Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 18, Part C

"You've really got to go to bed, Alumna. It's well past Brightening."

Valens offered Aix a groggy nod as the two of them, walking side-by-side, followed Ausus through the tunnels back to the pod. "I will if you will," he said, his voice feeling thick.

Eternal Radiance, it had been a long night, but for the first time in a while, he felt he could at last truly rest. The world was still not safe, but he could catch his breath now.

The Blended had a plan. It had taken almost four hours of poking holes in their ideas to make it into a good plan, but he thought it would work. The relief left him almost dizzy. Or maybe that was the fatigue.

He yawned. Yes, he needed to sleep, especially since there was nothing that could be done this very moment to push the plan forward.

Aix rubbed his forehead with a wince. "I need to rest, too."

Ausus smiled sympathetically as they stepped within the man's spacious pod. "Is the headache coming on?" He patted the lifeholder's shoulder as the newly-Blended man only glanced at him with a pained squint. "Thought so. The best thing for it is to sleep, trust me. When you wake, you'll probably start hearing the clivia. The Eyes will be harder to pick up, though."

"Because of the Trellis?" Aix asked, picking his way around Domi and Daedalus with care. The twins slumbered not far from Buccina on the floor, which had depressed slightly beneath their weight, cradling their bodies in a way that looked comfortable enough.

Ausus nodded, studying the twins as the pair shivered a little. He stared at the floor, and a thin gauze-like substance bubbled up and then crawled across the boys, then Buccina. "You should get some rest. You too, Aix."

Valens shuddered, but at least the grayish-brown gauze didn't appear to confine them in any way. Though it was the ugliest blanket he'd ever seen.

He glanced at Ausus. "Do you Blended need to sleep? Or is that just those who are changing?"

Ausus rolled his eyes. "We're human, Valens. Yes, we sleep. Even the clivia sleep." The forgeholder nodded pointedly at the pair of pups, smiling in pleasure.

Valens followed his gaze and snorted. Instead of lying curled in the radish bowl where they had been left earlier, one now slept tangled in Domi's hair and the other lay half-buried within the collar of Daedalus's paenula.

The Blended man chuckled and crouched over his older son, reaching down to gently pull the pup free from Daedalus's clothes, extracting filaments one by one with care. "I should put them someplace safer," he said. "They're much harder to hurt than they look, but still." He gently pried the clivia free of his son's clothing, then froze, frowning.

Valens frowned back, stepping toward the man. "What?"

Ausus pressed a palm to the boy's cheek, then Daedalus's forehead. "He's very warm," he said, brows knitting. "At least, I think so. I'm colder now than I used to be, so it's hard to tell." He straightened, cradling the clivia in his palms. "And he's not waking," he added with a worried glance down at the limp pup.

"Let me see," Valens said, crouching next to the older twin. A palm to the boy's forehead confirmed what Ausus suspected. "Yes, he's very warm." He withdrew his hand, sighing. With all the stress the twins had been under, it didn't surprise him that one had fallen ill the instant they reached anything close to safety.

Aix, kneeling next to Domi, cleared his throat. "He's running a fever as well," he said, pressing a hand to Domi's forehead and smiling as the boy curled toward the no-doubt cool touch. Promenia hummed, wafting toward Buccina in a mirage-like cloud, far thinner than normal, and the old man frowned at the woman for a moment before nodding. "She's fine." He smiled apologetically as the Princeps Mindholder opened her green eyes and blinked at him. "Forgive me, Basilicus. I just wanted to check your health."