Alchemised

by SenLinYu

Ferron was silent for so long that she finally looked up at him, morbidly curious, but he was unreadable. Still as a statue as he stared at her.

Aside from the predatory intensity to his eyes, his features were almost too fine, like a statue carved a stroke too far.

“But I don’t think it’s possible to exceed what you’ve done to yourself.”

His right hand pressed into the mattress by her head, and he turned her chin until she was looking straight up at him. Her heart shuddered. His pupils were contracted, the grey of his irises like a storm.

“You don’t remember?” He shook his head.

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you if you swallow it like a good girl.”

She expected him to release her immediately, but instead he pulled off his gloves and took her face in his hands, fingertips pressing along her jaw.

“I hate you,” she forced out between her clenched teeth.

She could feel him altering her as if she were an instrument he was tuning; tampering, adjusting, manipulating her until she felt empty.

much as the bad. She was carved out and empty. An abyss instead of a human. “Is this what it’s like to be you?” He gave a dry laugh. “Like it?”

“It feels like I’m dead,” she said. He made an odd sound. “Well, the effect is temporary. It’ll only last a few hours.”

He stepped towards her and leaned so close, his breath ran along the length of her neck. “Why would I torture you when you won’t react?” he asked softly in her ear.

developing. This would be the perfect state to be in to finally kill herself without any sense of self-preservation holding her back. “Outside,” he said again, a look of irritation flashing across his face as if somehow reading her intentions.

He scoffed. “Hardly. You’re terribly boring.”

usually wore nothing, not even a wedding band. The only piece visible was a slender, dark metal ring on his right hand.

He looked down. “This?” he asked, as if there were any other rings she could have been referring to. He turned his hand. “Just an old piece.”

but a severely tarnished silver ring, as if he never took it off to care for it. It was hand-forged rather than transmutationally crafted; she could see the hammer marks that had beaten a scaled, almost geometric pattern onto it.

Irritation flickered in his eyes. “Try it, and I’ll bring it back up again. All you’ll get is a sore throat.”

“Oh, is that all? And here I was hoping you were plotting to seduce me.”

“Who knows, perhaps I have a proclivity for—” He paused, studying her, trying to find something. Helena walked away. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“The whole house has been turned upside down because of her. Just look at the banisters. They make the foyer look like some giant birdcage, but Kaine insists we keep them like this now. He bites my head off if I even leave a door open, and the thralls are never around when I need them.

Helena stared down, studying the wings, the spines, the fangs, and the sleek body curving into a circle as it consumed itself.

The pressure from his resonance developed more gradually. It felt like diving too deep underwater, and when the weight finally began to crush her, it was too late to escape. His resonance smothered her consciousness until her thoughts fragmented, flattened. Her vision turned red, and something warm ran from the corners of her eyes and over her temples.

I hate you. Traitor. Coward. I hate you. Ferron paid no notice. He was eerily still, as if distracted by the alien plane of existence he had forced himself into. He didn’t do anything this time, didn’t even look around.

He touched her jaw, and she felt warmth under her skin where the muscles were so rigid that they might crack, coaxing them to relax.

“Who are you?” she slurred through her teeth. Myriad emotions flashed across his face. He opened his mouth, then shut it firmly. “I’m in charge of your care,” he finally said very slowly, saying each word precisely. His

“Do I know you?” she asked as her eyes slid closed. “I suppose you do.”

She was supposed to run away, to go somewhere. But she needed—something. She wouldn’t go without it.

“What are you doing? You’re freezing yourself to death, you idiot.” Ferron carried her inside.

There was someone else with them, but even her dreams flinched away from the face.

In another, it was Ferron at the front of the room as if called up for a demonstration. He stood there, morphing steadily from a dark-haired boy into a pale silvery nightmare, his colour turning into blood that dripped from his hands.

“There are a few things scheduled to arrive tomorrow, to spare myself any additional inconvenience from all this. Please”—he placed overt emphasis on the word—“do not mistake it for a sign of affection.”

“You don’t remember me,” he said in disbelief. There was a hint of offence in the way he said it, as if she should know him instantly.

“And in the future, if you’re curious about something of mine, you may ask.

Erik Lancaster. Why would he expect Helena to recognise him?

There were two girls, clearly sisters. The younger one had sharp features and a canny look about her, while the older sister looked as if she’d been cast from the same mould but softened somehow, her edges worn down, like a statue left to weather. The older girl wore a pale-bluish paint on her skin and seemed disinterested in the party around her. When people tried to talk to her, she’d ignore them. Sometimes she’d drift away as if caught by an invisible current, and the younger sister would immediately break off her conversation and go after her, coddling her and snatching things off passing trays and feeding her canapés as if she were a baby bird, holding her hand to keep her close. An odd pair.

He was in black, as always, and it made the silvery whiteness of his hair and skin starker. Not the grey of death like the liches and their imitators; he gleamed somehow. There was something so distinctly strange about him.

Ferron’s lips remained pressed against Aurelia’s, but as he kissed her, he raised his eyes, and his gaze locked onto Helena’s face.

Helena sat back, pressing her hands against her chest, willing her heart to stop pounding.

Curiosity bloomed in his eyes, real interest rather than the feigned attention he’d employed during the party. “You’re full of surprises.”

“Do you say that to every girl?” The words popped out thoughtlessly.

He was glaring at her. “It’s impressive how determined you are to be difficult.”

“Keep a lot of people in cages, Ferron?” His jaw clenched, throat dipping as he swallowed. “Only you,” he said, glancing around at the intricate, iron interior of his ancestral home. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“She’s dead,” Ferron said coolly as he closed the door. She heard it lock from within, and then the iron in the wall screeched, warping. The door would not reopen for anyone without iron resonance. “She can’t be hurt.” He said it almost glibly, but Helena suspected he was not as indifferent as he tried to appear.

Helena rounded on him. “Why keep them?” He shrugged. “It’s hard to find good staff nowadays.”

“How long have you had them?” His mouth split into a grin. “Interested in keeping a few of your own? I doubt n...

sight.” “Well,” he said, fingers spanning her lower back as he pushed her firmly away from the now warped door. “I doubt Aurelia would feel much disappointment if you met an unfortunate end. It might spell my demise as well,

“I was commanded to marry her, so I married her. I was never commanded to care.”

“You sound as enslaved as I am.”

He paused and turned slowly to face her. “Are you trying to provoke me? Or sway my allegiance?” He gave a dark chuckle...