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Gideon—Kiriona—is used to the day/night cycle of the First House by now, and she still finds herself laying awake, staring at the ceiling.
The ghost of Harrow is everywhere. The Emperor, or John, or Dad, or whatever she’s supposed to call him, had given her the same room he had one Harrowhark Nonagesimus in when she was his Lyctor. Kiriona recognizes it easily, ‘cause of the whole “living in Harrow’s nasty little brain for months on end” thing.
There’s a knock on the door, but before Kiriona is given a chance to respond, it opens anyways.
The ghoul of a woman who enters Kiriona’s room is also her best friend. Ianthe’s pale plaits and lilac nightdress are a reminder of Canaan House, one which Kiriona doesn’t need right now, thank you very much.
Uncharacteristically soft, Ianthe treads to sit at the foot of Kiriona’s bed. “I know you’re not asleep.”
“Damn, what gave it away?” asks Kiriona, sitting up.
The next thing she knows, Ianthe’s tongue is between Kiriona’s teeth, kissing her like she’s only seen in porno mags and romance novels. Really, Kiriona’s never seen Ianthe so passionate about anything but gaining power. But, honestly, it feels as nice as anything can on Kiriona’s dead flesh, so she kisses Ianthe back just as hard, who smells nice, her perfume full of notes that Kiriona can’t quite name. Not really needing to breathe, Kiriona doesn’t break the kiss first.
Somewhere in the kiss, Ianthe pulls Kiriona down, pinning her to the bed. Eventually though, Ianthe must pull away, a spiderweb of saliva hanging between the two’s mouths. Ianthe is flushed, for once, pink flooding her cheeks in a way that isn’t wholly unattractive.
Kiriona stares at Ianthe.
“Is there any sensation in your holes? Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. Your wounds, I mean,” says Ianthe.
“About as much as the rest of me?” replies Kiriona. She runs her fingers through artfully messy curls, staring at Ianthe. Strangely enough, Kiriona thinks that if she still had blood it might be rushing to her face.
“Huh,” says Ianthe. She tucks herself into Kiriona’s arms.
Despite herself, Kiriona lets her head rest on Ianthe’s shoulder. It’s probably the most intimate she’s been with someone since living in Harrowhark’s head. Which, Kiriona supposes
“Wanna go again?” asks Kiriona.
“You make me understand Nonagesimus more and more every day, do you know that?” says Ianthe in response, which Kiriona decides to pretend she never heard. Ianthe’s skeletal finger twirls a lock of hair. “And yes.”
The next kiss is slower than the first, but just as passionate. Ianthe nips at Kiriona’s lip, and somehow it makes her feel a hell of a lot more like Gideon again. Maybe if Gideon hadn’t been such an idiot, and maybe if she hadn’t killed herself for someone who didn’t even care about her, she could have been kissed like this before.
Ianthe’s bony knees poke the soft flesh of Gideon’s side. It should be an unpleasant feeling, and in some ways it is, but it also super isn’t.
Gideon moans into Ianthe’s lips, and feels the other’s thin lips twist up into a smile. Kiriona closes her eyes, and if she imagines well enough, Ianthe’s long, straight features almost morph into the hard and pointed ones that have haunted Gideon’s imagination since she first saw them paintless.
“Harrow,” Gideon whispers, without thinking, and then the fantasy is broken. Ianthe moves away and Kiriona sits up.
For once, there’s a touch of color to Ianthe’s cheeks, and her nightdress is rumpled. Kiriona can’t meet her eyes.
Out of... somewhere, Ianthe produces a cigarette. She lights it with a little silver lighter inlaid with bone, and offers her matching silver cigarette case to Kiriona, who declines.
The deep red smoke smells like licorice and bonemeal and blood, a scent that Kiriona has grown quite accustomed to. It always seems to cling to Ianthe, no matter how much she dampens it with perfume.
Kiriona is hyper-aware of Ianthe’s legs still tangled in her own, and grips the sheet under her. Ianthe, as she always does, notices. She hums, blowing smoke from her perfectly sculpted nose.
“Good night, Kiriona Gaia,” she says, clipped. None of her usual teasing is present, and if Kiriona didn’t know her, she might even say there’s a touch of hurt in her fellow prince’s eyes.
“G’night, Saint of Awe,” Kiriona replies, and Ianthe takes her leave.
Kiriona doesn’t sleep. Instead, she replays, over and over, the feeling of lips and hands and tongues and teeth. Somewhere in there, Kiriona wonders whether it felt nice to kiss a corpse. Probably not, she wagers, given the Harrowhark comparison.
In the morning, Ianthe doesn’t mention a thing, and neither does Kiriona, but at breakfast there is a not-all-unpleasant tension between the two that Kiriona can tell goes completely unnoticed by John.
(God is, Kiriona has realized, is a remarkably normal and horribly blind man. It’s disconcerting.)
-
A week later, the roles are reversed, and it is Kiriona who seeks out Ianthe in the middle of the night.
Unlike her fellow prince, Kiriona respects the sacred contract of not opening the door right after knocking. So she waits a minute, and only barges in after a good whole minute of no response.
Ianthe is at her desk, smoking over spread of what’s probably military plans, hair like a veil over her pallid face.
“You up?” asks Kiriona, leaning on the doorframe.
“Use your eyes, Gonad,” says Ianthe. Her fine shirt is rumpled, and her jacket is strewn over her bed. The crown that adorns her head is askew. Dark circles are starting to form under her eyes, and her nose is crusted with blood.
Kiriona is suddenly (and awfully) very attracted to her.
Ianthe waves Kiriona over, and plants a deep kiss on her lips.
“Is it just a Third trait to be insanely forward all the time?” Kiriona says, coming up for air, more for Ianthe’s sake than her own. “Coz—”
Ianthe shuts her up with another kiss.
“You suck, Tridentarius.”
“I might if you beg,” replies Ianthe, grinning ear to ear. Her cigarette is abandoned and smoking from the ashtray.
Gideon does, and Ianthe is true to her word.
After another week, the Tower Princes’ little dance becomes a common occurrence, and every night not spent on the battlefield is spent in each others’ arms.
John still hasn’t noticed.
“You only like me because you can’t have her,” Ianthe starts one night, as she braids her hair for bed. It’s one of those habits, she’d explained, that one can’t help but carry over from being a princess.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Kiriona says, looking away.
Ianthe stands, rolling her aquamarine eyes. “Please, Ninth. I’m not an idiot, though any idiot with eyes could see how bad you have it for her.”
She approaches, skeletal hand gripping Gideon’s cheek. “I don’t give a shit that I’m your rebound, just don’t... lie about it. It’s unbecoming, and you’re terrible at it besides.”
Ianthe looks away, and there’s something else there too, a something that reminds Gideon of 18 years of disdain and a cold cell and escape attempts to nowhere. There’s pink dusting Ianthe’s high-cheekboned thin face.
“Even if I did have a thing for Harrow, she didn’t exactly want me back,” snorts Gideon. “She made that pretty fucking clear with the whole spike to the brain. Remember that?”
“Don’t make me laugh,” replies Ianthe, voice dripping with scorn. “Every idiotic decision she made, it was all for you. Even when she physically could not remember your name, you haunted everything she did. Understand that there was nothing I could do to be good enough for Harrowhark Nonagesimus, because my name is not and has never been Gideon the Ninth.”
Ianthe’s voice is like shattered glass as she continues. “You have everything. You don’t get to patronize me. Now be a good little cav, and let me sleep.”
Before Gideon can retort, Ianthe has already stalked out of the room. Damn her and her horrible long legs.
The next days are quiet. Ianthe doesn’t speak unless she absolutely has to, and Kiriona feels the worst she has since skewering herself.
There is a deep want gnawing at the hole in her chest. Kiriona Gaia has never felt so empty, and for that matter, neither has Gideon Nav.
But Ianthe isn’t like Harrow, and so, eventually, Kiriona finds herself in Ianthe’s bed once more. Kiriona is more a cuddler than Ianthe, but they make up the difference just fine. It’s terribly domestic, just Kiriona, Ianthe, and the ghost of a Reverend Daughter looming above them both.
“Coronabeth was always everyone’s favorite,” whispers Ianthe. There’s only a twinge of bitterness there.
“I was just everyone’s least favorite,” replies Gideon. “‘Cept for Aiglamene, maybe. She just liked having someone to teach the blade that wasn’t a religious nut.”
“It is funny, that that’s how it happened.”
Later, Kiriona finds Harrowhark again, and the ungrateful part of her remembers why she despised the Reverend Daughter so.
Even though it’s only her body, Harrowhark’s body, and this “Nona” who has taken her over is a completely new person, Kiriona can’t help but be annoyed.
She also can’t help but be annoyed at the flippant nature in which Palamedes and Camilla and Coronabeth discuss Ianthe, or how just as Kiriona gets back some of the only friends she has ever had, they go and fuse themselves into a new person.
And then the real Harrowhark shows up, just to get kissed by some other skank. (Well, the big golden lady is a bit more than just some other skank, but Kiriona’s too bitter to think anything else of her.)
Before everything goes to proper shit, Kiriona and Ianthe share a look of deep understanding. They know, and that must be enough.