slave only produced nine hundred bricks today. Quota's a thousand." He spun back toward the slave, raising his whip again.

"I told you to stop, son of Saraph!" Meliora leaped toward him and grabbed his arm, tugging him back.

The overseer spun toward her again, face flushed, teeth bared. "And I told you to stand back, you whore. You ain't no overseer. Go fly back to your momma." He raised his whip, then brought it down hard against Meliora.

She yowled in pain. She had always known whips were painful, had always known that people screamed beneath them. Yet Meliora had never imagined such pain—searing, all-consuming pain, almost too much to bear, pain that flooded her, impossible pain. She fell.

The overseer brought the whip down again, hitting her shoulder and back, and Meliora screamed.

"I ain't afraid to teach a seraph pup a lesson either." The overseer smirked and raised his whip again. "I'm going to stripe you just as good as any slave, girl."

His whip lashed.

Meliora grabbed a rock from the ground.

The whip tore into her shoulder, and she hurled the stone.

The projectile streamed through the air and slammed into the overseer's brow.

Blood spurted and the seraph fell. He hit the ground and did not rise.

Everything suddenly seemed so silent. Her wounds aching, Meliora rose to her feet and limped forward. She stared down at the seraph. He lay on his back, his forehead shattered and bleeding, his eyes staring lifelessly.

Dead.

Meliora stared down, feeling nothing.

I killed. I took a life.

And still she felt nothing. No horror. No guilt. She was a killer. A murderer. A slayer of her own kind.

No. Not my kind.

She stepped over the fallen overseer and knelt by the wounded weredragon.

No. Not a weredragon. A Vir Requis.

Meliora lowered her hand. "Rise, friend."

But the slave did not rise. She knelt and bowed her head. "Meliora the Merciful. Praised be your name, child of starlight. May the stars bless you, daughter of Requiem." The woman looked up, eyes shining and damp. "Our savior. A savior from the palace of gods, from the stars of our home."

Meliora shook her head. "I'm not a savior. I was sent by none."

A new voice spoke, coming from behind her, a soft, high voice, trembling with awe. "You are my savior, sister. The stars sent you here."

Elory.

Meliora turned around and saw a family.

Elory stood there, wearing cotton rags, her legs hobbled again, her head stubbly. With her stood a young man—the same young man who had, only hours ago, been nailed into the ziggurat, now healed. Behind them stood an older man, his head shaved but his beard long, brown streaked with white, and he held a staff in his knobby hand.

A family.

My family.

Meliora blinked at them, and now—now all those feelings she could not feel when killing a man flooded her. Grief. Fear. But also love, also joy.

She stepped toward them, hesitant, breath trembling in her throat.

"You . . . you are my brother," she whispered to the young man. She turned toward the older man. "You . . . are my father. You are my family."

Elory smiled tremulously and nodded.

"This is Vale . . . your brother," the girl whispered, gesturing toward the young man. "And this is Jaren . . . your father. We're your family, Meliora. We're the people who love you."

Tears flowed down Meliora's cheeks, and for once they were not tears of pain or grief; they were tears of joy. She stepped closer and pulled her family into an embrace. They wept too, holding her in their arms.

"Welcome home, Meliora," her father whispered. "Welcome home."

LUCEM

He stood on the hill, singing.

He curled up in his cave, watching the rain.

He talked to stones. He laughed with trees. He laughed. He laughed and laughed. He wept.

He watched the sun rise and set thousands of times.

"Good morning. Good morning." The sunlight streamed into the cave, and Lucem gazed at the drawings on the walls. His friends. Animals. Men and women. Funny creatures he had invented. "Good morning."

They could not speak, but he could hear them in his mind. They greeted him.

He took one of his friends with him today—a lump of wood with two knots, two eyes, and a little smile he had carved. A beautiful woman. His dearest companion, a wife, a confidant. Together they walked across the hill, chewing mint leaves. Together they speared fish in the river, and they even caught a wild goat, and that night they feasted.

He sang around the campfire.

"Old Requiem Woods, where do thy harpists play, in Old Requiem Woods, where do thy dragons fly . . ."

He spread out his arms, and he danced around the fire, clad in his tattered tunic. A dragon. In his mind he was always a dragon. He blew out his breath, and the campfire flared—his dragonfire.

He fell to his knees, and he howled.

He grabbed his collar, tugged it, smashed it with rocks again and again. He fell to the ground, crawled into his cave, and shivered.

It's all right, his friends whispered—the drawings on the wall, the little wooden blocks with eyes. You're safe here. You're far from pain. You're far from Tofet.

"I'm far from Requiem," he whispered.

Requiem. The home of his ancestors, the place he had heard of so many times as a child. His parents had told him—his parents whom the seraphim overseers had murdered. His parents who lay buried in Tofet in a mass grave. His parents whose bodies he had left behind—along with so many living, with so many suffering souls, crying out under the whip, begging for mercy that would never come, pleading for freedom . . . which he had found.

Lying in the cave, Lucem balled his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. He screwed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I left you. I climbed the wall. I escaped Tofet. I left you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

His tears stung. He had been only eleven years old—only a child, yet broken, too thin, covered in cuts and bruises, the marks of whips on his back. He had been small enough to climb in the dark, to escape the guards, to come here, to leave them, to betray them . . .

"I miss you, Mother," he whispered. "I miss you, Father. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He dreamed of Requiem—dreamed of flying in the night, flying with his parents, with countless dragons, no collars around their necks. Flying in their sky, their columns rising below from the birch forest.

Dawn rose—as it had risen so many times. He crawled out of his cave again. He fished in the river. He chewed his mint leaves. He chewed carobs and wild figs. And he walked.

The wilderness rolled by around him. Hills speckled with mint bushes, white boulders, and carob trees. A few goats ambled on a hill, and the river streamed at his side. The sun beat down, and grasshoppers bustled in the rushes.

He slept in the tall grass. He caught another fish with his spear. He walked on.

When he finally saw it, he paused and stared. His guilt rose inside him like a demon, struggling to crash through his ribs, to consume his flesh.

"Tofet," Lucem whispered.

The wall of that cursed place rose in the distance, hundreds of feet tall. Atop it stood the seraphim, guards and overseers, mere glints of sunlight on metal from here. Behind that wall, they still languished—six hundred thousand souls, children of Requiem. All those he had grown up with, worked with, suffered with. Crying out to him.

You left us, Lucem!

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

You betrayed us!

"I had to leave, I had to." He trembled. "They hurt me so badly."

Now they hurt us! Now we suffer while you dance and sing around your fires.

Lucem took a step closer. Then another. His fists shook at his sides.

"I'm coming home," he whispered. "I'm coming back. They'll let me back in. They have to! They have to."

He kept walking, moving closer to the wall. Soon the guards would see him. Soon they'd cry out, fly to him, lift him up, take him home—back into Tofet. To his people. To the grave of his parents. To an end to this guilt, to this torture, an end to this madness in the wilderness.

Back to the whips, his friend said. Back to the mines, to the stench, to the death all around you.

The block of wood stared at him. Lucem stared back.

"You know nothing," he said.

You are a fool! she said, staring with her knot eyes. You will die in there. Die! Die and leave me. Tofet is not your home.

"It's my only home," he said. "And you're only a block of wood, and you know nothing, so be quiet."

She glared at him. Requiem is your home!

He hurled the wood as far as he could, then winced, ran after her, lifted her, cradled her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Go away from this place, she said. Go! Go! Never come back.

"Stop talking, you block of wood."

Then stop acting like a fool.

He turned around, and he walked away, leaving the wall behind—leaving them all behind. And that guilt screamed, tearing at his insides.

He walked along the river. He walked past his cave. He hunted. He fished. He ate fruit. He chewed leaves. For many days and nights he traveled, singing, laughing, telling old stories again and again. He kept talking—always talking. It was important not to forget how to talk. It was important to remember his name. "Lucem, Lucem," he said, over and over. He found a small rock shaped like a woman, a new friend, and he slept holding her.

He crossed hills, mountains. He hid in caves. He roamed through forests. He kept singing. He kept talking. You had to keep talking. You had to remember. He made new friends on the way.

Finally Lucem reached the coast, and he stood on the beach, and he stared out at the sea.

The waves were cobalt, almost gray, crested with foam. Clouds covered the sky. Lucem stood for a long time, staring.

"Requiem," he said. "Requiem. Requiem." You had to keep talking.

His homeland lay beyond the water. The land of dragons, the land his people had lost. In ruins. Devastated! But . . . maybe some had survived. Maybe some still hid there—hid in the ruins, waiting for him, waiting to welcome him home.

Lucem inhaled deeply, spread out his arms, and reached for his magic.

His skin began to harden, forming the first hints of scales. His fingernails began to lengthen into claws. The nubs of wings rose from his shoulder blades. His neck thickened . . . and the iron collar tightened around it.

He choked.

He grinded his teeth and kept tugging on his magic.

Pain. Pain flared through him, squeezing his neck, creaking his bones, blazing through his head.

Keep shifting. Become a dragon! Break the collar! Fly, fly home, fly—

Stars spread out before him, endless, the stars of his people, hovering over blackness. He fell into the sand, and he floated among them, gasping.

He slept.

When he finally awoke, it was night, and clouds hid the true stars. He shivered, feverish, and when he reached to his neck, he felt blood.

As always, he was a human.

Lucem howled.

He clawed at his collar until his fingers bled. He grabbed a sharp stone. He stabbed the collar again and again until he cut his neck, and the stone fell, and Lucem fell after it into the sand. He shivered.

"Lucem, Lucem," he whispered. "I have to remember, I have to keep talking."

A crab walked up and examined him, then scurried away. Lucem reached for it desperately. He needed to talk to it. He needed to hear its voice. And yet it scuttled away and vanished in the darkness.

Dawn rose, and Lucem rose, and his guilt rose, and he walked along the beach. Thirst clawed at his throat and hunger rumbled in his belly.

At noon he saw a city ahead. No walls rose around it, and he saw obelisks capped with gold, great cathedrals soaring to the sky, grand palaces and humbler homes. Above the roofs rose banners, showing an eye within a sunburst—symbol of Saraph. The city spread along the coast, sending ships into the waters. A city of seraphim.

Lucem stared, eyes damp. "People," he whispered. "People."

No! his wooden friend said. Not people. Seraphim! Seraphim aren't people.

"You're not people, you're just a block of wood," Lucem said. "Be quiet or I'm going to toss you into the sea."

I'll float, said the block of wood. But you'll just drown trying to save me.

"Hush!" he said. "I need to keep talking. You need to be quiet."

The block of wood glared at him. Lucem tucked her under his sleeve and kept walking, approaching the city. He could see more details now. Seraphim flew above upon swan wings. Bells rang in a steeple. Two towering statues rose ahead, shaped as serpopards—felines with necks longer than their bodies. Those necks curved and coiled around each other, forming a gateway that led into the city.

People, Lucem thought, staring at the seraphim on the walls ahead.

You better hide, Lucem, his friend spoke from under his arm. At least until darkness.

"If you're so afraid."

I am.

"All right then."

He stepped aside and he hid in a grove of pines, watching the waves and the city until darkness fell. Then he walked again, trying to ignore the thirst and hunger. In the shadows, he slinked through the archway, and he entered the coastal city.

Hide, Lucem!

He scurried sideways, sticking to the shadows. Seraphim still flew above, even in the night. Two walked down the road, wings held against their bodies. Fair beings, tall, beautiful, their hair cascading and golden. Clad in armor. Gods. People. People.

Hiding in the shadows, Lucem heard them talk. They remembered how to talk.

"—fine wine there tonight, and Leishan is singing," one said.

"Your night to buy the wine," said the other.

"It's always my turn when the fine wine is poured, isn't it? Very well, though, we . . ."

The two seraphim walked by, and their voices faded. Lucem emerged from the shadows, and he slinked after them, rushing from shadow to shadow. Lanterns shone along the cobbled street, and the walls of homes rose all around. More seraphim walked ahead, moving toward a large, brick building with bright windows. The sound of laughter and song rose from within, and Lucem smelled fine food and wine.

A tavern, Lucem thought. A place of food, of drink, of joy, of companionship. Of talking.

More seraphim approached, and Lucem retreated into an alleyway between the tavern and a workshop. He crept through the shadows to the back of the tavern. Warm light, the smells of wine and roast duck, and the song of harps and conversation all leaked through the windows. Lucem sat down, pulled his knees to his chest, and closed his eyes.

"Play for us, Leishan!" a seraph inside cried out.

"Play for us, Leishan," Lucem whispered.

"Pass me more duck, my dear!" rose another voice inside the tavern.

Lucem smacked his lips. "It's delicious. Splendid."

Inside the merriment and feast continued, and huddling outside in the alley, eyes closed, Lucem was there with them. Talking. Laughing. Eating and drinking. Feeling the horrible demon of loneliness fade—if only for one evening. He stole food from the trash bin. He drank from puddles. He feasted and drank with them—with other living souls.

Lucem lowered his head. If he had looked like a seraph—tall, fair, with swan wings, with golden eyes—he could perhaps try to find work, save money, book passage on a boat. If he had no collar, he could shift into a dragon, fly overseas, find what remained of Requiem.

But I'm only an escaped slave. A collared Vir Requis, my magic imprisoned inside me.

In the darkness, he left the city.

Once more he walked across the wilderness.

For days he travelled, and he sang those songs, and he tasted that wine and that roasted duck, and he relived that night over and over—the hints of life, pouring out, washing across him, soothing his loneliness yet making it greater than ever before.

Finally, weary and famished, he crawled back into his cave. He huddled on his bed of leaves, and he stared up at his friends on the walls—the animals and people he had painted there. They feasted that night, and sang songs, a little tavern of stone here by the river. A little place of light, of comfort, of tears among the rising shadows of madness.

MELIORA

For twenty-seven years, Meliora had lived in a palace, sleeping in a canopy bed as soft as gosling wings, eating from golden plates, lounging in chambers where walls were coated with precious metals and gemstones. Tonight, for the first time, she stepped into a true home.

The clay hut, her family's dwelling, was small. The entire place was no larger than her bed back in the palace. A few candles burned in alcoves in the walls, and a round window afforded a view of several other huts. The floor was bare rock, the ceiling rounded and shadowed. A table stood in the center of the room, topped with bowls of gruel, and piles of straw lay on the floor—the only beds here.

Ishtafel will send all his wrath to slay me, Meliora thought. Soon the might of his chariots and soldiers will sweep through this city of huts, and he will hunt me like a wolf hunts its prey. But right now, this night, I am at peace. Right now I am at home.

Her family entered the hut with her: her sister, her brother, her father.

"It's not much," Jaren said, looking around at the bare walls. "But it's—"

"Home," Meliora said.

Elory smiled at Meliora and took her hand. "Sit with us, sister. Let us eat together, and let us pray."

They sat together on stools around the table. Their elbows touched. Elory closed her eyes, lowered her head, and whispered.

"As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our column, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home." Elory opened her eyes, smiled, and looked up at the shadowy ceiling. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

The others repeated the words, voices soft. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

As Meliora spoke the ancient prayer with her family, she remembered her dreams of Requiem, her dreams of flying with her kind, with a family of dragons, and now—here in Tofet—those dreams seemed so real, memories passed down through the generations. Even now, after so long, the memory was alive, the dream was real—her dream, the dream of her family, the dream of countless in chains. And it was too much, too real. Her body trembled, and her eyes dampened, and it seemed like the weight of five hundred years of servitude pressed down on her shoulders like a yoke.

"Meliora!" Elory said. She leaped from her seat and embraced her. "Are you all right? I'm so sorry. I know that this must be a bit much."

"It's beautiful," Meliora whispered. "Thank you so much for inviting me into your home, for sharing this prayer with me. Thank you, Elory." She looked at the others. "Thank you, Vale. Thank you . . . Father."

The two men reached across the tabletop and held her hands, smiling at her, their eyes kind. Queen Kalafi and Prince Ishtafel had never gazed upon Meliora with kindness, not true kindness; they had seen her as a pampered girl, later a womb to produce their heir. But here, in this humble hut, was a place of more warmth, love, and comfort than any palace.

The candles flickered in a hot breeze through the window, and Meliora noticed, for the first time, that stars were engraved into the clay ceiling. They formed the shape of a dragon.

"We will see those stars again," Meliora said. "We will see Requiem in our lifetime, and we will rebuild her halls. I promise this to you, my family. I promise."

VALE

Night had fallen, and the land of Tofet slept, a short few hours of rest before their labor began anew. Soon the overseers would move between the dark huts, shouting, kicking doors open, breaking the bones of those who did not wake, slaying those who resisted. Soon the labor of Requiem would resume, eighteen hours of toiling under yoke and whip. Soon the cruel sunlight would blaze upon them, burning their shaved heads, blinding their eyes that still gazed toward the lost homeland in the north. Soon another day of agony, bloodshed, and pain would begin—another day, another year, another generation.

But that is tomorrow, Vale thought, standing in the shadows between clay huts. Tonight . . . tonight things were different. For the first time in five hundred years, tonight hope shone.

All others slept in their huts, but Vale would not sleep this night. Darkness and silence spread around him, but starlight still filled his eyes, and harps still sang in his ears, and the visions of Requiem still floated through his memories.

"I saw you," he whispered to the sky. "I saw you, Issari Seran, Princess of Requiem. I saw you, King Aeternum, our greatest father. I saw you, Queen Laira, our mother of life. I saw you, stars of Requiem, dragon of the sky."

Requiem was real.

Vale closed his eyes.

"For so long, I doubted," he whispered. "For so long, I did not believe. I thought that Requiem was a story, a fairy tale, a fantasy told to soothe the weary souls of slaves. To keep us alive in this cruel land. For so long, I thought that nothing existed in the north but more sand, not a land of fallen columns, of birches under a good sky." He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. "I cannot see you from here, stars of Requiem. But I saw you. I saw you."

In his mind, he saw them even now—the Draco stars, shaped as a great dragon. Upon him, he still felt her hands—the hands of Issari, one of Requiem's founders, the great healer of light who had defeated the Demon King, who had risen to the sky and formed the dragon's eye.

"Requiem was real," he whispered.

A voice behind him answered. "Requiem is real."

He turned around and saw Meliora there. His half sister walked toward him through the shadows, her halo casting its soft glow. Staring at her, it was hard to believe that Meliora was half Vir Requis; she looked like any other seraph. Her hair was long and golden. Her eyes were the same color, gleaming, the pupils shaped as sunbursts. Even in human form, she sprouted wings, feathery and white. But as she approached, Vale saw that she was unlike any other seraph he had ever seen. Other seraphim stared with flaming, cruel eyes. Other seraphim had faces like stone statues, heartless. Meliora's eyes were warm, her face soft, her lips smiling a bittersweet smile.

I saw her fly as a great dragon. And I see the dragon magic in her, even now.

"But Requiem is fallen," he said. "Ishtafel toppled her halls five hundred years ago."

Meliora reached him and halted. She looked around the city of huts. "I don't know much about Requiem. All I know is what I've read in books, seen in murals, heard in songs—all of them created by seraphim. But I know this much, Vale." She laid her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes. "Requiem is not a place. Requiem is not a column of marble, not a forest, not even the sky above us. Requiem is in our souls. Requiem is in our dreams, our hopes, our prayers. Requiem is alive, Vale. She has always been alive—here in Tofet, wherever our hearts beat. Requiem is not forgotten. Requiem was never gone."

Light and hope shone in Meliora's eyes, but Vale felt something different. The starlight lifted from his eyes, replaced by dragonfire.

Standing here, collared and hobbled again by his masters, Vale felt as if dragonfire once more filled his belly. Searing. Blinding. A hot fury that burned his innards.

"If Requiem still lives," Vale said, "let us fight. We fought them together, Meliora. We both fought Ishtafel, and we both tasted his blood. Let the sons and daughters of Requiem march to war. We will cast off our chains. We will overthrow our masters. With you at the head of our column, Meliora, a daughter of Requiem and a daughter of Saraph." Vale clenched his fists. "We will do what our forebears could not. Defeat the seraphim."

Meliora looked up at the dark sky. Her voice was soft, lost in memory. "Painted across the walls and ceilings of the palace, I saw murals of countless dragons falling before Ishtafel's chariots of fire." She placed a hand against her neck. "I wear no collar, but you do, Vale. So do all other Vir Requis in the empire. If we could not defeat Ishtafel with our magic, what chance do we have without it?" She shook her head. "None. We cannot defeat Ishtafel with strength of arms, and we have no dragonfire to blow."

Vale looked around him at the land of Tofet. Huts of clay. Huts of misery. Gutters overflowing with night soil. Seraphim masters patrolling the shadowy walls that surrounded this great, outdoor prison. A land of slavery, despair.

"We cannot remain here," Vale said. "We cannot continue this life. Better to die in fire than live in chains."

"We need no fire." Meliora held his hands and stared into his eyes. "We need one voice. A people united. Our father marched through the streets of Shayeen, and he faced my mother, and he freed you. He spoke for Requiem, and the stars shone, and you're here now. Healed. Saved." Meliora's eyes shone. "Let all the slaves now march. Let every man, woman, and child of Requiem march together—in chains, whipped, collared—toward the palace of Saraph. And let us speak together, a great voice that the empire will hear: We will be free."

MELIORA

In the darkness of night, two hours before the cruel sun would emerge, the slaves of Tofet rose.

In the shadows of a foreign land, countless miles away from their fallen home, the children of Requiem lit their lights.

For thousands of nights like this, they had arisen in the dark, chained and collared, lifting pickaxes, yokes, buckets, shovels. For thousands of nights like this, they would toil in the shadows until the cruel sun rose, crying out to stars they could not see.

This night they left their tools behind.

This night they raised candles.

This night they did not hobble forth as slaves. This night they marched as Vir Requis.

Through the darkness, the lights streamed forth, a river of stars upon the barren land. Through the darkness, six hundred thousand souls flowed. Through the darkness they brought light.

They flowed out from the huts of Tofet, but they did not move toward the bitumen pits, the quarries, the refineries, the fields of shattered bones where bricks baked in kilns. They did not kneel before their masters. They walked toward the city, a single column. They walked following a new leader, a beacon of their own.

At the head of the column, she walked. A tall woman, her body bruised and cut. A woman with ragged wings, half their feathers burnt and gone. A woman with the golden eyes of a seraph that shone with the light of Requiem. She no longer wore priceless gowns inlaid with jewels; only a burlap shift covered her body. No longer did blond hair flow from her head; she had shaved it down to stubble. No longer did she wear anklets of platinum and diamonds; iron shackles now bound her legs.

Only days ago, I was a seraph—a princess of seraphim. Meliora walked, chin raised, leading her people. Now I am a slave. Now I am stronger than I ever was.

The Te'ephim River flowed before her. For so many years, this river had divided the fair city of Shayeen from Tofet. For so many years, this river had been as a curtain, shielding Meliora from the truth in the north, the horror and shame of her empire. Across the bridge they rose: the walls, temples, obelisks, statues, and palace of Shayeen.

Today I cross the river again. Today I return to my old home with my new people.

She looked behind, away from the city of platinum, and she saw those people.

They were not tall or fair as seraphim. They did not wear gold and muslin and jewels. Their wings could not grow, and their backs were striped, their legs hobbled. But looking at them, Meliora saw true nobility. Her sister walked a few paces behind her, her frame frail but her head held high, her eyes bright. Beside Elory walked her brother, Vale, scarred, his chains clattering, yet nobler than any golden warrior from the fortresses of Saraph. With them walked Jaren, healer, priest of Requiem, his cheeks gaunt and his beard long—a father to them, a father to all Vir Requis.

And behind Meliora's family walked the multitude: a nation that flowed across the miles. An ancient people. An ancient song. People who had fought endless wars, endless tyrants, who had risen from ruin time and again, who had survived as all other nations fell, who still shone bright, even now, even in chains.

"Requiem," Meliora whispered.

She turned back toward the city, and she raised her candle high. She walked ahead of the column, leading her people, until they reached the bridge that spanned the river.

And here, upon the bridge between slaves and sovereigns, their enemy waited.

The seraphim flew down from above, an angelic host, wings tipped with dawn. Their spears shone like their haloes, and their shields were disks like many suns. Hundreds or more descended toward the people of Requiem, golden gods, so mighty and fair that even in a host of so many souls, even led in rebellion, some of the Vir Requis knelt and prayed to their masters.

But Meliora did not kneel. Nor did her family. She stood facing the seraphim who landed on the bridge. She bore no scepter of royalty, but she held an old wooden staff, the roots on its tip shaped as a dragon's head, and she raised it before her.

"Halt, children of Saraph!" she called, and her voice—which she had always thought too high, too fair, the voice of a child—boomed across the land. "Lay down your spears, and let me pass! I am Meliora of the Thirteenth Dynasty, daughter of Queen Kalafi. I am Meliora Aeternum, daughter of Requiem. Lay down your blades and let us pass, or the light of Requiem will sear you."

The seraphim jeered. Their voices rose together, mocking, shouting of weredragons to crush, of miserable slaves to be grinded into the dust. They covered the bridge, a shield of gold and light, spears raised, faces twisted in disdain. On the northern bank, the edge of Tofet, the children of Requiem stood still, staring, silent.

"Stand aside!" Meliora called. "Stand back from me, seraphim, for I am still your mistress. My hair is gone, as are my gowns, as is my innocence, as is my softness, as is my mercy to any who stand in Requiem's way. The stars of Requiem rise in the north! Stand back or their light will burn you."

The seraphim's jeers rose louder, and one among them stepped forth. She was a tall seraph, her eyes cruel, her grin twisted, and her golden hair fluttered in the wind. She carried a flaming whip in one hand, a chain in the other. A cut ran across her face, still fresh—the cut of a dragon's claw.

Shani, Meliora knew. The cruel overseer who had whipped Elory so many times, who had held Vale's chain.

"I know you, Shani of House Caraf!" Meliora said. "I order you to kneel before me. Kneel for I am your mistress, and I will allow you to live."

Yet Shani did not kneel. The seraph beat her wings, soared into the air, they plunged down to land before Meliora. The overseer snickered, her crooked smile twisting her scar, and spat on Meliora.

"I do not kneel before reptiles." Shani hefted the chain she bore. "I know who you are, Meliora the weredragon. This chain bound your brother. Now it will shatter your bones."

Slowly, staring at the seraph, Meliora wiped the spit off her face. "I will give you one more chance, Shani the Overseer. Kneel now before your mistress, or—"

Shani snorted. "I serve only Ishtafel, not his half-breed, reptilian whore of a sister." She beat her wings, rose into the air, and swung her chain. "You will kneel on shattered legs before I let you die."

Behind Meliora, her family cried out wordlessly. The chain swung down, each link the size of a fist. Meliora did not step back. She raised her staff before her.

The chain slammed into the wood, wrapped around the shaft, and locked into place.

Meliora swung her staff like a sword, yanking Shani sideways, and slammed the seraph down onto the earth.

"I told you that you will kneel," Meliora said softly.

Shani leaped up, sneering, and beat her wings. She soared toward the sky, the rising sun at her back. With a howl, the overseer plunged down, a goddess of vengeance, swinging her chain in one hand, her firewhip in the other.

"Die now, reptile!"

"Meliora!" Elory cried.

Let the light of the stars flow through me. Meliora looked to the sky, calling upon the light of Requiem. Let me rise.

As flame and chain came down, Meliora rose.

Her wings grew longer, feathers gilded in the sunrise. Her claws reached out, and her pearly scales chinked, and she soared, a feathered dragon of sunlight and starlight.

Shani's chain slammed into her shoulder, cracking scales. The seraph's firewhip drove into Meliora's wing, cutting through feathers and burning the flesh beneath. But still the silver-and-gold dragon soared, and her jaws opened, and she blew out her fire—a white jet, spinning and humming, a great harp string, a column like the one Aeternum had raised in a forest five thousand years ago.

Shani screamed.

The white flames slammed into the seraph.

Meliora flew higher, blasting out her flames, bathing Shani. The seraph cried out, wings beating, burning, her feathers turning black and falling. Shani tried to emerge from the inferno, tried to reach Meliora, to swing her weapons. But the flames kept washing over her, stripping off her hair, melting her armor, melting her flesh.

Finally Meliora let her flames die.

Shani fell and landed on the riverbank, a blackened corpse, ashes fluttering off bones.

Meliora rose even higher in the sky and spread her feathered dragon wings. The sun rose in the east, bathing her with golden light. Her tail flailed, tipped with feathers, and she could see the city ahead, drenched in light.

"So shall happen to all who stand before the children of Requiem!" Meliora cried, her voice booming across the land. "I am Meliora. I was one of you, Saraph! I served as your princess! But now I serve a greater light. Stand aside and lay down your blades! I come here not in war, not to conquer, not to burn. I come to show Shayeen the plight of Requiem, to show them the chains, the scars, the horror they had never seen. I bring Requiem into the city it built, and we will stand before the palace whose mortar is mixed with the blood of dragons. I come with only light, but if you do not stand aside, my fire will burn you."

She spun in the sky, blasting fire skyward, a great column of white light, King's Column risen in the south. Below her, the multitudes of slaves—descendants of the great warriors of the north—raised their candles, many smaller lights adding together to a constellation, a sky, a beacon of hope, of rededication.

"Remember Requiem!" they chanted. "Remember Requiem!"

As the slaves sang, as the lights burned, and as Meliora blew her flaming pillar, the seraphim took flight off the bridge.

At first Meliora thought they would attack, thought that she would have to fight them all, that that they would swoop with whips and blades and slay thousands . . . but as she watched, the light in her eyes, the overseers flew down to the riverbank, lowered their heads, and lowered their weapons.

"Follow, children of Requiem!" Meliora cried down to them, still hovering above as a dragon. "We enter Shayeen. We march to Queen Kalafi. We demand our collars removed. We demand freedom."

She flew before the camp, blowing her fire, and the children of Requiem walked below her. They crossed the bridge, holding their candles high, singing the old songs of Requiem. One by one, thousand by thousand, the slaves entered the City of Kings, and Meliora flew above them, and across the city seraphim stared but dared not attack, for they saw a goddess of scales and white fire.

But I am no goddess, Meliora thought as the people of Requiem walked down the boulevard between statues of the Eight. I'm only a girl, exiled, torn, afraid . . . but I found new strength. In a world crumbling under lies, I found new truth. I found a new people. I found a new family.

They marched toward the palace, six hundred thousand strong, and their voices rose together in an old song.

"Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

KALAFI

The wound blazed.

Always it blazed. Always the hands of the gods flared on her side, an eternal curse of their cruelty, a holy leprosy that would never heal. Yet now, this dawn, it flared with a new intensity Kalafi had not felt since falling from the sky three thousand years ago.

Morning's light streamed between the balcony's columns, red as blood. Kalafi lay in her salted pool, wincing in pain. She had spent all night in the water—the first time she had done so in years—and the water was cold now, too damn cold, yellowish with her wound's discharge. She needed more heated water, more salt, she needed her slaves here, yet her beast of a son had slain half the slaves in the palace in his overnight rampage. And so she lingered here, shivering now, afraid.

Kalafi had not been afraid in years.

I should have killed her, Kalafi thought. I should have killed my daughter a thousand times.

What madness had driven her to birth an impure creature, a half-breed, tainting the blood of seraphim with the reptilian curse? Kalafi could have mated with another—with her own son, if she were so concerned with purity of blood. Yet she had fallen to her temptation, had allowed that reptile to place his seed inside her. Jaren had been young only days ago, it seemed, yet now he was old, withered, a priest who had called upon ancient gods, who had summoned down the wrath of starlight.

And I should have killed you too, Ishtafel, she thought. Once she had been so proud of her son—a mighty warrior who had conquered this world, had built them a new paradise in a land of old pain. A beautiful being, untainted with memories of Edinnu, with old wounds that would never heal. How she had loved him! Yet the warrior had become a beast, an animal unable to curb his instinct, a mindless god who raped, tortured, butchered for sport, no end to his cravings, no boundary to his appetites.

"I birthed two monsters," Kalafi whispered.

"No, Mother. One monster. One son stronger than you've ever been."

Kalafi spun in the water and saw Ishtafel enter the room. She hissed.

"Leave this place!" She covered her nakedness with her arms. "I told you to never enter this chamber."

Yet he stepped closer across the mosaic of fish that sprawled across the floor. His armor was cracked, and blood and gore dripped off his hands and face. Bits of flesh dangled between his teeth, as if he were a wolf raising his head from a carcass.

"I've flown across the world, Mother." He licked his lips and sucked up a hanging strand of meat. "I killed the ice beasts in the northern pole, and I slew the griffins of the east, and I defeated so many enemies, Mother. Demons that would haunt your nightmares if you only saw a vision of them—and I fought them in their underground pits. Gods upon mountains, carved of ice, with pulsing hearts in their frozen breasts, creatures whose gazes would freeze and shatter your bones—I shone my light upon them, and I shattered them." He stepped closer, leaving a trail of blood. "And I slew dragons, Mother. I faced an army of a million dragons, the greatest army in this world, and I watched thousands of seraphim die around me, but I slew them. I defeated the enemy. And yet . . . and yet those dragons still live. Beyond the river. Here in our palace. And . . . in my sister."

Kalafi rose from the pool, wincing in pain. Her wound dripped pus. She grabbed a robe and covered herself, stood on the edge of the pool, and stared at her son. "You sicken me, Ishtafel. Your wars are over. You won them! Yet you prowl through this palace as if it were a battlefield—this palace that your father built—slaying my own slaves. Shedding blood upon priceless jewels. Acting like a beast among civilized souls and—"

"My father?" Ishtafel frowned and nodded. He looked around him. "Yes. My father built this palace. The king. A noble man, far nobler than me or you, Mother. A man who cared for the purity of our race, of our dynasty, of our legacy." Ishtafel contemplated the blood on his fingers, rubbing them together. "And yet you betrayed that purity. You took a slave into your bed."

Kalafi snorted. "Do you think I don't know—that anyone doesn't know—how many slaves you've bedded?"

"Bedded, yes." Ishtafel nodded. "But I was always careful. Whenever their bellies swelled with my children, I took care of the problem. Do you see, Mother? My . . . what did you call it? Beastliness? That quality preserved our blood. That quality had our greatest enemies fleeing before my hosts. That quality built us an empire. You and father fell from paradise." Ishtafel clenched his fist, letting the blood drip between the fingers. "I built us a new paradise."

Kalafi snickered. "I don't recall blood staining the floor in Edinnu."

Ishtafel continued as if he hadn't heard her. "Do you know, Mother, that you almost ruined us?" He emitted a short burst of laughter, a sound like a snapping bone. "I almost married Meliora. I almost placed an heir in her belly. In the belly of a half-breed." He stepped closer, and suddenly his face changed, becoming a demonic mask, and his voice rose to a howl. "I almost fathered a monster!"

Kalafi nodded, stepping toward him until she stood only inches away from her son. "You did," she whispered. She placed a finger against his lips, covering it with blood, then brought her finger to her own mouth and sucked up the coppery liquid. "You almost fathered a monster, Ishtafel . . . a child like you. A child vicious. A child with no respect for the gods. For Edinnu's memory. For the light of Saraph." She spat out the blood. "All you are is a warrior. You will never be a king."

He stared at her in silence, face frozen, a mask of stone. His eyes were dead.

There is no humanity to his eyes, Kalafi thought. There is no soul.

Slowly that face changed, twisting into something resembling a hideous smile.

"But you're wrong, Mother." When his grin widened, she saw broken teeth in his mouth—not his own. "I will be king. Dawn rises upon a new ruler of Saraph. Farewell, Mother."

She hissed and tried to leap toward her side table, toward the blade that lay there.

She was too slow.

His hands pressed against her chest, shoving her, and she fell.

Time was too slow.

She fell for hours, she thought. She fell for years. Perhaps she had been falling since that day, since that war she and her husband had never stood a chance to win. She had fallen from the sky that day, hurt, bleeding, cast out from Edinnu, and still she fell . . . through blue skies. Through golden rain. Through ending and rising eras, through betrayal, through grief, through a lost daughter.

I'm sorry, Meliora. I love you.

The skies of Edinnu shone above her, the gilded clouds in dawn, the meadows with those flowers whose names she no longer knew, those trees of forbidden fruit, the land she had never forgotten, had never stopped trying to raise again here upon this cruel world, this place of so much hatred, so much endless pain.

She fell.

She fell from paradise.

She fell and she hit the floor, and her head hit the edge of the pool, and as she slid into the water she knew that her head had broken. That her skull had cracked. That she would not rise again, that this wound too would not heal, but that soon the pain, the guilt, the never-ending sadness would end.

I fought the gods. Her eyelids fluttered. I fought in a great war such as my son would never know. I die at that son's hands. Queen of an empire, the woman who stood up to the Eight and resisted them, I die cracking my head on a wet poolside.

She laughed.

She sank into the water, and blood rose from her, coiling, dancing, dancing with her, dancing the eternal dance, and she danced with them, with the spirits of demons and the ghosts of long gone years.

MELIORA

As she had a thousand times, coming home from strolls in the gardens or prayers at the temples, Meliora stood before the ziggurat of Saraph.

A thousand times, she had come here clad in fineries, her hair perfumed and brushed by her slaves, her body shining with jewels. Now she wore rags. Now her head was shaved. Now iron shackles circled her ankles. If not for the tattered, burnt wings that grew from her back, she would have appeared as any other slave.

For now I am a slave, she thought. Now I am a child of starlight. Now I am mightier than I've ever been.

Behind her they stood, flowing down the Boulevard of the Victorious from ziggurat to the city gates, hundreds of thousands of slaves.

No—not slaves, she thought. Comrades. Vir Requis.

Silence cloaked the city. Even with a nation behind her, with countless seraphim watching from the roofs of homes, Shayeen was silent. Not a breeze blew and not a bird sang. The sun beat down upon a still city.

Meliora raised her chin.

"Queen Kalafi!" she called out, staring up at the balcony. "Queen Kalafi, do you hear? Come speak to me!"

Her voice sounded almost too loud, echoing across the silent city. She thought that all her people, spreading across the miles, could hear.

Not a seraph or slave stirred. Not a soul emerged onto the balcony. The ziggurat loomed above her, its stairs stretching up its limestone facades, the massive bricks hauled here by slaves hundreds of years ago. Two colossal statues framed the staircase, carved as women with the heads of cats, ancient protectors of royalty. Its platinum crest shone, and the eye upon it—the Eye of Saraph within the sunburst—gazed down at her from a thousand feet above, reflecting the sunlight, nearly blinding Meliora.

"Queen Kalafi!" Meliora called again. "Come speak to those whom you enslave. Come hear those who demand their freedom. Mother! Come speak to your daughter."

Still—only silence. The world seemed frozen around Meliora.

A few chains rattled around her. She glanced to her side to see slaves shifting their weight, clenching and unclenching their fists. Only her family kept staring ahead at the ziggurat, still, faces blank.

Meliora looked back toward the palace and raised her staff.

"Hear me, Kalafi of the Thirteenth Dynasty, Great of Graces, Queen of Saraph! I am Meliora. I am a daughter of Requiem, and I am a daughter of Saraph. I grant these people freedom from chains! I will lead them north to their stolen homeland as I've led them here to your palace. Grant me the key to their collars! Grant me the key, for we are a free people, and we will no longer serve as slaves, no longer—"

She gasped and bit down on her words.

A chariot of fire emerged from a tunnel on the ziggurat, hundreds of feet above, and rose to shine in the sky like a second sun. Its four firehorses reared, wings casting off sparks.

From this distance, it was hard to see. Meliora made out barely more than fire and light beams. A figure stood within the hovering chariot, wreathed in gold, halo crackling and wings spread wide. And—

Meliora hissed.

The figure threw something down from the chariot.

A ball flew through the sunbeams, leaving a trail of gold, tumbling down and down, and finally slammed by Meliora's feet where it shattered, spilling its innards.

Meliora took a step back and couldn't help it. She screamed.

On the ground before her, shattered into several pieces on impact, was a woman's head. Half the face remained, enough for Meliora to recognize her.

"Mother," she whispered.

Elory screamed too and stepped back, covering her mouth. Vale cursed and Jaren whispered a prayer. Across the crowd of slaves, men and women whispered and mumbled and a child wept.

Meliora could barely hear them, barely see them.

Mother . . .

Perhaps her life had been a lie. Perhaps the old king had never been her father. Perhaps Ishtafel had never been a true friend, only one who craved her flesh. But here—here before her, these remains . . . this was her mother. Her true mother. The woman who had grown Meliora in the womb, birthed her in blood, raised her.

Memories flooded her again, as they had in Tofet, but these were not memories of dragons. She remembered a beautiful, angelic mother, rocking her, singing to her softly songs of old Edinnu. She remembered carefree days in the gardens, chasing her mother between the fountains, catching her, laughing with her, always laughing. She remembered a proud queen, teaching Meliora how to walk with pride, how to be beautiful, how to be royal, how to be proud.

In the past few days, Meliora had learned to hate her mother, learned to see a tyrant, but she could not erase years of love. Not before this horror.

My mother is gone.

Slowly, Meliora balled her hands into fists.

She raised her head from the remains on the ground, and she stared up at the flaming chariot that hovered far above, and she saw him there.

"Ishtafel!" she shouted, voice torn with rage, rolling across the city.

He raised his hand. "It is I!"

The sun rose to its zenith, casting its beams down upon him. Standing in his chariot, he spread his wings wide, a golden god. A killer. A king.

Meliora growled and shifted into a dragon. She soared, the air whistling, rising in a straight line until she hovered before the chariot. Not a hundred yards away, blood stained the ziggurat's platinum facade where Vale had hung.

"What have you done, Ishtafel!" she cried, beating her wings.

He stood before her, hands stained with blood. "I did what you could not! I did what I've been doing for centuries." A grin split his face, revealing red teeth. "Conquering. I conquered the world, Meliora. Did you really think I would let another rule it?"

Meliora hovered before him, scales chinking as she beat her wings. She stared at him, shaking her head, not recognizing him. Who was he? Who was this creature? Not her brother. Not the man who would bounce her on his knee, who would play ball with her in the gardens, who would listen to her prattle on endlessly about her dolls and puppies.

This has always been him, she realized, flying before the chariot. The other him, the one who danced with me, who laughed with me—that was a mask. Here is the Ishtafel that Requiem saw five hundred years ago, that countless other enemies saw before they fell. Here is my true brother. Here is the true gilded, rotted heart of Saraph.

"You're right," she said. "I could not kill Mother. But I killed a man in Tofet. And I killed Shani the overseer. And I will kill you."

She sucked in air and let flames rise in her belly, prepared to blast her fire.

Standing before her in his hovering chariot, he smiled thinly and pulled a key out from his pocket. A long, crimson key engraved with golden runes. He held it before her.

"Did you know, Meliora," he said, "that dragonfire is hot enough to melt metal? Even an ancient, magical key to open ancient, magical collars."

Meliora sneered and swallowed her flames. She sucked in air. The key! The Keeper's Key! The key that could open the collars of her people, that could give them freedom, that could take them back home, that—

"You want this, don't you?" Ishtafel smiled thinly. "It's the only one of its kind in the world, do you know? Yes, the power this key has—to let dragons dig for bitumen, to haul stones, and . . ." Ishtafel frowned. "Do you know, sister? I do believe that's all this key is good for. Doesn't seem like very much, does it?" He shrugged. "More trouble than it's worth, it would seem to me. Oh well."

With that, he closed his fist around the key, crumpling the metal in his hand.

"No!" Meliora shouted and flew forth, reaching out her claws.

Ishtafel grinned, lifted a shield and lance from his chariot, and thrust the blade toward her.

She roared out her flames, and her dragonfire blasted against his shield. His lance drove into her shoulder, and Meliora howled in pain.

"Meliora!" somebody cried below, but she could barely see them, barely hear them; the other Vir Requis stood a thousand feet below, unable to shift into dragons, their hope gone, the key crushed.

"Yes, scream for me, whore!" Ishtafel shouted from his flaming chariot. He laughed. "You will scream in my bed. You will scream as you give birth to my child."

"I will never—"

He thrust his spear again.

The lance drove into her wing, and she roared. Her blood rained. She blew her fire again, but his chariot rose, and her white flames passed beneath it.

He swooped, his firehorses kicking, and hooves of brimstone slammed into Meliora, cracking her scales, burning her skin. His lance thrust again, scraping across her back, tearing off small white scales like pearls. She screamed.

"Already you scream, Meliora!" He laughed, driving his chariot around her in the sky. "You are nothing but a slave now. My slave. My blood. My bearer of children. Your son will be king, Meliora! He will rise to crush your precious weredragons!"

Her lifeblood dripped to the city below. She spun in the sky. The city, the river, the desert beyond, the cruel sun—they all swirled around her. The souls below, calling her name. Her family—crying for her. Requiem—a dream, just a dream, slipping away.

No.

She growled.

I do not abandon hope. I will be brave.

She roared and charged toward her brother. She blasted fire, and the flames cascaded across his shield. She soared skyward, then spun, the sun at her back, and plunged down toward him, claws outstretched.

He raised his shield, and her claws slammed against it, denting the steel. She grabbed the disk with both front claws, tugging at it. She roared down fire, and the flames exploded, crashing against the shield, showering back up against her, igniting her feathers. She burned. She kept clawing, biting, and she tore the shield away, exposing her brother in his flaming chariot.

She opened her jaws wide and lashed down, prepared to bite.

He raised a sword, thrusting it into her mouth.

The blade scraped against her palate and sank into the flesh.

The pain blinded her.

White.

White fire.

Her own flames, burning her.

She fell. She fell through the sky, a human again, tumbling down, her seraph wings losing their feathers, blood in her mouth, blood raining, falling, falling toward her family, falling to death, to the death of hope. Above her, she saw him in the sky, laughing, his chariot a sun, his lance and sword raised, coated with her blood. He came swooping toward her, refusing to even give her death, refusing to ever release her from pain.

Requiem.

Shadows in the night.

Dragons in the wind.

A marble column rising from ruin to starlight.

Meliora tightened her fists as she fell. I will not forget you, Requiem. I will not die. Not so long as I can fight.

"Requiem!" she cried. "May our wings forever find your sky."

She found her magic, and she found her sky. She shifted, growing into a dragon again, her scales chipped, her body pierced, but still a dragon of Requiem, still fighting, still soaring through that sky.

His lance thrust.

She slammed against him, his weapon in her chest.

She cried out in agony, the chariot's fire washing across her, the hooves slamming into her. He leaned across his chariot, grabbed her wing, and tugged her up, and his sword drove into her shoulder.

She couldn't even scream. She couldn't even breathe.

She fell into his chariot, a human again, and lay at his feet.

"Sweetest Meliora." He leaned down, tugged her head up from the floor, and snapped a collar around her neck. "Don't die on me yet. I still have use for you."

She tried to breathe. She tried to live. Blood dripped into her eyes. She heard them cry her name below, heard them call for Requiem, heard them pray, but above it all roared the flames of the chariot. They flew down. Down. Spiraling. The sun spinning. The city spreading into hazy horizons, places she could never fly to, hope burnt.

I flew as a dragon.

She tried to raise her head. He placed a boot against her cheek, shoving her head back down.

I have to fly. I am the wind. I am fire.

She reached for her magic, trying to shift. She felt it. The starlight. The magic of Requiem. She saw them—the celestial halls, the great kings and queens of old, and she was shifting, growing, ready to fly, to—

She gasped in pain.

The collar squeezed her neck.

Her eyes rolled back. She sucked in air, trying to cling to life, her magic gone. The key crushed. She saw it lying beside her, crumpled, broken. She grabbed it in her fist.

Fire crackled, and every bone in her body seemed to shatter, as the chariot landed. Hands grabbed her—his hands, tipped with bloody fingernails like claws. Hands that had slain millions. They tugged her, lifting her, dragging her out of the chariot. He gripped her against him, his arm across her chest, pinning her body to his. Blood dripped around their feet.

"See your champion, slaves!" Ishtafel shouted, voice thrumming against her ear, impossibly loud, tearing at her eardrum. "See Meliora, the Reptile Whore!"

She blinked in the sunlight. She stood on the balcony, she realized. Her mother's balcony. The king's balcony. Below they spread across the miles, the children of Requiem, a proud nation, a nation of slaves. Lives she couldn't save.

The Keeper's Key. It's crushed. It's gone. She felt it in her fist, broken, crumpled into a ball. She trembled. She tried to shift again. She could not. She would have fallen to her knees were he not holding her up.

"Requiem," she whispered, hoarse, tasting hot copper. "May our wings forever find your sky."

"Wings, sister?" Ishtafel leaned forward, lips against her ear, his breath foul, smelling of rank meat. "Slaves do not have wings."

He kicked the back of her knees, forcing her to kneel, and wrapped an arm around her throat, constricting her.

"See how she kneels, weredragons!" Ishtafel called off the balcony. "Meliora calls herself a slave now. Then let her be a slave as you are! Kneeling, collared, and wingless."

He raised his sword.

He thrust the blade down.

Meliora screamed.

The pain shattered her. It claimed her. She wept with it. She tried to shift again but could not. She tried to fight him. She tried to rise to her feet, but he shoved her down. His sword lashed again, and she howled, a torn cry, and the crowd below screamed. Above her head, her halo crackled, shattered, blazed with red light.

"Take her wings, Requiem!" Ishtafel said, laughing, holding them up, severed, bleeding. "See if they fly."

He tossed Meliora's seraph wings from the balcony, and they glided down, mere feathers, feathers on the wind, mere dreams, mere clouds like the clouds of lost Edinnu. The blood flowed down her back and pooled on the balcony floor. The agony was a living thing, two demons digging through her, phantom wings that screamed, burning, flapping madly, every missing fiber crackling with the agony. Flames burned around her head, blasting her with heat.

"You defied me, sister." Ishtafel lifted her in his arms. "Now you learn the price of all who dare fight me." He raised her above his head, and he roared to the crowd. "Behold your leader, Requiem! Behold Meliora, collared, wingless, my slave."

Chariots of fire streamed across the sky. Hundreds of them, rising from behind the ziggurat, storming forth, leaving hundreds of trails like jets of dragonfire.

The slaves below screamed.

Meliora's blood dripped.

She clutched the crumpled key in her hand. She had to think. To focus. To feel her magic. To feel nothing else. To . . .

Her thought faded, and she fell into shadow, falling like her mother had fallen from Edinnu, falling like the columns of Requiem, falling until nothing was left.

ISHTAFEL

He tossed her into the prison cell—a beaten, pathetic slave, her wings cut off, cast out from his empire of light. No more golden glow haloed her, only a ring of red fire, the eternal flame of her curse. He slammed the cell door shut, sealing her in shadows. He grinned and licked her blood off his fingers, savoring the taste.

"Sleep awhile, Meliora." He stared at the closed, heavy door, grinning. "Rest. Regain your strength. You're going to need it."

Her blood was sweet in his mouth. Yes, tainted with the weredragon curse, but half of it was his own blood. What choice did he have? His mother was dead. So was his father. There were no others to pass on the pure blood of the Thirteenth Dynasty; the only other with that ichor was Meliora, impure as it was. She would have to serve, would have to bear him a child. And if that child too showed the weredragon curse, could shift into a beast? Well, such children could be culled, and her womb would bear him another child—again and again, until a pure child was born, one clean of the reptilian curse. That child's womb too could carry his seed, as could the womb after it, every generation purer, slowly filtering out the dragon, as one sifts golden flecks out of soil.

I can wait, Ishtafel thought. I can breed out the disease from you, Meliora. But you will have to live for a long while.

Leaving Meliora in her dungeon cell, Ishtafel walked down the corridor, hungry, famished, desperate for meat. Deep underground he prowled, seeking prey. Through the labyrinth he moved, deep beneath the ziggurat, the belly of his empire, until he found the pit.

He entered the candlelit chamber. Aromatic purple smoke wafted here, and green hintan bubbled in glass hookahs. The slaves lounged here upon tasseled cushions and rugs, clad in silks, eyes glassy. The place where Elory had gone to study; the place Meliora had snatched her from. Ishtafel moved through the chamber, hunger growing.

"My lord!" said one slave, rushing forward. She was a young woman with long brown hair, large brown eyes, and slender bones he could imagine shattering. "Welcome to the pleasure pit! I am Tash, and I would be glad to—"

He grabbed her, snarling, unable to resist any longer. He shoved her down.

"My lord, I would be happy to please you—" she began.

"Silence." He ripped at her clothes, tearing the silk, and he claimed her, clutching her body, staining her pale skin with Meliora's blood, laughing, drooling onto her, conquering her, soothing his hunger. For now. For now.

He shoved the slave away.

"I'll be back for more later." He snorted. "Clean up."

He left the pleasure pit. He climbed staircases. Still hungry. Still needing to feed.

He stepped onto the northern portico, stood between the columns, and stared out at the city. They were still there across the mote and gardens, clogging the streets. Myriads of them. Slaves. Weredragons. Their fists were raised, and they were chanting together in one voice.

"Free Meliora! Free Meliora! Blessed be Meliora the Merciful!"

Sandals thumped and armor clanked at his side. Ishtafel turned his head to see one of his generals approaching, a seraph named Kerael. Among the most ancient of seraphim, Kerael had lived during the fall of Edinnu, had fought the Eight Gods himself with lance and shield. He still bore that same old lance and shield, the steel three thousand years old. His breastplate was gilded, and his swan wings spread out, blinding in the sunlight.

"My king." He knelt before Ishtafel. "I swear my allegiance to you, my lord. The hosts of Saraph are ready, glorious Ishtafel. How may they serve you?"

Ishtafel motioned for the general to rise. "How many soldiers are currently garrisoned in the City of Kings?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Two full divisions, my lord, of proud sons and daughters of Saraph, each armed with a lance."

"Good." Ishtafel nodded. "And there are, I'm told, six hundred thousand slaves outside our doors. Have you ever heard of decimation, Kerael? The slaying of one in ten?"

Kerael had followed him through countless wars, from the conquest of Requiem to the slaying of the last dragons. Yet now, perhaps for the first time, Kerael seemed taken aback. His face paled, and it was a fraction of a second before he replied—an eternity.

"I shall spare the women and children, of course." Kerael nodded. "But—"

"No, Kerael." Ishtafel placed a hand on the general's shoulder. "It is the men we need for labor. You will especially slay women and children. I want sixty thousand corpses, skewered on sixty thousand spears. And I want those spears raised in the land of Tofet, a forest of flesh. I want them to remain there, rotting in the sun, festering, fluttering with vultures. And I want the survivors to see them as they toil. And oh . . . how they will toil. Their quotas will double as they work in the shadow of their dead. Now fly out! Take the chariots. Summon all your men." Ishtafel clenched his fists, grinning. "I will fly with you. We will make them pay."

ELORY

Elory stood outside with her people, fist raised, chanting for freedom.

"Free Meliora!" the slaves cried. "Blessed be Meliora the Merciful!"

Standing here with her brother, her father, and all her nation, Elory felt stronger than she ever had. They were no longer cowering in Tofet. They were standing united. Heads held high. Fists raised. Chanting in one voice.

"Free Meliora! Free Meliora!"

Their cries rolled across the city, flowing over the ziggurat, the statues of the gods, the obelisks, the temples, the boulevards and roads—this wonder their sweat and tears and blood had built, this city of their masters, this city they would topple with their voice.

"Remember Requiem!" Elory cried.

"Remember Requiem!" called her father and brother.

The crowd chanted together, spreading across Shayeen. "Requiem! Requiem!"

Elory knew that Requiem was not merely a place. It was not merely a kingdom. It was a nation. An idea. A prayer. It was a home for the lost, a haven for a cursed people, a light in the darkness. Requiem was hope.

She left her brother and father, and she climbed onto a statue of a seraph, a towering deity of limestone and gold. She was on the idol's shoulder, chanting for Requiem, when the fire rained from the sky.

Elory stared up, frozen, her voice dying on her lips.

Light.

Flames.

Death.

Death fell from the sky.

The chariots of fire flew out from the ziggurat, from fortresses, from temples. Their flaming wakes covered the sky like dragonfire. Thousands of them flew above, their firehorses rearing in the air, burning wings spread wide. In the chariots they rode—the seraphim, soldiers of the empire, lances rising, shields blazing like suns. The hosts of war. Hosts of heaven.

It's what Requiem saw, Elory thought, staring above, frozen in fear. It's what our people saw that day five hundred years ago. Death. They saw death in fire.

The chanting below died.

The chariots swooped.

And the screaming began.

Elory knew that in Requiem's tales, great events were remembered forever—King Aeternum defeating the demons of the Abyss, Issari Seran rising into the sky to form a star in Draco's eye, the fall of Requiem to Dies Irae's griffins, the heroine Queen Gloriae raising Requiem from ruin, the rebirth of Requiem under King Elethor, and the great Queen Fidelity who had saved the lost magic of dragons. Some stories of great heroism, of strength, of holiness. Others stories of destruction, memories to mourn. All great suns of light or holes of darkness, chapters that would forever fill Requiem's song.

This day, here in this distant land, was another day to shatter Requiem, another note in her undying song, another chapter in her endless tale. Another stain of blood upon a broken nation.

"Requiem falls," Elory whispered.

The blood of Requiem spilled across the City of Kings that day. Under the simmering sun, they died. The chariots flew everywhere, plowing into their ranks, and the seraphim thrust their spears, every soldier commanded to slay a soul. The firehorses, demons of sunfire, plowed through the ranks of slaves, hooves of brimstone shattering bones. The chariots rolled over fleeing children, and everywhere the spears lashed. Everywhere the seraphim swung their swords, cutting men, women, children, elders. Everywhere the bodies fell.

Elory ran.

They all ran.

They fled down the streets, hobbled, falling, slamming into one another. Too many of them. Too many. The chains between their legs too short. They fell. They rose, pushed forward, stumbling into alleyways, desperately seeking the city gates. They were too slow. Too many. Too many.

And still the fire rained.

And still the spears lashed.

Blood painted the city, and bodies piled up around temples and statues of silver.

Requiem dies today, Elory thought.

"Elory!" Vale cried, reaching out to her. "Elory!"

"Vale!" she shouted, trying to reach him, but countless slaves separated them, a great maelstrom, flowing through the streets, crashing down.

"Father!" she cried, trying to reach him, but the priest vanished into the crowd. "Vale!"

They ran, stumbling, dying. A spear flew from the sky, impaling a girl before her. Elory ran over the corpse. A chariot swooped down before her, and more Vir Requis fell, and a seraph's lance thrust into an old man.

Elory growled.

If Requiem dies today, then we die fighting.

The old man fell before her, pierced. Elory leaped forth, grabbed the lance's shaft, and tugged back with all her might. The seraph, leaning from his chariot, lost his grip.

With strength gained in the bitumen mines, Elory spun the lance around, thrust, and pierced the seraph's neck.

The soldier couldn't even scream.

Elory yanked back, tearing out his throat, and snarled, a wild animal, lance in hand.

I slew a man. She growled. I will slay more for Requiem.

"Elory!" Vale cried ahead. "Elory, run!"

She ran onward, spear in hand. More chariots charged through the crowd, trampling more slaves. Three seraphim flew above, laughing, children skewered upon their spears. The living ran over the dead. Vale managed to grab a spear too, managed to slay a seraph, but the enemies were too many, their chariots too fast, their lances too swift.

If we could remove our collars, we could rise as dragons, Elory thought, thrusting her spear, running onward. We could hope to live, to defeat them.

But they wore their collars, and they died.

With a handful of spears, crying out to their stars, they died.

And above the carnage, laughing, covered in blood, he flew. The god of light. The god of wrath. The tyrant. The destroyer of Requiem, the bane of slaves. Ishtafel.

"Flee to your holes!" the King of Saraph cried. "Flee to Tofet, slaves! Flee and cower. Any who sets foot in this city again shall die in agony. Flee! Flee and remember my gift of life, and remember my punishment of blood."

It was hours before the people of Requiem managed to flee the city. Myriads died before they limped, bloody and weeping, into the land of Tofet.

That night, the spears rose across Tofet, sixty thousand strong, and upon each spear the seraphim placed the corpse of a slave. The forest of the dead rose across Tofet, a decaying army, a memory of Requiem's blood and Saraph's eternal shame.

MELIORA

She lay in darkness.

She lay in blood.

She lay alone.

Her wings kept beating. Missing. Flaring with pain every movement. Every feather was a dagger. Every flap a sword into her back. Her wings—gone. Still there, phantoms, demons, tugging at her innards. A thousand cuts covered her, the wounds of Ishtafel's spears, but all that pain was as a caress, drowning under the agony that spread out from her back. Two wings woven of pain itself.

"Requiem," she whispered, cheek pressed to the stone floor. "Req . . ."

She tasted ash, rock, copper. She couldn't speak. She couldn't weep. All there was—shadow. All that remained—nothing.

Shadows, dancing.

Fire crackling around her head.

Demons in the dark.

Dragons.

Dragons under constellations, and stars exploding, and skies falling.

Fire. Fire haloing her brow, hallowing her body, coursing through her veins, tiny creatures, burning, rivers of dragonfire inside her. Her sweat dripped from her spine, into her eyes, into her mouth, onto the floor.

She melted. She melted into sweat and blood and tears.

I must live.

She was dead already.

I must live!

Nothing of her remained.

I must . . . I must . . . Requiem. For Requiem. For Elory. For my family. I must . . . live . . .

She flew upon clouds, and her wings beat, and she screamed, she screamed in pain, she screamed and screamed, but her wings were no longer the wings of seraphim. She flew on dragon wings. Leathern. Silver with golden claws, curtains of starlight and dawn.

She flew toward them—the halls of Requiem, woven of the stars themselves, celestial and rising from an astral forest.

The song of harps played on the wind, and her pain melted like the rain, and here was a place of goodness. Of peace. Here was Requiem reborn, the Requiem that had always been, the Requiem that awaited her. That awaited them all.

The halls of eternal rest, she knew. The halls of afterlife, the halls of the endless song of dragons. The song of harps welcomed her home.

Requiem! I found your sky.

She flew between marble columns, a silver dragon so small by their majesty. Beams of light fell between the pillars, illuminating the white trees and marble tiles, and in the distance, silver mountains soared. Meliora kept flying, feeling so light, free of all the weariness of the world, all the pain, all the worry, all the weight. A feather gliding on the wind, at home.

She kept flying between the columns and beams of light, and ahead of her she saw a throne rise in a pale hall. It was not a throne of gold, silver, or ivory like the thrones of Saraph. Here was a chair of twisting branches and roots, carved from an oak, polished and very old. A figure sat on the throne, cloaked in light.

Meliora flew down and landed on the marble tiles, and she shifted back into human form. As she approached the throne, no pain filled her. No more wings grew from her back, but her shoulder blades were healed, and she was whole—a woman like any other of Requiem, her true wings hidden within her. She approached the throne slowly, birch leaves scuttling across the marble tiles beneath her feet.

The figure of light left the throne and stepped toward her. As it stepped closer, the beams of light dispersed, and Meliora saw a king with a grizzled beard and warm brown eyes. No crown rested on his head, and he bore no sword and wore no armor, only green and silver robes, but she knew that he was a great warrior, the greatest in Requiem, the first king of her people.

"Aeternum," she whispered and knelt before him.

He smiled and held out wide callused hands, the hands of a woodsman. She rose, and he took her hands in his.

"I sinned, Aeternum, my king." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I served Saraph. The blood of that cruel empire flows through my veins."

King Aeternum's smile was warm, his eyes soft. Kind eyes. The kindest, wisest eyes she had ever seen.

"Many of Requiem's greatest lights were not kindled in our land, my child. Queen Laira, my wife, Mother of Requiem, was born to a king in the cruel land of Eteer. Issari Seran, our greatest light, the eye of the Draco constellation, was once a princess of an empire that sought our fall. Queen Gloriae, the great heroine who rebuilt Requiem from ruin, was a child of Osanna, a dark land that toppled our halls. You too are a great heroine of Requiem, child. You are a pure daughter of starlight. The magic is yours, and the light of Requiem's stars will forever shine upon you, no less than it shines upon any other son or daughter of dragons. You will never be torn. In Requiem's halls, you are one. You are whole."

Meliora couldn't stop the tears. "But my family is torn. My sister. My brother. My father. The blood of Requiem calls out to me, a people in chains. I could not live in wealth while Requiem suffered. I cannot stay in this light while they still call to me. I can hear them. Even here, I can hear them cry out—for a savior, for mercy, for freedom. For me, Aeternum."

The king's eyes softened, and she saw the pain in her own heart reflected in them. His hands were warm around hers. "There is rest here for the weary. Would you abandon it?"

"I would. I would doom my soul to the Abyss itself, to an eternity of pain, if I could save but a single soul of Requiem. For five hundred years our people have called out for mercy, chained, forgotten. I must save them, my king. I must lead them home. I would give up the light of Requiem itself to deliver my people from darkness."

Aeternum lowered his head, and suddenly the great king—the founder of Requiem, the builder of King's Column, the father of the Vir Requis—knelt before her, and he kissed her hand.

The light blinded her.

She cried out in pain.

The agony dug into her back, and her phantom wings beat, and again she lay in darkness, her face against the hard floor. She drew a ragged breath, and the air sawed at her lungs. Her eyelids fluttered open. She saw shadows, craggy bricks, rusty chains. Her halo no longer cast its golden glow but red, angry light. The light of dragonfire. Meliora reached above her head, expecting to feel the warm softness of her halo. She winced and pulled her fingers back; they were burnt with fire. She felt trapped again in the bronze bull, a sacrifice to Malok.

Once more she lived. Once more she was imprisoned in the ziggurat, this palace where she had once lived in innocence, where she was now entombed.

She thought back to those celestial halls. Had she died and returned to this world, no longer a seraph but a fallen being of fire? Had she merely dreamed? Had she seen a vision of Requiem in its past or the Requiem beyond the stars? Meliora did not know.

But I know this, Requiem. I will fight for you. Always. So long as I can cling to life, I fight for your marble halls, for your great heroes, for all who need your magic. Requiem is hope. Requiem will rise again.

ELORY

It was ten days before the overseers allowed the survivors to bury their dead.

All that night they labored, and the night after that, and a third night too, pulling their dead off the lances like plucking rotten fruit off trees. The vultures cawed angrily, bellies full but still ravenous. No more dragons labored in Tofet; all now wore collars, the Keeper's Key gone. They did not dig graves but burned the dead in great pyres. Sixty thousand stars gone from the sky. Sixty thousand songs silenced.

The living no longer chanted as they worked, no longer sang, no longer looked toward the stars. Something inside them died too. Every Vir Requis lost a soul—brothers, sisters, parents, children. Every Vir Requis knew—a shadow fell that would never be lifted, a sadness that no light could ever cast aside.

So many fallen, Elory thought as the sun rose and set. Each life—a world. Forever gone.

She had lived through years under the yoke, in the bowels of the ziggurat, hungry and afraid and weak, but now for the first time in her life, it seemed that hope faded from Elory, that she could no longer dream of a savior, of a return to a lost home.

Could there ever be hope in a land of such pain, ever be light again in such darkness?

In the pit of bubbling tar, Elory gazed southward, and she could see the Eye of Saraph—the crest of the ziggurat—staring at her, always watching. Somewhere in there, buried deep, she lay—Meliora, her wings severed, perhaps as lost to Elory as all those who lay buried underground.

That night, after the last of their dead burned in the pyres, the people of Requiem lit candles.

They did not light their candles outside for the overseers to see. They did not rally and raise their fires high. They did not march upon the city, shining their lights, singing for freedom. In the land of Tofet, the slaves sat in their clay huts, and they lit their candles on stones tables, and they prayed.

Elory sat in her hut with her father and brother. They sat in silence. Four candles burned on their table: a candle for those who fell in the massacre, a candle for Elory's mother, a candle for the hero Lucem, and a candle for lost Meliora. Four lights, flickering in the breeze, soft and dying, soon to go dark.

She looked at the lights, then up at her father and brother. Haggard faces. Eyes dark.

"We failed," Elory whispered. "We marched for freedom and we lost our fight. Is all hope lost?"

Jaren stared at the candles, then raised his eyes to look at the stars engraved onto the ceiling—the Draco constellation, scratched with fingernails. In the candlelight, they seemed almost to shine. "Not so long as the stars shine," said the old priest, "though we cannot see their light."

Vale, meanwhile—young, angry Vale, lips thinned into a line, fists clenched—stared toward the floor. There, hidden under their straw beds, lay the lances he and Elory had snatched in the battle. The young quarryman kicked more straw over them, hiding the shafts.

"Not so long as we can fight," Vale said. "I don't know if there is hope to escape, to see Requiem again. But there is hope to slay more of our enemies, to shine our own light."

The candles melted, the flames guttering. Outside, across the land, a million candles or more shone their lights in huts. Perhaps that was hope, Elory thought—small, hidden lights even in the shadows.

"We will keep praying," she whispered. "We will keep fighting. And we will keep hope alive." She reached across the table and took her brother's and father's hands. "We will not abandon the dream of our people, and we will not abandon Meliora who languishes in darkness. So long as we can keep candles burning, we will remember Meliora, and we will remember Requiem."

"Remember Requiem," Vale said, face hard, eyes shining with fire.

"Remember Requiem," Jaren whispered.

Holding their hands, Elory prayed, and they whispered the words with her, the most ancient prayer of their people, a prayer for a land lost, for a dream that would always shine.

"As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home."

The story continues in . . . 

CROWN OF DRAGONFIRE

Flame of Requiem, Book Two

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AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading Forged in Dragonfire, the first novel in the Flame of Requiem trilogy. I hope you enjoyed the book.

The next Flame of Requiem novel is titled Crown of Dragonfire. Click here to grab your copy or search your favorite ebook store for "Crown of Dragonfire."

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Thank you again, dear reader, and I hope we meet again between the pages of another book.

Daniel

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

THE MOTH SAGA

Moth

Empires of Moth

Secrets of Moth

Daughter of Moth

Shadows of Moth

Legacy of Moth

REQUIEM

Dawn of Dragons

Requiem's Song

Requiem's Hope

Requiem's Prayer

The Complete Trilogy

Song of Dragons

Blood of Requiem

Tears of Requiem

Light of Requiem

The Complete Trilogy

Dragonlore

A Dawn of Dragonfire

A Day of Dragon Blood

A Night of Dragon Wings

The Complete Trilogy

The Dragon War

A Legacy of Light

A Birthright of Blood

A Memory of Fire

The Complete Trilogy

Requiem for Dragons

Dragons Lost

Dragons Reborn

Dragons Rising

The Complete Trilogy

Flame for Requiem

Forged in Dragonfire

Crown of Dragonfire

Pillars of Dragonfire

The Complete Trilogy

ALIEN HUNTERS

Alien Hunters

Alien Sky

Alien Shadows

OTHER WORLDS

Eye of the Wizard

Wand of the Witch

Firefly Island

The Gods of Dream

Flaming Dove

KEEP IN TOUCH

www.DanielArenson.com

Daniel@DanielArenson.com

Facebook.com/DanielArenson

Twitter.com/DanielArenson