camille

“Won’t you look at me, Camilla Hect?”
Camilla murmured something that Nona could not hear. The body said, “I died, and you carried me. I gambled, and you covered my bet. You kept the faith, and were the instrument of both my vengeance and my grace. And now I have fought through time, and the River, and Ianthe the First—fought and bested Ianthe the First, and I hope I never fight her ever again…Will you not look at me now, Cam, and know me?”
Camilla raised her chin. She looked at the dead face. She said quietly—“Yes Warden. I will always know you.”
Their foreheads touched. Camilla reached out with her slippery hand, and Palamedes clasped it with Ianthe Naberius’s cold, gloveless one. Because both of their hands were very messy, it made an embarrassing squelch, but neither of them appeared to notice or care. Nona had to look away.
She heard Palamedes say, in the voice of Ianthe Naberius—“Pyrrha, I can barely do anything. I’m only the hand in a sock puppet. I don’t think I could unpick a single ward, and I can’t do a damn thing for Cam’s bleeding—thank God nothing’s protruding.”
Cam said, without opening her eyes, “Don’t worry about me, Warden. I’ll walk it off.”
“Yes, thank you for your input,” said Palamedes pleasantly. “I’ve taken it under advisement and will add it to the next agenda.”
Camilla smiled that wonderful hot-metal smile that Nona loved as long as she had been alive.
“Jackass.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth

“Nothing particularly interesting happened, until Camilla burst into flames.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth

“. She wondered again why anything that hurt them only hurt briefly, but that anger took such a long time to go away.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth

“Camilla, we did it right, didn’t we?” Palamedes said, and now Nona knew he wasn’t speaking to anyone else in the universe. “We had something very nearly perfect…the perfect friendship, the perfect love. I cannot imagine reaching the end of this life and having any regrets, so long as I have been allowed to experience being your adept.”
Camilla Hect stared at him stolidly, and then burst into tears. She made very little noise, but the tears were violent anyway; Palamedes took her hands and said in distress, “Cam—dear one—don’t.”
“No,” Camilla said, after an obvious struggle to master herself. “No. I’m crying because…I’m crying because I’m relieved,” she said, frankly mulishly. “I’m relieved… Warden, I’m so relieved.”
“Not long now,” he promised.
Camilla took a couple of gasping breaths—it was obvious how much they hurt her—and then she said: “Warden—will she know who we are, in the River?”
“Oh, she’s not stupid,” said Palamedes lightly. “In the River—beyond the River—I truly believe we will see ourselves and each other as we really are. And I want them to see us. I am not saying this was our inevitable end… I am saying we have found the best and truest and kindest thing we can do in this moment. Tell me no, and we’ll go on as we have been…and we’ll go on unafraid…but say yes, and we will make this end, and this beginning, together.”
Camilla shivered all over. Then she was at rest; she relaxed her head—the lines of her neck drooped like a flower—she raised it again.
“Palamedes, yes,” she said. “My whole life, yes. Yes, forever, yes. Life is too short and love is too long.”
He demanded: “Tell me how to do it, and I’ll do it.”
Camilla said, “Go loud.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth