Anoushka grips it, winds it around her fist, pulls it taut as she enters Numadesi. Hilt-deep in a single stroke. The breadth and length of the prosthesis, all within her at once. It might have been painful if she was not so ready, if she has not been ready since her lord pulled her into the bath. She clings to Anoushka, juddering like a doll at each rough, ravenous thrust.
Her lord achieves climax first, liquid heat like a floodgate flung wide, pouring into her tide after tide. It overflows, twin opalescent rivers down the curvature of her thighs.
“Come for me,” Anoushka says, panting, still holding her aloft. “Come for me, Numadesi.”
She does, thrashing and crying out—short staccato sounds—as catharsis sweeps away her senses, burning her as though her lord is divine in truth and has struck her with an unbearable flame.
Over and over Anoushka kisses her, her mouth and her throat, her breasts and her stomach. “In your body I can forget anything. Sometimes I think of a different life, one where I can have anonymity and peace, where all I need to think about is a little house and a place for my wife. But you restore me, Numadesi. You keep me strong.”
“That is what I am made for, my lord. Your balm, to soothe away the world’s ills, to wash away the weariness from your limbs so that the light of you will never go dark.” To ease, if only for an hour or two, the grief. A pause and a respite.
A respite that, for the Alabaster Admiral, never lasts: always something intrudes. They right themselves and return to the pool to clean, this time brisk, efficient. The ceiling display above them shows a world under Amaryllis protection, a world of chrysoprase oceans and cities in tessellated amber and topaz. They land in five minutes.
Numadesi dresses herself, then her lord: she puts on Anoushka the dress uniform that the admiral wears only rarely, the perfectly tailored white-gold, the plating at shoulders and the fine mesh that runs over the jacket. The gauntlets that tip her fingers in glittering claws. She waits for weakness to evince, a crack in the admiral’s armor, but Anoushka is calm and patient as Numadesi laces and clasps the pieces. Remains, as always, the divinity Numadesi worships and for whom she would give her final breath.
Soon she is done and they stand side by side, her in shimmering silk that moves like slow cumulus, her lord in the armor of her office, the raiment of her station.
“Let us go,” Anoushka says, fastening one last ornament to Numadesi, a belt of leviathan scales and red pearls. “We don’t want to be late for Lieutenant Xuejiao’s funeral.”
Numadesi laces her fingers through her lord’s gauntlet. “We’ll remember her together.”
The funeral will be a thing of thorned memory, a story snipped short. But they walk toward it hand in hand, their steps matched and sure. Complete as long as they are side by side—each other’s blade, each other’s shield.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to people who have been endlessly kind—Zara, Claire, Lily, Cadera, Nona, and Jonathan L. Howard. To long-time friends: Aaminah, Kivan, Dax, Yonah, Alex, and Joshua. I feel blessed by the artistic talents of Suraaj (who has brought various of my characters to life in stunning visuals), the encouragement of Misha’ari, the excellent friendship of Calvin Wong. My appreciation also goes out to Penelope, Adrienne, Olivia Hill, Noah, Tess, Kivan Bay, and Ana.
Writers are self-indulgent, and I like to use this space to immortalize some of the most magical people in my life: Kella, Sasha, Greta, Isa, Mara, Ash, and Serra.
This book is dedicated to the one I think of when I write about love—the love that holds fast, the love that lasts.
Other Works by the Author
Machine Mandate
Machine’s Last Testament
Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster
And Shall Machines Surrender
Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast
Her Pitiless Command
Winterglass
Mirrorstrike
Scale-Bright
The Archer Who Shot Down Suns (collection)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Acknowledgments
Other Works by the Author
Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast Page 13