Page 37

Girls’ night

T wice a year in the summer, the path of the sun takes it directly behind the pink-silver of the moon. The sky does not go dark, but the quality of light shifts into twilit purple, an eerie, shadeless existence that fades colors into equality.

If you’ve never seen an eclipse, then can you even imagine the strange twist of shadows that occurs as the sun slips behind the moon?

The shadow of a leaf, a pointed oval quite exactly the shape of its actual form, will tighten and bend into a crescent: the shape of the distant sun.

Dagger-edged cuts of light and shadow, crescent on crescent on crescent.

In Moonshadow, the hour of eclipse is marked with an elaborate ritual of balance honoring the four forces.

The Vertex Seal leads the rites himself from the Heavenly Courtyard.

The ritual weaves color, breathing exercises, a variety of singing prayers, and rhythmic drumming and soothing physicality designed to bring every participant from Lyric himself to the edge of the audience into energetic alignment.

Lyric leads with a simple strength, it is said, calm and certain of his purpose—of his position as the highest point in the arc of society.

Iriset sleeps through it.

She was so alive and awake with hurt and rage following her conversation with Lyric in the Color Can Be Loud Garden, she went back to her room and drew his face furiously, again and again.

Iriset drew the angle of his jaw, the sparkling brown-red of his irises, the fold at the outer edges of his uptilted eyes, and those uneven black freckles.

So what if only Aharté can design asymmetrical perfection?

So what if Iriset has said again and again architects rely on symmetry?

She is Silk, a prodigy and genius, and if anyone can design a perfect craftmask of the most important man in the empire, it’s her.

Anger fueled her wild sketching, broke the tip of two pencils, and tore through the vellum once before she paused to compel her breath and inner forces into balance. Suddenly exhausted, she put it all down.

The apostasy torn and wrinkled in front of her was worthless.

Instead, Iriset picked out the sea glass and wove a delicate force-net to restructure the glass in preparation for inserting the security map.

The dawn sun streaked pink patterns across the floor of her room and she pushed harder, intensely focused.

She would finish it and send it to be delivered to Bittor today.

The sun stretched toward the moon, folk gathered in the Heavenly Courtyard, readying themselves for the eclipse ritual, and Iriset’s hand slowed, her mind spiraling; she finally fell asleep.

Iriset wakes when Sidoné thrusts open the door, calling her name. Iriset startles, sprawled upon the cold floor beside her bed with her cheek on her hand. Her hair tangles around her neck and shoulders; she remains in the thin shift she wore to visit the garden.

Thankfully, her vellum is tucked away. Gone. The silk craftmask, too, and the sea glass.

“Iriset, have you been asleep? You’re required, you lazy thing. What have you been doing?”

Before Sidoné nudges her with a booted foot, Iriset sits up. She doesn’t remember putting any of it away. There—her vellum is folded precisely against the wall of cubbies where she keeps it. Iriset licks her lips. “I will dress,” she rasps. Her head aches; she’s thirsty.

“Hmm.” Sidoné crouches and lifts Iriset’s chin. “Shahd said you felt poorly. What have you been doing instead of sleeping, hiha?”

“Thinking of my father’s doom,” she says, pulling her chin gently away. Her lashes flutter with true anxiety.

“Singix has asked for you. Dress; I’ll send in one of the girls.”

When Iriset is alone, she scrambles to the loose tile and pries it up. The craftmask is there. It must have been replaced by Shahd when she came in this morning. Iriset doesn’t know whether to be relieved or angry.

A different girl comes to help her bathe and dress, so she can’t ask.

The first few Days of Mercy are overshadowed by the troubles in the Rivermouth and Rising Steeple precincts, until the cultists are turned over and the razing of their settlement completed.

Iriset spends those days with Singix, and so misses the first day’s sharing of bread, the second day’s gifting of smiles, and the third day’s unmasking.

Each symbolizes different sorts of mercy, and in the Holy City each comes with layers of complicated rituals different people enact differently and with different senses of obligation.

But everyone who follows Silence performs them somehow.

The cult activity keeps the miran who live in the palace complex inside its boundaries, especially Her Glory and her handmaidens, and the Ceres princess.

But each noontime Iriset stands beside Singix to watch the partial eclipse from one of the gardens, despite the oppressive heat.

It’s nice to be alone, with a Seal guard or two, unbothered by people wishing to gawk at the Little Cat’s daughter or the marvelous beauty of Singix.

They are gossip-free, and stare-free, and able to drift and speak of poetry and history, of Singix’s childhood, and Iriset’s.

Iriset almost tells the princess what happened to her mother.

She almost confesses her double life. The only thing holding her back is her father, alive, waiting to be rescued.

Each evening they go in simple masks of fragile ceramic to witness the calling of names, when the Vertex Seal gives out his selected pardons.

Petty criminals, prisoners of war, gentle trespasses, and bureaucratic crimes are covered, and at the pinnacle of the ritual a more infamous name is called, from the ranks of miran, followed by a final name offered posthumous forgiveness.

By the fourth day, Singix seems to lose interest in the unfolding ritualistic dramas and instead is growing remarkably anxious about her wedding, which will take place in three days, just before the Day of the Crowning Sun.

Iriset reads her nerves in the tightness of her eyes, the flutter of her hands, and in Singix’s hesitation before she steps into any place her husband-to-be might attend.

Iriset sent her finished map of the palace complex’s vast security array tucked into the inner structure of the sea glass to Bittor via Shahd yesterday morning, and last night placed her final anchor just behind the Moon-Eater’s Temple.

Her distraction array is as ready as it can be until the night before the execution, when she’ll overlay the final cascade design into the force-threads.

Having nothing urgent to occupy herself with, except maybe a nap, Iriset whispers to Sidoné that the princess needs an evening of relaxation, of drinks and laughter and perhaps a bath or massage.

Something quiet, intimate, with only one or two friends.

Honestly, it’s what Iriset needs, and her opportunities to appreciate what the palace has to offer are vanishing with every hour.

Luckily, Amaranth thinks this suggestion delightful, and arranges it.

That is how Iriset finds herself naked in a steaming bath inside Singix Es Sun’s suite, beside Amaranth, Sidoné, and Singix herself, each in a similar state within their own baths.

They’ve all been massaged and now soak in perfumed water, their hair combed and oiled, sipping thin juniper spirits from delicate amethyst finger-cups.

Iriset feels so loose and melting, she wonders if there’s any spark of ecstatic force left inside her body.

It’s all turned to flow: hot, easy flow.

In her father’s tower, she never took the time for luxury.

Her attention and funds went to her studies, to her obsessions and inventions.

While Iriset hardly regrets anything she’s designed or created, she wonders if sinking into relaxation or moments of slow heat like this might have unlocked inspiration.

Food has been fuel, bathing a necessity, silk a practical requirement.

Her father sometimes offered various luxuries, things he claimed were all the rage—hence why they made such good smuggling opportunities.

She never asked if he used them himself, or why he’d begun building his network with such dedication after her mother was gone, gathering wealth and associates, agreeing to her apostasy.

Not for rebellion, certainly, as so many conjectured.

Safety for her, maybe, because he couldn’t keep her mother safe, or a luxury retirement somewhere, or a triumphant return to his Cloud King family?

Iriset wonders if he did it simply because he realized how good at it he was.

That’s at least half of why she’s obsessed with design.

Perhaps she inherited the trait from him.

As her body slumps and drifts in the soft, steaming water, Iriset ponders his ambition, and squeezes her eyes shut against tears of frustration that she can’t ask him now. She hates waiting.

No ambition in the Vertex Seal… She teased Lyric about it, and wishes she’d said something scathing instead. About her father, about the Holy Design.

A ripple of water suggests someone shifts in their bath, and Singix says, “Amaranth, will you marry one day?”

Iriset opens her eyes and turns her head against the pillowed rim of her tub.

The princess sits, hugging her knees, absolutely gorgeous.

Her shoulders press up from the shimmering surface of the water, trailing a glitter of minerals and fine pink petals.

Her hair is bound messily up, but thin black snakes of it curl down her lovely neck.

The ghost writing shines. But Singix blinks wide eyes at Amaranth, her mouth drawn tight.

It isn’t working: The princess is not relaxed.

Perhaps they left her to her own thoughts too long.