Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,216

three normal arms, like a string of sausages.

"Weredragons!" this mimic cried, voice guttural and thundering. It brandished its swords. "I will feast upon your entrails."

Another voice rose, commanding and deep, and Agnus Dei realized it was Mother.

"Burn them!" she cried and fired a flaming arrow. "Burn them dead."

Her arrow pierced the night, a comet of fire, and slammed into a mimic's chest. The creature screamed and fell.

First blood spilled. The mimics screamed and charged.

MEMORIA

Memoria had never gotten used to living in an ice palace.

Even after all these years, she remembered and missed her house in Requiem. She remembered walking upon mosaic floors, stepping over dolphins and elks and dragons, and how the colorful stones tickled her bare feet. She remembered the rafters of her attic, where she'd hide and read books. In her mind, she still saw the balcony over the vineyard, where she'd paint the sunsets. Most of all, she remembered the southern warmth, how she'd lie in the garden and soak up the sun, hear the birds, and watch the dragonflies.

Here there were no birds or dragonflies, no gardens or trees, no warmth. She lived in a palace now, but it was built of ice. The floor, the ceiling, the columns that rose two hundred feet tall; nothing but ice, cold and glimmering and cruel to her southern bones. She could see the sun through the ceiling, blurred and small, but even it seemed cold, like the glimmer of icicles.

She walked across Whale Hall, her slippers silent. Few elders came to Whale Hall anymore; it was an ancient place where ice crystals rose like a whale's ribs. It had become her sanctuary, her place of prayer. At the edge of the hall the ceiling was thin, and sunlight fell like raining fireflies. Memoria knelt in the sunbeams, the ice hard against her knees, and closed her eyes. She wrapped her seal furs around her, this raiment of exile, and whispered to her stars.

"If you're up there, Kyrie, know that I love you. If you watch over me from Draco's stars, hear my words." She hugged herself, and her eyes stung. "I love you forever, little brother. I miss you every day."

She heard footfalls behind her, opened her eyes, and turned to see her second brother. Terra was walking toward her, clad as always in his old armor. Frost coated the filigreed plates, his horned helmet, and the silver scabbard of his sword. He wore a walrus moustache in the style of the bellators, Requiem's noble warriors; he was the last of their order, but still clung to their symbols. A fur cloak draped over his shoulders, a single piece of the north over his steel garb of southern glory.

"Sister, I worry for you." He sighed. "You spend hours here, speaking to him every day. I miss our brother too. I loved him. But... Memoria, how do you know that he hears?"

Memoria stood up and glared at him. Terra was tall and broad, and she was short and slim, but she glared at him nonetheless. His hair was fair like hers, but already white kissed his temples. His eyes were brown like hers, but sadder, she thought; weary eyes that had seen too much. He was two years her senior, thirty this winter, but looked forty. Youth's hope and grace had left him. She remembered him a dozen years ago, always laughing, bronzed from working in their vineyard. She had not heard him laugh since.

Not since our baby brother left us, she thought. Not since Kyrie died at Lanburg Fields. My sweet, small Kyrie, the light of our family... forever extinguished, forever a hole inside us.

"Kyrie's spirit shines among the Draco stars," she said softly. "I know he can hear me. So I speak to him, and I will speak to him every day. You should too, Terra." Tears stung her eyes. "Kyrie needs your prayers too."

Terra sighed again. His hands closed around hers, gloved in leather, warm despite the cold around them. "Sister, I was a knight of Requiem. I devoted my life to helping the living. I know nothing of the dead." He squeezed her hands. "Today the living need us. The icelings are hungry. We must fly. We must hunt."

They walked down the hall between its columns of whorled ice. They stepped between two crystals, then walked through chambers that rose three hundred feet tall. Crystals glimmered around them, larger than dragons. Through towering windows, like windows in a cathedral, Memoria saw a thousand more palaces.