Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“If they don’t turn up, the High Reeve’s sent to hunt them down, and they’re always dead by the time he brings them back.

The murals and art had been scraped from the walls, the portraits and gilding all gone, leaving the interior brutal and raw, but she knew the intricate metalwork of the lift gate. She’d seen it every day since she was ten.

Penny leaned over the arm of the chair, looking back, her face stricken. “You were right. I’m so sorry. We should have listened to you.” There was no time to ask what she meant.

He turned. Helena’s throat closed as the world around her vanished, footsteps faltering. He was not old at all. It was the iron guild heir. Kaine Ferron.

He seemed—distilled. As though he’d been taken and sublimated until all that was left was an essence—something deathly cold and gleaming. The High Reeve. Not a person, but a weapon.

“You’re a monster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”

“What happened to us, Hel?” he asked as she crouched down beside him. She stared at the horizon, past all the towers, towards the south. “A war,” she said. “You used to believe in me. What did I do to make you stop?” His voice was faraway.

“Do I know you?” she asked as her eyes slid closed. “I suppose you do.”

“Who do you hate so much?” Until then, she hadn’t realised the depths of his anger. It was like the ocean that went on and on, and all its promises were death. He seemed briefly startled by the question, then his emotions vanished like a box snapped shut. “Many people,” he said with an insolent shrug. He smiled, mouth curving like a scythe. “Most of whom are dead now.”

She thought she should say something. What she’d tried to tell Lancaster. “Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

“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.”

Everything was falling in fragments around her as Ferron reappeared, his face white with rage, his eyes glowing that bright unearthly silver. “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 wouldn’t be done to anyone who didn’t consent while they were still alive. Our soldiers are willing to die for the cause; why not at least give them the choice to keep fighting and spare the living?” “What do you know about fighting?” The question came from behind her. She looked back, but there were so many people glaring at her, she couldn’t even guess at who’d spoken.

“You have no idea what it’s like in the hospital.” “No, I don’t,” Soren said in a flat voice, “and neither does anyone else in there, so I don’t know why you thought screaming at them while looking like that would change their minds.”

“Kaine Ferron has offered to spy for the Resistance,”

“He wants you, Marino,” Crowther said. “Both now and after the war.”

“I’m sure Ilva has filled your head with pretty stories about your importance, but you’re easily replaced. We already have several candidates under consideration.” The room went briefly out of focus, and Helena felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.

“He could have asked for anything, cited a crisis of conscience, demanded a mountain of gold, but instead, he wants…you? It’s an irrational choice.” Crowther drummed his fingers thoughtfully. “A sign of some kind of subconscious obsession perhaps.”

“Yes,” she said, without emotion. “I’m yours.”

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

“No,” he said sharply, his voice startlingly vehement. “You don’t ever summon me. You burn me, ever, and this deal is off. I’m not a fucking dog.

You were right about him, he’s incredibly prideful. Just the idea of being called by me practically threw him into a rage.”

“Are you wanting a confession? Shall I tell you everything I’ve done?”

“You look so bitter.” Ferron’s mocking voice drew her back. His eyes glittered. “You’d think I just demanded you fuck me rather than not. Disappointed?” Slow rage was seeping through her. “Do you always buy your company?”

“Do you leer at and fondle all your unconscious patients, or am I special?” Ferron’s voice was as unexpected as a bucket of ice water. Helena started, her heart slamming into her throat as she snatched her hands away, her face scorching hot. “I was not,” she said, her voice tight and rising, even though she had no excuse for touching him that way. “I was just wondering about your body fat ratio.” “Of course you were,” he said, sitting up with a suggestive smirk.

“Am I supposed to care? Do you think that ruining your life is the worst thing I’ve ever done?”

“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?”

“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”

“Will you take your hair down? I want to see it.”

“If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should say so now,” he said.

She knew that people enjoyed sex, but she had always thought it was an indulgence. She had not known it was a hunger. Or that she was starving.

“Why are you crying?” he finally asked. She smeared at her cheeks with her hand. “Because I’m lonely, and kissing you, and you don’t even like me.”

“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.”

They were the inverse and counter to each other. A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.

“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.

“The basics?” He pulled a watch out of his pocket. “You’ve been talking for over an hour.”

“We were losing, and it was only because of him that we could retake the ports. He did that for us. You didn’t see him the day I went back. He knew he’d be punished; he expected to die.” She gave a panicked breath. “If you wanted him dead, you should have told me. Crowther said to do what I could.”

“In the future, perhaps tell me what you want instead of expecting me to fail where it’s convenient to you. Maybe then we’ll both end up less disappointed in each other.”

You cannot bring a mad dog to heel.” She shook her head. “But very well, you’re welcome to refuse; it doesn’t matter, we have more than enough evidence of his treachery. Jan has been assembling a comprehensive package. It would be a trivial matter to send along to the Undying. I suppose you could say the case is ironclad. Do you prefer that? Do you think they’ll kill him this time?” Helena’s chest felt as if it had been punched through. “You can’t do that to him.”

“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.”

“If I was ever your friend, let me go now.” She jerked her hand free and fled the house.

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.

She leaned closer, her hand sliding up from his chest to his shoulder to pull him forward and kiss him. It was not a slow, sweet kiss. It was not a kiss caused by alcohol or insecurity. It was born of rage, despair, and desire so hot, it threatened to burn her into oblivion.

Despite how cold he often was, a dragon was an apt sigil for the Ferrons. He kept walls of ice around himself, but there was fire in his heart.

“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.”

“Is it—actual crawling? Or was there something more constructive Ilva had in mind?” Her throat closed. “I—I’d have to ask.” “Find out. I’ll do it.” He looked exhausted, but now there was an edge of something seething in him. “Are you really offering?” she asked, certain it was a trick. He gave no response. “Why are you offering?” Her voice rose, a note of hysteria in it. He looked up at her a moment. “I realised just now that I’d miscalculated something. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d made you marketable.”

“Kaine, I—” “Don’t—use my name. I hate the way it sounds on your tongue.”

But bad news was always the hospital’s fault. How nice it must be, to be a god.

Of course you’d weaponise your guilt in order to use mine.” He gave a low bitter laugh. “I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now 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.”