Chapter 29
Never cold
Maimeri is not what Lyric expected. He knows better than to have expectations, but Maimeri Sarenpet casts such a great shadow over the history of Aharté’s Holy Empire that Lyric couldn’t help it.
He imagined Maimeri to be harder, bolder, more warlike even.
He expected the lord of a house, or the leader of a town at least, for Maimeri to have gathered people to ahz already—so that Lyric wouldn’t have to face the challenge of convincing ahz to return to the crater city and essentially depose ahz father.
The Maimeri who drops out of the trees is none of those things and, frankly, rather feral.
It’s charming, though, ahz lack of shoes, the soft but tense way az moves through the world.
When Lyric agreed to go home with ahz, Maimeri instantly started south along the road, ignoring the workers with their carts who’d been watching the quick wrestling match.
Az didn’t even make sure Lyric followed.
Setka had turned huge eyes at Lyric, baring her sharp teeth in silent incredulity. Then, at his gesture, she scampered after Maimeri. Lyric had thanked the people for their help and wished them well, ignoring their boisterous questioning about his name and the fallen star.
While they traveled the rest of the day, Maimeri kept just ahead, vanishing into the trees again if other people appeared. It amused Lyric, who considered it a very convenient way to avoid conversations, but Setka found the behavior too strange. “Why is Maimeri afraid of people?” she asked Lyric.
“Don’t think Maimeri is afraid. Perhaps it’s simpler this way. But ask when it’s time to rest,” Lyric answered, touching one of the jutting thick scales on her brow.
Of course, Maimeri’s answer was “Why talk to strangers?” and az said it with such bland sincerity Lyric realized he was going to have a very, very hard time as a kingmaker with this untamed miran as his recipient.
They’ve been traveling south together for nearly a half-quad now, and Lyric knows a few things about Maimeri.
For one, it isn’t people that az disregards, it’s humans, because az doesn’t consider ahzself to be human at all.
Lyric understands, since Maimeri is wholly created of the Moon-Eater, but Lyric thinks of az as mirané, and the miran as human.
To Setka, Maimeri behaves like an older brother.
Az instantly assumed Setka to be capable and interesting, and by the second day the two of them are in ferocious competition over hunting and butchering meals, to the point where Lyric worries he needs to lecture them on waste.
When Lyric brings it up, suggesting a schedule dividing hunting and gathering, it becomes an elaborate meal plan because while Setka doesn’t have any idea about what nuts and winter fungi are edible, Maimeri seems to know everything there is to know about these lands.
Another thing Lyric understands is that Maimeri considers the Moon-Eater to be ahz mother, and longs for him, but refuses to return to the capital for reasons az has not yet revealed.
But the same vertigo and occasional headaches that thwart Lyric’s momentum affect Maimeri, too.
Lyric doesn’t believe az has the same cancer Lyric does, given the ease with which Maimeri runs around and ahz appetite, but that it’s the disorientation of wild forces.
On their third day together, Maimeri waits for them to catch up in the lee of a massive granite boulder, leaning ahz forearm against the mossy stone, ahz forehead to ahz wrist. Ahz shoulders heave slowly, carefully, and Lyric removes the balanced necklace he created and wears under his robe.
“Maimeri,” he says gently. The younger miran rolls ahz head against ahz wrist in acknowledgment, as if using pressure to relieve pain.
Lyric, who can’t feel the tips of his fingers well at the moment, says in mirané, “I can help.”
Startled now, Maimeri peeks at him hopefully.
“Come. Lift your hair.”
Maimeri obeys quickly, ahz bright red eyes locked on Lyric’s face.
For a moment Lyric is caught. Maimeri’s features are smooth and sharp, with jutting cheekbones and hollows around ahz eyes.
Ahz lashes are short but thick, ahz irises more vibrant red than brown, and ahz mirané skin sun-tanned an even richer shade.
There are glimmers of deep red in ahz hair, too, like hidden threads of glistening blood revealed in flashes of sunlight.
When az moves, az is swift and almost ragged in ahz gestures, but when az goes still like this, it is as if the entire world focuses on ahz.
Light and shadow seem to point here to this center, where the creak of winter branches and the rustle of dead leaves against the forest floor quiet to pay attention.
There is something relentlessly beautiful about Maimeri, but it is not the cosmic beauty of Silence or the heavy promising silver-pink moon.
It is not beautiful like Iriset’s lips when she gasps or her best arrogant grin, not Singix’s perfect vivid eyes and the elegance of a lily.
Maimeri’s beauty is like the plunge of roots up from the mud.
Hungry, dirty, eternal beauty, an old predator or active volcano, a numen, Lyric thinks, mouth dry.
Suddenly Lyric sees the resemblance again, when Maimeri tilts ahz head in confusion: Hehet méra Davith, the opposition leader in his mirané council, twenty-five years older than Maimeri but with the same sharp features, softened by painted stars and wavering lines across his bright mirané eyes.
Lyric knew Hehet’s family was one that could trace itself back through the generations to the beginning, nearly as well as the family of the Vertex Seal.
This is the proof—it has to be. Though by that logic, Maimeri should look just as much like Lyric or Amaranth, who are supposed to be the twelfth generational descendants of this very Rabbit.
“Lyric Aharté?” Maimeri says, voice in the back of ahz throat. Soft, rough.
“Ah.” Lyric smiles his most benevolent and mild princely smile. “What is your dominant design?”
Maimeri frowns. “Dominant design?”
Broadcasting his move so the other can stop it, Lyric lays a hand flat on Maimeri’s chest. “When you balance yourself in design, through the four forces, what is dominant?”
“None,” Maimeri says, gaze flicking sheepishly away. Az brings up a hand and nearly touches Lyric’s knuckles before dropping it away.
“May I?”
Maimeri nods.
Glad to have already removed the anchor necklace, Lyric holds it in his other hand while he breathes himself through his own balance, drawing Maimeri with him.
Lyric hums a rising note, listening with his whole body for the answer.
Nothing. He tries flow, then falling, and finally ecstatic.
Nothing, and nothing. When Lyric looks up again, Maimeri’s brow is wrinkled with worry.
“You did nothing wrong,” Lyric says. “I’m merely surprised you’re right. I’ve never… but maybe having the Moon-Eater for a parent is why.”
“Why I have no dominant design?”
Lyric smiles, this time brightly. “It’s impressive, not bad. You’re naturally balanced. But that doesn’t stop you from your headaches, does it?”
Maimeri’s lips pull. Az steps back, but Lyric catches ahz wrist. “I get them, too,” he confesses. “It’s worse in the city, and one of the reasons I wanted to meet you. Here.”
Lyric holds out the necklace. It’s simple strings of neutral silk tied around four four-pointed stars carved from the same quartz crystal.
Maimeri studies it. When all az does is look, Lyric steps nearer again and carefully drops it over ahz head, wary of tangling the silk in Maimeri’s long hair.
Lyric puts the necklace on ahz the same way he wears it himself, with the rising anchor over his sternum.
Ecstatic and flow anchors fit against ahz shoulders, and the falling anchor hits against ahz spine.
Lyric taps the rising anchor, humming, and the whole necklace responds.
A four-part harmony sounds just under true hearing, and Maimeri’s head jerks up so az’s looking right at Lyric again.
“Do you feel it?” Lyric asks.
Maimeri nods. “It’s… clear.”
“Clarifying,” Lyric agrees. “I hope it helps with your design balance and quiets the noise of the rest of the world.”
After that, Maimeri stops venturing ahead, choosing to walk beside them, Lyric especially.
Lyric continues teaching Setka bits of mirané, which goes easier with Maimeri paying attention—az’s fluent, too, of course, and unsure why Lyric bothers teaching it.
Lyric says, “I hope someday it will be the language of the whole world,” though that is a bit of an exaggeration.
Maimeri eyes him, intrigued, but doesn’t ask yet.
They enter Hehet the next day.
The town is tucked against the lower, craggy foothills of a mountain with four distinct peaks, each brilliant with snow.
Evergreen trees surround the town, with little pockets of meadows, some golden and fallow for the season, others covered in thin blankets to protect whatever early winter growth they have.
In Lyric’s time this brief mountain range is nearly all mining towns and a few reclusive artist residences.
It is considered the final paradise before the land turns almost swampy under thick forest canopies that hold heat and luscious beauty all the way to the bluffs and sandy ranges of the southern coast. There is no town called Hehet on any contemporary map Lyric has ever seen—and he’s seen all the accurate ones.
Soon they’re surrounded by a cluster of children holding the harnesses of several fat ponies and long-haired goats. One young girl with five flopping topknots screams, “Maimeri!”
The young miran in question falters, then raises ahz hand before az catches Lyric’s gaze and seems to hesitate again. Lyric gets the distinct impression az’s considering hiding behind Lyric.