A Day of Dragon Blood

SOLINA



She stood in her chambers, twin blades in hands, clad in a robe of golden weave embroidered with tiny pomegranates. She stared into her tall bronze mirror and saw a queen, a scarred woman, a holy daughter of the Sun God, and a spurned soul lost in endless desert.

Around her glittered the glory of her dynasty: platinum chalices inlaid with ruby ibises, tapestries of jackals and falcons, jewelled sabres with pommels shaped as suns, and chests of gems and spices. Blankets woven of gold and silver adorned her bed of ivory. Outside her arched windows, her oasis spread to rolling dunes kissed with sunlight. By the brightest window stood the tools she had brought here for him: chisels, hammers, and three great blocks of marble.

"It was to be your nook," she whispered. "Your place to sculpt while I stood nude before you, watching you form me from stone." She touched her left blade to her lips where he would kiss her. "Oh, Elethor... this was a chamber for us."

She would bring him here. But now she would bring him in chains. Now she would hurt him. Now her soul would forever remained split like her face where the scars of fire ran.

"You could have sculpted me with hammers, but now these hammers will break your bones, Elethor. I will break your spine one segment at a time as you scream and beg me to kill you." She closed her eyes; they burned with tears. "Why did you refuse me, Elethor? Why did you drive me to this?"

She turned away from the marble and tools, walked to a window, and stood with the sunlight upon her. The steeples of Irys rose before her, carved of polished sandstone capped with platinum. Far in the south, past leagues of sand, she could just make out a distant patch of green: the oasis of Iysa, a twin to Irys, where the small oranges she craved grew in winter. Her kingdom rolled beyond the horizon, yet what were treasure and glory worth if she had none to share them with?

I could have shared them with...

A deep, dark memory stirred inside her, clawing at the prison she had buried it in. She felt its cold breath in the core of her being.

No.

She clenched her fists.

No.

That memory was still too raw, still too real, a demon inside her that she dared not awake. She placed her hand on her belly. She trembled, closed her eyes, and bit down hard.

That one will remain buried. That pain I dare not feel again.

She spun toward her chamber doors, intricate works of art carved of olivewood and embossed with silver falcons.

"Ziz!" she shouted.

The doors opened and her slave stepped inside, a demure young woman. Her platinum hair fell in braids, and her blue eyes looked up with fear, then down at her toes. She wore a dress the color of sand, its hems lined with blue tassels. She was a desert child, the daughter of nomads—a good slave.

"My queen," the girl said, eyes downcast.

"Come here, Ziz. Stand beside me."

The girl crossed the chamber and joined Solina by the window. The desert wind blew her hair. When Solina thrust her blade, Ziz gasped but did not scream. Red bloomed across her gown like a desert flower. She looked up, eyes huge blue pools, wondering, betrayed. Solina held her as she died, kissed her forehead, and laid her down at her feet. She had needed this, needed to kill, needed to feel the warmth of blood on her fingers, see the light of life extinguished from a pair of eyes. She pulled her blade free and licked the blood from it thoughtfully. Blood kills the memories. She gazed upon her kingdom.

"Soon the palace will be empty of slaves," spoke a deep, smooth voice.

Solina turned to see General Mahrdor at the doorway, clad in armor, his sword at his side. His face and bald head were tanned a deep gold, and his eyes glimmered as they stared at her. Solina realized that her gown was open too far, revealing more flesh than it hid.

"You come to make love to me," she said.

He raised his eyebrows, entered the chamber, and closed the door behind him. "I come to discuss our war. I come to report of our troops' morale. I come to ask for more armor and spears. Are you so vain that you think every man at your door comes to ravage you?"

She couldn't help it. She gave him a crooked smile. "You are not every man; the others would die if they entered this chamber." She doffed her robe and stood naked before him. "Love me. I know why you're here. Do it. Roughly. Make it hurt."

He stood staring in silence. Blood pooled at their feet. She raised her chin and stared into his eyes, refusing to blink first. Finally he stepped over the body and grabbed her. He pulled her to her bed, tossed her upon her blankets of silk and golden thread, and climbed atop her. He claimed her. He hurt her. He gave her sweet pain to shout with, and she drove her fingernails down his back, and she bit his shoulder until she tasted blood. When she tossed her head back and closed her eyes, she thought of Elethor and screamed.

When he was done, she shoved him aside, rose to her feet, and grabbed her gown of white silk. She pulled it over her body; it kissed her skin with a thousand kisses.

"Come," she said, "we will inspect the lines. Show me what you've done with my army."

She returned to the window and whistled—a long, loud sound like a bird of prey. The thud of wings sounded in the courtyard below. A growl rose into a screech. With a flash of scales, her wyvern ascended a hundred feet, from the cobblestones below to her window. The beast's wings pounded the air, bending palm trees below and billowing her curtains and hair. His scales clattered, thick plates like iron armor. His eyes blazed red, his teeth snapped, and smoke rose from his nostrils. His name was Baal, and he was the greatest of the wyverns, a forge of acid, a behemoth of wrath and muscle and bloodlust.

Solina shuddered to see him, a shudder of awe and delight. For a thousand years, the eggs had lain in the desert sands, hard and polished like obsidian. For a thousand years, the priests of Tiranor, and the kings and queens of the Phoebus Dynasty, had prayed and chanted and cast their spells... and the eggs still slept.

But I... I quickened them with the seed of flame, with the life of my lord the Sun God. Her lips pulled back in a grin, and she inhaled sharply, savoring the acrid stench of the creature. My prayers were answered; my glory flies across the desert. I am a mother of beasts. I am a goddess of wyverns.

With her foot, she nudged her dead slave halfway out the window.

"Eat," she said.

Baal tilted his head, regarded the dead woman, then thrust forward like a striking asp. He took the body into his mouth, tossed back his head, and swallowed. His neck bulged and his scales clanked as the body moved down his throat.

"Turn," Solina told him. "I will ride you."

He turned sideways, still clinging to the palace wall. Solina climbed out her window and into his saddle. She grabbed the pole that was fastened there; it bore her banner, a golden sun upon a white field. With a crooked smile, she looked over her shoulder at Mahrdor, who still stood in her chamber.

"Ride behind me," she said.

Soon they flew upon Baal over the city. Solina gazed upon the glory of her home. From up here she could see all of Irys. The Pallan halved the city, a trail of silver-blue, a giver of life in the desert. Countless ships sailed down its waters, from the distant lands of the south, to the docks of Hog's Corner, and finally into delta and sea. Along the riverbanks rose the villas of the wealthy, their gardens lush and their columns tall. Beyond them coiled cobbled streets lined with houses and shops of mudbrick. Her palace glittered behind her, a glory of polished limestone and gold; only the great Temple of the Sun stood as tall. All around the city, her empire rolled into sand and haze and wonder.

Beyond the oasis, upon the rock and sand of her desert, her army awaited. Thousands of chariots stood tethered to horses, their wheels spiked, their riders armed with whips and bows. Thousands of soldiers bustled between tents, armed with spears and arrows tipped with poison. Greatest of all, twenty thousand wyverns stood upon the sand that had hatched them, as large as dragons, as cruel as the desert sun; they would lead the charge into Requiem, crushing the Weredragon Kingdom and paving way for her ground troops.

As she flew above, the army saw her banner, and they cried for her glory, a great cheer that rolled across the desert. Men raised spears and wyverns screamed.

"Queen Solina!" they cried. "Golden daughter of Phoebus!"

"Elethor has only five thousand soldiers," she said to Mahrdor as the wind whipped her hair. "Even if he summons every child and old woman in Requiem, small and feeble dragons in flight, he cannot stop us. We will crush them like the insects that they are."

Behind her in the saddle, Mahrdor grunted in approval. "My collection will grow. After you kill the Boy King, may I have his bones?"

She laughed. "You may have some before I kill him; I think that would amuse me. Turn one bone into a flute, and I will play it for him." She raised her banner high; it caught the wind and thudded. She shouted to the army. "Soon you will feed upon weredragon flesh! Soon you will bring light and fire to the world!"

They howled. Men clanged spears against shields. The wyverns screeched, shaking the desert. The sun shimmered, a beacon of her lord. Solina raised her head, closed her eyes, and let the light of the Sun God bathe her with glory.