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Her Glory pushes her mask up over her face so it acts as a visor, shielding her eyes with a strip of dark shadow.

“Everything is going well. You have convinced the world. You are married, making my brother relax, setting the empire into its power again with this alliance. You survived your own funeral, hiha. Enjoy something today, why don’t you.

” She squeezes Iriset’s hand. “Food, drink, and after the eclipse convince my brother the best self-mercy is lovemaking. The hard part has passed for you.”

“The hard part…” Iriset says it voicelessly. Her pulse stutters.

“What is it?” Amaranth asks, sounding impatient. She stops her slow walking.

“The hard part, Amaranth,” Iriset snaps, “is hardly over. Did you forget again that tomorrow my father will be executed in front of the empire and I will have to stand there and watch .”

The Moon-Eater’s Mistress says nothing.

Iriset glares into Amaranth’s mirané-brown eyes. “Save him. Swear to me you will demand mercy for the Little Cat or I will tear off this mask and reveal to everyone what you’ve blackmailed me—”

Amaranth laughs.

“ Blackmailed me into,” Iriset continues through bared teeth.

“No you won’t,” the Moon-Eater’s Mistress says. “And fix your face, Singix.”

“I might. What have I got to lose?” Iriset raises her brows, but she does smooth out her expression into the nearest she can get to a sweet smile. “Less than you, Your Glory.”

For another moment, Amaranth is quiet. Her glance flicks over Iriset, clinical and assessing. Then she slumps a shoulder and tilts her head, swinging voluminous curls. “Who were those people you were so afraid to speak to at the unraveling of Iriset mé Isidor this morning, kitten?”

Iriset backs up to the wall. The cool mosaic soothes the hot ecstatic pulsing in her palms. “You know who they are.”

“That’s right. I do. And that means I know what you still have to lose.”

Closing her eyes, Iriset sees the drooping eris flowers in her grandfather’s hand. She absolutely believes Amaranth mé Esmail Her Glory has it in her to kill for politics. To do more than kill. It takes Iriset’s breath away.

“Did you…?” Iriset catches herself and starts again, making her eyes open. “Did you do it? Did you plan all of this down to the poison itself?”

True surprise bares itself in Amaranth’s expression. “I… do not know whether to be offended or flattered by the suggestion,” she says carefully.

“You only took advantage of the situation?”

“That is what I always do.”

Iriset wishes she had a cloth mask to draw over her eyes and settles for toying with the embroidered cuffs of her wide sleeves.

“When it happened,” she says slowly, “you said you just needed some time to salvage the situation. You have had several days. But you still don’t know the culprit.

Do you even want to? What is it you want from this, really, Amaranth? ”

Her Glory smiles broadly. “A sister-in-law, of course. But controlling you is only a side benefit, I assure you, kitten. My reputation is on the line, and I need the marriage to go smoothly and be successful, do you understand? Expansion by real alliance is a new direction for the empire, the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations.

It could change so much. Everything, even, given time.

But if it falls apart now, it will be generations more before there is a similar chance to show the expansive strength in one move, without massacre or genocide.

This marriage will be successful, as it is the foundation for the rest of my vision for the empire. ”

Here is where all the ambitious knots were tied, when Aharté made these siblings. Iriset stares in what can only be described as stunned awe. And horror. “That will take years. Require children .”

“If you would save your father above all other things, go. Perhaps you can. Perhaps you can get to your grandparents before I do, assuming I don’t have people already in place.

But if you are caught, if you do not succeed perfectly, you and they will be killed along with him.

I will see to it. Or… you can stay. Work with me.

Be the wife of the Vertex Seal. Imagine what you can accomplish at our side. ”

It is so similar to what Isidor the Little Cat said to his daughter.

Change something, use your position. Iriset’s breath thins as she breathes faster.

But if she agrees, her father will be dead.

And despite the draw of her falling force, Amaranth cannot be trusted.

Clearly she’ll manipulate Iriset forever.

Amaranth continues, “Think on it, if you like. Think about mercy and its cost. What would you uphold and what would you tear down, Iriset? Those are always the only choices.”

Iriset draws a ragged breath. “You are cruel.”

“I am merciful.”

“Not to your brother.”

“My brother is the most important person to me.”

“You’re lying to him! This will break his heart!”

Amaranth reaches suddenly and tilts Iriset’s chin up. Exposing Iriset’s jugular. “You do care.”

Iriset jerks her face free. “Your machinations have caused his inner design and my own to become one. I care about myself and so I care for him.”

“Hmm,” Her Glory hums. “In that case, listen to this: I might have my own visions for the future of the Vertex Seal, but I will never work against my brother. If you care for him because of your marriage knot, the reverse must be true, yes? The best thing for Lyric is to keep his wife he loves. Strengthen our family. If he finds out, it will be because of you, kitten. You are the one who will break his heart.”

Hugging herself, Iriset looks away. “I’ll make sure he knows of your involvement.”

“Fine. Mutual blackmail works for me. But you still have more to lose.”

“I might go. I might throw it all away to rescue my father.”

Her Glory says, “I know you might, kitten. That is why I speak to you openly, as an equal. Do what you think is best, and so shall I, always.”

With that, Amaranth puts a brilliant smile back on her face and shoos Iriset off to her husband with a tease and a laugh for any who might be watching.

That evening as the sun sets, Iriset lounges against him as Lyric reads old poems aloud.

Carved ice blocks drip in the recessed brazier beside them, chilling fruit neither eat.

It has been a long afternoon of ritual, of simple walking meditations meant to soothe them, Lyric’s pick for self-mercy.

Iriset did her best to wind down, but her best was lacking.

Every scenario she runs through in her head is highly likely to end with death—hers, certainly, and plenty of other people potentially.

The only truth she knows is that her father refused to trade himself for her when he had the chance.

Refused to escape. Would not sacrifice her.

So Iriset can’t sacrifice herself, either.

Lyric’s voice thrums against her back and she stares up through the domed lattice ceiling of their room: The sky is violet-pink and Iriset holds her eyes wide to see the changes, the infinitesimal darkening of high blue, the shade-flare of a long, thin cloud, the specks of black moving in perpendicular lines as kites draw their squares against the sunset.

This could be the last sunset of her father’s life. The last chance they’re both looking at the same fading sky. The same half-slice of Aharté’s moon.

All sunsets for the rest of time will be fundamentally different simply because the Little Cat will be dead. Every future sunset diminished. The entire world diminished. Knowing it, expecting it, watching the devastation approach is so much worse than the shock, the blunt adrenaline of murder.

She sighs. Lyric runs his hand down her arm. “Singix?”

Unpleasant anger stirs at the name. Even worse, longing.

But Iriset has always been a woman of physicality.

She learned to feel forces against her lips and the small of her back, didn’t she?

She knows Silence and balance require both the domination and surrender of one’s own flesh, blood, and bones.

And so she turns and kisses the Vertex Seal, kissing him like she knows what she’s doing, thoughtless to any bashful pretext. She kisses him like she could destroy him with it, save her father’s life with it, or discover a new force behind his teeth.

His Glory is helpless.

She has her way with him on the floor of the greeting room, quickly pulling aside clothing as she pushes him down and cheats with a few pulls on his rising force so that he’s harder faster.

He gasps the wrong name and Iriset refuses to speak with voice, leaving communication to nails and tongues, heartbeat and gathering pleasure.

Her own intensity rips at her delicate design and she holds it together with gritted teeth and determination.

Her skin ripples, and she doesn’t care. Iriset is nothing but forces; Lyric, too.

Thanks in part to the marriage knot, in part to her own skill, they come apart together.

When Lyric sprawls back onto the floor, still under her, still inside, there is a relaxed, joyful smile on his face.

Iriset shifts in his lap, feeling the stickiness between them, and squeezes her muscles around him. His smile widens. He is so beautiful, and Iriset thinks about putting a hand over his heart and stopping it.

She imagines ripping off her craftmask with his cock still inside her, holding him down as she transforms back to herself.

Look what you’re fucking, Lyric méra Esmail.

Are you an apostate now, too? And then she’ll draw his rising force again and again, relentlessly.

She’ll drag them both back to orgasms until he feels the crawling design on his own skin, until he swears under her own name, Iriset, Iriset, Iriset .

She sits back on his lap, head lolling as if with afterglow, but it’s despair.

Lyric squeezes her hips. “Bath?”

Shaking her head, Iriset curls down against him, pressing her cheek to his chest. They’re a mess, tangled clothing and sweat and come, and Iriset knows however this all ends, however she makes it end, it will break her heart, too.