Blood of Requiem (Song of Dragons, Book 1)

8. LACRIMOSA

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 fully 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, and 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, 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 it glint 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 blazed red, a special color, the color of fire.