A Day of Dragon Blood (2 page)

It was the voice of her father, her king, and her ancestors—the voice of her honor and memory. It was a voice she hated this day.

She adjusted the silk scarf around her eyes. The loomers of Confutatis, ancient city of the eastern realms, had woven this scarf, and they had imbued it with all their skill and magic. From one side, the cloth was translucent as summer mist; from the other, solid and thick as wool. Through the scarf, the world shone clear to Lyana; to any observer, the silk hid her green northern eyes. To this city she was but Tiana, the blind dancer of the River Spice. Her hair, once a pyre of fiery red curls, now hung smoothed and bleached a platinum blond—the hair of a Tiran. Her skin, once pale and strewn with freckles like starfields, now gleamed golden, rubbed with dyes that would tint her for moons. Once she had worn the armor of a bellator, a knight of Requiem; today she wore but strands of white silk that revealed more flesh than they hid.

I was Lady Lyana, a defender of Requiem,
a warrior who could shift into a dragon and roar to battle, save Silas, and burn my enemies.
She squared her jaw, heart pounding. Now she must be only Tiana—only the blind dancer from the southern dunes, only a girl with a scarf over her eyes, a girl who could not even see this dance of blood before her.
How I wish that I were truly blind today.

The five wyverns moved along the Palisade of Kings, a wide cobbled road lined with palms and obelisks capped with platinum sunbursts. Blood trailed behind the dragging Silas, and the multitudes roared. Cranes and ibises flew overhead, and soldiers on horseback rode behind the dragon, bearing the banners of Phoebus—a flaming sun upon a white field. The procession made its way down the palisade, under the great Queen's Archway whose stones were carved with sunbursts, and into the Square of the Sun where thousands roared and raised their hands to the heavens. The true sun blazed overhead, drenching the city, a god of light and heat and punishment.

Across the square lay the Palace of Phoebus, a towering edifice, greater even than the palace of Requiem where Lyana served her king. Its columns rose three hundred feet tall. Stone guardians, shaped as faceless warriors, flanked its great doors; each statue stood taller than three dragons. The wyverns began climbing the stairs to the palace gateway. Silas dragged behind them; the dragon thudded against each step, groaning, smoke leaving his nostrils.

Blow fire, Silas!
Lyana thought.
Blow your flame and kill what bastards you can!

Yet he was too weak; she saw that. He was barely strong enough to cling to his dragon form. She saw the marks of whips across him. They had tortured him, forcing him to remain a dragon, though surely it took every last drop of his strength.

Lyana clenched her fists.
Queen Solina wants the mobs to see him as a broken, bloody beast, not a man.

The doors to the palace, wrought of gold and ivory, swung open. As if summoned by Lyana's thoughts, Queen Solina stepped out of shadows, stood above the stairs, and raised her arms.

The city bowed before her, a great wave of myriads. Jaw so tight her teeth ached, Lyana forced herself to bow too.

"Blessed be the Sun God!" cried Solina. She wore steel so pale it was nearly white. A golden sun glimmered upon her breastplate, and twin sabres hung from her belt. Her platinum hair swayed behind her like a banner, and a crown of jagged, golden spikes rose upon her head like claws.

You murdered my king,
Lyana thought, a sandstorm of rage flaring within her.
You murdered my betrothed. One day I will kill you, Solina.

"Rise, children of the sun!" Solina cried, arms raised. Across the oasis city of Irys, the people rose and cried her name. "A beast we found lurking along our borders. A demon of scale and claw!"

Upon the roofs and streets, the crowd roared. Lyana looked upon the people through the silk of her scarf. She had never seen such rage, such pure, storming hatred. It suffused the faces of the men and women of Tiranor, twisting them into cruel masks. It gushed from their throats in raw howls.

We are but demons to them,
Lyana thought.
We, the children of Requiem, are a noble and ancient race—a nation that lives for music, for meditation, for peace. And we are nothing but monsters here.

"The dragons burned your fathers and mothers!" Solina cried. "Thirty years ago, when they invaded our glorious land of sunlight, they toppled our towers and drank the blood of children." Her voice nearly drowned under the roaring crowd. "But we've rebuilt! Our palace stands anew and our people are strong!" She tossed back her head and howled her words to the sun. "We will never fall!"

The roars swelled so loudly that Lyana felt them thud in her ears, pound in her chest, and shake the River Spice Winehouse below her feet.

"We will never fall!" cried the people. "We will never fall! Hail the Sun God!"

Lyana lowered her eyes. The first Tiran War had raged before her birth. Solina herself had been only a babe. Its wounds had long washed away from this city; all the fallen buildings stood again, and once more trees filled this oasis with life.

"And yet the hatred we sowed then still blooms," Lyana whispered. "And it still burns our sons and daughters."

The wyverns flapped their wings and tugged the chained dragon to his feet. Soldiers climbed the towering statues that flanked the palace doors, attaching chains to hooks. Soon Silas hung shackled between the stone guardians, a bloody dragon with one wing, displayed in all his wretchedness to the city. Solina stood before him, her boots red with his blood.

"The dragons bring drought to our land!" the queen cried. "They drink the waters that should overflow the River Pallan! The dragons eat our grain, leaving our poor to hunger! The dragons mock our lord, the Sun God who gives us life, and worship the night!" With her every word, the crowd roared, and Solina spun toward the chained Silas. "Now Requiem will learn the price of its evil. Blessed be the Sun God! His fire shall extinguish all darkness. Soon we will burn all dragons and cast out their evil with light. We will never fall!"

Fly now!
cried a voice in Lyana's head.
Toss off this silk scarf, discard your disguise, and fly as a dragon to save him. You are a knight of Requiem, no blind Tiran dancer!

Her every breath was a struggle. Her head spun. Her fingernails dug into her palms.
Oh, stars.
Her king had sent her here as a spy—to dance, to listen, to learn.
Stars, not to watch my friend killed before my eyes.

And yet she watched, trembling upon the roof.

Solina mounted a wyvern, the greatest among them, a behemoth of iron scales named Baal. The queen cracked her whip and her mount reared. The beast roared and spewed a stream of yellow, smoking acid onto the chained dragon.

Silas howled.

Lyana wept.

I'm sorry, Silas, I'm sorry.
There was nothing she could do; she knew that. If she flew, she too would die. If she flew, all her work would burn with her bones. Yet still the pain and shame coursed within her.

The acid ate through the dragon's scales, blood boiled, and Silas turned back into a man. The body hung for a moment upon the chains, then fell and broke apart. Lyana turned away and closed her eyes, but she could still hear the screams.

The crowd's roar spun around her. Vaguely, she heard Solina cry of her glory, heard her scream of offering a burnt head to the crowd; all sounds were muffled. Struggling for breath, Lyana stumbled across the roof of her winehouse, fumbled to open the trapdoor, and stepped into the attic. Once inside, she all but fell against the wall, clutched her breast, and gasped for air.

Stars, oh stars.

She forced herself to take long, slow breaths, to count to ten, to calm the tremble of her limbs.

"You will not have died in vain, Silas," she whispered. "I vow to you. I will avenge you."

I will learn about the invasion of Requiem. I will report back to my king. And I will save Requiem from the wrath of this mad, murderous queen.

She leaned against the wall until her heartbeat began to calm. Soon her eyes regained focus, and she saw sacks of grain, jugs of ale, hanging strings of dried fish, and jars of fig preserves. In the corner lay her bed, a mere pile of straw topped with a canvas blanket. Once Lyana had lived in palaces, a great knight in the courts of Requiem. But those days lay long behind her; she had lived here in Tiranor as Tiana the dancer for a year now. Today, more than ever, she missed her home and knew the worth of her sacrifice.

Downstairs in the common room, she heard the doors slam open, boots rush in, and hoarse voices cry for ale and wine. Those were the voices of soldiers; she would have recognized the gruff calls anywhere. She had heard such voices a year ago when the Tirans had invaded her realm, burned her city, and killed thousands around her.

"Come, come, sit and drink!" rose the voice of Peras, the kindly old owner of the River Spice. "Sit here, I—"

The soldiers roared below. "The dancer! Bring us the dancer! Bring us wine, old man, and bring us the girl!"

Lyana ground her teeth. Death made such men thirsty for her wine and hungry for her flesh. She would serve them wine. And she would dance for them. And one day, she swore, she would burn them all.

For you, Orin, my fallen prince. For you, Silas, whom I could not save. For the thousands of Vir Requis these soldiers killed. I will avenge you, Requiem.

She grabbed her walking staff. She stepped downstairs, silks swaying across her body, baring all but her most private parts. Staff tapping, she entered the common room. Soldiers filled it, clad in steel and leather. At the sight of her, they roared and slammed fists against the tabletops. How many of those men had slaughtered women and children in Requiem? How many more would they slaughter once the second invasion began?

Peras, kindly old keeper of the winehouse, was hobbling between the men, serving wine, platters of dates, and steaming rolls of bread. One soldier shoved the old man aside.

"Dance!" he cried to Lyana. "Dance for us, Blind Beauty! We've seen blood and death, and now we will see grace."

When they looked upon her, she knew they saw a blind girl, a scarf hiding her green northern eyes in a land of blue-eyed desert warriors. Tiana's hair was smooth and bright as beaten platinum, her skin golden as dunes—a desert daughter clad in silks, a walking staff in hand, as different from Lady Lyana as sand from snow. When she looked upon them through her scarf, she saw steel and bloodlust, a death for her people.

"Dance as we drink!" one soldier called. "Summer solstice approaches, a day of dragon blood, a day when we kill and die. Let us drink today for life!"

Her heart pounded. Today was the new moon, a day of sunfire and wine. But summer solstice was the holiest day of the Tiran year, as holy as the Night of Seven to the children of Requiem. What did this soldier mean? Would the second invasion of Requiem begin on that holiest of days, a mere eighteen days away?

"Dance!" they cried.

She walked forward and tapped her staff, feigning her blindness and meekness, and they cheered. Peras began to play his lute, and the soldiers joined in, singing and drumming upon the tabletops. When she reached the center of the common room, tables of drinking men around her, Lyana laid her staff aside. And she danced.

A year ago, when she had been a knight in Requiem, Lyana had learned to dance with her betrothed Prince Orin; they would sway among the lords and ladies of the court, lovers caught in the song of harps and pipes. Here, in this southern land of sunlight and sand and steel, she danced not like a noblewoman, but like the wick of a flame, like desert wind, like a bird of many colors rising among palms. She closed her eyes until she truly became blind Tiana, and she surrendered herself to her dance. The men roared around her like desert storms.

As she danced, she was Tiana; she forgot her true name, her true parentage, her true soul. She became the Blind Beauty, the Desert Rose, the wonder of Irys. Her body swayed and her silks flowed. She spun, arms raised.

I am a daughter of dunes,
whispered her soul.
I have risen from the desert like a column of fire. I am kissed with sunlight and myrrh and pomegranate wine. I am a desert bird, flying, seeking the sky.

At these moments, when she danced, she could almost love her enemy, almost love Tiranor for the beauty of her song, the sweetness of her fruits and wines, and the glory of her ancient towers and gold. She was Tiran. She was Tiana. She was blind and a thing of wind and sound. If Lady Lyana, a knight of Requiem, still lived inside her, she was now a scourge of cruel northern snow.

The music died.

Lyana gasped and opened her eyes behind her scarf.

Through the silk, she saw the doors of the River Spice open, and a shadow entered the winehouse and her life.

First two armored men entered the room, bearing shields and spears. Gilded masks hid their faces, shaped as the heads of ibises, the curving beaks a foot long. They moved to flank the doorway, metal sentinels, and slammed down their spears. They were the Gilded Guardians, Lyana knew—warrior priests bred to protect the highborn of Tiranor. A third man followed, entering the shadowy common room with a wind scented of sand.

He was tall—the tallest man in the room. His head was shaved bald, and his face was lined, hard, and handsome. He wore armor of pale steel, unadorned but for a golden sun upon the breastplate. A sabre and dagger hung from his belt, their scabbards simple leather, their pommels shaped as sunbursts. If not for the suns upon his pauldrons, denoting him a general of Tiranor's army, Lyana would have thought him a simple soldier.

But no,
she thought. It was more than just the rank upon his armor or the Gilded Guardians who flanked him. This man did not have the eyes of a common soldier. When he stared over the room at her, she saw no lust for blood, flesh, or wine. She saw nothing at all—only blue ice, calculating and heartless.