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The Moon-Eater’s Mistress

E very morning, the Moon-Eater’s Mistress enters his sanctuary to wake him with her love. It’s part of the balance of the Vertex Seal, as written upon the throne: one claimed with blood and paired with hunger, always binding .

The Vertex Seal himself spills a drop of blood upon the moon-red rock beneath the seat of power every day. Amaranth, as second born, is the one paired with hunger. She belongs to the Moon-Eater, to feed his appetite.

The story that the Holy Syr and Maimeri Sarenpet unraveled the Moon-Eater until there was nothing left but his teeth is the most commonly retold version.

Priests of Silence debate the meaning of unraveled .

To some it means Aharté blessed the Holy Syr’s stylus, allowing her to physically destroy the Moon-Eater, pulling his outer design apart until the energy of his threads joined the four forces.

His teeth remained as a reminder. To others it means that Aharté herself reappeared and drew the Moon-Eater’s threads up to her silver-pink moon but left his teeth below with us so that he could not eat her as he had eaten himself.

Variations of both versions scatter through sects of Silence and apostatical cults.

The Vertex Seal, and the line of miran, follow the tenet that the Holy Syr had unraveled the Moon-Eater literally with her design, and yet he existed still, his inner design spread throughout the forces because he was energy, which ultimately cannot be destroyed.

His will remains strong, and he longs to reweave his own design, to become a god again that he might face Aharté—though to love her or destroy her, the priests avoid saying.

The Moon-Eater’s Mistress exists to distract the apostate god from said goal.

To divert his attention from Aharté, to give him a piece of love without serving up She Who Loves Silence whole.

And so every morning, the Moon-Eater’s Mistress conciliates her lover.

Mistress is a mirané word, with both dominant and possessive connotations, coded feminine because mirané is a stringently bigendered language.

There is only man or woman, which is hardly a stable balance.

At least three points are needed for stability, and true design balance requires even numbers, so they ought to have had four genders at minimum .

There were only two because that had been the simplest solution to rampant apostasy, as well as the easiest to control, and the most reductive with nothing in between.

Or else two because it most mirrored Aharté and the Moon-Eater, if one could call the goddess a woman and the young god a man at all.

Regardless, the word they will someday call Amaranth is savior , but at the time, the word did not yet exist. Or perhaps had been forgotten.

Iriset sleeps upon a pile of silk and linen cushions, beneath a curtain of sheer green that hangs from one corner of the ceiling and can be rolled up or tied aside.

Most of her life she’s woken up naturally in the mornings, and it’s no different at first in the palace.

Iriset’s body is so attuned to pulses of force that once Her Glory is up, and her handmaidens, subtle fluctuations in the architecture of Iriset’s chamber floor shake her out of dreams. But lately her intense night work has drained her to exhaustion, and she must be dragged awake.

This morning an attendant who is not Shahd touches her shoulder and calls her name, saying she’s needed in Her Glory’s bedchamber immediately.

“Fashion emergency,” the girl says without a hint of teasing.

Iriset frowns. What does she have to do with Her Glory’s wardrobe? But she readies herself anyway and follows the attendant to Amaranth’s chamber.

In the center of the room Amaranth stands, arms raised, expression demanding with a smile.

Sidoné lounges upon the low sofa to the right, beside a stack of thin books and a table loaded with breakfast cheeses, smoked fish, and cranberry corn muffins.

The third and fourth feminine-forward miran in the room are both royal tailors.

One, fifty and intimidating, holds a length of deep violet silk.

The other, perhaps twenty-five and grinding her teeth impatiently, tugs at the end of another scarf partly wound around Amaranth’s waist.

“It will not stay without glue, Your Glory,” the young one says, in a tone of one repeating herself.

“Iriset,” Amaranth says with intense satisfaction. “The rest of you are dismissed.”

Iriset holds her fingers to her eyelids despite her concealing mask and waits as the tailors depart.

“Come help me with this,” Amaranth says.

Sidoné appears at Iriset’s side to hand her a slab of cheese and sliced cactus pear. “You need fortitude.”

Iriset drags off her cloth mask, tucking one edge along her waist, and accepts.

The Moon-Eater’s Mistress sighs and waves for Sidoné to bring her some food, too.

“How can I assist?” Iriset asks, then nibbles on her breakfast. Her coffee cools, cupped in the palm of her left hand.

Amaranth holds out her arms again; the veils and scarves and robe she wears shift to reveal quite a bit of her mirané-brown flesh. “I need this all to stay where I want it.”

Iriset frowns. She wants to help—in the time she’s been here, Amaranth has yet to ask her for anything, or offer any particular sign of favor.

How can she ingratiate herself if Her Glory wants nothing from her?

She says, “I know nothing of clothing but how to tie my own. Those seem like scarves, not… not a tunic. Or even a skirt.”

“This is eight wide scarves and two veils. I would like them to drape over me as if they might fall away at any moment, as if the slightest motion on my part will reveal a breast or my belly or the long line of this thigh.” She strokes her left thigh.

The nipple of her right breast glances out as one of the scarves slides.

“I…” Iriset stops.

Amaranth smiles a little smile of satisfaction. “Only as if, Iriset. I do not actually wish to flash my brother or his mirané council. I only want to very firmly remind them what I am.”

“What you are?”

“The person who fucks a god every morning to keep the empire safe.”

Iriset stares at Amaranth, pear forgotten in her fingers. Her inward attention slips lower, much lower, than her stomach, and she hears that delicious, harsh word echo in her ears. Carefully, Iriset licks her lips and swallows. It isn’t her mouth where she wants to put something.

Amaranth reaches out and takes the pear from Iriset’s loose fingers, popping it into her own mouth.

She chews slowly, leaning on one hip in languorous glory, half naked, her dense black curls spilling over her shoulders and down her back.

No paint mars the curved planes of her face yet, no eyeliner nor lipstick, and even unadorned she’s spectacular: smooth mirané-brown skin, wide cheeks, luscious mouth, surprisingly plain red-brown irises surrounded by unimpressive lashes.

Thick eyebrows, and a perfectly straight nose.

Her shoulders slump from a long neck, and though Iriset has seen Her Glory lift weights and her own body off the ground in class, her arms are soft, as is her round belly.

Over yet rounder hips her waist cuts in sharply, making a fold in the flesh, and her breasts hang heavily enough to balance those hips and the muscles of her thighs.

Iriset thinks that anyone with eyes could never forget what Amaranth is: power.

“Finished staring, hiha?” Her Glory drawls.

Her face is already hot, but Iriset ignores it to say (rather breathily), “I still don’t know how I can help.”

“Make it stick.”

Sidoné laughs. “Do you see her face, Amaranth?”

“I do. Iriset, your mentor used design to create a mask that can stick to a person’s face like second skin.

I want this”—Her Glory holds up the end of a creamy scarf—“to cup my breast and not let go, then curve around my hip. And this”—she touches violet silk—“to fall from my center and modestly down between my legs. The rest can slither, fall, curl however. But the illusion must be of delicate, careful design. Can you do it?”

Though the answer waits behind Iriset’s teeth that she was merely an apprentice, that such skill is beyond hers and belongs to Silk alone, the look in Amaranth’s eyes stills her reply.

Her Glory is looking at her with challenge. With assumption.

Iriset’s arousal vanishes in a cold flash.

If Amaranth already knows the truth, or guesses, she must have a plan for Silk.

For bringing an apostate here. Seducing her with promises and indifference and potential.

In that case, what could Iriset gain from lying to the Moon-Eater’s Mistress, the one who plucked her from prison and set her here in the heart of the empire?

Amaranth wants her, wants something from her, maybe many somethings, whether Iriset and Silk are the same or not.

Amaranth already admitted she likes uncommon girls. Is Silk not the rarest of all?

Wasn’t Iriset just complaining that Amaranth never asked anything of her?

Fine. But not for free. She sets the coffee bowl upon the tiled floor and says, “I can do it. But not fast. I need embroidery thread or silk—ten-strand is fine. I need a stylus and an octagonal frame. Do you know what that is?”

Amaranth nods. “Anything else?”

“A pound of fine clay powder. Clear water. A brazier and dragon bone resin. A few afternoons left alone.” This is more than she needs for Her Glory’s project, and as much extra as she thinks she’ll get away with requesting.

“It will be done.”

“And a few days to infuse the thread and another, with those tailors to weave it. Oh, and all those scarves, of course. Three mornings from now, you for modeling and building it.”

Her Glory grins. “Oh, I am glad to hear it, hiha.”

“And—”

“More?” Sidoné puts in.

Iriset ignores the body-twin. “My grandparents. They have nothing to do with any of this, right?”