An abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery...
Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
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Cercitis thought, I just can't believe Callide is dead.
Evenings like this one were the hardest. She became Daedalus's foster mother when the boy was only a few weeks old and Callide inherited the Throne of Solitude so unexpectedly. Cercitis had cared for him every day of his life. Raised him herself, with Astricus at her side. But though royal duties had taken Callide away from her son, the Princeps Worldholder had still been his mother. She had always found a way to come to him when he worried about something, suffered a difficult day, or fell ill.
Sometimes a boy, even a Princeps, just needed his mother. His real mother. But his mother was dead, and Cercitis felt like a poor replacement.
"I do not understand why this is happening to me."
Daedalus lay abed, propped up by mounds of clivia-silk pillows, where he retired early that afternoon when the migraine started. She hoped he was not coming down with something. She had not sensed an infection in him, but sometimes promenia missed the earliest stages of an illness.
It was likely just stress, however. He bore enormous responsibilities for someone his age, was still grieving, and no doubt felt guilty and afraid about the issues he had been having controlling the Trellis. No wonder he suffered a monstrous headache.
"I don't understand yet either, Basilicus," she said, and he sighed at the title. The awkward distance it created grated on her as well. They had dispensed with many such niceties in his childhood, but those days were gone now. She wrung out a cloth and placed it on his forehead, wishing she could spare promenia to ease the pain. However, the migraine was not life-threatening, and Peritia insisted the boy needed to learn to control the Trellis despite such discomforts. "There is no use fretting over such at the moment. It will only wear you out. There will be plenty of time to worry about all kinds of things when you're well again."
"You are treating me like a child," he said, voice wistful. She opened her mouth to remind him that, almost fifteen or not, he was one, but he offered her a faint smile. "Do not worry, I like it. It reminds me of... before."
He had always been a sweet boy, caring and considerate. A bit reserved and overly formal, qualities she blamed on Comitas, but it was the protocol handler's duty to reshape him from a quiet and gentle boy into a true Princeps.
An attendant clad in Daedalus's colors, the black and silver of the Penna Igneae curia, opened the door and stepped into the bedchamber. "Pardon me, Basilicus." The Lightless woman turned to Cercitis, a flat black Caeles stone held in her hand. The polished promenia artifact glittered with a golden sheen. "Prome, a message arrived for you. From your son."
"Epileus?" she asked, her heart beginning to pound in her chest. He and Gemma had been under the part of the Trellis Daedalus brought down yesterday. Epileus sent word to Daedalus to report the clivia incursion and let him know he and Gemma were wounded but safe. Then nothing for a day. It had been the scariest day of her life since her two older children had been Empowered.
