Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 16, Part C

Domi didn't know what to hold onto. He only had two hands. Yet his body screamed at him to cling all at once to his fragile twin, his unconscious aedificans, and the bulla warding off the Eyes.

In the end, necessity made the choice for him. With one arm wrapped around his reeling brother's waist, he felt along the wall with the other to steady them both.

He tried not to look down as he and Daedalus followed the pair of eidolons up the spire.

Like a serrated ship's prow, the Restoration Tower leaned over the edge of the squat but still too-high mesa atop which it sat. Its black facade shone with the stars and rogue promenia reflecting against its glossy surface. The ancient entrance at its base, crusted over with generations of wind-flung snow and heaped ice, lay inaccessible far below. And so they climbed the narrow staircase winding around its core to an entrance on the fourth floor.

Domi drew a sharp breath as ice crackled and his foot tried to fly out from under him. His twin's muffled whimper as their bodies knocked into each other made his heart lurch as much as the deadly fall they'd nearly suffered.

"Careful, the steps are slick," the smaller of the two eidolons said.

"You think?" Domi grumbled under his breath, and Daedalus huffed a pained laugh against him.

Thank the Eternal Radiance, they were almost there. The eidolons stepped off the stairs onto a ledge. Beyond, a crumbling archway or perhaps what had once been a window opened into the darkness within the building.

As Domi followed the eidolons inside, darkness fled in a flare of brilliant light, and the bitter cold vanished like it had never been.

"What is this place?" he asked in awe, drawing the arm not wrapped around his brother over his eyes to block out a little of the dazzling pale-gold light spilling around him. A warm breeze ruffled the fur ruff around his face. "I didn't expect it to be like... this."

In sharp contrast to the glossy black stone outside, as his eyes adjusted, all Domi saw around him was white.

Sloping white walls, interspersed with bench-filled nooks, overlooked the icy expanse beyond several archways like the one he'd stepped through. Polished white stone radiated warmth beneath his boots. And carved into the white ceiling above him, a large circle held a white-gold sphere that bathed the whole hallway in relaxing light.

Every last bit of it--the light, ceiling, floor, walls, and even the white benches--crooned. The whole hallway, maybe the whole tower, was made of promenia crystal.

"This place is many things," the taller eidolon said, gazing at Valens and Aix as the pair drifted like feathers to rest on two of the benches in the nooks. "The Ancients erected two towers, one here and the other in the heart of the day-side. The other was razed during the Pyrrhaei rebellion, and Arx Luminosa was built in its place."

Domi nodded, biting his lip, as he guided Daedalus to a third nook. His twin grew heavier in his grip with each passing moment. There was no way Dae could walk on his own right now. Domi doubted he could even stand.

"But this was the first tower," the eidolon's voice drifted toward him from beyond his sight. "The Eternal Radiance first arrived here, and our original Heritage Records remain stored here within the promenia crystals."

Daedalus shook his head but did not speak as Domi lowered him to sit on the bench. The younger twin rolled his eyes. Heresy again, probably. He kept his teasing to himself for now.

"Are we safe here?" he asked instead, lifting his voice to carry to the other nook. "There's rogue promenia all around outside, but this whole place is one giant promenia crystal." The view outside the archway the nook faced was beautiful but terrifying, all twinkling stars, drifting snowflakes, floating obsidian shards, and golden whirlwinds.