trail. Kyrie cursed and stumbled forward, but soon stopped, backtracked, and realized he was lost.
He cursed and looked from side to side. Screeches rose in the blizzard around him, moving closer. Kyrie raised his torch, eyes narrowing. Lacrimosa did the same.
"Kyrie," she said, "I don't like this."
"Me ne—"
A dozen shadows flew toward them from the trees.
Kyrie couldn't help it. He cried in fear. They were mimics, but more hideous than any he'd seen. They looked like oversized bats. They had human heads and outstretched human arms. But below the shoulders, their bodies tapered into nothing but a spine. Skin stretched from their wrists to their tailbones, forming wings. They flapped toward Kyrie, shrieking.
He screamed and swung his torch.
How can such terrors exist? The creatures' eyes blazed red. Their teeth snapped at him, and one bit his arm. Kyrie's head spun. He screamed again and lashed his blade and his fire. Lacrimosa screamed and fought beside him. The world was crackling fire, swirling snow, and everywhere those terrors, those bats, those things that had once been human.
No, he found himself praying feverishly. No, please, stars, it can't be. They can't have been human. No mind can be sick enough to create these things. Please, stars, let me wake up from this nightmare. Let this all be a dream. How can this be real?
"Kyrie, look!" Lacrimosa cried. She pointed, and Kyrie saw a tatter of green cloth hanging on a tree. Agnus Dei had worn a green cloak when captured.
"I see it!" he shouted and clubbed at the flying bats.
"The mimics carried the girls that way," Lacrimosa shouted back. "Let's go."
They ran through the snow, clubbing the mimic bats. One flew onto Kyrie's arm, flapping its wings against him. He tore it off and grimaced when he saw its face, the face of an old woman. He kept running, swinging his torch and sword. The bats were everywhere, screeching, swooping, crying.
"Broken ice, over there!" he shouted. A frozen stream lay ahead, its surface cracked and splintered in one place. Kyrie ran over it, and he saw a path of broken branches through the forest. "The mimics took the twins this way."
Lacrimosa swung her sword and cut a bat. Its blood sprayed the falling snow. "Keep going!"
They ran, the broken branches scratching them. Kyrie raced between two trees, and suddenly the ground sloped. He found himself tumbling down a ravine, snow cascading around him.
"Lacrimosa!"
She fell beside him, covered in snow. The bats screeched above, but did not follow. Kyrie tried to grab something, but found no purchase. He seemed to fall forever, before he finally hit a mound of snow, and was still. Lacrimosa rolled to a stop beside him, shivering, her torch extinguished.
Kyrie leaped to his feet and helped Lacrimosa up.
"Where's the path?" she demanded.
Kyrie looked up the slope they had crashed down. They had fallen a long way. The bats fluttered above between the trees, but dared not leave their cover.
"I don't know," he said, and suddenly his eyes stung, and his throat swelled. "I don't know, Lacrimosa. I'm... I'm scared. I don't know if... if...."
If Agnus Dei will become one of those bat things. Or if she is one already. If I will become one too. I don't know if this is real, or some nightmare. I don't know what to do.
But he could say none of these things. How could he? Benedictus had died, and he—Kyrie Eleison—was the last man of Requiem. It was his task to be strong, his duty to protect the others. Only... it seemed impossible. Even Benedictus, always strong and brave, had never dealt with humans twisted and cut and sewn into these horrors. How could Kyrie face them?
He lowered his head, and his body shook. "I'm not strong enough, Lacrimosa. I'm trying to be like him. Like Benedictus. But...."
She grabbed his shoulders. She stared into his eyes.
"Kyrie," she said. Her face was so stern, her eyes so angry. He was sure she'd yell at him. But then her face softened, and her eyes watered, and she embraced him. They stood in the snow, shivering together, holding each other.
"I'm sorry, Lacrimosa. I feel weak."
She touched his hair and kissed his cheek. "You were never weak, Kyrie. You are good, you are scared, you are in love with Agnus Dei. If you were cold and heartless, well, you wouldn't be a man I wanted fighting by my side. And you are a man now, Kyrie."
He took a deep, shaky breath and squared his shoulders. The snow