Iriset says, “She was so good, and kind, and sweet. Soft, but brave. She was so brave, Lyric. She taught me more about bravery than anybody else ever has. I’m scared now, because—because even though I’m usually really good at doing something without worrying that I can’t, this is so different. The design here, the power, the numena and what they think I am, what they think I can do… It’s terrifying, and I keep thinking about Singix. She was named for the demon of beauty, but it was Tapp she prayed to. That icon you kept for her, thatwas the god of courage, and… anyway. I loved her. Everything that’s happened in the past quads, that I’ve done, we’ve done… If I could go back to before she was dead, I would keep her alive. No matter anything else. I wish Singix was still alive.”
She closes her eyes and lets go of a slow sigh. It feels good to have confessed. It isn’t an apology, not to him, but in many ways it’s an apology for Singix.
Finally, he says, “When I thought Singix loved me, it made me feel like I deserved to be loved.”
Each word trickles like cold acid rain through Iriset, stripping her insides raw.
“Lyric,” she whispers.
But he turns away.
What you think of me
Lyric wakes warm and aroused. The blankets are soft, skull sirens call prettily from the latticework ceiling in the room below, and his wife’s breath heats his spine between his shoulder blades. Her hand rests on his side, fingers under his shirt against bare ribs. Their body temperature is perfectly aligned, a good night’s sleep having provoked an under-the-cover ecosystem just for them. He smiles, rubs his cheek to the pillow, and nudges his ass back into the bowl of her hips. The tip of her nose brushes his back before she stretches the length of her body against his, fitting them together. She slides her hand down his belly, and Lyric catches his breath. But she doesn’t stop, slipping fingers under the hem of his loose pants. He presses back into her again and she hums languorously, walking delicate fingers lower to find the head of his half-hard cock slumped against his thigh. She pinches teasingly at his foreskin and Lyric laughs his complaint, says, “Singix—”
The name isn’t even all the way spoken when he tries to suck it back in.
Before he can move, Iriset snatches her hand away and rolls over.
Lyric’s pulse throbs in his temples and neck, he can feel itthrumming down his body, and his erection somehow grows worse. He squeezes his eyes closed, then looks at the open balcony, at the softening blue sky. He slowly turns onto his back.
Iriset is seated on the far edge of the bed, legs up and arms around her shins. She’s buried her face against her knees. His entire body wants to grab her, drag her to him again, to hold her, to kiss her, to forget again and have it all back. He wants to lose himself in her, give up control to her eager mouth, distract them both, Holy Silence he wants that. Them. He wants it with a strength he’s never experienced. Because he’d never had to deny himself this before.
Instead of reaching for her, Lyric painstakingly stands. His body feels overfull, flush with too much desire. Lyric smooths down his sleep shirt, the pressure better than the tickle of soft cloth skimming against his nipples and stomach. He walks away like there’s nothing wrong.
Lyric washes as quickly as he can in the bathroom, ignoring his body though he considers if jerking himself off will be faster. Maybe, but it will certainly be disappointing.
When Iriset enters, he’s barely dressed, attempting a long dark violet wrap robe that might be a dress based on the way it ties and Irsu River’s comments from two nights before. He’s only tied the waist, and the rest hangs around his hips, baring his torso.
The look Iriset gives him is excoriating, except she licks her bottom lip, and even on this face that does not belong to the wife he’s loved and fucked in every room of their marital suite, Lyric can read the lust.
It brings the edge he managed to soften biting back. Lyric swallows very visibly, he’s sure. Though his voice sounds rough, he says, “I think if I hated you, I might be able to do it.”
He can see it hit her, and Iriset absorbs the words with a proud tilt of her chin. “I do hate you a little bit.”
Lyric knew her response would hurt, but it isn’t as terrible as it might have been, because he expected something like it. Iriset is proud. And cold when she wants to be. Lyric only nods, then turns back to figuring out the clothes.
He hears her bare feet slapping the glass floor. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?” he asks the wardrobe innards before she grabs his shoulder to nudge him around.
Their eyes meet, and all the air huffs out of her. “Never mind,” she says, gaze on his collarbone. “I know why.”
“Tell me,” he murmurs, and he means it. He longs for her to explain. His arguer. Iriset Silk.
Iriset leans closer and Lyric cannot resist letting his head fall so their foreheads tap together. It’s the only part of them touching. She says, “Because you don’t know who you are here. Everything you’ve been told to be, made to be, taught to be, wanted to be, doesn’t exist here.”
Lyric shudders. She reads design so well.
“Isn’t that an opportunity?” she whispers. “Be whoever you want. There’s no Vertex Seal here. Just Lyric. Just a want-to-be priest, single-minded, obsessive, passionate, smart, thoughtful. Brutal.” She puts her hands flat on his chest, thumbs directly over his sternum where the marriage knot is buried.
“But it’s temporary.”
“Is it?” Her breath huffs out. “Even if it is, then so? That’s even better. Less pressure.”
He leans away to look at her face. Her expression is wide open, but he knows better than to trust the masks Iriset wears. “Is that what you thought when you married me? It’s temporary, so I can be whatever I want? Do what I want? Ruin what I want?”
Anger spasms across her face. “Your sister made me—”
