Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 15, Part C

The howling wind swallowed Valens's words and carried them away into the black night beyond the skyhaven.

"What?" Domi shouted to be heard above the flying snow flurries. The grains of ice grated like sand, and Domi's nose ran in protest against the bitter cold. The rest of him, however, had been stuffed inside so many layers of clothing he didn't fear getting cold no matter how low temperatures dropped here on the night-side.

As soon as they'd arrived at the skyhaven, Aix and Valens had secured heavy-duty Pyrrhaei Germinating clothes for everyone in the skyhaven market and pawned most of the fine items they'd brought with them from the palace. Domi insisted Aix give the leftover coin to a very confused old Pullati woman begging just outside the skyhaven market; he knew the money would find its way back to the local gang for distribution. His new secretary would probably have serious questions about his financial transactions, but if the man had a problem with it, he could go hug a clivia.

Now, in night-dweller cold-weather gear, Domi felt like a puffy mushroom. Four layers insulated his feet and two surrounded his legs--four if he counted the woolen legwarmers he wore atop his double set of long sealskin undershorts and the furred straps he'd wound about his legs to hold the warmers in place. A calf-length thin clivia silk inner tunica, thick woolen outer tunica, and heavy reindeer paenula--dyed dusky-blue, with a brighter blue fur trim around its hood--protected the rest of him.

And now Valens wanted him to wear mittens, too. Domi already found it hard enough to lift the bowl of breakfast gruel his aedificans had bought in the skyhaven market to drink the thin but hot and sweet oats. His arms felt like sausages.

"What?" he asked again as his aedificans said something else that the wind carried away.

The older worldholder's eyes narrowed and he sat down on the bench beside Domi, sandwiching both twins between himself and Aix as they ate their meals. He dropped the mitts and scarfs he'd acquired into the boys' laps. "I said I can't believe you lived like this, Alumna," he shouted over the gale. The man glared at the flying snow as though he expected it to stop misbehaving. "It's freakishly cold."

"It's not so bad." Domi had faced frigid Germinatings before with far less clothing than this to protect him. He was fairly comfortable, though the temperature here in the heart of the night-side plunged way lower than back home, he was sure.

"It's awful. I don't know how people survive this without prometus."

Domi bit his lip and looked away, watching Daedalus put on his mittens. People didn't survive, sometimes. Pullati froze to death every Germinating. But at least people here in the deep Blightlands knew how to live without the Trellis. If only they could teach the rest of the world. Fast.

"We will have to be very careful," Aix said on Daedalus's opposite side. "Without prometus, we're more vulnerable than Pyrrhaei."

"I can barely walk like this."

Aix smiled as Domi's lip twitched at Valens's whining complaints. "You'll adjust in the next few hours," the lifeholder said. "But yes, our balance and reflexes will be off compared to what we are used to, young people. We won't be as strong either, so be cautious about what you try to lift."

"And don't get cut," Domi said. "You won't stop bleeding and the wound will foul like that." He snapped his fingers and grimaced as memories of cauterized wounds and fever shakes welled. "Trust me."

Aix nodded. "If you are injured in any way or start to feel ill, I need to know right away." He glanced from one Lightholder to the next, pausing on Valens with an arched brow until the younger man snorted and ducked his head to eat his gruel. "We should also each spend a few hours a day unsuppressed between doses to let our bodies recover. But be vigilant."