Iriset breathes shallowly, taking great care with her neck, as fear skitters along her flesh. “I… That is what you’ve come to say? Is that why you dislike me?”
“I don’t dislike you, child. I simply cannot risk my son’s children being born without Aharté’s most important blessing.”
“Not mirané,” Iriset says. This has never been about politics, not the way Iriset thinks of politics. Not about alliances and empire. Or proving Lyric’s devotion or Amaranth’s schemes. It’s only about race. Iriset, for a moment, thinks she might laugh.
“You believe I’m pregnant,” she says. “Lyric told you, he said. That is why you tried again after so long.”
Diaa shrugs, and Iriset imagines she feels the knife heating against her skin.
Iriset says, “But everyone—even the mirané council, even Beremé herself, and—and Lyric!—decided this marriage was good. Necessary. If Aharté blessed it, which she did, she will bless our children, too. There is nothing for you to worry about, bound-mother.” As she speaks, Iriset grips the edge of the worktable before her, searching blindly for the stylus stuck to the bottom with friction-buttons.
Diaa says, “Do you believe in Aharté at all, Singix? You have other gods; you cannot argue to me any faith in She Who Loves Silence.”
Ecstatic force continues to pop in Iriset’s blood, and hot rising force burns up her body in a flare of panic. “And so you—you’ll just murder me here?”
“Unfortunately, the investigator-designers have those berries.”
“What?” Iriset’s fingers pause in surprise.
“I told you they made a good tea, but you didn’t drink it. Now they’ll know, and you’re the only person who knows I gave them to you.”
“They’re poisonous?” Iriset sounds appalled even to herself.
“Merely abortifacient.”
Iriset does laugh now, high with disbelief.
“These used to be my rooms, Singix. There is a third door to this study, did you know? It is hidden in the architecture and leads down through the petal to a rendezvous chamber. I am unsurprised neither you nor my son are aware. He fell in love with you so very quickly.”
Silk. She needs Silk’s cold focus. Iriset takes a deep breath, enough that the blade presses sharply to her skin. She says, “You will break his heart.”
Just then, her finger brushes against the charged comb.
Diaa says, “He will mend. And be stronger for it and marry a mirané girl.”
Iriset considers screaming, but Diaa continues quickly, as if sensing it, “I’ve known Huya since he was a baby. His mother was one of my first attendants. Did you forget how long this palace has beenmine? They will never suspect me. None have yet. Not even you.”
“Diaa,” Iriset whispers, stalling. “Please. Please let me live. Let me go.” She must be careful as she unsticks the comb not to drop it, or move too fast, for Diaa has but to slice. Iriset can’t save herself from a spurting artery withanykind of architecture. Her heart pounds so hard she wonders if Lyric can feel it—but he’s so tense and stressed himself, he’ll think it’s his own pulse. “Please,” she says as she strains, lifting her chin. She can’t—quite—reach the damn thing.
“Be still. Begging is no use. You are bound; the only way to undo the marriage is your death.”
With nothing to lose, Iriset hisses sharply, shoving ecstatic force out through her skin: Her hair raises, she shudders with the static charge, and Diaa gasps, and her whole body jerks in surprise. Iriset kicks back, twisting to try to free her neck. The blade cuts, but shallowly, and Iriset spins free, grabbing thestylus and brandishing it before her. It’s plain pink quartz, thin enough to be delicate as a princess’s hair comb, and gleams like a shard of the moon.
Diaa stares at her in shock, her hands rigid and empty: Her knife clattered to the floor. “How did you do that?”
Holding Diaa’s gaze, Iriset steps forward. She lets her accent crumble, shaking it off bit by bit, word by word. “You don’t know anything. Singix died in your first attempt. You poisoned herbeforeher wedding, but I took her place.” Iriset bares the teeth that have always been hers.
“What?” Diaa’s eyes widen. Her hand lowers. “You’re not… No, you’re lying to save yourself.”
“Do you know who I am? I made a craftmask under your daughter’s command. For quads I have lived as Singix, and you didn’t know. They might not suspect you, Diaa, but neither does your daughter trust you.”
“Iriset mé Isidor,” Diaa hisses.
Iriset shakes her head. It feels so good to speak. She burns with eager forces, vivid and popping in her blood. “I amSilk. I have invented new kinds of designs my entire life, given wings to flightless animals, sculpted bones, and healed apostatic cancer. There is a rebellion burning through Moonshadow City in my name. I can”—she touches the dual tines of her crystal comb to Diaa’s chest, just above the collar of her layered robe—“do anything.”
Iriset activates the design.
(When Iriset created her weapon, she was thinking of apostatical theory, thinking of games she played with herself and what it might take to stop a heart, harden blood, whether a crawling design could be used to destroy a face or musculature as well as it could be used to transform. She was not thinking of Erxan. She was thinking she had to live.)
