"Kyrie Eleison was never here," she called to her men; they too were mounting their griffins. "And if he ever does come this way, well... there will be no place left to hide."
She dug her spurs into her griffin, and once more she flew, the wind in her eyes and the sky in her lungs.
KYRIE ELEISON
When the gruff woodsman walked off, Kyrie waited several moments, then followed.
What kind of name is Rex Tremendae? he wondered as he sneaked from tree to tree. That's a fake name if I've ever heard one. This is him. Benedictus. It must be. Kyrie's heart thrashed and his fingers trembled.
The man was easy to follow. He tramped through the forest with steps as gruff, hard, and angry as his face. His heavy boots snapped fallen branches, kicked acorns and stones, and raised dirt. Aren't hunters meant to be stealthy? Kyrie thought as he followed, branches snagging him and sap smearing him. This man moved as if he owned the forest, as if nothing could harm him.
After a while, when Kyrie was out of breath and dizzy, Rex's voice came from the forest ahead.
"I know you're following me, kid. Go home."
Kyrie could not see the man—the forest was too thick—but his voice sounded about a hundred yards ahead.
"I'm not leaving," he called back. This time he did not speak High Speech, the language of Osanna, but spoke in the older Dragontongue, the language of Requiem. Dragontongue felt odd in his mouth—he hadn't spoken it since childhood—but he knew this man would understand. "I'm sticking with you, so you better get used to the idea. You and I will fly against Dies Irae, reclaim the Griffin Heart, tame the griffins, and rebuild Requiem."
Rex kept walking, and it sounded like he was moving faster, his stomping boots angrier. Kyrie could barely keep up. After weeks of journeying with little food, he was weak. But he bit his lip and kept following. This Rex couldn't just be a simple hunter. The scars. The scowl. The black hair and eyes. It had to be Benedictus.
"Because if it isn't," Kyrie muttered, pushing his way between branches and bushes, "the world is crueler than I can believe."
Kyrie walked for hours, covering at least two leagues. His feet ached. Just when he thought he could walk no further, he spotted a hut between two oaks. Rex's boots left prints in the soft earth, leading to the hut. The door was closed; Rex had to be inside.
The shack was built of crooked, mossy wood bristly with splinters and bent nails. Vines crawled its walls like green snakes. Turnips, peppers, and peas grew nearby in a weedy garden. A smokehouse stood beside the embers of a cooking fire. Kyrie frowned. The place is a junkyard. Was this truly the home of Benedictus, the great king? Doubt punched Kyrie's belly, as cold as Gloriae's eyes. Maybe Rex was but a woodsman. Maybe Benedictus the Black, the Vir Requis king who'd bitten off Dies Irae's arm, truly was dead.
No. No! He's alive. He is here.
Kyrie pounded on the hut's door.
"Go away, kid," came a growl from inside.
Kyrie pounded the door again. "I want a job."
"What language you speaking, kid? Talk to me in High Speech. I don't understand your gibberish."
Kyrie snorted, but decided to humor Rex. He switched back to the language of Osanna. "I said I want a job."
"Got no money to pay you," replied Rex's voice from inside the hut.
"I don't need money. I'll work for food. I'm a good worker. I can hunt, repair things, cook...."
For a moment there was silence. The moment lasted so long, Kyrie raised his fist to pound again, and then the door swung open. Rex stood there, black hair dusty, eyes dark. He shoved a loaf of bread, a flask, and a shank of meat into Kyrie's hands, then slammed the door shut.
"Eat that," came Rex's voice from inside the hut. "Then go away."
Kyrie considered pounding on the door again, but the food smelled too good. He sat by the fire pit and ate. The bread was homemade, not a day old, grainy but soft. The meat was slow cooked—deer, Kyrie thought—and melted in his mouth. The flask contained good, strong beer. It was the best meal Kyrie could remember eating; definitely the best he'd eaten since fleeing Fort Sanctus. He polished off every crumb and drop, then leaned back on his elbows, sighing. I needed that. Badly.
Maybe Rex was just in a bad mood today, but would feel better tomorrow, Kyrie thought. It was getting dark, the sun dipping between the trees, casting long shadows. Kyrie yawned. He curled up outside the hut, hoping no bears or wolves frequented this part of the forest. He closed his eyes and instantly slept.
He did not dream.
He woke at dawn to the sound of the hut door slamming open. Before Kyrie could even open his eyes, he felt a boot prod his side. He heard Rex's gravelly voice.
"I thought I told you to get lost, kid."
Kyrie blinked, rubbed his eyes, and rose to his feet. Rex stood by him, a knife in his belt, a bow in his hands. The scar peeking from his shirt looked red in the dawn.
"I wanted to thank you for the food last night," Kyrie said. "Let me work for breakfast. I can weed your garden, or skin your catch, or—"
"Or get lost," Rex said. "How about you do that for me?"
The hunter walked away, disappearing into the trees.
Kyrie hurried to follow. "You won't get rid of me that easily," he called after Rex, trudging over fallen logs and boulders. "I know who you are."
Rex spoke without turning to look back at Kyrie. "Told you, kid. You've got the wrong guy. Ain't ever heard of no Benedictus or weredragons. You're wasting your time. Go home."
Kyrie struggled to keep up. The forest was thick. Every step he took, branches, thorns, rocks, or vines nearly tripped him. Rex's large boots trod here with ease, but it was all Kyrie could do to keep up.
"I don't have a home," he said. "Not anymore. Nor do you. That hut you've got? You should be living in a palace! Dies Irae destroyed our home. Your brother. He didn't have Vir Requis magic, so your dad hated him. He stole the amulet, he controlled the griffins, he destroyed Requiem—"
Rex spun around. His face was so livid, Kyrie took two steps back. Teeth bared, eyes flashing, Rex's weathered face resembled a dragon's face. "Stories," Rex grumbled. He spat. "Fairytales. I don't know who you think I am, kid. I'm just a hunter. No weredragons. No palaces. Just a hunter, nothing more. Okay?"
Without waiting for a reply, Rex stormed off.
That night Kyrie pounded on the hut's door again. Again Rex shoved food into his hands, then slammed the door in his face, grumbling at Kyrie to go away. Again the next day, Kyrie followed Rex through the trees. Again Rex would answer him only with growls and grunts.
For a week Kyrie spent his nights outside the hut, and spent his days demanding a job. For a week he heard nothing but grumbles, saw nothing but frowns.
On the seventh night, a sound woke Kyrie in the darkness.
He opened his eyes and saw the stars above between the trees. He heard the sound again—the hut's door clanking. Kyrie closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. He heard Rex's boots walking beside him. Normally Rex thumped through the forest, but now he paced softly, as if trying not to wake Kyrie.
What's going on? Kyrie waited until the footsteps moved farther away, then opened his eyes and rose to his feet. He followed in the darkness.
Kyrie walked in his socks, but still had to tiptoe to avoid making noise. Luckily the wind moaned this night, a loud and mournful sound, masking his footfalls. Rex carried a lamp, and Kyrie followed its light, his breath quick. Owls hooted, frogs trilled, and crickets chirped. Soon it began to rain, and still Rex walked through the darkness, Kyrie slinking behind.
Finally the forest gave way to a clearing.
It was a small clearing, circular, sunken in. Kyrie had read that wroth angels sometimes tossed boulders from the sky, and where their heavenly rocks hit, no trees could grow. This looked like such a place. Pines and oaks fringed it, tall and dark, and the clearing's floor danced with pattering raindrops.
As Kyrie watched from the trees, Rex entered the clearing and stood at its center. Kyrie held
his breath.
Rex looked to the sky, tossed his head back, and outstretched his arms. Wings sprouted from his back, leathery and black. His arms and legs grew longer, and claws grew from his hands and feet. Scales flowed over him, and fangs grew from his mouth. Before Kyrie's eyes, the rough woodsman became a black dragon with a scar along his chest and a torn wing.
Hiding among the pines, Kyrie tasted tears on his lips.
Benedictus the Black, King of Requiem, stood before him in the night.
LACRIMOSA
The mountain winds howled around Lacrimosa, threatening to topple her. They billowed her cloak, flapped her hair, and stung her eyes with snow. With shivering fingers, she tightened her cloak around her, but its white wool did little to warm her, and her fingers looked pale and thin to her. My bloodline was never meant for snow and mountains, but for glens and glittering lakes, she thought. Her family had always had pale skin, pale eyes, silvery hair; they were the color of snow, and brittle like it, but with a constitution for sun and meadows.
"Agnus Dei," she whispered, lips shivering. "Please."
She stared at the cave, but could not see inside. She saw only darkness that fluttered with snow, deep like the chasm that had opened in their family, their home, their people.
"Agnus Dei," she whispered again, voice so soft, she herself could not hear it. "Please."
The mountains rose above the cave, disappearing into cloud—cruel, black mountains covered with ice and snow, bristly with boulders like dragon teeth. The snowy winds danced around their peaks like white demons, and even when Lacrimosa turned to gaze below, she could not see the green of the world she had fled.
She dared take a step toward the cave, but it was a trembling step. She was afraid. Yes, afraid of her daughter, afraid of what Agnus Dei had become. The girl was eighteen now, no longer a child, and she had become like a stranger to Lacrimosa, as wrathful as her father.
Lacrimosa smiled sadly. Yes. Agnus Dei was like her father, was she not? So strong. Proud. Angry. Tough enough to live in forests and snowy peaks, while she, Lacrimosa, withered in these places and missed the warmth of their toppled halls and the song of their shattered harps.
Does Agnus Dei remember those halls, where marble columns stood, where fallen autumn leaves fluttered across tiled floors? Does she remember the song of harps, the poems of minstrels, the chants of our priests? Does she remember that she is Vir Requis, or is she full dragon now, truly no more than a beast of fire and fang?
"Agnus Dei," Lacrimosa tried again. "Let us talk."
From inside the cave came a growl, a puff of smoke, a glint of fire. Yes, she was still in dragon form. Why did she never appear as human anymore? She was such a beautiful child; not pale and fragile like Lacrimosa, but dark and strong like her father. Lacrimosa still remembered the girl's mane of dark hair, her flashing brown eyes, her skin always tanned, her knees and elbows always scraped. A wild one, even in childhood. She had been seven when her uncle destroyed their world, when Dies Irae shattered their halls, and the harps were silenced.
Seven is too young, too young to understand, Lacrimosa thought. She was too young.
She felt a tear on her cheek. And I was too young when I married Benedictus, too young when I had my children, the loves of my life, my Agnus Dei and my Gloriae. She had been only fifteen when she married Benedictus, twenty years her senior, to become a princess of Requiem. She had been only sixteen when she gave birth to the twins. We were all too young.
She sighed. But that had been so long ago. Now this was all that remained. This mountain of boulders and snow, and this cave of darkness, and this husband who hid in exile. One daughter kidnapped. The other lost in darkness and rage.
"Agnus Dei," she said and took another few steps toward the cave. She could see inside now, see the fire that glowed in Agnus Dei's dragon mouth, see the glint of it against red scales. Red—a rare color in their family. Lacrimosa became a silvery dragon, as had her father and forefathers, while Benedictus and his line had forever become black dragons. Yet Agnus Dei's scales glinted red, a special color, the color of fire.
"It means she is blessed," a monk said when Agnus Dei first became a dragon at age two, drawing gasps and whispers at her color. "It means she will forever be as wildfire."
Lacrimosa wanted to believe. She prayed to believe. When she looked at Agnus Dei's dark hair and flashing eyes, she told herself that she saw Benedictus there. Again and again, on darkest nights, she would pray to the Draco constellation. "Let Agnus Dei and Gloriae be the daughters of my husband, the daughters of Benedictus."
Yet in the deepest halls of her soul, Lacrimosa's fears whispered. She would remember the day Dies Irae found her, grabbed her, forced himself upon her. The day she swore to never reveal, to die with her secret. Had this been the day her daughters quickened within her?
Lacrimosa shook her head, banishing those memories, that old pain. Agnus Dei and Gloriae are the daughters of Benedictus. They are good at heart like him, angry and fiery like him. They are his, and let those whispers of my heart never cast their doubts again. She tightened her lips, the snow stinging them, and clutched the bluebell pendant she wore around her neck, the pendant Benedictus had given her.
She took another step, so that she stood at the cave's mouth. She felt the warmth of her daughter's flames, and though she feared the wrath and wild ways of Agnus Dei, she could not help but be grateful for the heat. A wry smile tickled her lips. We silver Vir Requis of the warm glens; we'd welcome the fury of our offspring to escape the snow and winds of banishment.
"Hello, daughter," she said softly.
Agnus Dei crouched in the cave, smoke rising from her nostrils, flames fluttering around her fangs. Her tail flicked, and her claws glinted. A growl sent ripples across those red scales. The girl spoke in a low, dangerous voice. "I am staying a dragon."
Lacrimosa sighed. She stepped toward her daughter and touched her shoulder, feeling the hot red scales. Agnus Dei growled and pulled away, flames leaving her nostrils. Lacrimosa caught her reflection in her daughter's brown, burning eyes. A slender woman, of long fair hair, of delicate features. Eyes that were haunted, too large, too sad. She was the opposite of Agnus Dei; soft while Agnus Dei was strong, sad while Agnus Dei was dark, reflective while Agnus Dei was angry. But then, she had not seen Agnus Dei for a year now, not in human form at least.
"You'll have to become a girl again sooner or later," Lacrimosa said. Her eyes moistened. "You can't stay like this forever."
Agnus Dei growled. "And why not? The true dragons of Salvandos have no human forms. They live upon great mountains of gold, and they fear no one." She growled and blew flames from her mouth. Lacrimosa stepped aside, heart fluttering, and watched the flames exit the cave to disappear into the snowy winds.
Lacrimosa shook her head, hair swaying. "The true dragons live thousands of leagues from here, and some say they are but a myth. Agnus Dei. Daughter. Beloved. You cannot stay in this cave forever, hidden in darkness, rolled up into this ball of flames and scales. You—"
Agnus Dei roared, a sound so loud, Lacrimosa covered her ears. "If I were pale like you, I could fly outside, is that right, mother? But I am red. Red like fire. And I would burn like fire upon the mountainside, a beacon for our enemies to see, a call for them to hunt us. I say let them come! I fear no man. If Dies Irae arrives, I will burn him." She bared her fangs, and her eyes blazed.
Lacrimosa again placed her hand against Agnus Dei's scales. "You could not fight Irae, my child. With a hundred thousand Vir Requis we fought him, and we died at the talons of his griffins, at the sting of his swords."
Agnus Dei smiled bitterly. "Oh, but we did not die, did we, Mother? No. Not I, the daughter of Benedictus the Black. Not you, his young wife, the girl who married the legend. No. We were the family of royalty. We were kept in safety." Her voice rose to a yell, and her fire filled the cave. "As the multitudes died, as they fought and perished, we remained hidden. As King Benedictus called the hosts to his serv
ice, led countless to die under his banners, he hid us. So we lived, Mother. Yes, we lived. We should have died, but we were blessed, were we not? Blessed with royal blood, blessed to be the family of our king, and look at our blessed life now." She gestured at the cave walls. "To live in a hall of royalty."
Lacrimosa had heard this before, had heard her daughter's rage a hundred times in this cave. "Agnus Dei, please—"
The dragon shook off Lacrimosa's hand, rising as tall as she could in the cave, this cave too small for a dragon's body. Tears filled her eyes. "I should have fought with them! I should have died with them, now drink and dine with them in the halls of afterlife."
"You were a child—"
"I am eighteen now, and I am old enough. I will fight Irae now." She growled again, flames shooting, and Lacrimosa had to step back. "I am a dragon. I fear no one."
"You are a Vir Requis—"
"I am a dragon! A true dragon. I have no more human form. I have not taken my human shape in a year, and I never more will. Vir Requis are weak. Vir Requis are gone. Let me be a true dragon—like those of the west—and I will never more hide in caves."
Sometimes Lacrimosa thought that Agnus Dei did not know who she raged against. Was it the Vir Requis? Was it her mother, her father? The color of her scales? Her life while so many others lay dead? Maybe it was all these things, and maybe Agnus Dei was simply like wildfire, and needed kindling to burn, any kindling she could find. And so in this cave she flared.
"The new moon approaches," Lacrimosa tried again, as she did every month. "Let us travel to Hostias Forest. Let us see Father, like we used to. We'll become dragons together for one night. We'll be a family again."
But like every month for years now, Agnus Dei shook her head and roared. "I don't want to see him. He could live with us here if he pleases."
"You know Benedictus cannot live with us," Lacrimosa said. "It's too dangerous. He would place us in danger."
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 6
