Iriset holds her fingers to her eyelids despite her concealing mask and waits as the tailors depart.
“Come help me with this,” Amaranth says.
Sidoné appears at Iriset’s side to hand her a slab of cheese and sliced cactus pear. “You need fortitude.”
Iriset drags off her cloth mask, tucking one edge along her waist, and accepts.
The Moon-Eater’s Mistress sighs and waves for Sidoné to bring her some food, too.
“How can I assist?” Iriset asks, then nibbles on her breakfast. Her coffee cools, cupped in the palm of her left hand.
Amaranth holds out her arms again; the veils and scarves and robe she wears shift to reveal quite a bit of her mirané-brown flesh. “I need this all to stay where I want it.”
Iriset frowns. She wants to help—in the time she’s been here, Amaranth has yet to ask her for anything, or offer any particular sign of favor. How can she ingratiate herself if Her Glory wants nothing from her? She says, “I know nothing of clothing but how to tie my own. Those seem like scarves, not… not a tunic. Or even a skirt.”
“This is eight wide scarves and two veils. I would like them to drape over me as if they might fall away at any moment, as if the slightest motion on my part will reveal a breast or my belly or the long line of this thigh.” She strokes her left thigh. The nipple of her right breast glances out as one of the scarves slides.
“I…” Iriset stops.
Amaranth smiles a little smile of satisfaction. “Only as if, Iriset. I do not actually wish to flash my brother or his mirané council. I only want to very firmly remind them what I am.”
“What you are?”
“The person who fucks a god every morning to keep the empire safe.”
Iriset stares at Amaranth, pear forgotten in her fingers. Her inward attention slips lower, much lower, than her stomach, and she hears that delicious, harsh word echo in her ears. Carefully, Iriset licks her lips and swallows. It isn’t her mouth where she wants to put something.
Amaranth reaches out and takes the pear from Iriset’s loose fingers, popping it into her own mouth. She chews slowly, leaning on one hip in languorous glory, half naked, her dense black curls spilling over her shoulders and down her back. No paint mars the curved planes of her face yet, no eyeliner nor lipstick, and even unadorned she’s spectacular: smooth mirané-brown skin, wide cheeks, luscious mouth, surprisingly plain red-brown irises surrounded by unimpressive lashes. Thick eyebrows, and a perfectly straight nose. Her shoulders slump from a long neck, and though Iriset has seen Her Glory lift weights and her own body off the ground in class, her arms are soft, as is her round belly. Over yet rounder hips her waist cuts in sharply, making a fold in the flesh, and her breasts hang heavily enough to balance those hips and the muscles of her thighs.
Iriset thinks that anyone with eyes could never forget what Amaranth is: power.
“Finished staring, hiha?” Her Glory drawls.
Her face is already hot, but Iriset ignores it to say (rather breathily), “I still don’t know how I can help.”
“Make it stick.”
Sidoné laughs. “Do you see her face, Amaranth?”
“I do. Iriset, yourmentorused design to create a mask that can stick to a person’s face like second skin. I want this”—HerGlory holds up the end of a creamy scarf—“to cup my breast and not let go, then curve around my hip. And this”—she touches violet silk—“to fall from my center and modestly down between my legs. The rest can slither, fall, curl however. But the illusion must be of delicate, careful design. Can you do it?”
Though the answer waits behind Iriset’s teeth that she was merely an apprentice, that such skill is beyond hers and belongs to Silk alone, the look in Amaranth’s eyes stills her reply.
Her Glory is looking at her with challenge. With assumption.
Iriset’s arousal vanishes in a cold flash.
If Amaranth already knows the truth, or guesses, she must have a plan for Silk. For bringing an apostate here. Seducing her with promises and indifference and potential. In that case, what could Iriset gain from lying to the Moon-Eater’s Mistress, the one who plucked her from prison and set her here in the heart of the empire? Amaranth wants her, wants something from her, maybe many somethings, whether Iriset and Silk are the same or not. Amaranth already admitted she likes uncommon girls. Is Silk not the rarest of all?
Wasn’t Iriset just complaining that Amaranth never asked anything of her?
Fine. But not for free. She sets the coffee bowl upon the tiled floor and says, “I can do it. But not fast. I need embroidery thread or silk—ten-strand is fine. I need a stylus and an octagonal frame. Do you know what that is?”
Amaranth nods. “Anything else?”
“A pound of fine clay powder. Clear water. A brazier and dragon bone resin. A few afternoons left alone.” This is more than she needs for Her Glory’s project, and as much extra as she thinks she’ll get away with requesting.
“It will be done.”
