A Dawn of Dragonfire: Dragonlore, Book 1 (31 page)

Her sister Noela wept in the clouds, a mere babe, crying to her.  "Why did you not weep when they buried me?  Why did you shed no tears?"

I wanted to!  I wanted to cry like my parents, like Bayrin, but I couldn't, I couldn't, I had to be strong for them….

Her beloved Orin flew toward her, a dragon of cloud and lightning, bleeding and burnt.  Half his face was a gaping wound, showing the crimson innards of the heavens.

"Why do you fly with Elethor?" he cried.  "Why did you leave me to die and take my brother for your betrothed?"

He blew flames that washed her, red clouds that dispersed into rain.

"I should have been there," she whispered, wings roiling the clouds.  "I should have gone with Orin to Castellum Luna, helped him fight the phoenixes, not stayed north and let him die… I let him die… Elethor, I let him die."

She tried to fly, to escape Orin's burnt face, his one eye that blazed, his dripping wounds.  She beat her wings madly, shoving through the storm, but a gust of air caught her, and she tumbled through the sky.  Lightning smashed into her scales, and they grabbed her, all of them—dead and burnt Orin, and her dying parents, and her dead sister Noela.  They clung to her, begging.

"Don't fly, don't run, don't leave us, Lyana!  Don't leave again.  It's cold and dark in the Abyss, please save us, save us Lyana, don't leave us again…."

She wept and tried to flee, but could not; she knew that they would always follow her.  She knew that no matter how far she flew, those eyes would haunt her—across endless skies and into her grave.  She saw herself years in the future, a great Queen of Requiem upon her throne, her king Elethor at her side.  Gold and jewels and peace surrounded her, but still at night she would curl up, weep, and try to flee them but find no peace.

For there is no peace for you, child,
whispered a deep voice, and Lyana screamed and saw the black hill with the black flower.  It rose before her between the clouds, a towering monument, larger than Requiem herself, woven of her terror.  A great black bowl, it rose from a landscape of ink.  A single black rose grew atop it, and Lyana tried to reach it.  She knew she had to save that rose, to heal it, to stop the terrible pain of it, the horror that pounded.  She screamed, for this mountain was larger than the world, larger than her mind could grasp.  Her soul left her body and spread across the landscape, twisting with its fear, and everywhere she saw those petals.

"I have to… I have to save it," she whispered.  "I have to
count
them.  I have to
line
them.  You have to keep the
numbers
."

The Shrivel she had eaten laughed inside her belly, a coiling worm, forever inside her, forever mocking, forever counting.  Its teeth gnashed at her entrails, and its claws dug, her eternal child, a parasite of her womb.

I am here within you,
it whispered, taunting. 
You cannot flee me, and you cannot flee those you let die, not until you climb the mountain and heal the black rose… until then I will remain and feast upon you.

"Lyana!" cried a desperate voice.  "Lyana, listen to me!  Lyana, do you hear?"

She shouted and blew fire.  "Leave me!  Leave me!  I killed no one.  Please…"  Tears streamed down her cheeks.  "I am a soldier!  I am a knight of Requiem.  I have to save him, Elethor.  I have to save the king, and Orin, and Noela… oh stars, Noela…"

"Lyana!" the voice cried.  Claws dug into her shoulders and pulled her.  "Fly, Lyana!"

She could see nothing but her tears, but she outstretched her wings, and the wind billowed them, tossing her higher.  She leveled off, banked, and flew upon the wind.  The sky.  She had to find the sky.  Elethor flew beside her, brass scales shimmering, and she saw it, a hint of dawn ahead, a smudge of blue.

Requiem!  May our wings forever find your sky.
  She remembered those words.  She soared, howling and blowing fire.  Though the storm blasted her and lightning smashed against her, she flew, tearing free from the grip of the dead.  Her tail lashed and her claws reached out.

"Elethor!" she cried.  "Fly with me, Elethor!"

They soared, cutting through the storm, smashing through rain and rock, until Lyana saw it.  Tears filled her eyes again, but now they were tears of joy. 
I see it… stars, I see it.
  They were the columns of Requiem, white marble rising from fire and blood into good, healing starlight.  They beamed from death to hope, from firelight to starlight, and Lyana flew like she had never flown, tears on her cheeks. 
I will find your sky, Requiem… forever.

The two dragons dived through the lightning, streaming toward the ghostly columns that rose among the storm of the Abyss, and soon flew between them.  The pillars gleamed around them, palisades guiding them home.  Flames blazed against their bellies, and starlight kissed their backs, and wakes of red and white light trailed behind them.  They shot between the columns, through the storm, and dived into a great cavern of stone and starlight.

The storm silenced.

Lyana gasped.

She flew.  She heard nothing but the thud of wings.  Elethor flew at her side, panting, fire rising between his teeth.  The chamber rose around them, the size of a kingdom, its ceiling of stone lit with countless stars.  Lyana's heart pounded.

We made it,
she thought. 
We passed through the storm.

A great boulder rose ahead like an island rising from darkness, and she spiraled toward it.  She landed upon its top, so weak, and shifted into a human.  Elethor landed beside her, shifted too, and they lay holding each other.  Tears wet their cheeks and their chests rose and fell.

She clung to him.  "What was that storm?" she whispered.  "Did you see them too?  Did you see the dead?"

His face was pale.  His arms held her close as the stars gleamed above.  "I saw my dead brother, and my dead father, and…"  His eyes dampened.  "I saw Mori dead too.  She cried for me to save her, and I tried to, but I couldn't."  He blinked and whispered.  "Are they all dead, Lyana?"

"No."  She clenched her fists behind his back.  "I will not believe it.  The storm… it showed us our nightmares, I think.  It isn't real."  She laid her head against his shoulder.  "It can't be."

A shiver ran across her.  Did that Shrivel truly live inside her, a coiling worm in her belly?  Or was that merely her fear that nested in her soul?  She did not know.

"El," she said, "thank you… for holding me.  For pulling me from the darkness.  I was drowning."

He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.  "I told you, Lyana.  I will always fly by your side.  I will always look after you.  You can repay me later by smashing those statues I carved of Solina."  He sighed and laid his head down against the stone.  "You were right.  I was a fool."  He shook his head, grimacing.  "When the sphinx asked me about her, I couldn't lie… I had to tell her that I still love her, even now.  Lyana, she killed my father and my brother."  He looked at her with haunted eyes.  "How could I still love her?"

She held him close.  "Love me instead," she whispered, "and hold me for a while longer."

He kissed her cheek and held her, and stroked her hair, and their bodies pressed together until the pain and fear faded, until their whispers and warmth could drive away the memories.

Lights blazed from below.

Lyana and Elethor rose to their feet upon the pillar of stone.  They gazed into the darkness below.  Two eyes like stars cracked open, shooting pillars of light like the starlit columns of afterlife.

"Stars," Lyana whispered.

In the new light, she saw great shoulders of stone and a rising tail, and soon a creature unfurled in the shadows, larger than a palace, a being of rock and light.

The Starlit Demon rose before them in the darkness.

 
 
MORI

As they flew up the mountain, heading toward its granite peak, Mori wanted to think about the task ahead.  She wanted to steel herself for battle, imagine seizing the Moondisk from its demon guardian, prepare for a long flight over the sea and back to Requiem.  Yet as her wings stirred the cold air over mountainsides of pines, she only thought of Bayrin's kiss.

Stupid love-struck girl!
she scolded herself. 
You think of kisses and love and romance while your people burn, while your brother and father lie dead?

She looked at Bayrin who flew beside her, his eyes narrowed, mist swirling around his green scales.  Mori felt a chill invade her.

No, she knew.  This was not how romance felt.  Lyana had told her about love—she said how when Orin was near, she would tremble, her heart would flutter, how warmth would spread through her, how joy bloomed inside her.  This felt different.  Mori felt no flutter, no warmth, no joy.

She lowered her eyes.  She felt shame.  She felt unclean.

Would Bayrin love me if he knew my secret?
she thought, soaring over mountainsides of chalk and leaf. 
If he knew how I let Acribus claim me, and how I didn't even fight him, how I… how his filth still clings to me?  He thinks I'm just sweet Mori, the young princess, like from the fairytales… but I'm not her anymore.  Not now.  Not ever again. 
Her shame burned inside her like a demon child in her womb.  Was that Acribus's child, a babe with cruel eyes and a white tongue, that festered inside her?

"Mori, are you ready?" Bayrin called to her.

No,
she thought. 
No, I'm not ready to kill a demon.  I'm not ready to fly over the sea again, to return home and find more dead.  I'm not ready to face this world and keep flying.
  She growled, thought about the old heroines from her stories, and nodded. 
But I will do these things nonetheless.

She gave her wings three great flaps, filling them with air like sails, and soared toward the mountaintop.  Bayrin soared beside her.  Smoke streamed between his teeth, and the thud of his wings blasted her.  They cleared the mountain's peak, and Mori found herself looking down upon an ancient ruin.

Pillars lay fallen and chipped.  Their capitals were shaped as bucking elks, but smoothed with centuries of rain.  An archway rose from a tangle of ivy and bushes, the wall around it long fallen.  Bricks lay strewn.  Shattered wood, snapped branches, and boulders littered the ruins.  Wild grass grew from a smashed mosaic.  Whatever structure had once stood here, nature was overgrowing it; the fallen bricks were more moss than stone.

"There was a temple here once," Mori said, circling above it.  She had seen enough temples in Requiem to know them, even when ruined; she could feel the old holiness of the place.  The Children of the Moon had worshipped the night here.

"Where is the Moondisk?" Bayrin said, flying beside her.

Mori flew above the ruins, fanning the grass and mist.  She squinted, seeking the glint of bronze and gold.  Did the Moondisk lie hidden among these tufts of grass, fallen trees, and ruin of an ancient temple? 

"And where is the demon who guards it?" she whispered.    She saw no life here but for the plants; no call of birds, no chirp of crickets, nothing but the rustle of grass.

Bayrin grunted.  "Maybe the demon left years ago, and the Children of the Moon had never bothered checking."  He began spiraling down toward the ruins.  "Come on, Mori, let's start overturning rocks, find this Moondisk, and get out of here."

Mori puffed out smoke, uncertain.  This place was too quiet.  Yet Bayrin was descending, and so she joined him, throat tight.

A moan shattered the silence.

The ruins shifted. 

The fallen columns began to rise.

Mori screamed and banked, shot across the ruins, and soared.  Rocks flew skyward.  The fallen walls rose like a marionette on invisible strings.  Columns formed legs and arms.  The archway rose like shoulders, bedecked with a cloak of ivy and grass.  The roots of fallen trees entwined, forming a great head with blazing eyes of blue crystal.  Arms lashed out, ending with claws of leafy branches.  Mori flew backward, gaping at the beast.  The creature twisted and formed before her, and soon stood as a giant, three hundred feet tall, a behemoth woven of wood, leaf, and crumbled ruins.

Ral Siyan,
Mori knew. 
The demon of stone and wood.

"Bay!" she screamed.  She trembled and her heart thrashed.  Where was Bayrin?  She could no longer see him.  Her wings thudded madly, billowing the demon's leaves.  Its blue stare transfixed her, burning her eyes.

"Mori, it has the Moondisk!" came a cry, and Bayrin flew around the demon, eyes blazing.

He seemed so small compared to the creature, a mere bird flying around a tree.  The demon of wood and stone howled, a sound like a collapsing dam.  It lashed an arm at Bayrin.  Its bricks creaked like joints, raining dust.  Its branches twisted and groaned.  Its fingers of wood missed Bayrin by a foot.  The green dragon flapped his wings, blasting the beast with air, sending leaves flying.

When the demon turned toward her, Mori gasped.  She saw the Moondisk!  A circle of bronze, the size of a shield, it lay within the archway that formed the demon's torso.  Vines and brambles held it like veins around a heart.  Upon its dented and dulled surface, a golden moon and stars still glimmered.

Bayrin soared, turned, and swooped toward the beast.

"Time to burn," he said and blew fire.

"Bayrin, no!" Mori cried.  She soared and slammed into Bayrin, pushing him aside.  His flames rained upon the mountaintop, missing the demon.  The beast of wood and stone roared, a sound like cracking boulders, and swung its arms.  A log slammed into Mori, and she gasped for breath, head spinning.

"Mori, what are you doing?" Bayrin shouted, smoke billowing from his maw.  He rose higher, dodging another blow from the demon.  Mori flew beside him, panting.  Her side blazed with pain where the beast had struck her.