She’d said it with such joking grace, but Iriset had been offended on Nielle’s behalf. Too bad she couldn’t do anything about it.
In the end, Amaranth had settled on Sian méra Sayar, the young small king of the Ecstatic Steeple Shadow precinct. He was younger than Nielle by a year, younger than the Vertex Seal by five, and inherited his crown through an archaic system of so-called voting by the merchant guild and holy temple attendants in his mother’s precinct. Each small king had their own internal arrangements for inheritance, you see. But Sian was well liked, and had a significant stake in several mines along the southern edge of the crater, as well as some scattered down toward the sea. His cousin ran the Osahar shares of the ribbon network, several of his grand-aunts toe-dipped in everything from public gardens to the Ecstatic School of Architecture. Nielle claimed Sian was sweet, glowed with mirané eagerness, had tried to kiss her almost immediately, and she wasn’t worried about getting anything she—or Amaranth—wanted from him.
(Nobody told Iriset that Naira mé Rinore, the seventh prince on the mirané council, had wanted to marry her niece to Sian, but in the wake of the two-years-long grappling to secure the marriage of the Vertex Seal to Singix Es Sun, Amaranth had decided that she would do anything in her power to keep Naira from getting what she wanted ever again. Naira and Amaranth’s mother, Diaa of Moonshadow, had been united in their dislike of marrying Lyric to a non-mirané foreigner, but while Diaa argued based on laws of Silence, Naira had allowed her disdain for non-miran to show like roots on an otherwise perfectly dyed head of hair.
Regardless, Naira had built an alliance of several other mirané princes in an attempt to thwart Amaranth, and Amaranth repaid that sort of thing in full.)
In Amaranth’s bedroom, Iriset sinks to her knees, eyes lowered. “Whatever Her Glory commands,” she says.
The sounds of sweeping robes whisper toward Iriset. She does not glance up at Beremé. “Oh, Amaranth, she does seem tame.”
Iriset goes rigid, ecstatic force tightening muscles and spine with little pops. She breathes through flared nostrils as slowly as she can, drawing flow through her blood.
“No need to be rude,” Amaranth says lightly.
“I’m impressed. Did we settle on a wager after all?”
It’s impossible for Iriset not to grind her teeth. A pointy finger tucks under her chin and lifts her face. Iriset trembles with the effort of lowering her eyes—she is domesticated, isn’t she?
“That’s mine, Beremé,” Amaranth says much less nicely.
Beremé releases Iriset’s chin. “Well, I know, Your Glory. And you, Iriset mé Isidor.”
Iriset raises her eyes just to Beremé’s mouth.
“Can you think of a way you can play a role for Amaranth?”
“Tame,” Iriset murmurs.
“Naive. Trusting. Obedient.”
“That’s hardly what I want.” Amaranth’s robes swirl in front of Iriset’s face as she kneels, nudging Beremé aside. “Get out, Beremé.”
With a brief sigh, Beremé sweeps away. “See you tonight, Your Glory.”
Amaranth cups Iriset’s face in warm hands. Her mirané-brown eyes study Iriset, steady falling force pulling Iriset in. “Beremé said your name to me, before I’d ever known it. It’s her fault I claimed you. Her suggestion, even. But that doesn’t make you beholden to her in the slightest.”
“I wouldn’t,” Iriset says, allowing herself to enjoy Amaranth’s touch. She wants to stay here, under Amaranth’s undividedattention. She wants Amaranth to kiss her. Iriset rubs her fingers against her thighs, scratching up some ecstatic friction to help her center herself.
“Good.” Amaranth lets go, sitting back on her heels. “But I do want you at the dinner tonight. A handful of the groom’s family from the Ecstatic Steeple Shadow precinct will be there, and they might like talking to someone from outside the palace.”
“Even the Little Cat’s daughter?”
“Especially,” snaps Sidoné, prickly as ever in the remains of Beremé’s presence.
“Did you wager?” Iriset asks.
Amaranth smiles only on one side of her face. She glances at her body-twin. “I would never give Beremé the satisfaction.”
Her Glory sends Iriset off to find Nielle in her workshop with a peering sort of expression Iriset can’t parse. But even not knowing what Nielle makes, Iriset cannot resist the siren song of aworkshopand goes eagerly.
The answer is better than Iriset had imagined: Nielle creates masks. In a small section of the handmaiden’s bedchamber, walled off by a lacquered screen much like Iriset’s, Nielle has a long table and carefully labeled shelves covered in sketches and material, sewing tools, glue, knives and styli and scissors. Every imaginable mask base, from ceramic and silk to leather and glass. It’s magnificent.
Ziyan is already there, the two of them bent over the low table as Nielle cuts a strip of black leather with a razor Iriset could use to shave silicate.
“It’s you,” Ziyan says.
Iriset ignores her and kneels across from them. “Her Glory sent me. I’m joining you all for the dinner tonight,” she says, unable to tear her eyes from the various tools.
