and ruin. You can fight Ral Siyan and reclaim the sacred Moondisk of our ancestors." He squared his shoulders and raised his chin. "Fight him, Bayrin and Mori of Requiem, and you may take the Moondisk to your land, and defeat the servants of the Sun God, for we are your brothers and share your enemy."
Bayrin swallowed, looked at Mori, and clasped her hands. "Are you up for a good old-fashioned fight, Mori my dear?"
She trembled but bit her lip, raised her chin, and nodded.
"We fight," she whispered.
LYANA
Shadows and lightning swirled around her. Whispers rose like wind. She looked ahead but saw nothing, and her feet walked upon mist. Suddenly she was falling, tumbling through an endless storm, and she shouted and shifted. Wings burst from her back, and she flew, roaring fire. Wind and clouds whipped her.
"Elethor!" she called. She had stepped through the Crimson Archway holding his hand, but he was gone from her now. She whipped her head from side to side, blowing flames, but could not see him. Nothing but storm clouds flowed around her, charcoal and blue and deep purple like bruises. When she spun around, the Crimson Archway was gone; she saw only the endless storm.
"Lyana!" His voice rose somewhere in the distance; she could not tell from which direction. He seemed leagues away. She called for him again, but he did not answer.
Fly, Lyana, she told herself and tightened her lips. Fly!
Winds blasted her, billowing her wings like sails. She nearly tumbled. Shadows tugged her like chains, but she kept flying, one wing flap after the other. Stars streaked around her, countless lines of light. Lightning crashed. Thunderclaps deafened her. She blew fire and roared.
"Elethor, can you hear me?"
Rain of blood pattered against her. Faces of shadow and clouds swirled in the storm, mouths opening and closing, eyes appearing and disappearing. She saw Orin's face smiling, then screaming, then melting in lightning fire. She saw the face of her brother Bayrin, and of her young sister Noela who had died in her cradle. She saw her parents, Deramon and Adia, burning in a rain of acid and calling to her.
"Lyana!" they cried. "Lyana, why did you forsake us to die?"
She howled. No. No, they cannot be dead! They cannot. It was only a dream, a vision, a lie.
Her sister Noela wept in the clouds, a mere babe, crying to her. "Why did you not weep when they buried me? Why did you shed no tears?"
I wanted to! I wanted to cry like my parents, like Bayrin, but I couldn't, I couldn't, I had to be strong for them….
Her beloved Orin flew toward her, a dragon of cloud and lightning, bleeding and burnt. Half his face was a gaping wound, showing the crimson innards of the heavens.
"Why do you fly with Elethor?" he cried. "Why did you leave me to die and take my brother for your betrothed?"
He blew flames that washed her, red clouds that dispersed into rain.
"I should have been there," she whispered, wings roiling the clouds. "I should have gone with Orin to Castellum Luna, helped him fight the phoenixes, not stayed north and let him die… I let him die… Elethor, I let him die."
She tried to fly, to escape Orin's burnt face, his one eye that blazed, his dripping wounds. She beat her wings madly, shoving through the storm, but a gust of air caught her, and she tumbled through the sky. Lightning smashed into her scales, and they grabbed her, all of them—dead and burnt Orin, and her dying parents, and her dead sister Noela. They clung to her, begging.
"Don't fly, don't run, don't leave us, Lyana! Don't leave again. It's cold and dark in the Abyss, please save us, save us Lyana, don't leave us again…."
She wept and tried to flee, but could not; she knew that they would always follow her. She knew that no matter how far she flew, those eyes would haunt her—across endless skies and into her grave. She saw herself years in the future, a great Queen of Requiem upon her throne, her king Elethor at her side. Gold and jewels and peace surrounded her, but still at night she would curl up, weep, and try to flee them but find no peace.
For there is no peace for you, child, whispered a deep voice, and Lyana screamed and saw the black hill with the black flower. It rose before her between the clouds, a towering monument, larger than Requiem herself, woven of