Iriset has no idea why Lyric doesn’t stand his ground, announce himself. He has Silk! Bittor is dead! Only maybe hedoesn’t realize it; Lyric never once looked away from her face to the man he’d skewered, crumpled on the floor between them.
Just as she opens her mouth to yell at him, she feels a zing of force-pressure, so fast and subtle she’d never notice it if the air were as alive with force as it should be, if her body weren’t so raw.
Iriset rams herself into Lyric’s shoulder, knocking them both to the side just as a force-dart flashes past where Lyric’s body would have been. He catches himself, meets her huge sandglass eyes with shock, and lets go of her to stand up. Iriset hugs her stomach and pants as Lyric turns to the quartet of soldiers nearly upon them.
In the dark she doesn’t see what he does, but his force-blade goes dull just before Lyric charges.
The soldiers aren’t expecting it, and that gives him enough advantage to take the first one out with one punch to the solar plexus. The man doubles over and Lyric hits him with the pommel right in the temple and is on the next soldier before the first hits the ground. Lyric jumps, catches the next with his elbow, and jerks the man down, using the momentum to swing his legs around and kick a third with enough power he staggers back.
Iriset’s mouth hangs open as she watches the Vertex Seal wipe the street with the four soldiers, using his whole body, a dull force-blade, and concentrated surges of force. All she can think of is Garnet sayingHe’s modestabout Lyric’s fighting skills. He doesn’t kill any of them, but in moments they’re either collapsed or hunched and moaning.
Lyric comes back for her, breathing hard but nothing more, and takes her wrist again without saying a thing.
An explosion blows several streets away, and Lyric lifts his face to the sky, marks something, and pulls her on. Someonedidn’t get the warning to cooperate, to watch. They’re fighting back. But Pel’s daughter might still be running out here, too. And Pel is—will find Dalal. They—
Iriset sucks in a huge breath and tries valiantly to pull her thoughts together. It was stupid instinct to save Lyric from the dart, stupid. It won’t make a difference to him. And she should’ve run when Lyric fought those soldiers! She needs to get away, he’ll turn her in, he’ll imprison her or just decide to save everyone the trouble and cut her down himself. That might get his reputation back, if he personally cuts away the stain of Silk from his house.
They duck through a line of frozen ribbon skiffs, head down a dark alley and away from the lamps and force-lights that hover over the army.
Lyric stops suddenly at the base of a tower supporting a bridge. She looks up at the sweeping arcs of suspension cables designed to channel water to the massive vines curling around it, lending the architecture strength and force. Its broad leaves are curled for the night, and the whole thing is only a graceful black shape against the sky, blotting out Aharté’s bulbous half-moon. The Winged Obsidian Bridge, at the edge of Saltbath. This base tower doesn’t only support the bridge but is crowned with a hub high enough to collect errant force-winds, and in addition to the suspension cables, it connects in one direction to a spiraling cone of apartments and, in another, a honeycomb of shops.
The crack of a force-blade snaps at her attention and she looks as Lyric uses it to slice through the design locking the mechanical entrance, before pulling her inside. Iriset grasps in the dark to touch the wall, feeling forces zing, but there’s no light except for the mild crackle of Lyric’s sword. He shoves the door closed again, but can’t lock it.
Slowly, he turns.
The bluish light reflects in Lyric’s eyes as he looks at her, then he releases her wrist suddenly with a suck of breath, as if she’s poison.
Yelling from outside jolts them back into action. Lyric lurches to the locker beside the door and, with a grunt, shoves it over to collapse with a screech across the broken door. For whatever reason, he’s keeping her from the army, and Iriset doesn’t want to be trapped in here alone with him, but she can deal. She’s had worse!
Iriset almost laughs in gasping hysteria. She’s so cold! She wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her hands on her bare arms. She has nothing but the clothes on her body—Lyric’s clothes! And her father’s echo coin.
No, shock. This is shock. She isn’t cold.
Outside, another explosion hits, near enough its concussion wake causes a zing of ecstatic force through the lines underground. The mechanics room fills with tiny flashes of pink lightning. For a second Lyric’s face is clear: drawn in harsh, raw lines as if she’s not the only one who ripped a mask off today.
She doesn’t want to see it.
What the fuck is she going to do? She has no idea where to begin. All her good intentions, dead with Bittor. Even if she gets away from Lyric, survives the night, then what? She’s no leader. She didn’t even find out where he hid her grandparents.
Red god, Bittor isdead.
The pink concussion lightning vanishes again. Their only light now is the force-blade. They should turn it off if they don’t want to draw attention. She can’t bring herself to say it. Maybe they should get caught. Maybe it would be better to look General Bey in the face and sneer and tell him how right he was all along.
She could kill Lyric.
The thought makes her chest ache, in the hollow spaces where that marriage-killing resonance was. That would break the knot. Consent or death. He can fight her, but she can stop his heart. That would certainly change things. They’d say Silk unraveled the Vertex Seal the way the Holy Syr unraveled the Moon-Eater. She should.
“Iriset,” Lyric says, barely any intonation. Just a word. The settling of a question.
She shudders, glancing down at the floor she can barely see. She can’t bring herself to look up at him so she looks around. The small room has exposed design nets and crystalline pegs, for easy access to the bridge’s architecture. In the center, a small square worktable sits empty, and little storage drawers line its legs. Iriset wonders if she can find a spare stylus somewhere.
“Iriset.”
She’s wanted him to say her name for so very long.
And he just killed Bittor. With his own hand.
After she killed his mother, with hers.
