"Where am I?" she whispered. Her voice was that of a child.
She was lying on her back, and pushed herself onto her elbows. Marble columns stood before her, their capitals shaped as dragons. A temple, she thought. But not a temple to the Sun God. No golden dome topped this temple. It had no ceiling, and birch leaves scuttled along its floor.
Roars sounded above her. Gloriae raised her eyes and gasped. Dragons! Dragons flew there! Not scattered refugees, but a herd. There were hundreds. Green dragons, and blue, and silver, and red, and black. They did not fly in war. They did not burn or bare fangs. They would not hurt her, Gloriae knew. She felt only warmth and love from them.
"Do you remember, Gloriae?" somebody spoke beside her. "Do you remember this place?"
Gloriae turned her head, and saw a ghost sitting beside her. It seemed the ghost of a girl her age, but Gloriae could not be sure. The ghost was near transparent, flickering in and out of sight.
"Who are you?" Gloriae whispered.
The ghost smiled. Her hair was like black smoke, a mop of curls. "I'm your sister. I'm Agnus Dei. A part of her, at least. A whisper and a speck."
"Are you a ghost?"
Agnus Dei shook her head. "I'm a figment. A shard of a soul. I live inside you now, Gloriae."
Gloriae rose to her feet. It felt strange to stand this way. She was used to standing tall and strong, powerful in her steel-tipped boots, a warrior. She was so short now, her limbs so soft, her voice so high.
"What do you mean? Why am I a child here? Is this a spell?"
Agnus Dei shook her head. "It's a memory. A memory that still lives inside me, and inside you. Do you remember being inside the nightshades?"
Gloriae nodded. "I... I flew with them, yes. I saw through their eyes. I smelled through their nostrils of smoke. My body sat upon the Ivory Throne, but my soul was scattered, hunting with a thousand nightshades."
Pollen glided through the ghostly girl. "And now my soul is shattered. The nightshades broke me into a hundred pieces. Ninety-nine of those pieces are trapped now. Nightshades devoured them. But one piece, Gloriae... the hundredth piece... that piece went into you. When you flew inside the nightshades, you claimed that piece for yourself. Maybe you didn't mean to. Maybe you didn't even know it. But that piece of my soul is trapped inside you. That piece is me, who speaks to you here."
Gloriae shook her head. Her hair whipped side to side, slapping her face. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I. But I've looked inside you, Gloriae. I've seen our past together." The ghostly Agnus Dei spread her arms around her. "Look at this place, Gloriae. This is a memory I found within you. It's no spell. It's no trick. This place is yours."
Gloriae looked around her, at the marble columns, the birches, the herds of dragons.
"It is Requiem."
Agnus Dei nodded. "Requiem sixteen years ago—when you and I lived here, twin girls."
Dapples of sunlight played across the grass. The air smelled of bluebells, trees, and life. Robins, starlings, and finches chirped in the trees. Home. Was this truly her home? Gloriae had always lived in Flammis Palace, in a room full of swords, lances, and armor. She had never lived among flowers, trees, and birds. And yet... this felt real to her. Agnus Dei spoke truth. Gloriae could feel it. This was no spell, but a memory that filled her nostrils, her ears, her eyes, and her soul.
"I remember," she whispered. "I had a cat here, a gray cat with green eyes. We lived beyond that hill, in a palace of marble. You and I shared a room. There was a fireplace for the winters, and flowers on the walls, purple ones." Her eyes moistened. "This is where I'm from. This is where I was born. But... how did I leave this place? What happened to me?"
Agnus Dei smiled sadly. She flickered more weakly now, appearing and disappearing.
"Look," she whispered and pointed skyward.
Gloriae looked, and ice flowed through her.
Griffins.
Hundreds of the beasts swooped upon Requiem. They shrieked, lashed claws, and their wings bent the trees. Riders rode them, clad in white and gold. Dies Irae rode at their lead, bearing a lance of silver and gold. His banners flapped around him, the red griffin upon a golden field. A jewel glowed red around his neck. The Griffin Heart.
"Run, Agnus Dei!" Gloriae said. She tried to grab her sister, but her hands passed through the ghostly girl.
Agnus Dei smiled sadly. "Watch, Gloriae. They cannot hurt you now."
Gloriae stood and watched the skies. The dragons crashed against the griffins, blowing fire. The griffin riders attacked with crossbows, lances, and bows. Flame and blood filled the sky. The trees burned. Feathers and scales rained. The war was like a painting of red, gold, and black, the colors swirling, mixing together, and tearing the canvas.
Gloriae wanted to fly, to fight, to kill. But... who was her enemy now? This was her home, and the griffins were destroying it. Their talons tore down trees. They crashed into columns, toppling them. Were they her warriors, or her enemy?
"Agnus Dei, what's happening?" she demanded, but she knew the answer.
Dies Irae had stolen the Griffin Heart. The war of Requiem had begun.
Flame and tears covered Gloriae's world. She fell onto her back, her eyes closed, and ash fell onto her like snowflakes.
She lay for a long time.
When she opened her eyes, it seemed like many days had passed. The griffins and dragons were gone. The fires had burned away. Requiem lay in ruin around her. The trees smoldered. The columns lay smashed. Bloodied bodies covered the field, vultures and crows gnawing on them. Requiem stank of rot, blood, and fire. Gloriae couldn't help it. She rolled over and threw up, then lay trembling.
For a moment she could only lie there, hugging herself.
"Agnus Dei?" she finally whispered. "Is this a memory too?"
Her ghostly sister still sat beside her. She nodded.
"Look, Gloriae. Stand up and look around you."
Gloriae stood on shaky legs. The ruin spread around her. She saw nothing but blood, ash, and destruction. She should be happy, she knew. Requiem was defeated! The evil of weredragons was wiped clean!
But Gloriae could not rejoice. Nothing seemed clean here. There was no Sun God light, only ash and smoke in the sky. There was no good, clean earth, only bodies and blood.
But no. Not all were dead. A group of dragons crouched behind the toppled columns. A few were warriors, tough male dragons with sharp claws and dented scales. A few were females. Some were children.
"Dragons of Requiem!" cried a burly black dragon. "Fly! Fly from here."
It was King Benedictus, Gloriae realized, but he was younger here, stronger, his voice clearer. Blood and ash covered him. He flapped his leathern wings and took flight, leading the other dragons into battle.
As Gloriae watched them fly away, she heard a new voice.
"Daughters."
She turned toward the voice, and tears filled her eyes.
It was her mother.
Mother was beautiful, her hair silvery-gold, her skin pale, her eyes deep lavender. She wore a gown of white silk. Blood and ash covered her.
"Girls, come, we must leave," Mother said. She ran toward them, feet silent on the bloody earth.
Wings flapped.
A griffin landed before Mother.
Volucris. King of Griffins. And Dies Irae rode him.
"You will not touch them!" Mother screamed and shifted into a silver dragon. She lunged at Dies Irae, blowing fire.
Volucris leaped back. Dies Irae shot his crossbow, and the quarrel hit Mother. The silver dragon screamed, lashed her claws, and hit Dies Irae's armor. Dies Irae fell from his griffin, hit the ground, and swung his sword. Mother tried to bite him, but Dies Irae held her back with his blade. Volucris leapt onto the silver dragon. Shrieks tore the air. Fire rose. Blood splashed.
Gloved hands grabbed Gloriae. Somebody hoisted her into the air.
"Mother!" she screamed. Dies Irae had grabbed her, she realized. His fingers dug into he
r, so painful she could barely breathe.
"No!" Mother cried. "Not my daughter. Leave her, Irae!"
Dies Irae only laughed and shot his crossbow again. He hit Mother in the neck, and the silver dragon screamed and fell.
"She's my daughter too, lizard whore," Dies Irae said. "You can keep the dark one, the freak who shifts into a red dragon. Gloriae is pure. Gloriae is not cursed. She is mine."
Mother tried to rise, but Volucris kicked her down.
Gloriae screamed and cried and twisted. "Mother!" she cried. "Sister! Help me!"
Dies Irae's gloved hand covered her mouth. She could not scream. She could not breathe. Stars floated before her eyes. She was so small, so weak, her arms so soft.
She thought she would die, and then a dozen dragons swooped upon them.
Fire. Claws. Pain and heat and blood.
Gloriae kicked and felt faint. Her lungs felt ready to burst. Her eyelids fluttered.
The world went black, then red, then blue. The next thing she knew, they were airborne. She sat in a griffin's saddle. Dies Irae sat behind her, his arm wrapped around her. Dragons chased them through the sky, and a thousand griffins screeched and flowed around them. The griffins and dragons clashed, and blood rained. The screams nearly deafened Gloriae.
"Daughter!" Mother cried somewhere in the distance. Gloriae could not see her through the smoke and fire. "Gloriae! Stay strong, daughter! I will save you."
Gloriae cried, and screamed, and kicked, but Dies Irae held her tight.
They flew from the battle. They flew from the smoke and fire, from her mother's cries. They flew over leagues of ruin, toppled temples, fallen palaces, burned forests, a million bodies. They flew to the east.
The world of ruin blurred.
She slept.
When she awoke, she saw a world of light and beauty. Forests and rivers. Farms of gold. Castles and walls. Dawn, sunset, stars, and dawn again. Still they flew, Dies Irae clutching her in the saddle. Finally she saw a city ahead, a great city of white stone, its towers touching the clouds, its banners white and gold.
"Our new home," Dies Irae said. "Behold the city of Confutatis." He stroked her hair. "I will raise you here, Gloriae. Away from the weredragons. I will raise you to be pure, and strong, and cruel. I will raise you in the light of the Sun God, to be a huntress of evil."
"I want to go home," she whispered, tears on her cheeks.
He kissed her head. "We are home, daughter."
"Where is Mother? Where is Agnus Dei?" She trembled.
Dies Irae caressed her cheek. "The weredragons killed your mother. They killed your entire family. All but me, your father. I will teach you to fight back, to kill those who hurt us. Do you understand?"
She did not, but said nothing. He took her to this city, to a palace of light and gold. He took her to a room of blades, shields, and poison. She trained. She hated. She fought and she killed. She wore gold, steel, and fury.
"I am Gloriae the Gilded," she cried to the city, a woman, a huntress, a ruler. "The weredragons cannot hide from me."
She ruled, and she warred, and she killed. She freed the nightshades, and she lived inside them, and her soul shattered. She tore into the soul of the red weredragon, this Agnus Dei. She scattered the pieces into the worlds beyond this world... all but one shard, a whisper inside her, a voice and memories.
"Do you see?" Agnus Dei whispered, a ghostly child. She was fading fast, dispersing like smoke.
"I don't understand," Gloriae whispered.
But she did. She trembled, shook her head, and wanted to scream.
She understood. She remembered.
"Now you must help me, Gloriae," Agnus Dei said. She was nothing but smoke, her voice an echo. "Return this shard of me, this bit of soul, into my body. Breathe this smoke into my lips. Return me to my body, so that I may wake, and hold you, and see you in life."
Gloriae shook her head wildly. "How can I? You are but one piece. One of a hundred."
"I will find the other ninety-nine. I will reclaim them. Please, Gloriae! Please, sister. I love you. Please. Only you can save me now. Open your eyes. My body lies here beside you. Only you can wake it."
Agnus Dei flickered like a guttering candle. Her voice faded into nothing.
"Please, Gloriae. Please...."
Gloriae's eyes snapped open.
She took a deep, desperate breath like a woman saved from drowning.
"Agnus Dei!" she cried.
The weredragons crowded around her. She was back in the true world. She was captive in the night, her limbs bound.
"Mother!" she said. Her arms trembled. "Mother, help me. He's taking me with him. He's taking me from you. Mother!"
Above her, Lacrimosa and Benedictus looked at each other, and their eyes softened. Kyrie's eyes filled with confusion.
"She's lost her mind," the boy said. "I didn't think I hit her that hard."
Gloriae turned her head, and saw Agnus Dei, not the ghostly child, but the soulless woman. Her empty body still breathed, but her breath was shallow.
Please, the voice whispered inside her. Please.
Gloriae took a deep, shaky breath, then looked at Benedictus.
"I think I can cure her," she said to him.
"How?" the three Vir Requis asked together.
Gloriae lowered her eyes. "I was in... inside the nightshades. When they attacked Agnus Dei." She took a deep breath, prepared for a storm of anger. "I was controlling them. Well, not truly. Mostly they controlled me, but I could see through their eyes. I know where they hid Agnus Dei's soul. They did not claim all of it. They wanted to. I wanted to. But a piece still remains inside me."
Kyrie took a threatening step toward her, fists raised. "I'm going to kill you if she dies."
Lacrimosa placed a hand on Kyrie's shoulder, holding him back, and looked at Gloriae.
"What can you do to help her?"
Gloriae shuddered. "I don't know. I understand little of it. Agnus Dei fought well; I felt it inside the nightshade. She is strong. Her soul still remembers its name. When the nightshades sucked her soul, part of it went into them, and part into me. I think I can give it back. The jolt might cure her, suck in the rest of her soul, and wake her up."
Kyrie blew out his breath loudly. It fluttered his hair. "Fighting griffins was easy. You bit, you clawed, you blew fire. These nightshades... none of it makes any sense to me."
"I understand little too," Gloriae confessed. Her head still spun from the memories. "I feel more than I understand. Their world is so different from ours. It's not a world our language has words for. It's not a world of objects or flesh. It's of endless dimensions, of emotions rather than thoughts, of smoke and shadow and darkness, not material things. They don't understand our bodies. They only see our minds. Let me go to Agnus Dei. Can you free my hands?"
The Vir Requis glanced at one another, and Gloriae knew they didn't trust her. She herself wasn't sure what she'd do with free hands. Would she try to attack them? She had spent years wanting to kill them. But... her memory was true. She knew that.
This was a piece of her twin.
Benedictus untied her hands, and Gloriae knelt by Agnus Dei. She placed her hands on her sister's cheeks. Her flesh was cold, but she still breathed. Her eyes stared blankly. They looked alike, Gloriae realized, almost shocked. Their faces were identical. Agnus Dei had a mane of black curls, and Gloriae had a mane of gold. Agnus Dei had tanned skin and brown eyes, while Gloriae had pale skin and eyes of green. But otherwise they had the same face—the same full lips, high cheeks, straight nose.
"Agnus Dei," Gloriae whispered. "Once we were together. We were one being in the womb. We are one again and need to separate. Take your spirit, Agnus Dei. Sister. It is yours."
Gloriae leaned down and kissed her sister's lips. Mist fled from her mouth into Agnus Dei's mouth. A light glowed. Agnus Dei coughed.
"Agnus Dei!" Lacrimosa called.
Gloriae looked into her sister's eyes, still holding her cheeks
. "Do you hear me, sister? You have a piece of yourself now. Call your other pieces. Summon them; they are there in the worlds, you can find them, grasp them. Wake up, Agnus Dei. Your time has not yet come. Return to your body and speak to me."
Agnus Dei's mouth opened wide, and she called out, wordless. Her eyes moved. Her body floundered, but still Gloriae held her cheeks, keeping her head still.
"Sister, can you hear me?" Tears streamed down Gloriae's cheeks to land on Agnus Dei. "I was lost from you for so long. For years I wandered the world without you. I didn't know. I was torn and broken. Now I'm back, and you are lost. You are torn. You must return too. You must return and be with me, with us. I love you, Agnus Dei." Her own words shocked her, but Gloriae could not stop them; they flowed from a deep, hidden place inside her, a place now broken and spilling its secrets. "I remember you, sister. I love you."
The tears fell onto Agnus Dei's face.
The girl took a deep, ragged breath.
"Gloriae!" she called. She hugged her sister. "Gloriae, I remember you too. I saw you in the worlds. I saw us as children. I loved you once. I remember. I love you again. You've returned to us."
And then the others were embracing them too. Lacrimosa wept, and even Benedictus and Kyrie shed tears. The five hugged one another, the fire burning around them. The Draco constellation shone above.
The nightshades could return any moment, Gloriae knew. The next time, she would not be able to heal the bodies they emptied. Dies Irae would lead them upon the Vir Requis with all his wrath and pain. But Gloriae could not fear nightshades, not tonight.
Tonight her world crashed around her. Tonight memories flooded her, making her fingers tremble, her eyes water, and her head spin. Dies Irae had banished her; the weredragons had welcomed her. Who was her family? Who was she now? Gloriae looked to the sky, swallowed, and closed her eyes.
BENEDICTUS
"Get up," Benedictus said to the others. "We move."
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 31
