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I didn’t mind imprisonment. The solitude between questionings gave me time to think as carefully and thoroughly as you would have. It gave me time and space to grieve -- Dulcie, not you.
We didn’t have time to grieve her properly at Canaan House. The question of why she was pretending we were strangers, and then of who was impersonating her, took precedence. Too many murders, too much danger, too many mysteries to solve before they killed us. Before --
You are not dead. You’re in the pouch around my neck. Where else would you be, but the bones that housed your brain?
I confess that when my emotions nearly get the better of me, I find it comforting to wrap my hand around that pouch. How strange, as we so rarely hugged when you had a living physical body.
It should have been me. I was the one who trained for so many years, expecting such an end as inevitable -- for myself. I am far more easily replaced. There will never be another genius like you, no matter what you said about Nonagesimus.
You’ll be glad to know that, in the end, we avenged Dulcie.
How angry I was when I thought she had turned on us. What a cruelty, to treat as strangers those who had loved her better than anyone, seeing her as a person rather than a beautiful dying flower. Your heartbreak was as terrible for me as my own, although I never would have said so if you could hear me. (Can you, though? I listened to every word you said about the River and revenants, but I confess I understood only three-quarters of it.) Even you said you weren’t entirely sure how it all works. Or whether.
I digress, again. I thought speaking to you would help me organize my thoughts, as it always has before, but these feelings are scattering them instead.
I was slower than you, of course, to understand the ramifications of “Dulcinea” being an imposter. I was so relieved that she hadn’t forgotten us that it took me a moment to realize she must be dead. (I say that every day in order to accept the truth. The sting of the words is starting to lessen, although the underlying pain remains sharp. I trust it will dull in time and with practice.)
I’ve come to believe that the real Dulcie was trying to protect us, even at the end, by neglecting to tell Cytherea about us. We likely would have been the first to die if Cytherea had recognized us as the greatest threat to her ruse. We would have had no warning otherwise, no reason to be suspicious. Even you, I believe, wouldn’t have seen it coming until it was too late.
Knowing that she loved us until the end doesn’t help me miss her less.
I know what to do, Warden, and I will continue to do so.
===
I’m in the hospital. They tried to take you away. I fought. They electrocuted me. It will take a few days for me to recover.
I will fight again.
I’m subvocalizing instead of speaking aloud because they are watching me, even more closely than the first month. I suppose I lulled them into a false sense of security by refusing to say a single word, but now they know how well I can fight, and they watch me like a dangerous animal. It’s regrettable that I was unable to stay quiet, both literally and figuratively, but I couldn’t let them take you. I had to fight, and “go loud,” as you would say.
You were so proud of me that day, and I was so proud that you had such faith in me. Not that your respect for me was ever less than explicit, but I so rarely have the opportunity to demonstrate the extent of my abilities. I’m a genius in my own way. You knew that before anyone else did.
Judith Deuteros is in the bed beside mine. She’s been in and out of consciousness this entire time; they’ve managed to keep her alive, but not much more than that. If we were in the Dominicus system, you could heal her within a day. I’ve done what I can with the knowledge I’ve gleaned from working with you for so long. It’s at least as much as they’re capable of, even without the benefit of necromancy.
I prefer her when she’s unconscious.
She’s taken to lecturing me on the proper protocols for resisting interrogation. I mentioned in passing that I’ve remained steadfast for several weeks, but she is a soldier and believes only the military can understand such matters. My opinion is that her training does not reflect the latest advances in psychology, neither of the questioner nor the subject of interrogation. I am irked by her condescension, but there are a few bits of useful advice in her harangues, and I have been careful to set aside my annoyance in order to benefit from them.
She wouldn’t last one minute of cross-examination on the Sixth. Perhaps she can sit there in silence, perhaps even longer than I can under duress, but she hasn’t been trained since birth to consider every possible meaning of every word that comes out of her mouth.
Still, even before she sought to edify me, I was doing well under interrogation. I decided early on exactly what information I was willing to provide, and I have given nothing more. They seek to trip me up by rephrasing questions, searching for inconsistencies. I have provided none. Their understanding of semantics is elementary. You would have outwitted them when you were five. It’s the closest I get to intellectual exercise and it relieves the tedium. It reminds me of home.
And you.
Fortunately, they don’t express their frustration with violence. They have treated me as a prisoner of war, a fellow soldier, although I’ve gathered they consider me a necromancer’s lapdog. Since I “went loud” in front of them, they’ve decided I would be a valuable recruit.
Yes, I will remember that phrase for the rest of my life, and you will never live it down.
[Camilla took a deep, steadying breath.]
===
I have decided that healing Judith is one useful thing I can do. I feel no camaraderie toward her, but she and Coronabeth are the closest to comrades I have here. You might say I hold a grudge for her actions at Canaan House. You would be right. But it’s for her careless treatment of her cavalier, not her refusal to listen to you.
I try to forgive her by reminding myself that she likely did us all a tremendous favor by getting rid of Teacher. There’s no evidence and no chance to gather any, but I surmise that it served as a failsafe should any of us come too close to Lyctorhood. Whether it was Cytherea or the emperor himself who wished to prevent our transformation, it’s clear that we weren’t meant to make it to the finish line.
As though we would have, once we understood the cost. I believe Ianthe Tridentarius is the only one among us who would have chosen that path. Nonagesimus did so only under extreme duress, and after her cavalier forced her hand.
Speaking of her cavalier, now that I’ve left the hospital, I’ve had the opportunity to visit the corpse of Gideon Nav. At first, I felt I owed it to her, as she’d sacrificed her life to save mine. I had heard that her corpse still hadn’t rotted, even months after her death, but I was unprepared for how pristine it is. She looks asleep, not dead. How this happened, I’m not sure, and I haven’t been allowed to conduct a proper examination. Apparently she is the presumed daughter of their leader, Commander Wake, who disappeared around the time Gideon would have been born. I did tell them that Gideon knew her mother was dead, which did not please them, naturally. The zeal with which they believe Gideon will someday take up her late mother’s mantle and prove their savior is religious in nature, although they claim to eschew religion.
I haven’t mentioned that I once tried to kill her.
In my defense, I had mistaken her as a threat.
But I digress.
I find it comforting, in a lesser way as in speaking to you, to visit her corpse and speak to her. From what I understand of Lyctorhood, her soul is being consumed by her necromancer, but I irrationally wonder if she might hear me. If she might not be dead. Because if she is not, then there is hope for --
I liked Gideon Nav. She was as socially awkward as I am, though in her case it was lack of experience with other people. She was shy but exceptionally talented. As you said, deplorably unloved. I had thought there could be no less sentimental childrearing than on the Fourth, but clearly I underestimated the cruelty of the Ninth.
===
Are you there?
You have to be there. I must have taken the right pieces. I searched and searched and gathered every part of you I could find, every last speck. You have to be here.
How could there be a world without you?
===
I’ve learned to whittle.
I know this would amuse you, picturing me wielding a knife for creative purposes. I assure you, it’s not entirely frivolous.
They refuse to let me have a blade larger than a pocketknife, (wisely), and they allow me to use even the plex practice swords only while I’m training their soldiers. (Yes, I have begun doing so out of boredom, and to curry favor. The more I cooperate, the more freedom I have.)
I’m making batons.
Once they realize what I’m doing, they’ll almost certainly take them away. I’m seeing how long I’ll have to practice in secret. I’ve trained, of course, as you’ll recall, but that was quite a while ago.
It amuses me, if nothing else.
===
I’m surrounded by whiny little bitches.
Well, I exaggerate; We Suffer is uncritically and blindly devoted to the cause, but Blood of Eden certainly has some legitimate grievances. (After all, we’ve had our own misgivings and suspicions about the empire, and many of them have been independently validated by We Suffar.)
No, I refer to Princess Coronabeth and Captain Deuteros.
I’m ready to throttle both of them. I’ve been spending more and more time with Gideon Nav’s corpse, just for the peace and quiet.
Now that Deuteros is recovering, she and Tridentarius bicker constantly. It’s clear they have a significant history -- and that Coronabeth wants a significant future -- but I’m so tired of their incessant squabbling.
Coronabeth informed me that Judith “is an idiot, and I’m something of an expert, as Ianthe would say.”
Judith is convinced that Coronabeth is a traitor to the empire, “an easy mark for the demagogues.” Corona didn’t take this well.
Coronabeth is still inconsolable that Ianthe “chose Babs over” her. Yes, she’s distraught that her own sister didn’t murder her and devour her soul. How does one argue with such absurdity?
I told her that once you realized the cost, you never once considered becoming a Lyctor. You decided, without hesitation, that sacrificing me in exchange for greater power was insupportable. So I said, “Of course your sister couldn’t do that to you, if she loved you.”
She refuses to accept this. According to her, she’s a cavalier who lost her necromancer.
I find this offensive.
Deeply offensive.
===
I shouldn’t be so offended. I haven’t lost you. You’re simply, temporarily, elsewhere.
Deuteros, however, has exhausted all my sympathy. First she assumed, and was unwise enough to tell me, that you and I have a sexual -- a predatorily sexual, at that -- relationship. I have previously told Coronabeth the truth, that you are like a twin brother to me. (She informed me that our relationship is inferior to hers with Ianthe, as they are “real” sisters. The bitch.) I admit, I was so angered by Judith’s presumption that I had to walk out the door before I struck her.
Far, far worse, she has tried to take you from me. They are all trying to take you. The Edenites go beyond their reasonable positions to hate all necromancers and everyone adjacent. Their bigotry has led to a superstitious terror of a few scraps of bone in this pouch around my neck. I live in fear that they’ll take you from me by force.
Deuteros has tried to “get me to face reality.” She told me I have to face facts -- you’re “dead and gone.” She wanted me to say it aloud.
I replied, “I have fully accepted the first. The second isn’t true, and I refuse to live in delusion.”
It isn’t true.
===
You’re here.
I hadn’t realized how afraid I was until Harrowhark Nonagesimus confirmed that you are here, in the fragments I gathered. Not in the Cohort’s hands with the rest of your body.
Not lost.
I know what to do.