An abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery...
Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Domi woke the next morn to warm Trellis-light spilling across his face. When his eyes fluttered open, for a moment he didn't know where he lay.
The canvas ceiling above him hummed a soft lullaby. For the first time since Arbita reversed his suppression, the sound of promenia did not bother Domi. He stared up at the cloth in wonder, and a dim memory rose of lying down last eve beneath its gentle, golden light and being lulled to sleep by its soothing bellsong.
Across from him, a pillar held bundles of upside-down herbs, like his ma tied them from the rafters in the loft back home to dry when she got her hands on fresh spices. Behind the pillar, a couple of canvas screens hung to provide privacy on the side of the cottage that was otherwise open to a garden beyond.
A garden.
Memory came crashing back, and Domi's smile at the pleasant, peaceful surroundings faded. The garden. He was in the greenhouse where the Gardener lived and worked.
Domi sighed, sitting up in his cot-like bed and stretching. He felt more well-rested than he had in a while. His firm mattress reminded him more of the packed straw back home than the too-plush bed Valens bought him, which tended to put a crick in his neck.
But the familiar bed was not the only reason he felt well-rested. He had slept through Brightening, the morning Rain, and salutatio as well.
He shrugged and reached for his bag. It wasn't like he could make a great impression on the Gardener even if he wished. The man already met him in all his Pullatus glory.
Though he supposed there was nowhere else to go from there but up. Pulling a fresh tunica and paenula from his bag, he climbed out of bed.
When he wandered into the garden, dressed in clothes that emerged from his bag only a little wrinkled, he discovered he was not alone. Scattered across the greenhouse beneath shady trees, four youths reclined on triclinum couches as they nibbled their breakfasts and read.
The Gardener was nowhere in sight.
Reluctant to break the peaceful hush, Domi approached the first kid he spotted, a girl with rich-bronze skin and wavy dark-brown hair pulled back into a loose, elegant braid. "Excuse me," he said, his voice a whisper. The girl glanced up from her book. "Where's the Gardener?"
"You mean Aix?" She jerked her head toward the cottage. "Still asleep. He'll wander out later."
"Oh. When?"
The girl shrugged. "An hour? Maybe two. Till then, find a book and grab breakfast. Nothing from the Caeles though. A real book from the library—ah, your room. He always expects us to tell him a bit about our reading when he wakes."
What the heck kind of teacher was this man? Even the traveling storytellers who sometimes came to teach Pullati kids tales from the Holy Ovidiana had a more reliable schedule than this.
