Page 104 of The Shape of Monsters
To Raia’s abject dismay, Amaranth turned her grim smile ontoanand said, “I know how to keep that secret.”
It was a craftmask, of course. Raia pricked it into the skin at ans hairline, hands composed despite the sweat rolling down ans spine and sticking to the tight wrap of ans binder. Behind an, Garnet glowered into the mirror with arms crossed, Amaranth watched the tip of the stylus, and Anis mé Ario bit her lip, her bold mirané eyes sliding up and down Raia’s self.
When it was attached, Raia infused it with a prick of ecstatic, and the thing sucked to ans face with a sharp burn. Tears sprang to ans eyes, and through the mask ans waterlines reddened. But in the mirror it wasn’t Raia’s pale, narrow features, the soft brows, the pleasant but unremarkable jaw and lips, the fine nose and wide eyes. It was the balanced, broadly handsome features of the Vertex Seal. Including freckles under the left eye. Raia’s mouth fell open, and an watched Lyric méra Esmail look dumbly at anself.
“His hair is too long, not wavy enough,” Anis said. “We can cut it and style it with heat—or maybe find some of that ecstatic gel that was in fashion when we were kids, before it was outlawed by the Chapel.”
Amaranth nodded. “And bulk him up with shoulder pads, maybe a skin crawl like Iriset did for the hands and neck.”
“An,” Raia whispered. Nothim. Nobody listened.
Garnet said, “But there’s nothing you can do about the eyes.”
Amaranth stuck her face closer to the mirror, then swung around to look directly at Raia. “That’s true. Lyric’s eyes have flecks of true red. Raia, can you do anything about that?”
Raia shook ans head. “That’s—that’s apostasy.”
The silence that dropped was more stunned than anything. Anis reached out to pet Raia’s hair. Garnet’s lips pulled away from his teeth. He said, “An is correct. This is madness, Amaranth. I won’t let you do it. What you’ve already done is bad enough, but Lyric would never want this. Never allow it.”
“Lyric isn’t here!” Amaranth hissed. Raia sank away from her on the stool, but it wasn’t any better to be close to Garnet, who radiated anger in waves of flow. “We don’t know what happened to him, Garnet! This is the best way to hold everything still while we try to figure it out.”
“It’s not a best way to anything. You are so compromised right now, have compromised yourself for quads—”
“Do you want to tell the world that Lyric is dead?” Amaranth said so intensely she was clearly holding herself back from screaming it. “Missing? That would disrupt everything, everyone. There’d be chaos in the streets!”
“Vertex Seals die all the time,” Garnet said, but his voice broke. He cut his hand down between himself and the rest of them. “There are precedents, procedures.”
“To make me the Vertex Seal!” Amaranth’s mouth went tight, the color of her lips drained.
“Is that not whatyouwant? You want instead a puppet Seal, a puppetbrotherto do your will while you hide with the Moon-Eater?” Garnet roared.
Raia closed ans eyes.
“How dare you,” Amaranth whispered.
There was a pause, and Raia felt the forces in the room aching, knotting, straightening again. Raia usually only felt forces without tools when they were very, very pointed.
Then Garnet said, more quietly but no less ferocious: “You’vedared more than I dreamed you were capable of recently, Amaranth. You should be the Seal in his absence.”
“I don’t want Lyric to be gone,” Amaranth said. “Let me avoid it, let me do what I want here, now, Garnet, please.”
Raia folded ans hands flat together between ans knees and pressed ans legs together. An should not have been there for that discussion.
The body-twin Anis said, “You’re scaring him.”
Raia opened ans eyes and found a tiny flare of backbone to say again, “An.”
But the Moon-Eater’s Mistress shook her head, her big curls fluffing all around her like she was an angry cat. “Not anymore. You’re Lyric méra Esmail now, andhedoesn’t ever look scared.”
After the speech, Raia sits perfectly the way an was taught, but only for about six breaths. Then an slumps back, because who cares, everything about this is wrong, and if somebody guesses an isn’t the real Vertex Seal because he’s slouching after losing his wife, his mother, and nearly losing a rebellion in his own city, then Raia thinks the mirané princes have a disturbing idea of who Lyric is allowed to be.
A cold cup of water is handed to an, and Garnet nudges ans hand demandingly. Raia should sit up, but an doesn’t. What is Garnet going to do here, poke an with that sharp force-blade sheathed along the small of his back?
Raia drinks while Hehet méra Davith takes up the call of the speech, in an also well-rehearsed not-quite-argument with Amaranth about what Raia—Lyric—brought up: a citywide restructuring of certain foundational design elements, starting with the graffiti channels and ribbon network. It’s ostensibly to smooth out military communications and allow for immediate information passing,laying groundwork for more aggressive security measures. One of the mirané princes suddenly and loudly demands to know if such measures will be adaptable to individual small kingdoms or if the Vertex Seal wants the basic patterns to follow the same rhythm.
Though it isn’t scripted, Raia says, “Every adaptation will be expected to coordinate enough that the edges will interlock and harmonize smoothly between and among all the neighborhoods of Moonshadow. If all the city is not protected, it is useless.”
An does not miss Amaranth’s momentary glare. An knocks back the water, vaguely wishing it was drugged, and proceeds to stop listening. What does it matter if an pays attention? If an actually understands the meaning of the speech they wrote for an? Nobody showed an the full contents of that letter Hehet brought, the one supposedly from Lyric, wherever he is, but what made it into ans speech, the outlined shifts in the city’s foundational design patterns, speaks very loudly to Raia—as they will to any decent designer.
