Alchemised

by SenLinYu

She was in her room. The house had not eaten her, because houses did not eat people. Her mind cleared slowly, that suffocating terror gradually ebbing away, allowing reason to seep back in. It was almost worse to be rational again, to sit knowing her fear made no sense. It didn’t matter. The part of her that was afraid did not care about being rational.

Her mind did not care whether the fear made sense; it just wanted to never go back.

“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.”

“Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we’ll remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”

“I will die before I lose her,”

“Is there really a difference between having someone die for you and killing them?”

“Ferron always comes for me,”

Ferron will come. Ferron will come.

“I’ve tried to be patient with you, Aurelia. I’ve been willing to overlook your indecent behaviour and petty interferences, but do remember, aside from being somewhat decorative, you are useless to me. If you ever go near her again, or speak to her, or so much as set foot in this wing again, I will kill you, and I will do it slowly, perhaps over the course of an evening or two. That isn’t a threat. It’s a promise. Now get out of my sight.”

“Stay…please…stay.”

“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.”

Everyone went out ready to die for him at any moment, so how could he betray their faith by doubting himself.

“Whether you win a battle or lose it, all I see is the cost.”

“I swear it, on the spirits of the five gods and my own soul, Kaine Ferron, I’m yours as long as I live.”

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.

Just like he will do for her. #sobbing

A southern ritual had no place in the North, but she’d given everything for the war, and it had not been enough. Superstition was all she had left.

“You gave me to him,” she said, her voice full of fury. “Now, and after the war. Those were the terms. You said it was Ferron or lose, and so I chose him. When was he ever expected to let me go?” She drew a shaky breath. “You said to make myself the mission for him. He is changeable right now, and this may be the only moment in which he ever will be. If you think what I’m doing is too dangerous, then give me a different option, because this is the only way I can give you what you asked for.”

in the battle between good and evil, it gets worse before it gets better. That it’s our job to stay the path and not give into the temptation of doing what’s easy.”

“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,”

Whore. Her eyes burned and she closed them, trying to slip free and lose herself in a place where her thoughts couldn’t catch up, but they chased her down, insinuating themselves beneath her skin where Kaine’s fingers didn’t reach. Whispering through her skull, like a damning, mocking chorus.

“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.”

“Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I’m not sure I ever knew what I wanted.” She shrugged. “Probably good that I didn’t, since it didn’t matter in the end.”

“There are far worse fates than dying, Marino.” She nodded. “I know. But that one you don’t come back from.” He gave a bitter laugh. “All right, then, but only because you asked.”

Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.

But worse still was knowing all that and still craving those rare moments in which he was gentle. Because that was all she had left.

“Eyes are awful. I mean, hopefully if you ever lost one, it would just grow back, but if not…”

“I keep an eye on this place.”

“All right…” he said, “but only because you asked.”

For the first time, Kaine Ferron was fully human to her. She’d slipped through his walls and peeled away the defensive layers of malice and cruelty, and found that there he carried a broken heart.

Why was it always the hospital’s fault when things went wrong? If Helena had come out and said that surgery was a success and Lila was already getting out of bed, they’d all be off to the perihelion to offer Sol flames of thanksgiving. But bad news was always the hospital’s fault. How nice it must be, to be a god.

all I feel is a new set of manacles.” He let go and stepped away from her, heading for the door. “So forgive me if I dislike looking at you. I’m still adjusting to the ways these new ones chafe.”

She was so tired. Life had been cold for such a long time.

“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.

“Use the ring, call me, if you ever need anything.”

“I want to love someone without feeling like if they know, it’ll end up hurting them. People who love me always die. No matter what I do, it’s never enough to save them. I have to love everyone from a distance, and I’m so lonely.”

“I’m alone, too,”

“You’ll recover, but it’ll leave a scar. You just have to stay grounded until your mind learns not to go there.

“I should have known—the moment I looked into your eyes, I should have known I would never win against you.”

“I used to think that we were the reverse of each other. Now—” She looked at him and extended her hand. “—I can’t help feeling like we’re mostly the same.”

“Don’t worry. I’m always going to come back to you.”

“You’re wrong because I’m part of the universe,” she said. “A tiny piece, I admit, maybe never an important or mathematically significant one, but still a piece. You and I are not separate from it. No one is. It matters to me, everyone who’s died and everyone who will, and everyone who suffers. As long as I exist, I will always care. And that means that part of the universe does.” She smiled at him. “Doesn’t that make it all a little brighter?”

“Be careful, Kaine. Don’t die.”

“You can tell me. I’ll help you carry it.”

“Well, you should.” He was suddenly ice-cold, and his eyes gleamed so silver that they were almost white. “Because I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s 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. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”

“You are so much more than what the war has done to you.”

“You are. It doesn’t matter what happens to you, you will still be mine.”

“Don’t die.”

“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.”

They were always running out of time.

someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.