A Day of Dragon Blood

ADIA



Without her children, her house seemed empty as a barren womb, a hall of ghosts. Most days since the Phoenix War, Adia spent her time in the temple, healing and praying; or in the tunnels stocking bandages, herbs, and supplies for siege; or in the streets of Nova Vita, visiting and comforting grieving families. But today, for the first time since the phoenixes had burned this city, Adia had taken a day for her own home.

She knelt now in her garden, stubbornly fighting a losing war against dandelions which had invaded her rows of herbs. Even the plants fight their wars, she thought wryly. She kept tugging at the weeds until her fingers were raw and her robes covered with soil. When she surveyed her work, she saw that she had put but a small dent into the yellow invasion.

Once children had run across this lawn, she thought. Once Lyana and Bayrin had fought here with wooden swords, their feet tearing up whatever she had planted and dragging mud into the house. Once the stray dogs Bayrin would adopt—Adia had never understood where he found so many—would dig through her flowerbeds and eat her herbs. Once laughter and light had filled these gardens. Today this was all that remained: weeds and silence.

Abandoning her floral war for another day, Adia left the garden. Sunflowers and lilac grew around her door, wild and untamed, their leaves perforated with insect bites. They too needed care she could not give them. Her door was painted green and silver—some in Requiem thought them blessed colors—and when Adia stepped through this doorway, more silence greeted her.

She walked through her house and began to aimlessly work—sweeping a corner here, polishing a mug there. As she wandered the halls, she found the silence unbearable; it engulfed her like a white demon. There were too many rooms in this house upon the hill, too many halls, too many corners where memories whispered.

Three children had once filled this house with light, she thought. But Bayrin now lived in the palace, guarding his princess; Lyana now spied in the south, in such danger that Adia lay awake most nights, struggling for breath; and her sweet youngest child, Noela, still slept under her grave upon Lacrimosa Hill. No more laughter. No more clacking of wooden swords. No more muddy footprints, or scraped knees, or nights of stargazing with cider and roasted walnuts. Only this: empty rooms and silence.

Why had she come to this place? She had work to do in the tunnels: jars of preserves needed to be labeled, and swords needed to be hung on racks, and scrolls needed to be placed on shelves. She had healers to train at her temple, young and frightened girls who had never stitched a wound, sawed through a crushed leg, or comforted a dying man. She had stars to pray to: the constellation Draco, stars of her fathers, guardians of Requiem.

And yet today she had chosen this place, this home she had shared with her husband for... how long had it been? Adia shook her head in amazement when she counted the years. Twenty-nine summers had gone by since she had married Deramon and moved into this house on the hill. She had been only a youth then, not yet twenty, and the world had seemed so bright to her, Deramon so strong, her house so full of warmth and wonder.

Empty rooms and silence; it was all that remained.

But no, she thought. Memories remained, moving through these halls like ghosts: Bayrin as a young boy, wild and impossible to tame, scratching his name into every wall; Noela first laughing, a mere moon before she had laughed no more; Lyana squealing as she tugged her brother's hair and fled when he pretended to be a griffin. Adia could still see Bayrin's name upon the walls, though it had been twenty years, and she could still hear the echoes of her daughters laughing and crying and calling for her.

She entered her bedroom, a sparse chamber of unadorned walls, a simple bed topped with white sheets, and no ornaments but for a basket of dried flowers upon a table. Adia walked to a window and looked outside at the burnt forests. She smiled softly. Those memories were kind, yet they too were fragile. Should Queen Solina fly to this hill, she would topple these empty halls and silent rooms, and then those memories too would die. Nothing would remain of this place but bricks and ash, and all the dandelions that plagued her would lie as charred dust.

She looked at the city outside; from here, she could see half of Nova Vita roll across hills to the walls and forests. She was High Priestess, the Mother of Requiem, and all those souls below were as children to her. All those memories would perish, and all those lights would fade.

"It is madness," she whispered. "Five thousand Vir Requis soldiers, most of them mere farmers, bakers, and shepherds... against myriads of wyverns and a hundred thousand desert warriors."

And yet what else could they do? Stock their supplies. Train their warriors. Pray.

"And walk through our homes," she said softly. "Relive the memories. Savor the light of life for one last day."

She heard the door open across the house, the clink of armor, and the heavy footsteps of her husband. Soon Deramon stepped into the bedroom. When Adia looked at him, she marveled at how more white now filled his beard; only last year, that beard had been bright red, and only a few white strands had invaded it. Now for every red hair, a white one grew.

Adia touched his cheek. "Deramon," she said softly and kissed him.

He removed his breastplate, then hung sword and axe upon the wall. She helped him unclasp the rest of his armor: vambraces upon his arms, greaves upon his legs, pauldrons like shoulders of steel, and a coat of chain mail. When finally he stood in nothing but a woolen shirt and pants, he looked so small to her, his arms scarred. Once she had thought him a bear of a man, a mountain of muscle and grit.

The years had softened him; they had done the same to her. For a few years now, Adia had allowed no mirrors in her home. She did not want to see the lines that grew under her eyes, the white that invaded her own black hair, and the new weight that coated her bones. When she first moved into this home—twenty-nine years, stars!—many called her the fairest woman in Requiem, a tall and willowy beauty with midnight hair and eyes like magic. Today her hips were wider, her legs blue with veins, her mouth less likely to smile.

Does he think me ugly? she wondered as she looked at Deramon. She knew that some lords, when they crossed their fiftieth year, took concubines—young, pretty things for secret nights. On days like these, when death loomed, would he seek out last comforts?

"It has been nearly thirty summers since we moved into our home," she said to him. "The years have kissed my hair with white, softened my flesh upon my bones, and drawn lines of memory upon my face. But today I will love you like we used to love—with all the fire we would kindle in our youth. I will take you once more into my bed, like the first time, for this may be the last time."

She doffed her robes, stood naked before him, and saw his face soften.

"The years did not mar your beauty," he said, "but deepened it. When we wed, I called you the fairest flower in Requiem; that you are still." He cupped her cheek with his large, rough hand and kissed her lips. "Now and always."

She took him into her bed. She made love to him—with the fire and passion of their youth, and with the slow burn of what they had grown for so many years. She cried out to him. Today was a last day; she savored every breath, every touch, every whisper. When their love was spent, she lay against him and kissed him.

"I love you, Deramon," she whispered. "After Noela died, I know that I forgot that. I know that my love fled you then; all love fled from me. But I love you deeply, fully; I am yours always, and I will be yours in the starlit halls. I am yours in our life and death."

The sun began to set and she slept in his arms. Tomorrow fire would burn; tonight she lived twenty-nine years of laughter and starlight.