and scolded her whenever she growled. He was King Benedictus, the Black Fang. He had once ruled these lands and worn fine silk and steel. He had once led this land to war and seen it destroyed. He had once fought in these tunnels and watched as others burned, and drowned, and became creatures of fish scales and bulging eyes and—
Enough, Agnus Dei told herself. Don't dwell on it. Get the scrolls. Get out. Learn about the nightshades. Let the past remain in this darkness.
She took a step deeper into the tunnels.
The winds from below moaned, rustling her cloak. She clenched her jaw and kept walking, Father at her side. Their torches crackled, and shadows danced like demons. The walls were black stone, hard and smooth, too close to her. Agnus Dei hated enclosed spaces. There was no room to shift into dragons here. What if creatures attacked—ghosts, or... the Poisoned? Could she fight them in human form, with only her dagger? Agnus Dei growled.
Her feet hit something. A clattering sound echoed. Agnus Dei lowered her torch and grimaced. She had kicked a skeleton, scattering its bones. Several more skeletons lay within the sphere of light, covered in dust and cobwebs and tatters of leather. The flickering torch made them seem to shiver.
"Irae's men," she said. They bore chipped, wide blades in the style of Osanna, and one wore a breastplate engraved with a griffin.
Father nodded. "Many of them died here too."
They walked over the skeletons, careful not to further disturb their bones. The tunnel plunged deeper, its slope steep. Shattered swords, arrowheads, and helmets littered the floor. At one point, the skeleton of a griffin cub blocked their way, and they had to walk between its ribs. A rusty helmet topped its skull. The air grew colder and the wind moaned. Once, Agnus Dei thought she heard a cackle from deep below, but when she froze and listened, she heard nothing more.
Around a bend, she saw a new skeleton. She paused and grunted. This skeleton was strange. It was shaped like a man, but the skull was too long, the eye sockets too small. Its fingers were twice the normal length, and its femurs were twisted like ram's horns. At first Agnus Dei thought it an animal—an ape, like those drawn in picture books—but this skeleton held a sword, and wisps of a tunic clung to its ribs.
"A Poisoned," she whispered.
Father nodded.
As they walked around the Poisoned, Agnus Dei couldn't help but stare into its eye sockets. Even in death, it seemed in agony. She could imagine it being a Vir Requis like her once, maybe a girl, poisoned until her bones twisted, and her eyes popped, and—
No. No! Don't think of it. Agnus Dei gritted her teeth and kept walking.
Soon she and Father reached a staircase. The steps were chipped and narrow. Agnus Dei's boots stepped on old arrowheads, a dagger's blade, and a skeleton's hand. Once she kicked a helmet. It clattered down the stairs, echoing. She winced, and Father grumbled, and they froze until the clacking stopped.
Past the staircase, they found a crossroads of three tunnels, and Father led them down the left one. Their torches guttered. Agnus Dei tore fresh strips off her cloak, and wrapped them around the stick she carried, so that it blazed with new light.
In the firelight, she saw many more skeletons. The main battles must have been fought here. Bones covered the floor. Shattered shields, swords, crossbows, and arrowheads lay everywhere, threatening to cut her boots. The air here was so cold and dry, skin and hair remained on the bodies, shriveled and white. Their fingernails were yellow and cracked like rotten teeth.
"How much farther are the scrolls?" she whispered.
"Not far," Father said, his voice low, his eyes watery. Agnus Dei looked at him, and all her irritation and anger at her father faded. She realized that he'd known many of these fallen Vir Requis. Some had been soldiers under his command. Others must have been his friends, cousins, uncles.
They stepped gingerly over the skeletons, and plunged deeper into the darkness. The tunnels kept sloping down; Agnus Dei could not guess how far underground they were. As horrid as the burned forests of Requiem were, with their ash and bones and fallen columns, she longed to return there now, to see the sun, and to see life, even if life meant only vultures and bugs.
Soon they reached the remains of a doorway in the tunnel. Once it had sealed the