A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,22

throne. The fallen man coughed; the sound echoed in her silent hall.

"Stand up!" she barked. She rose from her throne, her jewels jingling, and walked down the stairs of her dais. Her sandals clacked against the gold and white tiles of her hall. Granite columns rose around her, the stone a mosaic of reds and blacks and whites, their capitals coated in platinum.

"My Queen Solina!" said the robed man.

He pushed himself to his feet. His hood had fallen back, revealing a smooth face that belied his long white hair; that face looked no older than her own. His eyes were shrewd, his nose thin, his mouth a red line across his pale skin. His hands, which peeked from his robes, were long and skeletal; in one, he clutched a staff.

A guard kicked the man's leg behind his knee, forcing him to kneel.

"Kneel before Queen Solina, scum!" the guard said.

The other guards goaded the man with spears. Another kick sent him facedown upon the tiles, and a boot pressed against his nape. The man coughed and hissed but did not struggle to rise.

"My queen!" he said, voice serpentine. "I only seek to serve you. I come from Requiem, I—"

Solina waved her guards back and glared down at the weredragon. Her chest rose and fell. She knew this one. She had seen him during her captivity in Requiem. He had been but a youth then, a scrawny boy who always seemed too pale, the son of the palace servants. Twice she had caught him peeking through a keyhole, watching her bathe.

"Nemes," she said, voice twisting in disgust. "I know you. On your feet."

Solina was a tall woman, but when Nemes stood, she felt short; he towered above her, thin and long and pale as a bone. His lips twitched in a mockery of a smile; those lips looked more like crawling snakes to her. She remembered the stories whispered about Nemes in Requiem: the animals he skinned and dissected in the forest, the books of dark magic he read, and the women he would leer at, Lyana foremost among them. Yes, she remembered this youth, now this man before her. She remembered him and he disgusted her.

"Queen Solina!" he said and sketched a bow, struggling perhaps to reclaim some of his lost pride. "I remember you a beautiful maiden, a rose in the thorny court of dragons; your beauty has only grown, and here I find a golden deity, a—"

Solina drew her twin sabres with a hiss, crossed them, and thrust both blades against Nemes's neck; if she pushed them but a hair's breadth closer, she'd cut his skin. He froze and his voice died.

"Silence, slithering snake," she said. "What does a weredragon, a beast of night, seek in the courts of the Sun God?"

He tried to step back from her blades, but her men held him fast. He licked his lips, tried to speak, and when his neck bobbed, her blades drew a drop of blood. He whispered hoarsely.

"I do not serve the stars of the night, those petty gods of Requiem," he said. "Mine is a different, older lord. I will help you wake him. I will help you slay the weredragons."

Solina snarled and took a step nearer. She bared her teeth and glared at him closely; her nose was but an inch from his. She drove her blades but a whisper closer, and another drop of blood dripped down his neck.

"Perhaps I shall begin with slaying this weredragon," she said.

What game did this reptile play? Surely he knew he would die in this court. She knew he was mad; all of Requiem knew that. But she had not known the depth of his madness, if he was truly so keen to abandon his life.

He licked his lips again; his tongue was serpentine, a snake emerging from its lair. He hissed his words.

"I am, my queen, but a humble servant, the son of a servant. The weredragons themselves cared not if I lived or died; why should you? But I can give you their king, the cruel Elethor. Why kill me when I can deliver him to you? For three moons now, your men have sought him in the wilderness, burning forests and fields, scouring mountains and plains—and still the weredragons evade you. I was part of their camp. I can lead you there."

Solina growled. She lifted one of her blades, keeping the other on his neck, and placed it against his cheek. A red line of blood appeared. He