Alchemised

by SenLinYu

She had to endure. To stay alert. That way she would be ready. She had to stay ready. She would not let herself fade away.

The woman was a vivimancer. Necromancy’s inverse twin, wielded on the living rather than the dead.

“This is elaborate, beautiful, professional work. A vivimancer manually rewiring the human consciousness.”

“I didn’t—fight.”

All of the Undying, regardless of their forms, are the High Necromancer’s most ascendant followers. Their immortality is the reward for their excellence. In this new world, death claims only the unworthy.

By its nature, lumithium bound the four elements of air, water, earth, and fire together, and in that binding, resonance was created.

All she knew was that as long as those manacles remained locked in place, she wasn’t an alchemist at all.

Helena shook her head, struggling to accept it, but of course Lila was dead. For Luc to be captured and killed, his paladins had to be killed. That was the oath they took, to die for the Principate.

Where have you been? Why didn’t you save Luc? You were supposed to, but you didn’t. He died! We all watched it. And the Bayards are dead. And everyone in the Eternal Flame is dead—except you. And you think I should care about my eyes?”

She couldn’t. She couldn’t see him again. The only time she’d ever seen the High Necromancer, Morrough, he’d killed Luc. Luc, who’d been the whole world to her.

She was in the Alchemy Tower. In the very heart of the Alchemy Institute that the Holdfasts had founded. This was Central.

“No! Please, no—it wasn’t my—” “Do not fail me again, Mandl,” Morrough said, “and in time perhaps I will permit you a better reliquary. Perhaps your original.”

“The transmutation done to her isn’t something another person could do. Those memories are too deeply enmeshed with her mind. However, if you had someone capable of such complexity—a healer, as our friend says she was—perhaps she…” “You’re saying she did this to herself?” Stroud gestured towards Helena with scathing disbelief.

Who was Elain Boyle? Helena didn’t know the name, and she was sure there had never been any other healers, much less a personal one, designated for Luc alone.

Did she remember Principate Apollo Holdfast’s death? Yes, she had been in class with Luc.

That a drop of sunlight endowed Orion Holdfast with such godlike abilities that all his descendants deserved to rule Paladia like gods themselves?”

“You would have been somebody. You’re nothing now. You spent yourself on the wrong side. No one will ever remember you. You’re ash, like all the rest. And a traitor to your kind.”

The guilds’ sedition would have been easy for the Order of the Eternal Flame to stop if it hadn’t been for Morrough. He appeared amid the upheaval seemingly from nowhere, offering immortality. Not an endless life of decay, but one impervious to age and injury, discovered not through any divine power but through science.

This wasn’t Crowther. One of the Undying was wearing his corpse.

Penny leaned over the arm of the chair, looking back, her face stricken. “You were right. I’m so sorry. We should have listened to you.”

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. After all, the whole point of her healing had been to ensure the survival of the others, to be a fail-safe so that Luc would not die. There was no use in a healer when everyone was dead.

If she could provoke him, he might kill her on impulse. One mistake was all she’d need, and her secrets would be lost.

He was not old at all. It was the iron guild heir. Kaine Ferron. She stared at him in stunned recognition.

“The war is over. What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours?” She met his stare without flinching. Luc. She was protecting Luc.

“I understand those bracelets keep you from using alchemy. Although that hardly matters here. The Ferrons built this house with pure iron, and there’s a reason I was chosen as Kaine Ferron’s wife.”

It was only when she was alone that it struck Helena as odd that Aurelia had escorted her. Perhaps the Ferrons weren’t as wealthy as their home would make them seem.

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.

The Ferrons themselves had also been common. Blacksmiths and ironworkers making ploughs and farm tools more often than holding illustrious jobs like forging steel weapons for the Eternal Flame the way other iron alchemists had.

During the six occasions Helena took the national exam, top rank had swung like a pendulum. Helena Marino. Kaine Ferron. A rivalry, albeit an indirect one, never openly acknowledged.

She’d beaten Ferron before. If she was careful, and clever, she would do it again.

In general, the guilds only sent sons to the Institute; daughters were for marriage. They might be taught alchemical parlour tricks, but they were rarely certified.

Helena could only guess based on the comments Shiseo had made, even though they made no sense because Helena had been the one who’d healed General Bayard when he was first injured. She’d tested the limits of her knowledge and abilities trying to save him, painstakingly regenerating the damaged brain tissue. When he’d survived, people had called it a miracle, declaring Helena’s hands to be blessed by Sol.

Helena had saved his body and learned the bitter lesson that a mind was a thing apart and she had not saved it. She’d tried and failed for years to fix what she’d done.

The roses rippled as if underwater, floor shifting, and around it circled a black dragon. It was curled inwards around the table, wings spread out, head curved down so that its tail was caught within its teeth, consuming itself. An ouroboros.

Choose. Who lives and dies. She had to decide. It would be her choice.

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.

The High Necromancer hopes that if there’s anyone left, they’ll feel morally obligated to rush in and save the Flame’s last ember.” He glanced sidelong at her. “I have my doubts, but no harm in trying, I suppose.”

If there was any trace of her soul, it was smothered beneath Ferron’s will. She looked up at him. “You’re a monster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”

Ferron had been accused of killing the Principate? The assassination responsible for causing the war?

There was no reference anywhere to Kaine Ferron being the High Reeve. Was that a secret?

There were statistics presented about how Paladia’s economy was expected to continue to shrink due to a multigenerational loss of alchemists. The solution, the author declared, was sponsored births. The article suddenly stopped being editorial and read more like an advertisement.

It was a breeding program being passed off as an economic solution. As if alchemists were dogs to mate in pursuit of economically desirable transmutation abilities.

“You know,” Ferron said, jolting her from her thoughts, “when I heard it was you I’d be getting, I was looking forward to breaking you.” He shook his head. “But I don’t think it’s possible to exceed what you’ve done to yourself.”

Her mind flipped like a coin between the dark-haired Ferron in the painting and the silvery-pale iteration that now existed.

“You know, it’s a pity I can’t use you as one of my program’s trial subjects. I was rereading your admission paperwork. You had a remarkable repertoire.”

“Well, you won’t have much luck with me. I’m sterilised.”

“It was one of the conditions the Falcon had for allowing me in the city. Since vivimancy is a corruption of the soul that begins in the womb, it could—it could be passed on. I’d already taken vows as a healer that I wouldn’t ever marry or have children, but he—” She swallowed. “He wanted to be sure.”

“And of course you agreed,” Stroud said, withdrawing her hand. “Because you thought they’d accept what you are if you only reduced yourself enough.”

Your Eternal Flame was quite adept at identifying potential vivimancers not even born. It was, what, thirty years ago that Principate Helios mandated that all pregnancies be managed by the Faith’s hospitals. Devout doctors trained to know what to look for and what solutions to offer. What kind of parents would want to keep a monster once they’re warned of the danger?”

Helena had loved him for how human he was. He didn’t need to be Principate or favoured by the gods. He’d been good enough just as he was.