Dragons Lost (13 page)

Finally some rage
filled her eyes, and she grabbed his arms. "Don't you dare." She shook him. "Don't
you dare call Requiem a fairy tale. Requiem was real. We stand now in the very
land that once bore that name. Here, on this very coast, Requiem's hero Kyrie
Eleison fought the tyrant Dies Irae. We are children of starlight, all of us,
not this cruel 'Spirit' the Commonwealth worships. The Commonwealth." She snorted.
"It's no more than a hundred years old. Its paladins burned all books and
scrolls mentioning Requiem, smashed every statue of the old kings and queens,
forbade anyone to even speak the name of our old kingdom. And now they try to
purify us of our magic, to make King's Column fall. Do you know why it's even
called King's Column?" Her fingers dug into Cade's arms, and she stared at him
with blazing urgency. "It was King Aeternum himself, the founder of Requiem,
who raised that column over four thousand years ago. The stars of the Draco
constellation—our true gods—blessed it, and the stars' magic still keeps it
standing. King's Column will stand so long as we do. And I vow to never let it
fall."

Cade stared at her in
silence for a moment, then breathed deeply. "I need to sit down."

He stumbled toward
Korvin's armchair and sank into it. He leaned his head back and narrowed his
eyes to slits. It felt like the world was crumbling around him. Derin and
Tisha, the only parents he'd ever known, were dead. His village lay in ashes.
His sister was missing. And now he learned that his entire reality—the
Commonwealth and the Cured Temple that ruled it—were but a lie built upon the
ruins of an ancient world . . . a world he was tied to by the very magic inside
him.

"It's a lot to take in,"
Fidelity said. She sat on one of the seat's arms and placed a hand on Cade's
shoulder.

He looked at her,
feeling too weak to even lift his head off the backrest. "What do we do now?"

"What we've always been
doing. Seeking others. Collecting our lore. Maintaining the memory of Requiem
so that—"

Shouts rose from above,
interrupting her.

"Where's the boy?" a
man cried.

"Are you hiding the
vermin?" shouted a woman.

The cries of a dozen
people or more rose above. Cade heard armor chinking and swords drawn.

"They found me," Cade
whispered. "The paladins found me."

"Cade!" the woman cried
above. "Come to me, Cade!"

Lady Mercy,
he
knew.

He leaped to his feet,
Fidelity cried out and grabbed
The Book of Requiem
, and the wrath and
righteousness of the Cured Temple crashed into the library.

 
 
KORVIN

The damn boy ruined us!

Mercy, Paladin of the
Cured, stormed into the library, and with her came several soldiers in chainmail.
Outside the window, Korvin saw more paladins, and firedrakes screeched upon the
boardwalk.

"Where's the boy?"
Mercy shouted, blue eyes flashing. "He was seen entering this library." She
stood nearly a foot shorter than Korvin, but she grabbed his collar and sneered
at him. "Are you harboring a weredragon, old man?"

Korvin looked down at
her. A young woman, her blue eyes mad with rage. Her lips sneering, revealing
sharp white teeth. Half her head shaved. Her hair long and white, her stance
proud, the stance of a lioness.

She looks so much
like her mother.

It was Beatrix's
strength and pride that had first drawn Korvin to her. That had made him love
her. That had later made him flee.

You could have been
my daughter, Mercy,
Korvin thought, looking down at her.
Had I stayed
with your mother, I could have been the one to father you. Yet now you are my
enemy.

He grabbed her wrist
and, gently but firmly, pushed her hand back. "No weredragon here, my lady," he
said gruffly. "This is a holy place. A place for priests, not brutes."

Her eyes flashed. She
drew her sword. "Do you know who I am, old man?"

He stared into her
eyes. "I know you well, Lady Mercy Deus, daughter of High Priestess Beatrix."

"And yet you do not
kneel before me." She turned toward her men. "Search the library! Tear down
every shelf! Find the boy."

Korvin dared not remove
his eyes from Mercy. All around him, the soldiers rifled among the shelves.

"Lady Mercy!" one
soldier cried out. "A trapdoor! Stairs leading below."

Korvin cursed himself.
He cursed the boy. He cursed the Cured Temple and everyone in the Commonwealth.
Ten thousand times, he had emerged from the cellar, had carefully closed the
trapdoor and placed the bookshelf back above it, concealing the secrets within.
Then one boy, one fool who'd come with questions, had shaken Korvin enough for
him to leave the trapdoor uncovered.

"Search the cellar!"
Mercy began. "Find the—"

Shouting hoarsely,
Fidelity and Cade came charging out from the cellar, swinging bookshelves.

The slats of
wood slammed into the soldier at the trapdoor, knocking him down.

Everything seemed to
happen at once.

Mercy swung her sword
at Korvin. As the blade flashed, his old soldier's instincts kicked in, the
same instincts that had saved his hide so many times in the war against the
Horde. He leaped back, grabbed a thick volume of
The Book of Auberon
,
and raised it as a shield. Mercy's sword slammed into the book, cleaving it
down to its back cover.

The dozen other
soldiers stormed toward him, drawing their blades, and the firedrakes screeched
outside, and Korvin saw it before him—saw it again, the same vision he had been
struggling to forget since the night his wife had died.

Death.

Again, in his mind, the
paladins stormed into his home—not this library but a hut far away. Again Beatrix,
his spurned lover, was thrusting her sword again and again into Korvin's wife,
laughing, laughing as she died, laughing as he roared in agony. Again Korvin
was fleeing into the darkness with Fidelity and Domi, his wife's blood on his
hands, his old lover's laughter echoing in his ears.

Beatrix had killed a
person he loved. Korvin would not let her daughter do the same.

He roared and charged
forward.

Mercy tried to raise
her sword in time, but Korvin barreled into the paladin before she could. He
was twice her age but also twice her size, and he knocked the paladin down. She
fell, armor clanging, and cried out in pain. More soldiers thrust swords toward
him. Korvin bellowed, shoved a shelf, and knocked a rain of books onto them.

"Fidelity! Boy! Run!"
he cried. "Outside!"

The two were still
swinging bookshelves like clubs. Korvin charged toward the door, roaring, and
ducked under a soldier's swinging sword. He knocked the man down, but two more
soldiers replaced him, blocking the door. Mercy leaped to her feet, growling,
and raised her blade. More soldiers came racing into the library from outside,
clad all in steel, bearing shields and swords.

Stars of Requiem,
Korvin thought.

"Fidelity, boy!" he
shouted. "Back against the wall!"

Fidelity's eyes
widened. She understood. She grabbed Cade and, instead of trying to make her
way toward the exit, pulled him toward the back wall.

Soldiers swung their
swords at Korvin.

The blades clattered
harmlessly against scales.

Trapped in the library
within walls of clay, Korvin shifted into a dragon.

It had been many days
since he had summoned the ancient magic of Requiem, and he had never summoned
it indoors. He wasn't sure he wouldn't crush himself to death. Ignoring the
fear, he let the magic keep flowing through him. Dark gray scales rose on his
body, the color of charcoal, thick as armor. His horns slammed into the
ceiling, and his tail knocked down soldiers. Bookshelves shattered and fell. A
swipe of his claws sent Mercy sprawling. And still Korvin grew. His body
slammed into more bookshelves, cracking them, crushing books. He grew larger
still, pressing against the walls, and roared, letting the magic flow through
him.

Soldiers screamed,
crushed.

The walls cracked.

The ceiling caved in.

The library shattered
around Korvin in a rain of clay and dust. In the cascading rubble, he roared
and tossed his head, his cry rising to the sky, tearing across the city. A
charcoal dragon, he beat his wings and soared, leaving the ruin. At his right
side, more scales flashed: Fidelity rose there, a slender blue dragon. To his
left, a new dragon soared; Cade flew there, his scales golden as dawn.

As the three dragons
rose from the devastation, leaving the soldiers in the rubble, they found
themselves in a sky full of firedrakes.

Ten or more flew above
them. Another dozen took flight from the boardwalk. Paladins rode the great
reptiles, holding lances and crossbows. On one of the beasts, Korvin saw Gemini
Deus, second-born child of High Priestess Beatrix, a slender man with a hard,
pale face much like Mercy's. The firedrakes screeched, formed a ring around the
three Vir Requis, and blasted forth their fire.

Korvin roared and blew
his flames. Fidelity and Cade soared with him, spewing dragonfire. The jets
slammed together, and flames exploded above the city, a fireball like a
collapsing sun, crashing down onto the ruined library, the huts around it, the
boardwalk, even spreading forth to the beach. Townsfolk screamed and ran, the
fire clinging to their tunics. Flames burned across Korvin, heating his scales,
cracking them, blazing against his wings. He beat those wings, trying to rise
higher, but saw only firedrakes. They swooped, claws outstretched. Their fangs
gleamed. And Korvin knew he was going to die.

A figure of fire
streamed above.

A firedrake with scales
in all the colors of flame dived, roared, and crashed into the drakes around
it, forming a path of open sky.

Domi—a roaring dragon,
mount to Mercy herself, Korvin's own daughter—stared into his eyes.

"Go!" the fiery dragon
whispered.

Before the firedrakes
could regroup, Korvin soared through the swath of open sky. Fidelity and Cade
soared behind him, breaking through the circling firedrakes. Korvin shot toward
the clouds, then leveled off and streamed eastward, flying across the beach and
over the open sea. Fidelity and Cade flew at his sides, singed, scales cracked
and bleeding.

When Korvin looked over
his shoulder, he saw Mercy screaming for Domi—she called her "Pyre," not
knowing her secret—to bear her on her back. Other paladins climbed onto their
own firedrakes. Soon thirty of the beasts regrouped, riders upon them, and flew
in pursuit across the water.

Domi gave Korvin one
last look.

Go, Father,
her
eyes said as Mercy climbed into her saddle.

Then the fiery dragon
bellowed, no longer seeming a Vir Requis but a wild firedrake with no human
soul, bearing Mercy on her back.

Korvin returned his
eyes to the east. He saw nothing but water stretch into the horizon. He flew.
Fidelity and Cade flew at his sides.

"You're wobbling, boy!"
Korvin shouted. "Fly faster."

The young golden dragon
growled. "I've never flown for this long before."

"It shows," Korvin cried
over the wind. "Learn fast or you'll be feeding those firedrakes!"

The creatures screeched
behind, streaming across the sea, Domi flying at their lead. On the firedrakes'
backs, paladins raised crossbows and fired. The bolts shot across the sky. The
three dragons scattered, dodging the projectiles.

"Surrender to me now,
weredragons, if you want to live!" Mercy cried from Domi's back. "Fly onward
and die!"

Korvin growled and kept
flying, streaming over the water. Cade and Fidelity flew at his sides, wings
beating mightily. The coast disappeared behind them. The crossbows fired again,
and Korvin yowled as a bolt skimmed across his scales.

"Faster!" he shouted at
Cade and his daughter. "Out of range!"

They flapped their
wings with all their strength, shooting across the water. The firedrakes
screeched behind. The beasts blew fire, and the jets blazed forward, just
reaching Korvin's tail. The heat singed him, and he bellowed, spurred onward to
extra speed. All land had now vanished, but the firedrakes showed no sign of
slowing down.

And my own daughter
flies among them,
Korvin thought, feeling ill.

When he looked over his
shoulder, he saw Domi there. She was staring at him. The sun began to set,
gleaming upon her red and yellow scales; she seemed woven of fire, a great
mount of flame for Lady Mercy, more phoenix than dragon.

She has always been
like fire,
Korvin thought. As a child, Fidelity had always been studious,
serious, a little bookworm who stayed up late to read, pondered the meanings of
histories, and collected every secret book she could on Requiem. Domi had been
the opposite. While Fidelity read books about dragons, Domi
became
a
dragon as often as she could—in secret caves, in moonless nights, in empty
fields, flying and dreaming of Requiem. Once the girl had even shifted in her
sleep, becoming a dragon in her bed, shattering that bed and cracking the walls
of their home.

Finally Domi could bear
it no more. When she had turned sixteen, she had fled the library, vowing to
never be human again. She vowed that if Requiem could not return, she would no
longer live like this, keeping her dragon magic secret. Instead she would be a
firedrake, her human form forever hidden.

But I never thought
she'd serve Mercy herself,
Korvin thought, feeling sick.
Mercy—the
daughter of my old lover. The woman who hunts us. The woman who rides Domi now
to slay me.

Flying like this over
the sea, he did not know who Domi was more loyal to—her family or her cruel
mistress.