Alchemised

by SenLinYu

The only piece visible was a slender, dark metal ring on his right hand.

“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is 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.”

There are many people like you in the city who prefer the idea of necrothralls fighting instead of their sons.

I would too.

“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”

“Is there anyone you don’t feel responsible for?”

“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,”

“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.”

“Then use me,” Kaine said. He was right next to her. He pulled her close and tried to kiss her. She jerked

He pulled her close, crushing her to his chest. “You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”

“A tiny piece, I admit, maybe never an important or mathematically significant one, but still a piece. You and I are not separate from it. No one is. It matters to me, everyone who’s died and everyone who will, and everyone who suffers. As long as I exist, I will always care. And that means that part of the universe does.”

His resonance hummed beneath her skin, following the pathway of her nerves and veins, mapping her. Not erotically, but in the same panicked way her own resonance sometimes flared when she was afraid someone was hurt and wanted to find the injury.

She hadn’t expected him to be so obsessively worried. She’d observed his quick arrival at the Outpost, the careful way his eyes would track her, but she hadn’t considered how deep the fear cut into him until he didn’t have to hide it.

He’d dip his head forward, kissing her inner wrist or the palm of her hand, his silver eyes locked on her face. “You’re mine. I’ll always come for you.” He always did.

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.”

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

“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.”

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

have to go without you—if you—if you die—I’d want to tell them all about you.” She swallowed hard. “I’ve never gotten to tell anyone about you. I’d want someone to know what you were like.”

I left a note. Didn’t you get my note? I love you.”

“I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”

I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”

“This was ours…” She swallowed, blinking hard. “They took it from us, but it was ours.”

He dipped his head. “Why is it that I have to keep all my promises, but you never seem to keep a single one of yours?”

It was like watching someone starve to death, him looking for you.

Helena watched him and recognised the expression that slowly filled his eyes as he stared at the tiny person tenaciously clinging to him: possessive adoration.

Kaine talked to Enid more than he talked to anyone, even Helena.

She was a non-active member of the Order of the Eternal Flame and did not fight.