Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 10, Part B

Domi knew that he was a kid. Still, fifteen years was plenty of time for him to have figured out something: His life was full of pivot points.

That was what he'd started calling them in the whirlpool of his own mind. Pivot points. Moments, mundane little moments not much longer than heartbeats really, when the Eternal Radiance flipped a person's whole life around and sent it careening down a new path.

There had been a lot of pivot points in his life of late. The first drop of blood he'd seen on Merula's pillow what now felt like a lifetime ago. The words "or I'll break her neck" tumbling from his foolish lips. The instant of despair right before he'd asked Cercitis to kill him. The sudden realization two weeks ago that he probably knew how to extinguish his prometus.

The next great pivot started with a sniffle, though he would not realize it until later.

He wiped his nose and gave Valens a sheepish smile as he opened his eyes. "I wasn't sleeping. I was just thinking."

"Right," the older worldholder said, giving him a withering look from where he sat opposite Domi on a black and silver breathing rug. "As the snores prove."

Domi shrugged, wondering whether to admit that they were not snores, just a stuffy nose. The last thing he needed was to have every lifeholder in the palace pounce on him over a cold. Or wonder where he had caught that cold. Or how he'd caught it.

He smirked, remembering Sidus's lips caressing his own on the roof. That certainly wasn't allowed during Solitude. The closest Sidus was allowed near him right now was guard duty. But catching the other boy's pesky sniffle for their illicit deeds was worth it. It felt like a secret, delicious reminder of the time they'd shared.

"Alumna, if you don't pay attention, I am going to have Bellus block thoughts of that boy."

His cheeks burned. "I am not thinking about Sidus," he protested. The words burst out, too fast and loud to be convincing. "Or anyone."

Valens just gave him a flat stare. "Then show me. Take this and put it in the crystal."

"This" was a single promenia particle his aedificans had keyed for him. It hovered somewhere between them, too small to see but almost audible at the edge of Domi's hearing like a word on the tip of his tongue. Valens had keyed it to draw water from the air and wanted him to place the particle in the thumb-sized purple promenia crystal resting on the rug between them.

"I'm not a forgeholder," he whined.

"I am not," Valens corrected, sounding almost as bored as he looked.

Eternal Radiance, that again. "I am not a forgeholder," he tried again. "I cannot do it."

"Yes, you are," his aedificans said and had the gall to yawn. "You are overwhelmingly a worldholder, but there's violet prometus in your laurel too. You need to learn the basics before you do the forgeholder equivalent of destroying promenia."

"What?" Domi snorted, his throat crackling unhappily. "Fixing artifacts?"

"And giving yourself a stroke when you fix those artifacts, yes." Valens ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. "Will you just shut up and try again?"

"That's will you just shut up, Basilicus," Domi grumbled, then wilted at Valens's unimpressed look. "Fine, fine. Such a nag."

Sighing, he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

<>

Aix's newest alumna was late to class and the other youngsters were chit-chatting instead of reading. In other words, it was just another day of teaching, the same here at the royal Seminarium Luminosum conservatory school as it had been at the Silvula Salutis collegium.