All the birds leap back into the air, slamming together in a scuffle of feathers and chirping until they’re a long-limbed human standing before her with eyes as blue as the sky. He bows playfully, as if sensing Iriset’s awe. She doesn’t mind: It is awesome. To divide himself into many tiny, separate minds, as the birds move on their own, not in a susurration.
“It’s different,” he says, rolling his shoulders as a long feather-lined cape falls down his back to the floor. “Being birds instead of bird, but I was thinking about your eyes, the plans Eliri shared, and how the design of the eye requires delivering different information to your singular brain, and the way you’re having to relearn to process it.”
“So you gave yourself twenty eyes.”
“It’s different,” he repeats. “Next time I’ll do my preferred form, and a bird or two for my shoulders. Maybe one day I’ll be able to be myself and a bird-me simultaneously, and send that bird-me across the city to spy.”
“Play with yourself,” she teases lightly, because to be honest Iriset is fairly overwhelmed by the fact that he not only imagines such a thing but certainly will achieve it. He still grows even after centuries of power. He burst into nine little blue birds and rearranged himself back again, and it’s so impossible to think about. She was Singix and Iriset at the same time, but only in the same momentary existence, and even theorized that, in fact, what she became was a third new thing, neither Singix nor Iriset.
“Iriset is impressed,” she says, switching back to Old Sarenpet for Eliri’s sake. “What artist made this place for the Moon-Eater?”
The Moon-Eater touches his own chest with a falsely demure flutter of lashes.
“You made this?” Iriset taps her toes to the mosaic.
“This red god has been around for a long time,” he murmurs. “Now, show an old fairy that eye.”
She does, in a spot of sunlight on the second level, harnessed by a series of mirrors arranged like a spiral chandelier. They can be manipulated to point natural light in any direction, and the Moon-Eater gifts the space to Iriset, agreeing that his library of art is a good place to practice sundering, with so many various kinds of material objects at her disposal. The Moon-Eater coos at the milky rainbow beauty of her eye, and she can almost make sense of the play of shadows around him when she closes her flesh eye.
“Why not an eye like the original?” the Moon-Eater asks as they nibble snacks outside on a balcony overlooking the broad silver expanse of the court.
“Because when this eye is fully functional, it will be so much better,” she says, like it’s obvious. Because it is.
“But Iriset will always stand out, in any place, any time. That eye is unmistakable for human.”
Iriset frowns. She hadn’t thought of such an impediment. Aneye like this would have negated her ability to become Singix when Amaranth demanded it. An eye like this would have marked her as apostate instantly to the soldiers of the Vertex Seal. Lyric might never have looked at her, with an eye like this.
That’s all irrelevant now, isn’t it? She says, “Iriset does not mind standing out.”
The Moon-Eater laughs. But Eliri glances down at her hands, loosely folded in her lap. Iriset thinks of the story Eliri told her, of her kidnapping and escape. The torture she underwent because of her quartz bones. Standing out hurt Eliri.
But it’s a risk Iriset is willing to take.
Beyond known rocks and trees
An even stronger earthquake trembles throughout the crater city three weeks after the Night of Chimeras. Citizens feel just a little shiver, because the greater power of the untethered array is caught in the mitigation dome set in place by expert geo-designer Helica Silkhair. The dome lights up in ecstatic sparks, which rain down onto the stone of the garden. A cactus catches fire but is quickly doused. Helica Silkhair is not pleased. Though technically her design worked, she and Mirea sir Unrich, the city planner from Sharp-Shin, estimate the energy released by the array anchor will increase exponentially over the next several months if it is not neutralized or otherwise settled. Already the mitigation dome cannot contain the excess, though the worst part is they cannot tell where the trigger mechanism is, or if there is one at all, or two or three or sixteen. They are eager to present their findings to the Moon-Eater today, alongside the Chimera city planner who has been working from the edges inward, the commander-philosopher of the College of Intrinsic Foundation who specializes in meta-arrays, and the cardinal of the College of LightningRevelation who has apparently been casting star charts forward and backward in an attempt to connect the anomaly star with… anything, frankly. A dark star might explain where the energy comes from, Mirea said off-handedly to Helica during one of their lunch breaks. Helica is skeptical, because while she appreciates the complex design and mathematics required to study heavenly bodies, it is those very complexities that keep her from believing that forces from such heavenly bodies are capable of interacting with or even influencing forces here.
Then again, Helica witnessed the light of the anomaly star, and it did appear directly above the center of the untethered array. And those strange people come fromsomewhere. The foreign design expert will be at the presentation, too, and Helica looks forward to grilling her on the mysteries she’s thus far managed to keep secret.
When Helica and Mirea arrive a few moments early to the Undersea Garden where the meeting is to take place, they’re faced with the Moon-Eater in the shape of a giant half-snake, his torso, head, and arms human, while the long scaled tail coils up off the smooth black floor. He’s got the foreign designer in his arms, holding her up so she can stick her hand in the oceanic ceiling.
Water spills down over her and she shrieks with laughter.
“Good that someone can be amused when the entire city might crumble by midsummer,” Helica murmurs, and Mirea snorts.
She says, “Good the Moon-Eater has a new toy. Hope this sunderer is stronger-willed than the Adept Hand.”
The two designers share a look, then glance away guiltily as they find seats around the low, round table.
The ceiling of the Undersea Garden is exactly why the Moon-Eater insisted on bringing Iriset early. “You’ll love it,” he said, tugging herhand eagerly. They nearly stumble down the private staircase leading underground, into a cavern. The darkness smells wet, but pleasantly so, like wind after a cooling rain. The Moon-Eater presses his hand to an array carved into the edge of the hidden doorway, and jagged stripes of bright blue-white crawl along the striated stone walls, lighting the whole cave.
That’s brilliant enough, but oh, was Shade correct about the ceiling.
It’s a dome of shimmering dark green-blue, and inside it swim glowing fish. Iriset cranes her neck so dramatically her spine aches, but it looks like real water and real fish, except for how their fins radiate neon yellow and shimmery blue. Some are tiny enough to fit in a pocket, others long and curling like river eels. “Get me closer,” Iriset demands to the Moon-Eater’s expectant, smug grin, and then grins herself as his legs transform into the thickly muscled body of a massive red snake. He grabs her in naked arms, mirané-brown skin matching the scales perfectly, and Iriset loops her arms around his neck as they rise.
The water design isn’t quite enough to distract her from the strength in Shade’s body. He holds her under her thighs in one arm, and his abdominal muscles are hard and tense against her hip. Iriset manages not to play her fingers in the loose hair at his nape, leaning into him like he’s just a very powerful chair, not something turning her on.
With his free hand, Shade points at one of the eels. “That’s from the real ocean,” he says.
