But this little rabbit has nothing like that marring ahz skin, despite the worry overtaking ahz now. Az watches Lyric like az needs him. Loves him.
“What happened to Setka?” Iriset asks.
Maimeri’s mouth presses down. “She died. We spent the winter setting markers—steeples, Lyric Aharté called them—around my valley, which was already naturally balanced. Lyric wanted to smooth it further, make it perfect Silence.” Maimeri glances at Iriset. “I have always been uncomfortable in the crater, and most places, really, because the forces are so loud. Lyric helped to anchor my inner design, quieting the noise. It was a good idea. When we charged the steeples, it felt very good to me.” Az lowers ahz voice even further. “But Setka must have been what you said earlier? Unstable chimera? So she died.”
Iriset brushes hair off Lyric’s forehead, heart aching. She really should summon up her old anger at his hypocrisy. Let him die of apostatical cancer the way he would have let her mom die. Leave him here, abandon the Moon-Eater and these people who think catching the moon and redesigning their entire city in a few quads is a viable political option. She should let them all implode and die, then run off to the islands that someday will be the Ceres Remnants and maybe she can become the demon of courage. Well, not courage, that’s for sure. How about one she always thought was silly, like the demon of hierarchy?
Instead, Iriset holds Lyric’s hand.
He’s stirring as the physician arrives. “Iriset?” he murmurs, and she does not look at Maimeri even though she’s petty enough to wantto. She helps him sit, wipes under his eyes with her thumbs. Maimeri moves and gets a cup of water as River leads in the doctor.
“What ill-conceived redesign has been done to Lyric Aharté this time, menace?” the older woman demands. Iriset grimaces at the surgeon from the Night of Chimeras. She’s just as mean-looking as then, just as disinterested in niceties.
“Nothing,” Lyric answers for himself. His voice is raw even after sipping water. The edge of the cup comes away pink.
“Everyone out,” the surgeon commands, stripping off half her bandolier. She shoves dishes aside and begins to set up her diagnostic kit.
“But—” Iriset starts to complain that she’s his wife, and Maimeri looks mutinous, too, standing with ahz arms crossed and a hard frown.
“It’s fine,” Lyric says, turning sad but unapologetic eyes at her. Her own damn eye, so she should get to stay.
With an irritable huff, Iriset stands. “Look for cancer,” she says harshly.
Lyric sucks in a breath, and the surgeon frowns. But Iriset doesn’t look at him again, only gets out, barely aware of River holding the door open, or of Maimeri scurrying after her. Az calls her name, but she doesn’t slow down.
In the garden between the small king’s suite and Eliri’s yard, az catches her with a hand to her wrist.
Iriset stops. Her heart is pounding. The moon is high tonight, shuttered by rolling clouds. But tiny silver lights flicker in the elegant, swaying young trees so she can see Maimeri clearly. Az’s staring right into her eyes.
“It really is yours,” az says. Ahz free hand hovers near her face.
Iriset sighs tremblingly and tilts her face permissively.
Maimeri skims fingers along her cheek. It’s difficult not to let her eyes fall shut.
“He’ll be all right,” Maimeri says very quietly. “No one dies fromcancer unless they’re addicted to it. And we’re going to make the Holy Design, where he belongs, which suits his design.”
Every particle of her being wants to follow up on cancer addiction, what the fuck, and it’s anguishing not to. But later. “Little Rabbit,” she says deliberately. “Why did you come back with Lyric? Why are you going along with this scheme to unravel your own mother and reorder the entire design of your world?”
Maimeri lets go of Iriset’s wrist. “Because he asked me to.”
Iriset’s mouth drops open at the plain sincerity. She’s never done anything in her life just because she was asked! (That’s not true, but it certainly feels true. She’s fairly sure she’s spent many hours actively doing the opposite of what she’s asked.)
“Let’s go back,” Maimeri says.
Iriset nods vaguely and lets Maimeri pull her back the way az chased her.
Unfortunately, they step through the gate from Eliri’s yard into the side garden next to River’s suite at the same time Eliri herself arrives: and at her back are the Moon-Eater and numen.
Iriset doesn’t bother keeping the ugly expression off her face. But it hardly matters as the Moon-Eater brightens and bounces around Eliri. “Little Rabbit!” he says happily.
Maimeri tenses and Iriset is disinclined to help, so she steps away as the Moon-Eater kisses his child. She pretends to ignore the numen but keeps herself aware of its exact location. It stands as still as a statue except for the constant shifting of its silver-pink hair.
“I hoped that Lyric Aharté’s return would bring you as well,” the Moon-Eater says. “You look good, strong. Older. Aging like a human still?”
With the Moon-Eater’s hands all over ahz, squeezing shoulders, ruffling sleek hair, pinching ahz chin, peering into ahz eyes, all Maimeri can do is nod.
It’s pretty amusing to see the Moon-Eater so fussy.
