An abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery...
Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
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Nausea still held Domi in its grip when he, Valens, and the other Silvula Salutis sorcerers reached the border.
"Never make me do that again," he told Valens, his voice husky from constant vomiting. He lifted his head just enough to cast Arbita a queasy glare as she stepped off the skychariot behind the two of them. "Or at least make your betrothed help me next time."
"Sorry, Kiddo," the physician said with a sympathetic smile. And she no doubt was sorry, for all the good it did him. What was the point of having magic if you didn't use it? "Most of the work lifeholders do uses up promenia. I can't make more of it the way worldholders can."
"But—"
She patted his back with a soothing touch. "I realize airsickness might make you miserable enough you think you're going to die, but until that's an actual risk, I can't spare the promenia for something so minor."
"Minor?" Domi managed around a burp. He held his roiling belly. "I am going to die of this if Valens makes me do it again. I'm sure of it. I'll want to die."
The half-hour journey along the skyway had been awful. Domi had never traveled faster than his own feet carried him or higher than the upper stories of a domus in all his life. Careening three hundred fifty miles an hour along a thread-thin promenia track in a cramped skychamber high above the clouds had been an experience he never wanted to repeat.
"You're back on the ground again," Arbita reminded him as she continued to rub his back. The soothing touch helped ease the nausea. A little. "And look. There's a sight we'll never again get to see."
"We hope," Valens added, his voice grim as his amber eyes narrowed up at the sky.
Domi had never caught his aedificans sounding disturbed about anything. Dread sank like a cold, hard stone into his belly. He followed the man's gaze and gasped. "Oh, that can't be good."
On the horizon, the Trellis weeped golden sparks that fell to the snowy earth below. Beyond the fiery teardrops, no net of light remained at all, just jagged fragments of angry molten gold. They trailed off into a burgundy sky far darker than any Domi had ever seen.
"Is that the night-side?" His voice sounded faint to his own ears.
"No," Valens said. "But it might as well be, without the Trellis."
The other worldholder aedificans, Serenitas—a tall woman with dark-bronze skin and long black hair hanging down her back in a wealth of tiny braids—stepped up beside them. "Can you feel it, Domi?"
"Feel what?" The damaged promenia apparatus almost shrieked, the hum was so loud. He didn't understand how anyone could concentrate enough to feel anything. A headache gathered behind his eyes, distracting him from the biting wind, and blood bubbled from one nostril.
Valens exchanged a frustrated glance with Arbita. "I don't want him trying to sense anything yet, Serenitas," Valens said. He turned to Domi, who found himself relaxing as Arbita's soothing wave of promenia drained his headache away. "When you're more experienced, you'll be able to sense the Trellis's general shape and condition near your location. Worldholders are more sensitive to promenia than the other lineages, and there's a wealth of it in the Trellis."
