Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 13, Part A

Decus sighed, taking in the boy who came to stand before the dais. The Princeps wavered on his feet, held upright only by the iron grips of the Electi escorting him. He'd been badly hurt somehow, and Decus wondered how much of the proceedings the boy comprehended.

It did not matter, of course. Daedalus would play his role one way or another.

"Kneel, Princeps Daedalus Adurere," Decus said, summoning regal authority. He hated this but, as always, he would do what must be done for the good of the world.

The boy gazed up at the throne with dazed confusion but did as commanded under the weight of the Electi's hands. He sank to his knees, face lined with pain, and the Rex saw a splint on one of the arms bound behind his back.

It hurt Decus to see the boy he'd known from infancy so injured. Daedalus's waxy complexion and the dried blood crusting one side of the Princeps's face spoke of a painful journey back to Vola Apertus and a spike of regret stabbed Decus. The boy should have stayed far away from the capital.

The Rex glanced at Princeps Oliva, who sat enthroned lower on the tiered dais alongside her fellow Principia. The Princeps Lifeholder held her face rigid. Stony. She herself had recommended that lifeholders perform no healings so that promenia might be conserved. Decus doubted she wished to waste magic on the person who set the calamity necessitating such bitter rationing into motion.

He clenched his jaw and sighed. Daedalus must not receive magical healing. Decus could not permit the people to witness a promenia expenditure for the boy's sake. Not when the whole world suffered heartbreakingly preventable losses every hour as lifeholders denied healing to the gravely ill and injured.

"Good people," Decus addressed the crowd at last. Those gathered in the salutatio hall would hear his judgment now and the memory Buccina recorded in the Caeles would slowly drift around the world in the hours to come. "I call upon you, as the Eternal Radiance's chosen, to hear my verdict and sentence for the crimes of Princeps Daedalus Adurere."

The gathered Promethidae shifted, less a glittering sea now as a school of sharks. If they wanted blood, Decus could only imagine how the Pyrrhaei felt. He must keep this situation from growing into an even greater crisis.

"Thirty-six hours ago," he began, "the Eternal Radiance demonstrated its divine displeasure in ways none of us could ignore. We all suffered the holy rebuke together, which descended upon us in swift, brutal justice from on high. Now, millions of people have returned to the Eternal Radiance, restored to divine grace only in death. Many more still shall follow if we do not discover the source of the Eternal Radiance's just wrath and make amends.

"We have all spent these past crimson hours in prayer, wondering why this calamity befell us and how we might atone and restore the Divine Light's sacred blessings. And at last, I have learned of a grave transgression against our god, our world, and our people."

He turned to Daedalus. "Princeps Daedalus Adurere grew up here in Arx Luminosa knowing from infancy that he would one day inherit the high office of Princeps Worldholder and, with it, the sacred duty as Keeper of Heaven and Earth to hold and preserve the Trellis. He knew the grave ramifications should he fail in his duty. He knew that duty must come before all else, whether self or family. And yet when the Princeps ascended to the throne and learned of the existence of an illicit younger twin brother, he selfishly cast duty aside and, with it, threw the world to flame.

"As you know, a Princeps cannot and must not have a living twin. The magical interference of a royal twin threatens the stability of the Trellis and, with it, the whole world. Princeps Daedalus ought to have reported his twin brother and surrendered him for euthanization to protect the Trellis. Instead, he conspired to not only hide his twin but tried to surrender the Trellis to his untrained brother.