Buccina Exaudibilis had long been a thorn in Daedalus's mother's side. He hoped the woman would not become his problem as well.

He restrained a scowl as the Princeps Mindholder approached him where he stood in the corridor, sweating beneath his weighty paenula in the humid evening air.

Above them, the crowd roared like the sea. One hundred thousand people sat in this more colossal of Vola Apertus's two open-air amphitheaters. The other fifteen million residents here in the planetary capital city milled around the streets, gazing up at the sky in excited expectation. All around Aquarius, over a billion people likewise turned to the heavens.

He would love to switch places with any of them and escape this woman. No one much liked mindholders and their invasive mental tricks, but he disliked this one more than all the others.

Buccina Exaudibilis's name meant "Horn Worthy of Being Heard." He wished she would live up to the traditional name for a daughter of the ruling mindholder bloodline. A little brash, bold directness would be a refreshing change.

Instead, Buccina should have been named "Whisper." Other than at official orations, Daedalus never once heard his fellow Princeps raise her voice above a soothing murmur or speak her mind in a direct manner.

Instead, Buccina was always whispering in one's ear. Always circling the topic at hand. Always insinuating herself into others' business, and that was when she was not insinuating herself into others' minds.

No one knew Buccina's true appearance. Like most mindholders, she could lure one's mind into seeing whatever she wished. Unlike other mindholders, she never dispelled her illusions.

Over the years, he saw her wear several different faces. In his earliest memories, she donned the visage of an unassuming adolescent of indeterminate gender with a smooth terracotta-brown complexion and shaved hair. As a child, he often saw her as a spindly mahogany-skinned crone with luxurious waves of flowing silver locks. And every so often, she bore the appearance of a pockmarked young boy with luminous sapphire eyes shining in an ebony face instead of a laurel.

He shivered at the sight of the illusory sallow visage she adopted these days. She reminded him of some pallid night-side monstrosity. Legend said a few of the Ancients had looked like this, including one of Buccina's early mindholder ancestors. Daedalus found such claims hard to believe, for the Holy Ovidiana said naught about such things. The Pale People must be some wondertale embellishment, like man-eating mushrooms, whales, and other fantastical beasts.

He braced himself as she approached, but as always, he found his defenses folding before the full force of her presence. In any disguise she wore, her seeping, oily aura remained the one constant. He hated it.

Over the years, he overheard people describe disconcerting experiences of wandering unprotected on the night-side beneath the Devouring Eyes. One might be forgiven for thinking the accounts described encounters with Buccina Exaudibilis instead of malign planets.

The weight of attention descended upon him, smooth and warm and sticky as laudanum-laced syrup. He longed to wipe it off, to be free of her, but Buccina's clinging aura enveloped him like a smothering blanket.

Against his will, his body relaxed into the sense of her all around. He turned toward her as she sidled up next to him, and her presence brushed and tugged at his mind like a hand smoothing wrinkles in silk and plucking away lint.

Or like a cat pawing at a little bug as the beast considered whether to devour its prey.

"Dear Boy," she said as she leaned close.

"Basilicus." It took all his willpower not to cringe away, a fact she no doubt knew. Few thoughts stayed private in a mindholder's presence.

Her voice dropped to a comforting whisper. "Liturgical education is often pushed aside to create space for other priorities that may seem more pressing at the time. Feeling less prepared than one might wish for such duties can be natural."

She was always like this. The woman insinuated but never came out and said what she wanted to say. She did such to his mother, and now it appeared she planned to play mind games with him, too.

He did not entirely grasp what she meant to imply by her comment, which, knowing her, she intended. Was his mother the target of her criticism about his supposedly insufficient liturgical education? His tutors? Daedalus himself? Did she imagine him to be an inattentive student? And was she saying she considered him unready, or she thought he felt unready?

He bit his lip. He did not feel unprepared. Not for the eve's duties, at least. True, he dreaded stepping into the third-highest office on Aquarius and despised trying to fill his mother's shoes so soon after her death. And he was no genius, to be sure. He knew his limitations as well as anyone, but he also knew he was well-schooled. His mother provided him with a superb education, and a Trellis expert served on his team of handlers and coached him every day. He rehearsed the liturgy earlier without problems.

He straightened. Yes, he felt like he was probably prepared. No, he was prepared. At least, he thought so. But maybe Buccina detected something he did not, some seed of self-doubt hidden deep within his mind?

He shook off the anxious thoughts and resisted the urge to glare at the woman, for all the good it did him; the mindholder in all likelihood sensed his irritation.

"I appreciate your kind words, Basilicus, but I feel fine about tonight's duties." He took a firm step away from her. "My father is waiting. I will join you in the amphitheater soon."

She inclined her head. "Of course, Basilicus. We will catch up later."

Not if he could help it.

His mother dealt for years with Buccina's "concerns." Her concerns about Callide's youth, her upbringing, her education. Her concerns about the fragility of the ruling worldholder line. Her concerns about matters the woman had no business being concerned about. However, the higher-ranked royal insisted it was her right to pry, for if the Princeps Worldholder failed, the whole world would suffer.

Daedalus offered a curt—and noncommittal—nod in response to her words and strode away with all the haste dignity and his heavy paenula allowed.

His father stood waiting for him in the arcade with a crooked smile. Ausus reached a hand up to ruffle his hair, then drew back at Comitas's cleared throat. He dropped his arm with obvious reluctance. "I suppose I cannot do that now. You're not a kid anymore."

Daedalus shrugged. "You would not be allowed back here if I were of age."

"True." Ausus glanced Buccina's way. "Is she getting on your case?"

He grimaced. "Hard to tell. She never says what she means, but I think she is worried I will mess up tonight and burn the world down or some such thing." His father winced, shifting from one foot to the other, and Daedalus sighed. "I will not mess up, I promise. Peritia and I practiced everything. To be honest, shaping light felt as easy as breathing." He smiled. "She said I am a natural."

Ausus scowled. "You're not a natural, because that thing isn't natural."

Daedalus's smile fell. "Father—"

"No, I understand it's not like you can do much about it, but sometimes I think it would be better for all if the Trellis collapsed. That thing is more a cage than a support. It trapped your mother. Stole her from us."

He winced at the blasphemous words. With grief so fresh, his father's anger was understandable, but blasphemy was still blasphemy. "Father, please, I am a Princeps now. You cannot say things like this around me. Or at all."

Ausus opened his mouth to argue, and Comitas cleared her throat again, three times and with increasing volume.

Daedalus held up a hand. "No, Father, not tonight. Not around me." If his father continued to blaspheme and disobey him, the protocol handler might ban the man from Daedalus's presence. Certain privileges granted to family could be taken away for the good of the world. Comitas would not tolerate pre-Restoration heresies on the sacred eve set aside for the yearly renewal of commitments to Restoration values. He stepped back. "Go out and take your seat. It is time to begin, and I must focus."

Ausus opened his mouth again to protest, then closed it with a glance toward the shadowed columns. "All right, So—" He broke off, face falling, and swallowed hard. When he spoke again, he did so with a softer, more subdued voice. "I will see you after observance, Basilicus."

"See you then."