A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,2

to—"

She spat on him. "Stand this wretch up," she said to her soldiers. Disgust now suffused her voice. "Let him enter last. I want him to watch his friends suffer first."

Guards grabbed Zar and yanked him to his feet. He writhed and kicked, heart thrashing, but could not free himself. After moons in Solina's dungeon, he was too weak, his arms thinned to the bone, his head always spinning, his heart always like a wild hare caught in his ribcage. To his right, he saw his fellow prisoners, two more souls who had languished in the queen's dungeons. They too were struggling in the grip of soldiers. They too were pale and emaciated, mere shells of humanity, their hair wispy and their eyes bulging.

"Send the first one in!" Solina shouted, voice echoing across the mountain. Zar thought that even the desert below, for leagues around, could hear her voice, the cry of a gilded goddess.

The soldiers dragged forward a prisoner—a cadaverous, bare-chested man named Rael, his back lashed and his left eye swollen shut. The man struggled, whimpered, and begged, but he could not free himself from the soldiers' grips. These were Queen Solina's personal guards, towering men—they stood near seven feet tall—bedecked in steel and platinum, automatons of metal, their faces hidden behind visors shaped as falcon beaks. Sometimes Zar wondered if any flesh lived beneath that metal, or if inside their armor they were nothing but godly flame.

"Please, my queen," Rael pleaded. As the soldiers dragged him toward the tower, he looked back, and his good eye met Zar's gaze.

Zar froze, his breath dying in his chest. He saw such horror, such grief in the man's one eye—a soul crumbling.

"Rael," he whispered.

"If you make it back, Zar, tell my wife I'm sorry," the haggard prisoner said. Blood flecked his lips. "Tell her I love her and I'm sorry."

Zar nodded, throat constricting. Rael had stabbed the man raping his wife; he had been caught, knife bloody in his hands.

"I'll look after her, Rael," he said, knowing that he was lying, knowing that he would never make it back home. "I promise. I—"

With a grunt, a soldier kicked Zar's back, sending him facedown into the dirt. His cheek hit a rock; he felt it pierce his skin. He coughed and spat blood, raised his head, and saw the soldiers shove Rael into the dark doorway of the tower.

"Find me the key and you will have freedom!" Solina shouted into the darkness, voice echoing. A grin played across her lips, twisting her scar, the old burn the weredragons had given her. "Find the key and the jewels of Tiranor will be yours!"

Zar lay on the ground, staring at the twisting pillar of stone. The red clouds swirled above it like pools of gods' blood. Was it possible? Could one of them—even Zar himself—find the key and receive freedom?

He clenched his jaw and winced when his shattered teeth touched.

"No," he whispered. "There will be no freedom if she unlocks the door this key can open. There will be no place to hide in the world."

He watched the tower.

Silence fell.

Solina stood before Tarath Gehena, hands opened at her sides, fingers twitching over the hilts of her sabres. Her soldiers stood like statues; not a piece of armor clinked. Zar pushed himself to his feet and watched. At his side, the second prisoner—a gaunt dusteater caught licking the forbidden spice in Irys's dregs—stood watching with sallow eyes; those eyes seemed dead, and her skin was already pale like a corpse. Even the wind stilled; the land itself seemed to be watching the tower with bated breath.

A deep, gravelly sound rose from the tower.

Again sweat drenched Zar.

Sun God, oh Sun God, save us.

His body trembled with new vigor. At first he thought that sound the creaking of stones, but then he realized: it was laughter—an inhuman, impossibly deep, demonic laughter.

A shrill scream pierced the air, cascaded down the mountainsides, and echoed across the desert.

"We must flee," Zar whispered. He turned to run, but soldiers grabbed him. Gloved fingers dug into his arms.

The deep laughter rolled, a sound of ancient evil, of pure malice, a sound like a parasite feasting as it bore through its host toward the heart. Wincing, Zar turned his head away from the tower; he could no longer look.

His gaze fell upon Queen Solina. He expected to see his queen shaken or remorseful, to see her skin pale and her eyes fearful, to hear her order them away from Tarath Gehena and