Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“The world already knows she’s mine,” Ferron said, his words pointed, “but if you’d like, I can remind them.

“You irritate my wife,” he said.

“Besides, if I didn’t leave you on the floor retching, you might make the mistake of thinking I care.”

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

mountains. The stars appeared in the night sky, shining briefly before the moons rose. Luna first, a deformed quarter moon in the far horizon with her soft light, ushering in a gentle twilight. Then Lumithia rose. She was a waning crescent, but still more than double Luna’s size and so bright it hurt to stare directly at her. She ascended into the sky like a white sun, the constellations vanishing behind her light until only the planets and a few stars remained visible in the black abyss of sky. Glimmers fine as diamond dust.

“She’ll never be yours.”

“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

“What did he do to you?” he asked in a low voice, kneeling next to her.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a tense voice.

“I’ve tried to be patient with you, Aurelia. I’ve been willing to overlook your indecent behaviour and petty interferences, but do remember, aside from being somewhat decorative, you are useless to me. If you ever go near her again, or speak to her, or so much as set foot in this wing again, I will kill you, and I will do it slowly, perhaps over the course of an evening or two. That isn’t a threat. It’s a promise. Now get out of my sight.”

He didn’t speak or meet her eyes, but he was there constantly. Sitting sometimes for hours with her hand in his as if it could keep her from slipping away.

“Stay…please…stay.”

“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.”

“Do you remember Kaine Ferron?”

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

“Ferron was quite specific that you have to be willing.”

“I don’t need time to think,” Helena said.

“You say we’re losing the war, and this is the only option, so—I’ll do it.”

“It’s an odd request, don’t you think? Why would Kaine Ferron, the iron guild heir, want Helena Marino?”

“He could have asked for anything, cited a crisis of conscience, demanded a mountain of gold, but instead, he wants…you? It’s an irrational choice.”

“An obsession is a weakness, and a weakness is an opportunity for us. As we established, you’ll go to Ferron twice a week and bring his missives safely back to me, and during those visits, you will do anything he wants.”

“You understand the terms?” he asked,

She met them. “A full pardon. And me. In exchange for your information.”

“Now and after the war.” His eyes glittered as he said it.

“Yes,” she said, without emotion. “I’m yours.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“Swear it, then. I want to hear you say it as a vow.”

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

“Well, since you’re a void of creativity when it comes to gratitude: Kiss me like you mean it,” he said,

He cleared his throat. “I have something for you.”

She caught it reflexively, studying it. It was a tarnished silver ring;

“A symbol of our relationship,”

“There’s a mirrored entanglement in them. If I do anything to mine, you’ll feel it. I’ll transmute it to warm briefly if I need to meet. Twice if it’s urgent. I’d advise coming very quickly if it ever burns twice.”

“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.” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“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

“Would you do something for me?” The question was quiet. She looked up. His expression had relaxed again, and his hair had fallen across his forehead, softening his features. She scanned him quickly. “What do you want?” He tilted his head. “Will you take your hair down? I want to see it.”

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

He was gentler than she thought he could be. He looked at her like he saw her. And he was asking. She kissed him.

“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.”

“Don’t die, Kaine,” she said.

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.”

Without thinking, she reached out, touching his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Kaine.”

“It’s—it’s an, um—it’s an emergency healing kit,” she said, trying to explain herself quickly before he could refuse it. “I made it with things that will work with your regeneration.”

“You realise I can buy medicine, and I don’t particularly need it.”

“Not these. I developed them. They’re designed to work with vivimancy—or regeneration in your case.”

added, “I should go. Happy solstice. I hope your days grow brighter.” He did not return the season’s greeting but then spoke as she reached the door. “Marino.”

“I have—something for you,” he finally said,

Inside lay a set of beautiful daggers, sheathed in mesh holsters.

“You are not ever allowed to take these apart or turn them into medical instruments. Not for anyone.”