Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 14, Part B

Princeps Buccina had not ceased glaring at him all evening, and the Rex was growing weary of it.

"Is there something you wish to say, Basilicus?" he asked, trying not to move his lips very much before the watchful eyes of the masses.

He and Princeps Buccina processed with Princeps Oliva, Princeps Fidentia, and the rest of their royal retinues down the Via Pomosus. Pyrrhaei throngs flanked them to either side, and the grand avenue's fruit trees had been stripped by a crowd more interested in food than funeral rites.

"This is a disgrace, Augustus." Buccina flicked a glare over her shoulder.

Behind them, ten Electi groaned under the weight of the massive black pillar they carried. Augmented starholder strength only extended so far.

"Trellis Descent destroyed most eidolons," the Princeps Mindholder went on. "They're not going to step through that pillar to join the procession, and you know it. And the dust? The cypress branches? The evening funeral?" She gave a tiny shake of her head, her regal bearing as stoic as his own despite her heated words. "Now you treat him like a child? After executing him like an adult? Surely the people must see through this pageantry."

Decus sighed. "The people need honored traditions in times like this." Therefore, yes, he'd arranged a funeral fit for a child Princeps. He'd scheduled the rites for early evening, as appropriate for a young person who died too early. And he'd ordered the servants to refrain from mounting cypress branches atop the Onyx Palace's doors or sprinkling the corpse with dust. The boy had been beardless still at the time of death and thus pure, making such cleansing rituals unnecessary.

"You're cherry-picking what traditions to honor, Augustus."

Decus narrowed his eyes at the woman as the procession led by Princeps Laetus stopped outside Arx Luminosa's western odeon. "I am always happy to hear your thoughts and counsel, Basilicus, but you will mind your tongue."

Her jaw clenched, but thank the Eternal Radiance, she stepped a few feet away to focus on Laetus as he watched servants transfer his brother's body to the bier. Her promenia hummed, a faint drone that swept toward the inexperienced Princeps.

At last, peace. Decus tried not to sag beneath the weight of his heavy paenula and even heavier burdens as he listened to the child Princeps, voice cracking, call upon the torchbearers to ignite his brother's funeral bier.

The Regum Chorici broke into song, and with every rising note of the familiar epicedion, Decus's heart sank. He had attended a great many state funerals over the years and heard the haunting twelve-part harmony many times. But he'd never heard it at the funeral of a child he'd executed. And he'd never heard it under an unrelenting blood-red sky as a growing chill, eerie blankets of glowing night-side moss, volcanic eruptions, and bestia attacks swept a Trellis-less planet.

The notes of the ten-string cinyra lyre accompanying the choir sent a shiver down his spine. He half-turned, expecting to see the formless shadow of Daedalus's shade lurking behind him to take revenge.

Instead, Decus's eyes found something far worse.

"Eidolon," one of the Electi hissed.

The Rex stared, wide-eyed and stricken with terror, at the radiant woman approaching him. The whispering crowd parted to either side of her like water, leaving her approach unobstructed. Eyes of molten gold burned into his soul.

"Eternal Radiance preserve us," Princeps Oliva whispered. "Is that..."

"Princeps Verita," Decus managed. "You... You are..."

She stopped on the other side of the double line of Electi, raising a brow as they squeezed tightly together to block her passage and gripped their cludens. The prometus-disrupting weapons would do nothing against her promenia form.