Alchemised

by SenLinYu

All she knew was that as long as those manacles remained locked in place, she wasn’t an alchemist at all.

He didn’t think a person’s abilities changed who they were, only what they did with them.”

Perhaps that ouroboros dragon was not merely a pretentious decoration but something the Ferrons prided themselves on. An omen of a destructive, insatiable hunger which left nothing but ruin in its wake.

The sconces in the hallways were lit, driving back the shadows as he headed to the far end of the wing, descending a new flight of stairs to a set of doors that opened onto a veranda in the courtyard.

Everywhere she looked was grey: the dead grass and leafless, skeletal trees, the dark house with its black vines and spires, even the washed-out slope of the mountains, white peaks shrouded by the mist of an overcast sky.

It was as if all colour had been leached from the world. Except her. She stood there in blood red, stark against the monochrome.

The Faith said that a soul and body remained joined together as one until cremation. It was only when fire consumed the flesh that the ethereal soul was untethered from the crude earthly form. A person who had lived devoutly and without vice would release a pure soul that could ascend to the highest of the heavenly realms. If a body was not burned, the soul was left trapped, unable to ascend and in danger of becoming tainted by the body’s putrefaction.

“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.”

“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “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?”

“Come here,” he said, withdrawing a vial containing several small white tablets, watching her reaction to it. “What are those?” she asked when he unscrewed the top and tapped one out. He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you if you swallow it like a good girl.”

At zero, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Aurelia’s. A camera flashed. The room exploded with cheers, and kissing, and clinking glassware. 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.

Her mind struggled to catch up. Ferron had caught the blade in his fist, wrenching it up overhead. His other hand was wrapped around her throat, holding her back.

“There is only one answer: She is the animancer. Even now, with her resonance all but gone, she is still resisting. She erased her memory of what she is in an attempt to escape me.” The pressure growing in Helena’s head was so intense, her vision disappeared. “Surely not.” Ferron’s voice broke through. “Stroud said it was impossible for any person to erase their own—”

“Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I’m not sure I ever knew what I wanted.”

A Helena from a different life. But her eyes— Her eyes were dead. There was no fire in them. The spark she’d once regarded as the most intrinsic part of who she was had gone out. She was a vibrant corpse, hardly different from the necrothralls haunting Spirefell.

“You idiot—why did you come out tonight?” Helena just looked at him. She thought she should say something. What she’d tried to tell Lancaster. “Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered. He stopped short. His jaw locked, fists clenching, saying nothing for a moment. Then his throat dipped, and he sighed. “What did he do to you?” he asked in a low voice, kneeling next to her.

The world was not supposed to be beautiful any longer. It was supposed to be dead and cold, forever mirroring the misery of Helena’s life. Instead it had moved on, tilting into a new season, and she could not. She was trapped forever in winter, in the season of death.

She’d thought sometimes that someday, when she’d repaid her debts, accomplished all that was expected, and reached her own goals, she would like to be loved. To know what it was to feel wanted. Now this sick shame was all she knew.

“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.

“I would rather spend the rest of my life being raped in Central than spend a minute of it having feelings for you.” The air in the room seemed to freeze. “Well,” Ferron said after a long silence, “with luck you’re pregnant, and there will be no need for either choice. You’ll be left to yourself.”

“I have something for you,” Ferron finally said. Something heavy pressed onto the duvet. She glanced over. There was a thick book beside her. The Maternal Condition: An In-Depth Study on the Science and Physiology of Gestation. She looked away. “Why?” “Because you’ll wear your brain smooth if you don’t find answers to all the things you want to know.” He sounded resigned.

“I—I will never ask anything of you—” His expression went flat and cold, and something inside her broke but she kept speaking. “You can do anything you want to me. I’ll never ask for any mercy from you, but please—don’t do this…” He stood, impassive. “It—this baby—it’ll be half yours. Don’t let them—” she said in a broken voice. “I’ll do anything you want—I’ll—I’ll—”

“Stay…please…stay.” The light grew and the strangest sensation came over her, a glow inside her chest, familiar even though she was certain she’d never experienced anything like it before. The constant feeling of strain inside her chest, like a thread pulled to the verge of snapping, slowly faded away. She closed her eyes, drawing a struggling breath, and the dream dissolved into nothingness.

“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.”

It was like falling. The past broke free, surging through her mind and swallowing her.

“And I’m going to be the one who puts you back together, over and over, until I have to watch you die instead. And we still won’t win.”

“After all, I did have to give up some rather precious information to earn you. Surely I deserve something in return, to warm my cold heart.”

“You think you’re better than us because you’re immortal, but you’re dead inside already.”

Her cheeks were still hot as she packed up all her supplies, refusing to look at him again. He spoke just as she was leaving. “Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”

She couldn’t fix herself anymore, and no one else seemed inclined to even notice she was breaking. You are all alone, and when the war is over, you will still be alone. She blinked as the figures below blurred into halos of gold and silver.

“I remember your hair. Is it still the same?” She flushed. He would remember that, of all things. “Unfortunately,” she said. “Like you, then,” he said, twisting the curl so it wrapped around his fingertip, “trapped in place, but still the same somewhere underneath.”

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.”

Lila was headed in their direction with a large, intricate box hanging from her neck. She stopped in front of them. “Mum has me on photo duty.” She tapped the contraption. Soren groaned. “Sit up and hold still. This thing is finicky.” Lila was peering into the apparatus, adjusting lenses, shifting back and forth.

“That’s not going to happen, Luc,” she said, her voice low. Even if he had to believe in this lie, she couldn’t be a part of it. She couldn’t live as a prop in this deceit. “What?” She looked down at her gloved hands, as emptiness hollowed her lungs. She swallowed hard. “When this is all over, I don’t want you to think of us as friends anymore. I think it will be better that way for both of us.” “Why?” He looked horrified. “Because I’m not your friend anymore. Your friend Helena Marino died in a field hospital six years ago. She doesn’t exist anymore. I need you to let her go.”

“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.”

“Perhaps someday, if I have time again, I can make you a list of all the things that apologies don’t fix.”

When he reached Helena, his eyes were burning with rage behind his mask, glowing bright as molten silver. “You idiot,” he said, and dragged her up out of the water, crushing her hard against his chest.

“Tell me you can last long enough for me to get a doctor.” His voice was shaking. She shook her head. He was breathing fast, but he swallowed. “Then you’ll have to tell me how. Can you still do that?” “All right,” she said unsteadily, even though she wanted to pass out more than anything.

“She’s dead,” he said. “You are not. My loyalty was to those least responsible for her suffering, but if the Eternal Flame has decided that you are an affordable casualty, I will not be noble or understanding. I can exact dual revenge. I will make them pay if they get you killed.”

“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.” She wanted to say she would, but she couldn’t bring herself to. He was a spy that they depended on. And she was— Not his handler. No, that role belonged to Crowther. She was— A prison.

“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 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.

His expression flickered, just enough to reveal a shard of possessiveness, something ravenous and desperate. Then it vanished and he let her stand, resignation sweeping across his face. She reached out, her fingers brushing back his hair. “Don’t worry. I’m always going to come back to you.”

“It’s a war, Kaine. People die. Given your personal death toll, you should know that better than anyone else. You know that I’m not going to prioritise my survival over everyone else’s.” He stared at her for a long terrible moment, the rage stark on his face. “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.”

His shoulders slumped. “If you die, Helena, I’m done. I won’t continue this. I’m tired.” He looked at her, and she could see the whole war in his eyes, the toll that came from struggling with no end in sight, driven by a terror of what might happen if he ever stopped. “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.”

I love you. It was right at the tip of her tongue, but she hesitated, biting the words back. There was a part of her that felt she might doom them if she said it. If there were important things left unspoken, tomorrow would come. She kissed him instead. I love you. She told him in the way she held him close; in the way her mouth met his; in how her hands trailed across his skin, mapping him, memorising every detail of what it was to be with him, his scars under her fingers. I love you. I love you. She told him in the way she let go of herself and held on to him instead. With every beat of her heart. I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you.

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

If she didn’t go back, he’d return to find a mess of hastily assembled explosives and her scrawled note. I love you. I love you. I love you. She forced herself up. She wasn’t going to die. She wouldn’t leave him behind. She had to go back.