Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) Read Free Page A

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