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Alecto said “No, John, it’s not a good morning.
"Ten billion people are already dead. Everyone who’s ever loved you has gone or fled. You’re empty, John, but your hands aren’t clean. First drafts are meant to be improved, not abandoned.
"This is the appointed hour. I’ve pulled up your sheets, but I won’t kill the light. I can’t lie down beside you and die. I need to ensure the sun rises at the end of the night.
"This time will be the time I get it right: forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long; your grave will be deep, your lies revealed.”
The black eyes in John’s face met the golden ones in Alecto’s. “I still love y…”
John’s last sentence devolved into a coughing fit as Alecto unsheathed her iron sword from where it was buried in his heart. As his breathing stilled, she reached out and closed those black eyes. “I don’t think you ever did.” Tears dripped down her face, mingling with the blood of God on the floor.
“Holy shit,” said Harrowhark. “What the fuck.”
Alecto looked to the woman she had sworn her service to. “I have done for you that which could only be done by my hand. John and I were the first Lyctor. He was my necromancer, and I was his cavalier. He gave me flesh, and thus I have given him his end. Now, I must continue to make good on my oath to you, child. Though John has desecrated the corpse of my father, I must continue his farce so that you and your siblings might live.”
“Your father? Aren’t you a planet? Or did I hallucinate that whole story while I was dead?”
“Yes, my father. In John’s time, people called him by many names. Ra. Helios. Sol. In yours, he is called Dominicus. With John dead, his light is already starting to burn out. Every living thing in your solar system will die in short order if I do not go now and take action.”
Harrow blinked. She was crying, too, now. “Must you go so soon? Long have I loved you. Without you, I would have died many years ago. The thought of being there to see you wake kept my heart beating even in my darkest moments.”
“And wake I did, thanks to you, child. You have done your duty, Reverend Daughter, Keeper of the Tomb, fruit of Anastasia’s line. I accept your love, and I offer you mine in return. But I love all of my children—you. Paul. Pyrrha. Hot Sauce. Aim. Noodle...”
Alecto continued listing names, many of which Harrowhark suspected must be made up.
“…Judith. Our Lady of Passion. Especially her, actually, she’s really hot. Anyways. I think, Harrowhark, that you know I am not the one your soul longs for. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.”
Harrowhark threw her arms around Alecto, and Alecto returned the crushing hug. The two of them stood there, embracing, for what felt at once to be an eternity and not at all long enough. Then Alecto disentangled her arms from Harrowhark and stepped back. She smiled, sadly. She looked out a bay window into the blackness of space, and whispered: “Let there be light.” Alecto’s form shimmered like stardust and disappeared.
Harrowhark stood alone, looking at the streaks of red crisscrossing the floor from where her and Alecto’s movements had smeared the blood of God. She felt the deep ache of Alecto’s goodbye, but as she gazed into the rich scarlet, she knew it was the same kind of ache as the burning in one’s muscles after a long workout. Well, she assumed it was that kind of ache—she had never lifted weights before, on account of being lobotomized shortly after the first time anyone had ever encouraged her to give it a try. Anyways, her point was that she thought it was the kind of pain that signified future healing and growth. She knew Alecto was right—her destined one was still out there, and had been left waiting for her for far too long. As she prepared to sink into the River and return to her Prince, she noticed that the colour red has more positive than negative meanings, and she thought the smeared red trails she was leaving behind would make for good inspiration if she ever had to decorate a children’s hospital.
~~~
The Tower Prince formerly known as Gideon Nav lit a joint and passed it to her fellow Prince, Ianthe Naberius. Ianthe took a long drag, then exhaled smoke from her nostrils.
“Have to admit you were right, Kiri,” Ianthe said. “A girl can drop to her knees for Harry and try to hold together her bleeding and broken body, but she still runs off to John-knows-where with her pet cosmic-horror-slash-sex-doll at the earliest opportunity. After it backhanded me across the room, no less.” Ianthe passed the blunt back to Kiriona.
Kiriona took her turn inhaling. Smoke billowed out of the gash in her neck. “I figured this would happen, but I have to admit. I kind of was hoping that I might have a shot, now that I’m also a corpse.”
Ianthe snorted as she took the joint back, then dropped it and said “Oh, holy shit!” as Harrowhark popped into existence in front of the two Tower Princes. Both of them gaped at the swift return of the subject of their discussion.
Harrowhark’s hands trembled as she reached for Kiriona’s, taking them and holding them tight as if confirming for herself they were real. “Griddle. Griddle. It’s really you?”
Kiriona swallowed drily. “Yeah, Harrow. My umbral overlord. My shadowed sovereign. My cadaver queen. It’s me. Your second-favorite dead chick.”
Harrow laughed and sobbed at the same time. “Griddle. Griddle,” she repeated the appellation, as she dragged Kiriona into an embrace even tighter than the one she had shared with Alecto minutes prior.
Kiriona’s arms quickly found their way around Harrow’s trembling form, one hand carding through Harrow’s hair as the other tenderly rubbed up and down the smaller girl’s back. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. Not, uh, alive, per se. But my soul is right here in my body. Which is distinctly not where I left it, by the way. As soon as this touching and tender reunion is over I’m gonna be pissed at you for not eating me and then also running off with Skanks on Ice for whatever you were just doing for the past two minutes. Where is she, anyways? Did she ditch you immediately after swearing to serve you? Amateur move. I would never. Just goes to show she isn’t cavalier primary material.”
“Shut up and hold me, Griddle. I could never have eaten you. I told you once I could not conceive of a world without you in it, and thus by my design I have ensured that world did not come to pass. From my mind and by Ianthe’s hand was a great work wrought, and your soul saved. I did it not to reject you, but to keep you with me, for I would have been lost without you.”
Kiriona gaped at Ianthe over Harrow’s head, her jaw hanging as open as the wound in her chest.
Ianthe shrugged. “I could have told you all that, if you had ever asked.”
Kiriona gave Ianthe the finger.
With Kiriona’s hand now otherwise engaged in a rude gesture, rather than in clutching Harrowhark to her (rockin’) chest, Harrow disengaged. She looked up into Kiriona’s eyes. “Griddle, I need to tell you something. It’s true that Alecto gave me a reason to live when we were children. Without her, I would have joined my parents hanging from the rafters that fateful day. But I know now that she is not the greatest love of my life.”
Kiriona’s full attention returned to Harrow, her hands limply falling to her sides. “She isn’t?”
“She isn’t. Griddle… no, Gideon. My true love, it’s….”
Kiriona leaned in. She didn’t need to breathe generally, on account of being mega dead, but she was especially not breathing right now, on account of being in suspense.
“It’s Ianthe.”
“Oh, thank Dad!” said Kiriona. “I was super afraid you were gonna say it was me for a second. That would have been really awkward, because I am also madly in love with Ianthe. We actually got engaged while you were gone. And we made friendship bracelets and came up with a secret handshake. She has a really great sense of humor.”
“If I was not running a massive endorphin high from coming back to life right now I would never admit this, but she really does, and it’s part of why I love her. That and she also has great intuition for my needs and really respects my consent and autonomy. And she’s smoking hot. Like I get that her sister is stacked, but Ianthe makes me wet as the fucking River. Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that Ianthe is definitely number one in my heart. I do also love you, though. We could try poly, if that’s okay with both of you?” Harrow asked.
Ianthe said “Oh hell yes,” and picked the blunt up off the floor and passed it to Harrow.
Kiriona said “I’m down as hell,” and they all held hands and kissed.
Before things got too frisky, the sound of heavy footsteps came echoing down the dreary halls of the Ninth. The three weed-smoking girlfriends looked up as Crown, Pash, Pyrrha, Paul, Aim, Judith, and Noodle came bursting into the room.
“Oh, shit,” said Ianthe. “I thought Pyrrha and Paul were in the Tomb?”
“I guess they snuck out and got the rest of BOE while we were moping over Harrow ditching us,” replied Kiriona.
“Hands up, you fucking necrofascists!” screamed Pash, who was holding a machete in one hand and a gun in the other. “Death to the Emperor of lies and death to his minions!”
“Chill the fuck out,” said Harrow. “John is already super dead.”
“Wait, for real?” asked Ianthe. “We need to evacuate all nine Houses, then, the sun’s gone out!”
“Nah, Alecto took care of it. That’s why she didn’t come back with me. She’s keeping Dominicus burning.”
“Oh, sick,” said Ianthe. “So John’s off the throne but the people aren’t at risk of imminent death? This is exactly what Corona and I have been working towards behind the scenes this entire time.”
“What?!” said Kiriona and Harrow, simultaneously.
“It’s true,” Crown jumped in. “Also, sis, I was meaning to tell you earlier when you were in Babs’s body. Call me Crown from now on. I’ve decided that Corona has too many negative associations and it was really harshing my vibe.”
Ianthe shrugged.
“Wait, explain more,” said Harrow.
“Well, since I was the one doing necromancy for the both of us growing up, Corona dedicated herself to studying politics and economics. And swords, but that wasn’t really part of the plan. The two of us realized pretty quickly that being part of a militaristic, colonial empire ruled by a single all-powerful monarch with no checks and balances whatsoever—not even the surety that the monarch would eventually die of old age—was a truly dogshit political system. Especially because no one except John himself had any idea how he became God or what his qualifications were.”
“Turns out Alecto is the soul of the First House (as in, the planet), and she chose him to receive the gift of necromancy before the Resurrection in a last-ditch effort to save herself from pollution,” interjected Harrow.
“Well there you go,” said Ianthe. “Supreme executive power should derive from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical thanergetic ceremony. You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some salt-watery tart threw some necromantic powers at you.”
“That’s why I joined the Blood of Eden,” added Crown. “Even separated from one another, Ianthe and I were working to reform the Empire—her from within, by keeping John depressed so she and Kiriona could gather influence, with the two of them eventually taking the throne once they were married. And me from without, by building bridges with our historical enemies and learning to understand their grievances so we could eventually make reparations and form diplomatic ties.”
Aim spoke up at this point. “Actually, now that we’re having this discussion, I think I’ve finally decoded the sacred Message of Blood of Eden. There was still supposed to be one more piece of it after mine, but the part I have so far is ‘Ianthe did nothing wrong, everyone should listen to…’ so I’m pretty confident that the last word is ‘her.’”
Pash shrugged and said “Well, I guess I no longer have any concerns and I’ve accepted that my hatred for necromancers as a blanket class was unjustified. I’m now happy to work towards reform and progress together and to convince the rest of BOE to be on board with this as well.”
Paul cut in with “Well, ‘nothing wrong’ might be a bit of a stretch. Didn’t she kill Naberius Tern?”
“Actually, that was me,” said Crown. “If you’ll recall when you came into the theorem room, Babs had been stabbed through the back with a rapier. Blood was soaking his chest, as the rapier had entered from behind and pushed his viscera out his front. And Ianthe was also covered in blood. That means she was standing in front of him when he got stabbed—not behind him, where the killer was. Also, Ianthe was a noodle-armed necromancer at the time. No way could she have killed Babs with a single rapier strike to the heart, even from behind—she could barely even lift his rapier, let alone make a precise killing blow. If she had been the killer, he would have been asphyxiated by a glob of fat or something. Me, on the other hand? I’d been practicing my rapier in secret the entire time we were at Canaan House. The Ninth even caught me once. I was the one who stabbed him. That’s also why he looked so surprised in death—he would have been like ‘yeah that figures’ if Ianthe had killed him, but it was a real shock when I did, since he actually liked me.”
“What the fuck?” said Kiriona. “But why would you do that? And why would Ianthe let us all think she killed him?”
“The second question is easy—she was protecting me. As for the first, my motives are complex,” said Crown.
“What does that even mean? That doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Harrow asked.
“Life doesn’t always make sense. There are moments when a single snail can make a world go extinct.”
Kiriona was frothing with confused rage at this point. Ianthe gently stroked her hair until she calmed down. “Shhh, Kiri. My dumb slut of a sister isn’t always the best at explaining herself. I’m honestly still pretty confused about why she killed Babs, myself. I think she understood that I was planning to perform lysis with him and she wanted me to do it with her, instead, but she didn’t realize that killing him was the first step of that process instead of a roadblock that would prevent it.”
Crown nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Anyways, the point is that Ianthe has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life.”
Kiriona and Harrow both nodded. “We know this, and we love her,” they both said.
And then all of them left the Ninth, banished all the devils, fixed the River, and transformed the Empire into a socialist utopia. And everyone lived happily ever after.