Alchemised

by SenLinYu

She was a vibrant corpse,

Things that seem too good to be true usually have a price you don’t know about until it’s too late.”

“Well, you—you have a natural talent for it. In another life, you could be a healer.” “One of life’s great ironies,” he said, glancing towards the door, his jaw tight.

His expression was one of utter despair, but as he stared at her, a look of starvation filled his eyes.

“But at this point I suppose I deserve to burn. I wonder if you’ll burn, too.”

He wasn’t kind; he simply wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t as monstrous as he could be.

She rarely drank alcohol, and now she was reminded why. It felt so much better to feel like this than the way she actually felt all the time: like a raw nerve.

“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.”

I wasn’t scared of being dead, but I was worried my father or I might slip away like that and leave the other all alone. So he’d hold my hand until I fell asleep, so I’d know he was there. You looked lonely just now, so I thought…”

“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.”

A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.

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

There was a hunger inside her that she couldn’t explain, a pit of want to taste and feel and hold and not be always, always empty. She wanted to curl up so tight alongside him that she vanished.

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 was a collar around Kaine’s neck, and her job now was to bear it.

“You could be a healer,” she finally said as he removed the block on her nerves. She flexed her hand, opening and closing. It was still sore, and fragile as though hairline-fractured. “You have a natural talent for it.” “That’s one of the most ironic things anyone has ever said to me,” he said quietly.

“She’s dead,” he said. “You are not. My loyalty was to those least responsible for her suffering, but if the Eternal Flame has decided that you are an affordable casualty, I will not be noble or understanding. I can exact dual revenge. I will make them pay if they get you killed.”

He wouldn’t let go. He gripped her tighter. “You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”

“This is war,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “It’s not some sort of tragic self-condemnation to be expendable. It’s a strategic liability not to be.” She met his eyes. “That was why you picked me, remember?” Her voice broke. “Well, thanks to you, I’m worth less now. They added all these new healers after you asked for me. I had to train all my replacements.” She gave a bitter laugh. “You made me as expendable as I am now. And you didn’t even want me, either.”

“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”

“Then use me,” Kaine said.

She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Kaine Ferron, and it felt like home.

“Don’t worry. I’m always going to come back to you.”

“Call me, and I will come.”

“You’re mine. I’ll always come for you.”

if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s 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. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”

“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.”

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.

She didn’t close her eyes. She kept them open and watching him, trying to notice every detail. 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.

“Every time you asked, I promised I was yours. Always. There aren’t any exemptions or expiration dates on always.”

“Why is it that I have to keep all my promises, but you never seem to keep a single one of yours?” She shook her head, tilting up her face so their foreheads touched. “The first promise I made to you was that I’d be yours for as long as I live. I’m keeping that one.”

“We said always, didn’t we?” she asked, her voice strained. “Always. Well, if you don’t want that promise in full any longer, I’ll give it to you in increments.” She clutched his hand tighter. “Every day. I’ll choose you. That way you’ll know it’s still what I want.”