Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 12, Part B

Her aedificans wrapped a blanket around the boy. "No, I don't think so, little one. I'm helping him."

"But what can you do? You're not allowed to use promenia to heal." She'd heard the adults talking when they thought she couldn't hear. The Rex wanted people to save as much magic as possible for some reason.

"We can use promenia for other things as long as we don't use it up," Aedificanti said. "And we still have our minds and our skill. Plus, this boy still has his prometus."

Cinis nodded, but she didn't find the Praetor's words very comforting. "Why does he look so funny?" She'd seen the boy when old Reus brought him into the cave. He'd been pale and kind of blue then. Now, two hours later, he was pale and kind of red all over.

"He was too close to a kind of poison, little one. A burning poison. It makes Lightholders like us sick and it can kill Pyrrhaei and people without prometus. Now hush, Alumna, and let me concentrate. I need to treat him as much as possible before he wakes."

Cinis nodded. That made sense. The boy would probably hurt a lot when he woke up, so it was better to try to help him now. She studied him, chewing her lip as Aedificanti began messing with the boy's arm with that squinty look he always got when he was looking at stuff with promenia. "Can he be my friend when he wakes?" He was older than her, but he looked like he might be nice. There weren't many other kids in the curia to play with, but she bet she could get this one to pretend to be a hunting clivia while she hid.

"Why don't you ask him when he's feeling better?" Aedificanti waved absently for her to sit on the mat next to the cot. "Shh, now. Let me work."

<>

When Daedalus first woke, all he felt was pain. Everything hurt, so much so that at first he could not distinguish one thing screaming for attention from another.

His prometus could tell him what hurt and why. Yet when he tried to concentrate enough to connect with the particles within him, agony spiked higher. He abandoned the attempt, breathing hard.

After the pain, gradually, came confusion. Why did he hurt so? Why was there no relief? What had happened? Where was he?

He tried opening his eyes, but it took time. His lids felt heavy and when he cracked them open, the light hurt his eyes so badly he closed them again. One pain blossomed in response to the light, unfolding from the others to make itself known. His head throbbed an angry warning.

As soon as he pinpointed one hurt, others clamored for attention. A tearing sensation clawed at his side with every shallow breath. His arm shrieked in unending waves, making him whimper as he waited for relief that never came. Nausea churned in his belly and his skin felt tight. Hot.

He must have made a small sound. A cool hand brushed his forehead, then gently tapped his cheek until he groaned and forced tearing eyes open.

"Good," a man's voice said. Daedalus squinted and made out a great cloud of darkness, shot through with sickening green lightning, before the shadow resolved into a great mane of black curls and a lifeholder's laurel. "You're awake."

"Yes." The single quiet word sent pain reverberating through his skull and he grimaced. Why wasn't the agony going away?

"You hit your head pretty hard."

"I did?" He remembered nothing of the sort.

The man nodded and leaned over, waving a candle flame in Daedalus's face and leaning forward so much to stare at him that the boy could smell the coffee on his breath. "Yes. How do you feel?"

"Hurt," he croaked. He shivered, chilled and too-hot at once. The coffee breath did not help his nausea. "Sick." He licked his lips, finding them cracked. "What is wrong with me?"