Chapter 38 #2
The seats are stiff floor cushions with low, curved backs either for leaning against or for propping an elbow on.
Iriset has not quite grown used to this style, even in the quads she’s lived here, and plops down gracelessly.
Lyric’s mouth twitches in an almost-smile, and as he sits beside her he says, “Lyric is surprised to find Iriset here, not with Eliri in the Moon-Eater’s fortress. ”
She wants to ask how quickly he’d have come to find her, had she not been here, but she doesn’t want to know, either.
She flicks a glance at Maimeri, who looks so disconcertingly like Hehet méra Davith, who led the faction of mirané princes opposing Beremé mé Adora.
Besides coloring, Maimeri does not look like the Moon-Eater in any form Iriset has seen, but that must not be too surprising.
What does surprise Iriset is that Maimeri’s hand strayed from ahz space and into Lyric’s, touching the edge of Lyric’s plain black outer robe where it folds against the rug.
“It was no longer conducive to my work to remain with the Moon-Eater,” Iriset says lightly, mostly in Old Sarenpet.
River begins pouring wine for everyone, and even Lyric accepts a small cup. River says, “Though unfortunate that Iriset Sunderer must learn the true nature of the old fairy, it served this small king well, and Rivermouth is honored to have such a guest.”
Roc lifts his wine and says, “To saving lives!” and knocks back the drink.
Iriset grimaces delicately and drinks. It is River’s favored pale wine, grassy and sweet.
“Saving lives?” Lyric asks tentatively.
“The Moon-Eater’s true nature?” Maimeri asks at the same time.
“It wasn’t Maimeri’s mother,” Iriset says. “It was Never who upset me.”
Lyric touches her hand and Iriset shakes her head. She’ll tell him more later. Maybe.
“Never is the other one like Mother,” Maimeri says.
“Yes. A numen.”
“So,” Lyric says, holding Iriset’s gaze. “Saving lives?”
She doesn’t answer, but Roc does.
“That’s right, priest. When the earthquake caused a collapse in Rising Smoke thanks to that fuck Jaricho, Iriset helped heal and rescue with Iriset’s magic,” the old cultist says with a grin.
Lyric’s eyes widen, and he tears them from Iriset to stare at Roc Aliel and request more details.
Iriset lets her own gaze track along the tiny constellation of scars around his desert-glass eye.
They mingle with a few sad freckles, then disappear back into his wavy hair.
She wants to trace their path with her fingers, slide her hands deep into that hair, and find every single one.
They eat, they drink—some of them more than others—and catch each other up.
Iriset does very little of the talking, unusual for her, and she likes it best when the conversation diverts into Lyric’s winter.
Lyric says he has a sheaf of letters for her, in his bag, and she laughs, telling him she’s been answering and has already found, with Roc’s help, a pamphlet publisher.
Lyric listens attentively as Roc outlines the progress made on Holy Design, the current pattern of quakes, the ins and outs of Amado Chimera’s political scheming, the city planners’ various nightmare scenarios and best-case guesses.
Once or twice Iriset adds something, though only technical terms. Roc is, as he claims, the better storyteller, even to someone like Lyric who doesn’t need convincing.
Through it all Iriset watches Lyric pretend to eat and Maimeri try to subtly feed him.
Once, Iriset catches Maimeri’s eye, and after the miran looks sharply away—startled to be perceived, Iriset supposes—az looks back at her, then deliberately down at Lyric’s plate where Lyric has left the rich red gravy and candy-roasted pork but eaten the bread.
Iriset puts the last half of her bread on his dish while stabbing the pork for herself. It is rich and sweet, but Lyric should have enjoyed it. He would have, ten quads ago.
He notices, of course, and slides her a knowing look. Then he asks River, “Is there any of the light green tea from before?”
The small king immediately has some brought, along with sweet cheeses for dessert, and pulls out a cigarette for anself.
Maimeri eagerly accepts a cigarette, too, and Iriset wishes she could spirit Lyric away for the night and whisper the details she hasn’t shared to him, warm and bundled in bed.
She wonders if he’d let her. (And if Maimeri would.)
“The designers tend to forget how much organization is required outside of the design itself,” Roc is saying, sipping his wine.
“It is the designers’ prerogative to focus on their work,” River says, smoke slipping between ans lips.
“While designers can help with certain tasks such as securing unbalanced architecture to prevent explosions during the transition to Holy Design, there’s no reason it can’t be this River or another small king to negotiate for the rights to round up the more delicate monsters and complex chimeras for removal from the crater. ”
“This cultist even manages to convince some more elaborately redesigned people to consider a null effect to the aesthetics for the main event, or taking a trip outside the crater, just in case. So it is well in hand,” Roc says expansively, spreading both arms. “All yet needed is for Aharté to return. Here is Lyric Aharté.”
But Lyric turns to Iriset with a strangely wild look in his mismatched eyes. “Why is it necessary to remove chimeras?” he asks her in mirané.
Iriset frowns. Beside Lyric, Maimeri’s whole body has gone taut as well.
The cigarette burns between ahz fingers.
She says, “We have a theory that the extreme balance of Holy Design, given the absolute chaos of how forces naturally function and interact here, and given how chimeras exist physically within the bounds of irregular design, will cause chimeras that are complex or unstable for a variety of reasons to fall apart, or mutate somehow, as their design tries to…” Iriset trails off because Lyric has closed his eyes, pain drawing his features tight.
“Lyric,” Maimeri says, infinitely tender.
“A theory?” Lyric whispers. A laugh puffs past his lips, neither amused nor voiced. “You thought about it, and knew it would be a—a danger. You…” He makes the same sound, but it turns into a cough. Lyric shakes his head while Maimeri rises to ahz knees and grips Lyric’s shoulder.
It’s true that Iriset’s mind has always been able to simply think about something and know, and the skill doesn’t fail her now. “Setka,” she guesses—she knows—and is a little horrified, but also very, very curious.
River watches with half-hooded eyes, and Roc is frowning as Lyric tries and fails to stop coughing.
Roc pours more of the tea that’s probably steeped too long, reaching across the table to give it to Lyric.
Maimeri is the one to take it, because Lyric coughs too hard.
It sounds harsh, racking his throat. He bends over and Iriset grips his elbow as he covers his mouth with the back of his hand.
Red gleams bright against the knob of his wrist. Iriset gasps and pulls his hand away to see blood in the corner of his mouth. He sways. “Lyric,” she cries, and his eyes lift to hers, golden and red, and he faints.
There is blood on Iriset’s hands again, the smell tinny and bright in her nose.
Lyric rests on River’s settee while they wait for the physician to arrive. He’s fallen into a gentler sleep now that the coughing’s stopped.
“The blood is new,” Maimeri says quietly. “But not the illness.”
“What symptoms?” Iriset asks.
“Headache, nausea, I think he’s occasionally lightheaded and can’t feel his fingers. He hasn’t mentioned the last two to me, but it’s obvious.”
Iriset goes cold. Her mother’s fingertips were numb sometimes. That’s not design disorientation, which she did know Lyric was experiencing before the winter, when they first arrived. That’s apostatical cancer.
Miran aren’t supposed to get cancer. But they aren’t supposed to exist outside of Holy Design, either.
Iriset watches Maimeri watch Lyric, trying not to feel anything herself: Maimeri’s blood-red mirané eyes trace Lyric’s chest as it rises and falls, go to his lips when they fall open for Lyric to take a deeper, slightly ragged breath. There’s anxiety in ahz young, handsome face, and care.
Not just care. Iriset really looks. Maimeri’s bone structure is a version of mirané features she’s very familiar with, probably the whole line of Hehet méra Davith’s family all the way back to this half-numen oddity here.
But it’s more than that. The shape of his mouth, the line of his nose, and the arc of his eyebrows that are so deep a red they look black except in certain light.
Of course, Hehet has age and stress marked gently on his skin, and Iriset remembers his slick smile and the fine lines it brought to his eyes. She wonders.
But this little rabbit has nothing like that marring ahz skin, despite the worry overtaking ahz now. Az watches Lyric like az needs him. Loves him.
“What happened to Setka?” Iriset asks.
Maimeri’s mouth presses down. “She died. We spent the winter setting markers—steeples, Lyric Aharté called them—around my valley, which was already naturally balanced. Lyric wanted to smooth it further, make it perfect Silence.” Maimeri glances at Iriset.
“I have always been uncomfortable in the crater, and most places, really, because the forces are so loud. Lyric helped to anchor my inner design, quieting the noise. It was a good idea. When we charged the steeples, it felt very good to me.” Az lowers ahz voice even further.
“But Setka must have been what you said earlier? Unstable chimera? So she died.”