A Day of Dragon Blood - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,3

to the heavens. The true sun blazed overhead, drenching the city, a god of light and heat and punishment.

Across the square lay the Palace of Phoebus, a towering edifice, greater even than the palace of Requiem where Lyana served her king. Its columns rose three hundred feet tall. Stone guardians, shaped as faceless warriors, flanked its great doors; each statue stood taller than three dragons. The wyverns began climbing the stairs to the palace gateway. Silas dragged behind them; the dragon thudded against each step, groaning, smoke leaving his nostrils.

Blow fire, Silas! Lyana thought. Blow your flame and kill what bastards you can!

Yet he was too weak; she saw that. He was barely strong enough to cling to his dragon form. She saw the marks of whips across him. They had tortured him, forcing him to remain a dragon, though surely it took every last drop of his strength.

Lyana clenched her fists. Queen Solina wants the mobs to see him as a broken, bloody beast, not a man.

The doors to the palace, wrought of gold and ivory, swung open. As if summoned by Lyana's thoughts, Queen Solina stepped out of shadows, stood above the stairs, and raised her arms.

The city bowed before her, a great wave of myriads. Jaw so tight her teeth ached, Lyana forced herself to bow too.

"Blessed be the Sun God!" cried Solina. She wore steel so pale it was nearly white. A golden sun glimmered upon her breastplate, and twin sabres hung from her belt. Her platinum hair swayed behind her like a banner, and a crown of jagged, golden spikes rose upon her head like claws.

You murdered my king, Lyana thought, a sandstorm of rage flaring within her. You murdered my betrothed. One day I will kill you, Solina.

"Rise, children of the sun!" Solina cried, arms raised. Across the oasis city of Irys, the people rose and cried her name. "A beast we found lurking along our borders. A demon of scale and claw!"

Upon the roofs and streets, the crowd roared. Lyana looked upon the people through the silk of her scarf. She had never seen such rage, such pure, storming hatred. It suffused the faces of the men and women of Tiranor, twisting them into cruel masks. It gushed from their throats in raw howls.

We are but demons to them, Lyana thought. We, the children of Requiem, are a noble and ancient race—a nation that lives for music, for meditation, for peace. And we are nothing but monsters here.

"The dragons burned your fathers and mothers!" Solina cried. "Thirty years ago, when they invaded our glorious land of sunlight, they toppled our towers and drank the blood of children." Her voice nearly drowned under the roaring crowd. "But we've rebuilt! Our palace stands anew and our people are strong!" She tossed back her head and howled her words to the sun. "We will never fall!"

The roars swelled so loudly that Lyana felt them thud in her ears, pound in her chest, and shake the River Spice Winehouse below her feet.

"We will never fall!" cried the people. "We will never fall! Hail the Sun God!"

Lyana lowered her eyes. The first Tiran War had raged before her birth. Solina herself had been only a babe. Its wounds had long washed away from this city; all the fallen buildings stood again, and once more trees filled this oasis with life.

"And yet the hatred we sowed then still blooms," Lyana whispered. "And it still burns our sons and daughters."

The wyverns flapped their wings and tugged the chained dragon to his feet. Soldiers climbed the towering statues that flanked the palace doors, attaching chains to hooks. Soon Silas hung shackled between the stone guardians, a bloody dragon with one wing, displayed in all his wretchedness to the city. Solina stood before him, her boots red with his blood.

"The dragons bring drought to our land!" the queen cried. "They drink the waters that should overflow the River Pallan! The dragons eat our grain, leaving our poor to hunger! The dragons mock our lord, the Sun God who gives us life, and worship the night!" With her every word, the crowd roared, and Solina spun toward the chained Silas. "Now Requiem will learn the price of its evil. Blessed be the Sun God! His fire shall extinguish all darkness. Soon we will burn all dragons and cast out their evil with light. We will never fall!"

Fly now! cried a voice in Lyana's head. Toss off this silk scarf, discard your disguise, and