hair from the nostrils. Crooked teeth, each the size of a sword, grew from his mouth. His eyes were small and mean, the color of dried blood.
Howling, the giant swung his club at her.
Memoria flew backwards and blew flame.
The inferno hit the giant. He screamed and fell back, skin crackling.
"Watch out!" Terra said, grabbed her, and pulled her down. They landed on the mountainside. A boulder flew overhead, missing them by an inch.
Terra shot a jet of flame. A giant screamed behind Memoria. Three more giants ran ahead, boulders raised in their hands.
Memoria bathed them with fire. Two dropped their boulders. A third tossed his. Memoria leaped aside, and the missile grazed her shoulder. She grunted with pain. Her leg still throbbed.
"I don't like this," Terra said. Memoria whipped her head from side to side. A hundred giants were emerging from holes, tunnels, and the cover of stone outcrops. They bore clubs studded with bones, boulders that crackled with fire, and gleaming stone daggers. They climbed from below, from above, from each side.
"Fly!" Memoria said and leaped into the air. She flapped her wings as fast as she could. "Over the mountaintop."
Terra flew beside her. Boulders shot after them. One hit Terra's wing. He howled.
"Terra!" Memoria cried. She spat fire down at the giants and flew to her brother. He was wincing, but still flying. She held him and helped him fly higher. All around them, the barrage of stone continued. Memoria swerved, dodging most of the boulders. One slammed into her side, knocking the breath out of her. Pain bloomed. She could not breathe. She could not see.
No, don't kill me! the boy had cried. I beg you, please. I have parents and a sister. Please. Please....
Only a boy. No older than fifteen. A boy with scared eyes, with soft cheeks that had never grown stubble. A boy in armor. A boy riding a griffin. A boy who flew for Dies Irae, who killed and destroyed.
He is old enough to die.
She burned him.
He screamed. He screamed for what seemed like eternity.
Die already, stop screaming and die! Memoria wanted to cry, but she only watched him burn, until finally he screamed no more. A boy. With parents, with a sister. Silenced.
"Memoria!"
She wept. "I had to do it. I had to."
"Memoria! Fly! Fly!"
Her eyes snapped open. Terra was shaking her, struggling to fly with one hurt wing. Boulders still flew around them, and giants howled. Memoria gritted her teeth and flew.
They soared up the mountainside. Their reflections raced along the smooth, black stones—one green dragon, one bronze. More giants emerged from holes and behind rocks. There were thousands.
Blue sky burst before her. They reached the mountaintop, flew over it, and saw the city of giants.
Memoria's breath died.
LACRIMOSA
"No more tears," she whispered to herself. "Now is my turn to be strong. To lead. For our children, Ben. For you."
She stood under the orphaned archway, above the ruins of the fort where they made their home. The wind streamed her hair, kissed her cheeks with snow, and whispered of the growing threat in the east. There will be war, she knew. Dies Irae knew they were here; she did not doubt that now. Hundreds of mimics would march here. Blood would spill.
"Mother," Agnus Dei said. She came to stand beside her. Her mop of curls was white with snow. Her clothes were tattered, and bandages covered her wounds. Shadows filled her eyes, and she looked too thin to Lacrimosa, too weary, too haunted.
"Are you eating, Agnus Dei? You look thin."
She narrowed her eyes. "We're mustering forces for war, and that's what you worry about? That I'm not eating?" She sighed. "Mothers will be mothers."
The snow flurried. Lacrimosa shielded her eyes with her palm and stared down the mountainsides. Their forces seemed too few. They cannot stop the tide, she thought. Am I mad to stay here? Am I mad to make a stand? Will this be another Lanburg Fields?
"We used every Animating Stone we have," Lacrimosa said. "One hundred and twenty. Will it be enough?"
The stone dragon she had animated stood on the eastern hillside, unmoving, a sentinel of stone. Kyrie and Agnus Dei had animated three more statues. The stone maiden stood to the north, the warrior to the south, the king to the west.
Between them stood over a hundred warriors carved from the smashed columns of Requiem. They were crude figures; they had only the rough shapes of men, their surfaces craggy. The four true statues had carved them, and they