Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“I’m going to take care of you. I swear, I’m always going to take care of you.”

“Never mind. That’s too much. We don’t need to suppress that much.”

“I’m going to take care of you. I promise, I’m always going to take care of you.”

“I—I’m pregnant.”

“You’re a vivimancer,” Helena said.

“Who’s the father?” Helena asked, as if it wasn’t completely obvious. “You know it’s Luc.”

“I wanted to be an alchemist more, and women don’t get to do both.”

“I’m just—” She scrubbed her eyes. “I’m so tired. Everything I do feels like I’m delaying the inevitable, saving someone one day so they’ll die in a worse way tomorrow. I wish I’d never become a healer.”

She’d promised Kaine that she was safe, that nothing would happen to her. She could not die.

“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.”

He kissed her. She could taste the plea on his lips.

“What exactly is it that you think I do with all my time? I kill people. I order other people to kill people. I train people to kill people. I sabotage and undermine people so that they will be killed, and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every life. Because of you.”

“If you die, Helena, I’m done. I won’t continue this. I’m tired.”

“I mean it. I won’t kill them—but I will be done. You are my terms of service. The contract is void if you die.”

Go to sleep. Loath as I am to admit it, the war will still be here when you wake.”

“I think your scars are prettier than mine,” she finally said. “I have a better healer.”

“Well.” He met her eyes. “I don’t see you that way, either. You’re mine.”

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

I love you.

I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you.

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Don’t die.”

“You know, I had a nearly identical version of this conversation with Ferron earlier this year.”

No goodbye.

“What happened to us, Hel?” She stared at him, and her pathetic, starved heart leapt for a moment before she realised the obvious. This wasn’t Luc; this was the opium talking. “A war.” She looked away from him to the ruined city before them. A view which had once been so beautiful.

“Nothing,” she said. “I think I forgot to breathe after you left.”

“I don’t want you in this fucking war.” The rage in his voice was raw. “All I do is worry about what will happen to you if I fail to meet all requirements. If you get captured, you have no idea what they’ll—”

“Don’t die, Kaine. You can’t leave me behind.”

“Mine. You’re mine,” he said as he kissed her. “Always.”

“But if I don’t come,” she said, ready to resort to anything if he’d just cooperate, “that means I won’t see you again until—until after.” He didn’t waver. “Then I’ll see you after. Send someone else.”

Someday, she promised herself, someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.

He scoffed. “If I survive, I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“You’re mine,” he said almost against her lips. “Mine. You swore it. Your Resistance sold you to me. I’m not going anywhere without you. And if anyone touches you, immortal or not, I will kill them.”

Helena asked, “Who are you?”

HOLY SHIT

“Once, long ago, my brother called me Cetus.”

“I am Morrough.”

“Luc is an animancer?” she said in shock.

“Is it dawn?” he asked, his voice almost wondering. Helena nodded. “First light.” He exhaled. “We were—going to see the world together, remember?”

She was certain she was misunderstanding him, but it was there in his eyes. He was saying goodbye to her.

His expression softened as she stopped struggling. “We had a good run, but we were never going to last.” His fingers slipped a loose curl behind her ear before his hand drifted down to rest briefly at the base of her throat. “You knew that.”

“He can have Paladia for all I care. If the Eternal Flame wanted to win, they should have made better choices. They all knew the risks, but that was never enough incentive for them. They refused to pay the price that victory demands, and I am sick of watching you try to pay it for them.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I’m building a bomb. I need to blow up a laboratory.”

“Your brother is the Emperor?”

“If I don’t come back—if you ever see Kaine, tell him—tell him that I—” Her head dropped down, and she quickly brushed her fingertips across her cheeks. She cleared her voice and shook her head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows.”

“You’re the one who gave them all the information?” she said. “Who let them into Headquarters?” It wasn’t Cetus. Here stood the real traitor.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Even from the distance, Helena felt the resonance in the air, and Luc’s head slammed down into the marble, skull splitting, breaking apart like a cracked egg. His face caved in, and his body toppled over, brains smeared across the blood-soaked marble. The air filled with screams of horror. Morrough turned away from the body. “Store him. He will never burn.”

he was the fabric of her thoughts. Her every action tied to him.

Her life was a graveyard.

Hold on. You promised you wouldn’t break.