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manacles
Manacled!!!
She wouldn’t be a traitor. Whatever she’d allowed to be hidden in her mind, she wouldn’t let the Undying discover it. Surviving didn’t matter. She’d kill herself before they learned anything from her.
It was the iron guild heir. Kaine Ferron. She stared at him in stunned recognition.
Fourteen months. She tried to remember the last date she could recall during the war. It would have been late summer when the final battle occurred, but she couldn’t remember the month or lunar phases at the time.
The door clicked, breaking Helena from her thoughts. She turned as Ferron strode in. His hand was at his throat, pulling the collar loose. He stopped short at the sight of her. “Well,” he said, “this is a surprise.”
She looked up at him. “You’re a monster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”
“You know,” Ferron said, jolting her from her thoughts, “when I heard it was you I’d be getting, I was looking forward to breaking you.” He shook his head. “But I don’t think it’s possible to exceed what you’ve done to yourself.”
“I have no desire to touch you,” he said, sneering. “Your presence here is offensive enough.” “Small mercies,” Helena said in a dry voice.
“Do you remember what I promised you, Luc, that night you came out here?” she asked, her voice pleading. He gave no response. His gaze had settled back into a dim stupor, the sunset limning his gaunt features as though gilding him. “I promised I’d do anything for you.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “Maybe you didn’t realise how far I was willing to go.”
What did she do?
“Do I know you?” she asked as her eyes slid closed. “I suppose you do.”
Ferron’s lips remained pressed against Aurelia’s, but as he kissed her, he raised his eyes, and his gaze locked onto Helena’s face.
He was glaring at her. “It’s impressive how determined you are to be difficult.” “Were you expecting something else?” she asked with a loose shrug.
the guilds had always been intensely patriarchal. Ironically, the one thing the guilds thought the Holdfasts weren’t traditional enough about was women.
A low view of women was common in the North, especially among those of faith. Prior to the pressure exerted by the Principate, the Faith regarded women as categorically lesser, and even after the official distancing occurred, the belief remained pervasive. It had been viewed as a fact of nature. Men were of Sol, active, hot and dry, full of vitality, and the source of life’s seed. Women, it followed, were an inferior human form. Wet and cold, passively bound to the monthly cycle of Luna, the lesser moon. While their bodies were the necessary vessels for birth, it was their blood that was the
...more
Ewww
but there was a fault line, as if one part had been constructed separately.
Morrough lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him.
“Those difficulties are because she is resisting, because she can resist. This—she is the animancer.”
He met her stare, eyes glittering with a strange look of satisfaction. “Yes, he’s dying.”
“You’re having me raped, and you expect me to be grateful about it?” Helena’s voice was dead, coming from far away.
Tell it girl
“Oh, Marino.” His thumb trailed along her neck, following the scar below her jaw. “If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.” He sighed, and she could smell the liquor on his breath as his head dipped closer. She had no idea what he meant, if she was supposed to apologise. “But at this point I suppose I deserve to burn. I wonder if you’ll burn, too.” His face was so close the words brushed against her lips, and his mouth crashed against hers.
She stared across the room to the bloodstained window. “I would rather spend the rest of my life being raped in Central than spend a minute of it having feelings for you.”
Helena shrank away, but Ferron wasn’t done. “Let me be very clear, then. I don’t want you. I never wanted you. I am not your friend. There is nothing I want more than the moment I’m finally done with you.” He turned and left.
Ouch, he's in denial
“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”
“So what do we do?” Helena asked. Ilva pursed her lips, drawing a deep breath. “Do you remember Kaine Ferron?”
“Kaine Ferron has offered to spy for the Resistance,” said Crowther.
Here we go
“And …?” “He wants you, Marino,” Crowther said. “Both now and after the war.”
She caught it reflexively, studying it. It was a tarnished silver ring;
Seen that before
These were her replacements, because her job as healer was now secondary to her function and purpose as Ferron’s possession.
“Ferron, what’s happened to you? What’s wrong?” Her voice rose sharply as she hovered, not sure what to do. His eyes shut. He was breathing shallowly. “F-Fuck off, Marino.”
As he was regaining consciousness, she took his nearest hand, careful not to shift his shoulder as she started massaging the palm and worked slowly to his fingertips, knuckle by knuckle, her resonance seeking out every bit of tension and knotted muscles.
Don’t make me responsible for Kaine Ferron’s death.
He spoke just as she was leaving. “Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”
“Fuck off,” she said. “I didn’t know you could swear.” He sounded amused.
“Stay,” he said softly, and his head dipped so close she felt his breath in her hair. “You know, there’s something about you, Marino, that inspires the most terrible decisions from me. I’ll know better, but then I’ll still …”
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,”
Love
“If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should say so now,” he said.
The instant her lips met his, he took control. As if she’d sprung something loose in him, his arm was around her waist, drawing her towards him, pulling her close until their bodies pressed together, and she was on his lap.
“Why do you think I was kissing you?” he finally asked in a tight voice. “Because I’m here.” He looked at her again. “Why’d you kiss me?” She stared across the room at a tapestry of Tellus, spinning the earth into being. “You made me feel like the parts of me that aren’t useful still deserve to exist. Like I’m not just all the things I can do.”
“I must say, Marino, you’ve ended up being quite expensive.”
“You—were you a virgin?”
“Fuck you.” She flinched but spat back, “You already did.”
He blocked the door, his eyes gone cold. “Remind Crowther that if the Eternal Flame wants my continued assistance, they will keep you alive.”
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.” She shook her head, giving a broken sob and—before she let herself think—she kissed him.
He touched her cheek, tilting her face up and kissing her. “Use the ring, call me, if you ever need anything.”
“You don’t have to push me away to protect me,” he said in a hard, familiar voice. “I can take it. You can stop being lonely. I won’t misunderstand. I know you just want someone to be with.” She looked for a door. An escape. He didn’t let go. “Helena …” She stilled at her name. “I’m alone, too,” he said.
“You’re mine,” he said against her lips, his fingers sliding along her throat, tangling in her hair, holding her fast as he dragged her nearer.
“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”
“I hate your hair like that,” he said, startling her. She looked up. “I could crop it instead.” He looked so offended that she laughed. “I have to keep it out of the way when working, and I’m always on call for emergencies. It’s practical.” He looked unconvinced. “I want to see you more.”
awwww
He’d stare into her eyes until she almost felt their minds touching. “You’re mine. You’re mine.” He’d repeat the words over and over. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”
Lila looked up and drew a deep breath, her chin trembling before she finally spoke. “I—I’m pregnant.”
