Page 100 of Alchemised

A MONTH. T HE DAYS FELT brANDED INTO HER bones. Helena couldn’t sleep that night. The future haunted her. There was an Ember Service before first light as Falcon Matias consecrated the coming year to Sol’s guidance, and then Helena began her hospital shift.

She felt cornered, as if the world were closing in, and there was no escape. No one to turn to.

She tried to push her dread down using animancy, but it consumed her utterly; every thought led to the same despair.

When her shift was over, she went to the desk to see if she could perhaps stay on for the next one. Surely someone would rather celebrate solstice, and Helena could keep busy.

Purnell was on duty at the hospital desk, wearing a pin with SOFIA P etched into it. Helena tensed at the sight of her, and before she could speak, Purnell held out a slip of paper.

“The steward said to give you this when your shift was over.”

Helena hesitated a moment before reading it.

There were only a few words. As thanks for all her hard work, Ilva had ensured Helena could have a few hours off to attend the solstice celebrations at Solis Splendour. Luc would be present and happy to see her. Rhea was expecting her.

Helena stared dully at the obvious manipulation.

Ilva was losing her touch. Or perhaps Helena was finally getting wise to her.

She put on the green wool pullover that Rhea had gifted her over her uniform and made her way to Solis Splendour. It was already dark, the year and the sun both preparing for rebirth.

In four weeks, Kaine would be dead.

She barely knocked on the door, but it swung immediately open, and warmth and light, music and laughter all spilled out. She squinted, dazed. Had she knocked at the wrong house?

“Marino? I didn’t know you were coming.” It was Alister, one of the boys from Luc’s unit. He held the door for her. “Come in. We’ve got loads of food.”

Helena entered, feeling as if she’d somehow stepped out of reality into a dreamlike version of Solis Splendour. The house was lively, decorated with tinsel and streamers and bits of evergreen, and the children ran through like a pack of feral puppies.

She knew the faces, recognised people, but everything felt different. Wrong.

Why was everyone so happy?

There was music from a gramophone and drunken laughter filling the next room. A mug of mulled wine was shoved into her hands before she’d gotten across the room, and she sipped it on instinct. It was warm and sweet, instead of sour and watery from being stretched.

The signs of their access to the ports and river trade were everywhere, but all she could think was Kaine did this, remembering the wounds lacerating his back, the dead tissue rotting and poisoning him. He’d been gaunt and grey, paper-thin, and he’d just wanted to know if it worked.

The room blurred. She wandered in a daze until she caught sight of Titus Bayard sitting cross-legged on the floor, peeling oranges. They must have come all the way from the southern coast. There was a small mountain of peeled fruit on the table beside him.

Helena searched for other familiar faces.

Lila was sitting crammed in an armchair with Soren, who was wearing the expression of a beleaguered cat.

Ever since her injury, Soren let her get away with anything.

Lila had made a complete, and stunningly rapid, recovery and acted as if the entire thing had been overblown.

When she’d learned about Luc’s attempts to disregard orders, they’d had an explosive argument.

Helena had only heard gossip, but it had been bad enough that the entire unit had been held on reserve for several weeks until things simmered down.

Things seemed better now but Helena couldn’t help but feel that somehow Soren was the one most irrevocably damaged by the attack.

One of the unavoidable bits of Bayard lore that Helena had heard many times over the years was the fact that Soren was older than Lila. Twenty minutes the elder twin. The disparity of age was treated as gravely significant in matters of hierarchy in times past.

It was mostly a joke, but Helena suspected that Soren took it more seriously than he let on. Paladin primary or not, Lila wasn’t only his twin, she was his younger sister.

Luc was playing cards with a group of convalescent soldiers, and Lila and Soren both watched him, Lila’s leg swinging back and forth, the gears making a soft click, click, click.

Helena knelt down next to Titus, trying to complete her list of obligations quickly so she could leave. The mood of the house was so dissonant it made her feel ill.

“Hello, Titus,” Helena said, following the script she always did. “Do you mind if I look inside your head a little bit?”

He didn’t react. She slipped a glove off, touching the scar along his temple.

She closed her eyes as she reached with her resonance, and it was all the same except Helena was not the same.

Her techniques and understanding of the mind had changed in a year.

There were patterns of energy that she had not understood the intricacies of before.

Now she could sense where her errors lay. She had transmuted tissue without knowing how to follow the currents of energy that carried the mind through the brain matter.

Of course, Titus was often unresponsive, his mind limited; she’d hemmed him inside his own consciousness.

The connection between them snapped as Titus suddenly shoved her hand away. His face was contorted, the orange in his hand crushed into pulp. He shook his head several times as if trying to clear it.

Helena stared at him, her eyes searching as he scooted away from her, his expression unsettled. She pulled her glove back on automatically.

Was it possible that she could cure him? She was almost afraid to think it. She had to be certain before she brought the possibility to Rhea. She couldn’t break her heart again.

She was startled from her thoughts at a burst of laughter.

She slipped into another room that was quieter and less crowded, trying to collect herself in a window alcove that was cooler, the drapes creating a barrier from all the noise.

“Helena.”

She looked up to see Penny Fabien slipping into the alcove with her.

“I thought it was you slipping in here,” Penny said. “Are you all right? You looked upset.”

Penny was a year older. She’d been the dorm monitor for Helena’s room during their Institute days.

“Just a bit close in there,” Helena said, looking away. “Did something happen?”

Penny looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Why is everyone so happy?”

Penny blinked with surprise. “We’re happy because the war’s almost over.”

Helena stared at her in bewilderment.

The war wasn’t almost over. They didn’t even have a plan to win. Six years of fighting for survival while waiting for a miracle that would never come.

“Weren’t you at the Ember Service?” Penny asked.

“Falcon Matias was talking about the stages of transmutation, how each one correlates to a period in the war, and how we’re nearly at the final transformation where the soul becomes truly purified.

Think about it. A year ago, we were hemmed in around Headquarters, no supplies, barely enough rations to keep fighting, and now we’ve retaken the entire East Island. The ports. All because we had faith.”

Helena had not paid any attention to Matias during the service. All she’d heard was Ilva’s voice in her ears, saying a month over and over.

“What?” Helena’s voice came out strangled.

A look of sympathy swept across Penny’s face.

“I guess you’re not really out there at the front, are you?

You must not have any idea. Things have been going so well this year.

” Penny’s face was alight. “It’s because we passed the test. We held firm and didn’t let our fears corrupt us, and now Sol is bestowing his favour. We can’t lose now.”

Helena flinched as if she’d been struck and stared at Penny in such abject shock that Penny’s smile faded, and a look of comprehension and discomfort suddenly swept across her face.

“Oh, right …” Penny said, wringing her hands. “I heard about what happened with you and the Council. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything about your soul—”

Helena’s jaw started trembling uncontrollably, and then it spread until her whole body was shaking.

Penny stepped towards her, stroking her arm. “Don’t feel bad. I’m sure you—meant well. We’ve all hit points when we think anything would be worth it to make it all stop. Just think of how much things turned around after that. Maybe you were—a final test for us.”

Helena was going insane. She was about to start screaming right there in the alcove. She had never imagined this possibility.

They thought the war was being won because her proposal of necromancy had been so sharply reprimanded that the Resistance passed some final spiritual test, and all the success of the last year was a reward for it?

Without even realising it, she’d proven their mythos.

No matter what happened now, no one would ever listen to her.

She was cast forever into the role of doubter, of tempter.

Standing there, she suddenly remembered the odd expression in Ilva’s and Crowther’s eyes as she was censured and dismissed.

What a perfect opportunity she’d given them in that moment.

No wonder Ilva had told her the truth about Orion. She knew that no one would ever believe Helena’s claims.

Now Ilva wanted one last trick.

Kill Kaine. Bury the evidence, the true means of their success. Create one more miracle.

Helena forced herself to breathe. It came out as a choking gasp. Penny pulled her suddenly into a tight hug.

“It’s all right,” Penny was saying, as if Helena were a child who needed soothing.

“We all make mistakes. Don’t feel bad, it’s all right now.

” Penny patted her back. “You know what, the real trouble is that you’re too isolated.

With everyone at the front and you always in the hospital, you never get to see how it really is. ”