Page 125 of The Mercy Makers
“Shahd,” she says, because that hurts, too. “And Erxan realized.”
He sucks in a furious breath and holds his hand in front of his eyes to shield himself from her. “Why?”
“Why did he know?”
“Why did you do it—why did Amaranth do it?”
Iriset makes herself shrug. She won’t think of those intense, terrifying hours when Amaranth commanded her to become Singix, after she’d tasted the woman’s skin and pleasure, for fuck’s sake. The terror and thethrillof it. The best and worst thing Iriset has ever done. (Yet.) “She said it was to catch the murderer and maintain her reputation because she brought Singix here. She did not want to let the world see that an assassin could murder the wife of the Vertex Seal in his own house. I think she wanted your wife to be someone she could control.”
“And the price was to allow an apostate to run rampant!Holding court in the heart of Silence! You—you are a human architect, and you defeated every defense in the palace. We didn’t even suspect.” Lyric makes a frustrated sound, a growl and a whimper. “How could Amaranth not see how much worse this is?”
“She made a choice and it was done,” Iriset says. “She is not so narrow-minded about the tools she uses forherbrutality.”
Lyric’s lips part, and Iriset thinks he might curse, but instead he remains quiet. His mouth droops, not into a frown but into a soft sorrow that breaks Iriset’s thin control. Exactly that quiet devastation she expected. She turns away, too, sinking off the worktable to kneel on the floor. Her fingers tighten on the table’s edge, keeping her from melting entirely.
In the dark egg of the mechanics room, their hard breaths slowly align again. There’s nothing either can do about it.
When Iriset is able, she pushes again to her feet. “Go put a stop to this destruction,” she says, her back to him. “Bittor is dead already. The wholesale ruin of the Saltbath will not do more good than that.”
“Dead? What happened?”
“He was killed by the Vertex Seal himself, with a force-blade to the chest—quite the victory, don’t you think?” When she hears no immediate reaction, she adds with exceeding bitterness, “Anyone who says Lyric méra Esmail His Glory lets others dirty their hands for him will have to shut up for a while.”
“You were with him. You left the palace and went right to him,” Lyric says slowly. “Because you know him… Sweet Silence, you begged mercy for him. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything, did I?”
There’s not much she can say to that. Quiet falls again, and Iriset stares at the wall while she tries not to care about Lyric’s feelings. She always knew this would be terrible, even if she did it on purpose. Out of habit, and also to make herself feel better, a little, she allows herself to wonder what Singix would do. Apologize, explain herself, take care of him. Because she loves him.
The best Iriset can do is to say, “Garnet is probably desperate to find you.”
Lyric grunts agreement.
Deciding not to beg him to spare her, knowing full well how Lyric considers mercy, she simply ignores the possibility that he’s planning how to best incapacitate her and drag her back to the palace to stand for her apostasy. She puts on a strong expression, glad she has her back to him. “You should go. Your wife doesn’t need to be rescued. Bittor is dead and the Silk rebellion won’t last without him. I certainly am not capable or interested in leading revolution no matter how much you all deserve it. I think I’ve done enough damage already.” She adds the last with appropriate relish. She knows the stories of today will ripple in every direction. Everyone in the empire will hear about Silk alive in the home of the Vertex Seal. No matter what they say or do, it cannot be erased. It will be a rallying cry. A loose knot. Iriset can tug on it later, at her leisure.
He doesn’t speak.
Iriset makes her way carefully through the darkness to the narrow ladder that leads up into the bridge’s inner workings. She grips the bars and climbs, blindly, past two hubs and into a curving petal where there’s a knot of rising and flow for whatever reason—Iriset knows next to nothing about bridge stabilization. But she presses her palms to the wall and finds a hatch.It pops open with a tug of ecstatic, and she climbs out onto the petal’s curl. This isn’t meant as a balcony, but it suits her as a place to sit and attempt not to shake apart.
From her perch upon that small petal (positioned both to collect errant threads of flow in the air and to encourage said flow in the necessary direction for the tower’s integrity), Iriset can see across the dark, sparking Saltbath.
Fires flicker, and alert-sparks burst in the sky, drifting on thin wings for a while before sputtering out and disintegrating as they crash. In several spots the army’s light arrays still glow, shifting slowly as the soldiers move. The wavering quality of the firelight and the explosive ecstatic charges put the night into a dream-space. Or nightmare-space, rather. Darkness, bursts of strange lights, yelling, and the occasional arc of force-weaponry jutting up from an alley. There’s a bonfire in a square four streets away, and tall plants crowning some lofted apartments burn. Thin towers are nothing more than shadows, and the winding streets shimmer, shadows on shadows punctuated by the occasional streak of fire.
Iriset has no idea what she should do next. She’s so tired.
But flee, she supposes. Collect her stash and her grandparents and leave Moonshadow, go north toward the Cloud Kings. At least for now. Hunker down, collect herself. She needs space to remember who she is, especially after she’s been someone else for so long.
There are stars in the sky, scattered silver, except directly above where the gibbous moon blots them out, its dark side a ghostly black-gray shadow she can hardly see. She curls her hands around each other and presses them between her breasts. The wind blows, smelling of smoke and force-echo, ringing with alarum and tears.
Later, Iriset is numb, hungry, and too tired to even close her eyes. It’s still dark, still nighttime, but the noises have died down, the force-bursts becoming more rare. She suspects maybe an hour remains before the morning will slick light across the sky.
And that’s when Lyric climbs out of the hatch to join her.
She holds herself motionless, not looking.
He settles beside her on the small petal balcony, unarmed, and without the layer of lacquered armor. The pale linen of his shirt nearly glows in the cool darkness. He sits with his knees drawn up, leaning back. There’s very little space for them both, but they’re careful not to touch.
“It was always you,” he says quietly.
“Always me,” she whispers like an echo. “But I did change. I took her potential and made it a part of mine, and so I became something new. Someone new.”
