A Dawn of Dragonfire

LYANA



They walked down a twisting tunnel. Its floor was rubbery like skin and strewn with eyeballs like pebbles. Shattered spines rose in ridges along the walls, seeping blood. Fingers rose in tufts from nooks and crevices, nails cracked, snagging at them.

Lyana could see only several feet in each direction; shadows pushed deep around her, swirling and cackling, red eyes blazing in their depths. When the tunnels forked, Elethor did not hesitate, but always chose the path that sloped deeper down.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked him.

He stared ahead, holding his tin lamp high. The flames flickered. They had oil enough for another day, two days at most.

"This tunnel is steeper," he said. "So that's where we go. Deeper into the darkness."

"You don't know that'll take us to the Starlit Demon," Lyana said. "This labyrinth is vast, Elethor. It might be larger than Requiem itself, larger than the world. According to the stories, the Starlit Demon is locked behind the Crimson Archway, and I haven't seen a single archway here. We need to find a map, or a source of knowledge, or—"

He spun toward her and glared. "Lyana, what map? What 'source of knowledge'? The last creatures we met who could talk were dangling on cobwebs, mumbling nonsense about numbers not lining up, and hairs that grew too slowly, or stars know what else."

"So your answer is to just walk blindly?" she demanded, voice rising now. She swept her sword around her. "Elethor, we are getting lost down here. You have no idea where to go. No idea what to do. No idea how to get back home. You—"

"Well, do you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Do you have answers? You're just as much in the dark. So unless you have suggestions, keep walking."

"Well, I…" She searched for words but found none and fumed. All her life, she had always had an answer to any question. She knew everything about geography, heraldry, warfare, swordplay, history, astronomy. She was the smartest person in Requiem, she was sure of it; yet now she felt so lost, so afraid.

She raised her left hand and shivered. Bandages covered her fingers, hiding the gray, withered flesh. A day ago, only her fingertips had been shriveled and pale. Now lines of rot stretched from under the bandage, spreading across her palm to her wrist. The skin looked old, spotted and wrinkled, the bones beneath it brittle.

Elethor looked at her, his eyes softened, and he sighed.

"Does it hurt?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I can't feel my hand anymore. At least there's no pain."

She shivered and lowered her eyes, remembering the withered creatures back at Nedath's lair. She had hung among them for hours. Most were no wider than snakes, nothing but spines with loose skin, their limbs wilted stalks. Their skulls had long crumbled to dust, leaving loose faces like old rags.

"We are the Shrivels," one had told her, swinging on its cobwebs. "We are the lost ones, the cursed, the counters of the numbers… or maybe the numbers themselves." It grinned, showing toothless gums. "Soon you will be one of us, soon you will help us count, we will count all the numbers, we will line them, or she will hurt us, she will eat us, she will feed upon our sweetest meat."

How long will it be? Lyana wondered. She no longer doubted that their curse infected her. How long until her palm withered completely, and the disease spread to her arm, then her body, and finally left her a shrunken creature that could not die? Would she remain here in the Abyss, mumbling of shattered teeth that must be found, screws to turn, and more ramblings of the dark? Or would they hang her on a post in Requiem, a thing to pity, and she would linger there as the seasons turned, unable to die?

Suddenly she laughed. She couldn't help it.

"Imagine it, Elethor!" she said, tears in her eyes. Laughter shook her. "Me, only a piece of shriveled skin on a hook! Would you hang me by your throne so I could still watch the court?"

She laughed so hard that she didn't realize she was crying, that her laughter was becoming a panicked pant. She jerked when Elethor touched her shoulder, sure for an instant that it was her, Nedath, the demon who had bitten her shoulder and spoken of sucking her bones. She found herself wrapped in Elethor's arms, like the cobwebs had wrapped her, and she wept against him.

"I won't let that happen," he said softly, stroking her hair.

She shivered, unable to stop her tears from falling. "I'm so scared, Elethor. I saw things in there, in the darkness she showed me. I saw… there was a black hill, and a black rose on it, and horror filled the air, as if fear were a physical thing. And… Elethor, I have to stop the bones from lining up! I have to count them, Elethor. I have to count the hairs that are growing sideways."

He shook his head, eyes narrowed. "What, Lyana? What do you mean? There are no bones. There's nothing to count."

She sobbed, body shaking. "I don't know! I don't know, Elethor. But…" She sniffed. "If my teeth fall from my gums, I…" She gritted those teeth and rubbed her eyes. "No! No. I can't think like them. I can't talk like them." She clung to his clothes with her good hand, staring into his eyes through her tears. "I won't turn into a Shrivel. Promise me that, Elethor. Promise you won't let me go."

He held her. "I promise you, Lyana. As King of Requiem, I will do whatever I can to cure you; I will summon healers from across the world, from Salvandos in the west to Leonis in the east. I won't let you turn into anything." He touched her hair. "Do you remember how, when we were children, we'd go to Lacrimosa Hill, eat walnuts from a pouch, and look at the stars? You and Mori would whisper, and Bayrin and Orin would laugh, and I'd try to tell you all about the stars, but you'd never listen." He smiled softly. "We'll do that again, Lyana. We'll go stargazing, and eat walnuts, and laugh…"

He fell silent. They stood holding each other, and Lyana tried to remember those days of her youth, the glow of the stars, the warmth of the breeze, the sound of her laughter, and she knew those days could never return. Orin was gone now. Mori was hurt, maybe too much to ever recover. As for herself… could she ever be the woman she had been? When fire rained, and darkness clutched her, was there still a path home?

"Let's keep going," she said and pulled back from his embrace. She raised her lamp, casting its light upon a dead, dark land. "Let's find this Starlit Demon and go home."

They walked across the grass of fingers, crushing them. They moved through darkness, lashing their swords at red eyes that blazed around them. Shadows swirled, taking the shapes of bloated dragons that burst, shedding bodies of smoke from their bellies. Ribs rose around them, framing the tunnels, columns of dead cathedrals. Bodies hung from the walls on meat hooks, their faces burnt. Some bodies looked almost like Orin, others like Lyana's parents, some like herself. Their bellies were split, revealing nests of transparent eggs, snakes moving inside the shells. Hatched snakes squirmed along the tunnel floor, bloated, screeching, laughing, mocking them.

"Walk deeper, weredragons!" spoke the bodies on the hooks. "Enter our darkness. You will hang here too! You will rot and burst and feed our hatchlings."

The bodies' faces twisted, mouths gasping. They screamed, begged for death, and wept tears of blood.

"Don't look at them," Elethor said, jaw clenched. "It's not real, Lyana. It's just a dream. It's just a nightmare they're showing us."

Lyana nodded, desperate to believe him. When bodies rubbed against her, she shoved them aside and stabbed them, shedding blood and pus and maggots. Their stench filled her nostrils. Their flesh against her felt hot, sticky, too real to be a vision. Yet she kept walking, forcing herself to stare forward, to ignore them.

"They're just a dream," she repeated through stiff lips. "Just a dream."

"Are we just a dream?" asked a hanging body, speaking through a gaping wound in its rotted face.

"You have been kissed by Nedath!" said another, the skinned body of a man with a bull's head.

A snake coiled toward her, spine peeking through rents in its skin. It hissed and stared with blazing red eyes. "The Guardian of the Darkness bit her, children! She will soon be a Withered One. Look at her arm!"

The bodies on the hooks stared and hissed. Tongues thrust out from their wounds and licked their blood. Lyana looked at her arm and saw that Nedath's disease had spread to her elbow. Her forearm was now thin as bone, her flesh gone, her skin dangling.

"Can you cure her?" Elethor said, raising his voice over their cries and laughter. "How can we stop the curse?"

The bodies on the walls growled, revealing fangs. "Feed us! Feed us and we will tell you. We know of a cure. Feed us and we will help."

Fingers trembling, Lyana opened her pack. She had brought food from Requiem: sweet apples, grainy rolls of bread, cheese, oranges, and dried fish. Maggots filled the food now, and Lyana grimaced.

"I have food for you!" she shouted. The bodies were twitching around her, legs kicking, as if trying to escape the meat hooks.

"We do not want your food of sunlight and soil!" one said.

"Feed us ourselves!" cried another. "Let us feast upon our comrades, upon our sweet hands and feet!"

They opened their maws wide, drooling, begging for meat. Those with arms reached out and pawed at her. Their bellies bloated, pulsing with eggs.

"Stars, they're cannibals," Elethor whispered. He was pale and his sword wavered in his hand.

Lyana wanted to gag, to weep, to run. How could she do this? To take a squirming body from the wall, hack it apart, feed it to its comrades?

"It would be like cutting meat, just like cutting meat!" they begged. "Feed us, feed us our comrades!"

"Tell me of a cure first!" Lyana shouted. Their voices rose so loudly, her ears hurt. "Tell me how to cure Nedath's curse and I will feed you then!"

A halved body, ribs white and twisting, hissed at her. "You must find the Feasting Table!" it said. "You must eat there from the sweet meats. Then you will be cured. Then you will be a Withered One no more. Then you must feed us!"

Elethor shouted, swinging his sword to hold back the groping arms. "Where is this Feasting Table?"

The bodies pulled aside, like sweeping curtains of flesh, and revealed a gaping doorway. Lyana could see nothing but shadows through it, but scents hit her nose. She could smell… food, real food! Fresh bread, and cakes, and fruits. The scents mingled with the stench of the hanging bodies, a sickening mix of the delicious and rotting.

"Enter and feast, child of starlight," said the bodies. "But choose wisely, so we may feast too."

Lyana looked at her arm. The disease was spreading up to her shoulder. Through her hanging skin, she could see the bones of her elbow, pale and full of worms. She no longer cared for danger. She rushed past the bodies into the dark chamber of scents. Behind her, she heard Elethor follow.

They walked for a moment in darkness until they saw candles burn ahead. The craggy walls widened, revealing a chamber with a tiled floor, white walls, and a chandelier.

A table stood in the room, and upon it lay a feast—such a feast as Lyana had never seen, not even in the courts of Requiem. Golden platters, bowls, and plates held roast ducks on beds of mushrooms, glazed hams, grapes and apples and peaches, thick gravy, bread still steaming from the oven, stewed vegetables, and every other delight Lyana could imagine. She realized that she was famished. Her mouth watered.

She would have leaped toward the food, were it not for the figures that sat around the table.

Seven chairs surrounded the feast. In all but one sat a Shrivel. Their limbs had atrophied into mere twigs wrapped in loose skin. Their spines were slung across the chairs, and their heads dangled over the backrests, forever looking at the walls behind them. Their faces gasped and sucked at their toothless gums. Dark liquid dripped from them, forming pools below their heads. The last chair, the one at the head of the table, was empty.

That chair is for me, Lyana knew.

A portrait of King Olasar of Requiem hung upon the wall, framed in giltwood. Somebody had smeared blood across it, giving the king horns and a forked tongue. The eyes had been gouged out. Words were scratched across the canvas, and Lyana read them, a shiver running through her.

At the table of lost souls

A feast awaits the withering

Nedath's cursed seek a cure

For skin, flesh, and bones decaying

Feed upon our sweetest meats

Your tainted blood again shall bloom

Crave and eat the lesser treats

And rot forever in our room

"What does it mean?" Elethor asked, standing beside her. He was pale, and his dark hair clung to his damp forehead.

Lyana looked back at the feast covering the table: roast ducks, fresh fruit, pastries, breads… Would one of these heal her?

"What is the sweetest meat?" she asked. "Feast upon our sweetest meats, and your tainted blood again shall bloom. Does that mean that if I eat the right food, I'll be cured?"

Elethor shivered. "Eat the lesser treats, and rot forever in our room." He gestured at the Shrivels who gasped upon the chairs. "That must be what happened to them. They ate the wrong dish."

Heart hammering, Lyana walked to the table. The scents of the feast filled her nostrils. Her left arm dangled at her side, a flap of useless skin, its bones so brittle now, no wider than a porcupine's quill. When she looked at a golden bowl, she saw her reflection. Already her left cheek sagged, the skin gray.

"What should I eat?" she called, turning to the Shrivels on the seats. She grabbed one and shook it. Its skin was clammy, and its spine rattled. "What did you eat?"

The creature's head flapped from side to side. It gasped and sucked its gums. "Eat, child, eat the treats, join us, count with us…"

Tears stinging her eyes, Lyana tossed the creature aside. It slapped against the floor and squirmed. She grabbed another Shrivel. She shook it, and its heart pulsed behind its clear skin, shooting black blood down a single vein.

"What do I eat here?" she demanded, tears on her cheeks. "Tell me!"

The Shrivel whispered, and its eyes shed black tears. "Please, light one, please, tell him, tell him to turn, he has to turn it, he has to turn the screws, please tell him!"

She tossed this creature aside too and spun toward the table, trembling. Her left leg shook, and when she took a step, her foot pulled out from her boot.

"Lyana!" Elethor cried. He ran toward her and held her, and she gasped, clinging to him. Her sock fell off, revealing a shriveled foot, no larger than the foot of a baby. Her toes curled inward, white and brittle.

"Oh stars, Elethor, stars," she whispered.

"Eat something!" Elethor said. He pulled her toward the table. "Eat… what is the sweetest meat? Duck? Veal? Ham?"

Lyana looked at the feast. For the first time, she saw that drool covered the dishes. The marks of toothless gums filled the geese, the ham, the fruit.

The Shrivels had tried eating these foods, she knew. They all chose wrong. She raised her head and looked at the empty seat. She trembled, wept, and held Elethor tight.

"Please, Elethor," she whispered. "Please, don't let him turn the screws, please, tell him, tell him."

She tried to say more, but felt a tooth come loose. She spat it out, and she wanted to sink her gums into the meat, to feed, to count, to line things up, to…

No! No, not yet. You are not a Shrivel yet. She fumbled toward the table, tossed her sword down, and lifted an apple with her good hand. Even that hand was shrivelling; it looked like the hand of an old woman. She raised the apple to her lips. Was this the fruit? Was this the sweetest meat?

I will feast upon you… I will feast upon your sweet meat…

The words echoed in her mind, and Lyana gasped. She had heard this before! She had hung in cobwebs in Nedath's lair. The great demon had bitten her shoulder, wrapped her webs around her, and whispered and cackled in her ear. You will be my sweet meat, child, I will feed upon you….

"It's the Shrivels!" she shouted. She turned toward them, trembling. "It's not the food. Those are just lesser treats. This is Nedath's Feast, and she eats what lies on the chairs, not the table."

She stepped toward one seat, where lay a Shrivel with hairy tufts on its hanging skin. Her right foot pulled out from her boot, skin and bones twisting and rotting, and Lyana fell to the floor. She reached out her right arm, which was now thin as a twig, and grabbed the Shrivel on the seat. She pulled it down to the floor, like pulling down a wet cloth. Ignoring the nausea that twisted her belly, she bit into the creature.

It was stringy and cold, like biting into raw chicken skin. She forced herself to bite, though her teeth were loose, and she chewed, swallowed, bit some more.

"Lyana, don't!" Elethor cried, and she heard the terror in his voice, but she ignored him. She had to keep eating. She dug her teeth deeper, and liquid exploded in her mouth. The Shrivel flapped, screaming and squirming, and she kept biting and chewing, eating it alive.

It is the sweetest meat, she thought. I am a huntress, a feeder, a creature of darkness, and—

Starlight blazed.

Above her shone the Draco Constellation, the stars of Requiem, her homeland. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks, and she gasped, shook, blood on her fingers, blood on her lips.

I am a creature of starlight, she knew. I am… I am Lyana! I am a knight of Requiem. I am a daughter, a sister, a warrior.

She rose to her feet, the dead Shrivel hanging from her mouth. She spat it to the floor and cried for her betrothed.

"Elethor! Elethor, where are you?"

He ran toward her. He held her, shook her, touched her cheek. Tears filled his eyes.

"Lyana, I'm here! You're changing. You're healing. Can you see me, Lyana?"

She kept gasping for air, and the chamber swirled around her. She saw the hanging things move and laugh and swing, and Nedath's fangs, and that black hill with the black rose, but… she also saw marble columns rising from a forest of birches, and she heard harpists play, and she saw—

"Dragons!" she said, digging her fingers into Elethor's shoulders. "I see dragons, Elethor, herds of them. They fly over our home." She wept. "We are from Requiem. I am Lyana. You are Elethor. Don't forget that, never forget."

She trembled so violently, and he held her so tight, not letting her fall, not letting her forget herself, drown in that dark place.

"You are Lyana Eleison, daughter of Deramon and Adia," he said, stroking her hair. "You will not forget. You will see dragons again. We will return to Requiem." He held her tight. "We will return, and we will save our home, and we will destroy this place with fire." He kissed her forehead and touched her cheek. "You are healed, Lyana."

She turned to face the golden dishes and saw her reflection. Her red curls fell around her shoulders in a mane. Her skin was once more white, young, and strewn with freckles. Her limbs were strong again. She pulled her boots back on, lifted her sword, and marched toward the doorway.

"Let's go, Elethor," she said, her voice cold. "Back to the bodies outside."

She walked through the darkness. Soon she stepped back into the tunnel where bodies hung on meat hooks, snake eggs in their bellies. They howled and smacked their lips, drooling.

"Feed us!" they cried. "Feed us, child of starlight! You promised."

Lyana took several steps to where the tunnel widened, ten feet between the walls. It would be a tight squeeze, but Lyana narrowed her eyes. She would do this.

"Stand behind me, Elethor," she said softly. She pushed him behind her. "Go farther back. Fifty steps. Go."

"Lyana, are you sure?" he said, and from the softness in his voice, she knew that he understood.

She nodded and looked into his eyes. She saw something new there, something she had never seen when he looked upon her: warmth, caring… even love. It made her eyes sting, and she couldn't help it. As the bodies shrieked around them, she touched his cheek and kissed his lips.

"I'm sure, El," she whispered. "I'll do this. Now go."

He nodded and walked down the tunnel into the darkness. The bodies lined the tunnel in front of Lyana, screaming on their hooks, thrashing their limbs.

"Feed us ourselves!" they demanded. Some began to eat their own limbs, coating their teeth with blood. The eggs inside them squirmed. "You promised! You promised!"

Lyana took a deep breath, lay down on her stomach… and shifted into a dragon.

Wings burst from her back and slammed against the tunnel ceiling. She pulled them close to her body. That body grew scales and ballooned until it pushed against the tunnel walls. Her tail flapped behind her. Fangs grew from her mouth, fire filled her maw, and with a howl, she shot a stream of flame.

The jet blasted the bodies. They screeched. The tunnel shook and rocks fell from the ceiling. They screamed and screamed as they burned, and the eggs inside them popped, and small snakes fled only to burn too. Lyana could not believe how long they screamed. They screamed as their flesh charred, until nothing was left but bones, and still they screamed and thrashed. She thought that they would never die, and she blew all the fire inside her, until finally their screams faded to whimpers.

"You promised," the charred remains begged. "You promised to feed us. You are cursed, daughter of Requiem! Your kingdom is cursed! We will seek our vengeance. Your land will turn to our darkness! We will find your kingdom and we will twist it!"

With a last howl, their bones shattered, and they fell to black dust.

Lyana crawled forward, craned her neck around, and blew flames through the doorway. The dragonfire crackled into the white banquet room. Inside, the Shrivels screeched, voices high and twisting.

"She burns us!" they called. "Black! Pain! She turns the screws, skeleys. She counts the pain. Count the hairs that burn sideways, Withered Ones!"

A few Shrivels came crawling from the room. They squirmed until the fire consumed them and they collapsed. They lay as crisp, blackened things, stared up with melting eyes, then crumbled to ash.

Lyana let her fire die, and silence filled the tunnels.

She shifted back into a human. She lay in the ash, shaking, smoke rising around her. Elethor rushed toward her, helped her up, and she embraced him. She stood for long moments, her head against his shoulder, his arms around her.

"Elethor," she said softly.

He pushed back a curl of her hair. "Lyana."

She swallowed and stared at him. "It's time to find that Starlit Demon. I want to leave this place."

He nodded. They walked into the darkness, swords raised, smoke curling around their boots.