Dragons Lost by Daniel Arenson Page A

you pay for your crime."
    Just as real as the
grief was the worry for Eliana. She was the only family Cade had left, and he
didn't even know if she was alive or dead. Had he missed her small, frail body
under the rubble? Had somebody smuggled her out of the village in time? Had the
paladins themselves kidnapped her? Cade was fleeing now—fleeing for safety, for
answers—but he swore that he would not rest while Eliana was missing.
    "I'll find you, my
sister. I swear it. I will never forget you."
    Dawn rose ahead. A haze
of silver glowed upon the horizon, and soon rays of golden light broke through
the clouds, celestial columns. The rain gleamed like dew on cobwebs, and the
storm scattered, the warmth of the sun casting off the clouds. And there in the
east, Cade saw it—the sea. The sun rose from beyond the water, casting a
gleaming trail all in gold and white toward the shore. There on the coast it
lay, sending pale towers toward the sky: the port city of Sanctus.
    "Answers," Cade
whispered.
    He shook off the
raindrops, glided down, and landed in a field of grass, white stones, and
heather a couple of miles away from the city. He released his magic, returning
to human form. When he looked down at his body, Cade sighed. He had never been
in such rough shape. His burlap tunic hung in tatters, barely covering his
body. That body seemed just as tattered: a hundred scrapes, bruises, and welts
covered it. He had barely eaten in days, only a handful of wild hares he had
hunted in dragon form. He had barely drunk. Already he looked thinner than he'd
ever been, and whenever he tried to clean the dirt off his face, he only seemed
to smear more across it. If he wandered into the city, he thought, he was
likely to be arrested as a drunk vagrant, tossed into some prison cell, and
forgotten.
    But he had to advance.
What choice did he have? A life in the wilderness, hunting in the nights?
Sooner or later, the paladins would catch him; he still saw firedrakes scouring
the sky every hour or two. He supposed he could leave the Commonwealth
entirely, travel south across the sea, and seek a home among the Horde—that gathering
of motley tribes that had banded together in the lands of Terra, forming a
crude army to fight the Temple. Yet if he traveled there, he'd learn nothing of
Requiem, nothing of Eliana. No. He had to continue to the city of Sanctus, the
eastern bastion of the Commonwealth.
    Seek the library, Domi
had said.
    At the memory of Domi,
Cade felt some of his anxiety fade. She was a wild beast. She served the paladins,
a mount to Mercy herself. She had tied him down, preventing him from saving his
family; perhaps Domi was as much to blame for their deaths as the paladins. And
yet, when Domi had embraced him, had whispered "Requiem" into his ear, there had
been no malice to her. She had blessed him with that word, giving him a
precious gift, a holy prayer to cling to.
    "Requiem," he whispered
here in the field. He raised his chin. He would do as Domi had said. He would
seek the library. He would find what this word meant.
    Belly rumbling and
tongue parched, he walked toward the city. As he drew closer, his eyes widened,
and some of his hunger and grief faded under the sense of wonder.
    "By the Spirit," he
whispered.
    He had never seen a
settlement other than Favilla, his village. He had heard tales of cities, but he'd
been unable to imagine any place so vast. He knew that Sanctus, the city before
him, wasn't particularly large as far as cities go; it was certainly smaller
than great metropolises like Nova Vita, the capital of the Commonwealth in the
west. But even Sanctus, this humble seaside town, was larger than any place
Cade had ever seen.
    Hundreds of
domed huts covered the landscape here, sloping down toward the sea. Several
monasteries rose among them, their towers pale and thin, proxies of the Cured Temple
that rose in Nova Vita in the west. A massive fortress, its four towers rising
even taller than the monasteries'