An enormous sound. The rock, rolling away. A great, grinding noise. Paul saying, “Not a problem,” but the old man, hoarsely— “The traps … the thieves’ traps, the snares…”
Again, Paul: “Let me.”
She had been down this corridor: she had squeezed through this crack in the rock—not a passageway, not at that point. John had told her he had something to show her. He had said, It’s very pretty. You’ll like it.
Paul’s voice again—Camilla’s voice, Palamedes’s voice— “Most of them are disabled. Neat work, whoever did it.”
Maybe the body blacked out. The next thing she heard was Kiriona, urgently saying, “Take it. Take it from anywhere. Take all of it.”
“My lady,” the old man was saying feebly. “My lady … my girl-child…”
“I don’t need all of it—but I need to keep it wet…”
Pyrrha was saying, “You can’t spoof this. Cass and Mercy and I worked on cell thanergy—we need thanergy, fresh thanergy, to activate…”
John loved her. She was John’s cavalier. She loved John. For she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. For John had loved the world.
“Kill me,” said Kiriona.
“No. You’re dead,” said Paul. “You won’t produce a reaction.”
“Me,” said Pyrrha. “Take me and Gideon. If Wake had just asked me, I might’ve done it in the first place—died here, with her, for this…”
“Take me, you fools,” said Crux.
She hadn’t come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen. The teardrop on the hand. The hand that John had fashioned.
Someone said something. The old man, Crux—the child Crux, barely one hundred years old—was saying hoarsely: “Fix me, and I am taken by the unknown. Kill me, for the love of the Reverend Daughter. Oh, do you think you are the only one who knows how to die, Nav? I knew you were dead to see you … I will commit this apocalyptic sin. I will die for her. She is my nurseling. I am the only one who knows how to die for the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus.”
“Good,” said someone, so savagely that it sounded like a new voice altogether. “Good. Die. Die for her … it’s the only goddamn good you’ll ever do her. It’s all any of you ever knew how to give her. You could have lived for her … but you didn’t know how.”
“You never knew wot of what you talked of, but ran your tongue anyway,” said Crux. “All our sacrifices … our scrimping … the blood of the tomb-keeper…”
Paul was saying, “Are you certain?”
Aiglamene said, “Marshal, you have a duty to Drearburh and to the oss. This is my duty as your—” and Kiriona, “No. No. I won’t let you,” and Crux, “My rights … my rights … I am dying anyway.”
“Oh, just let him go!” snarled Kiriona. “He wants to die—I’ll do it. I’ve wanted to do this for years.”
John had said, It’s so beautiful. Come and look.
She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. Where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia.
“Then do it, coward,” Crux said. “Do it—the knife is before you; the work has been done.”
“Did you know I’m God’s child?” Kiriona demanded. “Did you know all the things you did—all the shit you pulled—every single thing you did, every lock you snapped on me, every cuff you put on me, every—every crappy plate of food you put in front of me, every word—every look—did you know I was the real, true-blue daughter of the Emperor? I want you to know that—I want you to know what I am!”
“You remain—what you are,” said Crux. “A worthless millstone hung about my darling’s neck. You were born to make her suffer. You died as you lived, Gideon Nav—a disappointment to me—and to God.”
There was a wet, meaty sound. The old man exhaled. It was dark. Then there was light, bright, cold, electrifying, like death; and the noise of another rock—slowly—agonisingly—grinding away.
And Kiriona kept saying— “It didn’t feel good … Fuck … It didn’t feel good. Why didn’t it feel good?”