Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“I promised I’d do anything for you.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “Maybe you didn’t realise how far I was willing to go.”

“But at this point I suppose I deserve to burn. I wonder if you’ll burn, too.” His face was so close the words brushed against her lips, and his mouth crashed against hers.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is 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.”

“Whether you win a battle or lose it, all I see is the cost.”

“Kaine Ferron has offered to spy for the Resistance,” said Crowther.

“He wants you, Marino,” Crowther said. “Both now and after the war.”

Lila’s prosthetic leg clicked as she shifted and then said, “I think the hospital’s worse than the battlefield.” Helena went very still. “I realised it when I was in there for my leg.” Lila’s gaze was faraway, eyebrows furrowing. “At the front—everything’s so focused, you know. The rules are simple. We win some. We lose some. You get hit sometimes. You hit back. You get days to recover if it’s bad. But—” She looked down, her fingers tapping absently along the place where her prosthetic was joined to her thigh. “—in the hospital, every battle looks like losing. I can’t imagine what that’s like.” She looked at Helena. “All you see in there is the worst of it.”

There was an alchemical array carved into his skin.

Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing, Unhesitating, and Unyielding.

“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”

“What you are doing is making him depend on you, to consider you someone he needs.

If you manage to succeed in this manner, you’re more likely to destroy the Eternal Flame than save it.

They do not share. They are obsessive about what they regard to be theirs. You do this and Kaine Ferron will never let you go, and he will not be content with being secondary to anyone.”

“You gave me to him,” she said, her voice full of fury. “Now, and after the war. Those were the terms. You said it was Ferron or lose, and so I chose him. When was he ever expected to let me go?”

There was a dull sense of emptiness that never went away now, a slowly growing wound that she couldn’t heal. She couldn’t fix herself anymore, and no one else seemed inclined to even notice she was breaking. You are all alone, and when the war is over, you will still be alone.

“Don’t go.”

“Helena.”

“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.”

“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.”

“If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should say so now,”

A thing apart, reduced to her functions. Healer. Chymist. Liaison. Tool. Whore.

Why would he so suddenly want her like this? Reality caught up like a blow to her chest: He didn’t.

“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.”

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” he muttered while she was finishing his hands. “You’re going to lose this war. No one can stop the Undying. They’re the new gods. Someday I’m going to be one of them. People are going to know the Lancasters.”

She was called in two more times before Lancaster finally broke.

Stay awake. You have to stay awake.

“I didn’t know that was something vivimancers could do,”

“It’s something only animancers are capable of.”

Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing, Unhesitating, and Unyielding.

laugh. “You know, I just realised, if I succeed, you’ll control Ferron the same way you use Luc to control me. It makes me feel rather sorry for him.” Ilva didn’t look at her. “Well, he’ll deserve it more than you do.”

the array was the punishment for a failure, what would the price of betrayal be? A smirk twisted his mouth as he looked at her. “There are far worse fates than dying, Marino.” She nodded. “I know. But that one you don’t come back from.” He gave a bitter laugh. “All right, then, but only because you asked.”

“You will do anything for that family, won’t you? But someday, Holdfast will realise you don’t belong in his kingdom of gold and purity. I wonder what he’ll do with you then.”

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

“When Orion fought the Necromancer, the souls were still conscious, aware of the betrayal exacted upon them—that the gift of ‘immortality’ came at the price of eternal enslavement. During the battle, the Necromancer’s control slipped, and the Stone turned on him. There was a light as bright as the sun. It filled the valley, destroying the Necromancer and all the necrothralls in a wave of fire. When it was over, Orion and his followers were all that remained.” Ilva shook her head. “If the truth of the Stone’s nature were known, Orion feared that others might be inspired to rediscover the methods, and so, when those who’d witnessed the battle called the Stone a gift from Sol, Orion had no choice but to let them believe it.”

“Mum has me on photo duty.” She tapped the contraption. Soren groaned. “Sit up and hold still. This thing is finicky.” Lila was peering into the apparatus, adjusting lenses, shifting back and forth. “Soren, don’t you have a spine somewhere? How do you manage to slouch in armour? You’re folded up behind Helena like a wet noodle. Luc, poke him, would you?” Luc reached behind Helena and obliged. “Much better.” Lila grinned, and Luc instantly did, too. “Right. No serious faces, it’s solstice. Be cheery.” They stared at the contraption, and just before the click, Luc’s arm wrapped around Helena’s shoulders, squeezing tight. Helena tried to force the corners of her mouth up as the camera flashed. Luc moaned, shielding his eyes. “Sol’s light, I think I’m going blind.”

“Nothing! I just spent a lot of time making that medical kit for you, and I did spend an hour teaching you how t-to use it, so—I think it would be really ungrateful if you—d-died.” He gave a hollow laugh and stepped closer so that his chin grazed the top of her head. His sigh was almost despairing. “All right…” he said, “but only because you asked.” The words ran through her like a knife through the chest.

That bitterness in his eyes—she finally understood it. He had been waiting for her betrayal. This was what held him back. He’d known from the beginning, before the possibility had ever occurred to her, and he’d trained her anyway.

It was possibly a kiss goodbye.

But his eyes… She could tell— He was hers. The realisation broke her heart.

“But the Eternal Flame’s noble families are too precious, I had to want someone they’d consider disposable, and Crowther was standing there, waiting for an answer. I had to come up with something. I remembered your name, on the exam lists. When I said Helena Marino, Crowther got this look in his eyes, and I knew he’d taken the bait.” He sneered. “As if I would betray the High Necromancer for you. I knew they’d send you with instructions to try to play up the obsession I was supposed to have—to ensure I wouldn’t get bored or change my mind—but I wasn’t worried. You were no one, just an awkward shadow behind Holdfast, following him like a dog. I thought it would be funny, watching you try.” He looked away from her then, his face twisting. “But you—you—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. You outmanoeuvred me. Or maybe I’m just too tired and grieving to keep pushing you away. You won.” He met her eyes for a moment, his expression bitter and derisive. “Well done.”

can’t—I can’t do this again—” he finally gasped out. “I can’t care for someone again. I can’t take it.”

“What happens to you?” “When you’re—gone?”

Everyone who touches you dies.

“I’ve spent a year working on the logistics of replacing you…I must admit, you are the most exceptional asset the Eternal Flame possesses. And I am sorry for that.”

Knowing now the Holdfasts’ method of selecting their “prodigies,” she did see the parallels between them: both brought to Paladia as talented children with nowhere else to go, their lives spent being lonely and useful because it was all they knew. Perhaps, looking at her as his successor, he did find her tragic.

“Perhaps someday, if I have time again, I can make you a list of all the things that apologies don’t fix.”

“Fine. I’m looking. I must say, it’s delightful, seeing all the guilt in your eyes.” He sneered, drawing back. “You know, I used to think the circumstances of my servitude to the High Necromancer as cruel an enslavement as anyone could conceive, but I must admit, it pales beside you.”

“At least before, I could console myself that it wasn’t my fault; acceptance was the best I could do to keep my mother safe. It’s different when I have no one to blame but myself.” His hand came up, his gloved fingers wrapping around her throat, pulling her forward. “After all, I did choose you.” She met his eyes, that deadened despair so visible when he looked at her. “I envied your naïveté, how you credited me with goodness and failed to realise that it was a setup from the very beginning. When you begged for a chance to heal me, I gave in. When you touched me, I didn’t push you away. I thought, Where’s the harm? It all ends soon enough, and life has been cold for such a long time.” She didn’t realise she’d started crying until his thumb brushed across her cheek. “By the time I realised I’d miscalculated, you’d already forced your way in. You were so obvious, but that only made it worse; knowing you’d let me do anything to you in the hope it would save everyone else, even the people who’d sold you in the first place. At least when I sold my soul, my mother prostrated herself, begging to take my place. I suppose, in some regards, I am luckier than you.” She gave a low sob. “After you nearly bled to death here, I thought, at least I can keep her alive. She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive. I thought eventually you’d give up. But you will do anything to save the people you feel responsible for. Of course you’d weaponise your guilt in order ...

She recognised the technique. She hadn’t realised he’d paid attention.