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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At last, there was silence. No discordant humming around him, no harmonic ringing above. Just the deep, dark, delicious silence that drew him here to the night-side again and again.
Ausus crawled across the glacier, numb fingers clawing at the ice, burning limbs dragging behind him. Reaching the edge, he peered over the frozen cliff and out over the ice-crusted ocean below, staring into the star-strewn blackness of night above the sea.
The night stared back at him.
Ausus smiled feverishly at the Devouring Eyes. All three outer planets were with him today. Watching. Waiting. Looming.
They had been with him in the black morn as he had stood sentinel over the tower he and Valens claimed days ago, before the worldholder left to report their discovery to the Rex.
The Devouring Eyes had been with him in the black noon as he had used up every last charge of his consecturum to dissolve unending waves of rogue promenia clouds.
They had been with him in the black eve as he had been driven far from the ruins by twisted magic and swarming hordes of vicious clivias, terrified, battered, and poisoned but still alive.
They were with him still now in the black midnight, holding him in their unblinking regard.
"What do you want from me?" he growled at the glaring trio of planets. His body was so hot and weary, infected with crusted tendrils of clivia poison from several deep wounds. He felt the toxins crawling through him, dulling his senses, slowing his thoughts, and sapping his strength. His will.
And within the growing gaps in his awareness, the whispers gathered.
The whispers condensed into a voice, echoes of countless other voices within it. We want you.
He blinked heavy eyelids, his thoughts flowing at a sluggish crawl. He heard imaginary things. That must be it. His poisoned injuries made him hear impossible things. He should focus on his prometus and coax the particles to help treat his wounds. He shouldn't lie here, staring up at the Devouring Eyes and hallucinating. Ausus understood that.
And yet he did not care. "Want me to what?" he asked, pillowing his face on his folded arms and gazing into the Eyes. The planets really did look like eyeballs. All three were milky white with crusted ice at the outer edges, tinged pale pink where the sun he did not see brushed them. In the center, sunlight melted the ice just enough for alien oceans to flow, creating the illusion of vivid crimson irises.
Leave the earthbuilding tower. Give it over to the broken magic. Let it fall.
Ausus chuckled, his weariness stealing half the breath from his incredulous laugh. "Leave it? The Cascade Event started. Something tipped the balance. The tower can restore the Trellis."
He had witnessed the outermost of the night-side Trellis Isles fall during his flight from Eiulatus Vorago, turning to rogue promenia and expanding toward the edge of the Trellis Proper. It would only be a matter of time now before the whole Trellis began to collapse, but the promenia tower he found could stop the calamity. Valens confirmed it might heal the Trellis, and perhaps all promenia with it, if they could learn to use the ancient promenia artifact. And, now, if they could reclaim it.
Your sons.
"What?" Yes, he must be hallucinating. Must be spinning up old memories. There was no way the Devouring Eyes knew of his younger son, abandoned years ago in Urbs Hostiae to save the child's life.
Their magic tipped the balance. They have brought the Unraveling. Do not let them stop it. Destroy the tower. Let it fall. Let all fall.
"Why would I do that?" he laughed. Sweat poured down his face. A Pyrrhaeus would be dead of poison and cold by now. He would be as well soon if he did naught to save himself. "I should report to the Rex. Tell him the end has started."
Tell your leader nothing. Finish what was started long ago.
Finish what was—A chill grew over him as awareness struck like icy lightning. The terrorist attack. The deaths of almost the entire royal worldholder line. His wife's sudden ascension to the Throne of Solitude.
"What do you want me to do?" he whispered.
Become the destroyer of this new world and the restorer of the old.
"Why would I ever, ever do that?" But he could not help listening, even if only to a fantasy woven by his feverish mind. He loathed this world, sometimes. It required slavery and child sacrifice to maintain. It tore families apart. It wore good women down with impossible duty until they could bear it no longer. It made fathers abandon sons in the streets. Did such a world deserve to survive? Sometimes he thought it would be better to destroy it all.
Yes, destroy it, the whispers said. Destroy it, and claim your freedom. Freedom from your golden cage. Freedom from your solitude. Freedom from this unnatural light that stole your wife and sons from you. Wouldn't you like to be free of its maddening song, its shackling claim on your life? Listen to this silence. Don't you want this forever?
It was rather marvelous, this silence. No promenia singing in the back of his mind at all times, giving him a headache and driving him to distraction. No clouds of rogue magic to flee from, no Trellis to relay orders to him in shimmering light. Just the frozen wind through the wilds and the voices whispering in the night.
"Yes," he admitted, brushing the sweat from his eyes with weak fingers. "Yes, I would."
His words were greeted by a low throbbing in the silence. An irregular heartbeat, growing closer.
The clivia rose before him, floating inches from his face above the cliff's rim. Milky white filaments stirred in the air, holding the bestia aloft thousands of feet above the frozen dark ocean.
Ausus levered himself upright. The whispers grew louder and yet less distinct, the silent words melting into a cascade of pure, thundering knowledge.
He understood what he needed to do.
Holding his arms open, he tumbled from the glacier edge and into the countless white filaments of the creature's embrace.
When the screaming ended and the throbbing faded, the night-side silence was, at last, absolute.
