A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,40

jagged black. Rust covered his armor and a great blade, taller than two men, hung at his side. He howled to the ceiling, arms raised and drool spraying.

"Hail Solina!" he cried. "I am Legion. I am Leader. I am Prophet. I serve you, Golden Queen! We are nephilim; we were fallen. We rise! We rise!"

They swarmed through the palace. They carried Solina upon their shoulders. They flapped wings, and clawed at walls, and shattered columns, and wept and praised her name. They flew to daylight. They flowed from the palace like a swarm of wasps from a nest. They filled the desert sky and howled at the sun. The land shook beneath them, the palace trembled, and the sand burned.

"Rise, nephilim!" cried Solina, caught in the storm of them, flying upon their glory. "Fill the world with your might! I will lead you to food. I will lead you to dragon bones and scales and blood to drink. Fly, nephilim! Fly north, fly to Requiem, and you will feast!"

The roared and sang and wept.

They flew.

Solina laughed and raised her arms and the sunlight bathed her.

MORI

She walked upon marble tiles, fallen birch leaves crunching underfoot and scuttling before her like orange mice. Marble columns rose around her, glowing like moonlight, and beyond them Mori saw the forests roll across hills, kindled red and gold and yellow with fall. She walked in Nova Vita, she thought, but she saw no houses, no snaking streets or smithies or forts, only mist, birches, and gliding leaves.

"Requiem," Mori whispered. Tears stung her eyes at the purity of her home.

These were the courts of Requiem. Mori knew these marble tiles, these columns, and the Oak Throne which stood before her in a beam of light. Here had her father ruled, and Elethor after him, yet Mori heard no flap of dragon wings beyond the columns, no sounds of mothers calling for children, no clank of armor or song of harps. She heard only the crunch of leaves, the distant song of birds, and the wind through the trees. The marble seemed purer than Mori had ever seen it; no scratches marred the floor or columns, and the letters engraved into them—spelling old prayers of Requiem—appeared crisp as if freshly chiseled.

Mori kept walking, approaching the beam of light where the Oak Throne rose upon a dais. Her breath caught. A figure stood before the throne! Though daylight shone through the mist, strands of starlight seemed to cloak the figure ahead. Mori clutched her luck finger and kept walking, and the figure of light descended from the dais and moved toward her.

When the figure drew nearer, emerging from the light, Mori saw a woman in golden armor, her hair a cascade of blond curls. Mori recognized the sword that hung from her side, its hilt jeweled and its scabbard filigreed with silver leaves; this was Stella Lumen, the sword Mori's father had borne, the sword Solina had broken.

"Queen Gloriae's sword," she whispered.

In her childhood, Mori had spent many hours praying in Gloriae's Tomb to the great marble statue of Requiem's legendary queen. Gloriae had defeated Dies Irae, the tyrant. Gloriae had raised Requiem from ruin and rebuilt this temple. Gloriae was her ancestor, the heroine of her childhood. Gloriae—not a statue or a legend from scrolls, but a woman of flesh and blood—now stood before her.

Mori knelt.

"My queen," she whispered.

Then she knew: This was not Requiem, or at least, not the Requiem she had known.

I died in the darkness of Solina's dungeon, she thought. My body hangs from chains underground. My soul has risen to the starlit halls of my ancestors, and now I kneel before the soul of my great queen.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, soft and warm as spring's morning light. Mori rose and stood before her queen, the woman who had founded Nova Vita three hundred years ago. Gloriae's eyes were green as deep forests, and her face was pale.

"Fly," the queen said.

Mori lowered her head. "I cannot."

Gloriae placed a finger under Mori's chin and lifted it. Her face was blank, the face of a statue, but an urgency filled her eyes.

"Fly," she whispered.

Mori looked up, expecting to see the vaulted ceiling she had always known. Instead she saw the sky awhirl with white clouds, a painting all in blue and white. A few of the columns were missing their capitals, and Mori realized: These were not the starlit halls of afterlife after all. This was the court of Requiem long ago, back