Page 130 of The Mercy Makers
“We have to go, numen, before we are discovered. You’re free.” Now Iriset tugs. She wants to keep arguing, but here and now is not the place nor time. “Let’s go.”
It tilts its head. “Yes, but first I must complete my mission.”
“You can’t kill the Moon-Eater’s Mistress!” Iriset says. “The one you came for is long gone.”
“I do not wish to kill anyone.”
The numen has no accent whatsoever, she realizes. It speaks exactly like she does. “Why did you try before? That is why you were imprisoned for a hundred years.”
“Miscommunication.” It shrugs as casually as a child hiding stolen candy.
She stares, disbelieving. Maybe it’s trying to be funny.
“Come on.” Iriset tugs again, and it releases one of her hands, keeping a tight grip on the other. Fine. Iriset moves out of the room with the numen on her heels. “I can get us out of the palace, through the plumbing design, then we can talk, then we can—we can do whatever we want.”
“My mission.” It moves up the stairs effortlessly, as if it weighs nothing, has not been bound and weakened for a hundred years. At the first security net, the numen pushes around her, and before Iriset can use her stylus to bend the net, it plucks at the threads with its bare hand until they shiver out of the way.
Iriset pauses. It can use its hands as she used her silk glove, to directly affect the forces. Oh holy moon, she has a thousand questions. But one first: “What is your mission?”
“To free the Moon-Eater fromhisprison.”
The ramifications of that simple phrase rock Iriset back on her feet.
The numen steps into her space, bending over her so all she sees or senses is it. It says, “I need a sunderer, or else I need four equally strong architects, each dominant in one of the four forces. You are a sunderer, you can do it with me and no others. It will take hardly any time at all, and then we will flee, anywhere you like. I can take you, I can make you safe and teach you anything there is to know.”
Parting her lips to taste the forces that float off it with every blink and every shift of its mouth, Iriset murmurs, “We’ll never make it. I was lucky to get here to you without being recognized or caught.”
The numen’s sudden grin dissolves between one breath and the next, and Iriset stands in the narrow spiral stairs with hulking Garnet méra Bež.
She squeaks and leans back, but Garnet catches her elbows, laughing softly at her. That’s no laugh Garnet has ever made, full of wry amusement and a little wicked.
“Oh holy moon,” she says again, like she’s sayingI have seen the face of god.
And it is certainly not Garnet smiling lopsided, with a lot of teeth. But the illusion is physically perfect. (Iriset knows why: It’s not, in fact, an illusion. The numen has become Garnet. Even to his voice.)
“Coming?” it says, one heavy brow lifting to tease.
“Wait. I want to see the prison, but I’m not promising to help you free the Moon-Eater.”
It smiles again, rather predatory. “You will, when you see.”
Though she’s uncertain about, well,everythingin that moment, Iriset goes. (She will always go, can never resist such a temptation. How else did all this happen?)
With Garnet as her escort, nobody stops them, though they pass many, including a harried Raia mér Omorose.
Iriset pulls her cloth mask over her face and keeps her eyes down, bubbling with nervous laughter—amazed laughter. Whatever else happens, she’s crossing the palace of the Vertex Seal with a shape-shifter, a legendary numen, and in the Moon-Eater’s Temple she’ll shortly understand something nobody else in the world understands.
As they cross the quartz yards, Iriset concentrates on not tripping on any of the tangled security threads. But the numen looks up at the silver-pink moon, and it waves. Iriset hisses at it to be more circumspect, and it continues stomping heavily, which is not exactly the way Garnet walks. They make directly for the Moon-Eater’s Temple.
The Silent priest standing guard doesn’t shift at all beneath his full black veil when Garnet and an anonymous palace servant enter. Inside the alcove the candelabras are lit, and the latticed door leading into the sanctuary gapes open. The numen doesn’t even ping the security nets.
Beyond, several miran kneel before the granite altar, holding hands as they murmur a brief song of balance.
It’s cool inside. The dark blue honeycomb arches lift so high in the starry dome, glinting along their angles with soft force-light. Amaranth’s privacy screen has been folded away.
“Finish your prayer and leave us,” Garnet—the numen—says. Its voice cuts through the peaceful silence. (Garnet’s voice, perfect.)
One miran flinches, but the rest remain bowed and murmuring their song.
