my brother."
Benedictus spat and spoke again, and this time Dies Irae heard his voice, and the words made him frown.
"Fight me."
Dies Irae raised his mace higher. "Fight you? Why should I fight you, brother? Why should I not bash in your skull now and be done with?"
Benedictus's lips were dry, his face bruised, his chin bloody. "We should have fought to the death ten years ago. That's how it should have ended. Let us end this now. Fight me, great and courageous Lord of Light. To the death."
Dies Irae laughed. "As it should have been? A fight to the death? Ten years ago, Benedictus, you faced my army alone. We had slain all the women and children you brought to fight your war. You faced an army of men, and you fled."
Benedictus growled. "I showed you mercy. I left you to live. I will not repeat that mistake again."
Dies Irae shook his head and sighed. "Very well, brother. You want to turn back time, to return ten years ago? I will grant you that. You will fight to death. But you will fight not only me, brother." He swept the mace head around, displaying his army. "You will fight all of us... like you fought ten years ago. We turn back time tonight."
BENEDICTUS
"Requiem... may our wings forever find your sky."
As Dies Irae's men unlocked his shackles, Benedictus closed his eyes and whispered the Old Words. His voice was hoarse, his throat aching, and his limbs burned as he stretched them. When they had bound him, they had beaten him, covered his body with bruises. Yet through the pain, he remembered. He could still speak those ancient words, the prayer of his people. He struggled to his feet with eyes closed, the courts of Requiem resplendent in his mind.
He heard Dies Irae laughing scornfully; as a child, no doubt Dies Irae had hated the Old Words, those words every child in Requiem must speak in mornings. Dies Irae had never had the magic, never had wings; for him Requiem's sky had been unreachable.
"Are you ready, brother? Are you ready to die here?" Dies Irae's voice was icy with hatred and fiery with rage.
Behind closed eyes, Benedictus gazed upon those courts of Requiem, the marble columns that rose from the forest floor, the birch trees that grew beyond them, the rustling leaves. He could see autumn leaves skittering across the tiles of their forest courts, could see Father's throne of twisted oak roots, could see his friends, his family, his love Lacrimosa wearing silks and jewels, could see them ruling wisely under skies of blue and gold and white. Let me die with this memory, he thought. I go now to to the halls of my ancestors, to drink from their wine in our courts among the stars. I now take my greatest flight.
He opened his eyes. Around him spread the ruin of his people, the ribs rising like the teeth of dragons, the bashed skulls like so many rocks. But bones, ash, and blood could not make him forget the beauty of those old courts.
He stared at Dies Irae. His older brother. The shadow that would lurk beyond those courts, hiding and hating in its forests, planning revenge. Dies Irae was no longer a shadow; he was now a Lord of Light, a beacon of cruelty and fire to the world. Usurper of Osanna, destroyer of Requiem. Strangely, Benedictus no longer hated his brother. Neither did he fear him. As he looked upon Dies Irae, this glittering deity of steel and gold, he felt only sadness.
"We made you into this," he said quietly. "We created you. We scorned you. We turned you into this monster."
Dies Irae mounted his griffin. "Shift, brother. Turn into the dragon. Show us who the true monster is. You will die in the lizard's form."
Benedictus looked at Lacrimosa. She lay on the ground, still chained, blood trickling down her lip. The rain soaked her hair and tattered dress, and she gazed up at him with tragic, haunted eyes.
Benedictus looked back to Dies Irae. "She fights with me."
Dies Irae barked a laugh. "Are you trying to redeem yourself on this last night? Ten years ago, you would not let her fight. You hid her then, while letting the other females of your kind perish. Very well; she too will die here at my griffin's talons. Men, free the lizard whore."
When they unchained her, Benedictus helped her to her feet, and held her, and kissed her brow, and told