Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 18, Part A

"Do you honestly believe that you can quell us? For all your vast power, your numbers amount to but a tiny droplet against our raging wildfire."

-- Tibulus Fortis,
Leader of the Pyrrhaei Rebellion,
49th year before the Restoration,
from A Garden of Fragrant Heresies

*~*~*~*

"Did you stare at the Eyes too long?" Aix's incredulous alumna demanded as the others stared at Aix like one of the burrow's strange mushrooms sprouted forth from his head. "Why the hell would you want to Blend?"

"My mind is sound, Valens," Aix said, lip twitching as the younger worldholder's own alumnas regarded him with dubious expressions, one gaping at him open-mouthed, and the other staring at him wide-eyed. "We've spent your entire adult life trying to address the threat rogue promenia posed. I studied everything. The survival strategies of the Pullati, the customs of the night-side, even emergency measures people resorted to after the Pyrrhaei Rebellion. Until now, I found few ways for civilization to survive in a Trellis-less world. But this solution offers us a chance to not just survive, but thrive."

"By changing into whatever he is?" Domi asked, waving his hand at his father.

Aix offered Ausus a polite nod, remembering the curious and determined youth who once studied at the Silvula Salutis Collegium. "You seem to be the same person." Still as inclined to throw himself fully into whatever interest caught his attention and neglect other priorities, like family. Aix kept that to himself. "Am I right?"

Ausus shrugged. "My body feels different, but yes, I feel like the same person." He swallowed, voice hushing as he said, "At least, as much as anyone can be the same after everything that's happened."

Aix nodded. "There, you see?" The others did not look convinced, but they were not the ones planning to Blend, were they? Still, he wanted them to understand his choice. Accept it. "I think it will be more like kindling for the first time than changing."

"That's a huge change..." Domi said, his voice a low, dark mutter. Daedalus offered his twin a sympathetic smile.

"But do you really trust him, Aedilis?" Princeps Buccina asked.

Aix turned to the strawberry blond woman, who brushed a lock of wavy hair over her shoulder. "I'm not a mindholder, Basilicus. But I've worked with many children." He turned from her, inclining his head to the pod's youngest inhabitants. "Come here, please, you two." He chuckled as Domi and Daedalus exchanged looks and began to step forward. "Not you." He pointed past them to Ausus and the pups curled on his shoulder. "You."

Daedalus frowned as one of the pups stirred slowly and drifted Aix's way while the other flitted through the air toward him with a sharp pulse. "You think he's telling the truth about them? That they're intelligent?"

"I think there's a good chance, Basilicus." He held out his hands. "And I think I can prove it."

"Aix!" Valens snapped, face twisting in alarm as first one pup, then the other, surged toward him.

"It's alright," Aix murmured, silently grateful the pups didn't prove him wrong as he accepted them into his hands. Instead of razor-sharp filaments that cut to the bone, silky, smooth tendrils, faintly warm, curled around his fingers as the pups let him cradle them loosely in his palms. "See? There, now." He smiled down at the squirming, dark blue creatures. Their filaments held an opalescent gloss not unlike the inside of some sea shells. "My, you're soft when you want to be, aren't you? "

"They're going to cut you," Valens warned, though he now sounded more dry than tense. "Slice off a nice chunk of your flesh to try to make more clivia."