Page 151 of Alchemised

“You should have seen Orion. He had such a way about him. People worshipped the ground he walked on. He could charm with a look. He found us sponsors, lodging, funds so I could do the Great Work and he could find audiences to adore him. He would do anything for adoration, and I taught him the tricks to do it. Gold and fire, and he thought that should be enough for us; we could buy ourselves a kingdom.” Cetus looked scornful.

“But I had greater aspirations. Kings and kingdoms rise and fall.

We were made for eternity, my brother and I, we were gods.

“I lacked my brother’s natural charm, but I’m a fair actor.

Orion drew so much attention, most overlooked me, so I pretended to be Orion, coaxed just a few of his followers into cooperation.

I needed trust, the kind that he earned so easily.

It was necessary for my work, and he had always benefitted most, but when Orion learned what I’d done, the source of this new power, he called me a monster and left me.

I knew he’d come back, once I discovered the true secrets of immortality.

When he realised that humans were mere puppets and saw what I could offer, he would beg for me to take him back. ”

“You were the Necromancer,” Helena said, realising. “The one who built the cult in Rivertide. After you made that Stone, you called Orion here, but when he saw what you’d done, he tried to kill you.”

Rage flashed across Cetus’s face. “His mind was poisoned by those paladins of his. If he’d come alone, he would have seen reason—”

“Why did you come back now?” Helena asked. “You disappeared for half a millennium. The Holdfasts don’t want anything from you. Why are you helping Morrough?”

She studied Luc, or what was left of him. Gaunt, sweated down to nearly bone. He was dying; it was just a slower death than what she’d witnessed in the field hospital.

Luc laughed. It was the timbre and note she’d heard a thousand times over the years, but the malice and mockery in it were all new. “I am Morrough.”

Sebastian shot to his feet, but before he had even drawn a weapon, Luc had his sword out and stopped him, tsking.

“A piece of him, I should say. When young Luc so boldly surrendered himself, I was curious how alike we were. I have lived for so long now, and he was so—fresh. I bound a piece of my soul to my bone and placed it inside him. I’d hoped he would accept me—hoped that we could be one as my brother and I should have been—but he’s as self-righteous as Orion.

It’s fortunate that healer Boyle is so eager to please, she keeps him sedated for me. ”

“Luc’s still alive, then?” Helena’s voice shook.

“Of course. This is his body after all.” Morrough, or Cetus, or whoever he was, gestured downwards. “I’m just a shadow in the back of his mind, or I would have been, if he hadn’t gone so mad trying to tear me out that they drugged him to a stupor. Gave me free rein.”

“You’re puppeting him like a necrothrall? Is that how you infiltrated Headquarters?”

Luc’s features twisted in offence. “I’m not a puppet.

I know what’s in the interest of my primary self, and I have found the means of pursuing it.

You can kill me, and it’ll do nothing—only Luc will die.

As for your Headquarters—” He shook his head.

“It seems that young Luc isn’t your only traitor. ”

“But what is all this for?” Helena asked. Apollo, Luc, Lila … she couldn’t understand. “Why come back to Paladia after all these centuries?”

“Because I want to erase my brother’s legacy the same way he destroyed mine.

” Fury swept across Luc’s face. “He tried to blot my name from history, to discredit any of my work that he couldn’t steal and claim as his own.

Attributed my discoveries to charlatans, taking my research and making himself a god with it. It’s only fair to return the favour.”

Helena shook her head. She didn’t believe that. Morrough had too many opportunities to wipe out the Holdfasts; even Kaine had remarked on it, that Luc was being intentionally spared.

She thought of Luc, cut open on that table, all those decaying organs inside him.

“You’re dying,” she said. “Your original body, wherever it is. You came to Paladia because all the power in the world isn’t enough to keep regenerating forever.

There’s a limit and you’ve reached it and you can’t push beyond that no matter how much vitality and how many souls you harvest. When you had Apollo killed, you took his heart, and when you had Luc, we couldn’t heal his organ damage because those organs were yours.

You’re harvesting Orion’s descendants for parts.

And—” It dawned on her slowly. “—that’s—that’s why Lila’s pregnant.

You’re making yourself another descendant.

That’s why you wouldn’t let her go to Novis: because you’ll need that baby next. ”

Cetus stared at her, a bizarre look of calculation in Luc’s eyes.

“You’re clever,” he said. “The Holdfasts had no idea what they’d found when they imported you.

An indentured animancer. Perhaps Apollo was more cunning than I realised.

I knew what you were the moment you reached in with your resonance—if I hadn’t thrown you across the room, you would have found me.

Pity really. I had no choice but to have you sent off to the front.

Matias was so happy to oblige. But somehow you came crawling back like a cockroach. ”

Cetus smiled, a cruel glint in his eyes that Luc had never possessed. “Never mind, though. I’m glad I get to do this personally. Sebastian”—he looked at Luc’s last remaining paladin—“you’re finally going to die protecting a Holdfast from a necromancer.”

Luc moved so fast. There was a shriek of metal as Sebastian drew his weapon and blocked the attack. The room was small. Helena flung herself out of the way as Sebastian shoved Cetus back, drawing another weapon, slamming the hilt down on Luc’s hand before he could unleash a wave of fire.

Luc’s body was weak, tired from battle, and dying, and Sebastian was a fury unlike anything Helena had ever seen before. In an instant he’d hammered Luc into a corner, smashing through his defences, raising his arm to make a killing blow.

The instant before Sebastian brought his weapon down, Cetus’s expression morphed, mockery vanishing as it became Luc’s face, blue eyes wide in shock.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Sebastian hesitated for less than an instant, and Luc’s knife sank into the base of Sebastian’s throat. There was no armour to stop it. Cetus dragged the blade down, sundering Sebastian’s ribs and gutting him.

Sebastian fell without a sound.

Cetus didn’t even watch Sebastian die; he’d already turned to Helena. “Your turn.”

He was blocking the door, and if she screamed, no one who came would take her word over Luc’s.

As Cetus came towards her, she focused on everything that Kaine had ever drilled into her. She needed direct contact.

An instant would be enough.

He swung his sword at her head, but he was tired, his hand injured by Sebastian. The blow was slow and weak. She whipped out one of her titanium knives and managed to transmute it quickly enough to block the blow.

Cetus’s knife flashed, Sebastian’s blood spattering, aimed at her throat.

With her other hand, she slammed the hilt of her obsidian knife into his wrist. The sight of black glass captured Cetus’s focus.

Helena dropped her titanium knife, her empty hand shooting out, her palm against his forehead, fingers tangling in his hair.

Her resonance slammed into his head with the force of an arrow, using the same trick of paralysis that Kaine had used on her so long ago.

The knife and sword in Luc’s hands clattered to the floor, and his knees gave out. She let him slide to the ground, her palm still firmly pressed against his skull, shoving her resonance deep into his mind.

Helena had never been inside Luc’s consciousness, but she knew from her interrogation work that a mind was like a home.

It had the feeling of the person. Luc’s mind was like walking into a house and finding the walls covered in blood and torn apart.

A parasite had grown through his consciousness and fed on every glimmer of the person who should be there.

Cetus had cannibalised Luc, wearing him like a skin.

She ripped her consciousness back out and nearly doubled over with nauseous horror.

Cetus’s eyes danced even though his face was strained by his inability to breathe.

“Luc, come back,” Helena asked, her voice tremulous. “I know there’s still a part of you in there. It’s Hel. Come back. I’ll help you.”

She moved the paralysis enough to let Luc breathe.

Cetus studied her with interest. He was not afraid at all. “You’re talented. If you joined me, your abilities would be valued.”

She stared coldly at him. “Let me talk to Luc.”

There was a strange hunger in his eyes. “You’re the one making that obsidian, aren’t you? I should have realised. Crowther was so tight-lipped. Tell me how you do it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Let me talk to Luc, and I’ll tell you.”

Anger flashed across Cetus’s face. “Why bother with him? He’s weak and useless, just like Orion, so satisfied with mere tricks that he suppressed his true power, denying his animancy.”

“Luc is an animancer?” she said in shock.

Cetus’s expression was jeering. “You never noticed? Never felt the way he could alter a room, entrance an audience?”

Yes, but she’d always assumed that was related to his pyromancy. The feeling of pressure that could come over her when he was upset. She shook her head.

“That’s not animancy.”

“It’s a form of it, one Orion was especially talented in. He wanted people to love him and he made sure they did, while he repressed and rejected all the rest of it. And then hunted everyone else with similar abilities out of existence.”

She shook her head again, but Luc had always had an uncanny magnetism. She had never questioned it. Had he even known?