Free Forged in Dragonfire (Flame of Requiem Book 1) by Daniel Arenson Page B

the
tears from falling. She tried to be brave, to be like the old heroines of
Requiem from her father's stories. To be brave like Mother had been, defying
the masters with her last breath. Yet still those damn tears fell, and still
Elory trembled.
    The past few hours were
a blur, a dreamscape of color and sound, so hazy and surreal Elory wondered if
it hadn't been a true dream, if she wouldn't soon wake back in her hut in
Tofet. She recalled the heat of the chariot of fire, a flight over the desert,
the smudged glimpses of a great city below. And then jeweled columns shining
with light. Mosaic floors depicting all the fish of the seas. The labyrinthine corridors of a
palace, a realm as confusing as another world.
    And she recalled other
slaves too. Other Vir Requis. But not ones like those from Tofet. Here, in this
realm of gold and jewels, the slaves' skin was paler, for the sun did not burn
them. Their shoulders did not stoop under a yoke, and their legs did not bend
under baskets of bricks, and no hot tar stained their feet. Elory flushed to
remember them stripping her naked, scrubbing her tarred skin until it reddened,
shaving the downy hair that grew on her body, soothing her wounds with ointment,
and finally cladding her in this cotton shift.
    She knelt now in the
dark chamber. Cleaned. Bandaged. Shaved. Perfumed with a hint of frankincense.
Yet still her ankles were hobbled, and still the collar encircled her neck.
    Still a slave. Still a
daughter mourning.
    Elory lowered her head.
Still that vision played in her mind, again and again. She knew it would never
leave her. Her mother, a silver dragon, calling her name, flying toward her . .
. and the lances, the arrows, the swords . . . the blood raining . . . the
severed limbs, the anguished eyes, and . . .
    "No," Elory
whispered. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. I will not let that
vision fill me. I refuse.
    Instead, she conjured
up older, kinder memories. Her mother comforting her after the overseers would
whip Elory's back. Her mother holding her, singing to her the old songs of
Requiem, whispering of the day when the dragons would rise again, overthrow
their masters, and fly home. Elory would remember that woman instead: the
kindly mother, face sunburnt and weathered but still beautiful, eyes still
dreaming, still hoping, loving her.
    You rest now in the
halls of afterlife, Elory thought.
    Requiem had fallen; the cruel seraph Ishtafel, her captor, had burned down the forests
and toppled the marble halls. But a Requiem woven of starlight still shone
above, Elory knew. And in that Requiem all the dragons from Mother's
stories—King Aeternum, the founder of Requiem, and all those kings, queens,
and heroes who had followed—lived there in the starlight. One could not see
the Draco constellation from so far south, here in the empire of Saraph, but
Elory knew that those stars shone beyond the horizon. That the celestial halls
shone among them. That her mother was at peace.
    I have to believe. I
have to or my will to continue would flee me. I have to believe that the
celestial Requiem shines above, and that we can someday rebuild the earthly
Requiem in our fallen forests.
    It was only hours ago
that a guard had led her here in a blindfold, chaining her in the shadows, then
leaving her. Elory had removed the blindfold, but she might as well have kept
it on. She looked around her, trying to see through the shadows, but it was too
dark. She could make out only the blobs of furniture. A chain ran from her
ankle, securing her to a bedpost. She dared to walk a few steps back and forth,
to hear the chain clank, to feel around her.
    A bed topped with the
softest fabric she had ever felt, even softer than her newly scrubbed, lotioned
skin. A table with a bowl of grapes she dared not eat. A mosaic on the floor.
Beyond that she couldn't reach, only gaze into darkness.
    For a long time, Elory
simply waited.
    He'll come for me, she thought. Somebody will.
    She shuddered