Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 4, Part C

Clean. Domi's Ma smelled too clean, but he still knew it was her even without the faint scent of dust and sweat.

He inhaled her favorite perfume, the handmade stuff old Elate always included for free with the month's candle box, all bitter dark chocolate, rich black cherry, and stinging peppercorn...

"Domi."

He curled into his Ma's familiar warmth and then grumbled, mouth feeling sticky and dry, as she nudged him with a soft huff. If he didn't get up soon, she was going to yank his blanket away, just like she always did...

"Dominulus."

Eyes devour, he was so tired. His bones felt lined with stone. Couldn't she let him sleep just a few more minutes before sending him to put out the rain pails? He was sure they still had some water left from last eve's post-Dimming downpour...

"Come now, Dominulus. Time to get your scrawny arse up."

He'd never understood why she got to curse and he didn't. He wasn't some little kid any more...

"Dominulus Lodicis, wake up right now."

He sighed and forced his eyes open, wincing as brilliant white light flared somewhere before fading.

Groggy, he rubbed his eyes and squinted up into Merula's face. No smudges. Had she gone to the waterwheel to bathe alone? And with that cough?

"Good idea, Lumen," someone said, tone cool and smooth as polished glass. "That wasn't nearly as bad as I expected."

Domi blinked at the intruding voice, then froze, breath stalling in his throat.

Lumen. His Trellis expert. The Trellis. Sweet Eternal Radiance--

The lattice was flaring, of course. Domi tried to calm down, to make the artifact stop reacting, but he couldn't get his sudden fear to flee. His heart fluttered in his chest like a caged sparrow.

"Hush, now." Familiar arms enfolded him, firm and strong. "Come here, kid. You're alright."

He realized then that he was clinging to her. Merula. He was clutching his Ma like some scared little kid.

Even worse, everyone was watching him. Bellus, looking like a man eying an injured animal, wondering if it might bite. Lumen, exhaling a slow, relieved sigh. Arbita, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes. And Valens, looking caught between pity and pique.

Domi's cheeks heated and then burned even hotter as he blinked at the latter two. The newlyweds were in bed, still. Under the sheets. Together.

Outside the skychariot's sleeping chamber window, the Trellis flickered and Domi cringed, glaring at the thing. Eyes devour, he was sure if he so much as sneezed, the stupid artifact would pitch a fit.

He pulled away from his Ma's embrace and scrubbed a hand over his cheeks, trying hard not to look the married couple's way.

Valens shook his head, gaze narrowed in scorn. "Really, alumna?" The older worldholder shifted the sheet aside with a pointed glare and Domi saw, to his immense relief, that both man and wife were fully clothed in wrinkled tunicas and paenulas.

"What time is it?" Domi asked, his voice feeling hoarse, his tongue thick. He felt like he'd had no sleep at all.

"Still the middle of the night, Basilicus."

Domi wilted at the title Bellus gave him. He had hoped it had all just been some awful, bizarre dream, but it wasn't. He was still Princeps.

"We will arrive in Vola Apertus in just over two hours," the protocol handler went on, smoothing a tiny crease from his pale violet paenula.