Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 12, Part C

Daedalus hunched against the howling wind and blinked into blue-lit darkness. Ice crystals stung his eyes as he tried to coax his frozen thoughts into motion.

He knew he must not rest long. Not out in the open. He had found the basalt formation Serenitas created, but the pain in his body and crushing nausea had forced him to collapse against the first meager support he found, far from the curved black stone he sought for shelter. He knew he must not linger long near the cooling but still poisonous Trellis materials strewn across the snow.

But his body refused to move. He was too cold. Too tired. And everything hurt, yet he could not get his sluggish mind to puzzle out a solution.

I must get up, he reminded himself for the fifth or sixth time, each a kind of startling awakening. They came fewer and farther between now. He knew that was bad. He must summon the will to rise and hike through the blizzard, or he would die. But any movement hurt and he had already vomited thrice in the snow during his short walk from the cave opening to the basalt formation. His whole body protested the very notion of rising, let alone walking, and--

"What the hell are you doing out here, you foolish kid?"

Daedalus jerked at the rough voice and then groaned as pain crashed over him at the movement. Gritting his teeth, he pressed his head back against basalt and squinted at the figure who strode through drifting snow flurries, amber light bobbing in one hand. He did not recognize the old man carrying the lantern.

A question. He had been asked a question. "L-leaving," Daedalus answered after a moment.

The old man stepped closer, and in the lantern light Daedalus made out the swaths of clivia fabric and the furred cowl the man wore. One of the Quintus Conatus Lightholders, then, though he saw no laurel glowing from within the layers of fabric.

"Leaving?" the old man scoffed, shaking his head as he peered down at Daedalus. He balanced a basket filled with scraggly, ice-crusted weeds on his hip. "Have you looked at yourself lately?"

"Just r-resting a m-moment." But Daedalus knew he must not rest any longer, lest it become eternal. Gritting his teeth, he pushed against the rock at his back, digging his heels into the snow for leverage.

Bushy brows knit in exasperation. "That's not what I meant. You shouldn't be outsi--" The old man broke off as Daedalus slid back down to the snow with a groan. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I n-need to get b-back to the r-ruins," Daedalus panted and chattered against the pain and cold.

"Are you delirious or something? You can't even stand. We need to get you back inside."

"Cannot. N-not allowed. The p-praetor said I must g-go." He felt like a coward for not saying more, but it was but the latest of a long line of sins. Shame pricked deep. No wonder the Eternal Radiance found him unacceptable.

"The praetor sent you out here?" the older Lightholder said, frowning in surprise. "It's that important that you go?"

"The Restoration T-Tower is our l-last chance." He rested his head back against the basalt, trying to control his breathing as his broken rib shrieked at him. He squeezed his eyes closed. "I m-must tell the others there what has happened and h-help them d-determine how to use it."

"If it exists."

Daedalus shook his aching head with care. "It exists. I s-saw it. We just c-could not r-reach it yet. There was t-too much r-rogue promenia. I must h-help the others claim it."

"So you're going to what? Walk there?"

He forced his eyes open and offered a weak smile. "I do n-not know h-how to f-fly." He must seem like the world's most inept worldholder, and the old man did not even know the true depths of his inadequacy.