He had flown south with fewer than fifty dragons, the last survivors of the northern wars. He flew back with five hundred. They crossed the sea in three days and nights, sometimes flying as dragons, sometimes resting as humans on the backs of their comrades. On a rainy evening they reached the coast, then flew over the forests and plains, heading home. Heading to Requiem.

On a cold dawn, they finally saw them in the distance: the columns of Requiem rising from charred trees, calling them home.

Only King's Column still shone, unmarred and pure. Several other columns had fallen and cracked. Some still rose, but their marble was chipped, their capitals shattered. But unlike the ruins of Eteer, a portal to darkness, here was a glimmer of hope, Jeid thought. A place not of death but of dreams, of seeds that could still sprout even through the ashes.

The dragons flew toward Requiem. They spoke different tongues. They came from distant lands: from Bar Luan in the west, from the city-states of the south, from wandering tribes in the north. Some were tall and fair and blond, others smaller and darker, some old, some only children. They were hunters, scribes, masons, farmers, mothers, fathers, orphans. But flying as dragons on the wind, they were all the same. Their scales all shone in the dawn, and their wings all beat together. Here they were all Vir Requis.

They landed among the columns, and at once their work began. They pulled aside fallen stones. They cleared out gardens and collected seeds. They flew to the mountains to carve out new marble. They cooked, they sang, they wove fabric, they prayed. They built a home.

As Jeid bustled from garden to hut, from quarry to campfire, an absence gnawed on him.

"Have you seen Tanin?" he asked, approaching a campfire.

Turning a spit of venison, Maev shook her head. "Not since we arrived. I thought he was at the quarry. I— Dorvin!" Maev leaped to her feet. "Stars dammit, you're burning it."

The dark-haired young man was kneeling by another campfire, holding a spit. The chunk of meat upon it was smoking. "It's not my fault! Dammit, I'm a hunter, not a cook. Back in my tribe, only women did the cooking."

Maev smacked the back of his head. "Well, you're not back with your tribe. You're in Requiem now. Move over." She shoved him. "Damn good meal and you ruined it."

Jeid left the two, seeking his son, but could not find Tanin at the quarry in the mountains, nor the gardens, nor the work sites where men and women were building houses of stone. Finally it was deep in the forest, as the sun set, that Jeid found his son.