Page 16 of Alchemised

Time morphed, twisting, and she lost track of everything beyond her misery.

There were voices. So many voices. Vile things were poured down her throat, making her gag, burning concoctions that blistered her organs. Hot and cold and slimy things on her skin. She was picked up and plunged into ice-cold water, dragged out to breathe, and then shoved under again.

Her mind burned on like an ember, charring everything around it.

There were needles. Little pricks she hardly felt, then large agonising lances of pain that punctured her arms.

The pain in her head grew until it blotted out all thought.

Finally, she slipped away, her mind untethering itself in a free fall.

There was blood everywhere.

She was in the hospital in Headquarters. The bells were ringing. There were bodies being rushed in by nurses and medics whose faces blurred as they passed.

There was a boy in her arms, dying. She tried to calm him, trying to focus, not to feel the building panic of the room catching like claws through her lungs, but he wouldn’t let her heal him.

No matter how she tried, he’d shove her back.

Blood kept pouring out in dark spurts. The sticky warmth seeping into her skin.

People kept calling her amid the clamour, but she had to save this boy.

She was right here.

Finally, he stopped fighting. She felt him through her resonance. A rush of hope in her heart at the vibrant sense of living. Then he was gone, like a fist through her chest. Too late.

She looked up at the bodies piled around her, one on top of the next, a wall rising endlessly, rivulets of blood running down it as it swayed, threatening to crush her.

She tried to breathe. The smell of bile, charred flesh and blood, sweat, filth, and antiseptic burned in her nose and lungs, suffocating her.

Everywhere she turned, there were more bodies, even under her feet. She crushed them when she moved.

Choose.

Who lives and dies. She had to decide.

It would be her choice.

She reached out, fingers trembling, but a hand caught hers, stilling it.

It was Luc.

She gave a panicked gasp of relief, clutching at him.

He was standing in his golden armour, helmet off so she could see his face. He smiled at her. For a moment the nightmare vanished.

Then blood began to trickle down his face.

Lila was just behind him, glaive in hand, pale hair a crown around her head, but half her face was rotted away, peeling back to reveal her skull. Someone else stood just beside her, but Helena couldn’t remember his face.

Beside them were Titus and Rhea, and after them the Council and the Eternal Flame, all standing in a ring around her.

Their faces were blank except Luc’s.

Luc was still alive. He was bleeding, but she could heal him. Her hand shook as she reached out, but he spoke.

“I’m dead because of you.”

She shook her head, voice failing her.

“Look, Hel,” Luc said. He touched his breastplate, and the golden armour melted away, revealing his bare chest. A gleaming black knife was shoved between his ribs, a bloodless wound.

The incision grew, running down his torso until the knife fell, shattering on the ground, and his organs came sliding out, blackened with gangrene, the smell of decay filling the air as if he’d been rotting for months.

“See?”

“No. No …” She tried to reach for him anyway, but he melted away, leaving her fingers stained with his blood.

Her mother was there now. Helena couldn’t make out her face, but she knew it was her mother. The scent of dried herbs clung to her as she stood in front of Helena.

Helena reached for her, but her mother vanished into mist.

Then her father.

He stood out among the Northerners. His eyes were dark, and his black hair curled just like hers.

He wore his white medical coat, and when she met his eyes, he smiled at her. Just below his jaw was a gash mimicking the curve of his smile, running from ear to ear.

“Helena,” he said, “I’m dead because of you.”

He stepped towards her, a scalpel gleaming in his hand.

She didn’t move, didn’t resist this time when he took her in his arms and slit her throat.

W HEN THE WORLD SWAM BACK into focus, Helena wished she’d died.

Her head throbbed, and her hair was plastered to her cheeks and forehead. The room was stiflingly hot. Her mouth was so dry, her tongue threatened to crack.

She managed to roll onto her side. The bedside table bore a pitcher, a cup of water, and several vials. She fumbled for the cup, gulping it down.

She slumped back, kicking off the blankets. The smell of a mustard poultice burned in her nose. She craned her head, looking at the vials on the table again. There were iron and arsenic tablets, smelling salts, and ipecac.

She reached for the arsenic, but she’d no sooner lifted her hand than the door opened, and that nervous stuttering man from Central entered, accompanied by Ferron.

“It’s unlikely the fevers will improve as the procedure continues,” the man was saying, looking as terrified of Ferron as he’d been of Morrough.

Ferron didn’t appear to be listening; his gaze had gone instantly to the table and the vial that Helena had been about to steal. He strode across the room, sweeping up all three vials and pocketing them with the barest glance down at her.

Bastard.

“I’m expected to put up with this every week?” Ferron asked, scowling down at Helena as if she were a stray he wanted to drown.

The man’s head bobbed. “As I understand, the assimilation process of transference that the Eternal Flame developed was intended to culti vate a progressive degree of tolerance. As with traditional mithridatism, there will be side effects. The next time should result in further progress on your part, but as a result the brain fevers will likely be of a similar magnitude. You must understand, it’s hardly a natural state of being.

A living body surviving even a brief presence of another soul has never been achieved before.

That she’s alive at all should be considered a miracle.

As the purpose of this is only to keep her alive long enough to reverse the transmutations, the long-term deterioration will be immaterial. ”

“I don’t have time to play nurse,” Ferron said, sneering at him.

“Your cure was nearly as bad as the disease. At this rate, I can’t see how she’ll survive long enough for me to find anything.

Getting her to tolerate transference and manage a full reversal of what’s been done to her memory will only be the first steps.

I’ll still have to find the information.

That could take months. I will not be set up for failure because you’ve decided something is ‘immaterial.’”

The man shrivelled, his neck seeming to sink into his chest cavity, shoulders rising past his ears.

“I assure you, High Reeve, the arsenic is unlikely to kill her. She may begin to show symptoms of poisoning, but based on our theories, this procedure will be complete before she develops any serious necrosis or—significant liver damage.”

“How do you know how long this procedure will take? We don’t even know if it worked on Bayard.

” Ferron’s voice had grown deadly. “If you’re certain that she will not die before the High Necromancer has his answers, and I am to follow your advice, then you will go attest to this, now, before our preeminent leader, and make clear to him that I am acting on your advice and assurances. ”

The man lost all remaining colour. “W-Well, when considered in that light, it’s possible that if the sessions were spaced out more generously, we might reduce the side effects and brain fevers.

But I would not dare make recommendations on my own.

I’m no expert in this new science. This would be for Stroud or the High Necromancer himself to decide. ”

“I was sent you. I’d expect you to at least have enough expertise to have an opinion,” Ferron said.

The man mopped his forehead. “I will strongly advise Stroud to visit so that she can make a recommendation,” he said, avoiding Ferron’s stare.

“Get out!”

Helena flinched.

Ferron watched him disappear through the door before glancing scathingly down at her, as if it were all her fault.

He reached towards her and she shrank back, but his hand passed harmlessly and slid under the pillow instead, searching the bed to ensure she hadn’t managed to squirrel away any of the arsenic.

She glared at him until he was satisfied that she had no poison hidden anywhere and left again with a slam of the door.

Her legs were wobbly when she got up. She had to sit on the floor under the shower spray because it was too tiring to stand, but she felt vaguely human again when all the sweat and smell of poultices had washed away.

The awful red dress had been washed, pressed, and put away in her wardrobe, along with several more dresses, also all red. Some were almost burgundy, while others were luridly bright. Freshly dyed. There were hints of the original sage green and pale pink barely visible along the hems.

Clearly Aurelia did not move on once she had an idea in her head.

S TROUD ARRIVED THE NEXT DAY, followed into the room by a dead servant and Mandl, or rather the corpse that Mandl now occupied.

The servant was an older woman, dressed as household staff of some kind. She had light-brown hair that was neatly combed back and age lines around her mouth and eyes. Her eyes had an eerie lack of focus which contrasted sharply with the glowering resentment in Mandl’s new face.

“Sit up,” Stroud said to Helena, setting a medical bag on the table.

Helena obeyed without a word, remaining impassive while Stroud prodded her, noting the way Helena’s wrists had shrunk inside the manacles, and checking her vital signs, tsking with irritation.

“Well, this is disappointing,” she said at last. “I’d really hoped you’d handle it better.”

Helena said nothing, a gleam of triumph rising in her chest.