Page 27 of The Mercy Makers
Rolling laughter answers her look, and Amaranth’s face bends with merriment, almost ugly, but very human. “Oh, Iriset. You are so bad at lying.”
“I didn’t say anything, Your Glory!” Iriset insists. It isn’ttrue: She can lie. Oh red god, she hopes she can lie.
“You didn’t have to. But listen.” Still chuckling, Amaranth puts her arm around Iriset’s shoulders. “It doesn’t matter about the teeth. What they are or where, or what mouth dropped them—probably different kinds of mouths, really, unless itwasa monster of the Apostate Age, to have such tearing fangs and such grass-eater teeth, too. What matters is that when I perform my conciliation, I feel him. This place and my role, they matter. They pin the power of the empire in place. Maybe he is not a dead god, maybe he is only energy, a spark of design chaos, but he is real.”
And that makes my power real, Her Glory means. Iriset understands clearly. Amaranth never says directly what she can say from an angle. Just like her hypothetical on Iriset’s first night in the palace. Just like the costume of scarves she’s commissioned and letting Iriset see Nielle’s workshop.
Playing her demure role, not the apostate, Iriset ventures, “And so must Aharté be real?”
Amaranth shrugs. “My brother believes it—balance, after all. The answer I meant, though, is that the empire is real. Our mission, our purpose. Whether any Holy Design dictates our paths or histories or choices, the empire is a knot that has lasted and is meant to last. I know it, because every day I feel evidence of it.”
Iriset nods slowly. It’s not worth fighting against the Vertex Seal, Amaranth means. The empire is all, the dominant balance of the world. What is Iriset, or any undermarket king? Amaranth wants Iriset to belong to her. “Your Glory,” she asks slowly, “why did you bring me here?”
“I like you, and want you to feel it, and to trust me. Someday you will give me the truths of your inner design, kitten.”
It feels to Iriset as though Amaranth is the Vertex Seal in that moment, not her mysterious brother: Amaranth is the center of the Holy City. This room, this woman. The falling force that dominates Her Glory’s inner design is a drawing, lilting energy that tugs toward her center—even Iriset, who knows it’s happening, is pulled to trust Amaranth.
But the Little Cat’s design is dominated by falling force, too. Iriset has to keep her mind clear. Hold her own. She swallows and touches her fingertips to her eyelids.
“Now leave me as I wake the Moon-Eater.”
As Iriset darts away, relieved to be outside Her Glory’s attention, she glances back to see Amaranth slide free the lace tying her robe closed over her breasts.
Sidoné leads her to a dark wooden screen that Iriset hasn’t noticed, it blends so well into the wall. Behind it wait stools and a pitcher of water with several plain clay cups. “Here,” Sidoné murmurs. “When she wishes to be alone, I return to the alcove, but she wants you here, to share.”
Iriset sinks onto a stool, her body melting a little after the strain of resisting Amaranth. Sidoné remains standing, shoulder leaned against the wall in a relaxed pose, and her eyes drift closed. She seems to go immediately to sleep.
Relaxing is impossible for Iriset, though no matter how intently Iriset strains to hear, nothing echoes from the chamber.
Then comes a long sigh, and Iriset parts her lips to set the tip of her tongue in the air to taste it, and the forces.
In the sanctuary, at the altar, Amaranth mé Esmail Her Glory touches herself, sliding her hands along her skin, pinching and caressing as she knows her body likes. She slowly, attentively, raises herself to pleasure.
Iriset knows this to be happening—that is the duty of the Moon-Eater’s Mistress, that is how to awaken the dead god, to draw him here. But it’s not the only thing happening: Force pulls from every direction in thin lines as Amaranth draws force toward her own center. Iriset’s head falls back as she gives in to the sensation, as she listens and feels with tongue and lips, as she turns open her palms to feel the tingling there. If she were alone,she’d follow Her Glory’s lead and touch herself, too. If she had the time, she’d invent a force-net for self-pleasure that cycles through the forces and wakes the body the way the Moon-Eater is woken. She’d call it the little eater.
The threads of force draw together, slithering and sparking past Iriset, toward the center of the temple—always toward the center. They twist around one another, looping, braiding, tighter, tighter, then loosening like a sigh before winding up again, and finally, finally, finally they knot into a whole.
That knot traps the breath in Iriset’s throat, and she shudders. Her whole body is on the edge, only from listening, tasting the forces, from letting her mind imagine touch and heat. Sweat tingles her spine, under her breasts, and she’s wet enough to feel it.
Amaranth sighs, an airy moan.
Iriset sighs so softly, wanting to be in there, wanting hands on her, a pull at her scalp, teeth on her neck. Anything.
The forces tangled around her tighten, and Iriset’s hands curl into fists, low over her belly. She breathes rapidly.
The central knot unravels.
Whatreleasesare not balanced forces, not falling and flow and ecstatic and rising but something parallel to them, from within them… like a fifth force.
It feels different, whole unto itself, and passes through the air, through lattice and flesh and bone, out into the rest of the world. Then it is gone.
Silence—true Silence, the tension of perfect balance—hangs in the Moon-Eater’s sanctuary, and deep, deep within herself, Iriset feels a thump-thump like a heartbeat.
Maybe it’s her own heartbeat. She feels gladness, satisfaction, belonging, and—
“Iriset.”
Her name drifts low from the altar.
