Page 66 of The Mercy Makers
She hugs herself. “Your Glory.”
“Princess. Singix. I recognize the unusual intimacy of my presence here, alone, and if you prefer, I will leave. Or I will send for one of your attendants to chaperone. I hope, though, that you might allow me to stay. May I?”
At her signal, he sets the tray down upon a low table with a coal brazier built in. He waits for her to tuck herself onto the pillow beside it before joining her.
This room, where so much happened in the last day and night, is dark wood designed similarly to Iriset’s—someone else’s now—but the stucco walls have been painted a vivid, heavenly blue. It gives the room the feeling of being underwater, or perhaps in a cave made of sapphires. The ceiling is a low, shallow dome striped in blue and black. Rugs woven in spiralsdot the floor, as do luscious pillows and low benches built into the northern wall beneath a long rectangle of lattice that opens over one of the inner courtyards.
It’s hers now. Hers if everyone believes she’s Singix of the Beautiful Twilight. The only mark of Ceres in the room is a small icon of a pregnant god reclined upon a many-petaled flower beside the door. Iriset recognizes her from conversations with Ambassador Erxan.
Tapp. The god of courage.Between the sun and the memory of the sun, Iriset thinks, hearing it in Singix’s gentle voice.
She’s going to need every form of courage, small and large.
With that in mind, Iriset meets Lyric’s gaze and looks immediately away.
He says, “Sorrow has etched an even fuller beauty into your countenance, Princess.”
Iriset shuts her stolen eyes as a wave of shame and anticipation flushes her cheeks. She wonders how the physiological reaction shows through her mask. Does it darken these changed cheeks with that same pretty pink glow she so admired in Singix? Her own desert-peach skin would have grown duskier with the blush. “I do not know to thank you or not,” she whispers, careful with her language. Shaping the words as near to Singix’s accent as she can; whispers hide all manner of vocal fluctuations.
“I need no thanks, but only for you to take care. Eat. There is a variety. I was unsure what to request for you.” He doesn’t gesture but keeps his hands calmly against his thighs.
The tray holds several kinds of bread, thinly sliced root vegetables and bite-sized squash dumplings, cured meat, an egg broth with tiny floating green herbs, and sweet oats. There’s water, and the squat carafe. Iriset picks up a triangle of cornbread she thinks has fennel seed baked in, and tastes it.
Lyric rolls a slice of meat around a carrot and pops it into his mouth.
They eat. Iriset is finally ravenous and focuses on chewing slowly. The broth is delicious but too hot for this weather. Everything else is cold. She sips her water, and then Lyric pours two cups of golden liquor from the carafe. The cups are the size and colors of a nightjar’s striped egg.
“To Iriset,” Lyric says. “I am grateful for her sacrifice, and will remember her name to our children.”
Iriset can’t respond for the nausea that tingles in her stomach suddenly; she drinks the liquor. It’s so airy and hard it seems to effervesce in her mouth and throat. Tears spring to her eyes. She gasps.
Lyric drinks and then takes her hand, the one with the empty cup. He cradles it in his and waits for her to regain herself.
“What is it?” she asks, rasping just a little.
“Honeybite.”
She lifts her brows. She knows, but Singix probably did not.
“A generic word for any strong home-brewed liquor,” he says. “This is the Seal guard specialty. They make it in their barracks, where only force-blades should be stored. They claim the energy from the blades sharpens the flavor.” The Vertex Seal smiles slightly. “I rarely partake, because our bodies are perfectly designed by She Who Loves Silence, and I prefer not to alter her creation.”
“But?” Iriset murmurs.
“But we grow imperfectly, and the effects of the world upon us sometimes need softening. A little will do no permanent damage.”
Iriset licks her bottom lip and nods. Her hand remains cradled in his, and a shiver of ecstatic force tingles from her knuckles to his palm.
“Singix,” he says carefully, as if she’s wild and needs to be tamed.
“Your Glory,” she replies, curling her fingers around the cup.
Lyric plucks the cup away and asks, “Will you allow me to teach you a balancing meditation? It might help you sleep, or at least to relax. That was a spark of ecstatic force I felt—and for it to be so bold in an untrained body suggests your inner balance is upset.”
Cursing internally, Iriset hesitates.Flow.Singix’s dominant force was flow, and of course Lyric would notice otherwise. Hedoeshave training from the Silent priests. And Iriset herself showed him, only a few nights ago, how to be even more aware.
“Please,” she says.
The Vertex Seal shifts so that he faces her directly upon the floor pillow. He crosses his legs and asks her to do the same. It proves difficult to maintain her modesty, but the dress she wears has a full skirt and she manages. Lyric explains in simple words what he’ll do and expect from her: It’s exactly the meditation Iriset taught him in the Color Can Be Loud Garden.
