Dragons Lost

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Authors: Daniel Arenson

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DRAGONS LOST

REQUIEM FOR DRAGONS, BOOK ONE

by

Daniel Arenson

Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Arenson

All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either
the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic
or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the
author.

Table of Contents

 
 
CADE

Cade was cradling his sister in his
arms when the firedrakes arrived, screeching and blowing fire across the sky,
to burn out the baby's magic.

He stood within the
bakery where he lived and worked with his adoptive parents—and now with the
newborn in his arms. Jars of yeast rattled on the shelves. Sacks of flour thumped
down, and one opened to spill its white innards across the stone floor. The
window shutters clattered, and between them Cade glimpsed the beasts: streaks
of scales, streams of fire, claws that shone in the sunlight. Their cries
rolled across the village, louder than thunder, so loud Cade would have covered
his ears were he not holding his sister.

In his arms, little
Eliana wailed, only a few days old. Her parents—the kindly couple who had
adopted Cade eighteen years ago, when he himself had been but a newborn—paled
and tugged nervously at their aprons.

"They know," whispered
Tisha, her lips stiff. She held a rolling pin in her hand as a weapon. "Somehow
they always know when they're born."

Her husband, a paunchy
and balding man named Derin, turned as pale as the spilled flour. Despite his
nervousness, he patted his wife's arm and mumbled, "Eliana will be fine. She'll
cry a bit, but she'll live. We lived through it as babes. And we're fine."

A thin woman with
graying hair, Tisha nodded and lowered her head. "I know. It's just that . . .
after so long, to see our miracle hurt . . ."

The firedrakes'
screeches rose louder outside. When Cade glanced out the window, he saw a dozen
or more land in the village square. Between the shutters, Cade could only
glimpse bits of them—scales, claws, horns, cruel fangs slick with saliva.
Whenever a babe was born in the village, somehow they knew. Somehow they always
arrived.

For the
purification,
Cade thought and shuddered.

He had seen
purifications before; the screams still haunted his nightmares. With tears,
with poison, with branding, the magic was driven out of babes, leaving scars
and haunting pain, leaving the child pure. All newborns across the
Commonwealth, this empire that sprawled across the lands north of the sea, underwent
purification for the glory of the Spirit.

All but me,
Cade
thought. He had never gone through the ceremony. When he'd been a babe, his
parents—he still didn't know who they were—had smuggled him away, had placed
him here in the bakery. Since then Cade had lived with hidden magic, a secret
that would have every firedrake in the Commonwealth hunt him if they knew.

"Bring out the child!"
rose a shout outside. "Bring out the newborn for purification."

Eliana cried harder in
Cade's arms.

Tisha, her mother,
lowered her head. Tears streamed down her lined cheeks. For over twenty years, Tisha
and her husband—these kindly bakers who had taken Cade in—had tried to
conceive. For eighteen of those years, Cade had been like a son to them, an
adopted boy to a woman with a barren womb. Finally this year, a miracle had
happened. Finally this year, Tisha had given birth to a precious babe, a great
gift to their home.

Now this babe would
scream in agony.

"It's time," Cade said
softly, rocking the crying Eliana. "Let's get this over with. It'll only last a
few moments."

A few moments of
torment,
he thought but would not vocalize his fear.
A few moments of
poison and fire and screams to fill our nightmares.

"Bring out the babe!"
the cry rose again outside. It was a woman's voice, high and fair yet colder
and crueler than steel. The voice of a paladin, a holy knight of the Cured
Temple. "Bring out the babe, or my firedrakes will burn this backwater to the
ground!"

Cade gave the baby in
his arms one last look. Eliana was not his true sister—he didn't know if he had
real siblings—but she even looked like him. The baby had the same shock of
messy, light brown hair, the same hazel eyes. Rage flared in Cade, overpowering
his fear. Suddenly he wanted to put the baby down, charge outside, and summon
his magic—the forbidden magic he carried, which all others had lost—and burn
the paladins, burn the firedrakes, burn down the entire damned Cured Temple
that ruled the Commonwealth.

And why shouldn't I?
he thought.
I was never cured, never purified. I'm strong. I'm powerful. I'm—

Derin placed a hand on
Cade's shoulder. The rotund baker stood shorter than Cade, but he stared up at
his adopted son with solemn gravity. "Come on, boy. Let's get it over and done
with." He turned back toward his wife. "Tisha, stay here. Wait for us. We'll be
back with Eliana soon."

The graying woman
nodded and wiped her tears away. She stepped forward, gave her daughter a kiss,
then turned toward the wall and clenched her fists.

"Now come on, Cade,"
Derin said. "Let's go."

Cade clenched his jaw,
the anger still blazing through him, but nodded. Holding the baby with one arm,
he opened the bakery's door. Derin walked behind him. The two stepped outside
into the village square . . . into a theater of flame and steel.

Fifty houses formed the
village of Favilla, if one could call them "houses"; they were barely more than
huts built from pale clay, their roofs domed, their windows round. Men said
that many years ago houses would be built three stories tall, wide and roomy,
cool in the summers and warm in the winters. But the Cured Temple preached
austerity, preached that humble living and suffering brought one closer to the
Spirit. And so Favilla remained a model of humility—its huts small, its gardens
barren of flowers, its public square devoid of grass. A place of white walls
and brown soil. A place of holiness.

Normally the village
square was empty. Today a dozen firedrakes stood here, towering over the homes,
each larger than the mightiest oaks from the northern forests. They were
dragons but not noble, intelligent dragons like the ones men and woman could
become before the Cured Temple. Here were wild beasts, no more intelligent than
animals, their human forms and human minds torn from them, leaving them rabid
and always hungry. Smoke rose from their nostrils. Saliva dripped from their
jaws, and fire sparked between their fangs. Their tails whipped from side to
side, their scales clattered, and their wings creaked. Their grumbles rolled
across the village like thunder.

Cade stared at them,
jaw tight.
The Templers rip out our dragon magic, yet they bring dragons
here to enslave us. The Templers speak of a reptilian curse infecting their
flock, yet they bring great reptiles to slay us if we resist purification.

His arms trembled with
rage as he held his sister.

But I am not purified.

He could summon the old
magic, the magic the Temple sought to eradicate. He could grow wings and
scales, breathe fire, rise into the sky as a dragon—not a mindless firedrake, a
beast with no human form, but a noble dragon, wise and strong. He could fly
away with Eliana in his claws, saving her magic—the way his magic had been
saved. He could hide her somewhere—the way his parents had hidden him. He could
raise her, make sure she learned to control her magic, make sure she grew up
with the power—the power to become a dragon, strong and free, not a weak,
magicless human for the Temple to oppress.

The dozen firedrakes
stepped closer. Smoke blasted out from their jaws, hitting Cade, searing like
an open oven full of roaring flames. The beasts' eyes blazed like cauldrons of
molten steel. Globs of their saliva thumped to the ground, sizzling, eating
holes into the soil.

They were just waiting
for him to escape, Cade knew. If he ran, even if he shifted into a dragon and
flew, they would chase him. They would catch him. They would slay him. And they
would slay Eliana too, rip this precious babe—a miracle child—into shreds of
meat to consume.

I cannot flee,
Cade thought, trembling.
I cannot risk them taking Eliana's life . . . even
if they will now take her magic.

Cradling Eliana in his
arms, Cade looked up toward the riders on the firedrakes. A paladin sat astride
each one of the beasts. Holy warriors of the Spirit, the paladins were sworn to
fight for the Cured Temple and enforce its purity. They wore armor of white
steel plates, and they carried pale banners emblazoned with the Temple's sigil:
a tillvine blossom. The same flower, resembling a calla lily, was engraved onto
their breastplates and painted onto their shields. The same flower, fair and
pale, would now burn Eliana's skin and rip out her dragon soul.

One of the firedrakes
stood out from the others. Most of the beasts had dull, monochromatic scales,
but this firedrake sported scales in all the colors of fire: red scales, orange
scales, and yellow scales in a hundred shades, all gleaming together as if the
beast were woven of flame. Its rider, clad in white steel, dismounted the fiery
beast and walked toward Cade.

This paladin was
female, which was rare. Though the Temple's supreme leader was always female,
her warriors were normally male, hulking men, noble-born and brawny. The woman
walking toward Cade, however, was slender and no taller than him. Her armor
mimicked the curves of her body, the steel plates white as snow, and a silver
tillvine blossom gleamed upon her breastplate. She carried sword and shield,
but she wore no helmet. Her face was as pale, cold, and hard as her armor. Her
eyes were blue, piercing, cruel, lacking all emotion. Like all paladins and
priests, the woman had shaved the left side of her head. The remaining hair was
swept to the right side, bleached pure white, flowing down to her shoulder like
a snowdrift.

The paladin reached
Cade and paused. She stared down at the babe in his arms, then back up at Cade.
Her eyes . . . by the stars, her eyes cut through him as sure as spears. He
felt the chill emanating from that icy blue gaze.

"Do you know who I am?"
she said softly. "I am Lady Mercy Deus. You will kneel before me." She stared
around her at the other villagers who stood in the square—meek, humble farmers
and tradesmen—and raised her voice to a shout. "You will all kneel!"

Cade gasped. Mercy
Deus? His insides seemed to crack and shatter. His heart sank. This was no
ordinary paladin. Here before him stood the daughter of the High Priestess. The
heiress to the Commonwealth. Aside from High Priestess Beatrix herself, Mercy
was the most powerful woman in the world.

And she's here in
our village.

Cade glanced at his
adoptive father. Derin stared back at him, his eyes hard, his mouth thinned
into a line. The balding baker nodded, then turned back toward the paladin and
knelt. Across the square, the villagers knelt too and bowed their heads. While
the paladins wore filigreed steel and embroidered, richly woven capes, the
villagers wore rough burlap tunics—the only garments allowed to them, humble
raiment symbolizing their purity.

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