Cinis didn't like it when her aedificans made her come and learn. That always meant one of two things, neither of which were very nice. Either she had to sit down and be very still and quiet as she practiced her breathing, or she had to sit down and be very still and quiet as she watched her aedificans mess with blood and puke and other gross things that made Cinis want to puke too.

She wished she had been born a Trueborn, like Ma, Pa, and her big brother, Nex. Then she would be a forgeholder and allowed to play with artifacts and weird old bones with Nex and his aedificans. Instead, she was Empowered and her aedificans's stupid prometus inside her made her a lifeholder.

It wasn't fair.

Still, today she tried to be on her best behavior. Aedificanti was stressed and sad about something, and so were all of the other adults. A lot of people were crying like little kids even though they were grown-ups. It scared her when adults cried.

No one explained anything to Cinis, but she was six, not stupid. Something really bad happened earlier, something that scared even the grown-ups. Ma and Pa had made Cinis and Nex run with them through the cold night to help the rest of the curia throw sopping sheets over the pearlwort and hairgrass fields. Yet Cinis would have obeyed anyway because something had been yanking at her inside, something that made her go out and cover the plants. Afterward, they all huddled back in the ice cave, and there had been a lot of booming and crashing above, making the whole ice cave shake. Ma and Pa made Cinis and Nex hide with them in the warm family tent as the loud sounds made ice, rocks, and little wriggling blue and purple glow-beasties rain down around them.

So when Aedificanti called for her to come and "observe", Cinis didn't grumble or stomp. Instead, she plopped another of the weird beasties she'd found into her jar and then went to do as she was told.

"Aedificanti!" she crowed as she pushed through the tent flap and into the warm infirmary. She waved the jar, and the glowing not-bug inside curled up in the corner of the glass and throbbed red light. "It poked me with its thorn thing and now its color changed!"

Praetor Obitus, her aedificans, straightened from the sleeping boy he was looking at and grimaced. "Didn't I tell you to stop playing with those? And close that flap, quickly. We've lost the promenia heaters."

"I'm not playing," Cinis insisted as she tied the flap closed to keep the warm air in the tent so it could not melt the ice cave outside. "I'm making beastie observans."

"Bestia observations," her aedificans corrected. "And leave the poor glow worms alone." The man shook his head of long, curly hair. "They need to stay in the ice to be safe and happy, and we don't know yet why they're turning red like that. They might be dangerous."

"I told you, it turned red because it poked my--"

"Come here," her aedificans interrupted, putting a waterskin under the boy's armpit. He'd surrounded the patient with the canteens of heated water like he'd once done after Nex fell through thin ice. "I need to treat this patient, and I want you to watch."

Cinis sighed and tried not to drag her feet too much as she shuffled forward. But she could not hide her grimace. The boy had blood all over one side of his face, and his arm, bent the wrong way, looked red and wet in spots. She hated seeing hurt people; it made her squirm. But Aedificanti said she needed to get used to being "in the presence of others' pain" so that when she got her own laurel soon, she'd be able to be a good nurse.

Cinis didn't want to be a nurse or a lifeholder, but Aedificanti didn't care. It was "what the curia needs" and "the way things are".

Sighing, she made herself look down at the boy on the cot and bit her lip. He looked really sick and hurt, pale and sweaty. "Is he going to die, Aedificanti?" she asked in a small voice.

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?"

The man sighed at something he saw in Daedalus's eyes but thankfully leaned back. "What's not? Your prometus will heal you over the next few days, but you have a concussion and poisoning from the Trellis. There's a hairline fracture in one of your ribs. And your right arm is badly broken and burned."

Daedalus grimaced. No wonder he hurt, though he still did not understand why the pain persisted. "How?"

"Your companion created a basalt formation to protect you from the Trellis, but you were hurt when all that rock rose up around you."

His companion? Something about that rang a bell. Serenitas? "Where is she?" He remembered flying, icy wind whipping his face and the older worldholder's arm clasped tightly around his waist as she'd carried them past wisps of rogue promenia. The memory was dim. Why had they been flying?

The Trellis. She protected him from the Trellis because... The breath froze in his throat as a sliver of memory returned.

"She didn't make it. I'm sorry."

He squeezed his eyes closed. She'd obeyed his command to bring him to the ice cave and died. But how? All he remembered was fear. Fear and wind and brilliant blue light. Another's will moving him. Kneel. Catch. Pray.

"Will you answer some questions for me so I can see how you're doing? And open your eyes, please."

He forced himself to obey, blinking miserably. "Yes," he whispered.

"Good." The man smiled in that strange encouraging way adults liked to use when speaking with children. "Can you tell me where you are?"

Daedalus peered around him. Shimmering, chalk-white cloth walls, probably made of clivia fiber. Flap, sealed with loosely knotted straps. He had seen tents like this, though from the outside, somewhere... but where... Six cots arranged in orderly rows. A chest with a lantern atop, not made of promenia but flickering candlelight. Strange glowing spots on the tent surface, sapphire, and amethyst, reminding him of... of...

"Ice cave," he whispered at last as another sliver of memory returned. The Trellis collapsed and he went to the night-side to join the crew to address the rogue promenia. Or maybe the other way around? "Base camp."

"Excellent," the lifeholder said with a pleased nod. "And do you know what year it is?"

"855." That one he knew with confidence.

"Not quite," the man said lightly. "It is 870."

"Oh." Which had he said?

He did not realize his eyes drifted shut until the man tapped his cheek again. "No sleeping. Do you know what happened?"

He did, and the memory made his heart hammer in his chest, in his head. "I failed. The Trellis fell." His eyes widened and for a moment the breath stalled in his throat before rushing out of him in a horrified cry. "Eternal Radiance," he gasped, "I dropped it on Urbs Hostiae!"

"Failed?" The man grasped his shoulders as Daedalus tried to rise. "No, don't get up. You're badly hurt. I want you to rest."

The pain in his body made it difficult to resist and Daedalus lay back, groaning anxiously. "But Urbs--"

"Urbs Hostiae is fine; one of my worldholders stepped in for you." Relief made him weak and he sagged, breathing harder than his ribs liked. The man patted his shoulder. "Just rest, now. Let your prometus work and answer my last question. What's your name?"

Something about the question raised an alarm, but he could not recall any other name than his own. "Daedalus," he admitted uneasily.

The man scowled, and Daedalus could not blame him. Everyone must hate him now, and how could he find fault in them for it? Even the Eternal Radiance hated him, rejecting him twice over. What was wrong with him? "Daedalus?" the lifeholder asked. "You share a name with that bastard in Vola Apertus?"

"Y-yes." Why should he have kept his name secret? His scattered thoughts didn't want to gather into anything useful, whirling and blurring in kaleidoscopic confusion.

"Might want to think about changing your name," the lifeholder said dryly.

Something about that rang true, but thinking about it too hard made his headache peak and his nausea roil, so he pushed it away. Instead, he asked, "What is your name?"

"I'm Obitus, the Praetor of Quintus Conatus curia. Will you be alright by yourself for a while? I will send my alumna to help keep you awake."

"Yes, Dominus," he whispered, though he did not want to be alone. But he knew better than to ask when Obitus needed to be elsewhere, doing something more important. "Where are you going?"

The lifeholder rose to his feet from the mat where he had been sitting next to Daedalus's cot. "My curia and I are going to pray."

Pray. That was a good idea. He levered himself up onto one elbow. "I shall accompany you."

Obitus chuckled but nudged him to lie back down. "No, you need to stay here and rest."

"I must go," Daedalus insisted. "I must ask the Eternal Radiance to forgive me and lift this curse from the world." Shame bit deep. "It is my fault." If only he had been what the Eternal Radiance wanted him to be, this would never have happened. The god had rejected him wholly, but if he repented and vowed to be better, then maybe--

"Your fault?" the man asked, stilling and offering a gentle look. "No, you are a child."

Daedalus shook his head. "I was never a child. The world needed me to be far more, but I failed. I must atone."

Obitus frowned, studying Daedalus's face. "What are you saying? You..."

He watched the suspicion dawn as the man looked at him. "I was the Princeps Worldholder," he admitted softly. He bit his lip. "But the Eternal Radiance found me unworthy." He had thought, once, if he did all that he was asked that the god would do all it had promised. But no right deeds could make up for a flaw of character. There was something deeply, profoundly wrong with him, and the Eternal Radiance found him unacceptable. There was only one thing that he could do now to make it right. "I must ask forgiveness."

For a long time, the man just stared at him. Daedalus watched his face pale and then darken with anger, and still the lifeholder did not speak until at last the man hissed, "You're serious?" He was shaking from head to foot, fists clenched.

Daedalus nodded, dropping his gaze. He deserved the hatred, but it was hard to face.

"Out," the man snapped, and reached down, ripping the blanket off him. "Get out!" He grabbed the boy's uninjured arm and yanked him up from the cot. Daedalus barely heard the rest of the words as agony and dizziness filled him and his own voice cried out. "You are not welcome among us. You brought this on us!"

"Please," Daedalus gasped, "I--"

The man shoved something into his chest and the boy found himself clutching his Germinating paenula. "Be glad I do not put you to death here and now for what you did, Bastard." He fumbled at the ties fastening the tent. "You are a curse. Get out!"

As the lifeholder dragged Daedalus out of the tent and toward the ice cave's entrance, a little girl stared after him.

"Where is he going, Aedificanti?" she asked.

"He's leaving," Obitus snarled and shoved Daedalus toward the tunnel leading to the surface and up out of the cave.

Daedalus stumbled along, grasping at icy cave walls for balance. Behind him, he heard the girl's small voice pipe, "But I want him to be my friend."

The man's voice echoed after him. "He is no friend of ours."