"I can't make sense of the concepts referenced in the Ancients' Restoration Tower schematics, Augustus. I know what matter is, but I have never heard of antimatter. And though I have heard the terms fission and fusion before, I have to admit I don't understand their meaning in this context. Nor have I heard of a neo-atom, pseudo-molecule, or much else mentioned in these documents.

However, there are two terms I find familiar, though I don't understand what all the rest have to do with them. Promenia and thus the Trellis, it seems, are both composed of pseudo-molecules which in turn are comprised of neo-atoms. The promenia in the Trellis collects antimatter from storm clouds and solar flares and uses it to ignite something called antimatter-initiated fission-fusion.

Augustus, I do not understand even a fraction of what I have found. But if greater minds than my own examine these materials, I believe the discovery could vastly expand our understanding of the Trellis, magic, and even our civilization."

-- Ausus Viarius,
forgeholder aedilis 2nd rank,
from a communique to Rex Decus Astralis

*~*~*~*

Relief.

Weightlessness.

Freedom.

As refreshing, airy serenity swept through Domi's veins, cooling his anger and replacing it with euphoria, he gasped and sagged against the wardrobe. His eyes fluttered closed in dizzy bliss. Were his feet actually touching the ground anymore? Was there even a world around him? He felt buoyant. He could float up through the ceiling. Up, out, and away from the palace.

The Trellis had left him, thank the Eternal Radiance. The awful thing, unable to dig its molten claws into his prometus anymore, had ditched him and gone back to its rightful arse of a bearer. He could feel it. Or rather he could not feel it. He could not feel the Trellis and good riddance. No ghostly aching, burning weight tore through his back as the arcane lattice nagged him about the Blightlands. No incessant golden lightsong echoed just beyond his hearing. No unnatural heat pulsed in his veins, just a normal fever. No promenia hummed in his ears, just shouts and slamming doors.

Domi's eyes snapped open at that last. And then the boy froze as his eyes adjusted.

Dark. Why was it so dark?

"What?" he whispered, gaping at his room. The royal bedchamber was rapidly filling with shadows and bloody sunlight spilled in through the window. Somewhere, he could hear screaming. Pounding footsteps.

Hadn't Daedalus reclaimed the Trellis yet?

Dread flashed through Domi like lightning and he lurched for the window, his fingers clenching the sill.

Outside, gossamer threads of Trellis light faded high in the burgundy evening sky. Even as he watched, tarnished gold dimmed to blackened bronze.

Domi held his breath and stared, his pounding heart sinking into his belly as the Trellis failed to brighten to its normal post-Dimming golden net. "Dae," he whispered through a tightening throat. "Come on, take it."

Instead, the thin spider strands of gold webbing winked out.

"Daedalus," he hissed, pressing his face to the chill snow-dusted glass and willing the light to return. "Come on. Come on!"

Behind him, his door crashed into the wall. "Alumna!"

Domi whirled around at Valens's choked voice and stared. He had never seen his aedificans look so pale, nor the two Electi stepping into the bedroom behind the worldholder look so fierce.

Valens's golden eyes settled on Domi and tension leeched out of his frame. "You're alive. What--" Then the older worldholder's gaze settled on Domi's throat.

"I--" Domi tried, but horror choked the word, making it little more than a squeak. The Trellis was dark. Why didn't it go to Dae?

Golden eyes wide, Valens surged forward like a charging bull. "Where is your laurel?"

Domi ignored the question, unable to keep his eyes from the window long. Something like lightning rippled through the sky, sickly green, with a weird crackle like crumbling ice. Other than the eerie flash, he had never, ever seen the sky so dark. The sun looked furious, way bigger than it had ever seemed before now that there was no Trellis in front of it.

"I gave it back to him," he said thickly, his eyes refusing to come unglued from the window, the broken sky. "Why isn't he taking it?"

"Who? Daedalus? Did you--" Valens broke off and reached for him. The man's grip was like iron around his arm, and painful. The ache yanked Domi's attention away from the terrifying sight outside the window as Valens half-dragged him to the breathing rug. "Come here now. Rekindle your prometus. Hurry."

"I-I can't," Domi admitted. "I took something. A leaf."

For a long moment, Valens just stared at him, all color draining from the man's face. And then his aedificans was moving again, an unstoppable wave of force that swept Domi up and bore him to the door. Grip tight around Domi's arm, he pushed the boy ahead of him out into the hallway and snapped at the pair of Electi to follow.

"W-what's happening?" Domi asked, head reeling. His knees felt weak and his body shook. Why wasn't the Trellis brightening? Why wasn't Daedalus taking control of it? Eternal Radiance, was his brother alright?

"We have to get underground right away," Valens said grimly.

<>

"I need information, now!" Decus snapped.

The Regis Electi rushed him and his surviving three Principia down the hall toward the Ruby Palace's tepidarium. The warm underground bathhouse chamber's heat and water made it Arx Luminosa's best emergency shelter. He had summoned his Principa here to take cover.

The sky was about to fall. The Trellis. He could barely believe it.

"There is no information in the Caeles yet about what killed him, Augustus," Princeps Buccina said, her normally soothing voice grim. "And the Caeles itself is available for now but will begin to fragment when the Trellis--"

"And what about..." He trailed off, the glimmer of hope fading as the Princeps Mindholder gave a terse shake of her head. "How long?"

"My lifeholder says it will take twenty minutes," she said, breathless. Scared. "At the very least."

Decus squeezed into the bathhouse stairwell as the Electi practically shoved him ahead of them. He had never been manhandled by his security team like this in all his life. But his life had also never been in danger like this. Hurrying his steps, the elderly man craned to look over his shoulder at Collis, the Trellis expert on his royal staff. "How long do we have before the Trellis begins coming down?" It had already started, but those were feeble sparks of dissolving promenia. A quiet warning of far worse to come, strangely beautiful in the smoldering sky.

"Ten minutes, Augustus. Maybe fifteen. No more."

Not enough. That was not nearly enough. His body shook in fear and he nearly tripped over his own feet. His starholder reflexes caught him, reliable even in his fifteenth decade. He hoped he would live to see his sixteenth. He doubted it.

"We need to retake the restoration tower at all costs, then," he said, his voice eerily calm to his own ears. "It's our last hope." He reached his arm back and drew Collis past the three Principia and to his side as they made their way down the narrow stairway. "I need facts so I can give my commands. Five from each of you. The most critical." He nodded at Collis. "You first, Eru--Basilicus."

The elderly Trellis expert gave a shaky nod, his eyes wide and wild. Decus did not blame the man; with poor Daedalus somehow dead, Collis was the acting Princeps Worldholder for the moment despite being neither royal, a worldholder, or even a Promethides. The Trellis expert gulped. "M-most of the Trellis will dissolve as it falls, Augustus, but some Trellis material will strike the ground in a solid form. Worldholders can catch some of it, but not all. Planetwide, we have about fifteen thousand worldholders over the age of fourteen, but they will need to sleep, so that leaves about ten thousand available at any time. Together, they can hold about three and a half million square miles of the Trellis, of almost ninety million around the world."

So little. A wave of dizziness passed through Decus as his mind flew through the calculations his body dreaded solving. Ninety-six percent of the Trellis was going to collapse. The worldholders could hold enough to protect each provincial capital and its supporting farmlands, saving five hundred million people. But the lives of the other five hundred million of his subjects in smaller cities, towns, and villages would be in grave danger. Half of humanity. And that would only be the beginning of the threats descending upon survivors in a Trellis-less world.

Eternal Radiance preserve them, this could become a mass extinction event.

He swallowed, whispering his gratitude to Collis for the grim information, and turned to Buccina. He couldn't make his voice any louder. "You now, Basilicus," he said as they stepped into the palace bathhouse.

"Augustus, we have ten minutes before we lose the Caeles," the Princeps Mindholder said. "When that happens, the Compendium and other records will become fragmented, available only in some regions but not others, so I am transferring as much knowledge here to Vola Apertus as I can. I believe the ranking system will also shatter into local fragments. Also, we will no longer have the capacity for instantaneous communication of any kind around the world. And..." She drew a deep breath. "I believe there is a good chance we will lose the daemons and possibly the eidolons as well."

Decus frowned. "Lose? They will be destroyed?" Losing the daemon entities generated by the Caeles would not be a tragedy, but they would lose living history if they lost the eidolons.

"They will either be destroyed--" Buccina grimaced. "---or we will lose control of them. I'm not sure which."

They absorbed that in silence for a moment, the only sound that of the Electi closing the bathhouse door. The last thing the world needed was a bunch of meddling deceased people, especially if those people insisted on claiming vitally-needed promenia so they could have forms.

Princeps Oliva broke the nervous hush. "It is going to get very cold within days, Augustus," the Princeps Lifeholder said, her gray eyes full of pain. "But not dangerously so in most places. The biggest threat will be famine. Any surviving day-side crops will live for a time with sunlight alone, but they need Trellis light to supplement the green and blue photons the sun doesn't provide. We will need to get any surviving farmlands under promenia crop lamps as soon as possible when things settle. There will be..." Her voice failed her for a moment as tears filled her eyes. "There will be many injuries after the Trellis falls, but lifeholders will need to ration promenia use to prioritize preserving plant life, or..."

"Or we will all starve."

An uneasy silence fell over everyone at Decus's words. He forced himself to keep breathing calmly and turned to Fidentia.

The Princeps Forgeholder's name meant "bold confidence of easterly wind". The young woman did not look bold or sound confident now. Her tone was flat. Dead. "We need to keep about twenty of the dams if we hope to protect vital farmlands, Augustus. Two quake prevention pillars. One hurricane suppression stone. The bestia wards in the capitals' walls. The rest..." She grayed. "The worldholders will need the promenia for the crop lamps. I should unkey it now so it will be available for their use, while the Trellis still extends my reach."

Decus wondered if his ancestors had ever imagined a situation like this when they named their seat of power the Throne of Regret. His voice did not waver as he said, "Do it, Basilicus." He turned to Buccina. "And Basilicus, use the time we have left with the Trellis to ensure that our people will remain calm. Calm and diligent."

"Yes, Augustus," the two women said.

"In here, Augustus," one of the Electi said, opening the door to the tepidarium. She pushed him within the warm, humid chamber beyond, then nodded at the Principia. "You also, Basilici."

Decus stepped to the bathhouse bench, already feeling sweat bead as he lifted his white beard aside to sit down on the warm stone. If they had to stay here long and temperatures dropped as Olivia predicted, the warmth would be a blessing, but for now it was uncomfortable.

Closing his eyes, the Rex reached for the promenia threads tethering him to the failing Trellis. The sense of warning, of thundering doom that had been filling him these last three minutes of darkening skies pressed in on him now as surely as the humid tepidarium heat. Grim knowledge filled him and with it, a feeling of urgency fluttered in his stomach. Time was running out. Invitation and expectation rippled through him, accompanied by a sense of openness, of a vastness stretched before him.

He filled it, drawing on the failing Trellis to issue his commands.

Beloved citizens, heed and obey my will, he projected into the discordant void. You shall take five minutes now to cover whatever crops you can reach with wet sheets or other cloth. After five minutes, you shall take shelter underground. If you cannot get underground, you shall seek shelter indoors. If you cannot get indoors, you shall get under the sturdiest thing you can find. And if you can find nothing, then you shall kneel where you are, cover your head with your arms, and pray to the Eternal Radiance for protection.

Then, narrowing his focus to just the planet's adult and adolescent worldholders, Decus commanded, And you shall catch the sky.