Pillars of Dragonfire Read Online Free PDF

Requiem, Meliora thought. We rose in light and now we fall in shadow.
    Yet even in the
darkness a new light shone.
    The sun rose in the
east, and from the light they flew.
    "Meliora the
Merciful!" they cried. "Meliora, our mother!"
    She looked into the
light, and her eyes dampened.
    The erevim .
    They flew in from the
dawn, the life she had made. Beings raised from the mud, given the blood of
both Vir Requis and seraphim. Men and women coated with scales, swan feathers
growing from their wings and heads. They flew toward the battle, crying out her
name. They had multiplied in the wilderness, and a thousand or more now flew
forth.
    "We fight with
you, Meliora!"
    With battle cries, the
erevim charged against the chariots of fire, lashing their claws at seraphim,
tearing at their flesh with sharp teeth.
    "For
Requiem!" rose new voices in the west. "For Requiem, slay the
immortals!"
    Meliora spun in the
sky, saw them, and gasped.
    "Hope," she
whispered. "Hope rises."
    They flew in from the
lingering shadows, a hundred ghostly ships sailing through the sky,
translucent, firing their cannons. Ships of Old Requiem. The rebels who had
once risen up against the Aeternum family; they now came to raise Requiem from
ruin. Upon their decks, thousands of skeletons danced, rose, shifted into
ghostly dragons of smoke. The creatures stormed forth, blowing out white fire.
    The seraphim shouted in
fury, then in fear, and finally in pain.
    The astral dragons
flowed across them, tearing them apart, ripping limbs off torsos, severing
wings, sending corpses falling. Ships blasted their astral cannons, sending
chariots crashing down. The erevim flew between the apparitions, blood on their
claws, still calling out her name.
    "Meliora, Meliora!"
    The dragons of Requiem
flew on.
    Blasting out fire,
clawing the enemies in their way, they flowed across the sky.
    They flew away from
Tofet.
    They flew away from the
army of seraphim.
    They flew through blood
and fire and rain. To freedom. To a dream of Requiem.

 
 
LUCEM

    The dragons flew, and flying among
them, Lucem thought of home.
    For the first eleven years of
his life, home had been in Tofet. A home of the whip, the shackles, the pain of
carving and molding bricks. Then, for the second half of his life, home had
been the wilderness—huddling in caves, wandering the darkness, singing to
nobody, talking to invisible friends.
    Lucem looked around him. He
flew as a dragon on the wind, and thousands of other dragons flew with him.
Their scales shone brilliantly in the sun like a field of jewels. Lucem's eyes
stung. So many times he had dreamed of seeing this—seeing the people of
Requiem rise in their dragon forms, no collars around their necks. Free.
Leaving Tofet and the corpses of seraphim behind.
    And leaving two other
souls behind, Lucem thought, eyes dampening.
    Elory flew up to him, a
slender dragon, smaller than most. Her scales were deep purple near her belly,
growing lighter along her flanks, turning pale lavender on her back. Her horns
were small and white, her eyes kind. One of her ears thrust out from her head,
violet and scaled. The other was missing.
    "How are you,
Lucem?" she asked softly.
    He blinked the tears out of
his eyes. "I just . . . I just wish they could have been here. My parents.
I keep looking around, hoping to see them, even imagining that they fly with
us. But then I remember. How the overseers killed them a decade ago." He
lowered his head as he flew. "How they'll never see our freedom."
    Elory flew a little closer
and touched her wing to his. She reached out her tail, gently tapping his own
tail.
    "I'm sorry, Lucem. I
miss my mother too—so badly that it physically hurts." Elory's eyes shone
damply. "I don't know what'll happen next. I don't know how many enemies
await between us and Requiem. But whatever happens, I'm here for you. Always. I
love you, Lucem, and I'll always fly by your side."
    They flew together, side by
side, bodies touching.
    Lucem stared forward