"Worse people to sound like," she says, although it's perturbing that both he and she have thought that about something she's said recently. Or makes her feel old, anyway. Cam purses her lips with satisfaction at that little oof of pain and ensuing relief. "If you want Nonagesimus to use the misalignment of your vertebrae as a debate point against whatever it is you're saying, by all means," she teases, backing up to perch on the edge of the bed.
When he explains, after a moment of silence, Camilla's eyes widen with self-cursing recognition, breath huffing out an an exhale as she realizes why that idle run of his hand had brought him to such uncharacteristic stillness.
Heptanary cancer. Of course. Dulcinea had had it; of course he knew it. And so did Cytherea; both Seventh, both cursed by the same bloodline. Whatever he'd done, and she had a reasonable idea, Palamedes had advanced it enough for that grotesque tumor she'd spotted to give her a fatal weakness.
She'd been assessing so many threats -- and so much new information, the way it clicked into place with what they'd been batting back and forth -- and she hadn't been able to make sense of it. She'd known something had just happened in his mind -- stupid, stupid.
It doesn't matter. It happened. The next part happened. They're here, now.
Camilla squints a little into the middle distance while that battle -- it exists mostly in pieces in her mind, some of the vivid, sparse moments useful and some of them very much not -- and the months afterward play themselves out behind them. "Gave away your riddle," she says, thinking about how many times as a child she'd been so proud to be part of the Emperor's truth and chest hurting. "The word was you, not he."
She glances up at Palamedes, partly because, if he doesn't already, he'll know by her look that she's just being unnecessarily glib. Partly because she always feels a little more anchored looking at him. Inconveniently, she still hasn't wholly retrained her mind to not retreat inside a box within a box in her mind when faced with discomfort, but sometimes she wants to be present.
"We got to hear her monologue, too," she reminds him, pressing her lips together, then amends, "A little. Which makes our antagonist Emperor John Gaius, and the lie --" She tips her head, smiling a little, something like gallows humor. "Well, I've come to realize he may have lied about quite a bit more than most of us were ever aware, but given the place and time, and some of what I saw then and since, I have to assume it had to do with Lyctorhood."
no subject
When he explains, after a moment of silence, Camilla's eyes widen with self-cursing recognition, breath huffing out an an exhale as she realizes why that idle run of his hand had brought him to such uncharacteristic stillness.
Heptanary cancer. Of course. Dulcinea had had it; of course he knew it. And so did Cytherea; both Seventh, both cursed by the same bloodline. Whatever he'd done, and she had a reasonable idea, Palamedes had advanced it enough for that grotesque tumor she'd spotted to give her a fatal weakness.
She'd been assessing so many threats -- and so much new information, the way it clicked into place with what they'd been batting back and forth -- and she hadn't been able to make sense of it. She'd known something had just happened in his mind -- stupid, stupid.
It doesn't matter. It happened. The next part happened. They're here, now.
Camilla squints a little into the middle distance while that battle -- it exists mostly in pieces in her mind, some of the vivid, sparse moments useful and some of them very much not -- and the months afterward play themselves out behind them. "Gave away your riddle," she says, thinking about how many times as a child she'd been so proud to be part of the Emperor's truth and chest hurting. "The word was you, not he."
She glances up at Palamedes, partly because, if he doesn't already, he'll know by her look that she's just being unnecessarily glib. Partly because she always feels a little more anchored looking at him. Inconveniently, she still hasn't wholly retrained her mind to not retreat inside a box within a box in her mind when faced with discomfort, but sometimes she wants to be present.
"We got to hear her monologue, too," she reminds him, pressing her lips together, then amends, "A little. Which makes our antagonist Emperor John Gaius, and the lie --" She tips her head, smiling a little, something like gallows humor. "Well, I've come to realize he may have lied about quite a bit more than most of us were ever aware, but given the place and time, and some of what I saw then and since, I have to assume it had to do with Lyctorhood."