Alchemised

by SenLinYu

Before she could shrink back, Ferron’s knee lodged between her shoulder blades and his hands wrapped around her jaw, holding her in place.

“So…” Morrough’s voice came from somewhere in the dark. “The Eternal Flame’s animancer is not dead after all.”

“Those difficulties are because she is resisting, because she can resist. This—she is the animancer.”

There was a pause punctuated only by the heaving rhythm of necrothralls. Ferron seemed frozen with surprise.

“There is only one answer: She is the animancer. Even now, with her resonance all but gone, she is still resisting. She erased her memory of what she is in an attempt to escape me.”

“Surely not.” Ferron’s voice broke through. “Stroud said it was impossible for any person to erase their own—”

“I beg your forgiveness for my failure,” Ferron said, his voice sounding hoarse with shock. “I never considered it.”

Have you forgotten what happens when I am disappointed?”

Ferron gave a broken gasp and dropped like a stone, falling not prone but over Helena, one arm braced just above her head.

No hint of breathing. He was completely still. He jerked, a garbled gasp rattling in his lungs as his chest began pulsing. He convulsed as though drowning, coughing up blood, as he pushed himself off her. “I-I will not f-fail you, I swear.” His voice shook, barely more than a whisper, and he rose unsteadily back to his feet.

“Watch her carefully. The Eternal Flame will come for her soon, I am certain of it.” “I will die before I lose her,” Ferron said, his grip tightening.

“You will have them. As I have given you all the rest.” Ferron’s voice had grown steadier. He bowed low.

“I—” Her throat closed, convulsing. “I—attacked a prison?” “It was after the final battle,” Ferron said, sounding far away. “Seems you were captured after levelling more than half the West Port Laboratory. You’d disguised yourself as a Hevgotian during the attack, and then disappeared into that tank afterwards, resulting in contradictory reports. The investigation was considered inconclusive until my father realised where he recognised you from. He was present that night.”

“I was a healer,” she said. “I wasn’t—they didn’t let me fight.” Ferron said nothing.

“Did this happen to you?” Her tongue was sluggish. She felt Ferron look at her, his pale eyes gleaming briefly in the darkness. “More than once…” he said after a long silence. “My training was rigorous.” “Why?” He shifted, muffling a low groan. “To see if I’d be better than my father, or if I’d break under interrogation, too.”

“Are you wanting a confession?” he finally asked. “Shall I tell you everything I’ve done?”

question rose to her lips, and she felt as if it was vital that she ask. She leaned forward, trying to see his face. “Do you want to?”

Ferron sat up front. When the motorcar emerged from the tunnel, she was almost blinded by the vivid white of the overcast sky, but she managed to make out his profile. He was slumped forward, eyes closed. Pale as death.

“Mandl wasn’t the first of the Undying to be killed,”

but it’s the Undying. They’re disappearing because they’re being killed, and you’re the one who’s been covering it up.” Ferron said nothing, his expression carefully blank.

In order to regenerate the way the Undying can, someone is paying for it.”

So if someone like you, an animancer, lost their body, you’d lose that ability, and if you thought being a lich was a punishment, something you do to teach someone a lesson, you’d cling to your body no matter what condition it was in and be desperate to figure out transference.

“The Undying. You’re his source of power, and the Resistance—we figured that out, didn’t we? How to kill him. How to kill all of you.”

Which meant that someone had, at minimum, touched the entire right side of her body. She shuddered and hoped it hadn’t been one of the necrothralls—but then reconsidered when she reviewed the alternatives.

bones barely jutted out. She looked healthy. Pretty, even. A Helena from a different life.

A woven body armour. That was why she hadn’t been able to stab him. He stopped in front of her, his expression unreadable, hands somewhere behind his back. “What made you realise?”

“Realise what? That Morrough’s dying or that he’s been creating the Undying as some sort of power source?” His mouth curved. “Let’s start with the latter.” She looked

Ferron said nothing. “Am I right?” she asked. His expression and posture were unreadable. “Does it matter?”

“Actually, I’ll tell you…if you tell me what it was that ended up being too good to be true for you.” She swallowed hard, staring at the mountains. “Paladia.” She drew a deep breath and looked at him. “Well?” He met her stare, eyes glittering with a strange look of satisfaction. “Yes, he’s dying.”

Her consciousness was split between herself and him, but with every passing second, she felt more like him than she did herself. Slowly devoured. She tasted blood. It was streaming from her eyes and nose.

She couldn’t help but notice the strain around his eyes and the stiff way he often moved. She began to suspect that Morrough was torturing him regularly.

with fury; he was in shock from torture. The symptoms showed more distinctly every time she caught sight of him. It was as though he were mentally eroding as the physical ramifications vanished. She tried not to notice. When she couldn’t help it, she tried not to care.

He’d chosen this, after all. Morrough was dying, and Ferron knew it, and yet he still chose to serve him, carrying out everything that Morrough now lacked the strength to do himself.

at her. “Worrying about me?” His face twisted into a gloating smile. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Her face burned. “Don’t take it as a compliment. I hate torture.”

“I’m sure sweet Luc would be touched by your tender heart.”

His fingers twitched. He almost managed to hide it by crossing his arms. “Is there really a difference between having someone die for you and killing them?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. But I can guarantee it.” There was anger in his smile. “Whatever happens to Morrough, the killer will be dead and gone long before he is.”

do, though,” he said, his expression so hard he could have been carved from granite. “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.” He sneered. “If the gods were real, they would have made Apollo Holdfast harder to kill.”

He seemed briefly startled by the question, then his emotions vanished like a box snapped shut. “Many people,” he said with an insolent shrug. He smiled, mouth curving like a scythe. “Most of whom are dead now.”

There’s this one girl, pretty thing, scars weren’t too bad. Little bitch managed to bite me, but she was very cooperative after I broke her jaw. I told Stroud to let it heal the old-fashioned way.” There was a dramatic sigh. “I’ll go back again this week, make sure she’s knocked up, and if not, I guess I’ll try again.

Helena’s head was swimming. Do something.

“You were supposed to be mine. I’m the one who caught you while you were busy gutting Atreus. When I saw you in the ruins of the lab, everything in flames, the sky blazing, and all those thralls around you. You looked like Lumithia born from fire.”

“I guess we’ll have to stay quiet for now. Don’t want Ferron interrupting us again.”

“Going somewhere, Lancaster?”

When Lancaster had disappeared, Ferron turned towards Helena. His face was rigid with fury. “You idiot—why did you come out tonight?” Helena just looked at him.

What she’d tried to tell Lancaster. “Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

She started shaking. “Stop,” Ferron finally said, his voice tense.

“I don’t like when people are dead,” she said in a small voice. He sighed and sat down beside her, taking the cloth away from the necrothrall.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a tense voice. He took her by the shoulders, turning her towards him.

She knew he wouldn’t. He only hurt her on certain days, and this wasn’t one of the...