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...
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Something was going on with Cercitis's children, and she didn't like it.
For two days now, she stalked the Caeles as much as her duties allowed. Like a lost eidolon, she hovered over Provincia Sicarii, more a bodiless mental imprint than a living, breathing woman.
She tried getting news from Gemma and Epileus, of course, but they ignored her every message. Sidus likewise did not respond to her cautious questions about his siblings' whereabouts. That was not surprising, as most Praetors didn't let conservatory students have contact with their parents until graduation, lest family loyalties supplant loyalties to Praetor, curia, and provincia. Still, it left her anxious that even her older two children ignored her. All three declined her invitation to meet beneath the jacaranda trees, the first time her children had ever rebuffed her without any explanation.
Initially, she feared the lack of response meant they had been arrested, even Sidus, who was too young for her to involve in the grim task she had assigned Epileus and Gemma. However, the Compendium showed all three wandered freely about Urbs Hostiae and returned to the conservatory dormitory or their domus each evening.
Something else was afoot. Her stomach fluttered with nerves as she considered what it might be. The fact Sidus appeared somehow involved drove her worry to new heights. The sixteen-year-old possessed strong gifts as a starholder, and as a Trueborn, he outranked both of his older siblings. Worse, he studied with Domi at the conservatory. If he decided to stop Gemma and Epileus to protect a classmate, there was little his Empowered siblings could do.
Unable to learn aught concrete from her children about the task to which she had set her older son and daughter, she resorted to gossip.
Rumors drifted like whispering clouds in the Caeles above Urbs Hostiae. There had been an attack. A terrorist attack. A schoolyard fight. A lovers' quarrel. A high-ranking Trueborn child had been stabbed. No, a Pullatus servant. No, a Trueborn who had once been a Pullatus. The boy had not been hurt. No, he was dead. Wrong, the victim had been stabbed, but was healing well and would recover fully.
She found it difficult to sort fact from fiction, but some pieces of the story stayed consistent no matter which whispers she listened to in the Caeles. Arborators still sought two assailants who used spellblades instead of their own promenia, making them difficult to identify. The crystal blades contained lifeholder promenia, and so the Arborators visited every sorcerer of that lineage within Urbs Hostiae and questioned them under compulsion. All denied knowledge of the crime or the weapons' origins.
She supposed she ought to be relieved. Instead, anxiety gnawed at her. How was Sidus involved? Would Arborators come for Epileus and Gemma? Would her older two children try again to do what needed to be done, or had they abandoned their task?
She only knew two things for sure. Domi remained very much alive, and he suffered from a shoulder injury. Poor Daedalus complained in confusion of painful swelling in his own shoulder, where blood, prometus, and fluids gathered to heal a wound that didn't exist. Not on him, anyway.
