Page 30 of The Mercy Makers
He makes a light sound that in anyone else Iriset would think was a tucked-away laugh. “Will you allow Erxan to teach you some Ceres? I would like for my wife-to-be to have folk to speak with in her home tongue when she arrives.”
Surprised, Iriset barely stops herself from agreeing immediately. She’d say yes to anything to make him indebted to her, but this has several possible advantages. New language skills, drawing her closer to the ambassador, and setting her up to befriend the future consort of the Vertex Seal. “I want to do that, Your Glory. And I will. But…”
Lyric waits as if he has all the time in the world.
Iriset asks with all the hope she can conjure, “May I see my father?”
There’s a pause, and she stares at the knob in his wrist. His hands are so relaxed. “Very well,” he finally says. “Briefly. Tell Sidoné to arrange it.”
“Thank you,” she breathes out, shoulders sinking. Permission to see her father will make disguising him with a craftmask so much easier. A smile grows on her lips.
“Thank you.”
There is so obviously an answering smile in his voice that Iriset looks up, meets his mirané-brown eyes for a flash, then skews her gaze to the black freckles at his cheek and temple. No shape aligns the dots, no pattern she can discern.
His hand lifts and he touches the freckles with two fingers. “Garnet wants me to cover them up completely, as they’re an obvious signal of who I am, my external design. Easily re-created.”
“No,” Iriset answers before she can stop herself. “They’re asymmetrical, which makes them very difficult to design—for an architect. Symmetry is a human necessity, differentiating our designs from those of She Who Loves Silence. A mask of your face would be a challenge, unless there were freckles on both sides, in even numbers.” She leans nearer than she needs to, counting swiftly. “Thirteen. A terrible number for architecture.”
With a teasing smile, Iriset flicks a glance at his eyes, then realizes she’s flirting with the Vertex Seal. Over apostasy, of all things.
But Lyric studies her thoughtfully. “I will tell Garnet he should stop pressing Menna to cover my flaws up, then.”
“Only…” Iriset swallows to regain her voice. “Only Aharté is master of asymmetrical design. Rather than a flaw, it is her blessing.”
Something shifts in the gaze of Lyric méra Esmail as she rudely stares, but he says no more.
That night, Iriset begins to draw the eyes of the Vertex Seal.
FLOW
My Aharté is not the world’s Aharté.
—Writings of the Holy Syr
The little cat
The afternoon before Iriset is to visit her father, Raia tells her that Silk is dead.
“Silk,” an begins, and Iriset startles hard enough to stumble.
Raia reaches for her elbow and she jerks away. How did an know? What gave her away? She draws her shoulders back and tilts her chin up, pulling a cool smile across her face.
But the architect’s gaze is angled down. “I’m sorry,” an murmurs. “She’s been poisoned. General Bey believes the Little Cat instructed it be done so that she gives no more secrets of his away—not that she was.” Raia grimaces.
“Oh. That…” Iriset struggles for the appropriate grief response amid waves of extreme relief. “Is… to be expected,” she finishes in a whisper.
Raia’s mouth pulls into a disapproving line. “It ought not be. It’s terrible. She served him, he shouldn’t—it’s a betrayal.”
Iriset grasps her hands together against her chest. Her identity has not been uncovered, and it makes her furiously glad.
It hadn’t been her, she isn’t dead. She’s alive and can still save her father.
The sheer relief makes her cold enough to shudder.
A woman is dead because of her, a friend, and she’sglad.
The cold flashes hot as unruly ecstatic charges take over.
