A Dawn of Dragonfire - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,34
are all that's left of our family. We're all we have. Tears filled her eyes and her lip trembled.
"What do you think, Mori?" he asked softly, his voice barely heard over the shouts of the others. It was not a plea for advice, she knew. Elethor was not asking for help. What he was really asking was: How are you holding on?
She looked away. His eyes were too much like Orin's. Gazing into them hurt too much.
"I don't know," she whispered, and that pain between her legs flared, and the shame inside her cried to her, calling her a harlot, a disgrace, a soiled thing.
Bayrin, her brother's gangly oaf of a friend, laughed mirthlessly. "Finally, an honest one among us. The Princess Mori doesn't know what to do. Neither do I. Neither do any of us. At least the girl is honest." He guffawed; it sounded close to tears, close to panic, a last attempt at humor to hold back the horror. "So tell me, Mori, maybe you know this: Will we die from starvation, fire, or the thrusts of Tiran swords?"
Bayrin would always tug her braids in childhood, stuff frogs down her dress, and mock her mercilessly for having one finger too many. Today Mori missed the trickster Bayrin; the frightened and bitter Bayrin seemed infinitely worse. She clutched her hands behind her back, twisting her fingers. She felt her eleventh finger there, her luck finger, the plucky pinky itself as she sometimes called it. Bring me luck today, she thought.
"I need to learn more," she said softly. "About the Sun God. About this magic of phoenixes." She turned and began walking away. "I'll visit the library; it's not far from here. I'll learn what I can and return."
She felt their eyes on her back. Their argument died, and an odd silence filled the tunnels. The wounded lay around her feet, moaning and clutching wounds. Other survivors stood along the walls, rows of them leading into the darkness below. These tunnels delved deep, Mori knew, eventually leading to the Abyss itself, a realm of hidden horrors.
She heard her brother speak softly behind her. "Mori. Mori, are you all right?"
What could she tell him? A man with yellow teeth and a white tongue broke me, Elethor. He shoved my legs open and thrust himself inside me, and I'm a princess of Requiem, a daughter of starlight, but I cried like a child and could not fight him. I could not even kill him. I watched my brother tortured to death, and my father is gone, and I'm so scared, and I'm so hurt, and I can't get rid of this iceberg inside my belly. She smiled bitterly and said nothing. She kept walking, leaving them all behind, and plunged deep into the tunnels of Requiem.
The craggy stairs led to a rough, sloping tunnel. Candles filled alcoves in the walls, their wax dripping like the faces of burnt men. These tunnels wound for miles under Requiem, Mori knew; she would often explore them as a child. The great elders of Requiem had placed their scrolls here underground. The legendary King Benedictus had fought the Destroyer, Dies Irae, in these tunnels. And today once more Requiem's fate will be written here, she thought.
As she kept walking, she saw no end to the survivors. Hands reached out to her in the darkness. Mothers held crying children to their breasts. The elderly stared with teary eyes. Most people were burnt. Most whispered prayers to the Draco Constellation, the stars of Requiem.
"Our princess," they whispered, kneeling, tears in their eyes.
"Princess Mori, thank the stars."
"The stars bless you, our princess."
Their hands reached out, touching her, and she shivered. His hands touched me too, and his tongue, and… She closed her eyes, trembling.
One old woman began to chant the Old Words, the whispers of Requiem since time immemorial. The others whispered with her, their voices chanting together, and Mori added her voice to the song.
"As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home." Tears filled Mori's eyes, the holy words soothing her. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."
She looked above her and saw only cold stone. She had never understood the meaning of those words until now, trapped under rock and grief. Requiem. May I find your sky again.
She walked for a long time, hugging herself, passing