A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,84

cried. "We will fly! We will avenge our brothers. We will fly!"

Their roars seemed to shake the forest, and Bayrin grinned as his flames flowed.

Yes, he thought. Yes. To fire. To blood. To ruin. To the desert and to Queen Solina.

"We will fly!"

SOLINA

In the bowels of the Palace of Whispers, she sat in a hall of stone and shadow. Nephilim swarmed around her. They scuttled across the dusty mosaic floors, clung to the ceiling like bats, and climbed the limestone columns. Three knelt beneath her, heads downcast and wings splayed out; they formed her new throne, a seat of living rot and scale and bone. The spine ridges of two beasts formed her armrests, and their claws formed the legs of her chair; a third nephil rose behind her, a backrest of scales and boils, and its head drooled and hissed above her own.

"Children!" Solina cried, her voice ringing across the hall. "Feast! Feast upon the bones."

They howled and fed upon the bones of prisoners she had tossed them, cracking them open to suck the marrow. This chamber, here in this desert palace, loomed thrice the size of her throne room in Irys; ten thousand nephilim fit inside it. They roared all around, drooling and screeching and clawing the floor and walls. Solina imagined that their cries carried to every hall, tunnel, and chamber throughout this great palace—an edifice the size of a city. Their cry would ring across the desert too—across the world.

"Do you hear it too, Elethor?" she whispered. "Do they scream for you?"

The nephilim that formed her throne cawed and writhed, and she stroked them. They drooled and their white eyes narrowed. She had sent Legion himself, king of these beasts, to fetch her beloved. She had sent more to every corner of the world: to the wilderness of Salvandos where true dragons flew, to the plains and cities of Osanna where men rode upon horses and knew no magic, and even to the distant isles where griffins flew.

"You will find no place to hide, Elethor," she said, stroking the nephilim she sat upon. "In every corner of this world, my children will hunt you. Any allies you enlist, my children will kill them. You cannot stop them. You cannot hide from me." She clenched her fists and grinned. "I will bring you here."

She stood upon her throne of living flesh and raised her arms. All around her, the Fallen Horde flew in a storm, wings beating and teeth snapping.

"The flesh of the world is ours!" she called. "The bones of your enemies will be your prize! We will never fall!"

They howled around her, a myriad of demons, bodies lanky and rotted like corpses, wings full of holes, mouths full of blood. They roared and praised her name, and the chamber shook.

"Hail Solina! Hail the Golden Goddess! We are free!"

She walked down a nephil's spine as if descending stairs, crossed the hall between the beasts, and left the chamber. When she closed the doors behind her, she could still hear them sing her name and growl and feast.

Solina walked down a corridor of shadows. She gripped her twin sabers at her sides, and her lips tightened. She had her power. She had her glory. But one thing she still missed; one prize she would still claim.

She walked through the palace for a long time.

She walked down hallways where dust and cobwebs covered old murals of beasts and men. She climbed chipped staircases lined with statues of slender, solemn Ancients, their heads oval and their eyes staring. Finally, after what seemed like miles, she stepped through a doorway into the Hall of Memories.

She stood before the great, dark cavern and a shiver ran through her.

The chamber was vast, larger even than her throne room; she could have fit a palace in here. Columns surrounded the chamber in a ring, supporting a shadowy, domed ceiling. Below the doorway spread a black pit; the bases of the columns faded there into shadow. Solina had tossed stones into that pit before and could not hear them hit the bottom; perhaps there was no bottom and the darkness led to the Abyss itself.

In the center of the chamber, a great stone well rose from the darkness like a tower rising from a moat. A bridge crossed the pit, leading from the doorway where Solina stood to the towering well. She began to walk. The stone bridge was narrow, barely wide enough for her to cross. On both sides loomed the pit; cold