I continue to have no intention to aggravate you to tell me that which you may not. Nor have I come to make accusations. However. HK-47 said he was given permission for three things - to kill Suoh, to kill Shi Qingxuan, and to defend himself if we tried to kill him. It is my supposition that such permission would have had to have been granted by one of you. Else, if it were only one of us, the permission could have been revoked.
No, it's not that I can't tell you, it's just - like, you get accused of ordering a robot to murder about six or seven times and it starts to hurt a bit.
[they fold their arms across their chest. something in their hood flicks.]
He wasn't given permission so much as he asked me if he was allowed to kill people, and I can't tell him no. I can't tell any of you no. That's not what I'm here for.
[Her tone softens, just a little. It's still Harrow - it rarely goes that soft.]
I didn't come here to accuse you of a robot murder. I would be very cross indeed, if I thought you had caused the robot murder, and you would know it by now.
[Not so much for the action itself. She understands that there are things she does not understand. She and Wrath spoke about this very thing - their own doubts and reservations, but also their own belief that it might be necessary to encourage such things.
But. . . if they had ordered that murder and then had been a friend to Molly after, that she would have a hard time forgiving.]
I wanted to understand what he meant when he said he was granted permission. I suspected he meant by one of you, and I suspected you were required to do so, because several of you have made comments that suggested you are not permitted to forbid us from doing murders or stand in our way. That is a very different thing, to me, from ordering it done, and then framing an unrelated person for the action.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but it didn't matter because I couldn't stop it anyway.
[they take a deep breath.]
I didn't tell him who to pick. I didn't tell him to hurt anybody or anything, just that -- [they pause.] I did limit him to one a week, specifically. That's the only order I gave. Because I was afraid if I didn't he'd slaughter everybody.
[She feels a rush of sympathy for the awful decision, accompanied by a renewed understanding of that one conversation they had had, after, where she had told her she thought she'd have to live with it.
Thank the Lord they had killed him. Perhaps her reasoning was compromised, when she'd argued for it, but the result - it feels peculiar to be so relieved they did not solve the murders.
If she's allowed, she will, very hesitantly, reach out a hand to Wrath for comfort.]
Of course. You did what had to be done. What a hypocrite I would be, if I blamed you. [Even if it had opened the doors to something else - that horrible metal thing hadn't even killed this past week.
And. . . it doesn't answer the other part. If he had framed Beauregard, why admit to all crimes but that one? So. . . why was she brought into it at all?]
[they allow it! in fact, they seem very comforted by it.
there's just a whisper of a memory - a blonde elf, his hair weaved into a braid, reaching across a table to take your hand, linking your fingers together, as you say I know we don't say this enough, but... thank you.]
I'm already pretty tired of doing what has to be done, honestly. [they say after a moment, but they reach up to rest a hand on top of hers, anyway.]
[She doesn't really know what to say to that; she's never had a sibling. For obvious reasons. But she can somehow sense that Wrath is feeling, perhaps, a little lonely right now, and she wants to help, even though she has no idea how to say the right things in this type of situation.]
[they seem to appreciate harrow trying, in any case.]
We're twins. So - I've been next to him my entire existence, up until recently. It's hard to be away from someone that is, uh. Someone that is your whole heart, half your soul.
That sounds so melodramatic, I'm like, fine. But I do miss him a lot.
['Twins are an ill omen' is in fact Harrow's opinion but she's since spent a lot of time with Ianthe "I love my twin and also murder" Tridentarius so she's either chilled out on that or more likely feels that they're evil even more strongly.]
It isn't melodramatic at all. [Literally half her soul is just Ortus, unfortunately, because she ate his, and his half has seemingly fled her.] You sound. . . very lucky, to have had someone who is that for you.
[Anyway, I feel like you're trying to goad me into a specific memshare with that dialogue but I have a different torture lined up for you later so jot that down. Instead, let's talk about Lyctorhood which btw isn't pronounced 'Like-ter' but rather 'Lich-ter' as in 'lich.'
You convalesce on the Erebos, the Behemoth class flagship of the Emperor Undying, in the cool white rooms of its hospital quarter. You go in and out of consciousness, in and out of coherence, constantly, for weeks. You’re dimly aware of the illness you feel, the broken shape of your body, your hollowness and the rawness of a grief you cannot place. You hallucinate frequently. Some days you are coherent enough to feel shame at the putrid green hospital gown you wear and the bareness of your face and head - someone has shaved your hair at some point. Other days, you stare out the window into the deepness of space for hours on end, or lie in bed clutching your sword like a steel infant. At one point, the nameless attendants try to take your sword from you - you fight them off, bloody and furious, and they do not try again. On the best days you hallucinate the Body by your side - lovely and dead and frozen. Her cold dead hands press against your brow, close your eyes, bid you to restful sleep.
From time to time, the Emperor sits beside your bedside. You ask him if newly born Lyctors always fare so badly; he admits the recovery process can be long but he is non-committal, so you expect your transition has been worse than most, and you suspect you can feel his concern and disappointment.
And then one day you come to on your cot all at once, hyperventilating, the ghost of some attack - a pillow pressed against your screaming mouth - on your mind, but your pillow is behind your bed and perfectly dry.
A chair is dragged close to your bedside—the little chair that usually sat by the door, the one you had only ever seen the Emperor occupy —and in it was Ianthe Tridentarius.
Your gazes met. The other nascent Lyctor was clothed in a gaudy, mother of pearl robe that made Ianthe’s hair a lurid yellow and threw up all the mustard tints of her skin; her face was blotchy, and her eyes were sleepless pits. She looked like shit. You noticed that the eyes were a curious muddle of colours: her ordinary washed-out purple mixed with the freckled blue and brown that had been Naberius Tern’s, her murdered cavalier, now being consumed within her as your own murdered cavalier was surely now consumed. Ianthe was sitting significantly too near to you, and she lounged too casually on the chair. She also possessed two arms, which was one more than you’d last seen her sporting.
None of that particularly bothered you. What bothered you was that now the Princess of Ida was looking at you with an expression you struggled to remember ever seeing on her face. Ianthe always affected a heavy, artificial tedium, or a faint and glittering malice, sometimes even a self-deprecating and idle humourousness; but she looked at you now with a soft and thoroughly uncharacteristic hunger. She smiled down at you with a frank, overfamiliar expression that frightened you. You cover your bare face with your pillow.
“Good morning, my comrade,” she said. “My colleague, my ally. I do like your eyes, Harrowhark—like flower petals in a darkened room. And even I can admit that your eyelashes are delicious. Stop wearing that pillowcase any time you like—I’ve seen your face before, and I know it looks like both of your parents were right-angled triangles. We must work with what we’ve got, as the flesh magician said to the leper.”
A livid heat rose up your neck as you pulled away the bedsheet. Lyctoral perception had made you complacent - you could sense the flesh and bones and innards of any of your attendants automatically, but Ianthe Tridentarius was a black hole where no heart could be sensed beating and no brain could be seen sparking. The brain, you knew grudgingly, existed. The heart was an open question.
You considered striking her, when she reached for something in her robes. “Before you do anything I am quick to reassure you that you will regret,” said Ianthe, who had not bothered even flinching at your planned attack, “I have a message for you.”
She handed you a letter with the name ‘Harrowhark’ written on it, and underneath To be given to Harrowhark immediately upon coherence.. Both your name and the message were written in your own hand.
“I wish you’d explained to me what coherence meant,” Ianthe complained. You noticed her eyes had changed again; now she was heterochromatic, one eye purple and one blue. “Did you mean coherent as in, I recognise objects and their names? Did you mean coherent as in, I am no longer remotely out to lunch, which means you’re still not eligible? I wasn’t going anywhere near you in the first instance of you opening your eyes. Your only settings were powervomit and murder.”
“Tell me how you came to have what you are holding,” you croaked.
“You put it in my own hands, you skull-faced fruitcake,” she said soothingly. “Go on. Take it. It’s yours.”
You took it. In the bright artificial light of the hospital quarter, you could see that it was your own handwriting, not a forgery. The letters were written in your own blood. And inside, the letter was written in Ninth House script, your own cipher, developed when you were seven years old. There was no question you were the one to write this.
You read:
ADDRESSING THE REVEREND LADY HARROWHARK NONAGESIMUS, KNOWN AS THE REVEREND DAUGHTER BY HER OWN DESIRE, NOW HARROWHARK THE FIRST, WRITING AS THE SAME, NOW DEAD.
LETTER #2 OF #24. TO BE READ IMMEDIATELY ON COHERENCE. Harrowhark— As I write, it has been forty-eight hours since you became a Lyctor at Canaan House. By the time you read this you will not recall the writing thereof, as the Harrowhark of the writing will be dead and gone. Her resurrection constitutes a fail state and must be avoided at all costs. This letter cannot answer questions. What I have done I will refer to as the work, and its character is actively harmful for you to know. I will instead provide guidelines on how to live the rest of your life. As your life may hopefully now extend into the myriads, it is of enormous import that you are not tempted to deviate from them. You are the living surety of promises I have made. Break troth with me, and from beyond my destruction I will brand you Tomb heretic, cut off utterly from that which lies on the frozen altar, asleep and dead; removed from the adoration thereof, and any promise of part in her resurrection.
GUIDELINE #1: STAY ALIVE. You may not end your own life through suicide. You may not end your own life through carelessness. Accidental death must be avoided at all costs and never accepted as an outcome. The work relies upon your continuance.
GUIDELINE #2: YOU CAN NEVER RETURN TO THE NINTH HOUSE. The way home is closed to you. Do not set foot within the House again. Do not allow yourself to be taken there by force.
GUIDELINE #3: THE SWORD WILL REMAIN ON YOU AT ALL TIMES. Wipe it down with your arterial blood nightly. Coat the blade in the ash which regrows. Do not cut flesh with the naked blade. Do not cut bone with the naked blade. Even this may not prove enough. Treat the sword as your promised death, and act according to the first guideline.
GUIDELINE #4: YOU ARE COMPROMISED. You may already suspect this, if you’re not as big a fool as I take you for. I will confirm your access to the Lyctoral well. This battery is, most likely, the extent of your capability. Make up for your inevitable failings through study. Your understanding of flesh and spirit magic is execrable, so start there. Do not aim to only build upon what you already know. It pains me to admit this, but you know piss-all. I refuse to let you build your house on such shiftless & ureal sand.
GUIDELINE #5: YOU OWE IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS THE FAVOUR OF THE CHAIN. This will be difficult to justify. I will therefore not justify it. Tridentarius has made what has come to pass possible. I owe her a debt that you will undoubtedly be paying for the rest of your life. The agreement does end on your death. The agreement does extend into the House, but NOT into the Tomb. The agreement is singular but does take precedence over and above any debt you have sworn to anyone lesser than the Holy Corpse, over and above the Emperor of the Nine Houses. In order to avoid philosophical quandaries she will expect you to re-swear immediately on receipt of the letter, and any failure to do so undoes the whole business. Do not be tardy here. It goes without saying that Ianthe will destroy you if she can. She has helped me ably, but it has cost her nothing and you everything. I have guarded from her full understanding of the work so that she cannot undo it on a whim or by accident. You are in her power. I am in no doubt of her misusing it. You yourself never had power over anyone else but you misused it violently.
GUIDELINE #6: READ THE OTHER MISSIVES ONLY IF AND WHEN YOU MEET THEIR REQUIREMENTS. I have left other instructions in case of new circumstances. Ianthe holds twenty-four of these letters and will give you twenty-two, including this one. They are numbered accordingly. Memorise the requirements and carry the letters on you at all times, ready to act the moment you are required to read them. Follow their instructions without hesitation. I repeat: do not read them otherwise.
To myself: a brief break in guidelines follows, before the last. You will think at this point that II have given you a terrible hand to play the game with. I am not unsympathetic. Nonetheless, understand that I envy you more than I have ever envied anyone, and that I look upon your birth as a blessing. Look upon me as a Harrowhark who was handed the first genuine choice of our lives; the only choice ever given where we had free will to say, No, and free will to say, Yes. Accept that in this instance I have chosen to say, No.
GUIDELINE #7: EXAMINE IANTHE’S JAW AND TONGUE AFTER YOU READ THIS. Owing to her Lyctoral status this will require physical touch. Under no circumstances can you let her know you are examining them. Do whatever it takes. If you suspect either jaw or tongue has been replaced, DO NOT SWEAR THE OATH. Instead kill her immediately.
“Come here,” you said, less steadily than you would have liked. Ianthe obliged you instantly, still smiling that same secret, conspiratorial smile. She arranged herself in the chair by the bed, and you noticed her favouring the left arm, as though the right was too heavy a burden.
You swung your legs off the hospital cot and stood before her, considering, and you reached out to cup Ianthe’s face in your hands. When you tilted her jaw up to you her skin was discoloured under your skin. You found your mouth and eyes screwing up, but the vile course of action was obvious. You leant down and kissed her squarely on the mouth. This, at least, she hadn’t expected, and her mouth froze against yours, which gave you time to work. Ianthe was a black hole to you, unreadable; but close physical proximity could help. New bone always gave itself away. The lining of her cells was in keeping with old bone. When you pressed the tip of your tongue to her tongue she made a half-wounded sound—she was probably trying to call for help —but although the lingual muscle was not your area of specialty, you could probe through flesh the signs that her foramen bone was whole, unscarred by a fresh rip of the tongue from the mouth. You were safe.
You withdrew, finally, your mouth from her mouth. Ianthe was left, lips slightly parted, eyebrows raised.
“I pledge myself again to the service of Ianthe Tridentarius, Princess of Ida, daughter of the Third House,” you said. “I swear again to honour any previous agreements I made to her. I swear by my mother; by the salt water; by that which lies dead and unbreathing in the Tomb; by the ripped and remade soul of Ortus Nigenad.”
“Who?” she said. “Oh, yes — the cavalier.”
Ianthe wiped the pad of her thumb over her lips. “Well,” she said eventually, “that constitutes some improvement over your sewing my lips shut, like you did the … no, pardon me, I agreed not to mention incidental detail. All I shall say is that for a House that trades solely in bone, you own some enormous needles. I accept your fealty again, Ninth House, and can only assume that you have now read the agreement.”
You sat back down on the bed and placed your hand on the sword. “You have wrung a great deal of blood from what seems to be a very littlestone,” you said.
“I gave you something you cared about very deeply at the time,” she said, idly swinging one leg to perch over one knee. “I don’t consider my price all that high … and neither did you. What’s more, now we are about to embark on what promises to be a truly beautiful friendship, with me the lone fruitful thing in your salted field, et cetera, so I’ll thank you to not embark on the I have been hard done by act.”
Your fingers pressed down hard on the wide breadth of steel. The thundering in your ears was a patchwork of sound and adrenaline, and your heart was sore. “The pledge did not condone disrespect,” you said. “I will not suffer insult. I am the Reverend Daughter. I am a Lyctor. I am in your debt, but I am not here for your amusement.”
“Not in that thing you’re not, certainly,” said Ianthe, whose lip was curling. “You look like a huge peppermint. Here, take this.”
Ianthe reached under her chair and handed you a bundle of robes in the same mother-of-pearl colours of hers. The color did not become you, but it was covering and hugely preferable to your hospital gown. You pulled the hood deep over your head and did not bother to hide your sigh of relief.
You flicked through the stack of envelopes, and could not help scanning the requirements. Some of them were plain and stark. To open in the event of Ianthe’s death. To open if the Ninth House is in mortal danger. Some of them were opaque to the point of madness. To open if your eyes change. If met, to give to Camilla Hect. You wondered, mystified, if you had ever known the last name of Camilla the Sixth, a woman you could not recall interacting with at any point.
“I will remain in possession of the last two,” said Ianthe, having risen to stand. “I will tell you openly that there’s one I get to open in case you die, which is fun.”
You flipped through. Your eyes fell on: To open if you meet Coronabeth Tridentarius. This was different from the other envelopes in that it was not written in cipher. Ianthe’s eyes fell on it too.
“You wrote that one in front of me,” she said. “I can summarise the contents … you are now pledged to me and by extension to Coronabeth, and I tell you for free that one of the riders is that you will never harm a hair on my sister’s head.”
“Your sister is likely no longer alive,” you said, seeing no reason not to say it.
She threw back her head and laughed outright. “Corona!” she said, when she was done. “My sweet baby Corona is far too stupid to die — she’d walk backward out of the River swearing blind she was going in the right direction. I will tell you when my sister is dead, thank you, Harrowhark — and that day is not today.”
Your head was swimming. In a way, you were relieved. You resented being part of your own master plan, as you resented any peremptory order and attempt to keep things secret from you, but you could follow your own commands if the alternative was madness.
“If it is all the same to you, I would like to be alone now,” you said. “I have a great deal to think about.”
Ianthe said, “How politely expressed!”
She drew her skirts around her and curtseyed to you. When she looked up at you, you saw her eyes had changed yet again. They were both lavender now, but freckled with light brown like a constellation.
You said, because again you could see no reason not to: “You should have disciplined Tern better, if he’s still fighting you this way.”
Ianthe considered this. She took out from her robes a long knife. It was—though you weren’t sure how you recognized it — Tern’s trident knife.
She placed her palm before you, outstretched. Without a moment’s hesitation, or sign of pain, or even much give, she thrust the knife through the meat of her palm. It must have done enormous damage, and drops of blood splattered the sleeves of her shimmering robe. As she withdrew it, the wound knitted together as though it were nothing. She simply withdrew, and the skin closed up, leaving her palm whole and unblemished except for a few wet drops of crimson red. For the first time, when you looked at her, Ianthe gleamed red with thanergy.
“Hold out your hand,” she commanded.
You did, despite knowing full well what was to happen — you did it without hesitation, as she had done it without hesitation. Ianthe held your hand gently and thrust the blade into your palm.
Every fibre in your being bent toward not throwing up. The tendons in your palm snapped, the steel hit metacarpal, chips of bone went flying into the muscle bed and your blood sprayed across your face. Your world was racked in pain.
She pulled the blade clear. This was also agony. Now you understood the object lesson: there was no sewing-up for you. Your meat was left ripped, bare and vulnerable, a gaping, hole in your hand, your skin a pitiful bloodied mess of shredded skin. You grasped the wrist she was also grasping with your free hand; you poured thalergy in it and stitched it up, flicking free chips of bone and welding muscle back together. Your left your palm as whole as it was before, but unlike Ianthe, it took effort and thought and left your nerves screaming with the memory of pain.
“Harrow,” said Ianthe gently, “don’t fuck with me. I’m not here for your amusement either.”
She turned away from you and walked toward the door. Your mouth was dry, your head was swimming. You steadied yourself enough to say, “Is your cavalier a forbidden subject, then?”
Her hand stilled at the pad of the autodoor, standing by the hanging that showed the First House picked out in white thread. “Babs?” she said. “I don’t care about Babs. Just don’t suggest my sister is dead to me, ever again.”
She touched the pad beside the door and crossed the opened threshold.
The door closed behind her, leaving you alone with the knowledge that in some way your transition had failed; you suspected you would never become complete.]
[there was no goading wrath just really likes talking about their brother wow
there is a LOT to take in there, and wrath sort of just wheezes for a second and falls back against whatever flat surface there is. a long, long pause, and then:]
You - you're a Lich? [they know it wasn't lich, it was something else, but they're trying to make sense of what they saw with absolutely no context. a girl, with a sister, a letter, cavaliers...]
[Yes, she absolutely is, although she doesn't know that word, and corrects - ] Lyctor. And. . . to some degree. As you saw, the process in my case was something of a failure. [She doesn't sound ashamed of this, just tired.] I have access to the well of power, and likely to the myriad long lifespan, but not the other aspects. A true Lyctor will heal any injury automatically, without thought, and can leave their body behind to enter the River, guarded by the ghost of their cavalier - and will borrow their cavalier's fighting prowess as well.
Uh - kind of all of the above? Definitely undead. Maybe immortal, I haven't, uh, considered that far ahead, actually? And if by battery you mean my memories are the only thing that make me not feral, then yes! Battery powered, for sure.
[they reach up to rub at their face with both hands.]
Hah. How's that for narrative parallels - you have a spotty memory and I have had a wild ride of a time getting people to remember I exist at all. The Lich and the Lyctor.
it's not a good dark, either. it's a horrifying, endless sort of abyss, and you spend long bouts of time being unable to see, and then being unable to hear, and then being unable to touch, and then all three, and then finally, you pull yourself together enough to hear a voice, outside.
Here you go. I’ll just make these sort of… taste better.
and you wake up, fully, you pull yourself together enough to cast yourself out, to see what the world looks like around you, because that is your brother's voice, and he's going to cast something, but you're going to intercept. so you do. he'll know, this time, he'll know where you are if you can just give him a sign. you hear his startled noise when you take control of the umbrella, and it takes every single bit of energy you have to trace three, simple letters into the wall with scorching ray.
your brother speaks. Why? What does that—what is... static. white noise.
he doesn't... he doesn't know. he doesn't know who you are? why doesn't...
[She processes this memory, a little blankly, uncertain how to feel about it. But deep down, there is a part of her that feels - strangely about this. That feels as though there can't be anything in the universe so goddamn shitty as being some kind of locked away, forgotten fragment of a person, the only thing left of you being how bad you want to reach out and protect the person you love, but they've slammed the door shut on you and rolled a rock over you and there's nothing you can do about it but keep clawing and scratching in the darkness. It's not even really horror at Wrath's situation that she feels, but anger. She just sort of wants to slam a fist in Wrath's twink brother's no-doubt smug wizardly face.
But she can't really understand why she would feel this way, why this situation would trouble her so much, what she has in common with it besides, as Wrath said, being a lich and a Lyctor, forgotten and forgetting. It is terribly sad. It is. There's just no reason she ought to connect with it.]
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Hey, boo. What's up? [they say, glancing over their shoulder.] Managing okay with the whole, uh. You know. Everything?
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[She's. . . faintly amused at the phrasing. When your everything is all so generally bad that you can't even be specific, that's not good.]
I'm. . . managing. I had wanted to ask you about HK-47.
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I continue to have no intention to aggravate you to tell me that which you may not. Nor have I come to make accusations. However. HK-47 said he was given permission for three things - to kill Suoh, to kill Shi Qingxuan, and to defend himself if we tried to kill him. It is my supposition that such permission would have had to have been granted by one of you. Else, if it were only one of us, the permission could have been revoked.
Is that correct?
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[they fold their arms across their chest. something in their hood flicks.]
He wasn't given permission so much as he asked me if he was allowed to kill people, and I can't tell him no. I can't tell any of you no. That's not what I'm here for.
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I didn't come here to accuse you of a robot murder. I would be very cross indeed, if I thought you had caused the robot murder, and you would know it by now.
[Not so much for the action itself. She understands that there are things she does not understand. She and Wrath spoke about this very thing - their own doubts and reservations, but also their own belief that it might be necessary to encourage such things.
But. . . if they had ordered that murder and then had been a friend to Molly after, that she would have a hard time forgiving.]
I wanted to understand what he meant when he said he was granted permission. I suspected he meant by one of you, and I suspected you were required to do so, because several of you have made comments that suggested you are not permitted to forbid us from doing murders or stand in our way. That is a very different thing, to me, from ordering it done, and then framing an unrelated person for the action.
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[they take a deep breath.]
I didn't tell him who to pick. I didn't tell him to hurt anybody or anything, just that -- [they pause.] I did limit him to one a week, specifically. That's the only order I gave. Because I was afraid if I didn't he'd slaughter everybody.
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Thank the Lord they had killed him. Perhaps her reasoning was compromised, when she'd argued for it, but the result - it feels peculiar to be so relieved they did not solve the murders.
If she's allowed, she will, very hesitantly, reach out a hand to Wrath for comfort.]
Of course. You did what had to be done. What a hypocrite I would be, if I blamed you. [Even if it had opened the doors to something else - that horrible metal thing hadn't even killed this past week.
And. . . it doesn't answer the other part. If he had framed Beauregard, why admit to all crimes but that one? So. . . why was she brought into it at all?]
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there's just a whisper of a memory - a blonde elf, his hair weaved into a braid, reaching across a table to take your hand, linking your fingers together, as you say I know we don't say this enough, but... thank you.]
I'm already pretty tired of doing what has to be done, honestly. [they say after a moment, but they reach up to rest a hand on top of hers, anyway.]
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. . . Who was that? Or am I - [she recalls an earlier conversation.] I recall that you prefer to keep your boundaries.
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... It's fine. [they say, after a moment.] It's my brother.
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[She doesn't really know what to say to that; she's never had a sibling. For obvious reasons. But she can somehow sense that Wrath is feeling, perhaps, a little lonely right now, and she wants to help, even though she has no idea how to say the right things in this type of situation.]
Is it. . . is it difficult, to be without him?
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[they seem to appreciate harrow trying, in any case.]
We're twins. So - I've been next to him my entire existence, up until recently. It's hard to be away from someone that is, uh. Someone that is your whole heart, half your soul.
That sounds so melodramatic, I'm like, fine. But I do miss him a lot.
1/2 sorry lol
It isn't melodramatic at all. [Literally half her soul is just Ortus, unfortunately, because she ate his, and his half has seemingly fled her.] You sound. . . very lucky, to have had someone who is that for you.
[Anyway, I feel like you're trying to goad me into a specific memshare with that dialogue but I have a different torture lined up for you later so jot that down. Instead, let's talk about Lyctorhood which btw isn't pronounced 'Like-ter' but rather 'Lich-ter' as in 'lich.'
You convalesce on the Erebos, the Behemoth class flagship of the Emperor Undying, in the cool white rooms of its hospital quarter. You go in and out of consciousness, in and out of coherence, constantly, for weeks. You’re dimly aware of the illness you feel, the broken shape of your body, your hollowness and the rawness of a grief you cannot place. You hallucinate frequently. Some days you are coherent enough to feel shame at the putrid green hospital gown you wear and the bareness of your face and head - someone has shaved your hair at some point. Other days, you stare out the window into the deepness of space for hours on end, or lie in bed clutching your sword like a steel infant. At one point, the nameless attendants try to take your sword from you - you fight them off, bloody and furious, and they do not try again. On the best days you hallucinate the Body by your side - lovely and dead and frozen. Her cold dead hands press against your brow, close your eyes, bid you to restful sleep.
From time to time, the Emperor sits beside your bedside. You ask him if newly born Lyctors always fare so badly; he admits the recovery process can be long but he is non-committal, so you expect your transition has been worse than most, and you suspect you can feel his concern and disappointment.
And then one day you come to on your cot all at once, hyperventilating, the ghost of some attack - a pillow pressed against your screaming mouth - on your mind, but your pillow is behind your bed and perfectly dry.
A chair is dragged close to your bedside—the little chair that usually sat by the door, the one you had only ever seen the Emperor occupy —and in it was Ianthe Tridentarius.
Your gazes met. The other nascent Lyctor was clothed in a gaudy, mother of pearl robe that made Ianthe’s hair a lurid yellow and threw up all the mustard tints of her skin; her face was blotchy, and her eyes were sleepless pits. She looked like shit. You noticed that the eyes were a curious muddle of colours: her ordinary washed-out purple mixed with the freckled blue and brown that had been Naberius Tern’s, her murdered cavalier, now being consumed within her as your own murdered cavalier was surely now consumed. Ianthe was sitting significantly too near to you, and she lounged too casually on the chair. She also possessed two arms, which was one more than you’d last seen her sporting.
None of that particularly bothered you. What bothered you was that now the Princess of Ida was looking at you with an expression you struggled to remember ever seeing on her face. Ianthe always affected a heavy, artificial tedium, or a faint and glittering malice, sometimes even a self-deprecating and idle humourousness; but she looked at you now with a soft and thoroughly uncharacteristic hunger. She smiled down at you with a frank, overfamiliar expression that frightened you. You cover your bare face with your pillow.
“Good morning, my comrade,” she said. “My colleague, my ally. I do like your eyes, Harrowhark—like flower petals in a darkened room. And even I can admit that your eyelashes are delicious. Stop wearing that pillowcase any time you like—I’ve seen your face before, and I know it looks like both of your parents were right-angled triangles. We must work with what we’ve got, as the flesh magician said to the leper.”
A livid heat rose up your neck as you pulled away the bedsheet. Lyctoral perception had made you complacent - you could sense the flesh and bones and innards of any of your attendants automatically, but Ianthe Tridentarius was a black hole where no heart could be sensed beating and no brain could be seen sparking. The brain, you knew grudgingly, existed. The heart was an open question.
You considered striking her, when she reached for something in her robes. “Before you do anything I am quick to reassure you that you will regret,” said Ianthe, who had not bothered even flinching at your planned attack, “I have a message for you.”
She handed you a letter with the name ‘Harrowhark’ written on it, and underneath To be given to Harrowhark immediately upon coherence.. Both your name and the message were written in your own hand.
“I wish you’d explained to me what coherence meant,” Ianthe complained. You noticed her eyes had changed again; now she was heterochromatic, one eye purple and one blue. “Did you mean coherent as in, I recognise objects and their names? Did you mean coherent as in, I am no longer remotely out to lunch, which means you’re still not eligible? I wasn’t going anywhere near you in the first instance of you opening your eyes. Your only settings were powervomit and murder.”
“Tell me how you came to have what you are holding,” you croaked.
“You put it in my own hands, you skull-faced fruitcake,” she said soothingly. “Go on. Take it. It’s yours.”
You took it. In the bright artificial light of the hospital quarter, you could see that it was your own handwriting, not a forgery. The letters were written in your own blood. And inside, the letter was written in Ninth House script, your own cipher, developed when you were seven years old. There was no question you were the one to write this.
You read:
2/2
You swung your legs off the hospital cot and stood before her, considering, and you reached out to cup Ianthe’s face in your hands. When you tilted her jaw up to you her skin was discoloured under your skin. You found your mouth and eyes screwing up, but the vile course of action was obvious. You leant down and kissed her squarely on the mouth. This, at least, she hadn’t expected, and her mouth froze against yours, which gave you time to work. Ianthe was a black hole to you, unreadable; but close physical proximity could help. New bone always gave itself away. The lining of her cells was in keeping with old bone. When you pressed the tip of your tongue to her tongue she made a half-wounded sound—she was probably trying to call for help —but although the lingual muscle was not your area of specialty, you could probe through flesh the signs that her foramen bone was whole, unscarred by a fresh rip of the tongue from the mouth. You were safe.
You withdrew, finally, your mouth from her mouth. Ianthe was left, lips slightly parted, eyebrows raised.
“I pledge myself again to the service of Ianthe Tridentarius, Princess of Ida, daughter of the Third House,” you said. “I swear again to honour any previous agreements I made to her. I swear by my mother; by the salt water; by that which lies dead and unbreathing in the Tomb; by the ripped and remade soul of Ortus Nigenad.”
“Who?” she said. “Oh, yes — the cavalier.”
Ianthe wiped the pad of her thumb over her lips. “Well,” she said eventually, “that constitutes some improvement over your sewing my lips shut, like you did the … no, pardon me, I agreed not to mention incidental detail. All I shall say is that for a House that trades solely in bone, you own some enormous needles. I accept your fealty again, Ninth House, and can only assume that you have now read the agreement.”
You sat back down on the bed and placed your hand on the sword. “You have wrung a great deal of blood from what seems to be a very littlestone,” you said.
“I gave you something you cared about very deeply at the time,” she said, idly swinging one leg to perch over one knee. “I don’t consider my price all that high … and neither did you. What’s more, now we are about to embark on what promises to be a truly beautiful friendship, with me the lone fruitful thing in your salted field, et cetera, so I’ll thank you to not embark on the I have been hard done by act.”
Your fingers pressed down hard on the wide breadth of steel. The thundering in your ears was a patchwork of sound and adrenaline, and your heart was sore. “The pledge did not condone disrespect,” you said. “I will not suffer insult. I am the Reverend Daughter. I am a Lyctor. I am in your debt, but I am not here for your amusement.”
“Not in that thing you’re not, certainly,” said Ianthe, whose lip was curling. “You look like a huge peppermint. Here, take this.”
Ianthe reached under her chair and handed you a bundle of robes in the same mother-of-pearl colours of hers. The color did not become you, but it was covering and hugely preferable to your hospital gown. You pulled the hood deep over your head and did not bother to hide your sigh of relief.
You flicked through the stack of envelopes, and could not help scanning the requirements. Some of them were plain and stark. To open in the event of Ianthe’s death. To open if the Ninth House is in mortal danger. Some of them were opaque to the point of madness. To open if your eyes change. If met, to give to Camilla Hect. You wondered, mystified, if you had ever known the last name of Camilla the Sixth, a woman you could not recall interacting with at any point.
“I will remain in possession of the last two,” said Ianthe, having risen to stand. “I will tell you openly that there’s one I get to open in case you die, which is fun.”
You flipped through. Your eyes fell on: To open if you meet Coronabeth Tridentarius. This was different from the other envelopes in that it was not written in cipher. Ianthe’s eyes fell on it too.
“You wrote that one in front of me,” she said. “I can summarise the contents … you are now pledged to me and by extension to Coronabeth, and I tell you for free that one of the riders is that you will never harm a hair on my sister’s head.”
“Your sister is likely no longer alive,” you said, seeing no reason not to say it.
She threw back her head and laughed outright. “Corona!” she said, when she was done. “My sweet baby Corona is far too stupid to die — she’d walk backward out of the River swearing blind she was going in the right direction. I will tell you when my sister is dead, thank you, Harrowhark — and that day is not today.”
Your head was swimming. In a way, you were relieved. You resented being part of your own master plan, as you resented any peremptory order and attempt to keep things secret from you, but you could follow your own commands if the alternative was madness.
“If it is all the same to you, I would like to be alone now,” you said. “I have a great deal to think about.”
Ianthe said, “How politely expressed!”
She drew her skirts around her and curtseyed to you. When she looked up at you, you saw her eyes had changed yet again. They were both lavender now, but freckled with light brown like a constellation.
You said, because again you could see no reason not to: “You should have disciplined Tern better, if he’s still fighting you this way.”
Ianthe considered this. She took out from her robes a long knife. It was—though you weren’t sure how you recognized it — Tern’s trident knife.
She placed her palm before you, outstretched. Without a moment’s hesitation, or sign of pain, or even much give, she thrust the knife through the meat of her palm. It must have done enormous damage, and drops of blood splattered the sleeves of her shimmering robe. As she withdrew it, the wound knitted together as though it were nothing. She simply withdrew, and the skin closed up, leaving her palm whole and unblemished except for a few wet drops of crimson red. For the first time, when you looked at her, Ianthe gleamed red with thanergy.
“Hold out your hand,” she commanded.
You did, despite knowing full well what was to happen — you did it without hesitation, as she had done it without hesitation. Ianthe held your hand gently and thrust the blade into your palm.
Every fibre in your being bent toward not throwing up. The tendons in your palm snapped, the steel hit metacarpal, chips of bone went flying into the muscle bed and your blood sprayed across your face. Your world was racked in pain.
She pulled the blade clear. This was also agony. Now you understood the object lesson: there was no sewing-up for you. Your meat was left ripped, bare and vulnerable, a gaping, hole in your hand, your skin a pitiful bloodied mess of shredded skin. You grasped the wrist she was also grasping with your free hand; you poured thalergy in it and stitched it up, flicking free chips of bone and welding muscle back together. Your left your palm as whole as it was before, but unlike Ianthe, it took effort and thought and left your nerves screaming with the memory of pain.
“Harrow,” said Ianthe gently, “don’t fuck with me. I’m not here for your amusement either.”
She turned away from you and walked toward the door. Your mouth was dry, your head was swimming. You steadied yourself enough to say, “Is your cavalier a forbidden subject, then?”
Her hand stilled at the pad of the autodoor, standing by the hanging that showed the First House picked out in white thread. “Babs?” she said. “I don’t care about Babs. Just don’t suggest my sister is dead to me, ever again.”
She touched the pad beside the door and crossed the opened threshold.
The door closed behind her, leaving you alone with the knowledge that in some way your transition had failed; you suspected you would never become complete.]
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there is a LOT to take in there, and wrath sort of just wheezes for a second and falls back against whatever flat surface there is. a long, long pause, and then:]
You - you're a Lich? [they know it wasn't lich, it was something else, but they're trying to make sense of what they saw with absolutely no context. a girl, with a sister, a letter, cavaliers...]
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[they rub at their face.]
Uh - same hat? Sort of? I don't have the instant healing, that'd be rad. But... we're more similar than you'd think.
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Oh. Undead? Immortal? Battery powered? [By 'battery' she just means some other external source of power - in a Lyctor's case, another person's soul.]
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Uh - kind of all of the above? Definitely undead. Maybe immortal, I haven't, uh, considered that far ahead, actually? And if by battery you mean my memories are the only thing that make me not feral, then yes! Battery powered, for sure.
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[That's not how it works for her, but. . . ]
The older ones often start to go mad, over time. [So, maybe memories are important.]
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[they reach up to rub at their face with both hands.]
Hah. How's that for narrative parallels - you have a spotty memory and I have had a wild ride of a time getting people to remember I exist at all. The Lich and the Lyctor.
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it's not a good dark, either. it's a horrifying, endless sort of abyss, and you spend long bouts of time being unable to see, and then being unable to hear, and then being unable to touch, and then all three, and then finally, you pull yourself together enough to hear a voice, outside.
Here you go. I’ll just make these sort of… taste better.
and you wake up, fully, you pull yourself together enough to cast yourself out, to see what the world looks like around you, because that is your brother's voice, and he's going to cast something, but you're going to intercept. so you do. he'll know, this time, he'll know where you are if you can just give him a sign. you hear his startled noise when you take control of the umbrella, and it takes every single bit of energy you have to trace three, simple letters into the wall with scorching ray.
your brother speaks. Why? What does that—what is... static. white noise.
he doesn't... he doesn't know. he doesn't know who you are? why doesn't...
and the memory ends.]
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But she can't really understand why she would feel this way, why this situation would trouble her so much, what she has in common with it besides, as Wrath said, being a lich and a Lyctor, forgotten and forgetting. It is terribly sad. It is. There's just no reason she ought to connect with it.]
. . . What made him forget?
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