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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Hebenum Viticomum was standing in the odeon with his fellow worshippers, listening to Daedalus Adurere deliver the Cultus oration, when the Princeps died.
Holy words faltered on the royal youth's lips, and then he collapsed on the dais and did not rise again.
For a moment, Hebenum did not understand what happened.
Then the Trellis failed.
The arcane magic device did not transfer to an heir, for of course the child-Princeps possessed no living heir. The lattice simply went dark and began to fall apart.
As the first droplets of blue fire began sprinkling down outside the odeon's windows, Hebenum at last summoned his scattered wits. Heart in his throat, he raced through the gasping worshippers up to the dais and sank to his knees at the Princeps Worldholder's side.
The Keeper of Heaven and Earth, who sat on the Throne of Solitude and maintained the order of the universe, stared sightlessly up at the domed ceiling. An expression of confused surprise was frozen on his young face. Whatever had killed him did so in an instant. Hebenum doubted there had been any time for fear or pain.
Outside, promenia rained down in a fine sapphire mist against the burgundy sky. Freed from the Trellis and its original purpose within the dimming web of light, the promenia now thrummed with the music of pure possibility to anyone with the senses to hear.
Hebenum drew all the newly-unassigned promenia within his reach to himself, claimed it, and poured the magical particles into the still-warm body before him.
He had never realized how small the Princeps was.
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Daedalus gasped and opened his eyes to a blurry face screaming at him against the backdrop of several other voices shrieking in horrified panic.
"The Trellis!" the wild-eyed man shouted down into his face. No one had ever shouted at him before, and Daedalus peered up at the man in bafflement. "Take hold of the Trellis!"
He blinked in confusion. Where was his title? Comitas would be so mad...
The man cursed and then said, "Let me help you. You're conscious now, so I can't do aught more for you without your permission."
