Page 143 of Alchemised

The war had gone from teetering in the balance to a Resistance free fall. Without Althorne or Ilva, the Council was reduced to three: Ma tias and Crowther, who had almost entirely opposing views, and Luc, who distrusted both of them.

Crowther had always operated from the shadows, allowing Ilva to take the lead with his tacit support. Now he was alone, seeming to shrink and writhe under the glaring scrutiny of Luc, like a spider without its web, fumbling about on overlong legs.

There was a part of Helena that wanted to leave him to his fate, but she knew that the more powerless Crowther felt, the greater his danger to Kaine.

She sat, watching him move around his office, pausing at various maps and diagrams now riddled with black slashes of ink.

“How much communication have you been in—with Ferron?” she asked, exhausted from the journey from hospital to Tower.

“None, except that you were alive and would be returned once you were out of danger. Why?”

Helena drew a labouring breath. “I think I’ve discovered something. Ever since Wagner—I was studying the array, thinking about the different kinds of resonance energy to understand the process Morrough uses.”

A wary look entered Crowther’s eyes.

“You know, normally arrays are elemental or celestial, five or eight axis points. But Luc’s pyromancy uses seven, and Wagner drew nine for the ritual.

Kaine confirmed it was nine, so I was trying to think differently about the energy.

When I’d try to envision how it would work, I kept thinking about a feeling I have in the hospital sometimes—”

“Marino, get to the point.”

“When a patient dies, there’s an inverted form of the energy that Morrough utilises to make the Undying. The vitality changes, and there’s this moment as it dissipates when I feel it.”

“And …”

“Before the bombing, I figured out a way to channel it and trap it inside obsidian. It didn’t seem to do anything, but when I was at the field hospital, I cut one of the necrothralls with it, and it collapsed—as if the reanimation had been severed.”

Crowther looked over sharply. “Are you sure?”

She shifted and grimaced as pain fractalled like lightning through her chest. “Well, I was injured, but I’m pretty sure. I’ve replayed it again and again. We should test it.” She swallowed hard. “I have a few more pieces, and once my resonance is stable again, I can make more.”

“Bring them, I’ll see who I can pass the idea off to.” He waved her away in dismissal.

Helena didn’t move. It wasn’t that she’d expected to be credited; she just had no intention of letting Crowther casually exploit her anymore.

“You must be very busy now,” she said.

“Indeed. I am.”

“I’ll help you, but I want something in return.”

Crowther’s eyebrows rose. “And what is that, pray tell?”

“I want to know and approve every order you’re giving Kaine.”

Crowther’s bloodshot eyes flashed dangerously.

Helena didn’t blink. “I’m offering you a deal. What you do is illicit, and you have no allies on the Council to cover it up anymore. You need someone. I’m offering to be your shadow. I’ll provide you with what you need, same way you did for Ilva. But Kaine is my condition.”

His expression grew scathing. “You’re overestimating your value, Marino.”

Helena’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile.

“I’m not, though, am I? You said it yourself: I am an exceptional asset.

Why else would you and Ilva spend so much time manipulating me?

Always been so quick to take advantage of what I can do while treating it like it’s of no use to anyone. By all means, replace me if you can.”

Crowther’s fingers curled into a fist, eyes narrowing, but he said nothing.

Her heart rammed against the damaged bone. “You have overutilised Kaine. If I were a lower-calibre healer, you would have killed him a dozen times over in the last several months. I have told you this, but you ignored it because you know I’ll do whatever it takes to save him.”

Her face contorted with anger. “But the fact that he will do anything you ask doesn’t mean you can keep demanding it.

I have done the unconscionable for the Eternal Flame, and I have let him suffer for it because what other choice do we have?

But now everything we achieved, that he paid for, is gone.

We have nothing to show for it. I won’t let you keep forcing him to pay the price while you stall for time. ”

Crowther was silent for a moment. “A trade, then? Is that what you’re proposing? Yourself—your cooperation—in exchange for Ferron’s safety?”

Helena gave a tight nod. If Kaine had any idea what she’d come back to do, he probably would have ripped out his own talisman before letting her return. Clearly she was learning; she was not so easy to read anymore.

There was a pause, then Crowther laughed.

“What an odd turn of events.” He stood, still chuckling. “Very well. Follow my orders, and he will stay alive. I’m not Ilva; I have no interest in seeing Ferron prematurely dead for the sake of vengeance. Why begrudge a weapon its uses? Even if that weapon is an abomination.”

He walked around his desk, a ghastly smile on his face. “You know, I had a nearly identical version of this conversation with Ferron earlier this year.”

Helena refused to react, meeting his eyes.

“So long as you make yourself useful to me, I’ll let you approve Ferron’s assignations. But if you ever disobey me, or cross me, I will—”

“Yes, I know what you’ll do,” Helena said.

I T TOOK A WEEK BEFORE Helena’s resonance was stable again. During that time, she functioned as a test subject for Shiseo as they developed a tablet form for the chelators, to reduce the overcrowding and demand on saline.

In that same week, a weapons specialist gave an obsidian spear to an ambitious young man hoping to join Luc’s unit. Even before he returned, the rumours reached Headquarters about a miraculously effective weapon.

The weapons specialist was evasive about his methods, although he was obliged to admit that Crowther was the one who’d given him the obsidian.

Everyone leapt to the conclusion that the properties of the obsidian came from pyromancy; that the obsidian must be infused with holy, cleansing fire.

The new weapon secured Crowther’s place and influence not only on the Council but over the Eternal Flame.

Once Helena was finally recovered enough to resume work, she was told that because of her injuries she would no longer work in the casualty ward but be assigned the less rigorous task of palliative care and last rites.

She wore a heavy black habit with myriad hidden pockets filled with obsidian glass and tended to the patients that couldn’t be saved. She’d thought she’d seen the worst of the hospital, but she realised now that she was used to seeing those with some chance of survival.

Now she sat with men whose bodies seemed turned inside out, hearts exposed, faces lopped off, sometimes so little of them left that it seemed impossible that they were alive. They’d hold on to her, often mistaking her for someone else as she tended them like a carrion bird.

As unprecedented a breakthrough as the obsidian was, it was impossible to keep up with the demand, especially in the hands of soldiers trained with steel. Though its edges were sharper than razors, the glass shattered easily, making the weapons unreliable.

The obsidian was effective not only on necrothralls but liches as well. When one soldier managed a blow through the chest, the lich died, all his necrothralls collapsing with him.

The talisman was brought back, and Helena examined it. There was no sense of energy. She compared it with others. When it was cut in half, powder as fine as dust poured out.

Kaine summoned her that night. Her ring burned twice, and she practically ran out of Headquarters. She stood on the rooftop, hand pressed against her chest, numbing the grinding pain as she waited.

“What happened today?” he asked as Amaris landed heavily on the roof. He didn’t dismount, which meant the conversation would be short. She could feel every second they’d been separated, the weight of it.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve all been recalled from combat. Effective immediately. The thralls and Aspirants will continue to fight, but the Undying have all been withdrawn from the front lines.”

“Someone killed a lich with the obsidian,” Helena said. “Do you think maybe he—the lich—died? That Morrough can’t bring him back anymore?”

Kaine was silent for a few moments.

“Seems you’ve found a weapon to kill us,” he finally said.

She couldn’t read the emotion in his voice. All the exhilaration drained from her.

She’d spent so much time afraid of Kaine’s immortality, knowing that his discovery or apprehension would be without means of escape; he could be tortured forever, without even the hope of death. Now it was very likely that he could die.

She had made this possible. She had not saved him; she had created a new way to lose him instead.

“Be careful,” she said.

He was studying her. “Did they let you recover before they set you back to work?”

She managed a smile. “Yes. Moved me out of the casualty ward. My duties are less rigorous now.”

He nodded. “Well, that’s something.”

There was a pause. She had so much she wanted to say, to tell him, but she knew he was already lingering too long.

“If the obsidian does what we think, the Eternal Flame will be a real threat to Morrough now. He’s sure to respond accordingly,” he finally said. “You should prepare for that.”

She nodded wordlessly, and he relaxed on the reins, Amaris immediately moving to spring, the wind rushing around her wings.

“Don’t die.”

She must have said it too quietly, because he didn’t answer.