black smoke with diamond eyes. Their teeth appeared as but mist, but they toppled towers, statues, and temples of the Sun God. Thousands of people ran through the streets. The nightshades dipped into every road, square, and alley, shrieking. People fell before them, and even from here upon her palace, Gloriae knew that nightshades were sucking up their souls. Bodies littered the streets, not dead but mindless, soulless.
"Nightshades!" Gloriae cried again. "I am the one who freed you. I sit on the throne. You will cease this destruction and obey me."
They laughed at her. A dozen flew toward her, eyes mocking, and swirled around her. They lifted her into the air, flapping her hair like storm winds, seeping under her armor to caress her skin.
"Gloriae the Gilded," they whispered in her mind. "Our mistress."
They laughed, a sound like thunder. She felt them tugging her soul, side to side, toying with her, like dogs fighting over a steak. They pulled wisps of her left and right, snapping her out and into her body.
"Stop this!" she screamed, burning with fury. "You will obey me. You will hunt the Vir Requis."
They hissed like water on a frying pan. "Oh, yes, great mistress. We will destroy the Vir Requis, yes. We will destroy all souls who live entombed in flesh. We will free them. We will free you."
They bore her into her palace, past halls and chambers, knocking down pictures and candlesticks and suits of armor. Servants fled before them. Guards attacked them with swords, only to fall soulless. The nightshades carried Gloriae into her court, and placed her upon her father's throne. They swirled around her, draped around her neck, and wrapped around her legs.
"Sit upon your throne, mistress," their voices mocked. "Rule us from here, oh mighty empress."
Gloriae's belly ached with fear. She had made a mistake, she knew. A horrible, shattering, tragic mistake for her and her empire. Father had warned her. Why hadn't she listened? Why had she freed these creatures?
She clenched her fists and snarled. "Release me, beasts. I gave you one task, and one task only. Hunt the Vir Requis."
They laughed. "Should we hunt you too then, Gloriae of Requiem?"
"I am not from Requiem," she said, but heard the doubt in her voice. Tears stung her eyes. She remembered what Lacrimosa said. I am your mother. She remembered shifting into a golden dragon in her chamber, of swearing to hide her shame. "Lacrimosa lied to me. She gave me her illness, the lizard's curse. I hate the Vir Requis. I will kill them all."
"Then will you kill yourself?" the nightshades asked.
They swirled around her like a hurricane, tugging her soul. She screamed. She felt herself split into a hundred pieces, then a thousand, then a million. The tiles of her court cracked. A column fell. And then Gloriae was inside the nightshades, not just the dozens around her, but the thousands that filled the world. Her soul had scattered and flew within them.
She saw Confutatis from their eyes. She saw temples fall, buildings collapse, streets rise and crash, raining cobblestones. She saw the multitudes dying, the rivers boiling, children crushed with stones. Other parts of Gloriae flew in the east. She saw nightshades attack the griffins, those griffins Dies Irae had once ruled, but now lost. She saw the griffins shriek, bite and claw, try to attack, but fall lifeless in the night. Their souls too had been claimed and tossed into darkness. Gloriae flew in the west, countless pieces of her soul within each nightshade. She saw them attack the salvanae, the true dragons of legend, and fell so many of those ancient, proud creatures.
And she saw herself.
In the shards of her soul, she saw a broken woman. She saw a woman broken in childhood, stolen. A woman raised in lies, in light that blinded her. She saw the old courts of Requiem, before her father had destroyed them. She walked there with Lacrimosa, her mother, in the halls of the Vir Requis. She heard their harps, and saw their birches, and—
No! Lies, all of it. These were the images Lacrimosa had planted within her, false memories.
"Where are the Vir Requis?" Gloriae said, speaking from every shattered part of her, into the mind of every nightshade. They laughed and hissed, and her soul dispersed and collected within them. She found the nightshades who chased the Vir Requis, and she gazed upon them from countless eyes.
They fled through the night, four dragons. Benedictus, their king, black and cruel.