Page 158 of Alchemised

“Where are we?” Helena managed to ask. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, but she recognised one of the healers as well as medics and orderlies. They were clustered around her.

Pace gave a strained smile. “At Headquarters. In the commons.”

Helena looked past Pace; there was something overhead. They were in a cage. A large kind used for animals. There were dozens of cages scattered around them.

“Let me up.” Helena struggled to sit up, her body beginning to scream in protest as the stimulants and sedative wore off. Without her chest brace, the strain bore down on her sternum as she peered past the bars. Looking for the source of the screaming.

Hanging by her wrists, Rhea was screaming. Titus stood beside her. He was covered in blood, and there were knives and sticks and spears sticking out of him. He pulled a knife from his leg and began slicing Rhea’s skin off with it.

Then he put it in his mouth and ate it.

He was dead. He had to be dead, but the sight of it still left Helena horror-stricken.

And Rhea was not dead.

Beside her there were pieces of meat dangling from chains. Helena squinted in the low light.

Severed arms.

A torso.

Alister’s head.

Her throat contracted, and she rolled to her side and vomited so violently, there was tearing pain through her back as her body convulsed.

She looked up again as Pace used a scrap of fabric to wipe her mouth for her.

Helena turned away. “How long have they been—”

“It started at dusk,” Pace said, her voice wavering, “once they were sure that Headquarters was secured. They don’t have Luc, though, or Sebastian. There’s still hope.”

Helena’s throat tightened so much, she thought she’d choke. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Pace that Luc wasn’t coming, that he couldn’t.

She looked down at herself. She’d been stripped completely and put into a grey smock.

Everything was gone: hairpins, ties, hospital call bracelet.

The only thing that remained was Kaine’s ring, hovering in the corner of her vision even when she looked directly at it.

It had worked; even resonance hadn’t found it in a strip search.

Now her left wrist bore a suppression shackle, like what had been locked around Lila’s wrists. Her right wrist was bare, apparently too swollen for the matching shackle to fit around.

Rhea’s screams were growing fainter.

There was a roar of excitement, and Helena looked up, terrified of what would come next.

A long, low motorcar was pulling in through the gates. Helena’s heart dropped as it stopped at the steps leading to the Tower. The door opened, and Luc stepped out, his expression hesitant, almost bashful, as if arriving late to a party.

A hush fell across the courtyard. Everyone stared in shock as he surveyed the scene around him.

“No …” Helena said at the same time as Pace.

Luc turned and gave a low, obsequious bow as someone else emerged from the back of the motorcar. The person was tall, dressed in intricately decorative robes and a cloak of blue and gold, with a crescent-shaped crown rising from his head. Morrough.

He walked in front of Luc, ascending the marble stairs, which ran red with blood. All the remains of the Eternal Flame’s military leaders were in pieces on the ground or dangling against the walls.

Morrough turned as Luc ascended behind him, revealing a masked face; the crescent, like an eclipsed sun, concealed the upper half. The little bit of skin that showed was a pale, lipless mouth.

Helena had never seen Morrough. There had been stories of his appearance at a few early battles, but he’d let the Undying fight his war.

So this was Cetus. The first Northern alchemist.

The silence remained as Luc followed him up the steps obediently, while Morrough surveyed his audience.

“Paladia has followed this family of false deities for too long,” Morrough said in a rasping voice that barely seemed like it could carry.

“They showed you fire and gold, and you thought these paltry tricks divine.” The mouth twisted in derision.

“I have conquered death. Immortality is my gift, and I do not hoard this secret knowledge but grant it to all who are worthy.”

There were loud cheers at this. But that was not the worst of it. As Morrough spoke, Luc sank to his knees as if he were one of those begging for immortality.

Helena watched Luc’s every movement, trying to make sense of what she saw.

Luc was dead, she knew he was dead. Morrough must have found and reanimated him, made him seem so lifelike in order to have the satisfaction of being his executioner.

As everyone watched, Luc leaned forward, pressing his head to the stones which were slick with blood; it stained his clothes, his skin, his hair. The blood of those who’d followed him and his family so faithfully.

“Do you beg for immortality?” Morrough asked.

Luc paused as though hesitating, as if ashamed, then he lifted his head, looking up at Morrough like a supplicant, blue eyes wide, and nodded.

“You are unworthy,” Morrough said, but he held out a long bony hand as if extending it to Luc. Then his wrist turned, palm faced down, above Luc’s head.

Even from the distance, Helena felt the resonance in the air, and Luc’s head slammed down into the marble, skull splitting, breaking apart like a cracked egg. His face caved in, and his body toppled over, brains smeared across the blood-soaked marble.

The air filled with screams of horror.

Morrough turned away from the body. “Store him. He will never burn.”

Then he entered the Alchemy Tower, the monument his brother had built to memorialise necromancy’s defeat.

T IME PASSED IN A HAZE. Those who hadn’t gone into the Tower with Morrough began sorting the remaining prisoners, dividing them up, marking the numbers on the shackles into files.

Now that the “festivities” had come to an end, additional cars were arriving. The more decorated members of the Undying, in their black uniforms. Others who appeared to be government officials. The Guild Assembly. Governor Greenfinch.

Most were entering the Alchemy Tower, which had been rinsed of all the blood.

The door of the cage Helena was in screamed open, and guards began pulling the prisoners out, shoving them towards various areas.

“Careful!” Pace snapped as Helena was seized by the arm and dragged to her feet. “Her wrist is broken. She needs medical care. These are smart, capable women. You should—”

The guard sneered at Pace. “We’ve got plenty of prisoners of all sorts.” He looked Helena over. “She’ll go in the cull group, same as you, crone.”

He ignored Pace’s attempts to reason with him, not for herself but for Helena, trying to convince him of her exceptional abilities, as he copied the number on Helena’s shackle onto a list along with Pace’s.

They were pushed towards another cage and grabbed by another guard, who shoved them carelessly inside.

Pace tried to resist, still protesting, and she tripped, falling too fast for Helena to react. Her head struck one of the iron bars with a sharp crack, and she didn’t move.

Helena’s left hand was shaking as she braced herself against the bars, using her body to cover Pace as more prisoners were shoved into the cull cage, searching desperately for a pulse.

Everyone shoved inside was either badly injured or extremely old.

The cadet guarding the war room was slumped beside her, deathly pale, his bowels oozing through his fingers as he tried to hold them in.

She couldn’t help him.

She slumped down next to Pace, lifting her head onto her lap, hoping she was dead, that she wouldn’t witness whatever happened next.

A shadow fell over her.

She looked up, heart in her throat, and then froze at the sight of Mandl.

“My, my,” Mandl said, her wide mouth splitting into a smile, “I thought I recognised that hair of yours.”

Helena was too exhausted to feel anything at the sight of her.

Mandl gestured with a quick flick of her wrist. “Take her out.”

The guards who’d shoved Pace glanced over. “This is the cull cage.”

Mandl turned on him. “I don’t care what ‘cage’ it is, get her out.”

Helena was dragged out, her hand bumping roughly against other bodies. She bit back a moan of pain, and her shoulder was nearly wrenched from its socket again.

“It really is you.” Mandl appraised her as Helena was dropped at her feet. “You certainly put up a fight. Were you afraid I’d find you?”

Helena had scarcely thought of Mandl since she’d finished interrogating her.

“I hoped I would.” Mandl’s breath rushed across Helena’s. She smelled sharp and acrid, like formaldehyde. “I’m going to make sure Bennet gets you for one of his special projects.”

The guard cleared his throat.

“What now?” She turned on him sharply.

“They’re saying Bennet’s gone.”

“What?”

The guard lowered his voice. “Rumour is that Hevgoss was responsible. Bombings are—their sort of thing. No one’s saying much, though.

Stroud took a batch earlier and had to bring them all back.

Says the whole lab’s gone. Bennet and all the rest. But word’s not supposed to get out among the—” He gestured around the commons.

A glimmer of triumph sparked in Helena’s chest. Bennet was gone; he would never hurt Kaine or anyone else ever again.

Mandl stood, stunned. “But then what about the stasis warehouse. Will it be decommissioned?”

Before the guard could reply, she answered herself. “Of course not. The Undying will still need pristine bodies in reserve. Even without Bennet.”

She looked down at Helena again, who tried not to look as if she was listening.

“Well, if he’s gone, that means that I’m responsible for the selection process.” She leaned forward and grabbed Helena by the back of the arm. “I think I’ll have you as my first pick.”

Mandl’s resonance stabbed through Helena’s hand. Her nerves were suddenly on fire, being torn apart. Agony shot up her shoulder, through her body, and into her brain as if a splintering spike were being driven into her.

Her muscles began spasming as she screamed.