A Dawn of Dragonfire - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,12

you, with red hair and green eyes and steel in their hands. They are warriors. They are proud. And I love them. But Noela…" She trembled. "She was like a young me. A sad, reflective child. Why did she leave me?"

Deramon growled, a low sound like a bear in his cave. He placed his lamp down by the grave. "Noela died in her cradle, Adia. She was not yet two years old. We do not know the woman she might have become."

She spun toward him, glaring. "I knew!" she hissed. Her eyes blurred with tears. "I knew her soul, and her heart, and—"

Deramon grabbed her arm. "Adia," he whispered. His eyes narrowed, drowning in pain. "Adia, I loved her too. More than you can imagine. But I also love Bayrin and Lyana—who still live, who still need us. And I love you. We still have a family to protect."

She closed her eyes. "A family to protect. A king to protect. A city to protect. You protect everyone, Deramon, but who protected her?" She opened her eyes. "We were not there for her, Deramon. We didn't even know until the morning!" Her voice rose, torn in pain. "She lay dead in the cradle all night, as we slept, and it was dawn before we—"

Deramon howled. "Enough!"

He tossed his axe aside; it thumped into the snow. He held her with both hands. She struggled, but he pulled her into his embrace, and Adia found herself weeping against his shoulder. She shivered against him, and he held her tight and smoothed her hair. She stood with arms at her sides, but then slowly reached around him and embraced him.

Yes, she thought. I love him. I love Deramon, though he has changed, and I have changed, and joy has left our lives. But I still love him.

She looked aside at the grave, at the marble tombstone, at the place of all her sorrow and memory.

And I love you, Noela. Always. I will see you again in our starlit halls.

Wings thudded behind her. A dragon's roar pierced the air. Adia spun around to see a blue dragon spiraling down toward the graveyard.

Lyana. My daughter.

The young dragon's wings roiled the falling snow. Smoke plumed from between her teeth, and the moon glimmered against her blue scales. She landed, claws digging into mounds of snow, and shifted into human form. Lyana stood before her parents, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide and frightened. Frost whitened her armor.

She is like a young Deramon, Adia thought again. A warrior like him, angry and proud like him, clad in steel and honor. Mother and daughter—fire and water.

"Mother!" the young woman said, panting. "Quick, to the temple. Princess Mori is hurt."

Adia frowned. "Mori is far south in Castellum Luna. The king sent her to—"

"She's back," said Lyana. She shifted back into a dragon and took flight. Her voice roared. "Follow me! She needs your healing."

Adia's head spun. She took a deep breath and summoned her magic. White scales flowed across her, clinking and glimmering. Leathern wings sprouted from her back, and fire tickled her mouth. She took flight as a long dragon, white as snow. Her husband shifted too, and soon Deramon flew at her side, a burly dragon with clanking, coppery scales.

Parents followed daughter. The three dragons flew over the graveyard, over city streets, and toward Requiem's palace of white marble.

Again the Night of Seven comes to Requiem, Adia thought, and again sorrow falls. It had always been a night of destruction.

As she flew over the city, she looked south; the horizon glowed red. Distant fires blazed.

LYANA

Lyana Eleison, a knight of Requiem, stood in the hall of her king. She wore chain mail, a breastplate, and a helmet of steel. She clutched her sword so tightly her knuckles were white.

I will be strong, she told herself, struggling to calm her racing heart. I am a bellator of Requiem. Whatever evil befell my princess, I will fight it.

The palace's columns rose around her, pale as moonlight, their capitals shaped as dragons. Braziers stood among them, crackling with embers, filling the hall with warmth and light. Yet no fire could warm Lyana today; her chill gripped her from her belly, sending icy fingers through her.

People filled the hall around her: Lyana's father, the burly Lord Deramon; Lyana's mother, the willowy priestess Adia; King Olasar upon his throne, a crown of gilded oak roots upon his head; Prince Elethor, his eyes dark; a dozen guards with spears and shields. All eyes stared at