Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 7, Part A

So this was how the common people lived.

Praetor Cerasus's domus was small. Not tiny, of course, for a provincial royal family still called it home. But after spending time in the spacious salutatio hall, Daedalus expected the rest of the mansion to echo the great hall's airy vastness.

Instead, the rest of the domus mirrored Silvula Salutis curia's commitment to simplicity and conservation. Daedalus supposed such made sense, as the Praetor ought to be an example to the people of the values and principles espoused by the ruling curia he led. Still, it surprised Daedalus. He had not known until now that regality could be divorced from majesty.

He found he rather liked it. The simplicity of his days, a slow, almost lazy progression of salutatios, meals, classes, study, and frivolity, allowed him ample time to rest and think. The quiet, compared to the bustle of palace life, permitted him space to breathe and... be.

There was still duty, of course. No one on Aquarius was ever free of duty, for collective survival and prosperity depended on each and every person doing their unique work. But now Daedalus's work was a student's work. And not a student of the Trellis. Not a student of law and etiquette and religious observance. Just a worldholder student. A common student, like any of Serenitas's lowborn alumnas.

It did not take him long during his first week under her tutelage to learn that his royal education had been superior in some respects and deficient in others.

He knew how to create, rehabilitate and destroy promenia. He could raise and level mountains, carve coastlines, quell earthquakes, secure border defenses against bestia, coax weather systems into new patterns, master himself, and control the Trellis.

But strike a single bestia with lightning? Dodge clivia? Fly? He was the Princeps Worldholder, Keeper of Heaven and Earth. Or he had been. What need had he of petty parlor tricks?

Serenitas smiled up at him and brushed her cascade of long black braids over her shoulder. "I promise I will catch you if necessary, Alumna," she said. He was not her alumna, not really, just her student, but with his brother's true aedificans four thousand miles away, neither of them fretted over technicalities. "But I believe you are ready for this."

Daedalus frowned down at the woman and the cluster of worldholders gathered around her. These were not his fellow conservatory students, who he studied with in the early afternoon. No, these were his fellow terrarium students, who he studied with in the late afternoon to help him catch up on things he was shocked--and Serenitas was unsurprised--to learn that he did not yet know how to do.

The smirking ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen-year-olds peered up at him with sly eyes to see if the "Pullatus" could throw himself off the basilica roof without falling to his death.

Daedalus squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remind himself that his younger brother, a thief, was not afraid of heights. He just needed to take a tiny step to the edge of the roof. Draw promenia to himself. Visualize the wings of a bird and shape the promenia into featherlike projections with air passing beneath to generate lift.

Easy, compared to orchestrating the planetwide shift from Harvesting to Germinating season last month.

He leaped.

Sowing was only seven weeks away and Domi would have to--

His promenia scattered along with his concentration, and Daedalus's belly surged into his throat as his body plummeted to the snow. He shrieked, limbs flailing in wild desperation to grasp at chill, empty air.

A hum filled his ears then, and a wavering mirage occluded his vision. Air cushioned his body, catching him and halting his sharp descent.

His terrarium classmates snickered as Serenitas set him gently atop the snow.