#me drawing whatever the fuck i want: this is alecto the first

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 51

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one!)

(Eighth House skull) In which Mercy executes the plan.

When Gideon was young, she hoped her mother was still watching over her, that she could make contact with her skeleton, then learned that her skeleton wasn't even in the work rotation yet. She told Harrow not to pick on her, because what if her mum or dad was Important out there somewhere. Harrow said there's no evidence, and regardless, nobody was coming to rescue Gideon anyway. Then Gideon started spending time near her mother's memorial niche and telling her about her life, what she learned from Aiglamene that day, or how many sit-ups she could do.

It was worse when I was a kid. I remember the time you caught me telling her, I love you, and I can't even remember what you said, but I remember that I had you on your back--I put you straight on the fucking ground. I was always so much bigger and so much stronger. I got on top of you and choked you till your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me more than yours loved you. You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails. When I let you go you couldn't even stand, you just crawled away and threw up. Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven?(1) Was that the day you decided you wanted to die?

The old aunts used to say, suffer and learn. Gideon asks Harrow, in her absence, how much more they can take before they become omniscient.(2)

Mercy, in the present, points out that John's child has Alecto's eyes. The other Lyctors flinch at the name. Mercy says those are A.L.'s eyes, in John's genetic code. August points out that the skill he perfected, that John asked him to perfect, was following power back to its source, and John's power never added up for him.

John says he told the truth about his Annabel, and they killed her for it. August says she could never lie, and she was around long enough for them to have learned the truth even if he hadn't told them. He calls her a monster, says she was a monster the moment she was resurrected, and then John went and made her worse.(3) Mercy says they knew the beasts were coming for Alecto(4) but they never did learn how John killed her.

John says Annabel Lee was never the dying kind, and it's less that he killed her and more that he switched her off.(5)

Mercy says yes, the whole affair, and setting her aside a tomb and putting Anastasia to guard it, all that made sense. John himself is what doesn't make sense. August says he knows that Dominicus isn't the source of John's power, that the system draws from him but he draws nothing in exchange.(6) Essentially, they know Alecto is what fuels him. She was his cavalier.

Gideon isn't fully paying attention, but that last bit rings a bell. She knows the eye colour change is what happens when two souls merge, but there's no way for a cavalier to end up with their necro's eyes, unless the cav fails to die.

Mercy says John has lied to them. There is a perfect lyctorhood, one which preserves the cavalier, and he let them think there wasn't. None of them had to die. She names all the dead cavs of the first Lyctors, says John watched his friends kill their cavs in cold blood when he knew there was another way.(7) She could have forgiven him any other lie, the way the planet died, the extinction of humanity, but not this.(8) August asks if Anastasia almost had it right. John confirms it, but Anastasia panicked partway through, and then she and Samael were both in danger. He ended the process by killing Samael to save Anastasia.(9)

At this, John asks what he must do for absolution. August says he should stop the outward expansion, stop looking for whatever he's been seeking since the beginning.(10) John says if the man Augustine was before the Resurrection heard him say that, he'd kill August. August thanks him for confirming it, and is otherwise silent.

Mercy says she'll forgive John, if he'll do one thing: if he can look her in the eye and say he loved Cristabel and wanted no harm to come to her. He does so. She says to tell her he's sorry he lied. He says he has regretted it for ten thousand years.

So Mercy says she forgives him, and then slips her hands into his body, and then the Emperor comes apart, becoming first an explosion, and then mist, then powder, then nothing.

Leaving me an orphan again, though your brain didn't let me linger on that one.

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(1) Gideon's blood on Harrow's hands, when Harrow was ten and Gideon eleven. Does that ring a bell? The first book told us that was the day Harrow opened the Tomb. She wasn't just a powerhouse. Alone, she could never. But with Gideon's blood, John's daughter's blood, she could undo the blood ward and gain entry. (2) Just twist the knife a little further, Muir. I'll be fine. (3) A monster in a human suit… what was Alecto? (4) Why would the RBs be coming for her in particular? They come for all the Lyctors, don't they? Why would their coming for God's companion be any different? How would they be able to tell? (5) This is not remarked upon, but implies she can be switched back ON… what was Harrow up to in the Locked Tomb that day? (6) I know I keep saying the same thing in this one, but how could they know all this? August's ability to trace power back to its sources? How would that work, from these galactic distances? (7) Admittedly, not an insignificant crime of betrayal. I mean, maybe insignificant in comparison to killing ten billion, if the Edenites have the right of it which he doesn't deny… but this is also pretty cold. (8) It feels deeply inappropriate, but also perfectly appropriate: I can't help but think how this mirrors a line from Community which also became a quite popular meme, which was when Gillian Jacobs as Britta said "I can excuse racism but I draw the line at animal cruelty." and Yvette Nicole Brown as Shirley said "You can excuse racism?" Mercy here is Britta, and I am Shirley. (9) I wonder if this left Anastasia in a similar state to Harrow post-lobotomy. If she was incompletely transformed, with only limited access to any enhanced abilities. And I wonder if this is the whole truth, or another lie. Did he do it to save her, or did he do it to cover up that there was a kinder way? (10) This raises a most interesting question: what IS John looking for? What has his expansion been for? Is it just his extermination campaign against the BoE, whoever and whatever they are? Is he seeking something more?

#the locked tomb #tlt #harrow the ninth #htn #harrow the ninth spoilers #htn spoilers #gideon nav #emperor john gaius #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #gideon the first