Daedalus hunched against the howling wind and blinked into blue-lit darkness. Ice crystals stung his eyes as he tried to coax his frozen thoughts into motion.

He knew he must not rest long. Not out in the open. He had found the basalt formation Serenitas created, but the pain in his body and crushing nausea had forced him to collapse against the first meager support he found, far from the curved black stone he sought for shelter. He knew he must not linger long near the cooling but still poisonous Trellis materials strewn across the snow.

But his body refused to move. He was too cold. Too tired. And everything hurt, yet he could not get his sluggish mind to puzzle out a solution.

I must get up, he reminded himself for the fifth or sixth time, each a kind of startling awakening. They came fewer and farther between now. He knew that was bad. He must summon the will to rise and hike through the blizzard, or he would die. But any movement hurt and he had already vomited thrice in the snow during his short walk from the cave opening to the basalt formation. His whole body protested the very notion of rising, let alone walking, and--

"What the hell are you doing out here, you foolish kid?"

Daedalus jerked at the rough voice and then groaned as pain crashed over him at the movement. Gritting his teeth, he pressed his head back against basalt and squinted at the figure who strode through drifting snow flurries, amber light bobbing in one hand. He did not recognize the old man carrying the lantern.

A question. He had been asked a question. "L-leaving," Daedalus answered after a moment.

The old man stepped closer, and in the lantern light Daedalus made out the swaths of clivia fabric and the furred cowl the man wore. One of the Quintus Conatus Lightholders, then, though he saw no laurel glowing from within the layers of fabric.

"Leaving?" the old man scoffed, shaking his head as he peered down at Daedalus. He balanced a basket filled with scraggly, ice-crusted weeds on his hip. "Have you looked at yourself lately?"

"Just r-resting a m-moment." But Daedalus knew he must not rest any longer, lest it become eternal. Gritting his teeth, he pushed against the rock at his back, digging his heels into the snow for leverage.

Bushy brows knit in exasperation. "That's not what I meant. You shouldn't be outsi--" The old man broke off as Daedalus slid back down to the snow with a groan. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I n-need to get b-back to the r-ruins," Daedalus panted and chattered against the pain and cold.

"Are you delirious or something? You can't even stand. We need to get you back inside."

"Cannot. N-not allowed. The p-praetor said I must g-go." He felt like a coward for not saying more, but it was but the latest of a long line of sins. Shame pricked deep. No wonder the Eternal Radiance found him unacceptable.

"The praetor sent you out here?" the older Lightholder said, frowning in surprise. "It's that important that you go?"

"The Restoration T-Tower is our l-last chance." He rested his head back against the basalt, trying to control his breathing as his broken rib shrieked at him. He squeezed his eyes closed. "I m-must tell the others there what has happened and h-help them d-determine how to use it."

"If it exists."

Daedalus shook his aching head with care. "It exists. I s-saw it. We just c-could not r-reach it yet. There was t-too much r-rogue promenia. I must h-help the others claim it."

"So you're going to what? Walk there?"

He forced his eyes open and offered a weak smile. "I do n-not know h-how to f-fly." He must seem like the world's most inept worldholder, and the old man did not even know the true depths of his inadequacy.

"You were holding Urbs Hostiae, and you don't know--" The old man broke off and shook his head. "Whatever, fine. Come here. I'll take you."

"What?" Daedalus swallowed and frowned up at him, spotting the glimmers of black glitter in the folds of cloth for the first time. A fellow worldholder, then. Daedalus doubted Praetor Obitus would forgive the old man for assisting him. "You... You should ask y-your praetor for permission f-first."

The older worldholder shrugged. "He wants that Tower claimed as much as anyone."

"But--"

"Come now," the man said, reaching down and gently pulling Daedalus to his feet by his good arm. It still hurt, and he barely heard the next words over the ringing in his ears. "I already saved you from the cold once and you're obviously too addled to use promenia to warm the air."

"Promenia c-can do that?" Daedalus murmured, then felt a little heat seep into his cheeks as the older worldholder scowled at him.

"What the hell has your aedificans been teaching you?" The old man shook his head. "Of course, it can. Come here, I'll show you as we fly. My name's Reus, by the way. Let's go."

<>

Daedalus's second experience flying was far worse than the first. His side felt like a hot mass of glass shards as Reus gripped him securely about the middle, all thoughts and most of the breath driven from him as he endured the agony in rigid silence.

The height, already a misery before, became a nightmare of terror and nausea as the blue-dotted, crimson-tinted snow streaked by below and one of the Devouring Eyes glared scarlet above. He felt too close to the evil planet, the weight of its attention sending shivers racing down his spine that had nothing to do with the chill Reus's promenia had subdued.

Your father is waiting, he thought he heard the planet whisper within his pain-paralyzed mind. Join him.

The intrusive idea hurt worse than any physical pain could. What had become of his father, he wondered for the thousandth time in recent weeks? He had thought he would find Ausus at the ruins. But there had been no sign of the forgeholder save a discarded consecturum, half-buried in the snow. He almost dreaded entering the tower, half sure he would find a frozen corpse instead of his living father.

"Shit."

The curse drew him out of troubled, fearful thoughts. Talking made his side scream, so he blinked at the old man holding them both aloft, then followed Reus's grim gaze down to the great expanse of snow below.

Eiulatus Vorago's ancient expanse of collapsed ruins sprawled beneath them, with the Restoration Tower--the only building yet standing--looming in silent sentinel over the devastation. "Chasm of Lamentation", the jagged wound in the earth was called now, but once it had been known as Egressus Navigii, "Barge's Landing". Heresy, of course. Some night-side curias prevailed in error, asserting that the Eternal Radiance first touched Aquarius not with a blazing hand on the day-side but a shining galleon here on the night-side.

Now, neither holy hand nor sacred barge hovered over the land, only a swelling sea of what looked like downy swan and bluejay feathers.

Daedalus knew with a sick certainty it was neither. "Is... What is that?" he whispered, hoping his concussion made him see things that were not there.

But there was no mistaking the irregular throb, like a failing heartbeat, that rose from the dandelion sea swarming the camp below.

"Clivia," Reus confirmed grimly.

"What?" Daedalus whispered, then jerked in the man's hold as Reus turned away, the speed of their flight already increasing as the old man summoned more promenia to him. "No!"

"Stop squirming, Kid," the older worldholder growled.

"We must not leave!" Daedalus gasped. He ignored the pain tearing through him as he struggled to crane his neck enough to see over Reus's shoulder. He could barely make out the camp's fires as the older worldholder gained altitude, but the western side of the camp, where Cercitis and Astricus had pitched their tent, was covered by a billowing cloud of clivia. "My family is down there!"

"So is a giant clivia swarm," Reus said, though now his gruff voice gentled even as he kept an iron grip on the boy. "I'm sorry, Kid. If they didn't get out already, they're not going to get out."

Daedalus reached out his arms, his senses, his magic, claiming what promenia he could even as pain slammed through his skull. "No! Let me--"

Reus growled something as they teetered and dipped in the open air. Daedalus squirmed, digging an elbow in where he could, and the world lurched as the older worldholder's grip on him slipped. Then air and hands caught him anew, wiry but strong arms slamming about his middle and the old man's chest crashing against his injured arm. A scream ripped out of Daedalus, followed an instant later by his awareness.

When he came back to himself, he rested with his back against basalt, ice and snow melting beneath him where he sat.

"I'm sorry," Reus said softly, his promenia humming as a glowing azure stone sailed off into the night.

Daedalus squinted at the rock outcropping. "Where are we?" he mumbled thickly. Surely they had not returned to the ice cave. Surely they had not left Cercitis, Astricus, and all the others to their deaths.

But the basalt and fiery blue stones were all too familiar. He was back.

He shuddered in horror as realization crashed over him. His parents were dead. All four of them, now. Dead.

What will I tell Sidus, Epileus, and Gemma? he wondered numbly. His breath stalled in his chest as he stared, wide-eyed, into the night. Will they become eidolons? There is no Trellis.

Reus sighed, lifting another of the poison stones with his promenia and casting it away to join a pile in the far distance. "I'm not allowed to bring you in, Basilicus. The praetor told me quite a story."

Basilicus. Daedalus closed his eyes. He longed for the deadly cold to seep into him anew, to end this, but Reus's promenia cocooned him in a soothing bubble of warmth. "What you heard is true," he murmured. "You should leave me."

"Hmph," the old man grunted. His next words made Daedalus's eyes snap open anew. "No, I don't think I am going to do that, Basilicus."

"Why not?" Whyever would this man stay with him? Even the Eternal Radiance wanted nothing to do with him.

Another sapphire stone flew up against the stars and then descended, landing in the distance with a clatter. "You want to fix the Trellis?"

Daedalus managed a small nod. "Of course." Though he did not know how he would do such. He could not win the Restoration Tower by himself. Especially not while injured.

"Well, so do I."

Daedalus frowned at the old man. "But the tower--"

"Needs to be taken, Basilicus." Reus released the promenia he was using to clear away the Trellis stones and strode to Daedalus's side. "To do that, we need the Rex to send more people." He crouched down, offering a hand. "You need to go to Vola Apertus and report what you saw."

"Yes." Daedalus stared at the proffered hand for a moment, then accepted it with his unsplinted arm. He groaned as his body protested regaining his feet, and fear spiked through him. "They will execute me, though." And then Domi would die as well. He felt sick.

"Probably," Reus admitted. He straightened Daedalus's paenula hood so that the fur cradled his sore face, chasing away the slight chill within the man's warming bubble. "But millions of people are probably dead because of you. Perhaps it is your turn to go to dust." He shrugged. "But you can do something good in the meantime."

"Yes," Daedalus agreed softly.

And perhaps he could get Domi out of Vola Apertus and take his twin's place before his little brother suffered the fall with him.