she said, "to the Hall of Memory. Legion! Carry him onto the bridge. Let him see what lurks below."
She smiled crookedly, turned her back toward them, and continued walking across the bridge.
Elethor snarled and struggled against Legion's claws, but they squeezed further, and he was so tired, so hurt, his skull too tight, his chest aching. He wanted to scream, to break free, to lunge at Solina and kill her. And yet he could barely keep her in focus. He had lost too much blood, had fought too much, hurt too much.
Legion began to walk along the bridge, his claws clattering and scraping again the stone. Clanking, squealing, and screeches rose from the pit below, and a stench wafted so powerfully Elethor choked and gagged. Legion laughed—a sound like snapping bones—and held Elethor over the pit.
His breath left him.
Elethor closed his eyes.
He knew then: There was no hope. Not for him and not for his people fighting across the desert.
This flight south was folly. This was all in vain.
The spawn of nephilim filled the pit below the bridge, spreading all around the tower. Their eyes burned red. Their claws and teeth dug at one another's flesh, feeding and licking and sucking blood. They screeched to see Elethor hanging above them. They leaped and tried to claw at him, nearly reaching his feet. Countless filled this place, a writhing mass like a nest of maggots.
"Do you like them, Elethor?" Solina cried ahead, voice echoing. "My servant Legion spawned them himself. A million writhe below you, growing larger. The strong, you see—they feed upon the weak. They climb the mass. They will soon be large enough to fly and cover the world." She looked over her shoulder, and her eyes softened in mock concern. "I am quite afraid, my dear Elethor, that they will soon feed upon the rest of your weredragons."
Then she laughed, turned back toward the tower, and kept walking across the bridge.
Legion hissed and his drool sprayed. He followed, carrying Elethor farther along. As they walked, the nephil spawn leaped at the bridge, clawed at its edges, then fell back into the pit. Their veined wings beat uselessly, still too brittle for flight. They screeched and licked their maws.
"Weredragon blood!" they cried, voices shrill like possessed children. "Let us eat his organs!"
They walked for what seemed the length of cities before the bridge reached the tower. Upon the tower top lay the still, silvery surface of a pool.
It's some kind of well, Elethor realized. A towering one rising from the demon pit.
Solina stepped onto the pool's rim, placed one foot into the water, and looked over her shoulder. Her eyes again softened, but this time Elethor saw no mockery in them, only old sadness like a lone doll upon a shelf in an abandoned home.
"It's time, Elethor," she said. "It's time to go home."
She stepped into the well, moving deeper and deeper down hidden stairs until her head disappeared underwater.
Legion hissed and chuckled. With a screech and spray of rot, he tossed Elethor forward.
Elethor tumbled and crashed into the water.
Silver streams flowed across him. His blood seeped and rose through the water like red ghosts. He sank. He closed his eyes. He thought of Lyana's green eyes and hands in his, clung to her memory, and waited to die.
Warmth fell upon him.
Sunlight played against his closed eyelids.
His body felt…
Whole, he thought. Healed. Young.
His pains vanished like a nightmare fleeing the dawn. He could not remember feeling so nourished, healthy, and strong in years. Softness caressed him; he lay in a plush, warm bed.
He opened his eyes and inhaled softly.
My bed, he thought. His eyes watered. My bed at home. In Requiem.
Not the cold, hard bed in Requiem's palace, a great thing of dark oak the kings of Requiem slept in. No—this was his bed, the one he had built himself for his small home upon the hill.
He was in that home now. A tear streamed down his cheek. He had not seen this place in two years—not since the phoenixes had burned it. He sat up and looked around, eyes stinging and breath shaking.
Shelves lined the walls, brimming with leather-bound books, geodes, rolled-up maps, and wooden figurines he had whittled. Larger sculptures of marble stood upon the floor: Solina in her youth, nude and beautiful as sunlight over the forest. Outside the windows—stars, how could this be?—he saw Requiem. Not Requiem as he knew her now, burnt and fallen and crawling with beasts. This was the Requiem of his