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On the first morning after being named cavalier primary, Harrow Nova—impotent furnace of two-hundred souls, the death of Anastasia’s promise, the monster above the Rock!—sits in her cell, and stares at a needle.
It’s bone, fresh and new and white. Carpal bone, most likely, stretched out like clay and blunted at one end, the other honed to a vicious point. The newness of it makes it seem to glow against all the dust and dark. This is not bone pulled from a crypt, long dead and rested and boiled. This bone is fresh, just barely severed from its lifeblood, probably pulled out of the Reverend Daughter's own wrist. It’s beautiful.
The hand proffering it is decidedly not. The Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House is all acne and angles, knobby knuckles and wound-up sinew. She holds the needle with the point facing away from her, like the Empire’s most ridiculous and ineffective sword. Her nails are rough, the skin around the nailbed scabbed and scarred from a lifetime of anxious tearing. She holds the needle with only the tips of her fingers, like she’s scared that if she doesn’t hold it carefully enough, it’ll grow teeth and bite her.
“Well?” Gideon prompts. Her grin is crooked, like it always is, but there’s a twitch at the corner. Harrow does not reach for the bone. She merely sits, hands folded, neck craned back just high enough to watch Gideon’s shoulder for its telltale jerk before the strike. She waits, but the pain doesn’t come. If this is a trick—another cruelty, laid with little reverence upon all the rest—it’s a confusing one. Gideon shuffles her feet, offers the needle, and her shoulder remains still.
“I’m not sure you’ve thought this through,” Harrow says, eventually. Her voice is careful. Schooled. Neutral. The old scars on her back sting. She took the vow just yesterday, and the duty is not unclear. The cavalier primary of the Ninth House cannot hurt her necromancer. It’s not only treason, but heresy. An indentured servant of the House lashing out is one thing, but the cavalier primary? Did Gideon give her everything—everything she’s ever wanted, everything she’s ever been allowed to want—only to trick her into throwing it all away less than a day later? Harrow can still taste the vow on her tongue, blood and sweat and skin . The fingers holding the needle fidget back and forth, the tip bobbing.
“Rejection? Harrow, you wound me,” Gideon groans in mock affect.
“You’ve never cared about ‘looking Ninth' before, so why start now? And why me, anyway? If you want the classic off-planet ornamentation, you should ask Father. Or any of the nuns—”
“Aisamorta and Lacrimorta are blind, if I must remind you, and even if they weren’t I wouldn’t let either of them stab me with a ten foot pole. And I’m not asking Dad. For one, I absolutely cannot let him win on this. For two, he would make it all weird, instead of cool and hot. For three, see point one. And I’m asking you.”
“The others then. Sister Canace does inoculations.” Harrow grits her teeth.
“Sister Canace has a bad heart, and last round I almost blacked her eye by accident. C’mon, stab me. Haven’t you always wanted this?”
Stabbing the Reverend Daughter is something Harrow has fantasized about three-to-five times a day for the last thirteen years. At this point, it’s more meditative exercise than anything else. A sword through the ribs. A spike of bone through the heart. A knife through each hand and foot, pinned down and spread out, under Harrow’s—
“I want to watch you die. The mechanisms are immaterial.”
“Tsk,” Gideon says, and her crooked grin is full of teeth. “Careful. Don't let Dad hear you say that. You don't wanna know what strings I pulled to convince him you were a better second choice than an octogenarian with severe osteoporosis. Anyway, this is your job , now. You know that right? Cavalier primary. My word as your necromancer. Your hand as my sword. Don’t tell me you don’t want it anymore. It'd make a bad impression, showing up with a sadsack cavalier who can’t keep his stomach contents inside either end, or some old bat—love her, I swear!—who cracks her spine on landing. Embarrassing, honestly. Though I suppose the Ninth House isn't a stranger to—”
Harrow flushes, hot and red. Her ears burn. It spreads down her chest, into every cell and every trapped, burning scrap of soul. The sword. The vow. The blood.
One flesh, one end.
The bone needle is warm in her palm, and she’s clutching it so tightly she can feel her own heartbeat race under her fingers.
Harrow doesn’t remember snatching it out of the Reverend Daughter’s hand and when she looks back up Gideon is staring at her, lips slightly parted.
“Cool.” Gideon’s voice is a little too breathy, her face suddenly slack and soft and young . Then she turns cold again, her voice flat, just as commanding and absolute as Harrow’s father. “Glad that’s sorted. First duty of the cavalier is to the necromancer’s will. And I want you to stab me.”
Deference to Gideon—Gideon the usurper, Gideon the foundling, Gideon, who took everything Harrow was promised, everything Harrow was supposed to but failed to be—is not something that she knows. But the cavalier role demands it, and above all else, Harrow has wanted to be wanted by the Ninth. To have her place. To be one of them. To be held in the holy graces of its traditions, its stone walls and its ancient heart. So when Harrow opens her mouth, the words come easy.
“Yes, my Lady.”
When the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House sits down next to Harrow on the cot, it creaks. Harrow holds the needle carefully, pointing it up and away as Gideon settles herself. She’s leaning back, too relaxed and far too close. The last time she was this close without either of their hands wrapped around the other’s neck, Harrow was ten years old with a broken back and Gideon was above her, pleading with words that Harrow could not understand. This moment then, does not quite feel momentous enough. It feels too casual. Too regular, as if slouching down on Harrow’s bed is the most natural thing in the world.
Gideon leans back on one hand, the other coming up to tuck a lank of hair behind her ear. It’s far too long. The Reverend Father and the Reverend Mother have finally given up on enforcing pious aesthetics upon their adopted heir, and so instead of the traditional sacrament, Gideon’s hair grows in wild, rebellious tangles. Harrow has the fleeting (but obviously insane) thought that as cavalier, she should braid it.
She holds the needle tighter.
“I don’t want basic shit, okay? I want it like this, see,” Gideon pulls a magazine out of one of her many pockets, flipping it open to reveal what can only be an insulting parody of a Ninth House ascetic. All shaved head, black robes and skull paint. And bones, studded through skin.
Harrow’s lip curls as she looks; the face of the illustrated figure looks to be more bone than flesh. She doesn’t know what reference point the artist was working off of, but the penitents of the Ninth House who wore bone usually kept it simple. It was traditional for any devoted of Anastasia’s teachings to pierce the tongue before they could preach—Gideon had, in her usual explosive manor, vehemently refused such a procedure, and the whole House was frigid with tension for weeks until one of the Sisters had unearthed a too-convenient tome from the very depths of the Anastasian, excusing such requirements for those not born on-planet.
Necromancers who are sent out to the Cohort would usually get one or two punched through the ears, just in case they end up stranded out-of-system with little resources, but for anyone who plans to keep two feet on planetary surface, excessive percutaneous ornamentation is considered tacky at best. The First House has no reason to be lacking in thanergy, and Ortus’ panniers, hastily refitted to Harrow’s measurements and stuffed full of carefully selected bone, are already packed in the shuttle.
She scans the rest of the page. The cloak style is all wrong, and the illustrator has elected to give its fictional Ninth House scion a jeweled pendant that could probably buy the whole House enough resources to last the next ten years. Harrow looks away, which is a mistake, because it brings her eyes right back to Gideon.
“I want one here,” She brushes her thumb over the fat lobe of her left ear. “Three more up the side. One on the top. Other side too. Just ears to start. Cartilage. Cool?”
“No tongue?” Harrow does not appreciate the snort Gideon gives her in response. “Calm your disgusting mind. If you want to look like a true scion of the Ninth, even your heretic pin-up rags know about Anastasia’s vow.”
Gideon glances down at the magazine she’s shoved in Harrow’s face and too late, Harrow realizes her mistake. The scion featured has her mouth closed, which means—“Been sneaking into my things? Shit, I know Ortus stole them sometimes but I never suspected y—”
“Shut up!” Harrow’s cheeks flush, and her fingers curl tighter around the needle. Her voice rises. “You buffoon, you cuckoo, you—”
“Alright! Alright, fine. Don’t wake the whole house, I’m supposed to be having silent contemplation right now. Whatever your proclivities—” Gideon continues despite the blood rushing to Harrow’s ears, “—not my business, and it’s not like I can throw stones here. Anyway. As your necromancer, you have to do what I say. And I want four in each, and after that we’ll think about tongue. Got it?”
“Fine,” Harrow snaps. She feels lightheaded. Is this really what a cavalier does? She doesn’t really know. She only has the books, and what she’s managed to eavesdrop from Ortus’ lessons, and her imagination.
It feels like she’s moving in a dream as she prepares the needle. First, antiseptic—Gideon had thought far enough ahead to bring that, at least. Gideon twists, maneuvering herself so her left ear is at Harrow’s eyeline. The whole of Gideon is too much, this close. The weight of her on Harrow’s cot, the way she smells like sweat and preserving salts. Harrow’s entire universe narrows as she rises up onto her knees to get the angle. An ear, the arch of her nose, her hair. Harrow rests one hand on the curve of the Reverend Daughter’s jawline, the other aiming the tip of the needle against the fat lobe of her ear.
“Shit! Wait. Wait!”
Harrow’s body freezes. Anger rises—after everything, for Gideon to pull out now—
“Wait. On my say, okay? Just… gimmie a min.” The cot creaks, and Harrow realizes that under her hands, Gideon is shaking. She takes deep, shuddering breaths and grips the edge of the cot, her skin far too close to Harrow’s thigh. She shivers. Breathes. Mutters something nonsensical under her breath. Then— “ Now .”
Harrow pushes the needle home. Gideon lets out a quiet hiss as it pierces, and Harrow does not let her hands tremble as she buries it almost entirely through. Gideon’s forehead beads with pink sweat as the needle warms in Harrow’s hands, remodeling. The sharp end dulls and thickens, curving down and forward to meet the blunt back end in one solid, smooth loop. There’s barely any blood. She’s still shaking.
Harrow is shaking now too, and she curls her hand into a fist. She realizes, quite suddenly, that at some point she had shifted, probably to get a better angle, but now she’s effectively straddling Gideon. She’s… touching her, too—her hand rests on Gideon’s shoulder, at the junction of her scapula and clavicle. Placed there for additional leverage, she’s sure. Harrow is moments from throwing herself off, and perhaps out the airlock as well, when Gideon lurches forward. The top of her head knocks against Harrow’s sternum as her shoulders heave.
“Okay. Okay. Shit. Dizzy, one sec.”
Harrow feels as still as ice. She doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare twitch, not even blink. The Reverend Daughter’s forehead is pressed against the cloth against the skin and bone, right over Harrow’s heart, which feels like it might explode. Harrow doesn’t breathe. She can’t.
Just as soon as it begins, the moment ends. Gideon pushes herself back. She draws in a ragged breath.
“Next ones.” Gideon pulls bone from her pockets, stretching them out into another needle that is so sharp Harrow thinks she can taste blood. Perhaps a responsible cavalier would say no. Would demand Gideon stop and lie down and drink some water. Would run to Father, to Mother, to the blind great aunts. Would make sure Gideon takes Anastasia’s vow the proper way; would bend her knee and beg punishment for some unclear but inevitable transgression. She swallows. Her head hurts, and despite Gideon’s surety, she can’t remember—is the cavalier’s duty first to the House, or the Necromancer? First to the Emperor, and everything else after that? Only to the Necromancer, regardless of the House? And the Emperor—
Gideon leans into her, and even through Harrow’s shirt, the hand on her back feels cold enough to shock. The Reverend Daughter is far too close. Her eyes are half-focused, and Harrow can see every single one of her eyelashes. Her forehead is wet, dark with bloodsweat, and her hair sticks to the skin by her temples. The new bone in her ears shines, and the needle Gideon offers to her feels soft in her hand. In another life, Harrow would be able to feel every dead cell and flickering microbacteria on its surface. In another life, she would plunge the needle through her own ears with ease, slide it through the flesh of her own tongue without so much as a twitch.
In this life, all Harrow has is this: the needle, and the necromancer.
There’s the gasp, again, when she readies the tip of the bone against flesh. Heat builds—it’s the stress, probably, or maybe Harrow just feels hot because of the direct contrast to Gideon’s skin. It’s distracting, and she can’t afford to be distracted now. Her palm is splayed flat against the seam of Gideon’s parietal. Her fingers are tangled in Gideon’s hair, tilting her head over and down, holding her still so her shivers don’t disrupt Harrow’s aim.
Harrow feels dizzy. If this is what it really means to be a cavalier, they must be all categorically insane.
“Don’t move,” Gideon says. Her lips pull into a half-smile, and her face looks waxen, like a death mask. Her chest barely rises, but her pulse pounds against Harrow’s fingertips. “On my count, okay? One, two—”
Gideon’s flesh gives way. Her eyes roll back and she shudders, says something Harrow does not hear, her pressure firm and slow and unyielding. Harrow winds her fingers tighter in Gideon’s hair to keep her head still. She grunts, wordless, and Harrow pushes until there’s barely anything left on her side to push, until the bone begins to burn and throb, slithering into another solid ring.
In the dim light, Gideon ‘s ear is red and swollen around the puncture wound, stuffed full. There’s just a little bit of blood on her ear, and it’s smeared onto the pad of Harrow’s thumb.
Harrow barely has time to catch her own breath before Gideon is saying “ Another one, another, ” pressing the needles into Harrow’s palm.
After, Harrow slumps in her cot. Her forehead is damp. She feels hot all over, and her mind feels strangely muddled. She’s trying to work out—something, but she can’t quite remember the shape of it. The collar of her shirt itches, and she’s too warm. Her sweat is nothing but water and salt.
Across the room, the Reverend Daughter stares at herself in the mirror. She’s had to wipe it clean—Harrow never uses the thing, could never bear it—and she’s grinning, ear to ear.