Alchemised

by SenLinYu

Because she might not believe in the gods, but she had believed in him, that he was good and kind and cared about everyone.

“Elain Boyle,

Hmm?

In the stasis tank, she’d told herself over and over that she’d survive, that she had to hold on. She couldn’t explain why.

It was the iron guild heir. Kaine Ferron.

“The war is over. What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours?”

“Holdfast is dead,” he said sharply, as if he’d seen the answer in her eyes. “The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”

He seemed—distilled. As though he’d been taken and sublimated until all that was left was an essence—something deathly cold and gleaming. The High Reeve. Not a person, but a weapon. Well, Helena would be sure to treat him as one.

Perhaps that ouroboros dragon was not merely a pretentious decoration but something the Ferrons prided themselves on. An omen of a destructive, insatiable hunger which left nothing but ruin in its wake.

She looked up at him. “You’re a monster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”

“You don’t remember?” He shook his head. “Did you even do anything during the war? The way the Holdfasts used to parade you around, you’d think you would have at least tried to be useful, but you have the most unexceptional personnel file I’ve ever seen.”

Curious

Kaine Ferron, where is the chink in your perfect armour?

He didn’t look at her. “I was commanded to marry her, so I married her. I was never commanded to care.”

Helena inclined her head. “Yes. You seem strangely concerned about me thinking such a thing.”

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

Ferron had caught the blade in his fist, wrenching it up overhead. His other hand was wrapped around her

!!!!

“Why don’t you ever stop?” He let go of her, shoving her back. Her hand, numb with pain, lost its grip. “Why don’t you die?” There was no point in being coy. She wanted to kill him; they both knew it.

“I will die before I lose her,” Ferron said, his grip tightening.

Her eyes were dead. There was no fire in them. The spark she’d once regarded as the most intrinsic part of who she was had gone out. She was a vibrant corpse, hardly different from the necrothralls haunting Spirefell.

He deserved to suffer.

Does he? Im feeling bad for him

“This is a story with only one ending. If your Resistance wanted something else, they should have made different choices. Perhaps some hard, realistic ones, and given up their fanatical notions that the righteousness of their cause made their victory inevitable. They were fools, every one of them.”

“She’ll never be yours.”

“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

Oh shit

The world was not supposed to be beautiful any longer. It was supposed to be dead and cold, forever mirroring the misery of Helena’s life. Instead it had moved on, tilting into a new season, and she could not. She was trapped forever in winter, in the season of death.

“Oh, Marino.” His thumb trailed along her neck, following the scar below her jaw. “If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.”

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

Trapped in Spirefell, she was latching on to any glimpse of kindness, any sense of tenderness her mind could fabricate. But it wasn’t kindness. He wasn’t kind; he simply wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t as monstrous as he could be.

but she could feel herself eroding, desperate to have something in her life that was not pain. That was not dead and gone.

“Stay…please…stay.”

“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me.” The words were growled in her ear.

“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.”

!!!!!!!

“I swear it, on the spirits of the five gods and my own soul, Kaine Ferron, I’m yours as long as I live.”

Surely I deserve something in return, to warm my cold heart.”

“It’s power that gets you off, isn’t it?” Her voice shook with rage as she forced herself to move down to the next button. “Hurting people is the only way you know how to feel anything. But now even that barely does it for you, so you have to find new ways to do it, make your victims responsible for their pain; making it a choice they made, a vow they consented to. That’s what thrills you now. Using what people care about to coerce and enslave them rather than having to do the physical work of hurting.” She scoffed in his face. “You think you’re better than us because you’re immortal, but you’re dead inside already.”

Damn. Harsh. Read his ass.

before. “Was it a punishment for you—being made Undying?” He glanced at her, his face empty. “How could immortality be a punishment? It’s what everyone wants.”

There was a fragility that she had been unprepared for. He’d seemed so human, and she didn’t like thinking of him as human. Undying. Murderer. Spy. Target. Tool. That was how she needed to view Ferron. Not as someone who could be hurt. Not as someone who didn’t understand blood loss and who rambled explanations. Not as someone who assumed a hand extended was meant to hurt him.

“Should I not call you Kaine? It seems odd to keep going by surnames. We’re going to be around each other for the rest of our lives, you know.”

Sobbing

Undying. Murderer. Spy. Target. Tool. She repeated the list to herself, but her conviction in them rang hollow.

“I—” she stammered. “I would see if I could make it loyal.” “And if you couldn’t? If a monster can’t be made loyal, what would you do then?” Their faces were close. Helena’s throat tightened, her heart beating too fast.

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

Her anger reignited. “You have no idea how hard it is to save someone, to fix all the ways the people like you break them.” She glared at him. “I hope someday you have to try. See how little you think of it then.”

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.”

“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,”

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

They were the inverse and counter to each other. A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.

“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.”

She’d thought for so long that she could do anything. For the war. For Luc. That she had it within her to pay any price. Now she’d found her limit.

You need to fight dirty. Forget every word you’ve ever heard about honour in combat. The honour is surviving.”

It was not a slow, sweet kiss. It was not a kiss caused by alcohol or insecurity. It was born of rage, despair, and desire so hot, it threatened to burn her into oblivion. It was possibly a kiss goodbye.