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In this new world, death claims only the unworthy.
“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.
“Why? Because of you?” she asked bitterly, going towards the fire instead, sinking onto her knees in front of it. She couldn’t think she was drowning here. She shook her head. “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.” He wouldn’t let go. “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. A lump rose in her throat, her heart pounding. “But I don’t want to hurt you, you don’t deserve—”
When he kissed her, it felt like the beginning of something that could be eternal.
“I should have known—the moment I looked into your eyes, I should have known I would never win against you.”
He pulled her close, crushing her to his chest. “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.”
“My mother was tortured at our country estate, and all the staff murdered. We moved to the city residence, and that’s where she died. I wanted somewhere else to go, away from it all.”
Secreted away from the rest of the world, she felt that she could finally see him for his own sake, rather than only through the lens of the Eternal Flame’s interests.
“When did you realise that I didn’t know you were supposed to die?” she asked rather than stand. He released a long breath. “The first time you arrived on the Outpost. I could tell by the way you looked, you thought it really was forever.”
He looked away. “It was—funny at first. I kept waiting for you to catch on.” Heat spread across the back of her neck. “I thought that when I pointed out that you should’ve known about my punishment, you’d realise it was a setup, but you didn’t. Then I assumed that it would have been explained to you by that evening or the next day, but you just kept coming back. I figured there must be something else they wanted, but it was clear by then they weren’t going to tell you. I almost did, a few times, but—” He sighed. “—I suppose I enjoyed the way you wanted to save me.”
“I thought if I was just cruel enough, you’d give up. That you’d have a limit, that once I found it, you’d stop—finding ways to emotionally blindside me.” He gave a low sigh. “I spent such a long time waiting to be betrayed, I didn’t want to care when it happened. I was trying to hurt you, but I am so sorry that I did.”
“I don’t know why I kept trying. You just had these moments when I could see how little of you was real. When you’d forget to pretend, you always seemed so lonely. And I was lonely, too.” She looked down at the scar in her palm. “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.”
“You’re a far better person than I am. This world doesn’t deserve you at all.”
“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?”
“I want to do good in the world. That was what my father wanted most for me.” She looked down at her hands. “I know most people won’t think I have. I’ve done things now that I don’t think I’m supposed to be forgiven for. But I want to be remembered as someone who tried at least.”
“Be careful, Kaine. Don’t die.”
“I—I liked foraging. I used to go with my father, during the summers.” There was a pause. “I didn’t realise it was important to you.”
“Sometimes it was the closest thing to freedom I still had.”
“There are things I’ve been a part of that I know the Eternal Flame would never officially approve of. I don’t know what will happen if it all comes out.”
Her chest tightened as she thought about those rooms underground where Crowther had taken her so many times now. The blood. The burns, the flayed body parts, tangled nerves, split open and twisted apart in horrible, terrifying ways. Helena’s name was beside Crowther’s in those prisoner logs. Her handwriting cataloguing in clinical terms the injuries she’d healed, the condition of the prisoners when they died or were placed into those horrible underground cells. She knew it was intentional on Crowther’s part, having her listed as the medical personnel on-site. Leverage.
If the war was won, without Luc on her side, she had few friends.
“Would you go now, if you could?” His eyes seemed to ripple with heat. “With you, I would.” She forced a smile. “Then we’ll go together. After the war.” She gripped his hand and pressed it against her chest, letting him feel her heartbeat. “When the war is over. We’ll run away somewhere no one knows us. We’ll disappear—forever.”
have to keep it out of the way when working, and I’m always on call for emergencies. It’s practical.” He looked unconvinced. “I want to see you more.” Her fingers stilled. She could see the hunger in his eyes. Possessive. Ravenous. He would drag her from the war and hide her the instant she let him. The conflict was visible in his eyes. Want. Want. Want. She felt it like her heartbeat.
“I’ve always been on call for you,” she said. “If you call me, I’ll come here as soon as I can.”
“I thought you said if I ever burned you—” He captured her hand and pulled her close. His other hand slid possessively up her throat, fingers tilting her head back, and he kissed her, long and deep, before he drew away to meet her eyes. “Call me, and I will come.”
“I promise, Kaine. I’m always going to be yours.”
“Be careful.” It was always the last thing she said to him before he left her on some rooftop. She would hold his face in her hands, staring into his eyes. “Don’t die.” He’d dip his head forward, kissing her inner wrist or the palm of her hand, his silver eyes locked on her face. “You’re mine. I’ll always come for you.” He always did.
Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing, Unhesitating, and Unyielding.
The battles began to blur together. Except now there was a medical ward for nullium injuries, and the casualty rates skyrocketed, infections and disease becoming an increasing threat. First came overcrowding, followed by shortages in clean linens and bandages, and then the blood infections began and sickness followed.
Lila’s voice showed no pride or excitement for what would be a historic accomplishment, because there was no chance that she could reenter combat, stripped of her former rank, without the scandal following her. Her reputation and legacy were irrevocably stained.
“Being alive is not the same as living. I hope someday you’ll have a chance to realise the difference.”
“You can’t save everyone,” he said quietly.
“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.”
A warning shriek rose from the rubble. Long and piercing, followed by another and another. Whistles. Helena didn’t know what it meant.
She was in command. She had a stupid slip of paper declaring it.
But beyond her fury was an even greater sense of horror at what this meant. He’d become the very threat that Crowther had feared. Once he would have been loyal to them for the sake of avenging his mother, but Helena had usurped that, given him a new and uncontrollable source of obsessiveness and rage.
“I know your face too well.” He sighed. “You’re thinking you’ll have to kill me now, aren’t you? That I’m too much of a liability.” She said nothing, refusing to open her eyes. “Would you really do it?” She looked at him. “You know—you know I will not choose you at the price of everyone. It wouldn’t even save you if I did.” He looked away then. “You’d never forgive yourself.” Her jaw trembled. “No. I wouldn’t—” Her throat grew thick. She struggled to swallow, unable to lift her head. “But it wouldn’t be the first unforgivable thing I’ve done. What’s one more line for the history books?” He was
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She couldn’t imagine herself without him. She didn’t think she’d even exist anymore. She gave a choking gasp, struggling for air, lungs rattling. Suddenly Kaine was over her, holding her face in his hands, tilting her head so she could breathe. That was all the embrace possible. “Just live, Helena.” His voice was shaking. “That’s all I’m asking you to do for me.”
Helena gave a low sob, lungs whistling as she fought to breathe. “I can’t promise that. You know I can’t promise that. But I can’t risk what you’ll do if I die.” He kissed her. She could taste the plea on his lips. “I’m sorry,” she kept saying again and again, “I’m sorry I did this to you.”
“So you would have killed them but didn’t because it would have raised inconvenient questions.” His eyes flashed. “Yes, I did all of this for convenience, which you know I have so abundantly in my life with my two mutually exclusive masters.”
“I don’t want you to kill people because of me.” He gave a barking laugh. “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.”
“Don’t.” He sat on the edge of the bed, picked up her right hand. “Don’t carry it. It’s not yours. Stop trying to carry a whole damned war on your shoulders.” “This is all my fault, though,” she said. “I did this to you. I made you like this. Someone should regret that, and you can’t. But if I do—maybe that will be enough to make you stop someday.”
“You’re always angry, but you can’t make threats like that or reduce a war like this into a simplistic blame game. And you can’t hold the Resistance hostage to control me.” His shoulders slumped. “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.”
“There is a life for you on the other side of this war. You have the Stone. If Morrough dies, you might be fine, and you’d be free. You could do—all sorts of things. Don’t reduce your world to me.”