Dragons Reborn (5 page)

"You did the right
thing, lassie," said the old man. "No good would have come from
chasing the paladins alone. You came to us for aid, and we're glad to help.
Cade's a good lad, and we'll bring him home."

Roen nodded. "Aye,
we'll show the paladins a thing or two." His jaw tightened. "We've
hidden for too long maybe, my gaffer and I." He allowed himself a smile. "We'll
show those paladins how dragons fight."

"They command
hundreds of firedrakes," Fidelity said. "How can we stop them, just
three?"

"Three of the
finest Vir Requis in the land!" Julian said, chin raised. "Well . . .
three of the finest among only a handful in the world, but fine nonetheless. We're
no mindless beasts like the drakes."

"And we've got the
element of surprise," Julian added, gaining confidence with every word. "Beatrix
doesn't know of my son and me. The witch's eyes will pop right out of her
sockets to see new dragons attack."

Fidelity reached into
her pocket and closed her hand around the small metal
R
she kept there,
one of the letters from the printing press.

"Sooner or later,"
she said, "Beatrix will bring Cade out to the Temple balcony to show him
off to the crowd. She'll try to purify him before the multitudes, a sign of his
submission. If he refuses the tillvine . . ." Fidelity shuddered. "I
want us in the crowd. Close to the balcony. Ready to shift, soar as dragons,
and grab Cade, then fly as far and fast as we can."

Roen nodded. "When
will they bring him out?"

She lowered her head. "I
don't know. It might be tonight. It might not be for months. But I know who
will have the answer." She swallowed. "Domi."

Roen raised an eyebrow.
"Your sister?"

She nodded. "She
serves the Cured Temple as a firedrake. She hears the paladins speak. If we can
somehow reach her, Domi can help us."

If she hasn't become
a full servant of the Temple,
Fidelity added silently. She had not spoken
to her sister in years, not since Domi had run off, shouting that she'd rather
serve as a dragon than live free as a human. Did Domi still hold Requiem any
love, or was she fully a beast of the Temple now?

She sent Cade to me,
Fidelity reminded herself.
She told him of Requiem. That means she holds
Requiem some love. Oh, Domi . . . perhaps I need to save you as much as Cade.

As they walked toward
Nova Vita, many other people joined them on the road: farmers, shepherds,
loggers, and other travelers. All spoke in hushed tones of "the weredragon
in the city." Some peasant children held dragon effigies, which they
stabbed with wooden swords. A few men proudly proclaimed what they would do to
any weredragon they caught slinking around their farms.

It seems word has
spread,
Fidelity thought with a sigh.

They drew closer to the
city. The afternoon sun gilded its walls and guard towers. Beyond them,
Fidelity could see only one building soaring in the distance: the Cured Temple.
All other buildings in Nova Vita, mere huts for the commoners, were too small
to rise above the walls, but the Temple rose as a great edifice. Its base was
round and white, and from it grew many curving towers of glass and crystal.
From this distance, it looked to Fidelity like a fallen comet, its tail still
stretching into the sky.

The crowd thickened
along the road as they approached the southern gates. Two towers framed an
archway here, and guards stood within the doorway, allowing one traveler at a
time into the city. Several firedrakes stood upon the walls around the
gatehouse, smoke pluming from their nostrils, their claws clutching the city
ramparts.

Roen frowned and
grumbled. "Don't like so many people around me."

Fidelity nodded. "Nor
do I."

Suddenly she missed her
old library in Sanctus, and her eyes stung to think of it. The way Roen had sought
sanctuary in the forest, she had found solace in that dusty library. She had
spent many hours reading her forbidden books in the cellar, dreaming of the old
days of Requiem, even of this very city which had once been Requiem's capital.
Yearning for Requiem had always seemed sad to her, yet now, walking here toward
the enemy, her friend captive, her old life seemed carefree, a life of
daydreaming and peace.

Only Julian seemed to
remain calm. "Not to worry, younglings. Not to worry. We're naught but simple
foresters, come to pray at the Temple."

Yet as they drew closer
to the gatehouse, Fidelity's heart sank down to her pelvis.

"Oh bloody stars,"
she whispered.

At her side, Roen
grumbled and even Julian frowned.

"One by one!"
a guard was shouting, waving a bundle of leaves. "You don't enter without
touching the leaves. Stand back! One by one!"

The travelers—farmers
and shepherds and other commoners—were lining up outside the gates. Each
person who stepped forward held out his or her arm. The guards, gruff men in
chain mail, pressed ilbane onto their skin, then let the traveler pay a toll
and enter.

Ilbane.
Fidelity
shuddered, already feeling the pain. The plant was harmless to most. It burned
Vir Requis like fire.

The companions paused
and stepped to the roadside.

"Spirit's blistery
feet," Roen cursed. "Since when do they test for Vir Requis at the
gates?"

Fidelity sighed,
keeping her voice low. "Since they caught one." She glanced back at
the guards. "Maybe they don't know us by name, but they know other Vir
Requis are out there. They know we're coming for Cade." She grimaced. "I
touched ilbane once—a couple years ago. I screamed. My skin was raw for days."
She shook her head. "We cannot enter here."

Roen smiled savagely. "I
can take pain. I can enter." He made to step back onto the road.

"No!"
Fidelity grabbed him. "Not even you, Roen. You'd be unable to withstand
that pain. No more than you could grin if I kicked you in the groin."

He grimaced. "Ouch.
That bad?"

She nodded. "That
bad." She took a deep breath. "There's another way in . . . in
darkness. In danger." She gulped and looked at the setting sun. "We
wait until tonight . . . and we fly."

 
 
DOMI

"I'm sorry," she
whispered. She stared down at the unconscious Gemini, and she was surprised to
find true guilt coursing through her. "I'm sorry, Gemini, but it's
something I must do."

He lay sprawled on the
floor, blood trickling from his mouth. Domi was surprised at her own strength. Gemini
was quite a bit larger than her, yet she had knocked him out cold. Before he
could wake, she knelt and slapped her old manacles around his wrists and
ankles, then grabbed him under his arms. She pushed her heels against the floor
and grimaced, straining to drag him into her old cell.

I have to hurry.
Before the guards return.

Her heart pounded, and
she was breathing heavily when she released Gemini. Chained inside her prison
cell, he began to wake, mumbling confusedly.

She kissed his
forehead. "I'm sorry again, my love."

She drove her fist into
his face a second time, then grabbed her aching knuckles and cursed. Gemini
thumped back onto the floor, and Domi hurried out of the cell, closed the door,
and locked it.

She glanced down the
corridor. The guards, which Gemini had sent outside, had not yet returned, but
she knew they could be back any second.

"Cade, you foolish
boy," she muttered. The keys jangling in her hand, she rushed toward his
cell, unlocked the door, and swung it open.

"Up!" she
whispered. "I'm here to save your backside—a second time. Up!"

Cade blinked at her in
amazement as she unlocked his chains. "Domi!" He rubbed his eyes. "Oh,
stars, Domi." His eyes dampened, and he tried to embrace her. "Are
you all right? What—"

"Hush!" She
glared and tugged him to his feet. "Stand up. Now hurry. We're getting out
of here." She gulped. "If you see any guards, kill them."

For a moment he stood
still, face pale, eyes wide, and Domi realized how young he was: only a boy,
that was all, no older than eighteen. But he quickly came to his senses,
tightened his lips, and nodded.

"Let's go."

Both were bruised,
bloody, and clad in rags. Both limped as they moved, stumbling down the
corridor.

They had crossed only
half the distance to the exit when the first guard stepped back into the hall.

The man stared at them.
His eyes widened. He cried out to his comrades.

"Prisoners escaping!
Prisoners out—"

Domi growled, shoved
Cade backward, and shifted.

Scales rose across her,
and her tail sprouted, knocking Cade farther back. Her body ballooned, slamming
against the ceiling and walls. As guards rushed toward her, Domi blasted out
her fire.

The inferno blazed
across the hall, leaped into the cells, and roared through this cavern of
stone. The guards screamed and fell, blazing, trying to roll and extinguish the
fire, only for more flames to crash against them.

When Domi shifted back
into human form, they all lay dead before her, charred black. She grabbed one
fallen sword, grimacing as the hilt blazed against her palm. She kicked another
sword toward Cade.

"Now run, you
foolish boy!" she said. "Grab that sword and run!"

She tugged him forward,
and they ran.

 
 
FIDELITY

They crouched behind the bale of
hay as the sun sank beneath the horizon, the stars emerged, and the most
dangerous night in their life began.

"Darkness falls,"
Fidelity whispered, clutching the metal letter—the only charm she had left—so
hard it dug into her palm. "It's time."

Julian and Roen knelt
beside her behind the hay. Crickets chirped, fireflies glowed, and a cool
breeze blew. It was strange, Fidelity thought, that this night of horrors
seemed so peaceful. She would have given all the treasure in the Commonwealth
for a night of clouds and rain, no starlight to shine upon them.

"Are you sure you
want to do this?" Roen whispered. "Let me fly. You and my gaffer will
ride me. I'm fast and strong."

"And big,"
Fidelity said. "I'm the smallest. What we need now is stealth, not speed
or strength. Only I'll shift—one dragon, sneaky and silent, with you two on my
back." She stared across the darkness toward the city. "We fly high.
We fly hidden. We descend inside Nova Vita with the Temple none the wiser."

Roen reached out in the
darkness and clasped her hand in both of his. He stared at her, the light of
fireflies reflecting in his eyes. He still smelled of the forest—the leaves,
clear pools, good soil, comfort, safety. His hands were rough but still soft,
the hands that had so often explored her body.

"I hope the boy's
worth it," he said.

"He's Vir Requis."
She stared into those brown eyes she had gazed into so often in her youth. "There
might be no more than us in the world. He's worth it."

"Worth dying for?"
Roen said.

"Requiem is worth
dying for. I will fight for all her sons and daughters. I will not abandon
Cade." She lowered her head. "Roen, I know what this means to you. I
know that for years you refused to join this fight of mine. I know that for
years you sought only to live in the woods, to forget the Commonwealth, the
Temple, even Requiem." She looked back up at him, tears in her eyes, and
kissed the corner of his mouth. She whispered to him, her voice choked. "Thank
you. I love you."

He winked at her, and a
crooked smile tugged at his lips. "With me doing this, you'd better love
me."

She stepped away from
him, raised her chin, and shifted. She stood in the dark field, a blue dragon,
and lowered her wing, forming a ramp. Roen climbed first and straddled her
back, and Julian followed. Once son and father were safely seated, Fidelity
kicked off the ground, flapped her wings, and rose into the night sky.

She spiraled up and up,
careful to keep her wings and scales silent, to keep the fire hidden in her
gullet. The land sprawled around her. Many years ago, King's Forest had covered
these hills and plains, the fabled woods of Requiem. Today the trees were gone,
for the birches had been symbols of Requiem to be cut down.

Fidelity rose
higher, so high the air thinned out and chilled her. The stars spread above
her, and the Draco constellation, ancient god of Requiem, shone upon her. The
celestial dragon's eye, Issari's Star, glowed brighter than all others in the
sky. Along with King's Column, the stars were the only symbol of Requiem the
Cured Temple had been unable to destroy.

Please, stars of
Requiem,
Fidelity thought, gazing at their light.
Protect me this night.

She looked at the city
that lay a mile away. In her dreams of Old Requiem, the city of Nova Vita had
been a hub of light, its lanterns glowing bright even at night. Nova Vita was
the largest city in the Commonwealth, perhaps the world, yet now it was dark,
almost as dark as the farmlands. Few lanterns lit the streets. Few lights
glowed in windows. There was little oil for lanterns, little firewood for
hearths these years, little life on the streets after sundown. The Cured Temple
had stamped out the lights of Requiem.

All but one light—a
great light like the moon. The Cured Temple shone below, the greatest structure
in the Commonwealth, a hub of luminescence and splendor. Its crystal spikes
soared to the sky, curling inward like claws, carved of glass and crystal,
shining with inner lights. Below them, many windows pierced the round base of
the Temple, and white light blazed out from them. Here was a comet fallen onto
the world, glowing with the heavens.

Are you in there,
Cade?
she thought.

The only other lights
she saw lined the city walls. Archers stood there, torchlight glinting off
their armor. And between them, perched like gargoyles, hulked the firedrakes,
flames in their maws.