Page 45

“Singix…” she says, about to say something about Singix.

Iriset catches herself and quickly adds, layering her best soft accent into her voice, “Please, my name, you may use it. I am not grieved by you, Your Glory. Iriset—last night, only last night, told me my, ah, dominant force is flow, and… yours is rising, and she said… she said if I reached for you and… oh, I do not like to think she is dead.” Iriset pulls away and hides her stolen face behind her stolen hands.

Her words are half-lies, but her emotions are real.

Guilt pinches her heart too sharply, thinking how recently Singix was alive, had feared her marriage and turned to Iriset for friendship and advice.

The smell of bathwater against her inner thigh.

And here Iriset sits, preventing the balance of justice.

Her father taught her only to feel guilt for actions she would change if she could.

Would she change her actions? No. But if she could have saved Singix, she would have.

Lyric quietly says, “Singix, it was Iriset herself who taught this meditation to me. I think she would like for you to know it, too. For us to find balance between us.”

“Yes,” she whispers. And Singix would want Iriset to be kind. She would not blame Iriset at all.

He holds his hands out, palms up, and she puts hers against his.

His instructions are simple, basic, as he describes how the meditation works.

Iriset’s struggle to put flow dominant serves to cause enough frustration to create the illusion she’s unpracticed.

Lyric takes his own rising dominance and its mirror falling, matching it to her flow and ecstatic.

For a long while they breathe together, palms connected by the tug of energy.

Iriset follows his lead, letting herself go with him into balance, only occasionally breaking it as if she were a beginner.

Her body gradually relaxes. She’s aware of the eddies of warm breeze sliding in through the lattice, the scent of broth fading, replaced by a rich lotion of some kind.

Spicy fennel. Her bottom grows weary of the stationary position and she flexes her muscles subtly, even as her knees tighten.

Ecstatic fixes some of her newly straight and soft hair to her neck.

She hears Lyric’s even breathing, and the ghost of his pulse through their balanced connection.

This connection to him, to his inner design, along with her slightly aching muscles and her relaxation twist together into a key and unlock her desire again. The heat of it knots in her loins, and Iriset’s eyes jerk open.

Lyric is looking at her.

He wants her, too. She can see it in the slight parting of his lips.

She pulls her hands away and breathlessly says, “I am tired.”

What she wants to do is dive forward and kiss him, straddle his hips, pull aside his robe, and sink herself over his cock. Then they’d be balanced, inside each other.

It’s most certainly not anything Singix would consider or even think . She turns her face away.

Lyric stands, a little awkwardly. “Princess. Singix. Thank you. Your trust has honored me.”

Nodding, Iriset stands, too. She keeps her gaze lowered to his chest, focused on the crossed, embroidered edge of his robe. In two days, she’ll be gone. Or she’ll be dead.

He’s so different with Singix than he’d been with her.

Softer, kinder. And also more commanding.

Iriset doesn’t know if it’s because of the kind of husband he wishes to be, or the kind he thinks Singix expects.

That night in the garden, he had not seemed to put on a pretense, but met her, Iriset, person to person.

They’d been close, despite their arguing, despite the vast differences in their needs and philosophies. Here, there’s a distance between them.

A jealous piece of her thinks Lyric preferred the irreverent, arguing Iriset to his bride. Is she jealous of herself?

He says, “I’ll send in your servants.”

“No.” Iriset reaches out and lets her fingers skim his wrist bone. “I need the rest of the night alone, please.”

“Then in the morning. I am afraid even this tragedy cannot delay further our rituals. Tomorrow is the day before our marriage, and there are many pieces of the ritual that must begin. Do you—” The Vertex Seal pauses. He doesn’t continue.

“I am ready,” Iriset says. It’s what she must say. But she’s thinking, Fuck, the design seed. She lets her expression crumple a little bit, showing grief only, not deep frustration woven through it.

“We will mourn her afterward.”

“An unraveling,” she whispers.

Lyric nods. He turns to go and Iriset surges forward with a sudden, dramatic idea.

“Wait,” she begs. Her pulse pounds with sparks of ecstatic force. “Your Glory, I have one request.”

“Anything,” he says, surely unable to imagine that his gentle bride will ask something he can’t grant.

“For Iriset, I would like to speak with her father.”

Absolute shock slackens Lyric’s features, and then he frowns. “To what end?”

She swallows and covers her eyes with her fingers—the only respect she can offer without a mask.

“I lost my mother when I was young, and it was very difficult. The criminal must have resigned himself to his own death, but it is not worthy of us, of the Vertex Seal, to force him to learn of his daughter’s death suddenly, or coldly. And with no comfort at all.”

Her mirané is too good, too sophisticated for Singix, but Lyric doesn’t seem to notice. Iriset wants to peek at him, to learn the path of his thoughts, but does not.

In a moment, his hands touch her wrists, lowering them from her eyes. “Mercy,” he says softly.

“Yes, it is your Days of Mercy. For her service, may I give this little mercy to him?”

“If you give me a promise in return,” Lyric says.

“Anything.” Iriset repeats his promise, despite the risk.

The Vertex Seal holds her hands. “When we are alone, for the rest of our lives, you will not hide your eyes from your husband.”

A reply sticks in her throat. She shivers and stares into the chips of moon-red and brown that make his eyes so perfectly mirané. Iriset nods, and Lyric leaves.

She remains standing in place even after the door closes, flushing, shivering, weak, and then near laughter. It’s unbelievable she’s survived so far. But she has. Spikes of adrenaline keep her on her feet as she stares after him, terrified and utterly triumphant.