A Night of Dragon Wings

SOLINA



In the bowels of the Palace of Whispers, she sat in a hall of stone and shadow. Nephilim swarmed around her. They scuttled across the dusty mosaic floors, clung to the ceiling like bats, and climbed the limestone columns. Three knelt beneath her, heads downcast and wings splayed out; they formed her new throne, a seat of living rot and scale and bone. The spine ridges of two beasts formed her armrests, and their claws formed the legs of her chair; a third nephil rose behind her, a backrest of scales and boils, and its head drooled and hissed above her own.

"Children!" Solina cried, her voice ringing across the hall. "Feast! Feast upon the bones."

They howled and fed upon the bones of prisoners she had tossed them, cracking them open to suck the marrow. This chamber, here in this desert palace, loomed thrice the size of her throne room in Irys; ten thousand nephilim fit inside it. They roared all around, drooling and screeching and clawing the floor and walls. Solina imagined that their cries carried to every hall, tunnel, and chamber throughout this great palace—an edifice the size of a city. Their cry would ring across the desert too—across the world.

"Do you hear it too, Elethor?" she whispered. "Do they scream for you?"

The nephilim that formed her throne cawed and writhed, and she stroked them. They drooled and their white eyes narrowed. She had sent Legion himself, king of these beasts, to fetch her beloved. She had sent more to every corner of the world: to the wilderness of Salvandos where true dragons flew, to the plains and cities of Osanna where men rode upon horses and knew no magic, and even to the distant isles where griffins flew.

"You will find no place to hide, Elethor," she said, stroking the nephilim she sat upon. "In every corner of this world, my children will hunt you. Any allies you enlist, my children will kill them. You cannot stop them. You cannot hide from me." She clenched her fists and grinned. "I will bring you here."

She stood upon her throne of living flesh and raised her arms. All around her, the Fallen Horde flew in a storm, wings beating and teeth snapping.

"The flesh of the world is ours!" she called. "The bones of your enemies will be your prize! We will never fall!"

They howled around her, a myriad of demons, bodies lanky and rotted like corpses, wings full of holes, mouths full of blood. They roared and praised her name, and the chamber shook.

"Hail Solina! Hail the Golden Goddess! We are free!"

She walked down a nephil's spine as if descending stairs, crossed the hall between the beasts, and left the chamber. When she closed the doors behind her, she could still hear them sing her name and growl and feast.

Solina walked down a corridor of shadows. She gripped her twin sabers at her sides, and her lips tightened. She had her power. She had her glory. But one thing she still missed; one prize she would still claim.

She walked through the palace for a long time.

She walked down hallways where dust and cobwebs covered old murals of beasts and men. She climbed chipped staircases lined with statues of slender, solemn Ancients, their heads oval and their eyes staring. Finally, after what seemed like miles, she stepped through a doorway into the Hall of Memories.

She stood before the great, dark cavern and a shiver ran through her.

The chamber was vast, larger even than her throne room; she could have fit a palace in here. Columns surrounded the chamber in a ring, supporting a shadowy, domed ceiling. Below the doorway spread a black pit; the bases of the columns faded there into shadow. Solina had tossed stones into that pit before and could not hear them hit the bottom; perhaps there was no bottom and the darkness led to the Abyss itself.

In the center of the chamber, a great stone well rose from the darkness like a tower rising from a moat. A bridge crossed the pit, leading from the doorway where Solina stood to the towering well. She began to walk. The stone bridge was narrow, barely wide enough for her to cross. On both sides loomed the pit; cold air rose from those shadows to sting her cheeks. The columns that surrounded the chasm frowned upon her, ancient sentinels of stone. The hall was so silent Solina could hear her own heartbeat.

Finally the dusty, chipped bridge led her to the towering well.

The well was wide—wide enough for a dragon to swim in—and pale bricks formed its rim. It seemed less like a well from here, and more like a pool upon a tower top. Water rose to the brim, silver and opaque and perfectly still. A staircase led from the edge down into the water.

Solina stood above the pool. She lowered her head, and the cold wind played with her hair. She breathed deeply, in and out, again and again. All around her lurked the shadowy pit.

The place of my heart. The innermost whispers of my soul.

She stepped onto the staircase that led into the pool. When her sandals touched the first step, the water rose over her ankles, cold and warm at once, both soothing and stinging like a memory of lost love. She kept descending, taking each step slowly. The water rose to her knees, stung the jewel at her navel, and finally rose to her neck. She raised her head, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She descended the last step, and the water covered her.

When she opened her eyes, she saw feathery white light. A warm breeze caressed her skin and hair. Slowly the light parted like silk curtains and she saw it.

A tremulous smile touched her lips and tears stung her eyes.

"Home," she whispered.

Marble statues filled the small room, carved in her likeness. Tapestries hung from the walls, and plush rugs covered the floor. Upon shelves stood the wooden statuettes he would whittle: deer, leaping fish, and her favorite—a turtle with emerald eyes he had carved especially for her. Upon a table stood a plate of bread rolls, a bowl of apples, and a jug of wine. His bed stood under a window, topped with quilts and pillows, the place where they would kiss, love, sleep, and whisper all the whispers of their hearts.

Outside the windows the day was clear and warm. Birches and cypresses rustled upon the hill, and the scent of jasmines wafted. Only scattered white clouds filled the blue sky. Birds chirruped and bees bustled around the honeysuckle. It was spring in Requiem, a day of peace, of warmth, of him and her.

A day for us. A free day. A perfect day.

The cruel King Olasar, his pitiful daughter Mori, the haughty Lady Lyana and Prince Orin—they were all gone to Oldnale Farms far in the east. Nova Vita was theirs, just hers and Elethor's—a spring for their love, a spring to lie in bed and hold each other, to sit upon the hill and watch the trees, to be free, a day of no fear, no hurt.

She looked around his chamber. Marble statues. Shelves with books and geodes and his carvings. The table with the bread and wine. His bed of quilts. And silence. Waiting. A loneliness like a house after death.

"I created this for us, Elethor," she whispered. She tasted her tears. "You remember. It was the best day of our lives. A day for us. A perfect day."

She had found this old place in this old palace: the Memory Pool, a place where she could weave her dreams. The Ancients, it was said, would enter this pool to return to their childhoods in old age, to revisit old ghosts before the great journey to the world beyond. Solina had only bad memories from her childhood, memories of the dragons slaying her parents, of captivity in the hall of the Weredragon King. But this memory… this memory from only a decade ago… this was pure. This had been—was!—her one perfect day, the one perfect piece of her soul.

"You remember, Elethor." She lay upon his bed and looked up at the ceiling. Cracks spread there like cobwebs, but they were beautiful to her; she knew each one. "You remember how we lay here. We made love three times that night, and you were so lazy in the morning. You didn't want to wake up. Do you remember?"

She was weeping. Her tears flowed down her cheeks and dampened the quilt.

Why did such pain have to fill this world? Why had so much fire burned her? She was but a mortal, but a frail woman, and she had walked through fire, blood, and death. She had fought the dragons and slain them, and she had raised beasts from the desert, and she had done great things upon this earth.

"But this is all I ever wanted, Elethor. This day again and again and again. A day for us. A perfect day. I will bring you here to this Palace of Whispers, to this Memory Pool, and you will be here with me." She clutched the blankets. "We will be here forever."

She turned her head aside, blinked the tears from her eyes, and pulled a blanket over her. She felt so cold and she longed for his embrace. She looked outside the window at the clouds that glided, and she missed him so badly that her insides ached and she could barely breathe.