Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“You think it was an accident that we hated sponsored students like you? If we hadn’t, how would they have kept you so lonely and desperately grateful to them?”

He wasn’t even looking at his wife anymore. His gaze passed over Aurelia’s head, staring at a mirror that reflected himself and Helena.

“Your friends must have thought very little of you, if this seems like care.”

sardonic.

Touch him and she’d bleed, and yet she could not escape the allure of it.

Since the moment they founded this city, they set themselves up as kings while claiming not to be. They weren’t the lowly sort who’d ‘pursue’ power; no, they were divinely destined for it. Called, you might say.”

“Yes. Funny how often people in power hate politics, as if what they really want is to do as they please and be praised for it, and if they aren’t, then it’s all beneath them.

Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.

But worse still was knowing all that and still craving those rare moments in which he was gentle.

He was always cruellest when he was vulnerable.

For the first time, Kaine Ferron was fully human to her. She’d slipped through his walls and peeled away the defensive layers of malice and cruelty, and found that there he carried a broken heart. She could use that.

SHE COULD USE THAT 😭😭

Anger darkened his face. “Surely there’s something you’re looking forward to now.” She reached out, her fingers brushing over his heart. “No. I’m—spent.”

How nice it must be, to be a god.

Like a star, he was glittering and ice-cold from afar, but when the space was bridged, the heat of him was endless.

When he kissed her, it felt like the beginning of something that could be eternal.

She stared up at him as her whole world shattered into shards of silver.

“I think I’ve nearly memorised you,” she said. “Especially your eyes. I think I learned to read them first.”

“I memorised yours, too,” he said after a moment, and then sighed, looking away. “I should have known—the moment I looked into your eyes, I should have known I would never win against you.”

“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.” Helena knew she should go, but she had lost herself there.

She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Kaine Ferron, and...

Kaine was dressed, but he was just sitting beside her, watching her sleep, her fingers laced in his, as if there was nothing else to do.

“You’re a far better person than I am. This world doesn’t deserve you at all.”

She reached out, her fingers brushing back his hair. “Don’t worry. I’m always going to come back to you.”

How could anything endure so much hurt and not learn only to bite?

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.”

The journey, all the suffering, it’s what we need. How else can we be purified?

“I’m going to take care of you. I swear, Helena, I’m always going to take care of you.”

She’d feel the tension tear through his body the instant he came back to himself and feel him breathe when he looked up and saw her.

Helena would sit, tracing her fingers along Kaine’s face, following his every heartbeat and promising, “I’m going to take care of you. I promise, I’m always going to take care of you.”

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.”

She couldn’t imagine herself without him. She didn’t think she’d even exist anymore.

and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every life. Because of you.”

“You are so much more than what the war has done to you.”

“He’s a god. You’ll notice that making humans die for them is the gods’ primary mode of operation.

“You are. It doesn’t matter what happens to you, you will still be mine.”

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.

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

She wanted to commit everything to memory, the way he felt under her hands and against her skin, as if sufficient detail could make this secret thing real enough to endure; as if she could write it into the universe so deeply that even a war could not erase it.

“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.”

He had gone white, that scalding gleaming white. “Is this not enough? There are, undoubtedly, still unexplored depths to the potential misery between us. Shall we endeavour to achieve all of it?”

“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.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, entwining her arm with his as they sat there in the lengthening dark, amid the ruins of all they’d once been. They just needed more time.

She lay in his arms, listening to his heart. When she tried to picture home, this feeling was all she could imagine.

“We’ll go out together, won’t we, old girl? Bennet’s last two monsters.”

“There’s so much more to you,” she said, “but sometimes I feel like all I do is bring out the worst. You would never go so far if it weren’t for me. You wouldn’t be like this. I did this to you.”

I thought that we could suffer enough to earn each other.”

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.”

You loved her right into her grave.”

“It seems I am cursed to love as you do.”