A star mirror with four points hangs upon the tiled wall of the bathing chamber and Iriset stands before it as she places the mask. The stitching requires careful points with her stylus, and Iriset stops breathing before she recalls herself and exhales in her eight-count. Life and rhythm are part of the point; a static mask will do no good. With the sharp tip of the crystal stylus she pricks the seam of the mask to her hairline while Amaranth carefully holds the bottom, her fingers protected by a layer of sheer silk. With each breath, Iriset pricks a new stitch, along her ear, then jaw and chin, then down the other side of her face. Her skin heats and she breathes balance until the moment comes: She closes her eyes and with two styli activates the pressure points. Ecstatic force snaps to life, answering the system of threading designed into the mask, and the silk sucks against her face.
It hurts, like the heat sting of a bee, like a fresh bruise, like the sudden ache of a fever’s touch. When Iriset opens her eyes, they’re still her own in the mirror: sandglass brown, faceted with a few strokes of darker brown near the pupil. But everything else about her face has changed. Gone her square Osaharjaw, gone her dark peach skin, gone her delicate cheeks and upturned nose.
Instead, a nearly perfect Singix Es Sun watches her. High, broad cheeks, long nose, perfectly flushed lips, sweeping brows that cut pure black against this pearly skin. The ghost lettering glints almost exactly right. It doesn’t shine fully yet. Iriset parts her lips and her teeth are her own, her tongue her own, but who will notice a thing like that? It’s the unsparing, ruthless work of real human architecture to reshape bone. This is merely a mask, shifting muscle, skin, cartilage. The rest will come later.
“Oh, Iriset,” whispers Amaranth. Her face appears beside Singix’s in the mirror. “Shockingly good. I… I feel very conflicted suddenly.”
“You should,” accuses Sidoné from across the room, but her tone is gentle.
For her eyes she’s drawn a pupil and iris with a layered rose pattern of facets, based on her own eyes, and put the shading in as best she’s able. It will only work if none have memorized the exact details of Singix’s eyes, but only need to see what they expect: vividly brown irises, rich and varied in their sun-brown, like a field of earth that only changed with rain and drought—the shading of satisfaction or thirst.
It helps Iriset to think of it poetically, like an artist. Like Singix would. She knows in her liver that Ambassador Erxan is wrong: Doing art makes you more of an expert in it.
The pain of masking her eyes momentarily blinds her and makes her cry.
It’s good, for the illusion. She lets the tears burn, dripping down her cheeks.
Iriset waits beside a low divan, sitting and then standing in anxious jerking motions. Her gaze slides to the cold body of Singix Es Sun, wearing Iriset’s face and her robe. It’s the death of Iriset mé Isidor tonight, and Iriset finds it extremely easy to act distressed.
Her father will hear of it. Bittor. Everyone she’s met. They’ll all think she’sdead. Can she still help rescue Isidor? She hadn’t thought of that when she agreed. Thank the red god she’s already sent the plans. Bittor will find a way to free her father without her distraction. He must. She looks at Amaranth to reach for the comfort of having had no choice. Amaranth would have blackmailed her regardless. And she knew. How did Amaranth know? Why did she keep it a secret? Had she always known about Silk or was it only a perfectly timed guess?
Then Garnet méra Bež thrusts open the door, stopping to stare first at Amaranth and then at the peaceful, dull body.
Sidoné is behind him, and slipping in with them is the Vertex Seal himself.
Iriset catches her breath.
Lyric’s hair is mussed from sleep, his face unpainted, and a shadow of morning stubble darkens the skin around his mouth. He’s only in loose trousers and sleeping robe.
“Oh Silence,” he says quietly. The nearest to a curse he ever comes.
“Lyric,” Amaranth says, surprised.
While Garnet closes the suite door quietly, Iriset clutches her fists together over her heart. This is going to be so much worse than she imagined.
“What happened?” Garnet asks.
Amaranth says, “She ate a poisoned candy—one of those there, marked with Ceres. A gift to the intended of the Vertex Seal. She ate it, at Singix’s offering, and moments later was simply dead.”
“Take the candies,” Lyric instructs, though Sidoné already has the long box in hand and offers them to Garnet. His Glory slowly, as if moving through a sandstorm, lowers to one knee beside Singix’s shoulder. “I…” he says.
“An assassination attempt,” Garnet says darkly, looking at Iriset. She bows her head. But can’t take her eyes off Lyric.
The Vertex Seal’s face is bent in tragic lines. “My poor little arguer,” he says.
“What?” Amaranth demands.
“I had—I had asked her to remain with us, with you, sister,” Lyric says quietly. “She had such a certainty in her soul. A core of integrity, despite what she’d been made to be.”
Amaranth glares briefly at Iriset and says, “Perhaps your future wife requires your comfort.”
The last thing Iriset wants at the moment is the intense attention of the Vertex Seal. But Lyric stands, a tender grimace turning his mouth, and he comes to her. “Princess Singix, this must have affected you badly. I am so sorry for the failure of my security to keep you safe.”
“I…” Iriset clears her throat and, glad for the roughness in her voice, whispers in carefully turned mirané, “I grieve for her as well, Your Glory. She saved my life.”
Lyric smiles grimly and holds one hand out, palm up. It’s for Iriset to place hers against his. She keeps her ghost-writing-free hands hidden within her deep sleeves and shakes her head, allowing herself to shiver openly. She silently breathes away the ecstatic pops still heating her blood. Singix was full of flow; Iriset will need to learn to center that even, rhythmic force.
“Of course,” he murmurs. “You should sit, Princess. Your own handmaidens will be sent for.”
