Alchemised

by SenLinYu

She hated this war. She had thought she could do anything. That she was strong enough for it. That there would be no limit to what she was willing to do or endure. Apparently, Kaine had become her limit. She couldn’t imagine herself without him. She didn’t think she’d even exist anymore.

He leaned over Helena one last time, stroking her hair. “You’re safe. I promise.”

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.

She could feel Kaine watching her and forced herself to speak. “I think your scars are prettier than mine,” she finally said. “I have a better healer.”

“Do you see my scars that way?” he finally said. “When you look at me, are they all you see?” She flinched. “No.” “Well.” He met her eyes. “I don’t see you that way, either. You’re mine.” He let go of her wrist and lifted his hand, the fingertips tracing the scarring until it was covered by his palm, warm against her bare skin, then sliding up to curve around her neck. “You are. It doesn’t matter what happens to you, you will still be mine.”

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.

But he knew she wouldn’t. He swallowed, not meeting her eyes. “Don’t get hurt again,” he said instead. “Don’t—” She rose up on her toes and cut him off with a kiss. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Don’t die.”

She nodded wordlessly, and he relaxed on the reins, Amaris immediately moving to spring, the wind rushing around her wings. “Don’t die.” She must have said it too quietly, because he didn’t answer.

“What happened to us, Hel?” She stared at him, and her pathetic, starved heart leapt for a moment before she realised the obvious. This wasn’t Luc; this was the opium talking. “A war.” She looked away from him to the ruined city before them. A view which had once been so beautiful.

He ran his thumb across her knuckles. “You know I would if I could. I’d run with you and never look back.” “I know—” Her voice broke. “Don’t die, Kaine. You can’t leave me behind.” He sank back down beside her, and didn’t leave until she stopped crying and fell asleep.

She never thought she could know a person with such slow intimacy. She knew exactly how he would press his lips against the pulse-point of her throat, the way his body shifted when she was beneath him. The grip of his hands on her hips, his teeth grazing her inner thighs, and the heat of his tongue. “Mine. You’re mine,” he said as he kissed her. “Always.”

Someday, she promised herself, someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.

Afterwards, he gathered her against his chest, chin resting on the top of her head as his fingers drew patterns across her skin. I’m going to take care of you. I’m always going to take care of you. He didn’t say it audibly, but she could hear it in the shifting of the air, the way his jaw moved when he mouthed the words.

“You’re mine,” he said almost against her lips. “Mine. You swore it. Your Resistance sold you to me. I’m not going anywhere without you. And if anyone touches you, immortal or not, I will kill them.”

Helena’s throat closed, but in that moment, she knew: This was not Luc.

Omg????

“You were the Necromancer,” Helena said, realising. “The one who built the cult in Rivertide. After you made that Stone, you called Orion here, but when he saw what you’d done, he tried to kill you.”

I’m genuinely shocked omg???

Cetus had cannibalised Luc, wearing him like a skin.

Damn

He stopped at the doorway and looked back at her. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t leave this room.” Helena’s throat tightened. She looked over, and her lips parted, to say— To say— She looked back down to the paper in front of her. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

I’m going to KMS!!!!!!!!

“Take care, Shiseo,” she said. She started to turn, then paused. “If I don’t come back—if you ever see Kaine, tell him—tell him that I—” Her head dropped down, and she quickly brushed her fingertips across her cheeks. She cleared her voice and shook her head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows.”

😭😩😩

She lay falling into her loss. Pinned by the weight of her grief. How could she get up now? How could she bear it? Kaine. Her eyes snapped open, and she clawed at her throat, trying to push back the sedation, fumes filling her lungs. She’d told him she’d be waiting for him. 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.

The only thing that remained was Kaine’s ring, hovering in the corner of her vision even when she looked directly at it. It had worked; even resonance hadn’t found it in a strip search.

She would redirect her thoughts, transmute her memories until her mind stopped running to him. She couldn’t confess to something she didn’t remember.

The last two years of her life, she pushed down beneath the surface as if to drown them. There was no other way. Kaine was almost everything now. Without him, there was just emptiness.

Where there was space she couldn’t reconcile, she filled it with Luc. Not his death, not Luc from the war; the Luc she’d promised to save. The version of him he’d tried to be. The Luc who’d always believed in her. It was the way he deserved to be remembered.

The burning came again, cutting her panic short as she tried to place where the sensation was coming from. She knew that feeling. Her hand. Her left hand was burning. The ring. Her heart stalled. Kaine. He’d come back and found her gone. She’d told him she’d be waiting, and she wasn’t there. The ring burned again and again and again. He was looking for her. He’d come for her. He always did.

If Kaine found her, he’d understand. She could wait. Hold on. You promised you wouldn’t break.

A hand brushed against her shoulder. She gave a strangled scream, her head snapping up. It was Kaine. He was leaning over her, his pale hair and silver-bright eyes visible in the dark. His fingers trembled as he stared at her. She studied him in shock. He was different. Older. He wasn’t old, but his eyes had a look as if it had been decades since she’d last seen him. She gave a sob and reached for him. “You’re alive,” she said. He flinched back as despair swept across his face. She didn’t understand why.

Oh I’m crying 😭😭😭

“Why—” Her voice broke. “—why did you kill everyone?” He seemed startled by the question, as if he’d expected one of the others. “I was trying to find you.” Her heart stalled, body and mind torn between horror and relief. “You looked for me?” Her voice cracked. A look of anguish flashed across his eyes. “Of course I looked for you. I looked everywhere for you. Did you think I left you there?”

😩😩😩😩😩😩

“When you were asleep, I used to promise I’d take care of you,” she said. “No.” He said it harshly. “That was me. I was the one who used to say that.” She opened her eyes. “I used to say it back. I guess you didn’t know.”

She had fits all through the day. Davies added vials of various drugs to the saline drip until Helena lay in a stupor, unable to think. It was dark when the mattress dipped and a cool hand brushed back the curls clinging to her face, tucking them behind her ear. Her hand was picked up, long fingers entwining with hers. Kaine’s thumb stroked across her knuckles, finally stopping at her ring finger, spiralling something there slowly. The ring. She’d forgotten all about it.

He turned away, and she reached out on instinct. “Kaine…” He stopped, and she instantly withdrew her hand. She forced a tight smile. “Be careful. Don’t die.” He stood unmoving for a moment, staring at her, and then turned away. “Right.”

“I had really hoped the library would keep you busy for at least a week,” he said, looking exhausted.

Lmao he’s sooooo 💀

“There has to be another way,” she said, when she could speak again. “We said we’d run away together. Remember? Why can’t we run away? You said you travelled; we could run and I’ll find a way to reverse what happened to you. The other countries will deal with Morrough if you’re gone. Why can’t we do that?”

He just looked down. “We have a long goodbye in front of us. I don’t want to fight you, but I will not do anything that puts you at further risk.”

MY SHAYLAAAA 😩😭😭😭💔💔

Helena sat up. “It would have killed me. If you’d sent me away and I’d found out later you were discovered because I made you go back for Lila, it would have killed me. I’d do it all again, every second, to save you.” He turned to look at her, shock and rage sweeping across his face. “You didn’t save me,” he said when he was finally capable of speech. “You just put us in hell for two years.”

☹️☹️

He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same. “I’m going to take care of you,” she mouthed silently.

“Be careful,” she said. “Don’t—” The word caught in her throat. She squeezed his hand. “Come back to me, all right?” “I will.”

“You’re mine,” she said, heart pounding unsteadily against her ribs. “Did you really think I would still hate you once I remembered?” She shook her head. “Even before I did, you were the only thing that ever felt safe. I thought I was going mad, but a part of me always knew you. I left a note. Didn’t you get my note? I love you.”

“I do,” she said more firmly, her voice shaking with intensity. “I love you. And I always will. Always.” She rose up on her toes, pulling him closer, and kissed him. He stayed frozen when her lips touched his. “I love you,” she said the words against his mouth, as if breathing them into him.

He was still a moment longer and then shook, his palms cradling her face, fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her closer, his mouth burning as he kissed her. He kissed her like he was starving. As though he were trying to pour himself into her or consume her. He’s mine. He is all mine, was all she could think. She wrapped her arms around his neck, meeting every caress of his lips on hers. He drew back just enough to speak, his palm curved around the nape of her neck, his forehead resting on hers. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for everything I did to you,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”

CRYING FOREVER 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

He said all of this without any emotion, a flat recitation. He looked around. “I should take you up to the spires,” he said at last. “I’d remember more from up there, I think. It’s strange…I don’t know why I have so much trouble remembering moments.”

☹️🥺

She shook her head. “I 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.”

“Helena, I’m tired.” She looked up and saw it in his eyes. The war had eaten him; it had carved him to the bone and not stopped even then. He was scarcely more than a ghost.

😭😩💔

Her shoulders shook. “But…I want to save you back.” “I know.” He said it gently. “And if anyone could, it would be you. But I would like to say goodbye to you before you’re gone, and you are losing yourself in this.” He pulled her into his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head.

He rested his head against Amaris, and her wings fluttered. She turned her neck to nip at him. “We’ll go out together, won’t we, old girl? Bennet’s last two monsters.”

CRYING OMG

“Why are you always so ready to die?” she said, whirling on him even though she’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t be angry anymore. “Even at the beginning when you made your offer to Crowther, you were already planning to die, like it didn’t matter to anyone. But why are you still like that now, when it does?” Kaine sighed, jaw jutting forward. His thumb pressing against the ring on his hand. “I didn’t have anyone, Helena,” he said quietly. “After my mother died, I was alone. My life was blown apart when I went home at sixteen, and everything I did from that point on was to keep from losing the only thing I had left. When she died—it didn’t matter. Revenge was all I could do to make up for it, and dying for that didn’t matter to anyone—not until you came along.”

Soon this would be all that was left of Kaine in the whole world. “I’m going to take care of you,” she whispered. “It’s—our way.”

“What did he do?” Helena said, afraid of the way he’d avoided the question. He exhaled. “He ripped out my heart first. Said it was—f-fitting…” Helena was speechless. It had never even occurred to her that something like that could be survivable. He managed a grimacing smile. “I think I owe the Principate an apology—terrible way to go. Although growing back was the worst part…”

He’s so funny even when I’m crying 😭😭😭

The voice was distorted, but she knew it. She reached out dazedly as Kaine’s face flickered in her vision. “You came—” She reached for him. “I guess you always do.” “Hold on, I’ll get you out,” he said, pressing her hand down and pulling her close.

He shook his head as they neared the door. “You need a willing soul for that, and you’re not going to find one, because the only person who’d die for me is you.” She stared at him as if he’d struck her in the throat. “What? You’re not even going to ask me?” Atreus’s voice rose tauntingly from the ground.