“I couldn’t do this without you,” he continues, and Iriset leans back to frown at him.
“That’s what you expect me to do,” she says, “hiding how sick you are. Letting yourself die.”
“There’s time to finish, and besides.” Lyric shakes his head. His eyes are pinkish at the edges, both of them. His breathing seems shallower than it should be. Than it used to be.
Iriset studies him. He calmly gazes back, waiting, his hands loose on her waist. She used to think she knew him better than anyone,but she knew the Vertex Seal—what did she call him? A brutal king of a boring world. This Lyric she brought with her to the Apostate Age is missing something. Maybe it’s just fanaticism. Unfortunately, Iriset isn’t sure agnosticism suits him.
“You’ll be fine,” he says soothingly.
Her nostrils flare with anger and she clenches her jaw. Iriset feels her shoulders lift like she’s ruffling furious feathers. “Get on the bed.”
His little frown is cute, but he obediently sits on the edge of her bed.
Iriset starts stripping, dropping her transparent silk jacket like it’s trash, dragging the robe off her shoulders in jerky movements, and kicking off her slippers like they offended her.
“Iriset?”
She unties her trousers. “I’ve always worked better with skin contact with the forces,” she says, which is true but not what’s happening.
“Worked?” The bed creaks quietly as he stands.
Whirling around, she points. “Back on the bed. Feel free to take off your clothes, too.”
“Iriset, I don’t feel good. I don’t—”
“I’m the one who has to feel good for this to work.”
“For what to work?”
“Healing you.”
“The treatment—”
“I’m not curing you with apostasy,” she snaps. “I didn’t dothiswith mymother.”
He falls quiet. Something apologetic in his sad frown.
Iriset abruptly realizes she’s not angry at all. She’s terrified. She rips her shirt off and throws it as hard as she can toward the wall, but it lands soft, ruffling like a plucked yellow flower. Iriset stares at it, a hand drifting up to her throat. Warm air flutters against her exposed skin, pebbling up her spine and forearms.
Hands find her elbow, and Lyric gently turns her. “Iriset, you don’t have to do anything.”
“You want me to let you die?” Her voice is thick and she hates it.
“I want you to focus on being the Holy Syr. Not saving me.”
Tilting her chin arrogantly, she scoffs. “You think I can’t do it all?”
“Can you?” He’s so serious. And being so gentle, like she’s the delicate one right now. He takes her hand in his. “Can you unravel the Moon-Eater and catch the moon, and is it going to send us home? Will it create the miran somehow, since I can’t stay here and make babies after all? Will you save the chimeras in the crater city? The ones who can be saved? End the earthquakes? They’re talking about them outside the crater, and about you. Talking about the One with the Eye. Do you know the word foreyein Sarian?”
“Syr,” Iriset whispers, nearly naked and trying not to think about history. “It’s in their oldest name for themselves, too. Syr Sarian.”
Lyric shakes his head, squeezes her fingers. “That’s their oldest name for their gods, the gods who watched out for them.”
“You read too much.”
“You can do it all, Iriset. I need you to. We all need you to.”
“Well, I need you alive!” She tears her hand free of his.
