* * *
Four silver-moon months ago her teacher Sahdia had interrupted Elir’s practicum for her final project and dragged her into the commander-philosopher’s office. The view from the spire opened in three directions: east, south, and west, leaving the ecstatic north closed off with black-fired tiles. The commander’s crescent desk curved against the wall, and she stood behind it, flanked by trees of pale-yellow force-fire.
The commander beckoned Elir close with her milk-pale hands. Her vertical inner eyelids blinked one at a time so she never took her gaze away. Though not truly a parent to Elir, hers had been the father-seed Elir’s ama used to grow her in az womb. When az died of a miscalculated force-feedback, Elir had been thirteen, and the commander had told her they both had been proud of her and that she could serve that familial pride by climbing the ranks at the college fast and well.
Elir had: she was only sixteen and already prepping her final project.
“I have a new final for you,” the commander said, Sahdia thrumming with restrained ecstatic charges at Elir’s side. “I’ve received a commission for a redesign of the small king of Rivermouth. She requests a body with a male forward aesthetic.”
“That’s all?” Elir wrinkled her nose.
The commander grinned to show her crocodile teeth. “That’s not all, girl. The small king of Rivermouth, we’ve learned, supports the heresies of the hope cult with quite a bit of money, and you will use your access to design a poison to kill her when she undergoes the aesthetic surgery.”
Murder! Elir could not hold back a gasp of ecstatic surprise.
Sahdia touched the nape of Elir’s neck. “Use your imagination, sky-heart. Impress us.”
Elir thought of her ama excoriating the Cult of Hopeful Design for its philosophies, for the scandal five years before that revealed how many children were buried in their catacombs with ruined bones and crushed skulls.
Lazy architecture, her ama had exclaimed. The worst crime. A careful moderation is necessary for the long-term benefit of humanity’s design! Fetal mesh is not meant to change human children into chimeras—merely for slight changes like your perfect bones. I drew out the crystal already written into your design, nudged you better. Aren’t you better, baby?
Yes, ama.
That’s right. No lazy designs to glorify the possibilities of human design!
Then most colleges had banded together for once to demand that the hope cult be stopped—the cultists were too wild, too bizarre! Of course, the fallen god of the red moon had dismissed the complaints of the city colleges, saying there should be no limit to the possible achievements of human architecture. The fallen god rarely took sides, preferring, some said, chaos.
Elir understood, though, that her family and college believed the design of the world would be better if the hope cult fell. It made sense. The cult took too many wild risks. They were not regulated.
And so she had walked to the inner curve of the commander’s crescent desk and, with her crystal claws, touched the skin over her heart. “I accept,” she’d said, meeting the dangerous gaze of the commander-philosopher.
* * *
Elir woke to the touch of light silk sheets and a warm breeze fluttering her lashes.
She opened her eyes and saw first a vaulted ceiling set with tiny shards of blue and green chipped tiles, in a mosaic like the waves of the sea.
“Elir,” said Irsu, coming to kneel at her bedside. “You’ve slept more than a day, and I brought you to this room, a guest room. It’s yours until you’ve recovered, but I’m afraid you’ll have to remain while the fortress is interdicted.” An spoke more quickly than usual.
Elir blinked slowly, thinking of the commander’s vertical inner lids. A shiver dragged down through her bones, and Irsu kissed her forehead.
“Are you ill?” an said. “Curro thought it was force-loss faint, and that you’d recover quickly.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Water?”
Irsu left, but Elir heard an moving and the trickling sound of water being poured. An set a shallow cup down on the rug and scooped an arm around her to help her sit up. Then an brought the cup to her lips, and she drank.
“You’ll have to draw me now,” an said. “I told my mother that you’d offered a portrait.”
“No extra charge?” Elir whispered, managing a little smile.
Irsu laughed and kissed her cheek, then pressed ans forehead to hers.
* * *
Elir remained at the fortress for six days while the small king’s combat-designers cleansed the air. They were wonderful days, because Irsu spent them with her and allowed her to draw an.
Elir went carefully, first focused on ans eyes, then jaw, then mouth, before letting her gaze travel down ans throat to the bend of ans collarbone.
“Shall I remove my robe?” an offered quietly.
Elir’s heart popped with ecstatic hope, and falling knots twisted in her belly. She parted her lips to answer but could not.
Irsu took the paper and the pencil from her numb fingers, set them aside, and tugged at the small hooks holding her robe closed below her breasts. She allowed it, barely breathing, and took ans face in her hands, fingers flicking over the copper studs in ans ears, and kissed an without a thought to eddies of force. She wore a sleeveless linen shift under her robe, and Irsu kissed down her sternum, teasing her with warm breath that easily drifted through the linen. When an kissed one of her breasts, Elir flexed her claws. They sliced through the silk of ans robe, snagging a line of embroidered succulents. Elir gasped, and Irsu laughed. “See,” an said, “I should just take it off.”
Nudging Elir away, Irsu stood and easily untied ans robe, letting it slip off one shoulder. An lifted the shoulder and turned to gaze flirtatiously over it at her. Where the robe slunk low on ans chest, the hem of pretty purple binder showed.
“What do you want me to draw?” Elir asked, staring at Irsu’s languid beauty.
“You’re thinking about drawing right now?” an murmured.
“I can’t stop thinking about the lines of your body, the tucks and shadows, the curves and planes,” Elir whispered, slowly standing. “I’ll draw it however you like, you know, however you want it.”
Irsu put a hand out to stop her approach. “I like it as it is, Eliri. I told you that.”
“Then that’s how I’ll draw it. Though I think you’d look magnificent with wide drooping wings to match….” She caressed one of Irsu’s head feathers.