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The Lord saith the lot of you needed to ascend, as not to burden him, and so Mercymorn, tethered to a God by faith and love, researched.
When research said kill your darlings, though, Mercymorn and the others hesitated. And thus saith the Lord, I understand your concerns, Mercy, but it must be done.
But there had to be another way; otherwise, how would his cavalier, that monster wearing human flesh like a cape, exist by his side? Mercymorn stares at that thing like it might offer answers, but all it does is look, mournfully, at the ruined land and sea that surrounds them. With no help forthcoming from A.L., Mercymorn was left with more questions than she ever had answers.
Cristabel, sweet, overexcited Cristabel, was excited for death. She wanted, so badly, to be useful: to be good, to put her heart in Mercymorn's stomach and become a part of her. To allow Mercymorn the distance that ascension would allow them, to be away from John without death threatening to swallow them.
But Mercymorn couldn't let that happen; she couldn't bring herself to grab a knife and slit Cristabel's throat like the only thing she was good for was death. Her Cristabel had to live forever with her, lives entwined until the heat death of the universe.
Maybe that's why Cristabel put matters into her own hands. Maybe she knew, better than all, of Mercymorn's faults, of Mercymorn's hesitations. To take the choice away was to make a choice.
When Cristabel smiles, victorious, on Alfred's rapier, Mercymorn screams, removing her from the metal like all the medical training John gave means nothing. What was it about removing foreign objects from a wound, again?
Doesn't matter. There's screams, somewhere, that cease when Cristabel's cold hand falls over Mercymorn's, who's desperately trying to reverse the flow of blood back into her body. Mercymorn looks at Cristabel, who smiles, too victorious.
A sweep of Cristabel's body, a look at the innards, tells her that Cristabel is dying: irreversible, unless she eats Cristabel and unlocks further powers. But to consume Cristabel is to kill Cristabel, and what is the use of power, if it cannot bring Cristabel's soul from the River, because it is busy being the furnace of Mercymorn's life?
She hesitates. Cristabel opens her mouth, chokes on blood — her lungs bereft of oxygen, the delicate tissue swallowed by hemoglobin; ruptured lungs, her brain supplies — and Mercymorn lowers her mouth, strengthening her teeth as a second thought, more animal than human, as she tears into Cristabel's throat.
The meat is so sweet, delicious even raw. She vaguely remembers seeing Cristabel, in the past few weeks, indulge in sweets, remembers telling her off for it, and worst of all, remembers the grin Cristabel gave her whenever she did so. How long had she planned this and kept the secret of it?
It doesn't matter. Cristabel has forced her hand. Mercymorn must consume, lest her sacrifice be in vain.
The Lord saith you did so well, Mercy. There's a hand, clean, on her shoulder, as Mercy holds Cristabel's head on her lap. She does not look at him, does not say anything. No, Mercymorn, in sepulchral silence, looks behind him, to the doorway, where the monster he has on a leash looks at the gore, her molten gold eyes full of a sadness Mercymorn wishes to rip out of her. How dare this creature feel? How dare this thing, this animal made human that gets to live while Cristabel lays dead, grieve? She did not love Cristabel like Mercymorn did. She has no place in this room, in this scene, in this planet.
Mercymorn looks away, and John's pet leaves.
Two bodies, stripped of their most important flesh, are so small: bones in neat piles, sinew stripped by hand and magic beyond the understanding of anyone but John. Mercymorn pets Cristabel's blood-soaked hair, hard already, and looks back at the empty remains, before reaching for a final bite, chewing mechanically.
So sweet, her Cristabel. So careful, so thoughtful, to make herself the best meal Mercymorn would ever have. Nothing else, no one else, will ever compare to how good Cristabel felt on her tongue.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, or so says a book of sayings rescued, half-waterlogged, from the shores, on those so distant first few days.
Thus, it makes sense that now Mercymorn's eyes are gone, and Cristabel stares at her from the confines of the mirror. She reaches a hand, but she doesn't find Cristabel against her fingertips, only the cold glass of the mirror.
Gently, as gently as grief can be, she removes the mirror from the wall, carries it to the open window, and tosses it into the ocean. It gets swallowed in a blink of eyes, and Mercymorn closes the window.
Grief, Mercymorn decided, very early on, was not performance. She kept her life going because if she stopped, Mercymorn would fold into herself and become a black hole for grief.
She can't, because the work must continue. She can't, because as the oldest sister to them all, as the senior to this power she wielded, Mercymorn must be the example to be followed, the one who made a path for the others to follow. Stoicism, she found, suited her just fine.
But, sometimes, late at night, she'd find herself standing in the middle of the hallway, mumbling about equations and terraforming, and look back only to find the darkness by her side.
It was easy to forget Cristabel's presence came from the inside, rather than half a step back. Too easy, and thus, these moments only made the ache worse, a dull throb inside her chest.
Rather pathetic. Mercymorn would bite the flesh of her arm, and spit out the blood when it came, for it tasted nothing like Cristabel.
Then, like nothing happened, she'd move on, still mumbling to a ghost behind her eyes.
The Lord saith, I'm glad you're doing okay, Mercy, and she smiles and says nothing at all. Is she? The Lord then saith, huffing about it, It's good to see you taking your brothers and sisters' ascensions in stride, unlike some.
He means Augustine, who is swallowed by Alfred's death, unable to participate in the rituals of watching. Mercymorn says nothing to that as John's hand, clean, heavy, settles on her shoulder. Paternalistic, if Mercymorn knew what it was to have a father.
She purses her lips, and stares at the monster in the room, smiling.
Thus Mercymorn saith: I only strive to please thee, my Lord.