A Day of Dragon Blood - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,2

smelled like corpses to her. It was a day for all great things in Tiranor, this land of sand and stone—for war, for worship... and for death.

The crowd's roars swelled when five wyverns emerged from the Temple of the Sun, a sandstone edifice whose columns and towers rose above the city, capped with platinum. The scaly beasts dragged themselves from the temple's bowels and onto the hot, sun-drenched streets. Even in the glare of Tiranor's blazing sun, their scales were midnight black, their eyes red pools like fire underground. Riders sat upon them, their helms shaped as cranes' beaks, their whips ringed with gold.

Lyana grimaced and clenched her fists. The first time she had seen the wyverns, she had thought them some strange, southern dragons—they were large, scaled, and winged like the dragons of the north. But unlike dragons, they had but two legs—muscled and wide as their tails, with claws like great swords, twice the size of dragonclaws. Their jaws thrust out like blades, lined with teeth. Worst of all was the weapon that spewed from those jaws; Lyana had seen their acid burn only once, eating a condemned thief into bones, and it still filled her nightmares.

Chains dragged behind the wyverns. When they stepped farther from the temple, the shackles tugged their captive out onto the street: a bloody, lacerated dragon.

"Silas," Lyana whispered. Tears stung her eyes.

The wyverns grunted and trundled down the streets, dragging the chained dragon behind them. Silas breathed raggedly. His one wing was missing, burnt to nothing but a charred bone. His scales were dented, his horns sawed off. As the wyverns dragged him along the road, his blood trailed behind him. All around the crowds roared, stamped their feet, and pelted Silas with refuse and stones.

Lyana's legs shook, she panted, and her head spun.

"Oh Silas," she whispered.

She had fought alongside him in Nova Vita, battling the phoenixes over the city of dragons. He had served her father, the Lord Deramon; in her childhood, Silas often guarded her chamber at night and taught her swordplay during the day. She had to save him. She had to discard her disguise, shift into a dragon, swoop and grab him and fly with him to safety. She had to—

You have to serve your kingdom, whispered a voice inside her. You have to stay at your post. You are a daughter of Requiem, and you serve all her people... even if you must let one die.

It was the voice of her father, her king, and her ancestors—the voice of her honor and memory. It was a voice she hated this day.

She adjusted the silk scarf around her eyes. The loomers of Confutatis, ancient city of the eastern realms, had woven this scarf, and they had imbued it with all their skill and magic. From one side, the cloth was translucent as summer mist; from the other, solid and thick as wool. Through the scarf, the world shone clear to Lyana; to any observer, the silk hid her green northern eyes. To this city she was but Tiana, the blind dancer of the River Spice. Her hair, once a pyre of fiery red curls, now hung smoothed and bleached a platinum blond—the hair of a Tiran. Her skin, once pale and strewn with freckles like starfields, now gleamed golden, rubbed with dyes that would tint her for moons. Once she had worn the armor of a bellator, a knight of Requiem; today she wore but strands of white silk that revealed more flesh than they hid.

I was Lady Lyana, a defender of Requiem, a warrior who could shift into a dragon and roar to battle, save Silas, and burn my enemies. She squared her jaw, heart pounding. Now she must be only Tiana—only the blind dancer from the southern dunes, only a girl with a scarf over her eyes, a girl who could not even see this dance of blood before her. How I wish that I were truly blind today.

The five wyverns moved along the Palisade of Kings, a wide cobbled road lined with palms and obelisks capped with platinum sunbursts. Blood trailed behind the dragging Silas, and the multitudes roared. Cranes and ibises flew overhead, and soldiers on horseback rode behind the dragon, bearing the banners of Phoebus—a flaming sun upon a white field. The procession made its way down the palisade, under the great Queen's Archway whose stones were carved with sunbursts, and into the Square of the Sun where thousands roared and raised their hands