Amaranth smiles. She is unpainted for the day, because of the unraveling. Her natural beauty is bold, like the sun: Everything revolves around her. “You have detached yourself from my brother, sister! Yet you wander alone with hardly any attendants! Join us.”
A pillow is vacated for Iriset, and she reclines upon it as though she’s an exquisite eggshell, easily shattered. Unlike the others in their sleeveless robes and masks, Iriset is weighed down by the hot, colorful finery of Ceres. “Is this”—she gestures at the dancers, the force-fans, the brunch—“how you grant yourself mercy, Your Glory?”
Though not a trace of sarcasm shows itself in her voice, Amaranth’s smile tilts wryly. “I beg mercy every day from theMoon-Eater himself, Princess. And he grants it. If there is any expert on self-mercy in the empire, it is me.”
A young miran dressed in a robe striped in council white and black laughs broadly enough to show off his fine teeth. His mask is painted with interlocking octagrams across his eyes. “Grant us all such mercy, Amaranth,” he says.
“I can only grant mercy to myself today, Yuya, but ask me next year on the Day of Charitable Mercy.”
He touches his chest as if having received a mortal wound, but still laughs.
Another miran, a woman with rich blue lip paint and bright mirané eyes, says, “I would expect self-mercy for the Moon-Eater’s Mistress to be a day free of entertaining men.”
Someone applauds her, and the gathered miran argue rapidly over the definitions of men and mercy. Amaranth hands Iriset a cold glass of sweetened coffee. She sips, letting their talk wash around her, trying to allow her forces to draw out in whichever direction the crowd draws, toward ecstatic laughter or the flow of debate, all of it circling around and around Her Glory’s strong falling pull. She needs to be balanced before she makes her demands, beginning with a moment alone with her sister-in-law.
But Sidoné, lounging on a step two higher than Amaranth’s, says, “The very existence of the Days of Mercy proves that the regular state of the empire is a merciless one.”
So easy to forget, for all that many see Sidoné as a symbol of successful assimilation, her people were very recently conquered.
The gathered miranlaugh.
It had not been a joke.
Iriset catches Sidoné’s eye, but the body-twin offers no sympathy. Her words were fact. A reminder to Iriset.
“Your Glory,” Iriset whispers, leaning in. “I need to speak with you, alone.”
Amaranth’s mouth presses into a line of displeasure. She tugs the silk half-mask that perches upon her voluptuous curls down over her face. Diamonds and mirané-brown garnets stripe it in perfect vertical lines. “The princess and I,” she says grandly as she stands, “are going for a walk.”
She sweeps her robe up into one hand, displaying the expanse of her thick legs, and holds her other hand to Iriset.
Together they climb up and up the steps to the wide balustrade that circles the audience area of the amphitheater, in and out of stripes of shade. Amaranth weaves her fingers with Iriset’s. The heat of the day slicks Iriset’s skin with sweat and Iriset spares an admiring thought for her craftmask, pliable and perfect enough to allow for such things. Her slippers do little to keep her toes from roasting against the tiled floor. Above, Aharté’s pink-silver moon is a pale sliver of next to nothing, washed in the brilliant summer light, but soon the burning sun will sink behind that moon again.
“What is wrong, hiha?” Amaranth asks. Without softness or sympathy, only a plain need to know. If she knows, she can fix it, her tone says.
Iriset drops her mouth open, only to close it.
Her Glory pushes her mask up over her face so it acts as a visor, shielding her eyes with a strip of dark shadow. “Everything is going well. You have convinced the world. You are married, making my brother relax, setting the empire into its power again with this alliance. You survived your own funeral, hiha. Enjoy something today, why don’t you.” She squeezes Iriset’s hand. “Food, drink, and after the eclipse convince my brother the best self-mercy is lovemaking. The hard part has passed for you.”
“The hard part…” Iriset says it voicelessly. Her pulse stutters.
“What is it?” Amaranth asks, sounding impatient. She stops her slow walking.
“The hard part, Amaranth,” Iriset snaps, “is hardly over. Did you forgetagainthat tomorrow my father will be executed in front of the empire and I will have to stand there andwatch.”
The Moon-Eater’s Mistress says nothing.
Iriset glares into Amaranth’s mirané-brown eyes. “Save him. Swear to me you will demand mercy for the Little Cat or I will tear off this mask and reveal to everyone what you’ve blackmailed me—”
Amaranth laughs.
“Blackmailedme into,” Iriset continues through bared teeth.
“No you won’t,” the Moon-Eater’s Mistress says. “And fix your face, Singix.”
“I might. What have I got to lose?” Iriset raises her brows, but she does smooth out her expression into the nearest she can get to a sweet smile. “Less than you, Your Glory.”
For another moment, Amaranth is quiet. Her glance flicks over Iriset, clinical and assessing. Then she slumps a shoulder and tilts her head, swinging voluminous curls. “Who were those people you were so afraid to speak to at the unraveling of Iriset mé Isidor this morning, kitten?”
