Page 87

Always binding

M aybe it is Holy Design that keeps pushing Raia mér Omorose toward the threads that Iriset personally interferes with, or perhaps an is simply like her—not quite a natural sunderer, but with the instincts to learn. And so an is drawn toward the same kinds of design problems as Iriset.

The point is, Raia notices the blip of force as the security nets guarding the spiral stairs to the numen’s prison bend strangely.

It’s practically a miracle for an to notice, given the state of the nets and how many of them are currently bent in ways they ought not be.

An has a design cube set up in ans office that alerts an to any strange knots or disruptions in the palace’s complicated layers of design.

The cube merely senses the blips, and then Raia must open ans floor to reveal the palace complex design map, engage with it, and hunt through four hundred years of architectural signatures, redesigns, new petals, and domes, plus the constantly rotating security threads to locate the blip.

Often it comes from the office of the Architect of the Seal, and sometimes an attendant merely has broken their thread cuff.

But every once in a while there’s no immediate explanation.

This time, an already has the floor open, as an has spent the past thirteen hours mapping out the worst of the mess Silk created and sending memos to various teams of architects for where they should direct their efforts and how this fix is causing a cascading effect of its own to re-tangle what’s already been straightened.

Raia is studying the section near the Silent Chapel when an has a feeling and glances toward the mirané hall. The blip near the numen’s prison is new and Raia is on ans feet immediately.

With a security alert in hand, an hurries to the mirané hall, ready to slap the alert against the palace wall where it will set off immediate alarm. An doesn’t wish to upset anyone prematurely, and so an will check on the nets anself first. It could be one of those cascading effects, after all.

As an nudges at one of the doors in the entrance arch, it opens swiftly and Garnet méra Be? emerges, followed by an attendant in palace orange, with her veil pulled across her eyes.

Raia considers asking Garnet to wait, but the man looks on serious business, so an merely touches ans eyelids and lets the body-twin pass.

Then an slips inside and dashes across the wide-open hall, aware of ans footsteps echoing again and again off the high layered domes.

When an arrives at the hidden arch, Raia activates the panel at the top of the staircase and checks the security nets.

They each appear intact, without tampering.

An frowns and pushes ans palace key into place, then taps ans personal identification pattern into the threads, unlocking the nets.

Nothing appears out of place, but something caused ans design cube to ping, so an had better check on the numen.

Like Iriset, Raia is uncomfortable with the imprisonment of the numen, and like Iriset, an wishes to have a real conversation with the creature, not only about itself but about what it has seen in its long life.

Raia brought this up with Menna, the Architect of the Seal, making an official request, and Menna patronizingly explained that Raia has a few years of promotions ahead of an before such would be allowed.

Raia thinks, as an descends the spiral stairs, that perhaps now is ans opportunity to ask a single question or two.

But the numen’s prison door is open, and the numen gone.

For a moment, Raia stands still, staring, trying to comprehend. An thought someone had broken in, but not dreamed someone would be stupid enough to free the creature.

It has to have been another numen—who else could have slipped past all the security netting without leaving a signature or even a scrap of design behind? Nobody Raia has heard of. Unless it’s true that Silk is alive. (An hopes that Silk is alive.)

Instead of slapping the security alert to the wall, an runs back up the spiral stairs and directly across to the opposite hidden arch that leads out of the mirané hall and to the private corridor behind the office of the Vertex Seal.

Raia dashes out, sliding to a stop at the back entrance just as Garnet méra Be? appears, speaking to the Vertex Seal.

Raia’s mind streaks white in panic and an forgets what an had been about to say.

“Raia mér Omorose,” Garnet intones, grasping the hilt of his force-blade. “What?”

“Ah, Your Glory, ah…” Raia swallows, makes an abortive gesture to bow and touch ans eyelids to the Vertex Seal, and instead just blurts, “I just saw Garnet—you!—leaving the mirané hall by the front entrance with an attendant. But you are here and… the numen is gone.”

Lyric says, “Amaranth,” like a prayer, and turns, running.

The Moon-Eater’s Mistress is, at that moment, standing in the center of the Bright Star Obelisk Garden under the setting sun, staring at the needle obelisk that Safiyah the Bloody erected for her murdered brother.

It’s brilliant white granite with veins of black and chips of crystal that glint against the sky.

At the base, a moat lined in burnt-red tiles trickles with water, and straight channels lead away in the four directions.

As if blood surrounds it and streaks away every day and every night.

Black succulents called Sorrow’s Ecstasy dot the sand between the channels, each section colored after a different force.

Blue, white, green, black. Amaranth stands in the black section, the hot particles of sand sliding into her sandals.

Her handmaidens are quiet around her, and Sidoné waits with her force-blade out, though only because Amaranth yelled in pure fury an hour ago, and Sidoné has yet to sheathe her weapon.

Amaranth has been calm for a while, but it’s a cold calm, and she’s unsure if she should try to soothe Sidoné because she senses a storm gathering inside her that soon will shatter this numbness.

She’d been so wrong.

Her (traitorous!) mother dead, and Iriset gone.

Lyric came to her this morning, in dirty robes and a terrible hardness to his face.

Already she grieved for Diaa and for Iriset running away instead of coming to her.

But Amaranth assumed Iriset had to be alive, for that girl was a slippery survivor.

She’d prepared a flustered story for everyone, about Singix having fled in panic, thinking she could trust nobody after Diaa showed her betrayal.

The giant spider hadn’t helped, terrifying as it had been, of course, poor princess.

Then her brother strode into her chamber, where she reclined in distressed thought.

Her handmaidens scattered at the expression on the Vertex Seal’s face.

He walked close and dragged Amaranth to her feet with unexpected fury.

“I spoke with Iriset,” he said, and within the words were layers of hurt and anger so pure, Amaranth understood he would never forgive her.

Their confrontation did not last long, because Lyric needed to take charge of the palace complex, of the entire city, and he commanded her to keep her mouth shut until he was finished cleaning up her apostatical mess.

She obeyed, keeping her mouth shut, and came to this garden to show the palace how loudly she can weep for her mother.

But all she could summon was fury. Mostly at herself, and Iriset. And her damned mother .

Numb and cold, she studies the needle obelisk meditatively.

It is, after all, a monument to a brother’s love.

She’s draped in pink, red, and black silk, as is everyone in royal mourning.

Her hair tumbles free down her back, heavier somehow than when crusted and wound with jewels and silver wire.

She pressed black handprints over her eyes, fingers splayed up like massive lashes, or horns, or the legs of a spider.

(Amaranth did see Iriset’s spider, and she didn’t go inside or avoid stepping on the tiny sparks.

She’d followed it to the Silent Chapel and knelt under it, and when her handmaidens stopped begging her to get to safety, one brought her a blanket and pillows.

Amaranth lay back and stared at the underbelly of the thing, at the shimmering, rainbow threads of forces.

It seemed to be made of starlight, and the same pink-silver as the moon.

Her Glory cried silently and could hardly believe the genius who designed the brilliant thing had been hers, but she’d lost her.)

Now Amaranth’s meditation focuses on the things people do in response to loss.

A day ago she’d have sworn she knows Lyric well enough to predict, but his noontime official declaration that Singix Es Sun was killed by the apostate Silk had shocked her—though it’s a bold move, it steals the possibility of nuance from them as they continue their political relations with Ceres, and ruins a few of the threads of plans she’s already set into motion.

They should be planning together, all four of them.

Garnet won’t look Sidoné in the eye, either.

Amaranth feels bizarre, unsettled, and can’t figure out why. In the empty moments between her furies, she expected grief, numbness, but not to be disconcerted. Not to be dizzy.

There are not many things Amaranth doesn’t know about herself.

She’s intimately familiar with her body and its desires, her ambitions in particular.

What she’s never realized is how attuned she is to the Moon-Eater.

Of course if you ask her, she’ll insist her inner design is practically bound in marriage to his, but in truth she thinks her moment alone with him at his altar is the most they share, and when she leaves his temple she’s only herself.

She’s always rather wished it were more. A romance, perhaps. Evocative and pure.