Finally Dies Irae reached the palace grounds. The Palace Flammis still stood, though one of its towers and its western wall had collapsed. Bricks and dust covered the courtyards and gardens. Dies Irae stepped around the ruins, entered the main hall, and found bodies inside. Servants, lords, ladies, and soldiers all huddled on the floor, lips mumbling, eyes blinking, but no other life filled them.
Dies Irae walked through this devastation until he reached the throne room. His daughter would be there, he knew. She would have sat upon the throne while he lay wounded. Only one who sat upon Osanna's Ivory Throne could free the nightshades.
Dies Irae pushed open the oak doors and stepped into his throne room.
He was a strong man. He prided himself on his strength. But now, a cry fled his lips.
A hundred nightshades filled the throne room. They swirled above the Ivory Throne, a cocoon of blackness and smoke. Gloriae hovered within them, her eyes closed, a butterfly inside that cocoon of night. She was nude, her body white. Her golden hair flowed around her, as if she floated underwater.
Dies Irae snarled and marched forward. He reached into the cocoon of nightshades, grabbed Gloriae's foot, and pulled her down. The nightshades resisted, tugging her, but Dies Irae kept pulling until she fell into his arms.
"Mother," the girl whispered. She was nineteen, but she seemed so young now, a child. "Mother, may our wings find the sky."
The nightshades howled, eyes blazing. The room shook. Cracks ran along the walls. One nightshade lunged at him, and Dies Irae felt his soul being tugged from his body. Ignoring the feeling, he placed Gloriae on the floor, walked to his throne, and sat upon it.
The nightshades shrieked. Chunks of rock fell from the ceiling, one narrowly missing Gloriae. Dies Irae shut his eyes, clenched his good fist, and tightened his lips. He could feel the nightshades now. The throne gave him power to tame them, the way the Griffin Heart had allowed him to tame the griffins.
Dies Irae had never tried to tame nightshades. Nobody had in two thousand years. They were more powerful than griffins; he felt that at once. Their minds were like furnaces, their hatred exploding stars.
Dies Irae growled. "I am the true ruler of Osanna!" he called out. The throne rattled. "You have claimed my daughter. You will obey me."
They fought him.
They fought him well.
Thousands of them shrieked across the empire, coiled in the night sky, and sent their fire and hatred into him. They tugged at his soul, threatening to rip it into a million pieces.
Dies Irae refused them.
They lifted his throne. They flowed around him. They hurt him. They lifted Gloriae and tossed her against the floor, again and again.
Dies Irae refused to release them. "The old kings bound you to this throne. You still owe it your fealty, beasts of unlight. You will obey me."
With a shriek that shook the city, the throne room shattered. A wall came down. Through the nightshades' eyes, Dies Irae saw the north tower of his palace falling.
Still he clung to them.
He wrestled them into darkness, until they bowed before him, a sea of smoke and shadows.
Dies Irae rose to his feet. His eye no longer hurt, and when he raised his arm, it was no longer burned. Black light flowed in his wounds, powerful, intoxicating. Through the eyes of the nightshades, he could see his face. His bandage had fallen off, revealing a gaping hole where his eye had been. His hair had gone white, and his good eye blazed a bright blue.
Dies Irae laughed. "You are mine now."
Across the empire, the nightshades hissed and bowed to him.
Dies Irae walked across the cracked floor toward his daughter. Gloriae lay there, nude and battered, her hair covering her face. She looked up at him, eyes huge, deep green, haunted.
"Father," she whispered.
Dies Irae removed his robe, leaving himself in a tunic and leggings, and tossed it at her. She draped it around her nakedness and stared at him, cheeks flushed. Her lips trembled.
"Father, I— I thought that—"
Dies Irae had never hit his daughter. When she'd been a child, and misbehaved, he would beat her handmaiden, forcing Gloriae to watch. For years, he had spared her pain. For years, he had coddled her.
Today he hit her. His fist knocked her to the floor, spattering blood.
"Gloriae, daughter of Osanna," Dies Irae said, staring down upon her. Nightshades flowed above him. One draped across his shoulders. "I banish you from this city, and from Osanna. You have a day and night to run. Then I hunt you. If I catch you, your life is forfeit."
Her eyes widened. Rage bloomed across her cheeks. "Father," she said and took a step toward him. Blood filled her mouth.
Dies Irae raised his fist again, and Gloriae froze.
"I will hear no excuses," Dies Irae said. The nightshades shrieked above him, and he pointed at the door. "Leave this place. You are banished from this kingdom. You are disowned. You are cast out in shame. Leave, Gloriae the Gilded, and never return. Today I have no daughter."
She stared at him, bared her teeth, and clenched her fists. She seemed ready to speak, and Dies Irae kept staring at her, driving his stare into her green eyes.
Finally Gloriae spun around, tightened the robes around her, and marched out of the shattered court.
LACRIMOSA
They flew east, wings churning clouds, breath hot in their lungs. Moonlight glinted on their scales. When Lacrimosa looked over her shoulder, she saw the nightshades. They were darker than the night sky, and their eyes burned, red stars.
"They're getting closer!" she cried, and heard the pain and fear in her voice. She blew fire back at the nightshades, as bright as she could make it. The other Vir Requis—her husband, daughter, and Kyrie—roared flames too.
The nightshades shrieked. The light hurt them. But they kept flying.
"I don't get it," Agnus Dei said. The young red dragon flew by Lacrimosa. "When a nightshade attacked Kyrie and me, firelight sent it fleeing. We had to nearly burn down the forest, but eventually it fled. Why don't these ones flee?"
Benedictus, a great black shadow in the night, grumbled. "You and Kyrie saw one nightshade, a scout, when twilight still filled the world. Nightshades are stronger in the night, and stronger in numbers. Firelight will no longer stop them. Sunrise burns behind the horizon. Fly! Faster!"
The nightshades shrieked again, and Lacrimosa could feel them. They tugged at her soul, as if trying to pull stuffing out of upholstery. She gritted her teeth, flapped her wings harder, and fought them. You will not claim me. You cannot.
She scanned the eastern horizon. Where was the sun? They flew so fast, faster than she'd ever flown. Lacrimosa felt ready to collapse, and the nightshades gave her soul a tug so powerful, she cried in pain. She left her body and floated a foot behind it. Benedictus grabbed her shoulder, and the pain jolted her soul back in.
"Fly, my love," Benedictus said to her. "We're almost there."
Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her wings burned. Her lungs felt ready to collapse. "I fly for you."
Hadn't she always flown seeking sunrise? For nearly two decades—since Dies Irae had raped her, toppled the courts of Requiem, and stole her daughter Gloriae—she had flown seeking light. Darkness had chased her for years.
Screeches rose around her, cutting off her thoughts. They were so loud she had to cover her ears. Ten more nightshades took flight, left and right, and flew at them. The nightshades behind shrieked too, welcoming their companions. The world shook. Lacrimosa screamed.
"Fly!" Benedictus shouted. "Fly fast, the sun shines behind the mountains."
Lacrimosa flew hard. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her wings screamed, but she flew. The nightshades tugged at her. One flew only a foot away, grinning, showing its smoky teeth.
"Lacrimosa...," it hissed, and she couldn't help but stare into its eyes. They were two stars, glittering. Beckoning. There were worlds beyond those stars, dimensions that swirled and spun, a space so much wider for her soul to travel. She
would be free there. In darkness. In pain.
She could see her body flying below her. A silvery dragon, so delicate, so small. The worlds in those eyes were endless. Her dragon wings stilled. She began to fall. She saw Benedictus fly toward her, grab her, dig his claws into her shoulders.
"Lacrimosa!" he cried, shaking her in midair. Kyrie and Agnus Dei flew by him, nightshades wreathing them.
"You should not struggle," Lacrimosa tried to say, but she had no voice. "Join the unlight. Join the worlds. There is loneliness here. There is pain. There is darkness to fill. Join."
"Lacrimosa!" Benedictus shouted, and he slapped her face.
Pain. She felt pain. She felt her body. No! It sucked her back in. It pulled her. She slammed back into her body, and that pain filled her, and she saw the world through her eyes again.
She wept.
"I'm here, Benedictus. I'm here. I'm back. Fly!"
She could see hints of dawn now. It was only a pink wisp ahead, but it filled her with hope. Benedictus saw it too, and he howled and blew fire, and flew with more vigor. The nightshades swarmed around them, hissing and laughing.
"Mother!" came Agnus Dei's voice, frightened, almost childlike.
Lacrimosa saw that a dozen nightshades swarmed around her daughter, forming a shell of smoke and shadow. She struggled between them, as if floundering in water, and screamed.
"Agnus Dei!" Lacrimosa called and flew toward her daughter. She blew fire at the nightshades. They shrieked. Benedictus and Kyrie shot flames at others. Agnus Dei screamed, the horrible sound of a wounded animal.
"Mother!" she cried, tears falling.
Lacrimosa blew more fire, but the nightshades would not leave her daughter. No. No! I already lost one daughter. I will not lose the other.
"Take me!" she said to the nightshades. "Leave her and take me."
They laughed their hissing laughter. Their voices were only an echo. "We will take both, Lacrimosa. We will torture you both in the worlds beyond."
Lacrimosa saw them inhale around Agnus Dei. Silvery wisps rose from the girl's body, entering the nightshades' nostrils and mouths.
"No!" Lacrimosa screamed and blew fire.
Agnus Dei went limp. She began to tumble from the sky.
As Kyrie blew fire at the nightshades, Lacrimosa and Benedictus swooped and caught Agnus Dei. Her eyes stared blankly. In their grasp, she returned to human form. She seemed so small. A youth, that was all, only nineteen. A girl with a mane of black curls and scraped knees. She lay limply in Lacrimosa's grip, eyes unblinking.
"The sun!" Kyrie called. Tears flowed down his cheeks. "Let's get her into light."
They flew eastward, blowing fire at the nightshades that mobbed them. With a great flap of their wings, they cleared a river, and sunrise broke over a cover of mountain. Light drenched them.
The nightshades howled. Their screams made the river below boil. Trees wilted and fell, and a chunk of mountain collapsed. A barn burst into flame.
"Agnus Dei!" Kyrie cried, flying toward Lacrimosa. "Is she dead?"
Lacrimosa was weeping. "No." She is something worse.
The nightshades tried to swipe at them, to bite and claw, but they sizzled in the light. Howling, they turned and fled back into darkness.
"Yeah, you better run!" Kyrie called after them and shot flames in their direction. Then he looked at Agnus Dei, eyes haunted. "Let's get her on the ground."
Lacrimosa nodded and descended to a valley. She landed by a willow and placed Agnus Dei on the ground. The girl lay on her back, eyes staring, not blinking, mouth moving silently. They all shifted into human form.
"Agnus Dei," Kyrie said, kneeling by her. He clutched her hand. "Are you here? It's me, Kyrie."
She said nothing. Her eyes seemed not to see him. Her hand hung limply in his grasp.
Tears ran down Kyrie's face, drawing white lines down his ashy cheeks. He kissed Agnus Dei's forehead, and shook her, but she wouldn't recover.
"Agnus Dei, you wake up right now," Kyrie demanded. "Do it, or I'm going to kick your butt so hard, it'll fall off."
Normally, Lacrimosa knew, the taunt would rile Agnus Dei into a fury, and she would be wrestling Kyrie to the ground and calling him a worthless pup. Today she only stared blankly over his shoulder. Lacrimosa also wept. She knew that Agnus Dei was not here, not in this body. Her soul was shattered and lost in the night worlds.
She and Benedictus both held Agnus Dei's other hand. The sunlight fell upon them, but would not find their daughter. She seemed cloaked in shadows. They tried shaking her, slapping her face, pinching her, singing to her, pleading with her. Nothing helped.
Kyrie looked up, eyes huge and haunted. "What do we do?" he whispered.
He looked so young to Lacrimosa. Sometimes she forgot he was only seventeen, still a youth despite all the battles and fire he'd been through.
"I don't know," she said and hugged Agnus Dei.
Her daughter was cold and limp in her arms.
GLORIAE
She rode across the countryside, eyes narrowed. She had taken little from Confutatis: Her horse, a white courser named Celeritas; her sword, crossbow, and dagger; her gilded armor, the breastplate curved to the shape of her body, the helmet a golden mask shaped as her face. Celeritas's hooves tore up grass and dirt, and Gloriae spurred the beast and lashed it with her crop.
"Faster, damn you," she said. Once she had ridden griffins, could cross a hundred leagues in a flight. Horses were slow and stupid, needed more rest than griffins, and frayed her nerves.
"Move your hooves, you mindless beast," Gloriae said and lashed her crop. Celeritas whinnied, and her eyes rolled, but she kept galloping.
Mindless beast. That was what she herself had been only yesterday, was it not? Yes. She had floated, naked and mindless, among the nightshades. Her soul had been broken, had filled thousands of nightshades across Osanna. She'd seen through their eyes, travelled through their planes. She had seen the weredragons fleeing into the east. She had seen Lacrimosa, the silver dragon who had infested her with the reptilian curse. She had seen Kyrie and Agnus Dei, the youths she had fought. And she had seen Benedictus, the Lord of Lizards, the man who claimed to be her true father, the man she had sworn to kill.
"I know where you are," Gloriae hissed through clenched teeth, the wind claiming her words. "I will find you, weredragons. I will slay you with my crossbow, and sever your heads with my sword. I will drag your heads back to Dies Irae, to my real father, and he will forgive me."
Gloriae nodded and tasted tears on her lips. Shame burned within her. Dies Irae, her real father, had trained her from birth to hate and hunt Vir Requis. She had killed many for him, but failed him now. She had failed to set the nightshades on them, had allowed the creatures to destroy the empire.
"But I will make amends," Gloriae vowed into the wind. "I do not need the nightshades. I will kill the weredragons with crossbow and blade."
Dies Irae's men hunted them too, Gloriae knew. Those who'd survived the nightshades would be patrolling every corner of the empire, armed with blades and ilbane. Whoever killed them would become a hero, a favorite son of Osanna, a lieutenant to Dies Irae. But they did not know where the weredragons cowered. She, Gloriae, had seen them through the nightshades' eyes. She had felt the nightshades tug Agnus Dei's soul, bite it, and rip it apart. Dies Irae might control the nightshades now, but Gloriae had seen enough.
As she rode, spurring Celeritas, she gazed upon the ruin of Osanna. It was daytime now, and no nightshades crawled the empire, but she saw signs of them everywhere. Forts lay toppled upon hill and mountain, blackened with nightshade smoke. Cattle lay dead and stinking in the fields. Farmhouses smoldered and bodies lay outside roadside inns.
I did this. The thought came unbidden to Gloriae's mind. She forced it down, refusing to acknowledge it.
"No," she whispered. "I will feel no guilt. The weredragons made me do it. I will redeem myself when I kill them."
She drove Celeritas out of the fie
lds and down a forest road. The leaves were red and gold. Autumn was here, and cold winds blew, biting Gloriae's cheeks. Other than her armor—a breastplate, helmet, greaves, and vambraces—she wore little. White riding pants. A thin woolen shirt. She had brought no cloak in her haste, and she regretted that now. It was cold, colder than autumn should be. She saw frost on grass and leaf, and even Celeritas's hot body could not warm her. She shivered.
"The light and heat of the Sun God are leaving the world," she whispered. "Nightshades and weredragons have filled it, but my heart still blazes with the Sun God's fire. I will light the world with it, even if I must burn it down."
She let Celeritas rest, eat grass, and drink from a stream. Gloriae dismounted and stretched, ate dried meat and crackers from her pack, and drank ale from her skin. She dipped her head into the stream, scrubbed her face, and looked at her reflection. She was thinner than she'd ever been. Her eyes looked huge in her pale face, too large and green. Her hair was long, cascading gold, like a lion's mane. She was still beautiful, Gloriae thought, but sadder now. Haunted.
She thought back to that day in her chamber. The day she had met Lacrimosa, contracted the disease, and shifted into a dragon. With a shiver, Gloriae pushed that memory aside. She might be cursed now, but she would hide it. She would never become a dragon again. She would remain Gloriae the Gilded, human and healthy, a slayer of weredragons and never one of their number.
She was riding Celeritas again, and heading around a bend in the road, when the outlaws emerged.
They stepped out from behind trees, dressed in brown leather and patches of armor. There were three—tall and thin men, a hungry look to them. One bore a chipped sword. A second outlaw hefted an axe. The third pointed a bow and arrow at her.
Gloriae halted her horse. She raised her shield, raised an eyebrow, and stared at the outlaws from behind her visor.
"So," she said. "A swordsman, an axeman, and an archer. You must be mad. I'm on horseback and wearing armor. You don't stand a chance, so scurry along and find easier prey. You might find children you could steal sweets from."
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 29
