wish I could say the same." He lowered his head, ashamed.
But they only laughed, and hugged him again, and they cried together.
"We found him, Memoria," Terra whispered. "We found him."
Kyrie held them. The dragonflies hummed in his mind, and the vineyard rustled, and the stream splashed with fish.
It's real, pup. They look just like you.
"It's real," he whispered. I have a sister. I have a brother.
The griffins cawed around them, and the salvanae bugled, a song of reunion and joy, of light and hope and love... before the fall of night.
DIES IRAE
His black horse grunted beneath him, rot seeping through its stitches, foam dripping from its mouth. Dies Irae dug his spurs deep.
"Weredragons were here," he said. He tossed back his head, and his nostrils flared. "I smell them."
Umbra rode beside him, scanning the ruins with narrowed eyes. Night had fallen, and only a glimmer of red light remained in the west. She sniffed too.
"I smell nothing but rot," she said.
Dies Irae pointed up the mountainside that loomed before them. An orphaned, crumbling archway crowned the mountain, the remnants of a weredragon fort. Draco Murus, they called it, he remembered and snickered. The greatest of Requiem's fortresses—smashed upon the mountain.
"This is where my pets found them. Let us seek them there."
He kneed his horse, leading it up the mountainside. Umbra rode at his side. Behind them, his army marched, crawled, and flew, a hundred thousand creatures all howling and drooling. Stones tumbled, but the undead horses plowed on, stronger in death, faster and needing no food or rest.
"The place is an utter ruin," Umbra said, disgust and glee mixing in her voice. "It's worse than Confutatis."
Dies Irae nodded. "Confutatis will rise again, stronger and more glorious than before. This place, this Requiem, will sink further into ruin and pain."
Soon his forces covered the mountainside, like worms covering a body. The snowbeasts smashed down the archway, squealing. Its stones cascaded, hitting several mimics, incurring laughter from their comrades. Dies Irae dismounted on the mountaintop, his boots scattering snow from the cobblestones of an old courtyard. Umbra dismounted beside him, drew her daggers, and hissed.
"The air is rank with the stench of reptile," Dies Irae said. He spat. Mimics howled around him, waving their blades.
"A hole," Umbra said, pointing her dagger.
Dies Irae nodded. "A rat hole. Light a torch and follow me."
He climbed into the darkness, Umbra behind him, torch crackling in her hand. A stairway led him into a network of cellars. Do you hide here, weredragons? Do you cower from me? He couldn't wait to find Lacrimosa, to tear off her clothes, hurt her, take her, crush her, to pull her hair and see her tears. He licked his lips.
"Where are you, my lovely?" he whispered. "Where do you cower, my lizard whore?"
Tree bark, broken branches, and sap filled some chambers; wood had been stored here. A second chamber held a bear rug, a table, and four clay bowls.
"Where are they?" Umbra demanded.
A tattered dress hung on a peg in the wall. Dies Irae lifted it, held it to his face, and inhaled deeply. Lacrimosa's dress. Yes. She had worn this the night he caught her in the field. He savored the scent of it.
He turned and began walking back upstairs, the dress in his hand.
"They went to King's Column," he said. "They retreated to the only place their light still shines." He clenched his fist around the dress, gritted his teeth, and smiled. "That's where we'll find them."
Umbra snarled. "They will be our mimics soon. Slaves for our warriors to torment. I will hurt them too."
Dies Irae nodded. He stepped out into the courtyard and stood on the mountaintop. His army spread around him, line after line of mimics, snowbeasts, the Poisoned, swamp lizards, skeletons, rotting dragons, and coiling nightshades. Their cries shook the earth.
"We will smash King's Column!" he shouted. "We will destroy the weredragon curse forever. Their bodies will be yours!"
They howled. The clouds roiled. Dies Irae mounted his horse, spurred it, and galloped down the mountain.
LACRIMOSA
Lacrimosa flapped her wings, circling above the burned trees and shattered halls of King's Forest.
It felt good to fly. She had barely flown all winter, and she needed to feel the clouds around her wings, the wind in her nostrils, the fire in her belly.
"Requiem!" she said. "May our wings forever find your sky."
The words of her fathers, of her priests, of her life. She still flew for her fathers, for her priests, and for life—her life, the life of her