Alchemised

by SenLinYu

Don’t trust me. Don’t trust the Eternal Flame. We’re all liars.

He was always cruellest when he was vulnerable.

She wanted him to know. It was real. For her, it had always been real.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kaine.”

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.

“I’m sorry.”

“When you can’t die, people keep hurting you until you can hurt them more.”

If Helena had come out and said that surgery was a success and Lila was already getting out of bed, they’d all be off to the perihelion to offer Sol flames of thanksgiving. But bad news was always the hospital’s fault. How nice it must be, to be a god.

Her body was shuddering, but she cried silently. There was a trick to sobbing like that; it was something a person had to learn to do.

“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 to use mine.”

“I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”

“So forgive me if I dislike looking at you. I’m still adjusting to the ways...

“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.”

If he expected more than that, he would have to wait. And earn it. She looked up at him, willing the words to form, but they stayed trapped in her throat. She was so tired. Life had been cold for such a long time.

“You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”

“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.”

He touched her cheek, tilting her face up and kissing her. “Use the ring, call me, if you ever need anything.”

She hadn’t known necromancy was like that. That she would never be free of the person she brought back. No wonder necromancers went mad. Who could stay sane with the minds of the dead inside them?

“You don’t have to push me away to protect me,” he said in a hard, familiar voice. “I can take it. You can stop being lonely. I won’t misunderstand. I know you just want someone to be with.”

“I’m alone, too,” he said.

Don’t be alone. Have this with me.”

“I think I’ve nearly memorised you,”

“Especially your eyes. I think I learned to read them first.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he caught her hand, capturing it against his chest. “I memorised yours, too,” he said after a m...

“I should have known—the moment I looked into your eyes, I should have known I woul...

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

Life was not cold.

Pain and mutilation. Of course the chimaeras were savage. How could anything endure so much hurt and not learn only to bite?

I want to be remembered as someone who tried at least.”

To keep order, it is important that the guards are not the enemy. Instead, you make the prisoners think their trouble is other prisoners, a different unit or sector. Those prisoners are the reason this prisoner has less; the rules they hate are those prisoners’ fault. By making privileges always at the expense of others, the prisoners forget who has made those rules. Morrough liked this idea. To take the souls, he must make the prisoners blame someone else. Even after the energy was taken, the blame must continue to be misdirected.”

“Call me, and I will come.”

She never had and never would heal anyone the way she healed Kaine: in his arms, pressed against his body. She’d bribe him into cooperation by pressing openmouthed kisses across his shoulders, hands, and face while her resonance found every place he was hurt, checking him over meticulously until he’d grow impatient and pin her hands down, pushing her back on the bed and taking her slowly. It was always deliriously slowly. He’d stare into her eyes until she almost felt their minds touching.

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

“You can tell me. I’ll help you carry it.”

I brought in doctors, but they said there was nothing wrong with her but a weak constitution and tendencies towards hysteria.

“Being alive is not the same as living. I hope someday you’ll have a chance to realise the difference.”

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

She could feel Kaine watching her and forced herself to speak. “I think your scars are prettier than mine,” she finally said. “I have a better healer.”

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

I love you. She told him in the way she held him close; in the way her mouth met his; in how her hands trailed across his skin, mapping him, memorising every detail of what it was to be with him, his scars under her fingers. I love you. I love 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.

Everyone leapt to the conclusion that the properties of the obsidian came from pyromancy; that the obsidian must be infused with holy, cleansing fire.

“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we all remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”

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

“You’ve always done the worst things because of me.”

Helena’s throat tightened. She looked over, and her lips parted, to say— To say— She looked back down to the paper in front of her. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I want you to stay,” she said, her voice a whisper.

I’d do it all again, every second, to save you.”

“You didn’t save me,” he said when he was finally capable of speech. “You just put us in hell for two years.”

He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same.

I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”