Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 18, Part B

Faint sounds filtered through the fuzzy, sticky cobwebs of Aix's mind. They drifted and caught on lazy thoughts as they made their way toward his awareness, until at last they clarified into a young male voice.

"Come on, just try."

"I cannot."

For a moment, Aix thought the voice spoke to itself. Perhaps the Eyes did not merely cause madness, but were mad as well, talking to themselves like that.

Though why was the voice so young? Shouldn't a planet sound impossibly old? His brow furrowed as his mind struggled to puzzle it out.

"Sure you can." Laughter touched the voice. Not an elder's wise, warm laughter, but juvenile good humor. "I believe in you."

"Domi--"

"Just repeat after me: shit."

Affronted tension filled the second voice. "I cannot say that."

"Expand... expanding your brother's vocabulary, young Erus?" Aix asked. His own voice came out in a low croak but proved serviceable. He peeled his eyes open.

"Aix!" Domi's face lurched into his field of vision, and Aix grimaced as it wobbled in the air before him and seemed to expand into a watercolor of neutral colors backlit by the amber light of a resin lamp. But after a moment it settled into the boy's familiar visage, albeit wobbly about the edges. "How do you feel?"

"Tired," Aix murmured. "Weak. But well enough, considering."

He had expected to feel far worse, honestly. The symptoms of clivia poisoning had descended swiftly after Ausus's pups sliced twin shallow stripes behind his ear. He'd succumbed to fevered sleep within moments, curling upon the empty pod's warm, springy floor the instant Ausus had guided him to lie down.

Daedalus's face swayed into his line of sight to join the younger twin's. The boy scrutinized him, warm brown eyes almost like Valens's amber gaze in the steady glow of the clivia resin light on the ceiling above him.

The twins really did look like they could be Valens's half-brothers. The Eternal Radiance--well, the universe, in any case--had an odd sense of humor.

Aix cleared his throat and yanked his wandering thoughts back on track. "Any changes yet?"

The older twin shook his head. "Not yet, Aedilis. Valens grew bored of watching and decided it was safe to let us wait with you for a time. It has been about three hours."

Aix nodded weakly. "Takes six for the crystal scales to appear, usually." He licked his lips; fever had dried them already. "Ausus said eight for the other changes to set in." But only if he lowered the sensitivity of his own prometus, to prevent it from destroying the infectious agent. He'd done so before falling asleep, but hopefully it had been enough.

"Do you hear the Eyes, yet?" Domi asked. He inclined his head to something at Aix's side. "Or them?"

Aix craned his head up off the springy, webbed-mushroom floor long enough to look, then smiled and lay back again, spent. The pair of clivia pups appeared as tired as he felt, one curled next to him in a tight ball like a blue marble, the other sprawled next to his ribs like a fluffy blue feather. He'd be worried about rolling over and crushing them in his sleep, except he lacked the strength to move.

"Not yet," he murmured, feeling sleep already tugging at his awareness as the fever began sweeping over him anew in a warm wave. His lashes fluttered. "Pups... alright?"

"I think so," Domi said. "Ausus said giving you the doses of poison wore them out, but they'll be up and about before you." He cast an uneasy glance at Daedalus. "He asked us to watch over them, too."