Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“I’m going to take care of you. I swear, Helena, I’m always going to take care of you.”

“Kaine, I’m all right. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

endanger me to punish you. I’m not a hostage. I’m in this war because I choose to be. I’m not fragile. I’m not going to break. Please.”

“If we really wanted to completely erase it, I think it would have to be internal,” she said. “If the nullium were encased in ceramic, that would prevent the corrosion and biointerference. If you put a thin tube of it right through the wrist here”—she

You dont know what you're suggesting

She’d only let herself cry over him when he wasn’t conscious to see it. She gripped his hands in hers, trying to fix him.

Helena would sit, tracing her fingers along Kaine’s face, following his every heartbeat and promising, “I’m going to take care of you. I promise, I’m always going to take care of you.”

“You’re a vivimancer,” Helena said.

???

“All this time?” Helena said softly, startled by the sense of betrayal she felt. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you but—you know what it’s been like for you. I couldn’t risk that, not with Luc at stake. I couldn’t be like you—fighting’s all I’m good at.” The revelation was more than Helena felt she could process right then.

Lovely

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

You’ve always poured your all into the present moment, as if that’s all you expect to have.”

“Marino?” “Yes?” She didn’t know Althorne had any idea who she was. He leaned towards her, his voice dropping. “What are you doing here? Get back to Headquarters before Ferron finds out about this.” She was speechless, but of course Althorne had to have known.

“When are reinforcements coming?”

“They’re not,” Althorne said quietly, as if to keep anyone else from overhearing. “We’re all there is.”

The fallout has to be contained,”

She’d promised Kaine that she was safe, that nothing would happen to her. She could not die.

Some way to tell him she was sorry. That she had tried.

“What’d you do…?” “What did I do?” Kaine repeated slowly. “I saved your life.”

I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s 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. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”

Fingers tucked a stray curl behind her ear before brushing across her cheek. “I know your face too well.” He sighed. “You’re thinking you’ll have to kill me now, aren’t you? That I’m too much of a liability.”

She couldn’t imagine herself without him. She didn’t think she’d even exist anymore.

“Just live, Helena.” His voice was shaking. “That’s all I’m asking you to do for me.”

“I’m sorry I did this to you.”

“What exactly is it that you think I do with all my time? I kill people. I order other people to kill people. I train people to kill people. I sabotage and undermine people so that they will be killed, and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every life. Because of you.”

Stop trying to carry a whole damned war on your shoulders.”

“If you die, Helena, I’m done. I won’t continue this. I’m tired.”

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

“What are you doing?” she asked after watching for a little while. His eyes flicked up. “Studying human anatomy for my future career as a healer,” he said in a dry voice.

“We can open a practice together, like my parents did. Up on a cliff. We’ll be able to look out the windows and see the tides.”

“Do I get any say about this future life of ours, or are you making all the decisions?” “Do you have ideas?” There was a pause. “Can’t say I do.”

“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.

You’re mine.”

It doesn’t matter what happens to you, you will still be mine.”

I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you.

“Don’t get hurt again,”

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Don’t die.”

“Don’t die.”

“I promised I’d do anything for you.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “Maybe you didn’t realise how far I was willing to go.”

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked. Everything. “Nothing,” she said. “I think I forgot to breathe after you left.”

They were both drenched in the dead.

“You’re always in danger, and I can never ask you to stop.”

“Don’t die, Kaine. You can’t leave me behind.”

“Mine. You’re mine,” he said as he kissed her. “Always.”

She wished that all of this had begun sooner; there was so much time they’d missed.

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

“If I survive, I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“You’re mine,” he said almost against her lips. “Mine. You swore it. Your Resistance sold you to me. I’m not going anywhere without you. And if anyone touches you, immortal or not, I will kill them.”

You should have known. You should have noticed.

One moment, the expression and characteristics were still there, and then Luc sighed and seemed to vanish beneath his own skin.

Luc laughed. It was the timbre and note she’d heard a thousand times over the years, but the malice and mockery in it were all new. “I am Morrough.”