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Camilla stalked her quarry through the forest, silent as could be. So much had happened in the last eight months, and yet the time had dragged. It had taken so much longer than expected to find her again, and longer still to get an opportunity to approach her alone, but Camilla Hect was nothing if not patient and determined.
She could hear the sound of the giant constructs—she was under no illusions that they could be anything else—crashing through the trees ahead of her. Their pace had changed a few minutes ago, indicating that her presence had likely been noticed in spite of her precautions. It was a reminder that she no longer knew the full extent of what her old comrade was capable of.
At last she emerged into a clearing and saw her. Harrowhark was ready for a fight, that much was clear. She stood atop a platform of bone, two enormous hulking skeletons at her side, the massive sword that had formerly belonged to her cavalier held awkwardly in her hands. Camilla briefly wondered whether she had gone about this wrong, whether she should have reached out beforehand for the meeting, but a single glance at Harrow's face dispelled that notion. Paranoid confusion was etched in every line, visible even beneath facepaint more ragged and haphazard than Camilla had ever seen from the Reverend Daughter. That alone was enough to tell her that something was deeply wrong here.
The Reverend Daughter opened her mouth and said in bewildered tones: "I saw your corpse."
"Well," said Camilla, unsure what to say to this, "don't tell everyone, or they'll want to see it too."
Harrow put a hand to her ear, pulling it away with blood staining it. On impulse Cam took a step towards her, only for the necromancer to shy away like a frightened animal. She stared at Camilla, and blood ran down the side of her head. And then she reached into the depths of her robes—now joined by the gaudy cloak of the Emperor's Saints—and produced an envelope, handing it to one of the constructs which began to thread its way over to Camilla. At no point did she tear her gaze away from the Sixth Cavalier.
Camilla took the letter, opened it, and read, unable to believe what she found within.
ADDRESSING THE WARDEN'S HAND OF THE SIXTH HOUSE, CAMILLA HECT, WRITING AS THE LADY HARROWHARK NONAGESIMUS, KNOWN AS THE REVEREND DAUGHTER BY HER OWN DESIRE, NOW DEAD.
Camilla… no. Cam. I cannot pretend to unfamiliarity as I write this and it does you a disservice to attempt to do so.
I have thought so much about what to say to you, and yet now I come to it I do not know how to begin.
Let me start then by saying: I regret.
I regret that I could not recognise friendship until too late. I was so fixated on my imagined contest with the Warden, on proving myself the better necromancer, that I could not see him proving himself the better person with every action, every kindness. I did not tell him this and now I never will. I would give my life for his if I could, but sadly I cannot.
I regret furthermore not being able to comfort you in your grief. My distractions, first that of our survival then that of my own loss, I offer as explanation but not as excuse. You were there for me, but you had no-one. I offer you what comfort I can now; that I can, I think, imagine the depths of feeling you have suffered. I know, too, how it feels to lose the one you—(here a word had been scribbled out and obliterated)—to lose the most important person in one's life. I know that you would take any action, make any sacrifice, to return Palamedes Sextus to the living—no, I once again do you a disservice. For all I know you are already endeavouring to do just that. I have underestimated you before, and I would be a fool to do so again. Let me instead hope that I might thus prevail upon you to understand my own actions in this light, and to forgive me the great unkindness I am about to do you.
I regret that I cannot keep my promise. Before we parted, you bade me to live, and to remember Gideon Nav. I find that I can do neither. Know that I do not make this decision out of despair, but out of hope. Another might call it desperation, but I think you will understand. My cavalier is dead. I have devoured her soul. I cannot take this back. But I can impede anything further. I have not yet digested her, not yet fully obliterated her being. And I will not do so. There is only one way I can think to do this, and that is to consign all memory of her to oblivion. What my mind cannot conceive of, it cannot consume. And thus, shortly after I finish this letter, I will die. I will die so that another Harrowhark, one unstained by the knowledge and guilt of my crime, might live, and so that perhaps, in some way, so might Gideon Nav. In doing this, I recognise that other memories must change too, lest the narrative be undone. I do not know how, but the Harrowhark who gave you this letter will remember the events at Canaan House differently. I would say I hope our relationship survives the change intact, but in truth I cannot imagine being that lucky.
I regret that I, in doing so, must rob you of another source of comfort, such as I might have offered. And I regret that I must compound upon this by begging of you a final kindness; please do not dispel her delusion. Whatever she believes, treat it as fact. She cannot be allowed to remember the truth. If she does, this is all for nothing. If you will not do this for me, then please, do it for Gideon.
There is so much I want to say to you, and I will never get another chance. I hope that if I say that the necromantic world was robbed when you were not born an adept, you will take it as praise and not dismissal. Amongst all the cavaliers at Canaan House you alone were, I think, the epitome of what a cavalier should be. I cannot in this begrudge my Gideon, whom I never allowed the chance to flourish as she should have been able to; the fault there is mine and mine alone. One more regret, amongst so many. I wish the two of you had had more time together.
Cam, I… I do not know how to say this. I have never been allowed the luxury of vulnerability, and thus I have never learnt to say these things. Know that you are important to me, and you always will be, even if I am not around to remember the fact. You have shown me a kindness, and closeness, and tenderness, that I can never feel I deserved.
I regret that I will never see you again.
I regret that I can not kiss you one last time.
I regret that I do not have the words to express what you are to me, save to say this: you have made me feel seen, and understood, as precious few have done.
I am in your debt, and in Sextus' debt, and the Ninth House cannot stomach a debt unpaid. And though my time grows short, I would do for you what I still can. I do not know how the Harrowhark you meet will regard you. But I speak these words to you and whether she wish it or not she will be bound by them.
“For service previously rendered by your House: invoke the rock that remains ever unrolled, and understand that I will both consider your life as inviolate, and aid you if I can."
Say them to her, exactly as I have written. Do not vary a single word. She will do for you whatever you need, as best she is able. It is what I would have done where I there. It is not enough, but it is all I have now to give.
With endless regrets,
I nonetheless remain,
Your Harrowhark
Camilla had thought she had exhausted her capacity for grief. Palamedes Sextus, her necromancer, her other half, was dead. Dulcinea Septimus, one of her oldest friends, had been murdered before she had ever gotten to meet her in person. Gideon Nav, her comrade in arms, had fallen avenging them both. And yet, her heart was not yet so numb that this final stab of loss could not dredge forth a last reserve of pain. She stared at the letter, then at the Harrowhark who was not her Harrowhark, then back at the letter. Then she allowed herself one moment of emotional indulgence, and tore the letter to shreds.
"Okay," she said. And then "it's coming out your nose," because it was.
"Am I required to know the contents?" asked the Harrowhark who had seen her death, and who treated her with suspicion, rubbing tersely at the blood dripping from her face.
There was no time to mourn, not now. There was work to be done. Camilla Hect cleared her throat, and spoke the words.