Note: Callide is Princeps Verita's new name in the revised version of the first book. I used the new name when I referenced her in the chapter below.
Pearly blue and milky white filaments brushed Domi's face from every direction, and he flinched toward Daedalus. The sharp movement knocked his twin into the tunnel wall with a soft grumble, but thankfully, the clivias' curious touches didn't hurt. With a nervous chuckle--barely audible over the irregular pulsing beats around him of What? Who? What, what?--Domi swatted another filament aside and let the swarm drifting through the barrow carry him toward the surface.
The throng shifted around a bend and then, between one breath and the next, the clivias took to the air in front of him, chanting, Up, up, up, in their simple tongue. For a moment, Domi could only blink in wonder as they rose like dandelions catching a breeze, revealing the lip of the tunnel and the starry sky beyond.
Boots crunching in the snow beneath them, the twins stepped out of the barrow and into a new world.
The Trellis-isle still glowed cyan above the broken landscape of black obsidian and Eyes-touched pink snow. Now, however, the humming arcane device also radiated new colors, rippling flames of black blood and roseate smoke. Above the singing lattice of light, immense clouds of crimson mist trailed in great sparkling streamers between two of the planets and the sky, before fading into the Trellis. What little passed through fell like red ash, weak and diffuse, its countless flickering patterns fragmented into kaleidoscopic shards over the landscape.
"I think the sedative's still messing with me," Domi said thickly as he stared at the alien heavens.
Daedalus shook his head, glancing sideways at him with wonder shining in his blue eyes. "No, I see it too. The Trellis Isle is disrupting the Eyes." His gaze narrowed at the black tower looming on the horizon. "We need to bring it down."
Domi swallowed. Standing underneath this small and yet still colossal piece of the Trellis, their vague plan felt laughably flimsy. He peered out at the clivias, which rose into the star-studded black sky like blue and white snowflakes, their movements lazy and lacking purpose, and bit his lip. Far ahead, the Blended marching toward the tower seemed like a thin ribbon against the snowy expense, a pathetic smear beneath the majesty of the Trellis.
What are you doing here?
Domi jumped as heat washed against his back. Heat and words, accompanied by the irregular fluttering pulse of a very young clivia. At his side, Daedalus yelped and twisted around with him.
Two familiar tiny blue puffs drifted toward them. One landed on Daedalus's shoulder and the other wrapped a filament around Domi's paenula sleeve.
"What are you doing out here?" Domi asked.
That is my question, the pup on Daedalus's shoulder said in a wavering pattern of burgundy and crimson waves. A vague sense of disapproval and amusement floated toward him.
The other pup merely seemed curious. Lilio, the quiet, gentle clivia was called. Ausus had named him after the lily in the Holy Ovidiana and his sweet but ornery brother, Ficus, after the fig.
Domi knew the passage by heart, of course, and the rest of the holy book with it.
"In the Blightlands,
he plants a vineyard.
Truly, the grapevine grows,
exalting with new production
and uprooting the thorns.
The stem yields the sweet fig
and reveals the lily.
He washes the Blightlands of transgression,
pure in heart and deed,
so that he might show his native land
freedom from guilt."
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Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2
FantasyLightholder mages live by many rules. Among these: second-born twins must die for the good of all. In this sequel to Garden of Light, Domi, a fifteen-year-old apprentice sorcerer, has just learned the terrible secret that he is the younger twin brot...
