Alchemised

by SenLinYu

Ferron’s expression did not so much as ripple, but he went uncannily still. “You did what?” he finally said.

Get a better knife.” She returned with the same knife.

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

“Lila Bayard is not the only person that the Resistance would suffer greatly for losing.

Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.

In combat, there’s no difference between an angry person and a stupid one.”

“I’ve spent a year working on the logistics of replacing you…I must admit, you are the most exceptional asset the Eternal Flame possesses. And I am sorry for that.”

all my family, I only have pieces of them left.”

Her body was shuddering, but she cried silently. There was a trick to sobbing like that; it was something a person had to learn to do.

“You know, I used to think the circumstances of my servitude to the High Necromancer as cruel an enslavement as anyone could conceive, but I must admit, it pales beside you.”

You were so obvious, but that only made it worse; knowing you’d let me do anything to you in the hope it would save everyone else, even the people who’d sold you in the first place. At least when I sold my soul, my mother prostrated herself, begging to take my place. I suppose, in some regards, I am luckier than you.”

“After you nearly bled to death here, I thought, at least I can keep her alive. She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive. I thought eventually you’d give up.

“I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.” He let go and stepped away from her, heading for the door. “So forgive me if I dislike looking at you. I’m still adjusting to the ways these new ones chafe.”

Helena had known it was Luc who held everything together, but it was startling to see how fast it all crumbled.

“I need you to do anything, Hel, whatever it takes, to save him. No matter the price. Anyone in the Resistance would die for him; I need you there because it might take more than that.”

You’re the one who said that if someone’s willing to die, why not give them a chance to keep fighting.”

That you chose me because you want necromancy as your backup plan?”

“I always knew you were very interesting.”

There were too many guards and necrothralls for it to be abandoned, but not as many as would be expected for keeping Luc prisoner. Helena kept telling herself it wasn’t a trap, but it felt like one.

Wagner? That was the name Crowther and Ivy had tortured out of Lancaster. She turned to Soren. “We’ve been looking for him.”

The lich smiled again, the corpse’s bloated lips splitting into a rotten grin. “Don’t you recognise me, Sebastian? I’d think you would, after all the effort you and Apollo put into executing me. Afraid it didn’t stick. Not like the axe did when I split your brother’s skull.” “Atreus,” Sebastian said, his voice soft, but his grip on his weapon tightening. Helena stared in horror. Kaine’s father was still alive?

The room exploded into violence.

Then her ring burned.

“They said if I went—they wouldn’t kill her.

Her ring kept burning, again and again. She ignored it.

The battle did not stop for Soren.

his blood still flooding against her skin, the only warmth.

This is such a sad and horrifying thought.

“Anything,” she said, pressing a hand against his neck. “Whatever the price.”

Soren blinked up at her, and she felt a connection materialise between them, a wisp.

Soren kept stabbing, tearing, clawing his way through, following her instruction not to stop fighting even as he was ripped apart.

It was one of the Undying. Immediately identifiable by the helmet and black uniform.

It was Kaine.

Bodies fell like stars.

It was impossible that he’d ever fought to his full potential before.

“You idiot,” he said, and dragged her up out of the water, crushing her hard against his chest.

He cradled it in both of his and ran his thumbs across her palm and up to her wrist, his resonance like a balm, repairing the damaged tissue and the broken blood vessels with the sweep of his thumbs, then working along each finger. He was so gentle.

I will make them pay if they get you killed.”

“You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”

“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.”

She was— A prison.

As the traces vanished, she grew eerily removed from what had happened, as though at some point during the battle, she’d left her body and couldn’t return to it.

“Lucien—hallucinated Soren Bayard’s alleged reanimation. Perhaps Soren fell briefly. In the confusion of a battle, it is impossible to know. The point is, this was a heroic rescue. The Principate was saved though the price was great. Sol’s will was done.”

Just a dream, just a dream, she tried to tell her pounding heart. Not really a dream, though. A memory. Soren’s memories postmortem were lodged inside her consciousness as though they were her own. Bright and lurid in all their details.

Everyone always talked of what a curse necromancy was. Warned against it and its consequences, but Helena had been so convinced of its necessity, and so distracted by the eternal consequences, that she’d never paused to consider there being immediate ones.

“Soren Bayard died and I—I brought him back, but the other necrothralls tore him to pieces. I can’t stop remembering how it felt. I think he took part of me with him. How do you do it again and again without going insane? Is it like this forever?”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I don’t want to always be alone,” she said. It was easier to be honest in the dark. “I want to love someone without feeling like if they know, it’ll end up hurting them. People who love me always die. No matter what I do, it’s never enough to save them. I have to love everyone from a distance, and I’m so lonely.”

“You don’t have to be alone,” he said.

“I don’t get to care about you.”

“I don’t want to do that to you. You don’t—deserve that.