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Corona hated Canaan House. She hated the crumbling tower and its dusty old rooms, and the emptiness of the endless ocean on a dead planet. She hated the creepy dungeons that had claimed the lives of poor Abigail and her cavalier, the silent priests and the uncanny constructs, those greasy bone ashes in the incinerator.
Most of all, she hated what Canaan House was doing to them. For all her life, Corona had known that she and Ianthe would be together forever. She’d counted on it, schemed and planned and built her future around a deception that wouldn’t hold for much longer. Ianthe might very well ascend—Ianthe would ascend, she was terrifyingly smart, and surely she would take Corona with her. But it would never be the same.
Since their arrival to the First, Ianthe had grown more distant. She was losing herself to her erratic moods and single-minded fervour, and they were losing their bond to the growing awareness that Coronabeth Tridentarius might be the Crown Princess, but she was nothing without her sister lying for her.
“Baby, are you pouting again?”
“Fuck off.” She’d been reading in bed when Ianthe entered, but now she couldn’t focus. Corona threw her tablet off to the side with barely a thought, then glared at Ianthe for good measure. “You ordered Babs…you contradicted my orders in front of everyone. You humiliated me, Ianthe, and you’re keeping secrets from me—”
“Even if I told you what I’m doing I doubt you’ll understand. You know you don’t have a head for necromantic theory. Or for practice.”
Ianthe’s voice was saccharine sweet. She was doing her hair in the mirror, a hopeless pursuit—the humidity at Canaan House made Ianthe’s lanky strands frizzy at the ends and lay flat over her scalp, making the roots look greasy. Corona felt a tiny surge of satisfaction.
“You look like shit,” she said, just as sweetly. “Is that why you’re being a bitch at every chance you get?” And then, in a mockery of their mother’s voice, “You know, green was never your shade.”
Ianthe was very good at pretending not to listen. Corona watched as her sister gathered her hair into a low tail, her fingers twitching like long pale spiders. Ianthe was terrible at styling her hair—by this point, usually, Corona would’ve offered to take over for her. Instead she remained in spiteful silence, witnessing Ianthe’s clumsy attempts. It looked like bleached straw.
She counted the minutes in silence. One, two, four.
“Ianthe!”
Slowly, too slowly, she turned. “What is it, baby?”
“Come here. I can’t stand looking at you like that.”
Corona patted the bed next to her, and for a moment—a fleeting, terrifying moment— she thought her sister wouldn’t come, that she would defy her in this too, would make Corona beg for crumbs of the attention she’d always taken for granted. But Ianthe sighed dramatically and crossed the room with a sly smile, sprawling on the bedspread like a fainting maiden in a Terenite painting.
She was insufferable, Corona thought.
“I miss you.”
“Oh, darling.” Ianthe’s hand came to cup her face, her thumb tracing the arc on Corona’s lower lip. “I miss you too. But you understand, I have work to do. It’s for the both of us.”
“Is it?”
“You know it is.”
Ianthe thought herself such a good liar, but she had nothing on Coronabeth. She studied her sister’s eyes attentively for any trace of deception and didn’t find any.
“When I become a Lyctor, I’ll take you with me, Corona. I swore. Why, do you really think I’d send you back home to daddy? To those cretins at Ida and your swooning friends? Do you think I’ll let them have you?”
Ianthe’s hand was still on her face, her thumb brushing Corona’s lip. “Oh, baby, I won’t leave you. You’re mine.”
You are mine, Corona thought fiercely. She opened her mouth and bit on her sister’s finger, hard.
She tasted blood. Ianthe hissed and Corona watched as her eyes narrowed in pain, but she didn’t let go. She bit harder, digging her teeth in. A finger was nothing; she had eaten a human heart for the first time at twelve years old, on the day she’d been named Heir. Ianthe had been at her side, and half a step behind—Ianthe had been the one performing the necromantic feats Corona laid claim to, but that barely mattered. Corona had done the rituals, too. She had said the words, she had tasted the lifeblood of their house. They were two halves of a whole.
Ianthe tried to pull her hand off, but Corona wouldn’t let her. She grabbed her sister’s arm to keep her hand in place, opening her mouth wider so she could bite down again, harder, and Ianthe let out a pained sound as more blood flooded Corona’s mouth. She swallowed, working her throat and hollowing her cheeks, suckling in earnest to taste the iron and rust of Ianthe’s blood.
“I need that hand to… do work,” Ianthe protested, but she did not fight her off. She could have seized control of Corona’s muscles, her nerves—not that she’d ever dared to, but Ianthe’s power far outstripped that of a regular necromancer. She could have thrown her clear across the room if she’d wanted to, but she let Corona gnaw on her hand and such her blood.
“You know, darling, you can eat all the fresh thalergy you want, but it still won’t make you a necromancer.”
“It won’t,” Corona agreed, speaking around Ianthe’s thumb in her mouth. She was shivering when Corona finally released her; they were both breathing hard. “But you let me do it anyway, love. What does that say about you?”
She licked her lips. Ianthe’s hand was bleeding—a thumb was nothing, by Third standards, but Corona had drawn enough blood that her chin was wet and sticky with it, and she fancied she could see the bone. She’d ripped off a chunk of Ianthe’s nail, and a bit of the fingertip was missing.
“No,” Corona said, halting Ianthe mid-motion. “Don’t heal it yet. I’ll bandage it for you, just leave it until tonight.”
It was a minor wound, but deep—it must be pulsating painfully, Corona thought with some thrill. She pictured Ianthe going about her day and doing her self-important research, carrying a living reminder of Corona’s claim on her skin.
“Darling, I need it to take notes. That’s my dominant hand.”
“Get Babs to do it. He’s been listening to you, anyway.” If she sounded bitter about it still—well, she was. She clasped her hands around Ianthe’s right one, sticky and still bleeding. “If you leave it until tonight, I’ll let you do it to me. On my neck.” She turned her neck to bare the side of her throat, and Ianthe’s eyes followed.
“You don’t need Babs for these things, you know,” Corona said. She brought Ianthe’s hand to her lips to kiss the wound, lapping up the last of the fresh blood. “You don’t need anyone else. You’ve got me.”