Page 160 of Alchemised

C ONSCIOUSNESS SPLIT H ELENA’S MIND OPEN.

She lurched up, head throbbing, mad with pain. All she could think was Get away, run. The need to escape consumed her. Everywhere she looked, it was all darkness.

She tried to move, but her body failed her. Her motions jerked, and pain bloomed from her wrists, across her hands, and into her arms when she tried to get up. She struggled to breathe as her ribs had clamped tight around her lungs.

It wasn’t the tank, but it was still so dark, and she could barely move.

A hand brushed against her shoulder.

She gave a strangled scream, her head snapping up. It was Kaine. He was leaning over her, his pale hair and silver-bright eyes visible in the dark. His fingers trembled as he stared at her.

She studied him in shock.

He was different. Older. He wasn’t old, but his eyes had a look as if it had been decades since she’d last seen him.

She gave a sob and reached for him.

“You’re alive,” she said.

He flinched back as despair swept across his face. She didn’t understand why. Then Grace’s fearful voice rose from some distant corner of her mind.

“Lila Bayard was the first one he brought back.”

It all came rushing back: The manacles. Transference. Imprisonment in Spirefell. Everyone was dead because the High Reeve had killed them.

He was the High Reeve.

Her blood ran ice-cold and she snatched her hand back, shoving herself away from him, ignoring the screaming pain in her wrists.

Something was tangled around her elbow, and she ripped it out as she scrambled away.

Her arms and legs shook under her own weight, and she nearly toppled off the far side of the bed.

She slid onto the floor and knelt, peering across the mattress at him in that dark room in that dark house where she was a captive.

Kaine was still alive.

But if he was alive, that meant he had not come for her, and she had waited.

The mental dissonance made her want to scream. The past and present shattering against each other as she knelt in their ruins.

It couldn’t be him. Ferron had hurt her. He’d raped her. And he killed everyone.

Kaine wouldn’t.

He’d promised he’d always—

Pain lanced through her brain. Her vision disappeared. An anguished moan escaped her. She buried her face in her hands as it grew, boring through her mind, so excruciating she could hardly keep conscious.

Her head was on fire, skull cut open, pressure emulsifying her brain. She screamed, trying to let it out. She kept screaming until she was gasping for air. When she looked up again, she was alone.

Perhaps she always had been, and Kaine’s face had been an apparition she’d conjured.

Perhaps this was all a dream. He was dead, and she was still in the tank, rotting and forgotten in the dark where no one would ever find her.

She slumped, and a hand grasped her shoulder before she hit the floor. She started, and he was there again. As their eyes met, his expression crumpled.

“You’re remembering, aren’t you?”

She managed a nod, reaching up and gripping his wrist, feeling his skin and bones beneath her fingers. He was real.

He was still alive. She’d been so sure that everyone was dead, but he wasn’t, and yet that felt worse.

She turned her face away, pressing it into the duvet, wanting to scream again. All the contradictions and horror clamoured as she tried to untangle her mind. Nothing felt real. Everything was lies.

Clarity struck, and she gripped him tighter, nails biting his skin.

“The obsidian—Mandl and the rest—was that—was that you …?”

“It was.”

Her jaw trembled, her eyes burning. “Was it—always you?”

“Yes.”

All the Resistance fighters, secret members of the Eternal Flame that she’d convinced herself were out there, all melted away until only Kaine remained. Her captor and nightmare.

She nodded, looking away, unable to reconcile her simultaneous relief and horror.

He was alive. She’d kept him alive. That was what she’d wanted but—

Not like this.

“Why’d you kill Lila?” Her voice cracked.

“I didn’t. She’s alive.”

She stared at him. The pain in her head seemed to make him glow. “Grace saw her body. Everyone at the Outpost saw it. Mandl kept her at the gate.”

“She was pregnant, and she was the only surviving Bayard. They weren’t going to stop looking for her until they found a body. I produced one. It was your idea.”

Helena had no memory of that. She didn’t know how to believe anything he said, so much deceit lay between them.

“She has a son now. An exceptionally noisy child, named for his grandfather. And every time I’ve seen her, she’s tried to murder me at least twice.”

That did sound like Lila. Helena lifted her head, her throat aching with the desire to believe him. “Where is she?”

He shook his head. “Not in Paladia, but you’ll see her soon. You promised Holdfast you’d take care of them, remember? They’ve been waiting for you.”

Her heart rose, but then she remembered all the other things he’d told her, said to her. She shrank away.

“I don’t believe you.” Her jaw trembled uncontrollably.

“I know.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I can’t remember—I only remember you.”

She wanted to reassure herself that he was real, but he couldn’t be real. The person in her memory couldn’t exist because Kaine Ferron had killed everyone. Eradicated the Eternal Flame, hunted down anyone in the Resistance who’d dared to run. He was drenched in blood.

His throat dipped. “What—do you remember of me?”

He was familiar and yet so utterly changed, as if he’d been carved out of the likeness of the person she’d known.

“You—you spied for the Eternal Flame,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “You used to call me, and I’d come and heal you—and—annnn—”

Her tongue stuck on the word as bright scarlet pain burst through her head and everything tilted.

She blinked rapidly, struggling to think. She’d been saying something—something … Her tongue was fuzzy. When she tried to open her mouth, her jaw jerked, snapping repeatedly.

Her limbs and fingers all curled rigidly inwards, as if she were a dead spider. She toppled, and Kaine caught her just before she slammed face-first into the floor.

She couldn’t speak.

Her jaw kept snapping, lungs rattling as she gasped. Her head began jerking, slamming against his chest until he pressed his hand flat, holding her still. Her heart raced with panic.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Give it a minute. It’ll pass.”

She felt him inhale as she kept jerking in his arms.

“Did quite a number to that brain of yours.” His voice was calm. “All your transmuted barriers are coming apart now. It’ll pass.”

Her throat contracted, and every tendon and muscle inside her body seemed to be drawn inwards, threatening to snap. He’d said it would pass but it wasn’t passing.

“Just a little longer,” he said.

Her head finally stopped jerking, and her body went limp in his arms, mind hazy and disjointed.

He picked her up. Her bones jutted out, the joints pressing against him as he placed her back onto the bed, tucking her under the duvet.

She wanted to protest, but her jaw was rigid, mouth refusing to move properly.

There was a reason he shouldn’t hold her. She didn’t want him to, but she couldn’t remember why anymore. Yet she was terrified that if he let go, he’d disappear into the dark and leave her there alone.

He moved quietly around the bed and lit a candle, sorting through a tray of vials beside the bed. The dim light flickered between them.

“You’ve been unconscious for a week,” he said without looking up, as if he could feel her watching him.

“You—” He stopped, lips pressed together as he inhaled.

“You had a seizure and wouldn’t wake afterwards.

A-Apparently you’ve been subconsciously maintaining all those barriers inside your brain.

All this time. When you got pregnant—the Toll from it all was too much. Burned yourself out.”

Pregnant? She’d forgotten that she was pregnant. A panicked rasping gasp shook her as it came back to her. The baby that Morrough wanted. She’d just lain there and let it happen and—

“Why—” One word was all she could manage.

Kaine wavered, eyes darting from the items in front of him to her. He set them down and leaned over.

“Look at me. I know you want to remember everything, but your mind has to stabilise; everything is fragile right now.” His eyes were imploring. “It will make sense eventually.”

He didn’t use resonance as he spoke. It would have made things worse if he had. Just being close to him, her body intuitively calmed even though she remembered so vividly all the ways he’d hurt her inside this cold prison of a house.

A tremor ran through her.

“It’s just a little longer,” he said, “and this will all be over.”

She had so many questions, though. What happened? Why didn’t you come? Why did you hurt me? Why did you rape me?

Why did you become High Reeve?

“Why—” Her voice broke. “—why did you kill everyone?”

He seemed startled by the question, as if he’d expected one of the others. “I was trying to find you.”

Her heart stalled, body and mind torn between horror and relief.

“You looked for me?” Her voice cracked.

A look of anguish flashed across his eyes. “Of course I looked for you. I looked everywhere for you. Did you think I left you there?”

She tried to remember what she’d thought. “I was supposed to be interrogated. There was so much of you in my head. I thought, if I didn’t remember, they wouldn’t be able to find you. No one ever came. I thought everyone must be dead.”

He looked as though she’d gutted him and stepped back, turning away from her.