Page 83 of The Shape of Monsters
She touches his knees. “You’ll find ahz.”
They sit there quietly, their breathing unmatched, no knot between them, but Iriset feels calmer about it, perhaps a little suspended from herself. She really needs to think about what he said. It wasn’t even an argument, really, but for the first time since she’s known him, Iriset thinks maybe she lost.
Lyric takes a breath, clearly intending to speak, but stops.
“What is it?” she asks, sliding her hands back into her own lap. Wind sings high above them but doesn’t touch them, and there must be a design apparatus to keep the wind from disturbing this sandy garden.
He hesitates, shakes his head a little, and Iriset can’t help being disappointed, except there are things she won’t tell him, too.
Finally, Lyric says, in a totally different tone, “Will you show me how to make balanced force-anchors?”
Iriset grabs the chance to be the expert. She explains he only needs four matching buttons of some kind. Stones, gems, shells, ceramic coins, anything that is as similar in nature as possible, or better yet cut from the same thing. With a stylus, does he have one of those, good, just draw the sigils—here Iriset takes his hand and draws on his palm each of the four core force-sigils. “When you draw them, imbue them with threads of the force itself. Now practice.” Iriset holds out her own palm.
It only takes a few tries before Iriset is satisfied with his work: He’s familiar with the sigils after all.
“What are you making?”
“A meditation tool, and perhaps something for my pillow while I’m traveling to help me sleep. And I suspect if I can manage a balanced force-net, Maimeri will appreciate it, too.”
“Already working to seduce the Moon-Eater’s child to your Silent ways?” she teases.
“Do you think it will work?” Lyric clearly tries to smirk. It wouldn’tfit on any iteration of his face, though the starkness of his shaved head and the bolder lines of his broad cheeks and nose and scarred forehead make it worse than with the softer hair and freckles of the Vertex Seal she married. Iriset laughs. Lyric smiles back at her, genuinely.
Instead of leaving her happy, the shared smile triggers a little waterfall of grief. She looks down. “Ah, Lyric, you might be gone for quads. Seasons.”Forever, she thinks.
“Come with me.”
“Camping?” Iriset wrinkles her face. “I have grown too used to the great luxuries of various palaces in the past few quads.”
He smiles again, with a little head shake.
“Elaborate plumbing—those inlaid bathtubs! Silk sheets, feasts delivered, libraries and workshops, new clothes.” She nudges her knees against his. “I’m spoiled, and happy to be.”
“I’m glad you’re happy. It makes you radiant,” he says, and there’s no way for Iriset to disbelieve him. It makes her want to cry. It makes her want to bury him in the sand here, make him stay. It makes her want to push him away as hard as possible.
“Are you leaving immediately?” she asks almost breathlessly.
“In the morning, to get ahead of the cold if I can.”
Iriset touches his hand. “Stay with me tonight.”
“I’m not supposed to do anything vigorous for another quad or so.”
Iriset frowns. “What? But you can walk halfway across the continent?”
He purses his lips. “Iriset—”
“Oh!” She gets it, and pinches his thigh. He jerks back and she says, “That sounds like trash advice to me. Besides, I think I can manage something slow and gentle.”
Lyric looks at her in the too-bright light, something indescribable on his face. Maybe fondness, maybe incredulity, maybe just sweetness or he’s making fun of her a little. “I should go.”
A sick feeling in her stomach makes her look away. The pink sand glitters like little diamonds. “Even if you don’t make it to the sea, you should write things down for me.”
“What type of things?”
“I don’t know. Building descriptions, maybe, or what the people look like. How does design work outside the city? There aren’t steeples regulating everything, so it’s probably all chaos like it is here.”
“All right.”
