Page 34 of The Mercy Makers
“You can’t command such a thing.” Tears collect behind her eyes, pressing her voice into a whine.
His hand squeezes, hurting her knuckles as his fingers crush hers. “I do.”
“Dad.”
“Your willfulness has served you, Iriset, but do not let it get you killed. Do not let it ruin you. You gave me your bond.”
Iriset digs her nails into the back of his hand. “How can I live with myself if I don’t try? What kind of monster would I be?”
“Ah, girl, do not make me worry constantly my last days!”
Tears burn her eyes, her cheeks are hot, there’s a staggering in her pulse. Iriset keeps her eyes on their hurting hands. “Don’t make me say goodbye to you!”
Her father’s grip loosens. She chokes out a sob and pulls her hand free.
Isidor takes her shoulder instead and pushes her to face him. A haggard frown drags his expression. “Goodbye, Iriset.”
“No.”
“Iriset.”
She climbs to her feet, using the wall for support. She shakes her head, no, no,no.
“Where is your pride?” Isidor asks gently.
Spiking ecstatically, twisted in a dreadful fall, a glutted flow, with nowhere to rise, no hope, no prayer to the silver-pink moon in the sky.
“Gather it,” orders the Little Cat.
Iriset puts her fists together over her sternum, shoved against her flesh, then pushes down until her fists are a pressed heart of force right over her core, the center of her balance. She breathes. Air flows into her, cooling the spikes of ecstatic fury, the sparks of excitement. Blood pumps to her palms and soles of her feet, pushing out and inward again, a gravity centered within her. Love and longing drift together, lifting toward the lightest cloud of warmth as she sighs it out across her tongue.
Isidor brushes his fingers along her temple, then kisses her lips, her forehead, and touches his forehead to hers.
Hot tears fall in straight lines down her cheeks. Her lips tremble. “I won’t say goodbye, Dad.”
His sigh crackles with a growl.
“I swear I will see you again. Even if it is at the unraveling pier.”
“Do not watch me die,” Isidor says.
“Stop commanding me! I will watch if I must. If I cannot free you, I will face the consequences of our life, of my failure.Thatis my pride!” She steps back, holds his gaze. “Like this, and you can find me, find my eyes across the field of curious and death-seekers come to watch the Little Cat perish. If nothing else, promise me you’ll look for me, look at me, and let me—let me be the last thing you see.”
“Your eyes, kitten, and the clouds in the sky,” he whispers, so tense with emotion the words almost disintegrate.
Poor fairy
Iriset leaves the apostate tower in a state of alarm so restless it could be felt by anyone sensitive to threads of force. The Seal guard says nothing, only moves after her as she darts back to the palace.
Curses on her father’s integrity for refusing her help!
Iriset closes her eyes, pressing tears out, and grits her teeth against a wail. She keeps going.
Sweat itches her scalp, runs down her spine, and she suddenly, halfway across the quartz yards, jerks at the winding cloth mask, tearing at it, pulling it out of its knots and twists. She frees it, and her thick brown hair falls down, knotted in places, braided in others, but messy for how she’s undone the mask. Her stylus falls to the path and she grabs it up; it was hidden in the carefully twisted headdress, and the scrap of silk that is her craftmask, too. Herperfectcraftmask. It’s genius! And she made it from scraps and stolen tools! It should be a triumph. But she crumples it angrily and stuffs it into the front of her robe.
Her cloth mask is pale orange, and she snaps it out fully into its broad rectangle, then settles it over her head with the shortside over her face, the rest falling over her loose hair. She finds the pinholes sewn in and pins it in place against the braids at her temples. She’ll not display her grief, her fury and frustration, for everyone.
From beneath the sheer mask, the world turns various shades of orange and red, shadows of fire.
