Page 42

Apostasy

I riset has never worked so quickly in her entire life as she does that night.

Sidoné argues vehemently against the scheme, but Her Glory says, “What will happen if we reveal this? War, at best. Devastation, heartbreak, and a murdering viper able to flee in the wake of their success at worst. Plus war. Better to hold this secret and use the shake of confidence it will give the culprit to root them out. Investigate, do not let them think they won. There will be murder—the murder of a mere handmaiden—to use to our advantage. But we will still have bait. It is a good plan.”

“You want me to die,” Iriset says, but Sidoné talks over her, through gritted teeth:

“And your tool will be free and roaming and married to your brother!”

“I can’t marry the Vertex Seal!” Iriset cries.

Both Amaranth and Sidoné hush her.

Iriset grits her teeth and interrupts, “Even if I do this, we would only have two days until the marriage. A craftmask to fool from a distance is one thing, but a craftmask to fool so intimately has never been done. Not since the Apostate Age! It would require real human architecture. Changing my face, my hair, my eyes. Not a mask that can be removed, or a single body part or inner system reworked, but an entire physiological transformation! I—”

“Can you?” Amaranth asks, still holding her gaze upon Sidoné.

“Yes,” Iriset says because she is, after all, prideful, “ with time , but—”

Amaranth turns, leaning over her, and says with extreme calm, “Let me take this choice from your hands, kitten. You will do as I command, or I will swear that you murdered Singix, and reveal that you are Silk. Never forget what you owe me.”

Shock silences Iriset, and her heart pounds so viciously her ears ring, blocking all other thoughts and sounds.

Her Glory holds her hard, hot gaze on Iriset’s, exactly like it would be death to glance away.

Sidoné speaks, but Iriset doesn’t hear.

“I have no choice,” Iriset says slowly. She touches her bottom lip as if surprised by the words falling from her mouth.

In that moment she believes it: She has no choice. Who would take her word over that of the Moon-Eater’s Mistress? And she is Silk. Once the accusation is made, there would be no hiding it.

“This is madness!” Sidoné says.

“It will work,” Amaranth answers. “Iriset can do this, and will, and we will hold the empire together for my brother.”

“Ama—”

“Get to work, Iriset,” Her Glory commands.

Iriset stares at Singix’s slack face. She folds fear up, and then grief, tucking them away to deal with later, so that now she can study the task before her with a designer’s eyes.

In her chamber is a mask of her own face, and half of another mask made, waiting for its singular design. She can do this.

She wants to do this.

She wants to lie to Lyric méra Esmail, the brutal, disciplined, devoted, faithful Vertex Seal.

She wants to prove this is possible. Take the place of his wife, become her in every way.

Iriset can set herself as near to the Vertex Seal as it is possible to be.

With nothing but her pure skill. Because she can.

No greater challenge of design will ever reveal itself to her, and if she passes it up, she’ll regret it for the rest of her days—though her days would likely be greater in number.

This is true apostasy being asked of her, the worst sort, and beyond even that, they’ll have to conceal the murder of a woman she cares for, a woman she admires.

If she’s caught, nothing can save her from Lyric’s brutal justice.

Not even Amaranth. She’ll be dead and unraveled before she can part her lips to beg mercy.

But.

What is a long life if you do not seize every chance at greatness?

Her focus narrows onto that moment, that choice, and she understands on every level of her inner and outer design that she was born and raised for exactly this.

It will be her legacy.

She says, “There is a tile in my room that is loose, four tiles from the south window, if you begin just west of the center. Beneath it is a crystal stylus, several scraps of silk. Bring me everything you find. Bring me also fresh vellum, and a—a basic design kit. I will have to make two full-body masks: one for me and one for her. And I will need as much time as you can give me.”

Amaranth sends Sidoné, and Iriset gets to work.

Singix’s beauty makes it easier, for she’s a study in symmetry and smooth features, high square cheeks and perfect shining skin.

The nose will be harder, being longer and straighter, and the hair.

Iriset panics for several breaths when she realizes she doesn’t have time to do anything about her knotted, curling brown hair to force it shining and smooth as obsidian; that panic whitens into numbness as she traces the ghost letters on Singix’s forehead, trying to see into her thick hair. She’ll do the best she can.

“We’ll send for Garnet an hour before dawn,” Amaranth says, kneeling beside Iriset to watch. “That is three more hours from now.”

Sweating with tension, Iriset asks Amaranth to copy the ghost writing on Singix’s face and hands, then keeps to her merciless pace.

She strips to her loincloth when she pauses to finalize the mask of her own face, once the sketching and design of Singix’s is finished.

She changes the eyes to remain closed and, with the stylus, hooks the silk mask to Singix’s dead face.

Then she activates her work with a spark of ecstatic and the mask sucks itself against the body.

Iriset stares at her own dead face.

Amaranth gasps and reaches to touch, but doesn’t quite put her finger to Singix’s lips. She curses softly.

Disconcerting is the word Iriset thinks.

It’s quick work to darken Singix’s skin tone along her arms and neck with a simple crawling design that will gradually cover all her body, and longer work to arrange her hair not only a brighter brown but rougher in texture, curled, and then knotted.

Once Iriset shows them how, Her Glory and her body-twin take over the styling.

It’s not perfect, and will hardly bear close inspection, but will have to do.

Their performance must sell the transformation.

Amaranth dresses Singix in Iriset’s discarded robe and trousers while Sidoné helps Iriset into a sleeping gown and full-skirted robe from Singix’s things.

Sidoné pins a veil that can fall down over her face.

If they’re interrupted now, it will serve to hide Iriset.

Sidoné says, “You’ll have to keep your mouth shut and pretend to be faint. ”

“I’ll never get the voice right,” Iriset says.

“We don’t have the tools to change a voice in real time—it’s knowledge lost in apostatical fires.

” Iriset is awed and afraid as she looks at her own dead body.

Her father—no, she shoves that aside. She can’t worry about it now.

Too much is immediately at stake. Later. Later.

“Don’t say much, copy her accent, say you’re insisting on speaking only mirané as you approach your wedding,” Amaranth suggests softly.

Iriset nods. “And I will be grieving her, too.”

Once the costumes are in place and Singix transformed, Iriset turns to herself.

It’s harder with her skin covered, with the wide sleeves and beaded hems, for she can’t sense the eddies of flow and falling forces so easily.

Ecstatic overwhelms her, lifting the hairs on her arms; rising force puts heat in her cheeks and clouds in her head. If only she had her silk glove.

Thank Silence she’d already begun this second craftmask days before.

It’s relatively simple—for her—to shift the design to Singix’s symmetry.

She says, “This will do for now, but I will need some more items to truly change my living face. I’ll need chips of quartz, any kind but as flawless as possible, and raw silk.

To make a more permanent mask, one that will become part of me. For my whole—my whole body.”

Her Glory makes mental notes, nodding with each item. “Tomorrow.”

“Wait!” Iriset thrusts out her left arm, having nearly forgotten the jade cuff tied to her internal design. “I don’t have time for the ghost writing on my hands right now, but I will have to transfer this—I can, but if anybody is watching the schematics, they’ll know immediately.”

“Can you do it quickly? Can we wait for the last moment, when we say she—you have died?”

“Yes, quickly. And if none are paying attention it won’t matter at all, but the time will be marked for Menna to see.”

A star mirror with four points hangs upon the tiled wall of the bathing chamber and Iriset stands before it as she places the mask.

The stitching requires careful points with her stylus, and Iriset stops breathing before she recalls herself and exhales in her eight-count.

Life and rhythm are part of the point; a static mask will do no good.

With the sharp tip of the crystal stylus she pricks the seam of the mask to her hairline while Amaranth carefully holds the bottom, her fingers protected by a layer of sheer silk.

With each breath, Iriset pricks a new stitch, along her ear, then jaw and chin, then down the other side of her face.

Her skin heats and she breathes balance until the moment comes: She closes her eyes and with two styli activates the pressure points.

Ecstatic force snaps to life, answering the system of threading designed into the mask, and the silk sucks against her face.

It hurts, like the heat sting of a bee, like a fresh bruise, like the sudden ache of a fever’s touch.

When Iriset opens her eyes, they’re still her own in the mirror: sandglass brown, faceted with a few strokes of darker brown near the pupil.

But everything else about her face has changed.

Gone her square Osahar jaw, gone her dark peach skin, gone her delicate cheeks and upturned nose.