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Sins of the Spirit

By: BunsRevenge. Originally published to AO3.

You are God's most perfect soldier, and in that, there is nothing more you could want.

You have never felt more wretched in your life.

"Why?" You ask her, unable to even turn your head towards her, the reason you’re not dead and the most horrible woman you have ever known.

"Why?" she drones, as if bored, even though there's nothing but the two of you in this room, and the emptiness of space outside it. "I told you. I needed you because you had a cav. And I hated to see you flirting with Corona.”

You think you might vomit or claw your skin raw or maybe just bash in Ianthe's face instead. You don't know where you are, what this ship is or what part of space you are in, and you are unstable in your own flesh, volatile and wholly unprepared for anything that is about to happen.

You want to die. You wanted to die hours ago with a sword in your hands beside your cavalier, but now you've committed the ultimate sin, now you've ascended to Lyctorhood. You cannot kill yourself, because you would be killing the only vestige of Marta Dyas. You cannot kill yourself, because you must live to serve the Emperor Undying, and it sounds as if his need is great. You don’t even know if you can kill yourself anymore.

You are consecrated now, a sacred vessel, and you're already broken. You can see your stomach, the flesh still bloody and your intestines butchered. As always, the taste of blood is in your mouth, between your teeth.

A woman walks in, assesses you both with a cursory glance, and sighs. "We couldn't get one intact?" she asks, seemingly to no one. She clicks her tongue. "You lost your rapier hand?" she says to Ianthe, as if Ianthe had chopped of the arm on purpose. Perhaps she had: you hadn't been there to see how she'd lost it.

Ianthe doesn't dignify this with a response. The newcomer still doesn't introduce herself, but comes to look at your injuries. She presses on the skin lightly, and you hiss in pain. She uses necromancy to knit up your intestines, and then the flesh, until it looks more or less correct, just bloody. "That won't hold," she informs you. "A Lyctor's body stays as it does at the time of ascension. I'm sure things were dire, but you couldn't take 30 seconds to heal yourself first?" She clicks the tongue again.

You want to tell her that you had no idea you couldn't heal yourself after, that you were going off of a few scraps of theorem, a hope, and a prayer, and perhaps it would have been nice to have a tad more guidance, but the relief of not having your organs outside your body even just temporarily is enough to make you shut your mouth.

"Now," the woman says. "I am Mercymorn the First, the Second Saint to Serve the King Undying, the Saint of Joy. Who are you?"

"Ianthe Tridenterius, Princess of Ida."

"Captain Judith Deuteros, last stationed at Trentham."

This is the first thing that seems to give Mercymorn pause, and she stops with her mouth open, watching you. She has an odd expression, half distress and half amusement. "Captain? Oh, dear…" And then she's gone, the door closed behind her, and you have no idea why.

You were not the strongest necromancer in Canaan House, that much was clear fairly quickly. Marta not being the strongest cavalier took longer to find out, and it was a harsh lesson to learn. Truthfully, you still can't really comprehend it: the insanity that is the Ninth House cav, but it's valuable intelligence nonetheless. That's why you're here, really.

Lyctorhood is a secondary aim. You are tasked with collecting information on the other house scions, and you are here to complete that assignment, primarily. The keys, the experiments, it's all static in your ears. You haven't stepped foot in that facility, there's no need. But it doesn't stop Ianthe Tridentarius from ghosting a finger over your shoulders when you and Marta are alone in the dining room, and leaning down to whisper in your ear. "One of the tests requires truly psychotic levels of thalergy siphoning," she says. "Isn't that your specialty?" Ianthe smirks, like you'd dare rise to such bait. You don't even know what she means by tests, and you don't care to find out. Beside you, Marta has her hand resting on the handle of her rapier.

You fix Ianthe with a stare, hoping she'll lose interest soon. The twins never can stay focused for long.

And it works well enough, or at least she pulls away, one long and bony finger still resting on your epaulette. "Oh, I wish you'd come try it," she smirks. "Would love to see intractable Captain Deuteros really go wild."

Now Marta does stand, though her rapier remains sheathed. Ianthe raises her hands in a casual gesture of surrender, backing off, though her smile remains light with wry amusement.

And Marta stays standing for a few seconds longer than necessary once Ianthe clears the room, as if she might come slinking back in. You don't tell her to sit, to be at ease, because she's your cavalier. She gets to decide the level of danger. And when she does come back to sit, she doesn't have a comment for you, just a twitch in her temple as she returns to her porridge.

But just because you're not trying to solve the puzzle of Lyctorhood doesn't mean you're not working on your necromancy at all. You live to serve the Emperor, and when this trial is over, you expect to return to the Cohort. You cannot become complacent. So you work on your intelligence reports while Marta spars with the other cavs, and when she's back, you train together.

Second House necromancy is such that while you have a basic all-around understanding, you have to admit you're really no good with standard uses of flesh magic. Thalergy, though, that can get your blood pumping. In a pinch, you can work with thanergy as well, though typically you face living foes. You practice with Marta – the usual drills. You siphon from yourself to enhance her, and then back from her to strengthen yourself again. You have perfected it now so that unlike what the rumors have said about it being extremely painful, the two of you don't even feel it, except for the weakness or energy boost. Of course, you could make it painful, if you wanted, but you're an honorable Captain, and there's no honor in cruelty for cruelty's sake, so you think you wouldn't do such a thing, even facing foes.

There are no theorems or library study at this level of the Cohort's necromancers. In the beginning, certainly, but now you are attuned to understanding things on instinct, as you would on a battlefield. You can feel the thalergy of everything in the room, and the thanergy outside it. You can tell, more or less, the living from the dead, and just how living.

It's one of the curious things, you think, that the skeletons that serve you have repositories of thanergy. They should be long-dead, not full of energy. It's another curious thing that none of the other necromancers mention it. It could be that they have noticed it and don't feel that they can trust you to confide in, or it could be that they're not thanergenic specialists. In either case, you borrow the skeletons, first one, then two, then five, then ten, draining them almost dry to transfer the energy to Marta before you return it to them. And oh, how Marta glows with power. Her muscles seem to ripple with extra tone, her movements swifter, everything bolder and better. At ten skeletons, she begins to glimmer, an aura surrounding her.

You go to the kitchen to find more, in the off hours after supper, when the skeletons aren't actively cooking meals. They seem to be doing menial tasks - scrubbing, sorting, or just waiting in a sort of stasis. You take from 60, and Marta is completely surrounded by the halo of light. It hums quietly, a shield of thanergy guarding her from harm. You can see the stream, you can hold it, siphoning from 60 disparate places into one. You're sweating now, but it's taxing in a good way. The kind of feeling you get after a particularly challenging Cohort exercise. You exist to make your cavalier stronger, and right now you're succeeding.

And then it goes to hell. One of the siphon streams becomes uneven as the skeleton it's attached to tries walking away. You focus too hard on that one, and in exchange, the others begin to waver. You need to control them – they’re channels of thanergy from 60 disparate points right into your cavalier, and you're the locus of it all – and yet they all seem tense to the point of snapping. You can't let that happen, can't risk Marta's thalergy getting tangled up in all of their energies, or worse yet, her soul, and so you have to keep each of the 60 (61!) strings separate. You fall to your knees, releasing one, then two back to the skeletons.

Marta understands instantly that something is wrong and draws closer, which releases some of the tension of the strings, but also makes the noise louder. You release the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, but shit, this is going too slow, there are still 55 extra thanergenic strings attached to your cavalier. You try to tell Marta to follow Emergency Protocol 14-b, but when you open your mouth, more blood than perhaps you've ever seen comes out. It's then that you realize how much you're sweating, how close to your limit you feel.

You drop five more, seeing them home to the right skeletons, then ten more, then ten, as fast as you can, until it's just Marta herself, Marta alone, soul intact, life force uncorrupted, and you have just a moment to think about your hubris, the thought that you could take from 60 before you collapse onto the kitchen floor at Canaan House.

She has that horrible bone-arm, the thing a reminder of how far from human you are. It hangs usually, as if she forgets it's a part of her, though you know she’s pleased with it, even though you suspect it’s Harrowhark’s work.

But now it’s not hanging, as the hard, golden fingers curl around your throat, your breath caught on the half-inhale, her pale hair a curtain around you both. "What the fuck was that?" she asks, but there's no blood getting to your brain, there are no new thoughts forming. Your entire vision is Ianthe, and although you strain against her, you know already it's useless.

She came into your room fired up, her gauzy little gown breezing behind her. And now she's straddling you to hold you down, pinpricks of darkness already growing in your peripheral vision as she presses you against the mattress. You push against her with your hips, your throat, but it only intensifies the problem. You grab at the bone arm but there's no sensation, she won't move it. "God, you're just like him," she drawls, and the way she says it you know she means Gideon. "I thought they made necromancers more robust on the Second."

You want to answer that they do, that when you arrived at Canaan House you were twenty pounds heavier and you didn't have a second soul inside of you and your intestines were intact and you never imagined so many necromantic sins, but instead you just drool a little, because you really are losing consciousness.

Ianthe rolls her eyes, releases the pressure just a bit. "What did you say to Harrowhark?"

You turn your head to the side, pressing into the mattress, the only way to get some space from her oppressive presence. There are tears in your eyes, so she just appears to be a yellowish shadow looming over you. "I tried to explain- about-"

She grabs your jaw, the bones of her fingers pulling your head upright to face her again. You blink away the tears to focus. "What. Words. Did you use?"

You'd thought about the words to use for days, knowing you'd only have a small opportunity. "I can remember my cav," you say. Even the mention of Marta puts bile in your throat.

She holds your jaw firmly with her bone hand, and uses the soft fingers of her left to stroke along your lips. She pushes one finger into your mouth, probing along the tops of your teeth, holding it against your tongue until the muscle seems to move without your command, swirling around her fingertip. She seems contented now, settled. "Ok," is all she says. "Ok."

You wonder if it was a bad ploy, if Harrowhark does remember her cav, or has just altered the memories somehow. You wish you knew what was wrong, so you could figure out how to fix it. It's moments like this when you realize how completely dependent you are on Ianthe to figure things out for you.

And then your thoughts fade as she pushes a second finger into your mouth, and then pulls them both out, dragging them down your chin, down the raw skin of your neck, across the rigid bones of your sternum. "Don't go doing things on your own, Judy," she says. "I need to work carefully if we're going to get Corona back."

You wake in the infirmary at Canaan House, Marta beside you. Shame fills you instantly with the memory of what has happened. You have always been proud to be beside Marta, to be a necromancer worthy of such a cavalier. But today it's clear that this is not the case. She could stand tall with such a powerful influx of thanergy, but you could not channel it. Even more so, you are beginning to understand where you fall in the ranking of House adepts, more or less, and it is further down than Marta falls in the ranking of House Cavaliers. You turn your face away, hopefully before she realizes you're awake.

"Captain, tell me what happened," Marta says. It's the request of your cavalier. She wants to understand, and who are you to deny her that? You turn on your side to face her, your guts rearranging causing some sort of sharp pain.

"It was just arrogance," you say, which is true. "I took too much."

Marta licks her lips nervously. She's older, she's seen more than you. She doesn't like being on the back foot. "I thought that Second House necromancy doesn't corrupt the flesh," she says. It's clear that you've frightened her. She doesn't claim to understand necromancy, never would, but your partnership relies on her receiving power from you, she needs to understand your condition, your usual moves, at least.

"There's always a cost," says a voice from beyond the curtain.

Marta is on her feet at once, standing to draw open the curtain, to view the interloper. On the bed on the other side of the infirmary is Dulcinea Septimus of the Seventh House, a small priest dozing beside her. She's propped up in her bed with several pillows, the picture of pleurisy, but her expression is shrewd. The thalergenic signal is strong from that corner. Perhaps the anecdote is true: those close to death burst with thalergy. "What are you saying?" Marta asks.

Dulcinea half smiles, in a way you find unpleasant, though you can't exactly say why. "The Seventh House studies this, you know, the things that bring us closer to death. So we're sort of experts on the topic." She pauses to cough for a moment, then spit in a container at her bedside. "All necromancy affects the wielder. It's just that some types have different effects than others. For example, the Ninth's bone magic tends to have very bloody side effects. And surely you know the average life expectancy for necromancers is shorter than others due to afflictions of the heart."

You did not. You are not sure of the validity of this fact. You thought, perhaps, the shorter life expectancy was due to how many were killed in service to the Empire.

But Dulcinea plows on, unbothered if you agree or not. "Second House necromancy, as far as my House can tell, tends to cause very violent reactions if overused. Think about it," she says, laughing lightly. "It's too much life! Things like burst arteries, muscle spasms, aneurysms, all possible. It's quite dangerous, really."

You remember. You remember the spasms that Marta got for a month training for your first action in the Cohort. You had thought, at the time, that she wasn't hydrating properly, wasn't stretching well, that she had some deficiency. You see now that it was you. That you were feeding her raw thalergy badly – too much, too quickly – and causing her pain. You want to apologize to her, but you can't while laying down, and you can't while the Seventh is watching.

"Please, rest, Captain. I'm going to get you some dinner." Marta leaves you alone, and you want to bury yourself under the covers. But Dulcinea isn't finished with you, it seems.

"You won't be able to eat like that," she says.

"What?"

"You've torn part of your esophagus, I think. Shall I fix it?"

Affronted might be a good word for the emotion you feel at the dying woman offering to heal you. Your mouth does still taste like copper, and you know something is still wrong, but how could you bring yourself to kneel before Dulcinea Septimus, to ask her grace in healing? You turn back around and pretend to sleep. It hurts to swallow.

You think you see Coronabeth near the library a few days later while Marta is investigating some part of the House you haven't been to, but you're disappointed to discover it's Ianthe. You had come here surreptitiously, or so you thought, to do some reading on necromancy, to try to understand what was wrong with your power. Why you faced a limit with the thanergy of the skeletons and why that limit literally tore a hole through you. You've come to accept that this is something you cannot simply solve through instinct, like you might in the Cohort. You haven't eaten anything but liquids in days.

"Oh, it's Judy," Ianthe practically mewls, coming to trap you between the row of shelves you're standing in. You wish you had left the second you realized it was the wrong twin, but you had mistakenly hoped Ianthe would slink past you to whatever secret tasks she was hoping to complete. "You're not usually so… didactic," she says, her eyes glazing over the titles you've been perusing.

You try to look standoffish, but your throat burns. You never have felt so seen as you are with Ianthe. It's like she can peel back the precise layers you try to bolt down and expose them, with cunning disregard for how you might feel about such an unveiling.

"Oh, are you starting to understand it, Captain? The secrets to Lyctorhood?"

She is correct that you are not much for libraries and tomes, and you don't know what the books you have in question have to do with Lyctors. You try to stay vague. "I need some information on wielding more thanergenic power," you say. For the Emperor is implicit.

Ianthe smiles that cat-like smile, her curtains of hair framing the image. She's tall, for a necromancer, and you feel on edge. You wish she would move just an inch or two to give you an escape route. You know she's aware of this and that's likely why she hasn't. She scans the shelf. "Try this one, and this," she says, taking a few books off the shelf. "Though I'd also recommend taking this at least a little seriously.” Here, she smirks, as if she is aware of a secret fetish of yours, "If you want to actually make yourself and your cav strong as you can, then Lyctorhood is your best bet."

You want anything to make sense on the Mithraeum. You crave order, you crave any sense of normalcy. But you get nothing as you spend more days in deep space with your guts torn up and all the while, God only looks at Harrowhark, the most useless of you three new Lyctors. Ianthe keeps her cards close to her chest, and though your mentor, Gideon, is reliable at teaching you your new responsibilities, he seems to change personalities from time to time.

It happens once, as you are finishing training, walking back down the corridor. You think it's time for dinner, not that you can really enjoy it with your permanently broken intestines, but you're forced to attend anyways. He's telling you something about your sword technique, and you're trying to listen because improving at your craft is one thing you can focus on, but it's so hard because even the thought of Marta is enough to bring wretched pain to your abdomen and a choked sob in your throat.

But then he's there, against you, pinning you to the wall, his hands on your shoulders. He's taller certainly, but just as thin, all sinew, and you can see his masseters and his temporalis tensing, the way the tendons in his neck are constantly pulled taut. "The Ninth cav, tell me about them," he says, a low voice in your ear.

He taught you how to take the thalergy of a planet. You're supposed to be preparing for a Resurrection Beast, so you have no idea what this has to do with anything, but this seems urgent, and he is next to God, and you are here to serve God. "A girl," you say, your voice a hoarse whisper. "Excellent with a sword. Face paint, robes, like they do on the Ninth-"

"No," he says, cutting you off. "What did she look. Like?"

You try to picture the Ninth cav. Tall, muscles, those sunglasses. "Red hair," you say, and he stiffens, pausing. "She wore sunglasses, but her eyes… light brown, maybe? Just check Harrow's, no?"

"Red hair?" he confirms, his grip tightening on your shoulders. It's hard to breathe from the tension.

"Yes." This much, you're certain about.

He turns and walks away, and you don't know where, but quickly enough that you're alone within seconds. You want Marta badly, then, someone to talk to, to share what just happened and consider the next moves. Living in God's house is terrifying. It's lonely, and it's confusing, and it's not at all what you would have imagined.

You were raised to serve the Emperor Undying, and you would not abandon your duty. It isn't as if you have much of a choice, either. But you feel redundant and your body is broken and it seems everyone else is running some sort of scheme that you are not privy to.

You read the books Ianthe recommends, furtively, in your room. Marta is nearby, polishing her sword, checking the perimeter, doing her Cohort-specified exercises, and you write the daily intelligence reports and read as fast as you can. They're interesting books, full of lots of things you had no idea about, concepts that the Cohort would deem 'irrelevant' and you wonder if this is contraband, really. You wouldn't put it past Ianthe. But you rationalize continuing to read in that you are here on the Emperor's invitation, in a lodging of His design, and would the Emperor Undying place books that you shouldn't be reading in such an accessible place?

You learn about thalergenic compression. You learn about thanergenic conversion. You feel like a remedial student, finally understanding the theorems behind the necromancy you've used to serve the Cohort since you were a child, concepts you've understood mostly by feel.

"You should sleep," Marta says, and your pen scratches a bit where you are taking notes.

"Of course. Let me just finish this chapter."

She comes to stand behind you, in that perfect cavalier stance, and you see the shadow of Marta on your pages, smell her when you inhale. Just as you have for the past 7 years. "Are you really trying? For Lyctorhood?" she asks.

You cannot keep anything from she who is your other half, the sword in your hand. Your breath comes out more unsteadily than you anticipate. "I haven't a clue how it's done," you admit. "But a Lyctor is the Emperor's Hands, I wonder if it isn't a waste of time to study after all."

Marta puts her hands on your shoulders, thumbs digging into the knots of tension that have formed from hunching over the book for so long. "Hmm," she considers. "Our duty is to the Cohort, who serves the Nine Houses, who answer to the King Undying. We are here to complete our mission of intelligence, but also, we were invited as House scions to pursue Lyctorhood. I do not think it is a bad idea to make an attempt at both."

You sigh into the touch, familiar enough that it borders on ordinary, and yet it's your other half, coming close after a day spent a half-step away. You lean your head back to stretch out your neck and the top of your head pushes into Marta's abs, covered, as always in her red Cohort jacket.

"Did you eat?" she asks, though you know she knows the answer.

You shake your head. Tea and broth and watery porridge for a bit, at least until you're fully healed. "Let's get some sleep."

The next day, when you finally manage to talk to Ianthe alone, she explains how to get the facility key, and you send Marta to fetch it from Teacher. You don't exactly fancy working with Ianthe, but you'll tolerate it for the sake of your mission. You respect her as a necromancer, at least. You'd prefer it if it was Coronabeth, frivolous as she is, because at least she is kind, but still, she has given you no more than a wave in the entire time you've been at Canaan House. This attention, after years of indifference from Ianthe, is enough to make you wonder what she wants from you, and so you ask her, once Marta has left.

"Oh, I was wondering when you'd ask." The two of you are tucked in an alcove, and once again you're too close to the wrong twin, you could have kissed her if she just leaned down a bit. "I think you've gathered I'm not your biggest fan, but I wouldn't dare work with any other House." She sighs. "It would be nice if you were a better spirit mage, though." You aren't sure what this has to do with anything. "Mostly, you have what I need: a cav."

"You have a cav."

Here she has a strange, almost distant expression. "I do. But the thing about twins is we're always sharing." She leans down, too close, you can feel yourself start to sweat. "This is a bit of a secret, but you know Corona. She isn't taking this very seriously. So I haven't been pushing it. I have been going at night, to study. I can't trust Babs not to rat me out."

You step back the six inches or so that you have to spare in the alcove. You don't pretend to understand the twisted reasoning that has led her to trying to achieve Lyctorhood with nocturnal studying sans cavalier. "Night is fine," you confirm. It is. It allows you to continue your intelligence reports during the day. It means the others will continue to believe you are not entering the facility. You're not sure why this matters, really, except that you don't really know the angle that the Sixth or the Eight or the Ninth are playing at, and the Seventh still gives you chills: no one should have that much thanergy that close to death. So in this way, you both have secrets.

Marta's paranoia, it turns out, exceeds yours. She tells you she trusts your judgment, that she'll come with you to the facility, even with Ianthe Tridentarius, but that during the day she plans to walk around with the empty keyring for 'plausible deniability'. She also tells you, if needed, she wants your blessing to attack Ianthe, should she turn on you. You know such duplicity would ruin your relationship with Coronabeth, would likely cause a duel with the Third cavalier (at best) and a formal diplomatic conflict with the Third (at worst), but you grant her such a request, because Marta asks for so few things, that when she does you can't help but indulge her.

You become nocturnal, more or less. The first night you go to the Facility, Ianthe takes you to an empty room and opens a sheaf of flimsy that she has sketched on. Marta stands guard just outside the door, though you're not stupid – both of you set wards the entire way from the entrance to where you are now standing. Ianthe explains, more or less, what she's figured out about Lyctorhood so far: There are a series of tests down here, and each one rewards you with a key to a room which has notes or theorems about the process. She has a map of the labs with notes about what the experiments are, more or less, and which ones still have unclaimed keys.

"So that's it? You just learn eight theorems?" you ask, wondering if Marta was right, if you are being tricked.

Ianthe shrugs, drawls in her usual voice like she's tired of explaining something so obvious to someone so stupid. "I mean they're complicated theorems," she says. "We're talking about souls," she says.

"Like the Eighth's necromancy?"

Ianthe shrugs. "Not sure. Told you I wished you were a decent spirit mage."

You review her notes: there's a lab that seems to be about intense thalergy siphoning. Another about utilization of a soul, and two others mapped out, each with meticulous notes on necromantic theorems around them. "You want to collect all these keys?" you ask.

Ianthe laughs, and you wonder if she's ever laughed in a way that isn't teasing someone. You doubt it. "No," she says, clearly. "I intend to win none of the keys, actually."

You've been through hazing in the Cohort. You've dealt with horrible bullies who have tried to put you in your place for daring to be the Fleet Admiral's daughter. You don't think you have ever spent time with anyone as intentionally irritating as Ianthe Tridentarius. "Then why are we here?" you ask.

"I want to do the tests. Just a bit of each, so we can understand how they work. But not enough to win the keys – I don't want anyone to know we were here. You and Marta try them, I'll piece together all the theorems. As long as we share everything, we can both become Lyctors." You sigh. You would probably never come back to the Facility with her after tonight if she wasn't actually extremely clever. It feels like a deal with the devil, but you don't really have anything to lose.

"Alright." You nod, steeling yourself. "Which one first?"

You go in numerical order. The first lab is called "conservation" and it's littered with bones like a catacomb. You wonder if this is what the Ninth looks like, then think that you might be stereotyping a bit based on rumors. Marta follows in, a half-step behind, rapier at the ready. "What do we do?" she asks.

You look around. There's the key, you see it, at the back of the long, long lab, about a hundred meters away. You shrug. "The goal is to get the key, but I don't know what necromancy is at play here."

Ianthe settles at the back of the room, her notes out, watching. "Surely something will happen if you try to take it," she suggests.

Marta walks forward, and the second she crosses an invisible line, the bones form into skeletons, indiscernible from the skeleton servants upstairs, except that these come at Marta, attacking. They're not exactly powerful, merely a nuisance, but since there's dozens and dozens, they quickly become overwhelming. You take from them, from their surprising wells of thanergy, to power Marta. She glows almost instantly, and knocks several down, back into dust. But they reform and reform and soon enough she is pushed back out.

Once Marta is back over the invisible line, they stop coming, and she takes a breath as the floor reverts into disparate skulls and tibiae. "Why do they have so much thanergy?" you ask Ianthe. "They're skeletons, dead for what, thousands of years?" Well, you're not the Sixth, you can't date them, but you are assuming based on the condition of Canaan House.

"A lot?" Ianthe asks.

"As much as a healthy person would have thalergy," you confirm. And you wonder if the others truly don't know — if they can't tell about the skeleton servants absolutely dripping with energy.

She licks her lips, considering. "Conservation…" she mumbles. "Judy… do you think… these skeletons… have souls?"

You almost laugh aloud at such a preposition, but then you realize she's being serious. "How could that be possible?"

Marta looks cross at such a suggestion but stays silent.

"It's well-known that a revenant can cling to bones. I haven't heard of a case of this happening for hundreds of years, but perhaps…"

You consider it, and nod at Marta to try again. You have never been one for souls or liminal magic… really this is Ianthe or the Eighth's domain, or perhaps even the Fifth's, but this time, instead of reaching for the energy, you try to detect what is emitting it. You startle yourself when you feel a person on the other end of the line, enough that you choke. You cough and little drops of bloody spittle emerge. You wipe them away on the back of your hand. Why is there a person inside the skeleton??

Marta is fighting to keep from drowning in bones, so you send more thanergy her way to help her fend some off. You think you might have an idea about conservation, or preservation, as odd as it seems. "Marta. Stab one and hold your sword in!" you call. She follows your command and as she does, you drain the thanergy, but the skeleton remains intact: a perfect husk with a soul trapped inside.

Unfortunately, the other skeletons are still trying to attack, and Marta has no choice but to retreat, to step back over the line. You wonder if the objective is really to repeat such an action a hundred times, to desiccate all of these ancient souls.

Marta leans against the wall to catch her breath, and you turn to Ianthe. She nods in satisfaction. Then, before you can stop her, she twists her fingers in such a way that you can feel your throat closing up. You wonder if you're about to die, down here, in this dank basement, your cavalier too exhausted to notice. But she just fixes that hole inside of you, that bloody leaking part of your throat, and smiles smugly, in a way that says she knows you didn't know how to fix such a thing yourself. Cursed flesh magician.

It goes on this way for three weeks. The tests get harder, and you can't make heads or tails of them, but they're not exactly hard to do, especially when you're not aiming to actually get the key. If you just need to try them, then it's easy enough. You almost do get the key in transference, without thinking about it. It takes a bit to get the hang of that one, but once you do – once you figure out how to see through Marta's eyes, your entire life feels changed. You wonder how you've never been taught to do this in the Cohort.

This would change everything. Though, once again, you're on the backfoot. You can see the thanergenic signatures, see the weak points in the bone construct, but you don't know each individual theorem to pick apart. It's this that keeps you from accidentally claiming the key, but it's also this that once again makes you realize that you're the weaker half of your pairing. Marta does everything she's asked, you are the one failing her.

Now that you can eat properly again, you have more energy, and you spend it with books of theorems, trying to understand more so you can pull your weight. By the time three weeks is out, you've ran through 7 of the 8 tests, and stand before 'avulsion!'.

It's after midnight, and you stand with Marta and Ianthe before the massive grate in the final lab. The routine is familiar by now, at least, though you still aren't exactly comfortable with Ianthe, and honestly you don't feel much closer to becoming a Lyctor. You have wondered, more than once, if you should go back and get the keys, if they're still there, and try to figure out more information, but you've learned enough in theorems in the last three weeks to increase your level in the Cohort substantially, you ought not get greedy.

"Pay attention," Ianthe says, and she pushes her hand past the yellow line and over the grate. It dies before your eyes, nails shriveling, fingers turning black, skin desiccating. It's disgusting. She removes her hand and uses some sort of necromancy to revert her hand, though one of the nails is a bit off, still.

"It's senescence," you say, staring at the invisible field.

"Overlapped with entropy," she explains. "But look at you, Second, studying up."

You hate the way you puff up at any approval, even from the Third. "Overlap? How can it be undone then?"

She puts her hands on your shoulders, digging her thumbs in in a way that is different than Marta's, but not entirely unpleasant. "It can't," she says, conclusively. "You have to siphon, continuously, to survive it."

Marta steps forward, her expression serious. "That's the whole point of the Second House's necromancy," she says, back straight as ever. And it is, and you agree.

You realize then, belatedly, that this was the laboratory that Ianthe had teased you about all those weeks ago, back before you had ever been down here. How far ahead was she, really? Or how far behind are you? Either way, you know more now, enough to understand that Marta doesn't truly understand what is being asked: that there's a difference between asking for thalergy for an energy boost, or for healing, and for literal life taking energy in order to not disintegrate in that field. "I won't be able to take it gently," you say, your voice steady in front of your cav and an obtruder, but you hope Marta will know what you mean: that if you try this task, it will hurt.

Ianthe shoves you away, gently, and sighs. "I already understand the concept. You don't have to go in it, Second."

The idea of Ianthe of all people giving you an out makes you think that perhaps, if anything, you are underestimating the danger. You step close to the line, push just your smallest finger into the field. It's corrupted in a half-second, looking dead and withered by the time you can pull it out. You hadn't even held it in the field, it was a reflex to retract, and yet the flesh has necrotized, almost melted away down to the bone. You pull on your own thalergy reserves to repair it, but healing magic is not your specialty, and it just begins to bleed: you've only cleaned off the necrosis.

With a huff, Ianthe fixes it, now her second time healing you. You don't thank her.

You sigh. You don't particularly want to step into the field, but now that you've felt it, you think you can counteract it. The trick, of course, is not killing your cavalier. The real question is what will you learn from actually stepping over the line – you and Ianthe already understand the necromantic principles at play, really. But there's something, a small nagging, that tells you that you don't, that the theory isn't enough, it's the practice that matters. Perhaps it's the Cohort in you that pushes away theorems in favor of training, perhaps it's just a gut feeling. Either way, you catch the way Marta nods at you, and you nod back.

Marta takes off her jacket, hanging it on a hook on the far wall of the lab. Ianthe's eyes dart between you and her, and now that she understands that you're resolved to testing the lab, she looks excited, there's a wry curiosity in her gaze. "Remember, Judy, you need to constantly siphon, and stay focused, if you lapse, even for a second, it will kill you and there is nothing we can do."

You do understand. Nothing has been more clear, really. You know the theorems now, you know the way you need to take the thalergy, to reconstruct the damage the field causes almost immediately as it happens. You need to shield yourself, to reconstitute yourself, to bolster yourself, and do it carefully enough that you don't pull too much.

You face the field and begin to draw, plenty of thalegy in a strong current, and immediately Marta crouches, hissing in her breath to try to manage the strain. You ignore this, you must, because any logical thought will have you drop this insane experiment right now. You step into the field and you are not shredded, in fact, you remain very much unharmed, but you can feel the senescence lapping at your clothing, your fingertips and nose, you can feel it drying out your eyes.

You pull more, directing it as a barrier field around your eyes – you’ll be dead if you can't see, and you hear Marta groan in agony. The key is far – much farther than you think you could get on this much thalergy – but it feels incredible to be this close to death, to be in a literal trap of entropy and senescence and to be shielded by your cav. And then, standing there, you understand it.

Not just the experiment, but Lyctorhood as a whole.

It takes everything you have not to drop the thalergenic bond while you're still in the field, but you walk the two steps out and try to let it down gently. In fact, you give Marta your own thalergy back, because what have you just asked your cav to do?

She is still groaning, still in pain, you can tell, but you give her a thalergy boost, at least, it's all you can think to do. You took her life force for some sinful, wicked purpose, she willingly let you use her for such corruption, you have to give her just as much back. It's Ianthe who puts a hand on your shoulder as you fall to your knees, her grip none too gently. "Stop it, Judy. If you keep going, you won't make it back up the ladder."

"I'm… alright," Marta manages, but you can't look at her.

Your vision is blurry now, you've depleted so much of yourself. Ianthe comes and kneels in front of you, and you don't have the strength to push her off, or even to walk away. She is inevitable, at the moment. "Did you figure it out?" she asks.

You don't know if she's asking about this experiment or about Lyctorhood in general, but either way, she doesn't look horrified or even curious. Merely amused that you seem to have finally come to the same conclusion that she probably got to days ago. You nod, because what is the point of delaying the conversation Ianthe will get out of you somehow? "It's unholy," you declare, trying to sound as confident as you can as the bottom falls out of everything you thought Canaan House could mean.

Ianthe smirks. "How can it be unholy, if God himself oversaw the first Lyctors?"

You wonder, for the first time in your life, if God is fallible. You dare not say such blasphemy out loud. A second, quieter voice in your head is noticeable as you catch your breath, as much as you try to focus on the absolute sacrilege that is avulsion. It felt good, didn't it? It asks. You were powerful.

"You looked better than I imagined," Ianthe says, as if reading your thoughts. You wonder if she can. However, she's speaking distractedly, almost as if she's thinking about theorems or whatever else goes on her notes on the roles of flimsy. "I thought you'd lose your stupid red jacket, at least. And the efficiency… You make a little thalergy go a long way."

"I have plenty of thalergy, thank you." Marta has stood now, and though you can tell she is wincing, she is shrugging her jacket back on.

With effort, you get up as well, ready to sleep for a day, maybe two. You know it's not possible, know that you and Marta have a strict schedule to keep in Canaan House, but it's nice to imagine.

Mercymorn rarely acknowledges you, so when she does, you're instantly suspicious. Usually, it's just to scoff at the blood stains at your abdomen, at the times you fail to maintain the perpetual necromancy required to keep your intestines intact and your skin healed. But this morning, there's a wry smile on her face, she's taken interest in you like a predator looks at a prey animal. But what can you do – she’s got a thousand years of experience on you.

"Oh, Judy," she says, using the same nickname Ianthe preferred. You're in the corridor, no one else is around. You had been planning to try working on the exercises with the rapier that Gideon had assigned you, but she's caught you before you've found a place to work. "I'm glad I ran into you. There's someone looking for you."

"Who?" Who could possibly be looking for you? You know everyone here. You see them every day.

But she just half shrugs, and it's almost polite, if you didn't know her better. "Oh, couldn't say," she says, even though you know she absolutely could say, had she wanted to. "You should check over by the dock."

You think this is a trap. Wonder, perhaps, if Mercymorn is trying to get you killed in some strange plot like what happened to Gideon in the incinerator, the details of which you still don't understand. But nothing ever changes here, so you do go to the dock, hesitant and as sneaky as possible. It's difficult to truly sneak around with a thalergenic signature, but you hope that whoever is there recognized that Mercymorn was just nearby, and that it isn't you, just someone.

It's God, standing in the large area that received ships to the Mithraeum, speaking with someone in a Cohort uniform. Immediately you become uneasy, because out of all his Lyctors, he seems to dislike you the most. You ascended to Lyctorhood to serve the Emperor Undying, certainly this isn't a plot to kill you? You can feel yourself becoming nervous and try to focus on who God is speaking to.

The other person must be a pilot, or at least from the ship currently docked. You see a flash of red from behind the Emperor and realize it's a Cohort uniform. And then you turn, to see the ship docked behind you, based on some premonition. It's massive, a Behemoth-class ship, if not larger, and you wonder if this is it: the Erebos. But if it's the Emperor's flagship, then that means…

"Judith?"

You want to run away and run to him at the same time. You haven't seen your father in years, not since your last promotion. He rarely was granted leaves of absence, and when he was, they were brief. Besides, at that time, you looked completely different, or more accurately, you were a different person. You didn't have a second soul inside of you, you were still human. You hadn't committed necromantic sins in such a way that it marred you inside and out.

But despite your feelings on the matter, your father is smiling and God is smiling and so you step forward, hoping your expression matches theirs.

"Good morning, Teacher, Admiral." You use the term God gave you to address him, though it still feels awkward in your mouth. How was he going to teach you? For one thing, most days, it feels as though he can't stand to be in the same room as you. And for another, a few months ago, you didn't even understand the basic theorems that Ianthe impressed upon you were elementary necromancy. How could you ever hope to be at a level to understand anything from the Necrolord Prime?

But now God looks at you benevolently, and you bask in it, even if it is an act for the sake of your father. "Judith has successfully passed the test and ascended to Lyctorhood, she is my Hands, the Saint of Discipline."

You hadn't realized he'd decided on your name. You take a moment to consider it, thinking about the flavor of it. You think this is better than the names Ianthe has teased you with: the Saint of Prudence, the Saint of Rigor, but perhaps, just barely. You can feel your cheeks turning red. Your father smiles down at you, and there's pride in his gaze, but he is taking in your appearance: your sunken cheeks, the twenty pounds you've lost since you left for Canaan House, and you sneak a glimpse at your abdomen to make sure you haven't started bleeding through your shirt. You wonder if he's trying to figure out where Marta is. But you know he won't ask. Cohort soldiers, no matter their rank, know better than to ask something of the Emperor or his Lyctors that isn't need to know.

And then you wonder if you outrank your father now. It seems so ridiculous you need to stop yourself from laughing. You never wanted to be the Admiral, you never wanted to climb that high. But now, here you are, the Emperor's Hands, a never-ending ball of Thanergy, a Planet-killer, a necromantic aberration, and by all possible logic, you outrank your father. This proves true as he taps his chest three times in your direction, a traditional honorific salute. "Congratulations, Judith, I am sure you will serve the Emperor well."

You nod, realizing then that you still haven't said anything, that the childish desire you have to be held by your father will not be fulfilled, that you are just here to bear witness to what is happening. You realize, extremely belatedly, that it was likely this ship that brought you from Canaan House, that this was the reason Mercymorn was jumpy when you first introduced yourself. When you finally tune back into the conversation, God puts his hand on your father's shoulder, a little too comfortable to just be acquaintances, and you wonder what this is, really. You nearly drop your constant healing necromancy at the thought that your father is sleeping with God.

Somehow you make it through the end of the conversation, before turning back towards your quarters. But you don't go to your room, or Ianthe's. You find yourself in front of Harrowhark Nonagesimus's door, and you knock firmly, hoping she will remove her blood wards and let you enter.

She opens the door a crack after a few seconds and you see a dark, leering eye an inch or two shorter than your own, and then, recognizing you, she opens it wider. She steps back, allowing you to enter, but still she gazes at you with that usual dour expression. This isn't surprising: you never call on Harrowhark, and the one time you had prior, it ended with her getting a migraine and you getting nearly strangled by Ianthe. "Can I help you, Captain?" she asks, nodding towards an open chair in the corner of her room.

You look around at the desk as you pass. There are tomes open on it, and what looks like a letter shoved underneath one. You wonder who she's writing to. There are bones everywhere: on the floor, on the furniture, lining the doorframe. You sit in the chair she directs you to. She doesn't bother with tea or snacks or any of the little distractions that Ianthe does. She just perches on the end of her bed, one knee tucked up, considering you.

You wonder what to say. Why had you come here, really? You know why, if you admit it to yourself: it's because Harrowhark is God's favorite, and you are his most reviled, and you've just seen something you can't comprehend, and maybe her cleverness can help you unpick it, somehow. "Did the Emperor give you a name?" you ask. It hadn't been what you planned to ask. "A Lyctoral name?" you clarify.

Harrowhark's eyebrows raise a millimeter. She shakes her head. "No. Do you mean like… The Saint of 'X' or 'Y'? He hasn't said."

This is surprising. What did they talk about, in all their talks, if not her Lyctorhood?

"Did He name you?" she asks. You're afraid your face gives it away, but you shake your head. "No."

"Oh."

There's a quiet pause, the awkwardness palpable between you without Ianthe to break the tension. You know Harrowhark is trying to understand why you're here, a question you haven't fully answered to yourself yet. "I- my father-" you rub your hands over your face, trying to make the words come out correctly. "My father was with the Emperor down at the dock. I didn't think he'd see me like this."

Harrowhark's eyes widen, and for perhaps the first time, she looks at you with a human expression, not as though you're a specimen she's trying to pick apart, or a challenge she's trying to overcome. "Your father is in the Cohort, then?" she asks.

You nod. "The Fleet Admiral."

"He ought to be proud. This is as high of an honor as you can achieve as a House Necromancer," Harrowhark says, and you nod, because she's correct. You want to ask her if she thought of Lyctorhood as sin, if the whole process didn't feel a lot like a primordial wrongness, a weight you will now carry forever in order to serve the Emperor, but the ghost of Ianthe's bone-arm at your throat makes you choke on the question.

"My father… I think he and the Emperor… are close."

Harrowhark bites her lip, considering this. You wonder if she's thinking of that awful night, that confusing and strange night when Mercymorn and Augustine and the Emperor became far too intimate. She is unusually quiet, her usual placating words about how everyone should be pleased to serve the Emperor likely falling short in this case. And so the mask is lifted, and the 'real' Harrowhark stares back at you, considering you. "Captain, is there no one you love?" she asks.

You wonder what she means by this. If you ought to grant grace to your father and the Emperor for the sake of 'love' or if she's just changing tracks. But the question unbalances you either way, because of course there's someone you loved, but her soul is swallowed now, her thanergy your eternal battery. Sometimes you think you can smell her, or feel the ghost of her fingers on your shoulders, and then you know you're going to have a particularly awful day.

And then there's Coronabeth, who you might not love, but only because you've always been at arm's length. Beautiful, perfect Corona, who Ianthe assures you must be alive, but you haven't seen her with your own eyes, and you keep having nightmares of her killed back at Canaan House.

"I don't know," you say, which is sort of a lie, but sort of true, because Marta is dead and Corona is just a human and even if she is alive, how can you possibly face her after this monstrous apotheosis?

In the end, you get to sleep for about 6 hours after the avulsion trial. You arrive back to your room just before dawn, and there's a knock on the door around mid-day. You shove on your uniform, knowing full well that your braids are frizzy and there are bags under your eyes.

At the door is Isaac, and he looks surprised at your appearance. "Are you alright, Captain?" he asks.

You're not. You're drained of thalergy and you are burdened with the knowledge that Lyctorhood means the consumption of your cav's soul, and the sleep deficit is not helping. You don't think Isaac looks up to you, exactly, but he does want to join the Cohort and you well… you are the Cohort, so it must be surprising for you to be out of sorts, even for a day. "Stayed up too late studying," you say.

"Sounds like a Cohort Captain," he says, accepting the half-lie. He hands you a letter with Fifth House insignia, and blushes a bit. "Magnus and Abigail are hosting a dinner tonight, for their anniversary. They're inviting everyone."

You cannot decline, on principle, but you so rarely get to observe everyone together that you must go for that reason alone. You accept, of course, and Isaac is on his way. Preparing for the dinner, you and Marta fix your hair, and add on all the formal epaulettes and regalia to your jackets, and by the time you leave, you think you look fairly nice, or at least you've hidden the fact that you half-feel like falling over.

You realize how wrong you are the moment you see Coronabeth. "Oh, Jody, what's happened? You look dreadful!"

Coronabeth, of course, does not look dreadful, wearing a flowing lilac gown with some mother-of-pearl accessories, her blonde hair flowing around her. Beside her, Ianthe is wearing nearly the same thing, but her dress is turquoise. "Oh, be kind, Corona," Ianthe says, but you can tell she is amused. "I saw the Captain in the library the other day. She's been studying, which is more than I can say for you, lounging about."

"We're hardly lounging," says Naberius Tern, looking rather hideous in some Third style tailored menswear. "Coronabeth and I have been meeting with the cavs almost daily, sometimes dueling."

"Shut up, Babs," the twins say together. You sneak a sidelong look at Marta to confirm that she has indeed been seeing Coronabeth daily, while you've been stuck with Ianthe.

Ianthe shakes her head, as if bored. "Yes, truly inspired work for a necromancer of the Third," she says, sighing.

Coronabeth catches a passing skeleton, taking two glasses of what appear to just be the same tea you drink every day, but now poured into champagne glasses. She passes one to you. "What have you been studying, Jody?" she asks.

For his part, Naberius looks wholly bored to be stuck in conversation with you, and this gives you some small pleasure. Marta stands at your shoulder as always, though you wonder if she's still in pain from the night before. It's impossible to tell – she is as rigid and stoic as ever. "Just some theory, Princess. There are books I've never even heard of in the Cohort here," you say.

There's a bruise, faded but still visible, on Coronabeth's left wrist. Was it from her meathead of a cav? Or was she really sparring down there, as if she was a cavalier?

Soon enough, Magnus ushers you to your seat, and somehow, somehow you are seated beside Coronabeth, with Dulcinea Septimus across from you, and Camilla Hect beside her. Nearby, Ianthe is seated with Naberius Tern, the Ninth necromancer, and the Eighth cav, but you can barely glance, over, not when Coronabeth commands your attention.

"Really, Jody, are you ill? You look unwell."

"Do you need to return to the infirmary?" Dulcinea asks, and you have to resist glaring at her. She coughs demurely, and it's then that you know she's fully aware of her actions. "I do think I'll need to check back in soon, I haven't been feeling well myself."

"You shouldn't have come here in this condition," Camilla chides.

"Oh no, necromantically, it’s quite compelling. I'm absolutely bursting with thanergy, aren't I, Captain?"

"That's patently false-" Camilla begins, but stops herself as you nod.

"It's true," you concede.

Coronabeth, on the other hand, has turned to face you, and you can't meet her gaze, it's like staring at the sun. "You were in the infirmary? Emperor’s knob, Jody, what happened?"

You ignore the rather descriptive profanity and try to stick as close to the truth as possible. "Marta and I were training and the thanergenic signatures are different than I'm used to. Had a bad reaction."

You're grateful when the dinner is served, when you can go back to just being beside Coronabeth than suffering under her full attention. You try to fade into the background as Dulcinea and Coronabeth pick up the conversation, asking about the food, gossiping a little about the Fifth. When dinner is over you meet up again with Marta, loitering to converse with the others as is polite. And it really is a nice evening, a way to forget about the discovery you had made the night prior.

At least until there’s a knock at your door in the middle of the night. It’s the little priest, reporting that there has been a murder, and so you and Marta again don your uniforms, duty set in your bones, despite the fatigue and soreness and the fact that you absolutely want no reason to return to the Facility again. But when you arrive, the bodies are there, splayed, at the bottom of the ladder that leads to the laboratories.

It is shocking to see the Fifth dead, after they had been so jolly and alive just hours before. It is also unpleasant to return to the laboratories now that you understand, at least at a basic level, what Lyctorhood is asking for. You scan the faces of the others who are gathered around the corpses, trying to see if anyone else has figured it out. It's impossible to tell.

They take their turns trying to recall the souls of the departed. This sort of thing is not your specialty, so you do not volunteer. The Eighth does, and you brace yourself against the cold, awful feeling you know his siphoning will bring. You risk a glance at Ianthe and annoyance fills you, or something stronger, anger, maybe. She used you, simple as that. She got you and Marta to do all the hard work so that she could learn the secrets of Lyctorhood with no risk to her. You wonder if she's actually rotten enough to go through with it.

You're distracted as Dulcinea Septimus passes out from the power vacuum the Eighth just created, and Marta's eyes widen beside you as her cavalier punches the Eighth in the face for his offense. The House drama is tiresome, to be honest, but it's at least amusing when it doesn't involve the Second. But then you feel a twinge in your throat and cough to clear it, and when you pull your hand away, it's stained crimson. You put your hand back to stop the blood that is now dripping over your lip and onto your chin. You can feel it going down your throat as well, you cannot stop yourself from swallowing it.

"Captain!" Marta sounds alarmed, but you don't know how to reassure her.

The Master Warden had been fussing over Dulcinea Septimus, but he now comes to where you are standing at Marta's cry and the sight of the blood. It's dripping onto the crisp white of your shirt. "Were you performing necromancy?" he asks, and you wonder what he's accusing you of.

"No," Marta answers for you, and you would bet anything she's fingering the top of her rapier, just in case. "This was an attack."

The thought hadn't even formed in your mind, but now that it has, you are sure she's right. Someone had targeted the area of your throat you had previously torn open and reopened it. And you can only think of one person who would know how to do such a thing.

"You really saw her? Face to face?"

"Unquestionably."

You overhear this just as you're preparing to knock in Ianthe's door. You raise your hand to do so, but you pause, because you know that everyone is keeping secrets, and you have a desperate, primal need to gather more information, because what else can you do?

"My sister, Coronabeth, was there, on some nothing planet, with Camilla Hect and Silas fucking Octakiseron on behest of Blood of fucking Eden?"

Your pulse is beating in your ears at Corona's name. Coronabeth was alive. You couldn't be sure she was dead, of course, but you couldn't be sure she was alive. You have been here, on the Mithraeum, or you in the deep reaches of space, or in the River. You were never going to cross paths with Corona again. You and Ianthe never discussed Corona for this reason. Now, realizing that Harrowhark had somehow seen her, you allow yourself to picture her, her beautiful golden hair, her glowing smile, the way her voice was melodious, unlike Ianthe's dry, cutting tone.

"It might have been on their behest, but she's with them now, no one had a gun to her head. Camilla told me we're on opposite-"

Harrowhark cuts off, and you hear footsteps coming to the doorway. Before you can prepare, the door swings open, and Harrowhark is looking at you. "What?" she asks, as if you were there to deliver a message. Behind her, you can see Ianthe lounging on the bed, picking at the fingernails of her fake arm.

But Ianthe smiles, amused. "Oh, Judy, did you hear that? Corona thinks she's a rebel now."

"You really need better wards," Harrowhark says, annoyed. "What if that was the Saint of Joy?"

"Oh, relax, I knew it was just Judy. She's actually great bait for Corona, they have a soft spot for each other."

You resent being told you are bait to your face, but suppose you do prefer it to a plan that involves you without your knowledge. You walk inside and close the door. Ianthe seems to see that you look cross and rises from the bed, coming to stand behind you. She drapes her arms over your shoulders, and speaks into your ear. "Wouldn't that be nice? Corona and I can be together again, and you can be a little treat for her. An… incentive… to keep her from the rebels."

You want to reply, to tell Ianthe that this doesn't sound nice at all, but the words are stuck in your throat, with her bone-arm pressing against your collarbone, and the fact that you can't think of anything that does sound nice right now. You live to serve the Emperor Undying, but even that feels murky at the moment.

It's Harrowhark who replies, a slightly squeamish look on her face. "I know you have very few morals, but offering someone up like that is low, even for you."

"Well, what did you come here for, Judy?" Ianthe asks, releasing you. You hate the way you can feel the loss of contact, the way you are so incredibly lonely, so starved for any human contact, that even Ianthe's teasing and borderline harassment seems to fill in the gap, somehow.

"Mercymorn spotted the Resurrection Beast. It will be here by morning." This is bad, you know it's bad, but you deliver the news like anything else. Perhaps Harrowhark was right answering the door like she did, and you are not important, just someone who passes messages along.

You wonder why you feel nothing. Or is it that you're resigned? A Resurrection Beast is one of the few things that can kill a Lyctor, and you don't particularly want to be alive anymore anyways. It's so irritating. You would have done anything to avoid death in the Cohort with Marta by your side, and now you're thinking of sinking into the River and never coming back up.

For her part, Harrowhark looks a little concerned, and Ianthe looks more irritated than anything. She turns to Harrow. "You know you're holding back. Fix it."

You are, all three of you, objectively bad candidates to replace the fallen Lyctors, with Ianthe's bad arm and your perpetual evisceration, and Harrowhark's strange memory loss. "There's nothing to fix," Harrowhark says, and six months ago you would have shouted at her, you would have implored her to remember her fucking cav. What is the point of all of this if you don't even know who is powering your Lyctorhood?

But you're tired now. You're tired and it's not even been a year, and you know that it's memories of Marta that make you so tired, along with the knowledge that this grief is going to be carried forward as long as you live… one more day, or ten thousand more years. So you stay quiet, because Harrowhark might have the right idea, actually. Existence is torment, lyctorhood is suffering, and ignorance might actually be bliss.

Ianthe sends you an awful little grin once she realizes that you aren't going to protest, like you are also a conspirator in this plan, and you turn on your heel and leave. You need to make preparations, though you're not yet sure if they're to help you survive, or to prepare for after you're gone.

You're called to a meeting with the others when the Seventh cav is found murdered. Dulcinea Septimus is back in the infirmary, and so your ranks look rather thinned, with 4 of the 16 who arrived at Canaan House now absent.

Coronabeth is there, of course, sitting between Naberius Tern and Ianthe, and she flashes you a pretty smile that looks out of place based on the rather serious reason for the gathering. But you can't help but be affected by her acknowledgement, still, and you have to look away.

You sit with Marta at one of the benches at one of the dining tables, the two children from the Fourth nearby. They look exhausted, and you can't blame them. You know they were more or less raised by the Fifth, and you can only hope that they don't actually try any of the experiments in the Facility, let alone figure out the nature of Lyctorhood. Such a thing still turns your stomach.

The meeting is called to order, but quickly goes off the rails as the discussion turns to keys. Coronabeth protests that she doesn't even have a facility key, and the Eighth reveals that he's holding Dulcinea's laboratory keys 'for safekeeping'. You want to leave, you don't care who has which keys, or maybe you do, just to prevent any more Lyctors from being created, but who are you to stop the Will of God?

The Sixth is going around, asking about everyone's possession of keys, and Marta holds up an empty keyring. "The only time we went down there was on the night of the murders," she says, as if daring Ianthe to contradict her and reveal that she, too, had been sneaking around after hours.

Ianthe licks her lips, considering this, then smiles a little. "The Third challenges the Eighth for their keys."

"What?" This is the Master Warden, who turns from Marta to face the three from the Third. Coronabeth looks as confused as the Sixth.

Ianthe shrugs. "Listen, I don't care one way or another. But you were complaining about being left behind. We can get a bunch of keys in one go this way. And the Eighth got out of a duel pretty conveniently by Protesilaus being murdered."

"This is foolish," Silas complains. "You plan to achieve Lyctorhood through force?"

They continue to argue, but you tune it out. You know that Ianthe could likely become a Lyctor right now, if she wanted to. She was just the kind of beast who played with her food before consuming it. What kind of cruel game was Ida playing with twins? Now that you know the nature of Lyctorhood, you understand the delay the Third had when landing. How could Lyctorhood ever be achieved with two necromancers and one cavalier? It was always, always going to result in someone being left behind, and Corona, for all her kindness, was simply less ambitious, less clever.

You cannot relegate these two things: being more fiendish also will make one closer to God. How is it that one needs to consume all of another person, their closest person, even, in order to serve the Emperor? Is it just that she doesn't understand true sacrifice?

"What do you think, Captain?" This is Harrowhark, and you've missed the question. You pause for too long, and she clarifies. "Should we share all of our knowledge, or continue working independently? If we work independently, I don't see why challenging others for keys would be off limits, either."

You think that the Sixth and the Ninth are too smart. If they work together, they'll figure it out in no time. Also, if you really did work together, without holding back… well, you and Ianthe already have it, more or less. You aren't sure you could actually do it, but you know the steps. No, you cannot allow everyone to work together. You can feel the room staring at you, and wonder if somehow, you've become the deciding vote. "There's someone here committing murders," you say. "If a murderer ascended to Lyctorhood, they could kill planets worth of people."

There is a murmuring as the others consider this. This is only an excuse for you, really, but you're glad they are considering it. You take a deep breath and continue. "I am not opposed to forming smaller alliances, or sharing some knowledge, but I will not participate in a mandatory alliance of all Nine Houses… or Eight, in this case."

"Oh, so Three can work with Two, like always," Silas says, under his breath.

"Don't be jealous because no one wants to work with you," Coronabeth shoots back. She puts her hand to her hip, like where a rapier might be, and you wonder if she has been dueling with the cavs.

"I'm not taking your challenge. There's nothing for me, you have no keys," Silas says, turning away. You wonder if he can do it — figure it out.

You can't stop shaking. Your body seems to react on some base level to this creature, a primeval fear of this august beast that was absolutely unkillable. The others have left, you realize, until it's just you and Gideon against this thing that seems to exist solely to kill Lyctors, and you think, maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

"Don't fucking think about it," Gideon says, as if he can read your thoughts.

You don't think you've ever had a conversation with him that wasn't about training except for the couple strange times he's wanted to know seemingly random information about Canaan House. But now, fully immersed in battle, he seems to understand that you're willing to go down with this thing.

"You heard Mercy. There's nothing down there in the stoma. Chaos. Darkness. Nothing. There's nowhere to use your thanergy. Nowhere to go. You'll be swallowed."

"I think… I want to be swallowed." You don't know how else to put it. You want someone to embrace you. You want your soul to be rent apart so that you are no longer a Lyctor, because what an aberration this is, and you did it knowingly, like a fool! You should be punished. You want to sob, but you also don't think you really deserve any release.

"Keep working on that section," he says, ignoring you. He gets a few hits in, moving out of the way as the Beast continues its attacks. "The Second House is based on duty, but you're not of the Second House anymore." He pauses to catch his breath, coming around to your side. "You're still just a kid, Judith. Get out of the fucking River, go live a few hundred more years."

You don't want to. You don't want to leave him. You don't want to live. But something is ingrained in you from the Cohort, to follow the orders of your commanding officer, and Gideon is the closest thing you have to that, and so you do, surfacing back in the Mithraeum.

You realize that you're still shaking, and at first you think it's fear, and that might be part of it, but it's also freezing cold. You step out into the hallway and see the corpses of Heralds, and nothing else. You go towards Ianthe's room because… well, where else do you go on this ship?

Ianthe's room is empty, and there's more dead Heralds in the path. You see someone running up ahead — Augustine, perhaps — and you follow along behind, because you have no idea what you should be doing.

And this is how she catches you from behind. Harrowhark, wearing sunglasses and holding a massive two-hander, and Ianthe, who looks more than a little irritated. "It’s the Captain!" says Harrowhark, as if the situation wasn't confusing enough.

"Judy, honestly, I thought you were going to get yourself killed down there." Ianthe pulls you against her, and you can't tell if this is real affection or just relief that her 'bait' is still intact. It doesn't matter. It's arms around you. She seems to notice your lack of protest and pushes back to look at you. "What happened down there?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." Because you are. You're just the same as before you went in, and that's the problem.

"Are you sleeping with the Captain? Emperor's balls, Ianthe!"

You look again at Harrowhark, trying to make this make sense. "Gideon?"

She aims two finger guns at you.

Silas comes to your rooms a few days after the meeting at Canaan House. "The Fourth died last night," he says, which is a terrible greeting, but you let him in anyways, because there's something in his expression that's changed, something you recognize.

"Oh, Isaac," you say, biting your lip as you direct him to the small table you have for guests. Collum is there too, but he chooses to stand just inside the door, and you're not one to direct the actions of another's cav.

"The girl, too," Silas clarifies.

You haven't feared for your own life since you've come here, you've always just assumed at some point this trial will be over, and you'll return to the Cohort, but somehow, with this set of murders, you consider your own mortality. And a terrible thought occurs to you: if I was a Lyctor, I wouldn't die.

"Do you have any idea who it was?" you ask.

Silas shakes his head. "The Ninth was with them," he says, and you well know about his hatred of the Ninth, but it is difficult to explain away being with someone at their death.

Marta joins you at the table now, bringing a pot of tea. You pour for all three of you, and glance at Collum, but he shakes his head in refusal. "Why would the Ninth have any reason to murder the Fourth?" Marta asks.

Silas looks like he wants to rant and rave about bone cults and shadow pacts and whatever else he has a grudge against the Ninth for, but with surprising self-restraint, he says none of this. "Perhaps it is about Lyctorhood," he suggests.

"What do you know?" you ask, half-glancing at Marta. You haven't explained the entire necromantic process to her, just that it's unholy, that there's no way you'd complete it because it's blasphemous. She'd accepted this, as she does all of your decisions, and from that day in avulsion!, no more was said about you two pursuing Lyctorhood.

Silas shrugs. He's still a kid, she realizes, despite his white hair and strict attitude. "It's just a theory," he admits. "I was thinking… what if the Ninth figured it out – the secret to Lyctorhood – and the Fourth tried to stop them, since, you know, it's a defilement of necromancy."

He knew that you knew. This fact is enough to give you pause, and makes you wonder if this is why he came to you, of all people. "How did you know I figured it out?" you ask. You have to know.

He doesn't even flinch from the same strict expression he always wears. "I figured you'd be the only one to manage avulsion, so when that key was gone, I thought you had it. And you voted against working together, which the Cohort would encourage, so I figured you knew."

"I didn't get the key. In avulsion."

He looks at you shrewdly, as if to tell if you're lying.

"I think I could have made it about halfway in and out if I was really conserving the thalergy, and even then, we both would have been in terrible shape. I don't know how anyone could have gotten the key."

"We tried it too, and I only got about halfway. If the Ninth did it, and if the Ninth are the murderers, they absolutely cannot become a Lyctor."

Marta remains silent, but you can feel her eyes boring into you at this sentence and the way it is phrased.

"I think Ianthe is going to do it," you say. You don't know why you admit this so easily. She was the one who held your hand through everything, but she also used you, and Marta too. She didn't explain the cost. And you can't stop thinking about that night down in the facility, after the Fifth's murders, of your throat tearing open again, as if with necromancy. It still aches, still keeps you from eating properly and gives your voice a certain hoarseness. Had it been her?

This makes Silas pause. Perhaps he bought into the Third's act of knowing nothing, but that was just part of the Third. Ianthe had been working in the shadows, and she was ready to move. "You worked with her, then?" he asks.

You nod, somewhat ashamed. "I didn't know enough theory to do it alone. But now that I know… how could I go on?"

He sips his tea and his face falls pensive again. "I agree. I cannot comprehend why the Emperor set us to this task. And until it is clear in my mind, I cannot go through with such a heretical act. I will watch out for Ianthe. You watch out for the Ninth." He pushes his cup away and stands. "Come, Brother Asht. Let us take our leave."

Once he leaves, Marta remains at the table, silent for a moment. She refills your teacups. "Captain, what does Lyctorhood entail, exactly?"

You have to tell her, how could you not? But to say it aloud makes it more real. It means that God created a world where in order to become his Hands, she must not only leave Marta behind, but be the cause of Marta's downfall herself. You take a deep breath. "The laboratories we completed each taught theorems which combined, forms a megatheorem, the Lyctoral Megatheorem. They're instructions on how to… how to take the soul of your cavalier and consume it to ascend to Lyctorhood."

Marta is quiet for a moment, considering this. You wonder how much she had worked out for herself, but to hear it from your mouth probably confirmed her fears. "You think Ianthe would truly do it? Kill Naberius Tern?"

It fills you with no small bit of affection that Marta doesn't even ask that you're really not considering Lyctorhood at all. How could you? You shrug. "I think she might."

You're hiding in the Emperor's chambers, eavesdropping as his older Lyctors confront him over various grievances. Somehow, inexplicably, Cytherea is there, but it’s not Cytherea at all. "This is the shit we need to save Corona from," Ianthe whispers to you, which is a valid point, but even your concern for Coronabeth is outweighed by the fact that this woman seems to be positing that she is Gideon Nav's mother, and her father is God.

Gideon the First is there, inexplicably alive from the River, and you want to embrace him, because you had thought that surely, surely, leaving him there was a death sentence. But there's no time, because he snatches the sunglasses from Gideon Nav and then he's murdered the woman in Cytherea's body.

Ianthe grabs your arm, too tightly, but it's fine, because you think you might give up your location if her nails weren't digging into your skin. At one point, Gideon Nav leaves your hiding spot to join the others, and Ianthe does not stop her, so it's just the two of you waiting and listening.

The conversation continues for some time, and you miss bits of it, because truly, you don't really understand the Locked Tomb, but you do get the point Mercymorn is making, because it sits like a stone in your gut, or a dagger in your heart: perfect Lyctorhood is possible. Marta did not need to die. So when Mercymorn reaches into God and kills him, you understand it for all the horror and treason that it is, but you also understand why it happened.

"You can come out, now," Gideon the First says, and you don't really want to.

But Ianthe drags you forward, a curious expression on her face. "What happens now?"

"Now," Mercymorn says, "The Empire will collapse. The Nine Houses were being held up with the Emperor's necromancy."

You imagine all the children in the Cohort Academies dying, and not understanding why. You imagine all the Healers and all the archivists and all the other citizens dying from necromantic collapse because the entire Empire was being held up by one man, the Emperor Undying, except he had died. There’s panic, there’s a lot of conversation that you’re not really part of because you’re trying to picture where your father might be and if he is outside of the Nine Houses this time of year.

Except it doesn’t matter really. Because God hasn't died. You watch him reform, and then look on in horror as Mercymorn seems to implode, her head and chest gone, and her body falling to a heap on the ground. It’s gory, a fine blood mist that you can taste in the air. This all makes sense, you think, even though it doesn't make sense at all. God is all-powerful. God is might. You almost retch when you remember God is sleeping with your father.

The Emperor turns his attention to the rest of you, and seems to necromantically freeze the room. He sighs. He is speaking, maybe, probably saying something important, because he is literally God, but you can't listen because without your constant necromancy, your guts are falling out of your abdomen, and you are bleeding out again. You can feel yourself reaching for thanergy that is not there, and the block is painful. You don't know if it's the fact that you are now reliant on this never-ending battery of energy, or if it's the fact that that energy is Marta, and now that you're blocked from her, it's even worse than when you were close.

"Well?"

You realize God has asked you a question, and you look up at him in horror, aware that he's just smote one of his Lyctors. "Oh, wow, what a mess that is. Let's see here." He does something, and even your corrupted flesh seems to meld together again. "That should keep for some time, at least."

"I missed the question, Teacher."

"Ah. Do you, Judith the First, swear undying loyalty to me?"

This is it, you suppose. You could say no and get exploded into nothingness, just like that. Or you could say yes and continue on whatever this is for… however long it takes until a Resurrection Beast takes you out properly. Gideon had told you to live a few hundred more years, but that was before you found out that perfect Lyctorhood was possible, that God had lied and hidden that option. You can't understand why. But still, still, you can't bear the idea of betraying God, of betraying Ianthe, of Corona still being out there somewhere and you not trying to find her. "I do."

Any irritation the Emperor seemed to have at your pause before answering appears to be overwritten by the gravity with which you answer. "Excellent. As expected of the Saint of Discipline. Go stand over there beside Gideon and Ianthe."

Gideon puts his hand on your shoulder and nods as if you've made the right choice. You watch the Emperor face up to Augustine, but get distracted by the massive red splotch on your Lyctoral robes. It's this momentary lapse that causes you to be fully unprepared to be thrown back into the River.

Everything at Canaan House starts going to shit faster than you can imagine. Ianthe finds you one morning, as you and Marta are making your way back to the library. You had planned to return all the books you had loaned weeks ago, since there would be no chance of you needing them any longer, and were unfortunate to run into her on your way. Both of your cavaliers are in tow, and Coronabeth is there also, sleepy and beautiful in a flowing gown of lilac.

"Morning, Judy, you're up early."

You're always up early, it's part of being in the Cohort, and you think Ianthe knows this. She seems jumpy, and you wonder if she didn't expect to be caught out like this. "It's more unusual to see you here," you try. You're bad at stratagem, especially when it comes to social engineering, but you decide to test the waters.

"Oh, I just want to check on something. Corona thinks we ought to take this Lyctorhood thing seriously, after all." She moves closer, and you can feel Marta tense, but her hand stays off her rapier for now. Ianthe leans in close, speaking directly into your ear. "I didn't quite have it. I knew it… theoretically, but I didn't know how to do it. But now I think I've got it."

You don't know why she's telling you this. To gloat? To warn you that you better not try it because you've failed to realize whatever final step she's come to? You feel your breath become shaky, the tear in your throat aching against whatever small healing it has managed to achieve. Corona looks on with interest, perhaps the only time she's given you any more attention than a polite greeting in the dining hall besides that night at the Fifth's dinner party.

"How?" you ask Ianthe. Despite everything, you want to know. What had you been missing? What great conclusion had she come to?

Ianthe speaks aloud now, looking unbothered. She is probably confident that the topic would be opaque to the cavs, but there's always Corona to consider. "It was the bit about fixation… about how to make sure I got it right."

You did the fixation lab, you might know the feeling better than Ianthe does. Your hands shake to think that you went through the motions of Lyctorhood without understanding what you were doing. You want to tell Corona, or Naberius – he is the one really in danger – and contemplate if you should say it outright, or use a code. If Ianthe had murdered the others, would she hesitate to try to kill you?

The decision is made for you, it seems, as there's a yelling from the other corridor, and you all rush down to see the Eighth House cav dead in a bloody puddle. The uncle is there, silent in his horror, kneeling over his cav and splattered with blood. "What's happened?" Marta asks.

"Go get some help!" you tell the Third, but they stay in place, staring as if entranced.

"It was the Duchess of Rhodes," Silas says, and you wonder if you've heard him correctly. He's accusing the dying Seventh of murdering his cavalier? But his expression is set, and he says no more.

"We'll get help, you stay here," you say, changing the plan.

You leave the room with Marta, trying to figure out what to do. "The Sixth and the Ninth are in alliance with the Seventh," she says. "Either Silas speaks true and the Seventh did somehow manage to kill his cavalier, or it was the Ninth as Silas suspected, and he fell victim to them still."

"And the Sixth favors the Seventh, and is now aligned with the Ninth, so we can't go to them for help," you say.

Marta nods. "We should check with the priest, I think."

You go to the priests' wing, and feel alarmed by the amount of thanergy in this area of the house. Perhaps they have hundreds of spare skeletons up here, or something. "A communication box!" Marta says, and goes to use it, to call for some assistance. There are now 6 dead bodies and no Lyctors, it is past time for intervention. One of the old priests emerges, the one that spoke at the beginning. He's bursting with thanergenic power, power she had once attributed to the skeletons working around him.

"You cannot be here. Oh! Is your cavalier using the communication box? She must stop at once! The emperor must not return here!" He speaks with such urgency that you almost tell Marta to stop, but then you remember the way Collum looked, absolutely drained of blood, and you don't do anything.

"The emperor need not come, but we need some assistance! There is someone murdering all of us, and I am going to get us help." You stand firm. You think about pulling the thanergy from him, about how powerful it could make Marta. You don't want to fight, but you will, to put an end to this miserable challenge.

"You must stop!" the priest says, sending skeletons at her. You pull the thanergy from them, but you don’t know if Marta is ready. You are trembling with these strings of energy being held outside of a container, the skeletons frozen, and then the priest sends more.

"Marta!" you call, desperate.

And she is there, brilliant and perfect, her rapier ready. "It is done," she assures you.

You prime her with the extra thanergy of the first few skeletons, bracing yourself for more.

"You must undo it!" the priest calls, and there are more coming at you, many more. He's not a necromancer, that much is clear, but still he can command them, somehow. They know his orders and they are all coming towards you. "Call them back and tell them they need not come! You will doom the Emperor! You will doom the whole Empire if he dares step foot back here!"

Marta is brilliant, stepping forward with the rapier. She's agile, precise, everything you could ask for. "I cannot do that," she says. "Please call off these skeletons."

But the priest shakes his head. "I will do it myself if it must be so. I will force my way through if need be. Oh, this is very, very bad. I do not wish to hurt you, but I have permission to do so in order to save the Empire from such treason."

You see Marta's hand tremble, just momentarily, at the accusation of treason. The thought that you, the Second, of all people would betray the Kindly Prince is unheard of, and she is bolstered with the righteousness of your actions. Was this a test? Was this part of the whole thing? It doesn't feel that way, but the priest’s words don't make sense. For what reason could the Emperor not return to the First?

The skeletons are more numerous now, and the priest is attempting to use them as a distraction to get back to the communications box. You take their thanergy, from 10, then 20, then 30, and feed it to Marta. In return she is swifter and cuts others down. But then one of the skeletons explodes, perhaps on a new order from the priest, and a shard of bone scrapes you across the cheek. You know more are going to follow, so you pull from more skeletons, using their energy to create a thanergenic shield before hundreds of bones come flying at you from all angles.

"We need to stop the priest, or this never ends," you say, and Marta nods, rapier in hand. She will handle him, and to help her handle his insane thanergy, you counter it with all of the skeletons you can. You can feel the thanergy of every skeleton in this House, and you draw from all of them, using them each to help augment your cavalier. And in return Marta is shining, brilliant, more perfect than you've ever seen her.

She stabs the priest, right in the abdomen, and it is deep, and he is bleeding, but it is Marta who is shrieking, something in their connection painful to her. Did all of the energy you fed to her touch all of the thanergy trapped inside of him? Marta has fallen back, panting, and you can see she is panting too. You've been forced to let go of some of the tethers, and some of the closest skeletons come back to life, and the explosions continue, one hitting Marta in the shoulder of her sword arm.

It was a crucial mistake, and you have no one to blame but yourself. You try the shield again, but it's haphazard, just enough to cover Marta, and a bone is launched right into your abdomen. You see it sticking out, pearly white and pointed, but you don't even feel the pain, not right now.

The priest, at least, was stopped by Marta's sword, and he sits on the ground bleeding from his own wound. All three of you are incapacitated now, and just because of the one call you made.

"I got in contact," Marta says, "They're coming." She sounds content, almost too content, like this is the end, even though you can only see her bleeding from her shoulder. But this remark irritates the priest, who pulls Marta's rapier from his gut and turns on her with it, crawling back towards her.

"You've brought doom to the Nine Houses!" he says, a sort of horror in his voice now. "Oh, rotten children of the Second!" He crawls forward in a bloody red trail, but he's getting nowhere quickly.

"Captain, you ought to do it," Marta says.

You have no idea what she's talking about.

"The megatheorem." You stare at her in horror, uncomprehendingly. How could she suggest such a thing, knowing what it means? "The thanergy… it broke something," she says. "Inside. I can tell I'm bleeding out, internally. But don't let my death be in vain, Captain. Let us both continue to serve the Emperor Undying."

You shake your head, because how can she ask such a thing? This is Marta Dyas, the only woman you've ever loved, and the only woman who loved you enough to stand by your side properly, as a cavalier. "The Third is downstairs, or the Sixth, they can fix this."

"If you wait too long, you'll never have another chance," Marta says. Her eyes are drooping now, the fatigue of blood loss setting in. "It was an honor to serve beside you for so long."

"I-" You don't know what to say. You thought you would never do this. And even if you did, you thought you'd have more time. Lyctorhood — near immortality — there was a lot to consider. But Marta is growing quiet, and you can tell you're becoming weaker yourself.

You stand, kicking the rapier from the priest's hand. It's starting to hurt, now, your head, your abdomen, your throat, but you ignore that all because what did that matter against the fact that this is the last time you will see your cav alive? You pick up the rapier and place it in Marta's hand, where it belongs. Then you kneel before her.

"One flesh," you say, and the words never sounded more true, as your blood drips onto her legs.

"One end," she finishes," and this part has never been more true either, or perhaps you never really understood what it meant. Because it could only mean this, really. Her end was your rite of passage, and as you feel her thalergy waning, you bite your lip and steel yourself, like you were taught in the Cohort. You place your hands on her cheeks, until you're looking into each other’s eyes, and she nods, ready.

You lean forward, until you're inches away, and then you take her thalergy, drain her until there's nothing left. Within that liminality, you search desperately for her soul, you need it so that this isn't a waste, so that this isn't just murder. And she's there, still, clinging to herself, but you need her to cling to you.

So you lean forward, with all the care you have for Marta, and kiss her, as you wished you could have while she was alive, gently, and then, at the end, you bite down, just enough to get a little drop of blood which you swallow. You begin to cry at the realization that you've consumed your cavalier. You fall back, knees to your chest, and cover your mouth with horror. You can stop now. You can stop now.

The end is the hardest part; it's the spirit magic of it all. How do you make a second soul at home inside your body? And how do you… make Marta's soul into your own personal battery?

"Witches! Treasonous murderers! Emperor's downfall!" The priest has had another burst of energy, and he's using it to curse at you from his blood-soaked spot on the ground. It's impossible to think with him muttering, so you shove a handful of bone chips in his mouth.

You think about the last two tests. Reconstruction. You return to Marta's corpse, blinking through your tears. You trace her jawline, the muscles in her arms. You memorize the curve of her nose, her hairline, every exact detail of Marta Dyas, which you had more or less known anyways, you set again to memory, and then place inside of yourself. You use the theorem and your vision fades, and you wonder, if you had a mirror, if it would be your eyes or hers you'd see in the reflection. Both were brown, but hers were a bit lighter, you'd know them in an instant.

The last bit was from avulsion! and you think you more or less understand it, it's just… getting past the barrier of using Marta for the rest of your life. You try a simple theorem, one that might tire you out to maintain for more than a few seconds. You try to call on your energy reserves - the soul inside of you - to help bolster your power. Nothing happens. You stare at Marta again, trying to recall her words. "to continue to serve the Emperor together…". You take a deep breath, trying to figure out how to manage this.

The priest grabs your ankle from behind, and it gives you such a fright that you hit him with a thanergenic burst. You watch him curl up like a dead insect, and after a moment, you realize you really have killed the little old man, despite his reserves of energy. So that was it, you think. She is there, and if you need her, she is ready. You don't need to overthink it.

You grab the rapier, make to go downstairs, and pause as the building rocks from a massive explosion. Something is happening. Someone is downstairs causing massive destruction, or maybe it's two people fighting.

You lose control of your body, jumping aside as a massive column collapses.

"You were going to get us killed."

Tears fill your eyes as you lay on the ground, at the remnant of Marta in your mind. You can barely see through the blurriness of your tears and the plaster dust as you stand, and you try weaving your way towards the dock to meet whoever was arriving.

"Judy, tie this one off. My stupid hand still can't do knots."

"Skill issue."

You shoot a look at Gideon Nav, or Kiriona Gaia, or whatever soul is inhabiting Harrowhark's body, but you can't really put much venom in it, because the truth is you are sitting on the floor of Ianthe's room in the Mithraeum making fucking friendship bracelets. In fact, you're sitting between Ianthe's legs, resting your back against her chest, and you take the bracelet she's handed you and you tie it off.

Ianthe rests her head on your shoulder as she gets to work beading the next one, and Gideon turns back to her sword, which seems to need an impossible amount of polishing. You hate that you don't hate this, that if you just let yourself embrace the awkwardness of this arrangement, it quells the loneliness inside of you, just a tiny bit. You think it's probably the same for Ianthe.

"Should we make one for the Emperor?"

Gideon looks up at this suggestion, one eyebrow raised in a way that was a rather good approximation of Harrowhark. Ianthe had been making a teasing remark to you, but now she turns to Gideon. "Think your daddy wants one?"

"Yeah, write ‘#1 DAD’ on it, he'd eat that shit up."

You think of your own dad, and the complicated feelings have loosened a bit. His relationship with the Emperor is none of your business, probably. The fact that you will maybe only see him once or twice more in his life is enough to make your chest tighten, but you can push that feeling down. For three minutes, you thought the entire planet system was going to collapse, so you suppose it's probably enough that he can live comfortably. You hand back the bracelet you've tied off, one that says "BIG SWORD ENERGY" and Ianthe slides it across the floor to Gideon.

"Sweet."

"Now what?" you ask, because, now what?

"Now we go and get Corona back."

"And my fucking body."

"And get Gideon's fucking body."

You nod. What else is there to do but listen to Ianthe? You watch her bead on the letters "CORONABAIT" and scoff, but you don't make any move to stop her.

"It's funny, right?"

"Gross." Gideon excuses herself, saying that she needs to go practice using her sword in 'this pathetic, necro body', and it's just the two of you.

"Will it really work?" you ask, once you're alone. "Coronabeth ignored me the entire time we were at Canaan House."

Ianthe hands you your own bracelet to tie off and wraps her arms around your waist. It's so unnatural to receive actual affection after so much time that you instinctively flinch, but eventually relax into the embrace when you realize she means no ill-will, she actually wants to hold you. "It will work. Corona loves me. And she loves you, too, for some ungodly reason. She stayed away because she didn't want to infringe on your relationship with the lieutenant. And because… Corona has a secret."

You don't want to leave her embrace, but you want to look at Ianthe. You finish tying the bracelet and slip it onto your wrist, and then turn, kneeling, facing her on the floor of her stupidly opulent Lyctoral chambers. "A secret?"

Ianthe smiles, obviously pleased with having the upper hand, as always. "It puts her in danger, well, it actually might keep her safe, with the rebels, at least. But she's always willful, never cautious enough."

"You think they would hurt her?"

"They're rebels, Judy. We've been at war with them for eons. Of course they would."

You couldn't save Marta. Or maybe you could, but somehow, you made the wrong choice, and it will haunt you for the next thousand years. But still… you have reaffirmed your loyalty to God, and Ianthe has stayed here by your side. Corona needs your help. "Alright, tell me how we're going to do this."

Ianthe smiles, and leans down to kiss you on the lips. You think about pulling away, but your body pushes closer, almost acting before you have time to realize what's happening. You push closer into Ianthe, desperate for closeness, for affection, for someone who understands the terror of Lyctorhood and has committed the same sins. And she pushes back, her fingers on the back of your neck, her teeth biting on your lip.

When you finally break away, you're breathless, and you think maybe you did something bad, but you can't exactly articulate why. But Ianthe looks satisfied, and she stands, her dress floating out around her, perfectly draping as always. "I've been working on this for a while, let me show you," Ianthe says, already onto the next thing.

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