Blood of Requiem (Song of Dragons, Book 1)

48. GLORIAE

GLORIAE

Gloriae was pacing the throne room when Dies Irae stumbled in, a shard of sword in his eye.

Gloriae's jaw unhinged. For a moment she could do nothing but stare. Blood, mud, and ash covered her father. Fresh blood spurted from his eye and filled his mouth. He cackled as he limped into the throne room, stunned guards at his sides. Blood trailed behind him.

"Benedictus!" Dies Irae shouted, mouth full of blood, and laughed madly. "He lives. He lives! He killed me. Daughter!" He collapsed at her feet.

Blood spattered Gloriae's leggings, snapping her out of her shock. She raised her eyes to the guards. "Fetch priests!" she said. "And ready the griffins."

Dies Irae laughed at her feet. He stared up at her with one eye. The other eye too seemed to stare up, if a shard of steel could stare. "The griffins abandoned us, Gloriae. Look what they did to me. Look what the weredragons did." He was weeping now.

Priests burst into the room. Their servants carried a litter.

"Take him to the temple," Gloriae ordered them. She allowed no tremble to fill her voice, no emotion to show on her face. She ruled Osanna now; she would rule with steel. "Pray for him. Let the Sun God heal him. If he dies, so will you."

For an instant, hatred blazed across the priests' faces. Gloriae knew they were not used to hearing threats, not even from emperors. Yet they only nodded, placed the cackling Dies Irae on the litter, and carried him away.

Gloriae stared at the blood smearing the marble tiles. Splotches of it stained her clothes. Finally her head began to spin. She wanted to follow the priests, to be with her father, but her feet would not support her. The closest seat was Father's throne, and she fell into it. For the first time in her life, she sat upon the Ivory Throne of Osanna.

The lords and ladies of her hall gazed at her, shocked. Fury filled Gloriae, and she let her stare pierce them. "My father is hurt. Until he's healed, I rule in his stead. Now leave this place."

As they left the hall, Gloriae shut her eyes. Blood pounded in her head. She clutched the throne's arms and felt its power flow through her. Osanna. A realm of endless forests, towering mountains, great armies. Hers. From here flowed her dominion over the empire.

Her eyes snapped open. She left the throne and strode across the hall. She did not walk to the temple. She would be of no use there. But there was something she could do now, something Father should have done years ago.

Gloriae left her hall, walked down stairs, marched down tunnels, climbed down and down into the belly of the world. She walked for hours perhaps, lips tightened, eyes dry. She walked until she reached the chamber with the guards, where golden skulls bedecked iron doors, gazing upon her with glowing eye sockets.

Gloriae stepped through that doorway and approached the Well of Night.

She stood over the abyss and hesitated. The nightshades. Gloriae could not forget the time she saw them, how they had sucked her soul into their endless cavern, turning her to smoke and darkness. Then Gloriae remembered the steel shard in Father's head, the blood on his face, and the blood on her leggings. She remembered, too, the curse she carried now, the lizard curse Lacrimosa had given her.

Gloriae took a deep breath, tightened her fists, and jumped into the well.

She floated through darkness. It was calm, soothing, an inky blackness that caressed her.

Then she screamed.

The nightshades appeared around her, creatures that were the opposite of light, creatures of smoke and fear and blackness. Their eyes shone as diamonds, and she felt them tugging her spirit, pulling it from her body, as if it were wisps of steam.

"Hear me!" Gloriae shouted. "I sit upon the Ivory Throne. I have the power to free you. I release you from this well! Emerge from the abyss and serve me."

They swirled so fast, Gloriae was tossed in all directions, spun like a top, and shot into the air. She screamed and laughed and spread out her arms.

"Fly into the world, creatures of night. I am your ruler now. I tame you now. Kill the weredragons! That is my order to you, the price I charge for your freedom. Hunt them until the last one begs for death."

The creatures swirled around her, disappearing and appearing, teeth like shards of glass, bodies like clouds, eyes crackling. They laughed, a sound of storms. Gloriae's body was like a coin rattling in a cup. They flowed out of the well, raising her upon them, and swirled through the chamber. They howled and laughed and ballooned. Gloriae floated among them, high above the well. She tilted her head back, laughing, arms spread to her sides.

I will kill them, she promised herself. I will do what Father could not. I will rid the world of the weredragon curse.

"I will lead you there," Gloriae said, a smile tingling the corners of her mouth. "I will lead you to Benedictus and Lacrimosa, and we will kill them."

They flowed out of the chamber, down tunnels, up stairs... and into a world of dying daylight.