A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (19 page)

The solemnity left Erry's eyes;
they flashed with rage. She pulled the bottle from his grip and
tossed it aside.

"You fool!" she said,
teeth bared, no taller than his shoulders but snarling like some wild
beast. "Valien doesn't want the throne. He's fighting to
restore the throne to Rune. You know that. You're drunk, Leresy.
Go to bed."

He stared at the fallen bottle;
its precious liquids had seeped into the earth. He spoke through a
tight jaw.

"Oh, but Rune is only a
puppet. Valien is the one pulling the strings. Even should he place
Rune upon the throne, Valien would still be the master, controlling
the boy-king's every move." He looked back at her, shaking with
rage. "It's not right, Erry. The man is a cunning devil, a
slimy worm. Why should I follow at his heel like a dog? I cannot
bear him!"

Something cold and afraid filled
Erry's eyes. She froze for just an instant, a deer staring at a
hunter. Then the moment was gone. She tightened her lips, stepped
toward him, and pressed her body against his.

"Forget about them for
tonight, my prince," she whispered and reached down to his
pants. "Come to bed. I'll help you forget them."

He shook his head, but let her
stroke him. "I will not forget their insolence. I'm their
prince. I do not forget. I do not forgive."

She reached into his breeches,
her fingers deft. "Let them play their games, then, my lord.
The important thing is that they'll kill Frey. That's why you're
here, isn't it? To help kill Frey?"

He snorted, wanting to push her
away, but letting her do her work; it was why he kept her.

"Killing Frey is no longer
enough for me," he said. "I now have a second enemy.
Valien must die."

Erry's fingers froze. She
inhaled sharply. She pulled away and stared silently.

"You are a fool," she
whispered. With one fluid movement, she pulled her tunic over her
head. She stood naked before him. "Come to bed, Ler, and
forget this foolishness."

He stared at her naked flesh and
licked his lips. He stepped forward, grabbed her arms, and shoved
her onto the bed. He mounted her at once, making her gasp.

"I can't kill him in the
open," he said as he moved atop her. "No... the men would
see me as a murderer, a usurper. I could kill him in the capital...
yes, in the chaos of battle, I could kill him."

Erry closed her eyes and placed
her hands in his hair. "Be silent, my prince. Be silent and
take me harder."

He
took her harder, but he would not be silent. "No, if I kill him
in the capital, it would be too late. The capital must see me as a
savior,
leading
the Resistance to slay the tyrant, a hero liberating his homeland."
He hissed down at Erry. "Valien will have to die soon, and I
will take over this ragtag army of his."

Erry moaned, moved her body
beneath him, and placed a finger against his mouth.

"Please," she said,
eyes closed. "Please stop talking. Harder."

He snarled, fists clenched,
moving faster atop her. "I'll have to slay him in the shadows.
No one must know it was me. And then, Erry... then I can take over
his Resistance, use my Genesis Shards to claim the throne, and be
hailed a hero." He grinned, breathing heavily. "Valien
will be dead, I will be a beloved emperor, and you will be my
concubine."

He closed his eyes and gritted
his teeth, then lay atop her, drained and weary. She held him close,
silent, her eyes still afraid.

 
 
TILLA

She lay in his arms, the burrow
cold and his embrace warm, and she had never felt so lost, and she
had never felt so much in just the right place.

"I never want to leave,"
she whispered, nestled against him under the blankets.

Lying on his back, he laughed.
"So we'll spend the rest of our lives here, in a gopher hole a
league outside the capital?"

She shrugged. "It works
for gophers. Why not for us?"

They had been here, in this
underground hideaway, for three days now. They had been the worst
three days of Tilla's life: three days of nursing Rune's wounds,
shivering in the cold, and mostly worrying. She worried about the
Legions finding them. She worried about her father and whether he'd
survived the slaughter at Lynport. She worried about where they'd go
next, whether they'd spend their lives in hiding or seek distant
lands. Yet they were also the best three days of Tilla's life:
three days of holding Rune close, kissing his lips, making love to
him in the dark, and whispering of memories.

"Last I checked, we were
Vir Requis," Rune said, "meant to fly as dragons, not
huddle underground as gophers."

Tilla propped herself up on her
elbows, leaned over him, and kissed his lips. "But I like
huddling here. It's safe and it's warm and it's better than any of
that damn world above us, a world of fire and blood and cruelty.
Here there are none of those things. Here I'm happy."

She kissed him again and he
touched her hair.

"I have to check your
wounds," she whispered and began to unlace his shirt.

"Again?" he asked.

She nodded, pulled off his
shirt, and began to work at his trousers. "You were very
wounded. I have to make sure you're all right."

He raised an eyebrow. "So
why are you removing your clothes too?"

"I have a little scratch.
Can you check it for me?"

He nodded. "Show me.
Where—"

She did not let him finish his
sentence. She kissed him again, a deep kiss, their hands clutching.
She needed this. She had needed it for so long—during her cold days
in the Legions, during those bloodred nights of seeing him chained,
perhaps for years upon the beaches. She had him now. She had him
here underground, hers alone, her Rune. All her world had burned
above. All her dreams, her hopes, her life itself had collapsed, and
yet she had him. He was all she had left. She would not let him go.
And so she made love to him again; she had lost count of how many
times she'd loved him here underground. Countless times was not
enough.

She lay in his arms for a long
while. She looked around the burrow, seeing shelves of food and
drink, enough to last for moons. A soft laugh fled her lips.

"I was an officer in the
greatest military the world has known," she said. "I lived
in a large home all my own. I commanded men in battle. I was
groomed by the princess of Requiem herself. But I'm happier here. I
would be happy staying in this burrow forever with you."

"And yet we can't stay
forever," Rune said, one hand against the small of her back, the
other on her thigh. "My wounds are healing. We'll have to move
soon."

Tilla closed her eyes. She had
known this day would come, though she feared it.

"Let's run far away, as far
as we can," she said. "We'll travel across Requiem,
through the ruins of Osanna, and to the eastern sea. We'll fly from
there. We'll head south to Terra Incognita, the unexplored country."
She squeezed Rune tight. "We'll find a new life there, far
from the Regime, far from everything we've ever known. Just you and
me."

She tried to imagine that
southern land of myth. The empire of Requiem stretched across
forests, seas, mountains, and deserts. Yet there were lands beyond
the empire too, lands no dragon had ever flown to. What lay beyond
the edges of maps? Would they find lush forests full of fruit and
game? Would they find foreign civilizations or strange animals?
Were there forests there or deserts, mountains or plains? Would they
find a new life, Tilla and Rune in unknown landscapes of adventure?
She nodded, tightened her lips, and drew comfort from the warmth of
his body.

Yet he remained silent, and when
Tilla looked at him, his face was somber.

"Rune?" she said and
touched his cheek. "What's wrong?"

He sighed, staring at the
ceiling of wooden slats. "Can we really abandon home?"

Tilla leaned her head against
his shoulder. She spoke softly. "Our home burned. Lynport is
gone."

I
burned it,
she wanted to add, but her throat tightened, and she could say no
more. The memories and guilt clutched her. She saw herself a dragon
again, flying over Lynport, burning its roofs, shattering its
columns, slaying its defenders. Her eyes stung.

"I don't just mean
Lynport," Rune said. "All of Requiem is our home. This is
the land of our forebears. The land my father governed. Can we
truly abandon it, flee to distant lands and forget all who suffer
here?"

She gripped his shoulders. "I
will not have you imprisoned again. I will not lose you again, Rune
Brewer. Do you understand?" She squeezed his shoulders
painfully. "You might be thinking you can find the Resistance,
that you can fight on, but I won't let you. I won't. I..."

Her eyes dampened, her throat
constricted, and she could only lie against him and hold him close.

"I
must find them," he said, embracing her. "Valien and
Kaelyn still live. Hundreds of resistors still live, and they will
fight on.
I
must fight on." He smoothed her hair. "I won't ask you to
join me. If you want to flee, you can—" He bit down on his
words and scrunched his lips. "Oh, bloody Abyss. I
will
ask you to join me. I
am
asking you. Find the Resistance with me. Fight with us."

She squeezed him so tight he
grunted. Her rage exploded inside her like dragonfire, and she
almost shouted. Her heart thrashed and she forced herself to take
slow breaths between her clenched teeth.

He
wants me to fight for Valien!
she thought, reeling. He truly thought she'd fight for the man who
had murdered her brother? She dug her fingernails into him. He
wanted her to fight with Kaelyn, that... that little harlot he lusted
for? Tilla ground her teeth, her tears drying under her anger. She
had heard tales of Kaelyn Cadigus's beauty. Rune's eyes had always
wandered to beauties in Lynport; he would have noticed Kaelyn too.
Did
he bed her too, kiss her like he kisses me?

Rune grunted and Tilla forced
herself to loosen her grip on him. She would not sway him with
anger. She knew Rune; whenever confronted with anger, he became
stubborn like a mule. She'd have to sway him with calm words, not
shouts.

"You can't keep fighting,"
she said. "Damn it, Rune, look at you. You're still wounded.
You're still too thin. I've had enough of fighting." Her eyes
watered and her chest shook. "I slew too many. I want to run
away from all this. Maybe that is weakness, but I don't care. This
whole empire is rotten. I want to run. I never want to kill again.
There is enough blood on my hands."

He nodded and whispered, "That
is why you must stay."

"To kill more? For more
blood and death?"

He shook his head. "For
redemption."

She rolled away from him. "I
redeemed myself when I slew Shari Cadigus. I redeemed myself when I
saved you, the heir of Aeternum."

He placed a hand on her waist.
"Yet in Terra Incognita, would I be an heir? You saved Relesar
Aeternum. That is who I am; I cannot run from it. Not while Frey
still lives and still subjugates our people."

"The Resistance is
smashed," Tilla said. "It burned in the fires of Lynport.
It is gone."

Rune shook his head. "Not
so long as I live. Not so long as Valien and Kaelyn live." He
touched her cheek, turning her head back toward him. "Tilla,
you saved me from the Red Tower. And now I must do what I can to
save my friends. I must keep fighting."

Finally Tilla could not hold
back the pain. She let the words slip from her mouth; they tasted
like poison. "Fighting with the man who killed my brother."

Rune became quiet. For a few
breaths, he said nothing. When he spoke, his voice was low and
careful.

"Valien slew many, it's
true. Did he himself kill your brother? Maybe. So many died in
battle on both sides. War makes victims of us all."

She snorted, trying to feign
some strength as her tears fell. "Is that some poetic way of
saying I should forget Valien's sins?"

"He himself does not forget
his sins. I've seen Valien drink, brood, and howl in the night,
lamenting those he killed and those he let die. He bears much blood
on his hands. So do we. Our hands will never be cleansed; perhaps
there is no true redemption for us, killers in war. I don't believe
there is running from this. I don't believe that even distant,
unknown lands could purify our souls, could wipe the memories and
grief away. So I will stay. I will keep fighting. You cannot run
from a demon, only charge him head-on and slay him. Our demon is
Frey Cadigus. I will not rest until he's dead. Tilla, fight him
with me."

She sat up and regarded him.
She ran her fingers along his face, tracing the old familiar
features, and she wondered if she even still knew him. Was this
truly still Rune her friend? Or was he now fully Relesar, a
stranger? He needed to fight, but she needed different things. She
needed him far from war. She needed him away from Valien, who led
him into blood, and she needed vengeance for her brother. She knew
what she must do, and it chilled her.

I
must kill Valien.

She nodded. "All right,
Rune. I'll help you find the Resistance. We'll find them together."

And
then I will slay him, the man who took my brother from me, the man
who's taking you away too.

Rune didn't seem to suspect her
deeper motives. He pulled her into an embrace.

"Thank you. I promise
you—once you meet them, you'll see the Resistance in a different
light. We'll fight this together, you and me."

She rose to her feet, leaving
the warmth of the blankets. The cold air raised goose bumps across
her naked skin, and she grabbed her clothes and began to dress.