Read Online A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) by Daniel Arenson - Free Book Online Page B

the
wall, tiny iron crocodiles hungry for his fingernails. The rusted
hooks sang for his entrails. The floggers screamed for his flesh.
    We
await you, Rune! The
instruments sang and danced upon the wall. We
will make you sing with us. We will dance with blood.
    Chained to the wall, Rune only
smiled at them.
    "I won't fear you," he
said. "You're my friends. I can't fear friends."
    That confused them. They fell
silent. Good. Good. If they had faces, friendly faces that were
funny, he would not fear them. He would only laugh at their taunts.
    Friends.
    Tilla had been his friend once.
Once. Years ago. Eras ago. In a different world, one that had
burned. A world of sand and water and dreams now buried under ash.
    "Are you still my friend?"
he whispered into the shadows as the sun fell outside.
    He did not know. Tilla served
the red spiral now. She served those who hurt him. Tilla tried to
protect him, but... she wasn't always here. She wasn't here when the
guards kicked him, when they spat in his food, when they spilled his
water across the floor, leaving him to lick moisture from dust and
encrusted blood. But she had been there when Lynport burned. She
had flown above, watched their city fall, and fought for him .
    "For the demon," Rune
whispered through cracked lips.
    For the golden beast. For the
creature with many heads. For Frey Cadigus.
    Rune could see it again in the
darkness. His home burning. The golden dragon above, his minions
behind him, a hundred thousand strong. Kaelyn cried for him from the
tower, and everywhere below the corpses lay, all those he'd grown up
with, all those he'd loved, burnt and torn apart. So many screams.
So much fire. Evil itself, a blanket of scale and smoke and fang,
swirling above in a storm.
    And her.
    "And you."
    The white dragon. A single beam
of light breaking through the storm, warm and kind, caressing him,
taking him under her wing. His dearest friend. His love. His
Tilla.
    "I have to save you from
him," he whispered, his throat dry, his lips cracked and
bleeding. "Even if they break me. Even if all those tools on
the wall hurt me. I have to save you from him."
    He tried to imagine it—Tilla
leading him outside the tower, holding his frail body in her claws,
and flying south. Flying away from the capital. Flying to the sea,
across the waters, and into distant lands where Frey could not find
them. They would find another home. Another beach to walk along,
sand to caress their feet, water to wash away their pain. He would
hold her in the night, kiss her lips again, and they would be as they
were.
    "And you will be good
again," he spoke into the darkness, voice choked. "You
will be Tilla Roper again, not Lanse Tilla Siren, not this creature
they molded you into. And I will just be Rune. Not Relesar
Aeternum, not any king. Just Rune and Tilla on the beach. That's
all I want."
    For a year, fighting in the
Resistance, Rune had prayed to see her again. And now he saw Tilla
here every night. She came to him in her armor, a machine of the
enemy, and she spoke to him. Sat with him in the dark. Held him in
her arms, and whispered to him, and kissed his cheek, and begged him
to join her.
    "But I will not let this
happen to us. I cannot forget who you were."
    The sun fell outside, casting
orange light through the arrowslits. On cue, keys rattled in the
lock. The door creaked open. And there she stood.
    "Hello, Tilla," he
said, sitting in the corner, his arms and legs chained.
    Her sword hung from one hip, her
punisher from the other. She had never used the instrument on him,
but when the moon fell to darkness, when her time to sway him ended,
would she burn his flesh?
    As always, she sat by his side.
As always, she wore her armor, the fine black plates of an officer.
She stared at the wall with him, saying nothing.
    "A fine pair we make,"
he said. "Me wearing my prisoner rags, you wearing your steel.
Me with my face all dirty and thin, you with your face so pale, your
eyes sad."
    "It doesn't