Alchemised

by SenLinYu

There was no use in a healer when everyone was dead.

In a way, it was strangely poetic that it was Helena who’d been brought as a captive to Spirefell. She’d beaten Ferron before. If she was careful, and clever, she would do it again.

“You’re a monster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”

She searched for Ferron and found him standing towards the far side of the room. It was like spotting a panther amid a flock of exotic birds.

“If the gods were real, they would have made Apollo Holdfast harder to kill.”

“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

There was plenty of monster in Ferron, lurking beneath the surface.

There was a loud bang outside the door, as if someone was trying to break it down. Aurelia jumped. There was another boom. Aurelia smiled. “I think he’s noticed I’m in here,” she said.

The scream shattered the air. Not one voice but several all at once. All in unison. “Aurelia!” The thralls were screaming through the door. Inhuman, tearing rage in their voices.

The whole house shook as the floor rippled, like a creature come to life. Aurelia let go, turning in bewilderment. Before she could do anything, iron bars tore themselves out of the floor and walls, darting towards Aurelia like striking serpents, closing around her and dragging her away.

Aurelia was spluttering, her hands flying to her chest and sides, touching herself all over in confusion. “How? How are you here?” “This is my house.” The rage in Ferron’s voice was palpable in every word.

You should work in the hospital.” “So I’m told,” Ferron said with an insincere smile. “Do you think they’ll still hire me after I murdered someone in the lobby?”

He let go of Helena, turning on Stroud, pulling off his gloves. “You appear to have forgotten that I do not suffer fools tampering with her.

“Whether you win a battle or lose it, all I see is the cost.”

Murderers are still men, she told herself. And he was merely a boy.

She had to pay attention to what she was supposed to be doing, which was kissing him. Yet she found his physiology far more interesting than his mouth.

So an interrogator couldn’t see everything, just all the important things. Lovely.

Elain Boyle was eager to learn but kept trying to heal dead patients.

Her father had worn his white medical coat for the picture, even though he wasn’t licensed in Paladia. He’d wanted to look professional when he brought her.

A southern ritual had no place in the North, but she’d given everything for the war, and it had not been enough. Superstition was all she had left.

“I would see if I could make it loyal.” “And if you couldn’t? If a monster can’t be made loyal, what would you do then?”

He spoke just as she was leaving. “Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”

“This is war.” His voice came from somewhere beyond the bodies crowding around her. “You don’t get to want; you get to live or die.”

Do you think that ruining your life is the worst thing I’ve ever done?”

It was not an “honourable” war. Morrough wanted people to be afraid or dead.

She couldn’t fix herself anymore, and no one else seemed inclined to even notice she was breaking.

Instead of perpetually ice-sharp and guarded, he felt like something she might drown in.

Drunk and feeling his heartbeat beneath her fingers, she couldn’t remember when she’d stopped being afraid of him.

She could feel the weight of her life bearing down, crushing her day by day, always taking more than she could spare, but she could also feel Kaine, the warmth of him and his fingers laced through her hair. He was gentler than she thought he could be.

She knew that people enjoyed sex, but she had always thought it was an indulgence. She had not known it was a hunger. Or that she was starving.

Relying on Kaine Ferron was like walking on black ice, knowing that at any moment it might break beneath their feet.

“How many swords and suits of armour does Holdfast have?” She bristled. “Luc fights at the front lines.” Kaine scoffed, his lip curling. “With fire. Get a better knife.”

They were the inverse and counter to each other. A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.

There was an intense pressure that grew inside her whenever he was close, a sort of frantic desperation, like swimming up towards the surface yet never reaching it.

She felt a needle in her arm. It made her skin itch, and when she tried to transmute it out, her hand was smacked away. “Worst patient I’ve ever had.” Thick velvet darkness swallowed the world.

“I used to think it wasn’t fair that all the real wars were over before I was born. Used to be afraid I’d be one of the Principates everyone forgot, because nothing happened.” He looked down; he was ripping at his nails, all his fingers bleeding. “I’d do anything to have that now. I can’t taste anything now except blood and smoke, and I don’t feel anything except when I’m on fire.

There was an unearthliness to him now. Touch him and she’d bleed, and yet she could not escape the allure of it.

“Don’t die, Kaine,” she said. The line he walked frightened her.

“There are far worse fates than dying, Marino.” She nodded. “I know. But that one you don’t come back from.” He gave a bitter laugh. “All right, then, but only because you asked.”

“You idiot,” she said to Kaine, even though she knew he was insensate.

Without thinking, she reached out, touching his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Kaine.” He looked startled, and it made his expression turn so young and scared, as if a part of him was still that sixteen-year-old.

He leaned in, looming over her, and she could tell he wanted her to be afraid of him. But she wasn’t. Not anymore.

Now it didn’t matter if she’d been an alchemist, or a healer, or anything else. To anyone who ever learned of it, she would only be that one thing. Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called. But worse still was knowing all that and still craving those rare moments in which he was gentle. Because that was all she had left.

“You—lost it?” He said it slowly, and she could hear the implied use of the word idiot punctuating each word.

“You are not ever allowed to take these apart or turn them into medical instruments. Not for anyone.”

“In the future, perhaps tell me what you want instead of expecting me to fail where it’s convenient to you. Maybe then we’ll both end up less disappointed in each other.”

Forget every word you’ve ever heard about honour in combat. The honour is surviving.”

“I can’t—I can’t—” he kept saying over and over. Helena didn’t know what to do. She ran her fingers through his hair and just held him. “I can’t—I can’t do this again—” he finally gasped out. “I can’t care for someone again. I can’t take it.”

You’re going to be vulnerable. You won’t see things from the right.” “I’ll just turn my head,” he said in a flat voice. “Handy thing, necks.”

When you touched me, I didn’t push you away. I thought, Where’s the harm? It all ends soon enough, and life has been cold for such a long time.”