Pyrrha Dve

Pyrrha Dve
Pyrrha Dve illustrated by deirdresart
Alias	Mumfucker Prime (by Gideon Nav)
Biography
House	Second House
Title	Pyrrha the Second Commander of the Second House Head of Trentham Special Intelligence
Cavalier Stats
Necromancer	Gideon the First
Main	Rapier
Off-Hand	Spear
Affiliation
Partners	Wake (Affair)
Status
Status	Lyctor (Incomplete)
Cause of Body Death	For Gideon's Lyctoral ascension
Place of Body Death	Canaan House, First House
Physical Description
Gender	Female
Eye Color	Soft Green (Original) Deep Brown (Lyctoral)

"Bullets—water—or waiting? [...] Your mother would've picked the bullet."

Pyrrha Dve (PIRRA DVAY) is the cavalier primary to the Third Saint to Serve the King Undying, Gideon the First, Commander of the Second House, Head of Trentham Special Intelligence, and one of the original sixteen disciples to serve the Emperor at Canaan House after the Resurrection.

Biography

Before the Resurrection

Prior to the Resurrection, the scientist John Gaius worked with a crew of enigmatically named friends whose initials align with several of the names of those who later became his Saints. Given a close relationship with “G—“ (likely Gideon), and the similarly gendered pronoun, it appears likely that Pyrrha was the one referred to in his recounted story as “P—“.

When John’s cryo project got shut down, G— brought in his old friend P—, who was working as a detective. She used her connections to limit media exposure and Gaius referred to her fondly as their “pet cop.”

When the power to the lab was cut, and yet the corpses refused to rot, P— believed because John’s eyes had turned gold, and she told him he “looked like a Māori Pink Panther.” P— worked with C— to convince the cops to let the scientists remain at the lab, buying John time to experiment with the incorruptible corpses. When he started moving the corpses with his mind, P— was skeptical, calling it a zombie apocalypse, but John maintained that she wanted to believe in his supernatural powers, which was enough to make her stay. But she was still mad when A— and M— illegally acquired more bodies for John to experiment on, leaving her to cover up their crimes.

Once John started walking the bodies around, doing miracles, and gaining thousands of cult followers,  P— lost the ability to run interference with the cops. Betraying the police force, P— gave John a thirty minute warning when the riot squad decided to strike, allowing John to lock down the complex before they could arrest him.

Barricaded in the compound, trying to fix the world, P— encouraged John to play “bad wizard” with the governments who wanted to negotiate, now that force had failed. The way to get their attention, P— claimed, was to “scare the shit out of them.” She connected John with mercenaries to spy on the FTL plan and uncover the trillionaires’ lies.

When a gunfight happened outside the compound, John discovered the necromantic power of violent death and harnessed that power to kill every person with a gun in the vicinity, including some of P—’s old coworkers and friends. P— shook him, angry and scared. John swore that it was an accident, but P— remained skeptical, only laying off once the others all asked her to.

As the trillionaires readied their FTL ships to make their escape, the team scrambled to stop them. John sent G— to Australia with the nuke they’d acquired from a foreign government. P— insisted on going with him, but he refused, adamant that he wouldn’t arm it with her in range. P—, not used to G— holding his ground against her, called him a “stupid kid.” After G— made it to his destination, John informed the team that the nuke was armed and would kill G— and a couple million other people. P—, N—, and C— in particular were furious, but their argument with John was interrupted by the armed cultists in the compound getting into a fight of their own. While John hid in the bedroom, P— and the others joined the faithful in their fight against the ex-cultists, and they were all killed in the resulting shootout. P— was the last member of their team to die, aside from G—, who John killed just moments later, triggering the nuke and the end of the world.

After the Resurrection

Pyrrha Dve is among the original disciples at Canaan. There, she becomes one of the first cavaliers and cavalier primary to Gideon.

Granted immortality and protection by the Emperor, Pyrrha and Gideon establish the Second House and the Cohort, making Pyrrha the Commander of the Second House and the Head of Trentham Special Intelligence. As the disciples begin to delve into the secrets of necromancy, Pyrrha plays an active role in researching Lyctorhood, despite her lack of necromantic power. She later recalls working with not just her own necromancer, but also Mercymorn, Cassiopeia, and Anastasia. Pyrrha and Gideon develop the theorem of transference (also called winnowing). They design a trial in The Facility to test a necromancer’s transference skills, though Pyrrha later admits that the only other people to successfully complete the challenge were Cristabel and Mercymorn because the process necessitates the draining and replacement of the participants’ brain fluid.

Putting together their research, the original disciples discover the Eightfold Word, or the Lyctoral Megatheorem. Ostensibly, Pyrrha participates willingly and sacrifices her life for Gideon’s ascension. During the process, Gideon unintentionally compartmentalizes his cavalier, allowing Pyrrha to retain the ability to occasionally gain consciousness. Pyrrha keeps her presence undetectable over the myriad, even from Gideon, who is only aware of lost time. Despite her initial participation in the Lyctoral research, Pyrrha later claims pursuing Lyctorhood was a mistake and says the original disciples “were children—playing with the reflections of stars in a pool of water…thinking it was space.”

After Anastasia’s failed ascension, Pyrrha visits the Ninth House to help get Anastasia settled. She stays long enough to have a lasting memory of the layout and even helps paint a nursery.

A thousand years before the murder of the Emperor, Gideon the First and Pyrrha Dve duel Matthias Nonius, the celebrated Ninth House swordsman. Though the details of the duel are unknown, Nonius walks away feeling as though he owes a debt to "a rival and ally."

Two years before the birth of Gideon Nav, the Emperor orders Gideon the First to hunt down Commander Wake, Blood of Eden’s most aggressive leader to date. Upon meeting Wake, Pyrrha begs a kiss of her, sparking the beginning of a love affair. Unaware of his cavalier’s actions, Gideon follows suit. The affair is intense and sporadic, facilitated by Gideon’s mandate to kill Wake. Pyrrha eventually explains that she and Gideon share a body but have separate souls, and it is from this relationship that Wake learns of Resurrection Beasts.

After two years of this arrangement, it comes to an end when Mercymorn tips Gideon off that Wake is heading towards the Ninth House. He catches up to her shuttle and finds her in a compromised state, having just given birth to Gideon Nav. Just over the Ninth House, Gideon pushes Wake and her baby out of the airlock, and she falls to her death. Though Pyrrha later describes the event by saying “my best friend and I punched her out an airlock,” it is unclear how present she is during this final altercation.

Harrow the Ninth

Four Months Before the Emperor's Murder

Harrowhark Nonagesimus stumbles upon the body of Gideon the First she believes being amorously engaged with the corpse of Cytherea the First. Given the absence of an attempted murder from Gideon as well as his refusal to turn around, it is likely that this encounter was actually with Pyrrha, who had gained consciousness and sought out the body currently housing the revenant of Commander Wake, her former lover.

Directly following Augustine's dinner party, Harrow again finds Pyrrha, who she assumes is Gideon—this time stabbed through the heart and dumped into the incinerator. It is unclear exactly when Pyrrha gained consciousness, but she refuses to open her eyes after Harrow pulls their body from the incinerator. She explains Gideon's thanergy void powers to Harrow and clarifies that fresh blood wards applied nightly will keep Harrow safe without divulging the fact that she is not, in fact, Gideon. After a coughing fit, it appears that Gideon regains consciousness and control of their shared body.

Thirty Minutes Before the Emperor's Murder

After Gideon the First is killed in battle with Number Seven, Pyrrha comes to consciousness and returns to the Mithraeum. She makes her way to John's chambers, stopping in his foyer long enough to grab the sunglasses from Gideon Nav's face and put them on in order to hide her changed eyes. Inside, the Emperor has tied up the body of Cytherea, now containing the revenant of Commander Wake, and is deep in conversation with Augustine and Mercymorn. Ignoring all of them, Pyrrha walks up to Wake and shoots her in the head, removing the revenant from the corpse. Augustine asks what happened to Number Seven, and Pyrrha confirms that it has fled.

John sits and asks "Gideon" if he was aware that Wake was pregnant. Pyrrha, still masquerading as her necromancer, confirms he was aware and explains, to the horror of everyone, that he thought that it was his child. John continues to insist that using the child of Lyctor to open the Locked Tomb would not work until Augustine and Mercymorn fill him in on Dios apate, major—their plan to steal his genetic material and create a child capable of unpicking his blood wards. John asks if Wake and the baby died on entry, but Gideon Nav walks into the room and announces herself as the child before Pyrrha can answer.

Pyrrha watches quietly as the Emperor, Mercymorn, and Augustine discuss everything they have discovered: that John has always lied about Alecto's death, that John and Alecto underwent the Lyctoral process and perfected it before any of his disciples were resurrected, and that none of the cavaliers needed to die. Ianthe decides to join them in the room, but says nothing. Mercymorn and Augustine continue to press for details, knowledge, and possible regret, but Pyrrha, recently surfaced from a myriad of existing only in Gideon's brain, simply stays quiet.

Mercymorn promises that she will forgive John if he will do one thing: look her in the eyes and tell her he loved Cristabel, her cavalier. As he does so, physically embracing her, she reaches inside of him and rends him into dust with her necromancy. Mercymorn and Augustine explain to Harrow and Ianthe that with the Emperor dead, the Nine Houses and Dominicus will die within three hours and that there is no hope of saving their inhabitants. Mercymorn expresses the desire to commit suicide, but Augustine refuses her, saying that they have to go after the remaining Resurrection Beasts, sue for peace with Blood of Eden, and find a place for the remaining inhabitants of the Empire. Augustine asks "Gideon" if he will make any move against them and Pyrrha begins to tell them who she is, but barely has a chance to begin before the Emperor reconstructs his body and explodes Mercymorn, killing her.

John asks each of his Lyctors if they will be loyal to him. Pyrrha and Ianthe answer in the affirmative and are spared. Gideon Nav is spared punishment for her negative due to the extenuating circumstances of being his daughter and being in Harrow's body, but tossed across the room and bound by his necromancy. Augustine answers in the negative, but before John can kill him, Augustine drops the Mithraeum into the deepest layer of the River. Pyrrha, lacking a Lyctor's ability to survive the River, grabs Gideon Nav and hauls her back into the halls of the Mithraeum.

They watch through the plex window as Augustine and John battle while sinking into the River, followed at a distance by Ianthe. Gideon Nav asks if "Gideon" is going to do something, and Pyrrha reveals herself to be his cavalier. She tells Gideon Nav how Gideon the First died fighting Number Seven with Matthias Nonius, Ortus Nigenad, Protesilaus Ebdoma, and Marta Dyas (though she does not know their names). They watch as Augustine pushes The Emperor toward the stoma and gets caught up in the tongues that emerge from the void. As they fight, the Mithraeum slips into the current and begins to be dragged down to the stoma as well.

Gideon breaks a plex window with her sword, sweeping Pyrrha and herself out into the River. They watch as Ianthe darts down and frees the Emperor, dooming Augustine to the stoma and whatever lies beyond, as the weight of the River begins to crush their half-Lyctoral bodies.

Six Months After the Emperor's Murder

The epilogue of Harrow the Ninth centers an unnamed character who lives with three other people: the person who goes to work for her, the person who teaches her, and the person who looks after her. In Nona the Ninth, these characters are revealed to be, respectively, Nona, Pyrrha, Palamedes, and Camilla.

Nona the Ninth

Before Day One

Pyrrha and Harrow’s body manage to survive their ordeal in the River, likely due to Alecto’s interference. They exit the River near where Camilla Hect is stationed with Blood of Eden. From his position as a revenant whose soul is housed in a River bubble, Palamedes heals Harrow’s body, though she remains unconscious. Soon after, Pyrrha helps them escape from a House attack on Blood of Eden, during which the body of Gideon Nav is stolen. In the aftermath, Blood of Eden wants to execute Pyrrha and Harrow, but Pyrrha manages to convince Commander We Suffer to let them live.

Using Pyrrha and Gideon’s compartmentalization as a model, Palamedes uses soul manipulation to inhabit Camilla’s body for brief periods of time. Exercising his authority as the Warden of the Sixth House, Palamedes initiates the Sixth House’s relocation out of the Dominican system and selects a committee to travel to New Rho and negotiate with BoE.

By this point, the person in Harrow’s body is beginning to wake up, though she has no memory of her past or who she is. Blood of Eden gives Pyrrha and Camilla a deadline of one year to determine the identity of the amnesiac soul who they call Nona. While Camilla and Palamedes take care of Nona, Pyrrha takes a job in construction, becoming the breadwinner for this cobbled-together household.

Grieving her necromancer and still a little at odds with his body, Pyrrha’s emotional state is a bit tumultuous. She goes out drinking, and even drinks bleach once, testing the limits of her body’s lyctoral healing. Pyrrha is initially wary of Nona, especially after Nona goes into a rage that reminds Pyrrha of something from long ago. This, on top of Pyrrha’s suspicions that Nona’s body is rejecting her soul and Nona’s auspicious gold eyes, might lead Pyrrha to form some conclusions about Nona’s true identity, but she keeps them to herself.

When the seventh Resurrection Beast anchors itself above New Rho, the planet’s inhabitants panic. The Nina Houses withdraw, leaving behind only a few scattered Cohort troops. All other commercial and personal spacecraft abandon the planet, leaving the remaining populace trapped. The power balance in Blood of Eden shifts during the chaos, and Merv Wing kidnaps the Sixth House Oversight Body to put pressure on Camilla’s identification of Nona. Despite the political turmoil, Pyrrha continues working, though she spends some of her free time helping Camilla and Palamedes search for the missing Oversight Body.

After Nona catches the attention of a teacher from the refuge school, the teacher comes to their apartment in the Building to invite Nona to attend school. A misunderstanding leads her to believe that Pyrrha is a pimp—an assumption that Pyrrha does not rectify as she flirts the teacher out of the apartment. Reluctantly, Nona’s guardians allow her to start attending school as a Teacher’s Aide, where word spreads quickly that Nona lives with a scary-looking pimp.

Though Pyrrha has always been critical of Palamedes and Camilla’s soul manipulation, this comes to a head when Camilla is attacked by Merv Wing. To fight off the attackers, Palamedes synthesizes his soul with Camilla’s to access a vast amount of power. This sends Camilla into thanergy shock, and Pyrrha forbids them from ever doing it again.

Day One

Pyrrha makes breakfast in the dark kitchen. To distract Nona from the evils of eating eggs, Pyrrha regales Nona with her dream of giving a briefing without pants on. Once Nona has stopped laughing and marked the episode in the “ass joke” tally on the wall, Pyrrha sets about braiding Nona’s hair. Palamedes emerges from the bedroom and asks Pyrrha for a private conversation. After instructing Nona to finish her breakfast, Pyrrha and Palamedes reconvene behind the closed bedroom door.

Following a hurried conversation about the year-long timeline for figuring out Nona’s identity and their joint search for the Sixth House Oversight Body, Palamedes pushes for information about Blood of Eden. Pyrrha denies him this, insisting that she doesn’t have time to teach him and Camilla everything they would need to know. She advises that they stop trying to save any remaining Cohort troops and focus solely on rescuing the Sixth House, although she adds that if she had her way, they’d abandon the situation entirely and abscond with Nona to an isolated half-flipped moon in a different part of the universe.

Palamedes’s timer goes off, effectively ending the conversation. Pyrrha promises to finish her search-and-rescue efforts at Site B, then she and Camilla rejoin Nona in the kitchen. Pyrrha shaves her face, then dons her protective gear, which is largely redundant with her lyctoral body, but helps her blend in. She quizzes Camilla and Nona on this week’s codewords and designated meeting spots in the event of an attack from the Resurrection Beast.

The three of them walk with the other workers, cutting through the park at Pyrrha’s discretion. Once they’re through the park, Pyrrha separates from the other two, bidding them farewell with a kiss on the top of Nona’s head and a wish of good luck for Camilla’s search efforts. Pyrrha falls in line with all the other workers and heads towards the site where her work crew is demolishing a structurally unstable building. At work, two members of Pyrrha’s crew get into a petty fight, forcing her to separate them. After work, Pyrrha uses her meager paycheck as bribery to aid in her search-and-rescue effort, then returns home late and empty-handed.

Day Two

Having spent the grocery money on bribery, Pyrrha resigns herself to preparing unspecified mush for breakfast the next day. Palamedes and Pyrrha bicker about the household’s financial state, which quickly devolves into a discussion of the fruitless search for the Sixth, culminating in Pyrrha lecturing Palamedes about the thanergetic risk he poses to Camilla. Nona interrupts, brokering a peace until Camilla returns to her body and questions Pyrrha about the mush and the missing grocery money. Pyrrha wearily insists that she won’t fight about the same thing twice, then leads all three of them in their daily stretches and exercises.

On their way to work and school, Pyrrha opts to bypass the park and walk past the merchant stalls, gallantly offering to buy Nona something from the cheap-jacks before parting ways with the other two. While Pyrrha’s at work, tensions in the city rise, culminating in riots. Stuck on the wrong side of the city, Pyrrha tries to save whoever she can before getting temporarily injured by vehicle shrapnel and hiding out in a public bathroom while the wounds heal.

Pyrrha manages to get back to the Building, where Camilla and Nona are eating dinner. Palamedes immediately appears to clean out Pyrrha’s injuries so her lyctoral healing can work properly. After downing a couple cups of water, Pyrrha declares it an altogether “shit day,” and announces that she’s going to smoke one of her preciously rationed cigarettes. Upon learning that Camilla sold her stash for grocery money, Pyrrha sighs deeply and asks Nona to draw her a bath.

While Nona is gone, Pyrrha tells Palamedes that the rioting mob had captured three alleged necromancers to execute in the burn cages that night. Pyrrha implores Palamedes to not let Camilla attempt to save the doomed victims and emphasizes that they’re most likely not members of the Sixth House. Palamedes accuses Pyrrha of leaving people to die, and Pyrrha claims that she’s okay with that as long as it doesn’t include any of their own household.

By the time Nona comes back to the living room, Pyrrha is alone, and she indulgently allows Nona to go sit in the corridor to listen to the neighbor’s radio. After bathing, Pyrrha waits until Camilla and Nona are asleep, then she sneaks out of the apartment and goes to the park. Given her stiff right arm in the morning and her earlier assertion that “some softie in the crowd” would shoot the burn cage victims before they had time to burn to death, it might be assumed that Pyrrha covertly shoots the alleged necromancers as a mercy killing, though she never admits to it outright.

Day Three

Pyrrha is in the kitchen making breakfast when Nona comes in the next morning. Noting Pyrrha’s stiff body, Nona quickly accuses her of going to the park. Unable to keep the secret from Nona, she confesses and asks Nona not to tell Camilla and Palamedes. She also warns Nona to be careful with her school friend Hot Sauce, who Pyrrha saw at the burn cages. Angry with Pyrrha for criticizing Hot Sauce, Nona changes the topic and Palamedes soon joins their conversation about what they consider sexy.

Just as Camilla returns to her body and Nona is finishing breakfast, the door bursts open and six armed Edenites order them to put their heads down and hands up. Pyrrha immediately drops facedown on the floor, where she is handcuffed and has her arms taped to her sides. After being checked for weapons, Pyrrha, Camilla, and Nona are marched down to the parking garage, where Pyrrha is stored in the boot of a car.

Upon arriving at a Blood of Eden facility, the Edenites take Pyrrha to the meeting room and install her in a special chair designed to hold her captive and, if she makes too many sudden movements, blow out her spinal column. In her forced stillness, Pyrrha gazes at a portrait of Commander Wake until Nona and Camilla are brought in by Crown. As Commander We Suffer starts the meeting, Pyrrha lightly antagonizes the Edenites, which Pash responds to poorly even though We Suffer is unfazed by it.

Gravely, We Suffer announces that a House spacecraft has been spotted in the planet’s orbit. When We Suffer shows them an image of the shuttle, Pyrrha, Camilla, and Nona all three recognize that it’s too small to be carrying reinforcement troops. On the matter of how the tiny shuttle traveled such a great distance, Camilla defers to Pyrrha, who defers to Crown. Crown confirms that the ship is too small for obelisk travel, which leads Palamedes (who has secretly taken control of Cam’s body) to posit that the shuttle traveled through the River, meaning it’s piloted by a Lyctor.

While the others bicker about petty House-Edenite rivalries, Pyrrha cuts to the meat of the matter, quickly questioning how the arrival of a House negotiator affects their due date for ascertaining Nona’s identity. We Suffer implies that hostile factions of BoE are expecting a progress report. Pyrrha surmises from this that BoE intends to weaponize Nona for their cause and disparages Ctesiphon Wing’s past interactions with Lyctors, particularly Cytherea. We Suffer declares this an old conversation, and Camilla—cooperating after receiving proof of life from the Sixth House Oversight Body—promises BoE a Lyctor or its equivalent if they wait. The meeting is adjourned. Pyrrha is removed from her lethal chair and put back in the boot of the car. The car drops Nona off at school, then takes Camilla and Pyrrha home.

Around one in the afternoon, Pyrrha leaves the Building to pick up Nona from school. Since she leaves her guns at home, it’s likely that Pyrrha doesn’t intend to go anywhere else, but at some point before she reaches the school, Pyrrha changes her plan. Though her motivations aren’t entirely clear, Pyrrha’s interest in finding a shuttle to escape off-planet with Nona, Camilla, and Palamedes may have prompted her to act rashly. Instead of picking up Nona from school, Pyrrha goes to the barracks, where the House shuttle has landed.

At the barracks, Pyrrha is met by Ianthe the First (occupying the corpse of Naberius Tern). By pretending to be her late necromancer, Pyrrha manages to convince Ianthe that she’s “the Saint of Duty with bits missing” even though she can’t do necromancy. Potentially to gain Ianthe’s trust, Pyrrha offers insider information about Blood of Eden, including the fact that Ianthe’s sister is a current BoE operative. Pyrrha predicts that Crown will be sent to the barracks as a spy, outfitted with a hidden audio device.

Though Pyrrha does not participate in Ianthe’s broadcast to the citizens of New Rho, it is likely in preparation for the broadcast that Pyrrha learns that Ianthe brought what appears to be Gideon Nav’s corpse with her.

Day Four

Pyrrha presumably spends the day in the Cohort barracks, maintaining her disguise as Gideon the First. She notes the necromantic wards that Ianthe has placed all around the building and deduces that Gideon Nav’s corpse is likely trapped behind one of the blood wards.  

Day Five

The next day, Pyrrha’s prediction comes true when Crown arrives outside the barracks, allegedly seeking asylum for herself and an unconscious Judith Deuteros. Taking Pyrrha’s advice, Ianthe immediately identifies one of Crown’s earrings as an audio device and uses it to give Blood of Eden a deadline to return their House assets, including Camilla Hect and Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Using the codewords “deadweight” and “fishhook,” Pyrrha sends a message of her own to Camilla and Nona: giving both an all clear and requesting their assistance in retrieving an important resource. Ianthe destroys the bug and all four of them retreat farther into the barracks.

Pyrrha and Crown take Judith into a room away from Ianthe, and Crown activates the audio device that's hidden on Judith. On Ianthe’s orders, Pyrrha prevents Crown from offering Judith any substantial help. While she does so, Pyrrha works coded messages into the conversation, such as “None can get at that corpse,” to indicate that Nona might be able to retrieve the body of Gideon Nav. Ianthe interrupts to collect Crown, leaving Pyrrha to organize Ianthe’s army.

Pyrrha directs the limited number of live soldiers to carry dozens of corpses into the entrance hall where Ianthe intends to greet Camilla and Harrowhark. Once this task is complete, Pyrrha locks half of the live soldiers into the mess hall and hits the other half in the head, rendering them unconscious.

By the time Nona and Camilla arrive at the barracks, Ianthe has arranged all of the corpses into an intimidating formation and has positioned Crown at her right hand and Pyrrha at her left. Pyrrha continues to stand at attention while Nona pretends to be a mostly silent, blinded Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Ianthe attempts to antagonize Camilla. It is only when Camilla reveals that the Sixth House seceded under instruction from Cassiopeia the First that Pyrrha speaks to observe that “Cassy played long games.”

After an unsuccessful attempt from Crown to tempt Ianthe to Blood of Eden’s side, Ianthe turns her attention to Nona. Unsure of what to do, Nona falls back on Cam’s advice to act like the Captain and likely unintentionally channels the Resurrection Beast. When Nona screams, Pyrrha falls to her hands and knees and her gun is knocked from her hand. Ianthe is similarly afflicted, though she manages to slash Camilla with her rapier. Recovering, Ianthe directs her undead soldiers to restrain Camilla and Nona, then orders Pyrrha to ready the shuttle. Pyrrha reports that everyone with a necromantic body is down.

While Pyrrha recovers from the scream, struggling to stand, Ianthe declares her intentions to torture and kill Camilla. As a countermove, Camilla challenges Ianthe to a duel. Ianthe is reluctant to accept until Crown snatches Pyrrha’s gun from the floor and holds it to her own throat. Unwillingly, Ianthe agrees to the duel, and Crown drops the gun. The duel is fast—ending when Camilla maneuvers herself close enough to touch Ianthe Naberius’s bare skin, at the cost of being impaled by Ianthe’s rapier. At this touch, Ianthe passes out, her zombie soldiers falling with her. Pyrrha rushes to retrieve her gun and immediately aims it at Ianthe before realizing that Naberius’s body is no longer occupied by Ianthe, but by Palamedes.

Palamedes quickly pulls the rapier out of Camilla’s body, and Pyrrha helps him prop Camilla’s body up until she asks for some space. While they wait for Crown to fetch bandages, Pyrrha asks Palamedes to locate Gideon’s corpse. Though his necromancy is limited in Naberius’s body, he’s able to give her directions to the corpse. Leaving Palamedes to treat Cam’s wound, Pyrrha collects Nona from where she’s buried under the toppled corpses, and together they go to find Gideon’s body.

As Pyrrha guides Nona through the maze of the barracks, riddled with junk and Ianthe’s wards, Nona confesses that she’s dying. Pyrrha claims to have already known this, but their conversation is cut off when they arrive at the ward protecting Gideon’s body. Pyrrha uses Nona’s regenerative ability to wear out the blood ward until it breaks. While Nona scouts ahead for the body, Pyrrha cleans up the corridor and checks for other wards.

By the time Pyrrha catches up to Nona, she’s found the corpse. Pyrrha notes Gideon’s resemblance to Wake and John, then Nona quickly warns her that the corpse is awake and can hear them. Skeptical, Pyrrha checks for a nonexistent pulse, then heaves the body over her shoulder to carry downstairs to Palamedes and Camilla.

Palamedes is surprised that the corpse had no reaction to Nona. After Pyrrha speculates that the body could be a copy, Palamedes necromantically examines the body, finding evidence of the Emperor’s aptitude. Camilla and Palamedes are preparing to take a blood sample when the corpse moves to grab Palamedes’s wrist. Pyrrha cocks her gun and orders Palamedes away from the corpse, but Gideon begins talking and confirms that the Emperor brought her back as a revenant and renamed her Kiriona Gaia. Despite her somewhat hostile attitude and her apparent allegiance to the Emperor, Kiriona announces her intention to travel with them to the Ninth House. The group warily agrees, and Kiriona plays dead once again while Pyrrha carries her outside to where BoE is waiting with a caravan of trucks.

Once everyone has been loaded into different trucks, We Suffer reveals that Merv Wing has been hiding the Sixth House Oversight Body by driving them around the city in what Nona recognizes as the Convoy. With Nona’s help locating the Convoy, We Suffer launches a rescue mission. As they wait for news, odd sounds come from outside the truck, and Pyrrha leans out of the canvas cover to look at the sky. When she leans back in, she grimly announces that the Resurrection Beast has retracted and the first wave of Heralds is raining down on the planet.

Nona stands and pushes Pyrrha out of the way, which is no small feat. The other passengers of the truck watch with varying levels of alarm as Nona takes Crown’s sword and climbs on top of the truck, followed by Judith who is under control of the Resurrection Beast. Nona convinces Varun to stop sending Heralds, and the truck manages to escape into the underground tunnels. Pyrrha is injured in the process, though it’s unclear if this occurred fighting off Heralds or retrieving Nona from the top of the truck.

After setting up camp in the tunnels, Pyrrha checks on Nona, who has woken up from her ordeal with Varun and is being questioned by Kiriona. Because Nona’s soul and body are rejecting each other, she can no longer walk, so Pyrrha carries her out of the truck. She tries to ask Nona about her identity as Alecto, but Nona stops her, not wanting to remember. Instead, Pyrrha carries her to where Camilla and Palamedes are organizing the rescued Sixth House Oversight Body.

Palamedes sums up their situation succinctly—the Heralds have trapped them in the tunnels and they have no shuttle to get off-planet. His solution is to travel to the Ninth House through the River, and Pyrrha nearly drops Nona when she realizes that Palamedes intends to become a Lyctor. Desperately, Pyrrha begs Camilla and Palamedes not to go through with it. When she realizes it’s a lost cause, Pyrrha kisses them both, then numbly retreats back to the truck with Nona.

With their friends and family watching, Camilla and Palamedes take the steps to become a Lyctor, culminating in Camilla’s body bursting into flames. Though they have Camilla’s body, the Lyctor who emerges from the fire is neither Camilla nor Palamedes, but some combination of the two, renamed Paul.

While Paul strategizes with We Suffer, Pyrrha carries Nona toward the truck that they are going to traverse the River in. They are surprised to be joined by Aim and Pash, who have been ordered to accompany them to the Ninth House. They congregate in the cockpit with Kiriona, Crown, and Judith, then We Suffer arrives with Paul to give the group her final orders. After she leaves and gives the all-clear, Paul drops the megatruck into the River.

Pyrrha and Paul bicker about how to best pilot the megatruck, but Nona interrupts them, cooly ordering Paul to remove the protective bubble they had placed around the megatruck. Despite Pyrrha’s protests, Paul complies. Pyrrha is astonished that the River doesn’t flay them alive—and even more astonished to see a large tower rising out of the River. Nona takes over driving the megatruck, joined by Varun in the body of Judith Deuteros. Like her scream in the barracks, Nona’s communication with the Resurrection Beast disables Pyrrha and Paul. While they’re on the floor, Nona drives the truck directly into the waves of the River. Jostled by the current, the megatruck fights its way through the River before coming to a jarring stop on the Ninth House shuttle field.

After disembarking, Kiriona follows a suspicious noise into the dark. After pulling Nona out of the truck and checking on the other passengers, Pyrrha and Paul follow Kiriona’s path. Eventually, they arrive at the elevator bay where Kiriona is standing over several corpses and Seneschal Crux. Having been injured by the devils possessing the corpses, Crux can neither be healed nor killed without becoming possessed himself. His insults to Kiriona are cut short when Nona warns that more devils are approaching. Pyrrha ushers everyone into the elevator, where Crux informs them that the devils began their assault on the previous day, infecting more than two hundred people.

At the bottom of the elevator shaft, Kiriona leads them to where the survivors of the devils’ attack have barricaded themselves behind the Anastasian Monument. They are met by Aiglamene, and Pyrrha explains that they need to get to the Locked Tomb, citing Lyctor’s rights. Aiglamene directs them to first warm Nona’s body. Surprised at Nona’s worsening condition, Pyrrha pushes through the crowd to where Paul is treating Crux.

After warming Nona as much as they can, the group continues on to the entrance of the Tomb, where Ianthe is waiting for them. Using flesh magic, she traps them in a goo-like substance to stop them from entering the Tomb. Kiriona and Ianthe exchange some barbed pleasantries, then Ianthe pulls Kiriona free of the substance. Despite her apparent camaraderie with Ianthe, Kiriona draws her sword and claims that John sent her to open the Tomb and kill Alecto. With the ensuing conversation about John and Alecto, Nona soul loses its last tether to her body and she begins to fall apart.

The group bursts into action: Kiriona and Ianthe rush to save Harrow’s body, Pyrrha disables Ianthe with a Herald bullet, and Paul attempts to keep the body together while Kiriona and Pyrrha carry her into the antechamber. To provide enough thanergy to open the Tomb, Pyrrha offers her life as a sacrifice, but Kiriona kills an already-dying Crux instead. With that and Kiriona’s blood, Paul opens the Tomb. Nona walks through the water to the marble slab and falls on the Body. Alecto and Harrow’s souls revert to their bodies, and Alecto breaks her chains and rises. On the other shore, Pyrrha, Paul, Aiglamene, and Kiriona are attacked by a crowd of possessed bodies. Pyrrha calls out for Alecto, but it is unclear whether she helps them fight the devils before leaving the Ninth House to seek out the Emperor.

Blood of Eden

“I spent all that time sleeping with the enemy with very little to show for it, right? Blood of Eden is a house with many rooms, and I was only ever visiting one of ‘em.”

Unlike the machinations of some of the other Lyctors, Pyrrha’s involvement with Blood of Eden seems to be mostly contained to her personal relationship with Commander Wake. Though she shares Wake’s goal of killing John Gaius and ending his Empire, Pyrrha is critical of the short-term nature of Wake’s plans to unite the people against a common enemy rather than uniting them for a brighter future. Despite their close relationship, Wake does not inform Pyrrha of her involvement in Mercymorn and Augustine’s dios apate, major plot to open the Locked Tomb.

Troia Cell

After dropping out of the River right into Blood of Eden’s camp, Pyrrha “talk[s] fast” to  narrowly avoid the immediate execution of herself and Harrowhark. Without much choice in the matter, Pyrrha becomes a member of Troia Cell, created to determine Nona’s identity. Although We Suffer vouches for her, Pyrrha is heavily mistrusted by the Edenites. They take extraordinary measures to restrain her, including creating a chair built to kill her if she moves too suddenly. In turn, Pyrrha withholds her suspicions about Nona’s true identity. When Pyrrha goes to meet Ianthe the First, We Suffer initially considers it a betrayal of BoE, but Pyrrha continues to work with them to rescue the Sixth House and open the Locked Tomb.

Appearance

Pre-Lyctoral

"I don't care that she was ten years my senior, Pyrrha Dve was hotter than the very fires of Hell."

The actual appearance of Pyrrha Dve is unknown, but she is unanimously regarded as "the hottest cavalier," "an absolute bombshell," and "a stone cold fox." Her eyes, which appear on Gideon after his ascension, are described as a soft, fluvial green that clashes with Gideon’s otherwise rigid face.

Post-Lyctoral

“Whenever Pyrrha didn’t shave her head quick enough she got a little flat cap of dark terracotta, the colour of wet red earth at the building site. Most of Pyrrha was the colours of the building site: deep dried out browns, dusty hunks of clay, rusted metal.”

After the death of her original body, Pyrrha’s compartmentalized soul resides in the body of Gideon the First, initially for brief periods of time, then permanently after his death. In this body, Pyrrha has dark brown skin that is “moth-eaten with scars.” Stringy, lean muscles are layered under her skin in a way that makes her look wiry and raw, without any “spare scrap of fat or softness to her.” Pyrrha’s hair is deep russet color, and though she shaves her face every morning, by the end of the day her cheeks, upper lip, and neck are covered with a rust-coloured stubble. Her eyes are Gideon’s original eyes: “a deep brown, with a kind of red spark to them.”

Demeanor

“She smiled that easy smile that always seemed so strange on her strong-jawed, weather-beaten face.”

Even after millenia of inhabiting Gideon’s body, Pyrrha is still occasionally at odds with her borrowed body. She jokingly says that she looks “like two elbows” and claims that she’s still not used to her teeth. She even asks Palamedes to necromantically prevent the growth of her facial hair, though he politely declines to work on her lyctoral body. Yet despite these instances of discomfort, Pyrrha seems to fill her body in a way that Gideon never did. Confident in her own skin, Pyrrha is described by Nona as “unbunched, unhurried, unaffected by most things, sweet and slouchy and always the least afraid person in the room, even if that room had Cam in it.” This is a stark contrast to the way Pyrrha acts when she is pretending to be Gideon the First: uptight and uncomfortable.

Possessions

• Herald bullet: Forged to contain pieces of a Herald’s corpse and capable of rendering even a Lyctor senseless, this bullet originally belongs to Wake until Pyrrha steals it. Pyrrha intends to use the rare weapon on John Gaius, but ultimately uses it to incapacitate Ianthe the First in the antechamber of the Locked Tomb.
• Guns: In every stage of her life, Pyrrha keeps guns close at hand. As a cop, P— is armed with various firearms and later uses them in the firefight at the cryo lab. Guns are found in the Second’s Lyctoral study at Canaan House, indicating that Pyrrha probably favored them as a cavalier weapon. And though guns largely fall out of fashion in the Nine Houses, Pyrrha carries one in her guise as the Saint of Duty. On New Rho, Pyrrha treasures her guns, devoting time to their care and maintenance, and takes pains to carry them with her into dangerous situations.
• Cigarettes: In the Edenite safehouse in the Building, Pyrrha keeps a stash of black market cigarettes in a secret drawer alongside fake IDs and foreign money. Upon finding out that Camilla sold the cigarettes for a third of what they’re worth, Pyrrha declares it “an entirely haunted time to be alive.”

Relationships

Gideon the First

"We compartmentalized from the Eightfold Word, just like you and your girl—though I'm an accident, and he took more from me than got taken from you."

Pyrrha's relationship with her necromancer has been complicated by a myriad of being trapped in a corner of his brain. Though she was once close enough with him to die for his ascension, she now frequently disagrees with his choices. From starting her own affair with Commander Wake to telling Harrowhark how to protect herself against the two of them to attempting to kill her, she's separated somewhat from his will. Due to her emotional state upon becoming the sole owner of Gideon's body, it is unclear how she has taken his death.

Wake

"She was the most dangerous woman I'd ever met who wasn't me, [...] You're right though. She was a real dick."

Alongside Gideon the First, Pyrrha Dve engaged in a relationship with Commander Wake. The details of this relationship are largely unknown; however, after her work with the Dios apate, major plot, Gideon finally has to assassinate Wake. They are confused by Wake taking the baby with her. In the end, Pyrrha rescues Wake from being trapped in Cytherea's corpse and interrogated by the Emperor by shooting Cytherea in the head.

Gideon Nav

“What’s so special about this body anyway?”
”In general? She’s the key to a door that's been kept locked for ten thousand years. Personally? She’s the last thing I have left of a woman I tried to trick into loving me, and got played myself.”

At some undefined point in their love affair, Pyrrha learns that Wake is pregnant. Apparently ignorant of the Dios apate major plot, Pyrrha suspects the child is hers or Gideon’s and is confused that Wake brought the baby along for her mission in the Dominican system. She doesn’t learn the reason until nineteen years later, when Mercymorn and Augustine confess their betrayal and Gideon Nav reveals herself to be the child. Pretending to be Gideon the First, Pyrrha cannot interact with the child she thought might be hers. But when Augustine drops the Mithraeum into the River, Pyrrha’s first move is to save Gideon from being swept into the current.

When Pyrrha reunites with Gideon six months later, she looks at her with “soft, guarded want.” Despite Gideon’s prickly demeanor, Pyrrha is gentle with her in a way that no other adult ever was during her upbringing on the Ninth.

Matthias Nonius

"He fought it alone for hours, [...] then with some rag-tag cavalry led by that mad sweetheart Matthias."

Little is known about Pyrrha and Matthias Nonius's relationship aside from the fact that they met in battle over a thousand years ago and parted on good enough terms to do battle together once more. It is clear that Pyrrha holds some amount of affection for him, but to what degree is unknown.

Trivia

• Pyrrha's name is drawn from, in part, the name that Achilles used when he disguised himself as a princess on Skyros.