The Mirrored City (16 page)

Shannon suddenly released Lyta’s hand and approached a middle-aged Patrean woman with gray-streaked black hair. “Mother?”

The haggard woman looked up from her anvil. Patrean women were not the muscular caricature of male beauty that their men were. They possessed earthy, natural bodies and aged reasonably well. She looked up at Shannon, mouth falling open.

“She’s a Patrean,” Lyta explained. “She can’t be your mother. Patreans only beget their own kind.”

“Shannon?” the woman said slowly.

“Mom?” Shannon asked.

“Come with me. Now.” The woman set down her hammer and with great urgency pulled Shannon out of the pavilion. The woman smiled to the foreman and said, “Very important client. She needs a custom fitted breastplate.”

The foreman, a Fodder going gray at his temples, nodded. “It’s fine, Ara. Greer can cover. She’s not busy.”

Lyta followed Ara and Shannon as they briskly walked to a building with private fitting rooms. The room was cramped, but it had a sturdy door and stone walls that afforded privacy. A small pedestal stood in the center for the person being measured, and a mirror rested against the wall opposite the door.

“Shannon.” Ara clutched her daughter’s hands. “How did you find me?”

Shannon looked at the woman askance. “You know my name?”

Ara closed her eyes and shook her head. “When you were born, we gave both of you Genatrovan names. We chose Shannon and Shane because they were the most popular.”

“How could you be her mother? Explain,” Lyta insisted.

“I have a brother?” Shannon asked.

Ara nodded sadly. “He would have been given to the orphanage in Dessim.”

Shannon laughed. “I have a real brother.”

Ara nodded. “And six half-brothers, along with five half-sisters. Though they are all Patrean.”

“Who was her father?” Lyta asked.

Ara shrugged. “Don’t remember his name. He was garrisoned here for a Unification Day security. We spent a night together, and I didn’t see him again.”

“My father was a Patrean as well?” Shannon looked perplexed.

“That’s why I had to give you up when you were born,” Ara explained. “If the Warmasters knew about you, they would have… I don’t know, but you and your brother were born
different
. That never happens. I had to give you away.”

“She’s lying,” Lyta said.

“She knew my name, Lyta.”

Ara said, “I would know my own daughter’s eyes as well as any Patrean—even after so many years. You must tell no one what you are. The Warmasters would hunt you to the ends of Creation if they knew you existed.”

“Then you don’t know what I am?” Shannon asked.

Ara looked down. “There are stories passed around the barracks that the Fathers who created us hid their greatest knowledge in our blood. That one in ten thousand carries some bit of their ancient magic. That some Patreans can wield the power of theurgy. But I don’t know more than that.”

Shannon said, “It’s how I found you.”

Ara smiled, her eyes wet with tears. “You are beautiful. You are unique and powerful. I don’t know why the Fathers chose me to carry you and your brother, but you must never tell anyone what you really are. By regulation all Patrean children born to enlisted soldiers are property of the militia. They will take you away, and you might never return. You have to leave… now.”

“I’m a noble daughter of House Ibazz,” Shannon said. “Even disgraced and stripped of my name, I would never be remanded to their custody when I look nothing like you.”

Ara sniffled. “Perhaps you are safe. Perhaps you aren’t. All I know is that I cannot protect you and I cannot be a mother to you.”

Lyta wrapped her arms around Shannon. “I will protect her to the utmost of my ability.”

Shannon added, “She’s amazing in a fight.”

Ara nodded. “I wish you both the best of luck, but I must get back to work. Don’t ever return. You are free from servitude. Promise you will keep it so.”

Lyta held Shannon as they watched her mother leave. The older woman’s back was starting to show a hunch from so much time spent over the anvil, and her gait was slow as she walked away. Ara cast one last glance at the two of them before leaving the fitting hall and returning to her armory.

Lyta found the accommodations at Freedom House adequate. It was a far cry from the opulent luxury of House Ibazz. Shannon walked in and threw her silk-wrapped bundles of new clothes on their bed.

“This is so much better than living under the thumb of Vyzad and Safina,” Shannon declared.

Lyta lowered her head. It had been her own foolish ambitions that prompted their exile. She had felt safe in House Ibazz, unlike here where danger lurked around every corner. Now they had no choice but to flee.

“Have you ever drunk wine?” Shannon asked, gazing longingly at a modest rack of bottles next to their balcony.

“I can’t drink,” Lyta said.

Shannon grabbed a bottle at random and stared at the sealed end of it, uncertain what to do.

Lyta walked over, took the bottle, and found the corkscrew in a drawer by the cabinet with the glasses. She opened the bottle gently and poured Shannon a generous helping of Qaadar Cuvee.

Shannon took a sip and smiled. “It tastes funny. Like there are too many flavors to describe. I’ve shared other people’s sense of taste when they drank, but everyone’s sense of taste is different. Some people even see colors differently.”

Lyta stroked Shannon’s shoulder. “Perhaps it’s an acquired taste.”

Shannon looked Lyta straight in the eye. “What’s your secret, Lyta?”

Lyta folded her arms. “If I tell you, you will not want to be with me ever again. But I will tell you everything if you ask.”

Shannon sipped more wine. “We’re both freaks of nature. Just tell me already.”

Lyta walked out toward the balcony and gazed across the wall at the city of Baash. “I was thirteen years old when I came here. My mother died during childbirth, and my father was a Turisian plainsman with a penchant for wine and gambling. Once a year, we came from the plains to trade in the bazaar. By the time I was thirteen, Father had acquired a considerable debt so he sold me to a brothel.”

“That’s illegal in the Free Cities,” Shannon said.

“What’s a thirteen-year-old going to do when her father hands her off to another family? File a report with the Inspector’s office? I could have run away, but what would have been the point? I could live on the streets or in the orphanage. The place my father sold me to was… luxurious. At first anyway.”

“I’m so sorry.” Shannon placed her delicate hands on Lyta’s shoulders.

“They did things to me there. Unspeakable things…”

Shannon placed her head on Lyta’s shoulder. “Men are so disgusting.”

Lyta replied breezily, “Men were disgusting, but they were mostly gentle and surprisingly considerate. I was lucky. I never had a client hurt me physically out of intent. In fact, I was so in demand, it was prohibitively expensive to bruise my skin. I was handled like a glass egg.”

“Did you enjoy being with men?” Shannon kissed Lyta’s neck.

“I didn’t hate it. Not all of the time, anyway,” Lyta admitted. “But I was never fond of men in the same way I felt about women.”

“So, what happened?”

Lyta sighed. “When I was mature, they told me I was ready to join the inner circle, that my body was ripe. They took me to a room and laid me on a bed and…” Her voice choked with tears.

“You can tell me,” Shannon encouraged.

Lyta turned toward her lover and said, “They changed me.”

“How?”

Lyta stripped off her shirt. “The reason you’ve never been able to see through my eyes is because you’ve never touched me. This skin is not who I am.”

Lyta grabbed her breasts and dug her fingers into her ribs. Shannon screamed and stumbled back. Lyta calmly pressed her fingers deeper and slowly tore her ribcage open, like doors to a cabinet. Thousands of slithering purplish worms writhed around her organs.

“I’m not human,” Lyta said calmly.

Shannon’s wineglass fell to the floor and shattered. She bit the side of her finger. “Fuck.”

Lyta pressed her shattered ribcage together, and the worms within her body mended it in seconds, even repairing the seam of her torn skin. “They put these things inside me, to make me one of them. Only it didn’t work. I’m still me—but my body is something else. I ran away to escape the people who did this to me.”

Shannon chewed her bottom lip.

Lyta felt tears well up in her eyes. “Now, I’m—” The words died in her mouth. She felt disgusting.
I’m an abomination.

Shannon got another wineglass and poured it to the top. She drank it quickly, letting it spill over the corners of her mouth onto the neckline of her new tunic. She slammed the glass on the counter and stared at Lyta with ice blue eyes.

For a while neither of them spoke. Lyta had no excuse for herself.

“That’s… amazing,” Shannon said finally. “Can you show me again?”

“Shannon, I…” Lyta said warily.

Her lover’s eyes narrowed. “Show me. And this time, let me touch the
real
you.”

S
IXTEEN

Lady of the House

H
EATH

Inspector Margulies shut the door to the drawing room and set his gaze on the Countess. She shifted uncomfortably, casting her glance to Melanie, the serving girl. The other guests exchanged puzzled looks, wondering where the famed inspector was going with this.

The inspector smiled. “So… Countess. How many forks did you place next to his plate?”

She said, “A man has been murdered. I don’t see how this is relevant.”

“But Countess, you said you laid out only three forks for Lord Uppington since he does not eat shellfish.”

She scowled.

“Then why,” he began pacing the drawing room, “was your footman Nigel disposing of this before he turned up dead in your solarium?”

Inspector Margulies whipped the bloody oyster fork from the pocket of his coat and held it for all gathered to observe. “A bloody fork… and if I’m not mistaken, the blood mage will find not only Uppington’s humor but also… shellfish.”

Their eyes widened in recognition as all the pieces fell into place.

The Countess stood and spat, “Damn you, Inspector Margulies!”

—
SEVEN COURSES OF DEATH, AN INSPECTOR MARGULIES MYSTERY.
LAST PAGE FOUND IN MOTHER SAFINA IBAZZ’S COLLECTION OF ENDINGS

HEATH WALKED THROUGH
the gardens of House Ibazz as a small contingent of Patrean soldiers led him to a fountain. A plump woman in robes and a veil sat on the edge, her well-manicured hand gently brushing the water. She looked up to him, and through her semitransparent veil he could see her ruby lips curl into a smile.

“Welcome, Stormlord.”

Heath nodded and took a seat on the edge of the fountain. The guards backed away, but he counted at least five snipers with bows aimed at his head in various positions around the courtyard. “First Wife Safina, I presume.”

“Indeed.”

Heath scratched his head. “My apologies. I thought I was to meet with Vyzad.”

Safina waved her hand. “Vyzad is with the other Patriarchs. I felt this would be a good time for us to talk.”

Heath regarded her warily. “My business is with Vyzad.”

Safina explained, “Vyzad does what he does. I do what I do. We both represent the interest of our house in different ways. As a man, his honor is held to a high level of scrutiny, whereas I am simply a wife. No one cares what I do.”

Heath chuckled. “Perhaps I should have negotiated with you before your husband.”

Safina folded her hands in her lap. “You have done this house a great favor by killing Ibiq Qaadar.”

“I appreciate your faith in my ability, but assassination doesn’t serve my agenda.” Heath grinned.

“I meant no disrespect,” Safina apologized. “It’s just that your skill as an Inquisitor is well-established. My purpose is not to place blame. Whoever killed Ibiq did us
both
a great service. I feel your interests and those of House Ibazz ‘align,’ as you Stormlords are fond of saying.”