“Fuck.” Camilla has told Palamedes bits and pieces about her time with the Blood of Eden, her stories, unsettlingly, turning a theoretical threat into a society made up of real people. None of her stories have been pleasant, and none of them quite dislodge his long-time belief that the existence of BoE is a tragic and inevitable result of a myriad of Cohort expansion, and yet still a group that must be stopped.
But Cam always tells her stories carefully, leaping over narrative lacunas that frighten him. He doesn’t dare ask what those gaps might contain.
This time, the gaps are still there, but what’s outside the gaps is so enormous and world-turning that Palamedes barely notices them. Obviously the lyctors had colluded with BoE at some point—ergo, Gideon Nav—but he is startled to discover that the alliance had continued. More shocking still is the realization that it might go further back than he had imagined.
“A broadcast signal? Where—? How—?” Palamedes had a thousand questions, but they’re quickly drowned out by a deeper, more instinctual horror. After a lifetime of hearing truth over solace in lies, it feels like a betrayal, a violation, but by who? Who can he even be angry at? Strangely, maybe irrationally, given the source of the information, he finds it isn’t Blood of Eden. Maybe Blood of Eden is just the name for the people who have understood God’s betrayal the longest.
And none of it had to be like that. “You lied to us,” Palamedes recites with a small shudder. He remembers his horror at discovering what the avulsion chamber was meant to do, remembers Coronabeth keening over Naberius’ dead body, remembers Cytherea saying, we loved him like a brother, like a god. “He sure fucking did.”
He lifts his chin then, eyes bright and determined, even if his gaze remains slightly unfocused without his glasses. Only now does he notice, and only distantly, that she's fixing his broken frames. “Cam, we have to make this work.” He gestures at his notes. “We have to prove—“ What, that there’s another way? That necromancy can do something besides breed power and corruption? Pal swallows. “We just have to.”
no subject
But Cam always tells her stories carefully, leaping over narrative lacunas that frighten him. He doesn’t dare ask what those gaps might contain.
This time, the gaps are still there, but what’s outside the gaps is so enormous and world-turning that Palamedes barely notices them. Obviously the lyctors had colluded with BoE at some point—ergo, Gideon Nav—but he is startled to discover that the alliance had continued. More shocking still is the realization that it might go further back than he had imagined.
“A broadcast signal? Where—? How—?” Palamedes had a thousand questions, but they’re quickly drowned out by a deeper, more instinctual horror. After a lifetime of hearing truth over solace in lies, it feels like a betrayal, a violation, but by who? Who can he even be angry at? Strangely, maybe irrationally, given the source of the information, he finds it isn’t Blood of Eden. Maybe Blood of Eden is just the name for the people who have understood God’s betrayal the longest.
And none of it had to be like that. “You lied to us,” Palamedes recites with a small shudder. He remembers his horror at discovering what the avulsion chamber was meant to do, remembers Coronabeth keening over Naberius’ dead body, remembers Cytherea saying, we loved him like a brother, like a god. “He sure fucking did.”
He lifts his chin then, eyes bright and determined, even if his gaze remains slightly unfocused without his glasses. Only now does he notice, and only distantly, that she's fixing his broken frames. “Cam, we have to make this work.” He gestures at his notes. “We have to prove—“ What, that there’s another way? That necromancy can do something besides breed power and corruption? Pal swallows. “We just have to.”