Crown of Dragonfire Read Free

answered.
    Fire streamed above,
and there he flew—Ishtafel, rising in a chariot of fire, laughing, slick with
blood, and the pain in Tash flared. A hundred thousand seraphim or more flew
with him, their chariots covering the sky.
    Tash stared from
between the columns, feeling the world collapse around her.
    Blood flowed across the
city of Shayeen that day.
    Fire rained.
    Shrieking, laughing,
praying to their gods, the seraphim descended upon the children of Requiem with
spear and arrow, decimating the slaves, and a forest of the dead rose, corpses
upon pikes.
    Requiem shattered.
    The screams rose, then
tore, then fell silent.
    Tash knew that all her
life, she would remember the slaughter she saw here. She knew that if Requiem
survived, her people would forever remember this day, the decimation of the
slaves, the massacre of sixty thousand souls, their voices forever silenced,
their light forever darkened. And she knew that she herself could never return
to that glittering pit, to the smoke of hintan and incense, to the kingdom she
had carved beneath the mountain.
    Once Tash had thought
herself merely a pleasurer, a queen of the glittering goddesses of the
underworld. That life had ended. This day she was a daughter of Requiem.
    The fire seared her
tears dry, and Tash forced herself to stare at the slaughter. At the blood on
the streets of Shayeen. At the piles of dead. At the seraphim who still dipped
from the sky, thrusting spears, slaughtering the fleeing children of Requiem.
She forced herself to see this, as King Benedictus in days of old had seen the
slaughter at Lanburg Fields in Requiem's ancient war against the griffins, as
Queen Lyana had seen the phoenixes descending upon the marble halls of Nova
Vita, Requiem's lost capital.
    I'm not a warrior
like they were. Tash touched the collar around her neck. I have no
legendary sword to wield, nor can I become a dragon and blow my fire. She
reached down between her legs, feeling the pain Ishtafel had left. But I
still have this weapon, this weapon I've always fought with. And I will fight
for Requiem. For our savior.
    She looked at the white
feather in her hand. It was nearly as long as Tash's forearm. Meliora's
feather. The feather of the great Princess of Saraph . . . and the great leader
of Requiem.
    Tash turned away from
the city.
    She faced the towering
wall across from the portico. A fresco appeared there, several times her
height, showing the fall of Requiem. Painted dragons fell while seraphim fired
their arrows, and above them all flew the tyrant.
    "You cut off her wings,"
Tash whispered. "You hurt me. You slaughtered thousands. You did not think
slaves could fight you, Ishtafel, but I will fight. I remember Requiem."

 
 
MELIORA

    She lay in darkness, alone,
her phantom wings aflame.
    How long had she
languished here in this prison cell? Meliora didn't know. There was no night or
day here, no way to tell the passage of time. A guard arrived sometimes, slid
open a small metal square on the doorway, and shoved in a bowl of gruel and a cup
of water. Whether she had three meals a day or one, Meliora could not tell. She
could have been in here for days, perhaps weeks.
    And still her wings
burned.
    Their fire lit the cell
with a hot, red light, crackling, illuminating brick walls, a craggy floor, and
a ceiling coated with spiderwebs. A chamber so small Meliora had no room to lie
down, only curl up in the corner. She kept reaching over her back, trying to
extinguish those flames on her wings, but felt nothing. Her hands passed
through them.
    Missing. Gone. She
shuddered. Ishtafel cut them off.
    Meliora could still feel them there as they said soldiers sometimes felt missing limbs. Yet the wings had
fallen from the balcony, and the firelight did not come from burning feathers.
It came from the halo on her head.
    Wincing, Meliora
reached over her head again, then pulled her seared fingers back. The fire
crackled with new vigor. She ached for a mirror, ached to see