Chapter 43 #2
Opposite them across the little crater, Maimeri stands in an equally small spiral design, ready to lend ahz body and design to the expression of mirané transformation. Az taps the second node.
The sky is bright, vivid and warm, with only a few wispy clouds. The moon is up there, moving into place, but hard to see until it begins to cover the sun.
The third through tenth nodes join the subtle resonance, as the eight designers surrounding them begin, too.
Helica Silkhair holds her node in synchronous vibration with a calm, determined expression.
These designers will stay in place and become among the first mirané princes, and she is unsure she wishes for such a so-called gift.
But to be here at the center requires it.
Together the eight ignite the pagoda array overhead and link it with the octagonal lightning array built by the College of Lightning Revelation to power the moon helix and capture the falling forces from the moon itself.
As the resonance builds, the numen floats over the various threads and knots of force in the interlocking design arrays to charge a handful of them in perfect order.
It finishes and sends up a great red spark to signal to Roc Aliel, Peace of Silence, Amado Chimera, and the new Moon-Eater’s Mistress at each of the far steeples to begin their countdown.
They are the farthest away who will have their bodies destroyed, and be reborn mirané.
Amado will be a very good mirané prince, and that is not a compliment.
Iriset looks down at the Moon-Eater, who lounges in the bottom of the little crater, staring up at the sun.
“That’s not good for your eyes,” she calls down. He laughs and points up at the center dome of the sky.
The moon slides into the bright light of the sun.
The daylight cools like a dream, and Iriset says, “See you later,” to the Moon-Eater.
He closes his eyes and spreads his arms and legs to activate four subtle little anchors drilled into the red rock. He starts the process of his own unraveling.
Iriset triggers the lens array on her opal eye so that she can see the nearest strands of force and catch them with her stylus, then takes a deep breath and looks to the cardinal of Lightning Revelation far across the stone garden from her location.
“Now!” she cries, and his seven fellows clap their hands and drop to their knees to jam styli into the bracing power designs.
They draw the bound forces up with their styli and cast the architecture at the eclipse.
It lights the whole area with vivid silver lines of force, huge pillars of light shooting to the moon.
Iriset sees it in layers of cutting color, almost too much to comprehend—for someone other than Silk, at least.
Below her the Moon-Eater grits his teeth and takes short, shallow breaths, surprised to be afraid. Wisps of force drift away from him, adding to the strength of the design drafted around the little crater.
Iriset grabs one of Lyric’s hands and lowers it to her belly, making him dig his fingers under her robe to the inlaid-ink rousing design.
He sucks in a breath of understanding and pinches at the north node.
Iriset feels the instant heat, leaning back into him.
Lyric murmurs nonsense against her neck, rubbing in a spiral against her belly.
She lets the warmth grow. She can sunder without sex most of the time, but for this it’s not worth the chance. The rousing array will let her begin rivation, summon the fifth force, giving her the power to unmake the Moon-Eater and turn him into the huge, living, unrivaled Holy Design.
The moon itself will bind it all into place. (If they can catch it.) When the blowback comes, Iriset will be ready.
Daylight continues to go watery, and Lyric hums traditional Silent tones against her neck.
The vibrations tremble down her body, from his lips to the array to her hot, aching pelvic floor.
It’s good her body is so obedient, and she holds out the lucky charm, locking eyes with Maimeri.
His body, wrapped in spiraling forces like a silk cocoon, his seed in a sunderer’s hand.
So many children reborn today! Iriset feels like she’s crackling with lightning, and the thunder is about to boom.
She touches a toe to one of the nodes in the command array at her feet and feels the zip of ecstatic and drag of falling, the ache of rising force and inexorable flow.
The forces light up around the Moon-Eater, and Iriset makes a fist with her hand, gathering everything he is, every thread of force, ready to let it all go, to unravel him in a burst of fifth force.
“The moon!” cries one of the designers.
She looks at the moon first, which is doing its work of darkening the world. It is blinding, and she winces away but studies the forces. They’re loose, so small and high—too far away. One of the columns of force-light flickers.
“River,” Lyric gasps. A huge gust of forces blows down on them from above, tearing at hair and clothes. Loose sand stings her face.
Wincing, Iriset sees what the problem is: Across the crater is Irsu River with a bloody knife, ans arm wrapped around the flailing cardinal. Blood spurts from the slash to his jugular.
“We’re losing the helix!” one of the Lightning Revelation acolytes cries, while the others strain to hold, styli clutched in shaking hands as they keep impossible forces barely contained.
Lyric shifts, beginning to let go of Iriset, but she tells him, “No, this is our only chance.”
River lets the cardinal fall and walks quickly around the crater, around the straining Moon-Eater, toward Iriset. “Let it fall apart, sunderer,” River commands. “Don’t die, too.”
“Lyric won’t allow that,” Lyric says, arm tight around Iriset before releasing her.
Fear shoots through her. “You have to stay with me,” she says through clenched teeth. In her opal eye the forces drift and snap, whipping about like there’s a storm. She hears cries of panic, and under her feet the earth trembles.
Lyric says, “Do your work,” and darts around her. He runs in great leaps at River, who dodges, but Lyric is fast and ducks around to grab the wrist holding the knife. Iriset’s pulse screams in her head, the helix is shattering, and she—
“Sunderer.” The numen appears before her, translucent pink eyes, hair whipping in every direction. “I can do it,” it says.
“But—”
“I will go up and send the falling force back down.”
Wind tears at her hair, wind and ecstatic force, rising force trying to drive east toward the faraway Great Steeple. Iriset yells, “If you’re in the path, you might be caught in the helix. I can’t adjust anything this fast.”
“I know.”
Behind it, the Moon-Eater screams, his voice wavering as he unravels with aching slowness, not the right way, just like any dead body pulling into four elements, four forces. They’ll lose him if Iriset doesn’t grab his essence now!
River falls to ans knees before Lyric. Blood drips from the knife in Lyric’s hand.
“Do it, Iriset,” the numen yells over the sounds of the crater breaking. It spins away and shoots up into the sky, like a reversed bolt of pink lightning.
“Lyric,” she cries, seeing him kneel with River, holding the other up by the shoulders. River’s lips move, and ans hand grasps at Lyric’s neck, to keep him there.
Iriset closes her eyes so she can’t see, can’t see if Lyric—she focuses on the feeling of the Moon-Eater, the feeling of rivation in the Moon-Eater’s Temple, and the charm in her hand.
She needs the blowback. She needs the power of the helix, of trapping the moon, to explode downward toward her so she can channel it, press it into sixty-four nodes, through sixty-four bodies.
Change them, drive the Moon-Eater’s life essence through them, power it all, and lock the Holy Design into place. That’s all.
Distantly, she hears exclamations from the designers and peeks with her opal eye to see falling force streaming down like rain.
The designers are dragging at it, planting it in place, and Iriset screams as she tears the Moon-Eater apart.
He is nothing but crackling energy before exploding into a shock wave of raw power.
Iriset catches it, her body vibrating apart, and she wills it through her, absorbing into every fiber of herself and commanding it where to go.
It blasts through her, out of her, and into the metadesign in four directions, aiming for the Great Steeples, reaching reaching reaching hard enough to encircle the globe if nothing catches them.
Then the blowback crashes into her like a moon plummeting from the sky.
That hits her and she tastes blood, her body is coming apart, too, skin nothing but vapor. She can’t close her eyes; she’s rigid and so alive.
All she can see are vibrant, starlit threads of force, and Iriset blows out a slow breath as she attempts to remake the world.
Everything flashes white-hot. The last thing Iriset feels is hands cupping her face; the last thing she hopes is that the calculations were exact, before she becomes nothing but light.