Alchemised

by SenLinYu

There were no bandages underneath. His entire back was a rotting wound, lacerated surgically from his shoulders down past his ribs. There was an alchemical array carved into his skin. He inhaled and she could see the white of his ribs, scored with grooves. The incisions over his shoulders were the worst of it. Not merely cutting to the bone but into the bone, carving into his shoulder blades, a lumithium alloy welded in, bonded with the bone to keep the array intact and activated. Whatever regenerative abilities Ferron had, it was not enough to counter an injury of this magnitude. Arrays could be simply illustrative, to record or visually calculate a process, but they were also used for transmutation or alchemisation when the process was too complex for simple resonance manipulation, or when working with organically derived compounds that tended to be volatile. Drawn with chalk or charcoal, or etched into a surface with a stylus. But Helena had never seen anything like what had been done to Ferron.