"Home? This prison palace you've built of marble and onyx is not my home and never will be. I was born on the night-side. The everlasting dark is in my blood. The Starlit Tower is my home."

--Princeps Worldholder Aura Adurere,
45th year before the Restoration,
from "Holey Holies",
out of A Garden of Fragrant Heresies

*~*~*~*

"No," Valens said when Domi explained his idea.

The word hit the boy like a punch to the gut, and Daedalus's face mirrored his own shocked dismay. "What do you mean, no?"

"This is it," Daedalus urged their aedificans, fists clenched at his side. "This is our chance to solve this. How can you refuse?"

"Because," Valens said, leaning against the nook's pristine wall and shaking his head, "the last time your brother tried fixing a promenia crystal that way, he gave himself a stroke."

"I don't care!" Domi snapped, fury thrumming through him. Why was Valens standing in his way when he was so close to righting this monstrous wrong? "I need to do this! I don't care if I have a stupid stroke. I need to fix the tower now!"

"Well, I care," his horrible aedificans said, amber eyes narrowing. "I forbid you to try this." His gaze shifted to include Daedalus in the stern look. "At least until we have time to train you to do so safely. We can't risk something going wrong.The tower is far more important than a consecturum. And so are you."

"Forbid-- He is the Princeps!" Daedalus snapped. Domi nodded firmly, standing straighter at his twin's side. His brother's voice stuttered. "We are the Princepses," he corrected with an uncertain glance at the silently listening Kaitlyn and Logos. "You overstep your authority, Aedificanti."

Valens offered an infuriating shrug. "I don't care if one of you are the Rex himself, Alumna. You two are not going to just rush off and do this." Domi glared furiously, and his aedificans sighed. "It is not a terrible idea, but we need to approach this with caution." He shook his head as both twins opened their mouths to protest. "Being Princepses doesn't shield you from some horrible brain injury."

"Actually," Aix said, gray eyes thoughtful, "in this case, I believe it does." He held up a hand as Valens turned and glared at him. "I will not stop you from doing what you feel is best, Alumna. They're your charges. But it is important to remember that Domi truly is a Princeps now. Because he held the Trellis, he can easily tolerate lesser workings that would have harmed him before." He nodded at Daedalus. "As can his brother. The bigger issue, however, is skill. That'll take time to develop."

Domi's heart, which had been pounding with renewed hope as Aix spoke, plummeted. "But you just said we have the skill!"

"He said we have the power, Brother," Daedalus said softly. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "But power is different than skill. That was why, despite being able to create a lightning storm, I could not have flown us here as Aix and Valens did."

"Still, we can't just do nothing," Domi snapped. "The world is falling apart as we sit here arguing. It's getting colder every day, and the crops will fail soon."

"I didn't say you'll do nothing," Valens said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "But you're not going to mess around with one of the most powerful promenia artifacts in the world until you know what you're doing. We'll start with something smaller. Simpler."

"Simpler?" Domi asked grudgingly.

His aedificans nodded and rose to his feet. "Come with me."

"While you train them," Kaitlyn said, "there is something I need to do."

"Betray us?" Domi asked snidely. He probably shouldn't be so rude, but though the woman told fascinating stories, he didn't trust her as far as he could throw her.

She shrugged, nodding for her silent daemon companion to stand beside her. "I am not with you or against you, Child, so how can I betray you?"

"See that you don't," Valens said in a low voice, gaze sinking to dangerous amber slits. "You are made of promenia, and all four of us are worldholders."

The woman offered no response to the threat but a slight smile as she and her companion faded through the floor.

Domi stared, mouth dropping, as the duo's knees, followed by their torsos and heads, sank into white stone. "What the--"

Daedalus stepped toward Valens. "Where are we going, Aedificanti?" he asked.

The older worldholder rested a hand on each twin's shoulder and nudged them toward the nook's exit. "The Crystal Garden."

<>

"Was the tower some kind of palace?" Domi asked. He peeked into yet another room as they passed, frowning. Several orderly bunk beds lay inset within the wall, as pristine white as everything else. A barracks, perhaps? Earlier, as they'd walked down the spiraling hallway that gradually worked its way from one level to the next, he'd seen a fancy bedroom with a bed as big as the one he'd slept in back at the Onyx Palace. Only this bed hovered two feet off the floor.

"Yes, Alumna. This was your family's earliest palace. They stopped using it for that purpose after the Pyrrhaei Rebellion, though, when Aura Adurere was taken to Vola Apertus. But since it was first built, it always had other purposes as well."

"Like?" Domi asked.

Valens shrugged. "I once spent a few weeks here, and a couple of days when you were taken to Vola Apertus." He glanced at Aix.

"I remember that assignment," the old man said. "Almost gave me a heart attack."

"As far as I can gather, a great many people either used to live here, or this place was made to house them if ever needed."

"In a completely enclosed environment," Daedalus said. He peeked inside an egg-shaped room. A long, thin white table, framed on each side by curved chairs, occupied the center of the room. The Eyes glared through an oval window, and Domi's twin grimaced.

"I counted enough beds for about two thousand five hundred people, some small enough for children," Valens said. "There are entire levels with Trellis lamps that I think once supported indoor crops. If what the eidolon said is true, this place was designed to let people survive inside for a long time if anything went severely downhill outside."

"And there is a great wealth of promenia within these inner walls," Daedalus said. He frowned thoughtfully. "Other than the Trellis, I have never felt anything so dense."

"Why would they hoard it like this?" Domi asked. "So many people around the world could be healed or fed or... or helped with all this magic. But it's all just sitting here unused while the rogue promenia chews away at the walls outside."

He couldn't believe the waste. The room Valens led them into now was gorgeous, an enormous circular chamber with many shallow steps leading down to a peaceful pool. But how much promenia was being wasted just to supply it with the clean water falling in a slow trickle from a circle in the ceiling? Nobody used this place. Not anymore.

"The schematics Ausus and I reviewed were hard to understand," Valens said, picking his way carefully down the short steps. "Neither of us read Antigua Latina well. But from what we could make out, the tower was designed to be self-sustaining for centuries. And to be able to transform into other things. The Trellis, for instance."

"There isn't enough promenia here for the Trellis," Domi said. "Even I can feel that." The tower hummed maddeningly, with a weird resonance, like a song with a missing chord or something. The sound was loud, but not like the majestic golden hymn of the Trellis.

He'd give anything to hear that overwhelming sound again. Anything.

"You have not yet learned to create new promenia, Brother," Daedalus said. "Worldholder magic allows two particles to craft a new particle from any other matter."

"Exactly," Valens said as they passed beneath an archway flanked by alabaster pillars shaped like icy trees and into the spiraling corridor on the other side of the fountain chamber. "If you activate the tower, even a fraction of the promenia within these walls can unleash a chain reaction that will provide us with all the promenia we need. And if I understand correctly, it'll weave that promenia into a new Trellis. In fact, we could make severalTrellises." His face twisted. "If we were willing to strip Aquarius to bedrock."

"Or restore magic to the world," Domi murmured. "Like in the Golden Age of Promenia." But to do anything like that, he needed to get the Trellis back. And first, he needed to fix the tower. He dug his fingernails into his palms.

"Do you think people lived here after the Calamity?" Daedalus asked, peeking into another room and lifting a brow. 

Domi glanced in as well. Empty bookcases lined the walls beneath a ceiling of delicate, overlapping stone shaped like a white rose. A library?

"I know they did," Valens said. "I brought some of their records back to Aix the first time I was here. I couldn't read them well,  though. My Antigua Latina is atrocious."

"Wait, there's something you're not good at?" Domi teased.

"I tried to offer him a well-rounded education," Aix said, voice dry. "He was... resistant." He cast the younger man a fond glance.

Valens snorted. "There's a great deal I'm not good at, Alumna," he told Domi. "Becoming a worldholder aedilis required focusing intensely on some things to the detriment of others."

"I disagree," Aix said to the rounded ceiling.

"Oh?" Valens cast the old man an unimpressed glance. "How is your cooking these days, Aedificanti?"

"That's what Alumnas are for."

"I rest my case."

They passed an expansive room full of tables raised up on circular platforms, each accessed by a gracefully curved ramp.

"But yes," Valens said, "people lived here. Lived, worked, and died for years after the Calamity. Your family relocated back here for two centuries, trying to find a solution to the rogue promenia they'd unleashed. But since society's idiotic response to the disaster was to begin killing secondborn Princeps worldholder twins... Well, they sabotaged their own efforts. Eventually, they gave up and relocated back to the safety of the day-side for the final time."

"Do you think the eidolon was telling the truth about... about everything?" Daedalus asked, brows furrowed in discomfort. Domi didn't like the idea either. What did it mean if there really was no Eternal Radiance? If it was just some enormous old ship?

"I would dearly like to know what truths she told," Aix said, glancing from one twin to the other, then at Valens. "Or why there are eidolons wandering around here. Or how we ended up here." The poor old man looked confused. Deeply intrigued, but confused.

"I'll fill you in once we get these two settled in on their studies," Valens said, nodding to the next archway they reached in the spiraling white corridor. "We're here."

<>

The Crystal Garden, it turned out, was just a fancy name for a giant room full of promenia artifacts.

Domi watched with amusement as Aix practically drooled at the glass shelves arrayed all around.

"Why's all this stuff here?" Domi asked.

"Interesting. It is all catalogued," Daedalus said, strolling between two rows and peering at the glyphs scrawled above each shelf. "Date. Promenia type. Curia of origin. Strange."

Aix picked up a scarlet-laced gold orb with the care of a grandfather holding his first grandchild. "I'm not seeing any duplicates here. I think this truly is a catalogue. One of each type." He gazed around the room in wonder, gray eyes dreamy. "I could happily spend the rest of my life here."

"Well," Valens said dryly, "you will probably need to if we can't find a way to restore the Trellis."

"If," Daedalus said, and swallowed hard. It took Domi's twin a moment to try again. "If we cannot, do you think we can move people here? To save them?"

Aix nodded. "For a time, but it is not a permanent solution." He pointed at the long, ribbon-shaped window along one curved wall, where a golden whirlwind lashed the building with a rumble. "In a decade or two, the rogue promenia will tear up enough earth around the tower to bring it down, Basiluculus."

"Basilicus," Valens corrected quietly. At Aix's questioning glance, he tipped his head to the older twin. "Long story, but they're supposed to co-rule. I will explain, I promise," he added as the old man's brow furrowed.

"Maybe something here can get rid of the rogue promenia," Domi said, eying all the artifacts. He knew better than to touch anything, though.

"Maybe," Valens said, his eyes narrowing at something on one of the shelves. "But let's focus on trying to fix the Trellis first. To do that, you're going to need to be able to fix promenia crystals." He plucked an oblong artifact off the shelf. Promenia hummed, and a sharp snap rose from the stone. Domi blinked at the crack now running straight down its middle. "So we're going to start with something nice and easy."

Domi grimaced as Valens plopped half of the crystal into his palm. The small training crystal was heartily familiar. "This again?" he grumbled as Valens turned to give Daedalus the other half. "Great."

His brother, on the other hand, offered a firm nod and turned to Aix. "What do we need to know?"

<>

Aix had faced challenges teaching students over the years. This was a new one.

"I can't do it!" Domi's outburst was followed by a furious glare down at the crystal before him.

The boys sat at a glass table in the rear of the Crystal Garden. At the younger twin's side, Daedalus appeared calmer than his brother, but still disappointed. "Will you show me the pattern again?" he asked, quiet shame in his voice.

Aix sighed. "Let's take a break first," he said. Impatience--understandable, given the urgency of their task, but still counterproductive--was only half the problem. The twins could not visualize the microscopic structure of even this simple crystal, let alone feel it in their very breath and bones. Daedalus, trained as a worldholder since birth, was accustomed to vastly different visualizations and struggled greatly to wrap his rigorously-trained--but, as a result, rigid--mind around something new. Especially under pressure.

And Domi could not visualize at all. He was far too new to his abilities to even breathe properly yet, let alone master his mind to create complex thoughtforms and align his body to the visualizations. Each time his frustration reached a tipping point, his ability to concentrate fled.

"I'm useless! I can't do anything right!" Domi snarled, throwing the crystal onto the table before him. At his side, his twin flinched as the stone bounced off the sturdy promenia glass toward him, narrowly missing Daedalus's face before flying over his shoulder to clatter on the ground.

"Pick that up," Valens sighed. "You're not useless, Alumna. You just need practice." He narrowed amber eyes until the boy at last obeyed.

Jaw clenching, Domi rose from his chair and stomped over to the stone. Crackles sounded from within the crystal as the particles trapped within its structure dissolved. With a teary glare, the boy knelt to pick it up. And then froze.

Daedalus frowned as his brother stared at the crystal. "Domi?"

The crackles and pops faded, replaced by a low hum. Two lightsongs, overlapping in perfect sync, rose. And the stone elongated in his hand, regaining the shape it possessed before Valens had broken it in half.

Aix felt his jaw drop.

Domi glanced up from the stone, expression victorious, then frowned, and Aix realized he was not the only one gaping at the untrained Princeps. "What?" the boy asked. "That's what you wanted me to do."

"I wanted you to fix the crystal," Valens said, surging forward to snatch the stone from Domi's hand. "But you fixed it and restored the promenia within the lattice."

"So?"

Aix shook his head in astonishment. "Young Erus, this isn't a raw promenia crystal. It holds keyed promenia."

Domi rubbed the back of his neck, brows knit. "Alright..."

"He does not understand," Daedalus said. He smiled at his twin. "Domi, worldholders make raw promenia. Forgeholders make raw crystals and then need someone to key promenia to place within the crystalline lattice to create an artifact. You just crafted crystal with fully keyed promenia."

Domi frowned as Valens scrutinized the stone. "I don't know how to do that."

"I think that's why you managed to do it," Aix said. "Your lack of training may actually be a benefit."

"Huh?"

"Magic is, at its core, instinctual. Training is intended to draw forth and hone instinct. Sometimes, however, circumstances force instinct to rear its head on its own."

"Like when I fixed the consecturum." The boy looked thoughtful. "A clivia was going to slash me. So I didn't have time to think."

"Exactly," Aix said.

"Can you do it again?" Valens asked, and the boy shrugged, then nodded. "Show me."

Ten minutes later, several repaired artifacts sat scattered atop the table, and for the first time in days, hope lit up Domi's eyes.

"What do you think?" Valens, arms crossed, asked Aix.

"I think he's ready," he said honestly. The boy had an almost uncanny ability to spot where Valens placed flaws within the crystals. He rested a hand on the boy's shoulder and rubbed gently. The Princeps needed to be calm and relaxed for what came next. The tower was far larger than the other artifacts the boy had repaired. "Domi, I would like you to close your eyes and listen to the tower." He nodded as the boy obeyed. "Do you hear it?

"Oh yeah," Domi breathed. "And I hear where it isn't singing."

"Good," Aix said. "Then keep your eyes closed and--"

"And breathe," Domi said, quirking a smile. "I know."

<>

When Kaitlyn passed through frozen soil and into the burrow, it found itself facing Ausus's furious glare. Relief surged through it that the man's sons hadn't inherited their worldholder prometus from him. The forgeholder looked like he would be willing to dissolve it and Logos on the spot if he could.

"You two dare come back?" the Blended man snapped.

He knelt at a low table, which grew like a mushroom from the burrow's springy, webbed floor. On the grayish-brown surface before him, the midnight-blue pair of young clivia pups perched. The mustard leaves and radishes Ausus had been chopping up with a thin crystalline spore-knife to feed them when Kaitlyn had arrived lay forgotten, and the pups pulsed irregularly and nudged his hand.

"We need to talk," Kaitlyn said.

Gray eyes, glittering with crystalline spores that didn't seem to hurt him, flicked up at her and narrowed. "I don't want to talk to traitors."

"We did not betray you," Logos said, its voice consoling.

"Exactly," Kaitlyn said. It felt far less eager than its companion to placate the man. "We had a deal, and you broke it. You promised that it would be voluntary."

Ausus narrowed his eyes, though he pinched a bit of mustard leaf and offered it to one pup, then a bit of radish to the other. "They are children. My sons. I decide what is best for them."

Both pups promptly wrapped countless filaments around the food, pulsing an eager rhythm as they engulfed their meal. Kaitlyn itched to take notes. Infant clivias did not need to be fed by adults, and it had seen this pair hunt as well as any other. Yet these two pups preferred food from Ausus's hand. Day-side food. Amazing.

"You stopped letting them be children the instant you abandoned one on the street and surrendered the other to the throne," Kaitlyn said, shaking its head. "You Neo-Romans have forgotten your roots, and you Blended are worse. Human beings must have the right to choose their own destinies."

"Human beings have always chosen their own destinies at the expense of all other life," Ausus said, offering the pups chunks of radish. He shook his head. "No longer. The Blended are the future. My sons must join me."

"Then I cannot join you," Kaitlyn said. "Logos?"

"Nor I," the daemon said. "I now know what free will is. I cannot help you strip it away from others."

Ausus pointed at the pups. "What about their free will? You know what will happen if the Trellis is restored."

"I believe in your cause," Kaitlyn said. "You know that. But I do not condone your methods. This is where we part ways, Aus--"

A deep, tranquil thrum broke through the discordant din of broken clivia pulses. Ringing over the ice and stone above the burrow, it reverberated through the endless night, a pure, rich, rolling note.

Ausus's pale-blue face turned sheet white. "No. What-- How? No!"

The Blended man surged to his feet, and uneven pulses reverberated through the burrow as clivia and Blended swarmed with him toward the tunneling exits. The pups trembled but rushed to hover at his shoulder.

Kaitlyn passed through the hive's walls and peered in horror into the Eyes-lit night. She'd thought she had more time to convince the twins. Far more time. But she was horribly wrong.

On the horizon, the Restoration Tower loomed against the starry sky and sang its beautiful, baneful song into the night.

Logos rose next to her. "Oh no," it breathed.

<>

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Edera asked. She grimaced as Sidus ladled a generous serving of the steaming soup into her bowl, then did the same for Radix.

"We will need our strength," Merula said. The Rex picked up her own bowl with both hands and lifted it to her lips. She nodded in satisfaction after she sipped. "And if we are going to ask the other Pullati to eat this, we need to do the same. Always lead by example."

Edera sighed and picked up her own bowl. At least the boiled odoratus smelled as amazing as always. And it was true they'd spotted deer, rats, and other animals nibbling it. Still, she'd eaten a leaf once on a dare--she glared at Sidus over the rim of her bowl--and regretted it deeply.

It better be edible now for humans as well as deer.

"I kind of like it," Radix said, chomping at the thick leaf with their mouth open. It was kind of cute how they scrunched their nose a little as they chewed. "And there's plenty around." They sprinkled a few ground medicine flowers on top of the soup from the bowl in the center of the table. The rare night-side flower was growing all over the slums. "Are you really leaving us behind, Augustus?"

Merula nodded, pulling her consecturum closer and then rising. She left her bowl on the crate that served as their table. "Yes. You're kids. This battle is no place for any of you."

"Yes, but Sidus and I are Lightbearers," Edera said, frowning. "And Radix is a good shot with their consecturum. We can help."

Merula patted her head, and Edera tried not to scowl. "I am sure your skills would be invaluable. But just because a child can do something doesn't mean you should have to do it. This is part of the world we're creating, Kid. So stay here."

Edera sighed, but like the others, nodded and waited obediently as the Pyrrhaei woman left the shack.

Sidus watched a crowd of Pullati, armed with consecturums, knives, and clubs, gather around Merula. The door swung closed as she lifted her fist, and the answering roar drifted in through the shack's thin walls.

Radix leaned over the crate and caught Edera's eye. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

They grinned and reached out to poke her nose. She probably had soot on her face again from the work they shared sweeping chimneys. "Do we sit here like she says?"

Edera rolled her eyes. "No way. This is our future, too."

Radix exchanged a grin with Sidus. "We hoped you'd say that."

Sidus smirked and began removing bowls from atop the crate. Edera lifted her brow as, grunting, he turned the makeshift table over, revealing three consecturums.

His smile faded to a serious look as they all stared at the weapons. "Are you both sure? Absolutely sure? There will be city watch and a few worldholders at the skyhaven. They're not going to just let a bunch of Pullati claim control of something so important to supply lines."

"I know," Edera said. "That's why they need us there."

She picked up one of the consecturums, trying not to gulp and show her nervousness. Soot from her hands smudged the crystal; it was so hard to find fresh water in the slums. They needed to get a firmer hold on supply lines, and soon, or Pullati and many others would die of thirst long before cold with the way clean water was being rationed. It was like the Rex had decided that the Pullati didn't even exist. 

She gripped the consecturum and rose to her feet. "Let's go."