Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 11, Part A

"I can't make sense of the concepts referenced in the Ancients' Restoration Tower schematics, Augustus. I know what matter is, but I have never heard of antimatter. And though I have heard the terms fission and fusion before, I have to admit I don't understand their meaning in this context. Nor have I heard of a neo-atom, pseudo-molecule, or much else mentioned in these documents.

However, there are two terms I find familiar, though I don't understand what all the rest have to do with them. Promenia and thus the Trellis, it seems, are both composed of pseudo-molecules which in turn are comprised of neo-atoms. The promenia in the Trellis collects antimatter from storm clouds and solar flares and uses it to ignite something called antimatter-initiated fission-fusion.

Augustus, I do not understand even a fraction of what I have found. But if greater minds than my own examine these materials, I believe the discovery could vastly expand our understanding of the Trellis, magic, and even our civilization."

-- Ausus Viarius,
forgeholder aedilis 2nd rank,
from a communique to Rex Decus Astralis

*~*~*~*

Relief.

Weightlessness.

Freedom.

As refreshing, airy serenity swept through Domi's veins, cooling his anger and replacing it with euphoria, he gasped and sagged against the wardrobe. His eyes fluttered closed in dizzy bliss. Were his feet actually touching the ground anymore? Was there even a world around him? He felt buoyant. He could float up through the ceiling. Up, out, and away from the palace.

The Trellis had left him, thank the Eternal Radiance. The awful thing, unable to dig its molten claws into his prometus anymore, had ditched him and gone back to its rightful arse of a bearer. He could feel it. Or rather he could not feel it. He could not feel the Trellis and good riddance. No ghostly aching, burning weight tore through his back as the arcane lattice nagged him about the Blightlands. No incessant golden lightsong echoed just beyond his hearing. No unnatural heat pulsed in his veins, just a normal fever. No promenia hummed in his ears, just shouts and slamming doors.

Domi's eyes snapped open at that last. And then the boy froze as his eyes adjusted.

Dark. Why was it so dark?

"What?" he whispered, gaping at his room. The royal bedchamber was rapidly filling with shadows and bloody sunlight spilled in through the window. Somewhere, he could hear screaming. Pounding footsteps.

Hadn't Daedalus reclaimed the Trellis yet?

Dread flashed through Domi like lightning and he lurched for the window, his fingers clenching the sill.

Outside, gossamer threads of Trellis light faded high in the burgundy evening sky. Even as he watched, tarnished gold dimmed to blackened bronze.

Domi held his breath and stared, his pounding heart sinking into his belly as the Trellis failed to brighten to its normal post-Dimming golden net. "Dae," he whispered through a tightening throat. "Come on, take it."

Instead, the thin spider strands of gold webbing winked out.

"Daedalus," he hissed, pressing his face to the chill snow-dusted glass and willing the light to return. "Come on. Come on!"

Behind him, his door crashed into the wall. "Alumna!"

Domi whirled around at Valens's choked voice and stared. He had never seen his aedificans look so pale, nor the two Electi stepping into the bedroom behind the worldholder look so fierce.