Free Crown of Dragonfire by Daniel Arenson Page B

million dragon wings.
    I am the sky.
    She had no more seraph
wings, but in her mind she flapped the great wings of a dragon, and she soared,
spear thrusting upward, and grabbed one of the flaming chariots.
    Her fingers burned. She
screamed. The fire raced across her arm.
    I am fire. I am
dragonfire.
    The seraph in the
chariot grunted and lashed his lance. Meliora thrust her own spear, parrying
the blow. She swung her legs, and she leaped into the flaming chariot beside
the seraph.
    The man snarled and
shoved against her. The wind whipped her hood off her head, revealing her halo
of dragonfire. The flames crackled in a great expanding ring like the whips of
fire the overseers used. The flames lashed the seraph's face, and he screamed,
and Meliora shoved his lance aside and thrust her spear.
    For Requiem.
    Elory screamed below in
the boat. The second chariot was circling above it, and the seraph fired down
arrows. One arrow slammed into Vale's shoulder, and the young slave shouted.
    Meliora thrust her
spear again, driving it deep into the seraph's torso, and shoved him off the chariot.
She grabbed the reins. She snarled.
    Just like the
chariot race down the boulevard.
    She grinned savagely
and drove the firehorses forward. She slammed into the second chariot of fire,
and she leaped through the air.
    The chariots blasted
out flame.
    Meliora soared skyward,
then plunged down, spear lashing, and drove the blade into the second seraph.
    His lance scraped
across her thigh.
    Fire seared her blood.
    The firehorses tangled
together, the chariots shattered against each other, and the great ball of fire
plunged from the sky.
    They crashed into the
river.
    Black water flowed
above her head, dousing the fire on her arm, extinguishing her halo. She sank.
Around her in the water, she saw the firehorses still kicking, sinking, their
flames dying, leaving them as pale, withered things that faded into nothing.
Her blood danced around them.
    Meliora kicked
underwater.
    The water beckoned to
her, demons of the deep tugging at her feet. The pain flared through her, and
the river whispered, Sink, join us . . . let us soothe the pain . . . there
is no pain down there, only warm darkness.
    She sneered and kicked
with all her might.
    I do not die this
night.
    She rose in the water,
shoving her way through the last, crackling pieces of the chariots. She saw nothing.
She barely knew up from down. She kept kicking. She could not find the surface.
She sank again.
    "Meliora!" The voice
rolled through the water, and she swam toward it. "Meliora!"
    She bumped into him,
and she cried out wordlessly, and arms wrapped around her. His legs kicked, and
they rose together, and their heads burst over the surface.
    Meliora gulped down
air, coughed, inhaled again. The air was hot, full of ash, and beautiful.
    Vale swam in the water,
his arms still around her, breathing deeply.
    "You saved my life,"
she said, love for this man—the brother she had never known—filling her with
warmth.
    He smiled thinly. "Just
returning the favor, sister."
    Hands reached down
toward them—Elory and Tash leaning over the boat—and they climbed in,
coughing. Scraps of fire still burned on the river, fading one by one like
extinguishing stars. They sailed onward, passing between the towering idols . .
. and out into the open darkness.
    The boat flowed onward,
leaving the walls of the city behind. Soon the darkness was complete, cloaking
them like a blanket.
    Meliora lay in the
boat, letting Vale bandage her wounds with strips from his cloak, and she
stared back at the city, at the lights fading in the distance, at the chariots
of fire that still streamed overhead. The lights of Shayeen shone, and from
dark Tofet still rose the screams of the dying.
    "We will return to you,
my people," Meliora whispered, guilt and pain in her heart. "We will return
with the key, with the chest, with hope to see Requiem again."
    The river pulled them
onward. For only the second time since Requiem's