Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“I thought you’d do anything for Holdfast.” He was pacing the room.

“I suppose even martyrs have limits.”

She wasn’t imagining it. It was there, just below the surface. There was a want in him that practically shone in his eyes. But he refused to give in. Whenever she tried to beckon, to tempt him across the line he’d drawn, his malice surfaced, vicious as a serrated blade.

He was always cruellest when he was vulnerable.

She looked up sharply. He was watching her, making no move to stop her. Waiting. Her smile fell, and she stared at him in horror. That bitterness in his eyes—she finally understood it. He had been waiting for her betrayal. This was what held him back.

Certain things were meant to hurt. She’d seduced Kaine when it was abundantly clear that this was a line he had no desire to cross. She had pushed and persisted and done it anyway, because she was desperate. That should hurt.

Kaine dropped his head against her shoulder, moaning into her skin, pulling her closer, and then suddenly, it wasn’t merely a pleasure he was taking in her. Heat came to life inside her, her sense of control untethering as it threatened to engulf her. But shame and guilt rose equally quick, cold and bitter as seawater, until she was on the verge of sundering.

“I wasn’t going to betray the Resistance,” he finally said. “I was never going to. You were already losing when I made the offer, and you’re probably still going to lose now, but I never cared. I just wanted to avenge my mother.”

He pressed his lips into a tight line and looked down at the floor. “Unfortunately, by the time I had an opportunity to offer my services, she’d been dead too long and there was the coroner’s report saying she’d died of natural causes. What could I possibly have to avenge?” The bitterness in his voice and on his face was unadulterated. “I knew Crowther well enough to know he’d only consider me as valuable as the strings he could pull, so I thought I’d give him a dead end to dig himself into.” Then his expression turned vicious and disdainful. “I tried to think what could I possibly want from the Eternal Flame. A pardon, because it was as ridiculous as it was obvious. But the Resistance was losing, everyone knew you were losing. I knew I’d need a contact, someone who could retrieve messages for me and come when called.

I didn’t want Crowther choosing one of his rats, and I thought demanding someone specific would play i...

He sneered. “As if I would betray the High Necromancer for you. I knew they’d send you with instructions to try to play up the obsession I was supposed to have—to ensure I wouldn’t get bored or change my mind—but I wasn’t worried. You were no one, just an awkward shadow behind Holdfast, following him like a dog. I thought it would be funny, watching you try.”

“But you—you—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. You outmanoeuvred me. Or maybe I’m just too tired and grieving to keep pushing you away. You won.” He met her eyes for a moment, his expression bitter and derisive. “Well done.”

“You switched sides because your mother died of a heart attack?” She gave a loud scoff, standing up, hiding a wince. “Her death wasn’t anyone’s fault, and even if it was, did you murder Principate Apollo by ripping out his heart by accident? Ran off with it and joined the Undying for three years, saw her die, kept going, and then what?

You got so melancholy because you can’t get drunk that you decided to turn spy?”

“Do you want to know why I’m like this?” he asked slowly, his teeth flashing like fangs. “You asked once if it was a punishment, and I was honest when I said it wasn’t. It was the bargain I made.” He walked towards her, rage radiating off him until she could feel the room warp. “After my father’s failure, after he revealed Morrough’s plans, do you think the High Necromancer was understanding?” Helena stared at him, frozen in place.

“I was still at the Institute, finishing up the year. Who do you imagine was alone with him when word came that my father had been caught and confessed to treason?” Kaine’s expression contorted with grief. “He had my mother in a cage when I got home. He’d been torturing her for weeks.” His breathing grew ragged and uneven. “You sold yourself to save the person you care about. Well, so did I. What was I supposed to do, fail to kill Principate Apollo knowing I wouldn’t be the one who’d suffer for it? This”—he gestured towards himself—“this was how I proved I’d be loyal, how I got him t—” His breath caught. “—to stop hurting her.” Helena’s head had grown light. “We—I didn’t know.”

“I can’t—I can’t—” he kept saying over and over. Helena didn’t know what to do. She ran her fingers through his hair and just held him. “I can’t—I can’t do this again—” he finally gasped out. “I can’t care for someone again. I can’t take it.”

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.

Your failure was always the plan.

His expression grew pinched. “There was no time to train you for the assignment. We thought it best to let the deal run its course and—collect the pieces afterwards. It made you more convincing.” A lump rose in her throat. “Well, he saw through you both. I was the only fool in the end. But you got what you wanted. Lucky you, I guess.”

Crowther’s eyebrows furrowed as he studied her. “I’ve spent a year working on the logistics of replacing you…I must admit, you are the most exceptional asset the Eternal Flame possesses. And I am sorry for that.”

“Do you think this is what my subconscious thinks I want?” she asked, peering towards the light of the Alchemy Tower’s beacon gleaming like a small golden sun. “To run away from the war with you?”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I don’t want to always be alone,” she said. It was easier to be honest in the dark. “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.”

“You don’t have to be alone,” he said.

But she knew that was a lie. Her mind was never quiet enough to let her enjoy anything without thinking about its consequences.

“I don’t get to care about you.”

“If I care about you—I won’t be able to use you. And you’re the only hope I have of keeping everyone else alive.”

“Then use me,” Kaine said. He was right next to her. He pulled her close and tried to kiss her. She jerked away. “No! No, I can’t.” She shook her head. Wake up, Helena. “I don’t want to do that to you. You don’t—deserve that. I can take care of myself.”

“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.”

“I’m alone, too,” he said.

“Necromancy doesn’t—bring someone back…” he said, “but that can be hard to remember in the moment. When it’s someone you know, when you can feel the span of their loss, it’s instinctive to think it costs that much to bring them back. What you did with Bayard was put a part of yourself into reanimating him. In other circumstances, you could have reversed it, untethered yourself, but he took all of it with him when he was destroyed.”

“You’ll recover, but it’ll leave a scar. You just have to stay grounded until your mind learns not to go there. Lucky for you, animancy should help with that.”

“This was a mistake,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “This won’t complicate anything for you. You wanted someone to be with, and I was available. I know it didn’t mean anything.”

That was the mistake of it, what she was so scared of.

“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. It was not like the previous night. It wasn’t comfort. It was claiming.

“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.” Helena knew she should go, but she had lost herself there.

She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Kaine Ferron, and it felt like home.

“You’re a far better person than I am. This world doesn’t deserve you at all.”

She shook her head. “I could survive without having to go as far as you did. That doesn’t make me better.” “You keep people alive. You touch them and your instinct is to save them, no matter who they are or what they’ve done to you. That is not a trait we share. It’s far more difficult than calculating all the ways to kill someone. And it costs you more.”

Without foraging, she filled her hours with new research, Shiseo taking the lead as they tried to perfect alchemy suppression upon the Council’s request.

Shiseo designed a nullium cuff to create targeted resonance suppression, locking around the wrist to blur the resonance into a feeling like static. Helena tested it, locking one around her own wrist, flexing her fingers, sliding it up her arm. When it was near her elbow, she could push through the interference. She shook her head. “These don’t fully suppress the resonance.”

we really wanted to completely erase it, I think it would have to be internal,” she said. “If the nullium were encased in ceramic, that would prevent the corrosion and biointerference. If you put a thin tube of it right through the wrist here”—she pressed her fingers against the space between the radius and ulna—“the cuff could slot around a suppression spike and alchemically lock in place. I bet there wouldn’t be any resonance then.”

Luc led another aggressive attack on the West Island, and they captured a warehouse. It was found filled with large tublike tanks of fluid with bodies inside, tubes connected to veins, and breathing masks fastened over the noses and mouths. Resistance fighters. All dead, but their bodies still warm.

When the perimeter had been breached, a gas had been released into the masks, killing them all mere minutes before the Resistance reached them.

Her mouth went dry. “But I have to save you.” “No.” The word was sharp. “You don’t. And you can’t. You are the only person who has never understood that.”

“We made a deal to tell the truth to each other, and that is the truth. You cannot save me. I cannot be saved.” She struggled to sit up, her chest aching as if her sternum had split again. “You don’t know that. Let me try.” He wrenched away from her and stood. She thought he’d storm out. She slipped from the bed, reaching after him. “Kaine.” He stilled at the foot of the bed. “You don’t get to have everything, Helena,” he said at last. “There’s a point when you have to realise that you aren’t going to get everything you want. You have to choose and let it be enough for you. You have other people. You promised Holdfast you’d take care of Lila and her son. You have a baby who needs you, and you know that.”

don’t want to choose. I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”

He looked back at her. “You’re not choosing. You promised me anything I wanted. I want you to stop breaking yourself trying to save me. Go. Live. Tell our daughter I saved you both. That—is wha...