A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,33
eating so fast she nearly choked. When her meal was done, she stuffed the second pomegranate into her cloak's pocket. Though her stomach still rumbled with hunger, she would save the second fruit for later.
"It might be a while until you find more food, Treale Oldnale," she whispered to herself. "The days of feasting at the side of kings are over."
She rose to her feet, pulled her hood low, and began walking down the street. People crowded around her: loomers bearing baskets of fabrics, barefoot children scuffling with wooden swords, mothers nursing their babes, and bare-chested masons lugging packs full of bricks. Shops and stalls lined the roadsides. A child on a donkey knocked into a stall, spilling a thousand live crabs that scurried across the cobblestones. The crabmonger shouted and began a futile chase for his catch; Treale managed to grab one crab and stuff it into her pocket for later. The clang of hammers on anvils rose from smithies, laughter and grunts rose from brothels, and screams rose from surgeons' shops where tongs pulled teeth and needles stitched wounds. The sun pounded the city; the air felt like thick soup rank with the scents of fish, oil, tallow, and dried fruits.
Treale's head still spun to see so many people; they seemed to her like ants scurrying through tunnels. She missed the open spaces of Oldnale Farms: the rolling fields, the sunset over the forests, and the clear skies where she would fly with her brothers. And she missed Nova Vita, capital of Requiem where her friend Mori had lived: its wide streets, its marble columns that soared between birches, its music of harps that rose from silver temples.
That land is gone, she thought and her eyes stung. The farms have burned, and the city has fallen, but you still live, Mori. There is still some starlight in the world.
She made her way through the crowds, her black robes searing hot and swirling around her, until she reached the mouth of an alley, and before her spread the Square of the Sun.
The cobbled expanse stretched out like a sea of stone. Columns surrounded the square, and upon each capital, a wyvern perched and snarled. Soldiers marched here, their helms shaped like cranes and falcons and eagles, their breastplates glimmering with golden sunbursts. Their spears clanked against the cobblestones and their songs echoed inside their helms. Beyond the soldiers rose the monuments of Tiranor's glory: the great Queen's Archway, two hundred feet tall, its limestone engraved with sunburst reliefs; the Temple of the Sun, its columns capped with platinum; the great statue of Solina, fifty feet tall, from whose pedestal Treale had watched Mori beaten; and the Palace of Phoebus upon a great dais, its doors flanked with stone guardians, its glory tapering into the Tower of Akartum, the tallest steeple in Tiranor and perhaps the world.
Treale swallowed. This is the most dangerous place upon this world, she thought. This is the heart of Tiranor's wrath and might. This is where I must walk.
She took a deep breath, wrapped her cloak tight around her, and entered the square.
After only three steps, she held her breath and looked around, ready to scurry back into the alley. Yet the soldiers kept marching, and the wyverns kept their vigil upon the columns, and crows circled above and cawed as ever. Treale swallowed again, reached under her cloak, and grabbed the amulet she wore—a golden sheaf of wheat, the sigil of her house. That house had fallen, but Treale was still an Oldnale, and the touch of the gold soothed her. She kept walking.
She moved along the outskirts of the square, staying near the columns that ringed it. She tried to keep staring ahead toward the palace, but couldn't help it; as she passed near a column, she peeked up at the wyvern that perched upon its capital. The beast glared down, and a glob of its drool fell to burn a hole into the ground. Its tail flapped, but its wings remained still.
Sweat dripped down Treale's back. She remembered those wyverns swarming across Nova Vita, felling dragons from the sky. She wanted to shift into a dragon, to burn them, to kill as many as she could before they took her down.
Requiem will have its revenge, she swore. She clutched her amulet so hard it nearly pierced her palm. That I swear to you, Solina. I will not forget your crimes. But not now. Not this day. Today is for Mori.