Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 12, Part B

Cinis didn't like it when her aedificans made her come and learn. That always meant one of two things, neither of which were very nice. Either she had to sit down and be very still and quiet as she practiced her breathing, or she had to sit down and be very still and quiet as she watched her aedificans mess with blood and puke and other gross things that made Cinis want to puke too.

She wished she had been born a Trueborn, like Ma, Pa, and her big brother, Nex. Then she would be a forgeholder and allowed to play with artifacts and weird old bones with Nex and his aedificans. Instead, she was Empowered and her aedificans's stupid prometus inside her made her a lifeholder.

It wasn't fair.

Still, today she tried to be on her best behavior. Aedificanti was stressed and sad about something, and so were all of the other adults. A lot of people were crying like little kids even though they were grown-ups. It scared her when adults cried.

No one explained anything to Cinis, but she was six, not stupid. Something really bad happened earlier, something that scared even the grown-ups. Ma and Pa had made Cinis and Nex run with them through the cold night to help the rest of the curia throw sopping sheets over the pearlwort and hairgrass fields. Yet Cinis would have obeyed anyway because something had been yanking at her inside, something that made her go out and cover the plants. Afterward, they all huddled back in the ice cave, and there had been a lot of booming and crashing above, making the whole ice cave shake. Ma and Pa made Cinis and Nex hide with them in the warm family tent as the loud sounds made ice, rocks, and little wriggling blue and purple glow-beasties rain down around them.

So when Aedificanti called for her to come and "observe", Cinis didn't grumble or stomp. Instead, she plopped another of the weird beasties she'd found into her jar and then went to do as she was told.

"Aedificanti!" she crowed as she pushed through the tent flap and into the warm infirmary. She waved the jar, and the glowing not-bug inside curled up in the corner of the glass and throbbed red light. "It poked me with its thorn thing and now its color changed!"

Praetor Obitus, her aedificans, straightened from the sleeping boy he was looking at and grimaced. "Didn't I tell you to stop playing with those? And close that flap, quickly. We've lost the promenia heaters."

"I'm not playing," Cinis insisted as she tied the flap closed to keep the warm air in the tent so it could not melt the ice cave outside. "I'm making beastie observans."

"Bestia observations," her aedificans corrected. "And leave the poor glow worms alone." The man shook his head of long, curly hair. "They need to stay in the ice to be safe and happy, and we don't know yet why they're turning red like that. They might be dangerous."

"I told you, it turned red because it poked my--"

"Come here," her aedificans interrupted, putting a waterskin under the boy's armpit. He'd surrounded the patient with the canteens of heated water like he'd once done after Nex fell through thin ice. "I need to treat this patient, and I want you to watch."

Cinis sighed and tried not to drag her feet too much as she shuffled forward. But she could not hide her grimace. The boy had blood all over one side of his face, and his arm, bent the wrong way, looked red and wet in spots. She hated seeing hurt people; it made her squirm. But Aedificanti said she needed to get used to being "in the presence of others' pain" so that when she got her own laurel soon, she'd be able to be a good nurse.

Cinis didn't want to be a nurse or a lifeholder, but Aedificanti didn't care. It was "what the curia needs" and "the way things are".

Sighing, she made herself look down at the boy on the cot and bit her lip. He looked really sick and hurt, pale and sweaty. "Is he going to die, Aedificanti?" she asked in a small voice.