Blood of Requiem (Song of Dragons, Book 1)

17. AGNUS DEI

AGNUS DEI

Agnus Dei sat on her haunches, the cave dark around her, and growled at her parents. Smoke rose from her nostrils to sting her eyes.

"Agnus Dei, please," Mother said, soft silver in the darkness. "We've talked about the growling."

Agnus Dei shot flames from her nostrils. The fire glinted on Mother's silver scales, Father's black scales, and the pup's blue ones.

"Agnus Dei!" Mother said, rising to her feet, though the cave was too low for her to stretch to full height. "Will you please stop that?"

Agnus Dei turned to Father. The black dragon sat beside her, watching her with dark eyes.

"Do you see what I've had to put up with?" Agnus Dei asked him. "Do you see, Father?" She mimicked her mother. "Do not growl, do not blow fire, do not act like a dragon. Be a lady, Agnus Dei. Be like me, the noble and beautiful Lacrimosa."

"I never told you to be a lady," Mother interjected, eyes flashing.

"But you want it, don't you?" Agnus Dei said and growled, just to annoy Mother. "You want me to be like you. Delicate and fair, walking around in human form, all pretty." Agnus Dei thrust out her chest and let fire glow in her mouth. "But I'm like Father. I'm like the Great Benedictus, a wild thing."

Still Father said nothing, and that pup Kyrie also only watched from the shadows, eyes burning. He doesn't care for me much, that pup, Agnus Dei thought. Or maybe he cares for me too much, and can't stand it. She gave him a crooked smile, but he only bared his fangs at her.

"Pup," she said to him, and he growled.

"Now don't you start growling too, Kyrie," Lacrimosa said to him. "Don't let my daughter spoil you. I knew your parents, Kyrie Eleison; you are a child of nobility. Noble children do not growl."

Grinning now, Agnus Dei gave the loudest, longest growl of her life, a growl that shook the cave. Kyrie couldn't help but smile, the menace leaving his eyes, and he joined her, growling so that his whole body shook and his scales clanked. Even Father, always so stern and angry, began to growl deeply, eyes glinting with mischief. Birds fled outside, and Mother covered her ears.

"All right, all right!" Mother said. "I get the point. Benedictus, really. I expect this behavior from the young ones, but not from you. So stop it."

For the first time in her life, Agnus Dei saw her father look sheepish. He let his growl die, and Agnus Dei laughed. Father, cowed into silence! Her laughter seized her and she rolled around on the cave floor, tail lashing in all directions, slamming into the walls and several times into the pup.

"Cut it out," Kyrie said, rubbing his side where her tail had struck. "The spikes on your tail are huge. Stars. Your parents warned me about you."

"Did they, pup?" she asked.

"Stop calling me that!" he demanded, smoke rising from his nostrils.

Agnus Dei laughed at the sight of him bristling; he reminded her of a baby porcupine. "Okay, pup. Pup pup puppy pup."

He objected some more, as did Mother, but Agnus Dei could not hear. She was laughing too hard. It felt good to laugh. For so long, she had hidden alone in this cave. She had not spoken to anyone in days. After a year upon the snowy mountains, she had fled to this place, this green land on the far side of the world, this land where few men and griffins ventured. This land near the fabled kingdom of the salvanae, the true dragons.

I fled here to escape Mother, but... I missed her, Agnus Dei thought. She hated to admit it, even to herself, and would never tell Mother. But Agnus Dei knew it was true. Though she clashed horns with Mother whenever they spoke, figuratively and sometimes literally, she did love her. She had missed her. She had missed Father. Her laughter died, and she regarded her parents in silence for a moment.