"Do you honestly believe that you can quell us? For all your vast power, your numbers amount to but a tiny droplet against our raging wildfire."

-- Tibulus Fortis,
Leader of the Pyrrhaei Rebellion,
49th year before the Restoration,
from A Garden of Fragrant Heresies

*~*~*~*

"Did you stare at the Eyes too long?" Aix's incredulous alumna demanded as the others stared at Aix like one of the burrow's strange mushrooms sprouted forth from his head. "Why the hell would you want to Blend?"

"My mind is sound, Valens," Aix said, lip twitching as the younger worldholder's own alumnas regarded him with dubious expressions, one gaping at him open-mouthed, and the other staring at him wide-eyed. "We've spent your entire adult life trying to address the threat rogue promenia posed. I studied everything. The survival strategies of the Pullati, the customs of the night-side, even emergency measures people resorted to after the Pyrrhaei Rebellion. Until now, I found few ways for civilization to survive in a Trellis-less world. But this solution offers us a chance to not just survive, but thrive."

"By changing into whatever he is?" Domi asked, waving his hand at his father.

Aix offered Ausus a polite nod, remembering the curious and determined youth who once studied at the Silvula Salutis Collegium. "You seem to be the same person." Still as inclined to throw himself fully into whatever interest caught his attention and neglect other priorities, like family. Aix kept that to himself. "Am I right?"

Ausus shrugged. "My body feels different, but yes, I feel like the same person." He swallowed, voice hushing as he said, "At least, as much as anyone can be the same after everything that's happened."

Aix nodded. "There, you see?" The others did not look convinced, but they were not the ones planning to Blend, were they? Still, he wanted them to understand his choice. Accept it. "I think it will be more like kindling for the first time than changing."

"That's a huge change..." Domi said, his voice a low, dark mutter. Daedalus offered his twin a sympathetic smile.

"But do you really trust him, Aedilis?" Princeps Buccina asked.

Aix turned to the strawberry blond woman, who brushed a lock of wavy hair over her shoulder. "I'm not a mindholder, Basilicus. But I've worked with many children." He turned from her, inclining his head to the pod's youngest inhabitants. "Come here, please, you two." He chuckled as Domi and Daedalus exchanged looks and began to step forward. "Not you." He pointed past them to Ausus and the pups curled on his shoulder. "You."

Daedalus frowned as one of the pups stirred slowly and drifted Aix's way while the other flitted through the air toward him with a sharp pulse. "You think he's telling the truth about them? That they're intelligent?"

"I think there's a good chance, Basilicus." He held out his hands. "And I think I can prove it."

"Aix!" Valens snapped, face twisting in alarm as first one pup, then the other, surged toward him.

"It's alright," Aix murmured, silently grateful the pups didn't prove him wrong as he accepted them into his hands. Instead of razor-sharp filaments that cut to the bone, silky, smooth tendrils, faintly warm, curled around his fingers as the pups let him cradle them loosely in his palms. "See? There, now." He smiled down at the squirming, dark blue creatures. Their filaments held an opalescent gloss not unlike the inside of some sea shells. "My, you're soft when you want to be, aren't you? "

"They're going to cut you," Valens warned, though he now sounded more dry than tense. "Slice off a nice chunk of your flesh to try to make more clivia."

"If they do," Logos murmured at the silently observing Kaitlyn's side, "I'll be able to heal him."

Princeps Buccina cleared her throat. "I sense a little of their minds. Their thoughts are strange, but they mean no harm." She frowned. "Yet."

"I doubt that will change, Basilicus." Aix smiled down at the pair of pups, then found himself wondering how they interpreted the look. In some day-side species, bared teeth were a threat display, but who knew what the look meant to the faceless night-side creatures? "You'll be good, right?" he asked gently, slowing his speech the way he did for very young children. "Do you understand me?"

The twins gasped as the pups puffed up, throwing tendrils every direction, and Ausus chuckled, but Valens only crossed his arms. "Even a dog wags its tail when someone is nice to it."

Aix rolled his eyes and gently stroked one of the clivias, then the other, until their tendrils fell smooth again. "My big pup needs a little something extra to convince him." He ignored Valens's scowl. "Will you help me? You understand me and know how to count to twenty, yes?" Their tendrils began to rear against his stroking hands. An affirmation? Might as well proceed under the assumption he was correct. "Alright then, how about this? If you understand me, please hold up only seven of your lovely filaments. Can you do that?"

The pups stirred, and to his delight, one bristled with four filaments on one side and three on the other, smoothing the rest until the creature resembled a blue twig.

The other pup did likewise. Almost. Six tendrils waved in the air until, with a pulse from its brother, it stuck out a seventh.

Aix grinned, and even Valens looked grudgingly satisfied. "Very good. You're very smart," he praised, "aren't you?"

"Clivia don't understand or really need compliments--" Kaitlyn blinked as the pups threw tendrils every direction. "Wow."

Aix nodded down at the pair of tiny clivia, stroking them again until they calmed. "These little ones are more like us, I think, than their form implies." He smiled as they curled tendrils around his fingers. For stability while he held them? Just to be closer? He hoped Blending would allow him to communicate more thoroughly with them! "They seem very like my smallest alumnas. They want safety, affection, inclusion, and approval, just like any child. Yes, even like you were as a toddler, Valens," he added as his alumna snorted. "They're curious and eager to learn." He nodded at Ausus. "I believe you."

"On that alone?" the Blended man asked, looking as pleased as surprised.

"Yes. If this alone is true, the rest makes a great deal of sense to me." Aix straightened and met the man's blue-flecked eyes. "I want to Blend. I want civilization to survive and thrive, and it sounds like we need to find a way to do that without the Trellis, though I don't know how. I'm ready."

Ausus blinked. "Now?"

Aix chuckled, pushing down the spurt of nervousness within him. "Do you have something better to do, young man? Yes, now."

Ausus nodded and stepped toward the door. "Alright, come with me." As the wall unknit and opened, the pups rose from Aix's fingers and flew to the Blended man. "You'll need to rest quietly for a time afterward." He swallowed and cast the twins a hopeful glance. "Are you coming?"

Daedalus's eyes only narrowed, but Domi stepped forward. "Ye--"

"No," Valens interrupted. "They're staying here. I'd like to watch, however." He glanced at Buccina. "Basiicus, will you--"

The Princeps Worldholder inclined her head. "I'll keep an eye on them." She eyed the pups. "Are, ah, they staying?"

"No," Ausus said, "they're coming. This is their work."

As the man turned away, Daedalus hesitated, then took a step forward. "Father."

Ausus offered him a gentle smile over his shoulder. "I'll be back, Son."

The boy scowled. "That is not what I was going to say." His eyes narrowed. "Do not hurt him." He looked from Aix, to Valens, and then returned his stern gaze to his father. "Either of them."

"I won't, Daedalus," Ausus said. He sighed, then added softly, "You'll be able to trust me again one day, Son. I promise."

Daedalus crossed his arms. "Trust must be earned."

At his side, Domi shook his head as Ausus glanced his way. "Don't look at me. I don't even know you."

Aix stepped toward the pod's door as Ausus's face fell. "Let's go before I lose my nerve."

<>

Princeps Lyra glared at the feast spread across the sparkling white table of the dully-gleaming white dining hall. "If only the world could see us now." She sneered at the bright fruits, nuts, and vegetables, as though the abundance Princeps Olivia herself had provided from promenia-matured seeds weren't miracles to be appreciated. "What a shining example we set of self-sacrifice and frugality in a time of crisis."

Irritation surged through Decus, and he set his quartz-white fork down with a clatter on a crystal plate the servants had salvaged from the tower's ancient kitchen. "I grow weary of your complaints, Basilicus. Is this how your mother taught you?"

The girl lifted her chin. "She taught me very little, for she kept me locked up in a night-side refuge to hide me from you."

The other Princepses shifted uncomfortably at the table at the youth's acerbic tongue. "Watch your tone, Basilicus," Decus growled, "or--"

Fear flashed across her face, but she sat rigid in her chair and fixed him with a scornful glare. "Or what? You'll slaughter me along with my cousins and drop the Trellis on your own tyrannical head?"

"Silence!" he roared, reinforcing the command with promenia. He learned forward, glaring across the table into rebellious warm brown eyes.

One of the servants they'd brought tiptoed away.

Decus fixed Lyra with a stern scowl. "I may not be able to harm you, but there is much I can do to make your life unpleasant, Basilicus. You will speak to me with respect, or you will remain silent."

The girl glared at him furiously. Fine, then. Silence it would be.

Once, he would have felt compassion for her plight. It was no easy thing to inherit a throne this way, especially so young. But now he nodded in grim satisfaction as the girl struggled against the compulsion. Good. He'd coddled young royals too long, and the world had suffered. No more. Best to teach her the price of disobedience early, lest she follow in her predecessors' footsteps.

Decus cringed in irritation as the chime of a promenia communique rippled through his mind.

"What now?" he grumbled, rubbing his forehead as Princeps Oliva and Princeps Fidentia studied their plates and meekly nibbled their corn-and-pepper stuffed avocados. Eternal Radiance, they all ought to be celebrating, not moping! The Trellis was restored! Shaking his head, he allowed the chiming communique to unfold within his mind. "This had better be good."

Shadows and warm light rose before his mind's eye like mist and solidified into the anxious face of his secretary, Unda. The old mindholder huddled in a strange position, crouched beneath the vague outline of something. A desk? A table? Her bright fear bled through the Caeles. No wonder she could not concentrate enough to fill in the details of her surroundings.

In a low, choked whisper, as though someone might overhear her despite the privacy of their magical communication, she said, "Thank the Eternal Radiance, Augustus."

"What is it, Unda?" he asked, scrutinizing her. She appeared unhurt, thankfully, and no pain echoed back to him, only tense anxiety. But something terrible had clearly happened.

Her fearful eyes met his own. "Arx Luminosa has been taken, Augustus. And the Pullati and their allies have seized your palace and the city."

Decus's jaw dropped. "Taken? How did a bunch of grubby Pyrrrhaei peasants take my palace?"

It was only when Lyra's head jerked to look at him, dark brown eyes wide, that he realized that he had roared the words out loud.

"Augustus?" Olivia gasped, and Fidentia jerked to her feet, staring down at him in alarm.

He shoved Unda's communique into the visible space of the dining hall. Might as well let them all hear this. "Explain," he snapped.

His secretary trembled, shaking her head. "There was almost no promenia right after the Trellis returned, Augustus. And what little remained was swiftly claimed by a small few. Most of us were powerless against them."

"Powerless? You are Promethidae!"

She just shook her head. "What are your orders, Augustus?"

"Fight back, damn it!"

She cringed. "With whom? Everyone's been rounded up, Augustus. Force-fed quellwort. Only a few of us escaped capture, but it's only a matter of time before they find where we're hiding."

"So grab a consecturum and--"

"None of them work, Augustus. The Trellis gathered up most of the promenia."

He scowled. "Fine, I'll put an end to this myself." The Trellis had plenty of promenia. "I'll command those filthy traitors to--"

She shook her head, eyes wide and wild with dread. "Most Pullati are unregistered, Augustus. They cannot be commanded from afar, even by you."

"Then register them," he snapped. Did he have to figure out everything by himself? "As many as possible. Princeps Buccina has agents all over the palace. Have them enter every Pullatus they lay eyes on into the Compendium. I want it done in the next hour--"

"Her agents are suppressed, Augustus."

His fingernails dug into his palms. "Fine, then let's distract the miscreants and break their morale. Relay my orders to Princeps Bucchina. Tell her to make a public announcement. All Eyes must be on the heavens in one hour for the executions of Princeps Laetus and Principis Heres Daedalus."

Her eyes widened a little at the latter name, and then she nodded. A moment later, however, as he was about to dispell the communique, her brow furrowed, and she froze.

"Eyes devour, what now?" he snapped.

"I cannot find Princeps Buccina in the Caeles," she said, voice thick with bafflement.

"In the tower?"

"Anywhere." The woman's eyes narrowed, and then she frowned. Gaped. "She's... she's unregistered, Augustus."

"Unregistered?" He shook his head. "No, she's questioning..." He blinked and then extended his senses to the Trellis as suspicion welled. Shaping his intention, he imagined Princeps Buccina's illusory pale face.

Knowledge shifted through countless messages clamoring in his mind for his attention and took form within him.

A dark, echoing absence.

Eternal Radiance, Unda spoke the truth. The woman had unregistered herself. All the Compendium showed was that someone, identity and location unlisted, held the office of Princeps Mindholder.

He jerked to his feet as sudden realization stormed through him and rushed toward the white dining room's rose-etched door.

"Augustus?" Oliva asked, rising as well. "Where are you going?"

He called up the knowledge within the Cales, but he already knew. "Finding our prisoners," he snapped over his shoulder as four more gaping absences hollowed out spaces within his mind. "They have escaped."

Princeps Bucchina had betrayed him.