A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,7
staring at this ceiling, holding his wife, whispering to her, trying to swallow the pain that filled his throat. Some nights the wyverns shrieked outside, seeking them as they hid under rock and leaf. Other nights his own demons called inside his head, memories of the Abyss, memories of children dead beneath him, memories of seeking his sister among the bodies.
He finally slept, but it felt like only moments passed before dawn's light fell upon his eyelids, and he opened them to see Lyana blink, the candles melted to stubs, and rain falling like silver curtains outside the cave. The sounds of the camp rose outside: soft voices, feet shuffling, and leaves rustling under boots. Lyana moaned, stretched under the blankets, and touched his cheek.
"Did you sleep?" she whispered. "You still look so tired."
I don't want to leave this bed, he thought, and I don't want to leave this woman, and I don't want to fight this war.
Yet he was Elethor Aeternum, King of Requiem, Son of Olasar, and he knew that he would still fly, still bleed, still roar his fire, even if he died upon the sands of Tiranor. But not yet. Not yet. This morning he lay in warmth, his wife pressed against him, the beauty of rain and leaf outside the cave that had become their home.
"Elethor," Lyana said, propped herself onto her elbow, and made to rise from the bed, but he held her fast. He pulled her back toward him and kissed her, and she closed her eyes.
They had been married for a moon now. They had wed in this forest, among leaf and rock, for the people to see, for the survivors to know that a king and queen led them, that there was still hope in the world, still light to follow. A moon had turned, a moon of waiting, of pain, of more love than Elethor had thought his heart could ever feel again, not a flame like the love of his youth, but a strong wine in autumn and warm blankets as rain fell outside. He made love to her now. They kissed as the light of dawn poured over them, and gasped, and he held her tight as she moved above him, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed. He rolled her onto her back and lay atop her, and she felt so frail and thin, this woman who had fought in wars, survived the desert, and slain her enemies with steel—here in his bed, she felt like a doll, a flower he could trample. She buried her hands in his hair, moaning, her eyes closed, a fragile white thing, her hair still short, her every freckle as familiar to him as the stars of his fathers' constellation. Those stars seemed to burn around him, and all the lights of the heavens to flare, and he closed his eyes and tightened his fists and could barely bear this blend of joy and pain that still clawed inside him. His eyes stung.
He lay beside her, and she nestled against him. She kissed his cheek and played with his hair.
"You should have done that last night," she said. "You would have slept better."
He snorted a weak laugh. "Maybe I will sleep all day. You go lead them, Lyana."
Yet he rose from the bed. He dressed and donned his armor—old armor forged in dragonfire, dented and unpolished and feeling more heavy than ever. He clasped Ferus to his side, his old longsword his father had given him, and stared into a small mirror they had found and hung here. He barely recognized himself these days. It had been only two years since Queen Solina had led the phoenixes into Requiem, yet he seemed to have aged twenty. Where was the soft-cheeked sculptor he had been, a youth with sad eyes? He saw a hardened man in this mirror, his face gaunt and bearded, his eyes deep set.
Lyana walked up beside him, leaned her head against his shoulder, and whispered to him. She had donned her own armor—the silvery steel plates of a bellator, a knight of Requiem. Her sword Levitas hung at her side, slimmer and faster than Ferus, but just as strong and sharp.
"Let us face the day, Elethor," she said. "Let us see our people. Let us give them another whisper of hope."
They exited the cave into a forest red and gold with autumn. Dried leaves carpeted the forest floor, and moss coated the trunks of birch, maple, and ash trees.