Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 12, Part A

"Why do the Pyrrhaei rebel? Look to history and you will find the record of our grievances: You executed our grandparents, the heroic citizens of Colonia Remota Prima, for the crime of seeking independence from Vola Apertus's global domination. You enslaved our parents for being children of traitors. And you hold us in bondage, stealing our freedom and our labor.

"On the 40th anniversary of our grandparents' Declaration of Independence, let this be our own Declaration: We Pyrrhaei reject Promethidae rule as illegitimate. You are not gods. Nor are you the Eternal Radiance's chosen ones. The augmented are human beings, as we unaugmented are human beings, descendants of the very same distant star. If you resist our right to self-determination, we will kill every augmented person we find, execute your Chief Navigator and other Chiefs as they executed our ancestors, and tear down every last one of your p-tech works.

"The Eternal Radiance commanded that this world be made into a Garden of Light for all. If you do not stand aside and give us a rightful place, we will reduce it to a Garden of Embers."

-- Tibulus Fortis,
Leader of the Pyrrhaei Rebellion,
50th year before the Restoration,
from A Garden of Fragrant Heresies

*~*~*~*

Two Regis Electi came to the Onyx Palace in the apocalypse's wake, crimson laurels glaring about their throats like sunlit blood as they stalked into the dark royal bedchamber.

Once, Domi would have been terrified by their arrival and what it meant. Now, relief left him weak and numb in their arresting hands. He deserved to be punished.

"What are you doing?" Valens snapped from somewhere that seemed far away as one of the guards pulled Domi, unresisting, from the bed. The other Electi strode to the wardrobe, selecting a crystal blue paenula that looked pink in the bloody sunlight flooding into the room through the half-boarded window.

"The Rex has grave concerns that must be addressed," the woman guiding Domi to her partner said.

The other guard pulled the paenula over the boy's head, dressing him more like a doll than a prisoner. The city watch would have been better. They would not have spared the justified beating.

The intense headache throbbing in his skull since he'd woken up in a destroyed world hammered harder with each small movement as the Electi shifted his limbs to and fro. The spikes of agony in head, arms, and side, echoes of injuries not his own, made him reel. He welcomed them. If Dae was hurting, he should hurt too. If the world was suffering, so should he. Let his head pound forever, one spike of agony for every life he'd harmed. Each life he'd ended.

"There are better ways to get answers than to arrest a sick kid," Valens snarled. "Look at him!"

Domi blinked dully, unsure how the man sounded miles away and yet stood so near. Nothing seemed real. Yet today was no nightmare. Millions were probably dead, more to follow, all because he couldn't just do as he'd been asked for the good of the world.

The Electi woman glanced at Domi and winced at whatever she saw in his face as her partner gently but briskly adjusted the paenula over his unresisting body. He stared back at her, despising the concern in her gray eyes. Where was the disgust? The anger? Didn't she know how selfish he'd been, refusing to put any real effort into being Princeps, thumbing his nose at every bit of guidance offered, and stealing everyone's future from them so he could avoid responsibility?

"The Princeps will be given the best care while he is questioned," the woman continued. "But the Rex's concerns must be answer--"

"Fine, then I'm coming with him."