Requiem's Song (Book 1) (7 page)

"Oh, my daughter," he
said. "Your heart is still too soft. But I will strength it. I
will hammer your heart like a smith hammers bronze. You will be my
heir now. Your grandfather is dead; he fell in the gardens. Your
brother is diseased. Only you and I remain now, holding this fragile
kingdom together."

Fresh tears budded in Issari's
eyes. "Is Grandfather . . . ? He's . . ." She covered her
face with her palms.

Raem yanked her hands away. "Dry
your tears! Today you must be strong. I will honor your wish. I will
spare your filthy brother's life. But he will not taint this kingdom
again."

He grabbed the boy, lifting him
off the block. Sena seemed too dazed, too hurt, to resist. Blood
filled his mouth and poured from his nose. His arm hung at a strange
angle, perhaps dislocated, and his face was pale. Even if he wanted
to shift now, to become a dragon and fly into exile like his mother
and sister had, he was too hurt to summon his magic.

Leaving his daughter behind,
Raem manhandled the prince across the courtyard, down a stone path,
and toward Aerhein Tower.

The steeple rose outside the
palace, towering and ancient, one of the first buildings to rise in
all of Eteer. Many years ago, the first king had raised Aerhein Tower
to gaze upon the city, an eye watching the coast. Today it served as
Eteer's most infamous prison, a place for its greatest enemies to
languish. This place had imprisoned usurped kings, treacherous
generals, and now a disgraced prince.

Blood trailed as Raem pulled his
son up the winding staircase. They climbed round and round, the
sunlight falling through arrowslits. Whenever Sena faltered or tried
to beg, Raem struck him again, beating his face into a red, swollen
mess.

When they reached the tower top,
Raem shoved the door open, revealing an empty chamber. The bricks
were rough and stained with old blood. Messages from previous
prisoners were carved into the craggy walls. Chains hung from those
walls, and only a single window, small and barred, let in light.

"You will remain here until
your last day," said Raem. "The kingdom will forget you. So
will I. So will your sister. Eventually you will forget yourself,
remaining but a starving, mad thing clawing at the walls, and even
then you will linger. You became a creature in your chamber, and so I
will turn you into a creature—a frail, mad mockery of a man. You
have shamed me, Sena, and now you will suffer for your sin. Death
would be a kindness to you. I give you instead damnation."

A new burst of vigor filled
Sena. He howled wordlessly, seeming unable to speak through his
bloodied mouth, and tried to race toward the door. Another blow sent
him sprawling.

Lying on the floor, Sena tried
to shift. Scales began to rise across him. Wings began to sprout from
his back, his body began to grow, and fangs lengthened in his mouth.

Raem kicked, driving his foot
against his son's scaly face.

With an anguished cry and
splatter of blood, Sena lost his magic. His eyes rolled back and
closed. He slumped down, unconscious.

Moving methodically, Raem
grabbed chains from the walls. He bound his son's wrists and ankles,
then wrapped more chains around his torso.

"When you wake, you may try
to shift again," Raem said. "As you grow, you will find
that these chains tear you apart." He snorted. "Goodbye,
reptile."

Fists clenched at his sides, his
son's blood covering him, Raem left the tower.

He
reentered the palace. He
descended dark, narrow staircases, moving past wine cellars and
armories, climbing down and down until he reached the deep cave under
the palace, that gaping belly of water—the city cistern.

Columns
rose here in many rows, supporting a vaulted ceiling. Water filled
the chamber, running deep and black, enough for a city to drink. It
was an old, oft-forgotten place, one of the oldest chambers in the
city-state of Eteer. It was a place to be alone.

This
is where I found them,
Raem thought.
This is
where I found my wife, Anai, and my daughter, Laira. Here is where
they came to shift.

That
day returned to him, perhaps the worst of his days. He had secretly
followed them here. He had seen them become the reptiles, swim in the
water, fly to the ceiling.

He
had confronted them with rage, screamed, even shed tears. He had
drawn his sword, prepared to slay them, and they had fled, flying
away from this city, flying to the northern lands of barbarians.

Raem
trembled. "And now I've lost a son too."

He
could no longer contain his despair; it welled inside him, all
consuming. Eyes stinging, he entered the water.

He
clenched his fists, ground his teeth, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He
releases the rage.

The
curse swelled.

Scales
flowed across Raem, black as the darkness. Horns grew from his head,
and claws sprouted from his fingers. His wings burst from his back,
banging against the columns, and his tail lashed in the water. Fire
sparked between his teeth.

A
dragon in the deep, he lowered his head, trembling, clanking,
diseased, ashamed.

"You
infected me too, Anai," he said, voice rising from a mouth full
of fire. "But I will hide it. I will end it. I will stop this
disease from spreading. And I will kill anyone who stands in my way."

He
released his magic.

He
became a human again, a mere man, a sick man, floating in the water.

He
climbed onto a ledge of stone, trembling with his shame. He pulled
off his shirt of bronze scales and the cotton tunic he wore beneath
it. He unbuckled his thick leather belt.

Upon
the ledge, Raem clenched his jaw and swung the belt over his back.
The leather connected with his flesh, tearing into the skin.

Raem
bit down on a cry.

I
am filthy,
he thought.
I am a sinner. I will
purify myself.

He
lashed the belt again. Again. The blows kept landing, driving the
shame away. When he was done, when the purity was restored, he curled
up on the stone floor. He bit his fist. He took short, ragged
breaths, and again he smelled it, that beautiful smell that could
always soothe him. Blood.

 
 
TANIN

He
stood on one foot, juggling his bronzed raven skulls, but the
onlookers only yawned, shifted their weight, and fluttered their lips
with bored snorts.

Standing
on the creaky wooden stage, Tanin gulped. It was a chilly autumn day,
the sky overcast and the wind biting, but Tanin felt as if he stood
within the flames of the Abyss. He needed to win this crowd over—and
quickly. Only the top performers in the harvest festival won the
coveted prize: a purse of seashells from the distant southern coast.
Seashells could be bartered for food, ale, medicine—and, Tanin
thought, maybe a little dignity.

As
the crowd began to wander off, Tanin cleared his throat.

"Ah,
but juggling is not all I can do!" he announced. "I can
sing while I juggle."

He
launched into a baritone song—a tale of a buxom lass from a
wandering tribe, her hair as thick as mammoth fur, her legs as long
and pale as tusks, her breasts as large as—

He
dropped one skull, losing his place in the song. For a moment he
wobbled on one foot, then completed his embarrassment by crashing
down onto the stage. His remaining raven skulls clattered away in all
directions. He quickly raced around, scooping them up, and tried to
resume his performance despite jeers from the crowd. One man in the
audience, a beefy brute with red cheeks, burst into laughter.

Tanin
sighed.
Another
village, another humiliation.

This
village—a little place called Blueford—lay south of the Ranin
River. While most folk north of the sea still lived in nomadic
tribes, hunting and gathering across the plains and forests, a few
villages now grew along the river, none older than three or four
generations. The recent invention of bronze, a metal Tanin himself
used to forge with his father, meant plows could now till soil. Food
could be grown, not merely collected from wild plants. Nails could
hold together fences, and animals could be penned, not hunted. Many
of the tribes, Tanin knew, mocked the villagers for abandoning the
old ways, for growing soft and lazy.

Banished
from his own village a decade ago, Tanin himself preferred open
spaces and solitude. But villages would barter. Villages would offer
seashells, food, and even precious metal in return for juggling and
singing—at least on days when he didn't end up on his backside, his
skulls rolling around him. And so Tanin kept traveling along the
river, juggling and singing his rude songs.

His
sister, Maev, had it even worse. She traveled from town to town with
him, wrestling, boxing, and earning her keep with fists and kicks.
She joked that he fell on his arse for seashells while she kicked
arses for them. He often countered that her face—covered with
bruises and scrapes from her many fights—ended up looking like an
ape's swollen backside.

My
sister and me,
he
thought with a sigh.
Two
lost souls—outcast, afraid, always only days away from starvation.

Blueford—a
village like any other. Looking off the stage, Tanin saw a collection
of clay huts topped with straw roofs, a few gardens, fields of rye
and wheat, a smithy, and corrals of cattle.

It
looks like the village Maev and I were born in,
he thought.
The village
that banished us. This place would banish us too if they knew our
secret . . . our curse.

At
the thought of his shame, Tanin stumbled upon the stage, falling
again with a cascade of clattering skulls. The crowd jeered.

"Get
off the stage!" someone shouted. "Let the dancer on, you
lout!"

Sitting
on the stage, his legs splayed out before him, Tanin turned his head
to see a dancer standing in the grass, awaiting her turn to perform.
She met his eyes and gave him a shrug and sympathetic smile. Seeing
her only amplified Tanin's humiliation.

By
the stars, she's beautiful,
he thought. The young woman—she seemed about twenty, five years
younger than him—wore only thin bits of cotton over her tall, curvy
figure, and tresses of red hair cascaded across her shoulders. Her
eyes were green, her nose freckled, and Tanin felt his face redden.

Just
the type of woman I'd want to impress,
he thought.
And I'm
sitting here like a—

"Clumsy
sack of shite!" someone shouted from the crowd. "Off the
stage!"

A
gob of brown, gooey mud sailed from the crowd to slam against Tanin's
face. At least he hoped it was mud and not one of the many cow pies
dotting the village. Wishing he could vanish in a puff of smoke like
the magician who had performed before him, Tanin all but fled the
stage, slipping over a bronzed skull and crashing down into the dirt.

He
moved through the crowd, any trace of lingering dignity gone, and
wiped the mud off his face. The crowd cheered behind him, and Tanin
turned to see the red-haired woman step onto the stage and begin her
dance. She swayed like reeds in the wind, jingling bells in her
hands. Tanin gulped to see the seductive movements of her near-naked
body. It had been so long since he'd held a woman, even talked to
one—aside from talking to his sister, that is, but Tanin often
thought her more an enraged warthog than a woman. Watching the dance,
he imagined holding this dancer, kissing her lips, and seeking in her
arms some respite from loneliness. As she swayed, she met his eyes
across the crowd and gave him a knowing, crooked smile. Tanin felt
his face flush.

I'm
a fool,
he thought.
She knew what he was thinking, yet after his travesty of a
performance, surely she only mocked him.
Besides,
if she knew my secret, knew who I really am, knew why I was banished
from my own town . . .

The
shame grew too great to bear. Tanin turned and walked away.

Leaving
the stage behind, he walked through the village. The harvest festival
was in full swing. Farmers displayed their largest gourds, turnips,
and cabbages upon tables for judges to measure. Shepherds haggled
over prize bulls. Gardeners swapped wreaths of wheat and flowers for
meat pies and mugs of ale. Several dogs ran underfoot, tails wagging
furiously as they begged for treats.

Grunts,
curses, and the thud of fists on flesh rose from within a ring of
cheering men. Tanin approached, peered through the crowd, and a saw a
pit of mud. In the dirt, his sister was pinning down a hairy man
twice her size, pounding his face with her fists. All around, the
crowd raised their own fists, cheering for her. A brusque woman, her
powerful arms tattooed with coiling dragons, Maev could have been
beautiful if not for the black eyes, fat lips, and cuts that always
marred her face. Blood dripped down her face today, and more blood
matted her long blond hair, but she smiled as she pummeled her
victim.

"The
Hammer!" cried the crowd, chanting the name Maev had chosen for
her fights. "The Hammer!"

Tanin
sighed and turned away. He hated seeing his sister fight like this in
every village they passed through. Whenever he tried to sway her away
from another battle, her rage turned on him.

I
juggle, fall on stage, and sell my dignity to survive,
Tanin thought.
She
sells blood.

Grimacing,
he walked away. That evening he would nurse his sister's wounds. For
now, he sought distraction in the festival. Leaving the wrestling pit
behind, he approached a dirt square where a puppeteer hid inside a
wooden booth, putting on a show. A group of parents and children were
watching the puppets, and Tanin paused among them.