Page 174 of Alchemised

“You’re welcome to try, but I did tell him of your interference and its contribution to her current state.

She might not have a heart condition at all if you hadn’t rushed her interrogation by injecting her with a nearly lethal dose of stimulants and threatened to cut her tongue out if she didn’t get pregnant.

Now get on with whatever pretence brought you here. ”

Stroud’s entire face was nearly beet red as she performed a perfunctory check of Helena’s heart condition and pregnancy. She’d seemingly hoped to sneak into Spirefell and commandeer Helena while Kaine was busy.

In a few minutes, she was done and furiously repacking her satchel so that Kaine could escort her back out.

Helena watched from the window as Stroud climbed into a motorcar and pulled away. The car was barely through the gates when the lights in her room flickered, and she heard the distant buzzing from the main wing. Kaine was already being summoned again.

She watched through the window as Kaine emerged from the house, swinging up onto Amaris’s back. The chimaera ran half the length of the courtyard and was airborne.

Helena pressed her hand on the window, the nullium tube pressing against the tendons of her wrist.

The day’s paper arrived with lunch. The photograph on the cover was enough to turn her stomach.

It was taken from the main gates of the Institute, which opened directly across from the steps of the Alchemy Tower.

There on the steps stood Kaine, no helmet, nothing concealing his identity; his face was visible for all to see, his eyes so bright they distorted the photograph.

Between him and the gate, covering the commons, were rows of bodies.

She kept waiting for Kaine to come back, but hours passed and he didn’t. It wasn’t like him to leave her in the house with Atreus unless she could secure the door.

Night fell and Lumithia was little more than a sliver of light, as if the night sky were a black curtain concealing the daylight, and someone had pierced it with a knife.

A low howl floated through the house. Helena went to the window.

Amaris was standing in the courtyard, a huge shadow, only her edges catching the moonlight. Her head kept dipping down to nuzzle something on the ground, and then she’d tilt her head back and give a soft breathy howl with those horse lungs of hers, like a moaning gust of wind.

As Helena watched, Amaris circled and pawed the ground, wings fluttering nervously. For an instant the feeble moonlight reached the ground, illuminating pale hair.

Helena ran to the door, finding one of the servants in the hall.

“Get Davies and the butler, I don’t know his name,” Helena said. “Kaine’s in the courtyard.”

It moved, but very slowly.

Helena barely had time to think about the dark or the shadows, clutching at the wall as she descended the stairs, willing her heart to stay steady.

She faltered at the doorway. The house was all dark; there were no signs of Atreus.

She tried to tell herself that it was good it was dark, Morrough wouldn’t be able to see well if he was watching.

She drew a deep breath and rushed across the gravel to where Amaris was giving another helpless howl.

The chimaera snarled, whirling when Helena got close. Helena stopped, showing her empty hands.

“It’s me,” she said. “Remember? I’ll help him.”

Amaris stopped snarling, but her muzzle remained curled back. She let Helena kneel and crawl the remaining distance to Kaine.

He was lying face down and when she rolled him over, her hands came away wet with blood. He smelled of rot, of that awful hall underground. His skin was cold, and he was barely breathing.

“Kaine? Kaine? What did he do to you?” She shook him gently.

She’d seen him injured by nullium before, but she’d never seen anything like this.

She had no resonance to reach out and find what was wrong.

It was so dark outside, she could scarcely see more than his outline.

She felt his pulse, but it was irregular in a way that would kill a human.

Stopping intermittently and then restarting, pulsing and stopping again.

She tried to lift him, but with the nullium in her wrists, she couldn’t hold him. She hooked her elbows under his arms but didn’t have the weight or strength to move him across the ground. She sank back into the gravel, and his head lolled against her shoulder.

“Kaine—”

He didn’t respond.

She looked around for the servants and spotted Davies and the butler and several other servants coming out, carrying electric torches. They moved as if only half there.

Amaris snarled, and Helena quieted her, petting her ears and urging her back enough for the servants to reach Kaine.

“Take him to my room,” she said softly. “Be gentle, I don’t know where he’s hurt.”

The butler pulled Kaine carefully over his shoulder.

Amaris was trembling, a low groaning whine as her nose followed Kaine up the steps, head bobbing like she wanted to go with him into the house.

“He’ll be all right. I’ll take care of him. You did everything you could.” Helena stayed a moment longer, pressed against the immense, reassuring warmth of the chimaera, and then she forced herself to turn and cross the open gravel back to the far door.

Calm. Stay calm, she told herself over and over, willing her heart to stay even, not to let her mind slip into the shadows. You have to get upstairs to Kaine.

She reached her room before the servants did, in enough time to turn down the bed and clear the table of everything except what medicine she thought might be useful. She started wetting towels while she waited.

The butler was smeared with blood where Kaine’s body had pressed against him.

“Hold him so I can get these clothes off,” Helena said, pulling off his clothes and discarding them onto the floor, trying to find the source of the injury now that she had light. There were no wounds anywhere. Not anymore. What had they done to him? Where had the blood come from?

The more she couldn’t find a cause, the more her chest clenched in dread. Had they done something inside him?

“Bring me all the medical supplies you have in this house,” she said to the other two servants who hovered uselessly, their eyes even more unfocused than usual. “And hurry if you can.”

The butler laid him on the bed, and she wiped the residual blood away.

She wrapped all the bedding around him, trying to keep him warm, and then hurried back to the pile of blood-soaked, stinking clothes lying on the floor, rummaging through his coat until her fingers grazed a familiar shape. She gave a small gasp of relief and pulled out the medical kit.

It was still intact right down to the waxed sheet of written instructions, carefully folded and stored. Several of the vials were long empty, but in the slot she wanted was a new, full vial and the necessary syringe. Clearly it was something he used regularly.

She pressed her forehead against the kit, sighing with relief, and hurried back.

She checked his pulse. It was still intermittent, starting and stalling and failing and then beginning again.

She wiped his chest clean of any remaining blood.

“Sorry,” she said as she filled the syringe, tapping it to knock out any bubbles, and then she sank it into his chest, right over his heart, pressing down on the plunger, injecting the full dose.

Kaine slammed upright almost faster than Helena could pull the syringe away, clutching at his chest. Then he dropped back down on the bed, going limp. He was conscious now, his eyes roving blindly around the room.

“Kaine?”

“—H-lena …?” Her name slurred from his lips.

He sounded bewildered. She set the syringe down and came closer, but his eyes weren’t following her. They kept roving as if trying to find something to land on. She leaned over him, stroking his hair back.

“I’m here. What did he do to you?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Whe’re we?”

Her throat tightened, and she glanced around. The lights were on, the room familiar. Her face was just above his, but he was staring through her.

“We’re in my room. You collapsed outside, and I had the servants bring you here. Can you see me?”

“Can’t—g …” His mouth worked, and she’d never seen him look so scared before. “Can’t—sseee …”

Suddenly his expression changed, and he grasped blindly for her, hand bumping against her arm. “You all right?—your heart? Is your—heart—”

She caught his hand and pressed it to her chest and then her face. His fingers spasmed against her cheek. “I’m fine. My heart is fine. I’m a healer, remember? Patched you up a lot of times. Calm down.”

She cleared her throat, sitting on the edge of the bed so he could feel her nearness, checking his heartbeat and pulse again.

Now it was racing, too fast, but at least it wasn’t failing.

“I had to inject you with the stimulant to keep your heart going. It kept giving out, but I don’t have my resonance.

Can you try to get my manacles off so I can check you? ”

She led his hands to her wrists, placing them on the manacles, but his movements were disjointed, and his fingers kept twitching oddly.

Whatever had been done must have been neurological; he’d never had symptoms like this before.

He tried several times. She finally grasped hold of his fingers, stilling them.

“Never mind,” she said as she fought to keep her voice steady. “Never mind that. I’ll work manually.” She swallowed. “Can you tell me what happened? Why did he do this to you? You’ve been doing everything he wants.”

He was quiet for a while; when he finally spoke his words were smoother, no longer so disjointed. “Hevgoss announced their alliance with the Liberation Front this afternoon.”

That should have been good news.

“In their—declaration, they cited my ‘barbaric slaughter’ as the reason. Seems I should have foreseen this and refused orders. I was made an example of—the cost of failure and incompetence.”

His chest convulsed as if he were attempting to laugh.

“What did he do?” Helena said, afraid of the way he’d avoided the question.

He exhaled. “He ripped out my heart first. Said it was—f-fitting …”

Helena was speechless. It had never even occurred to her that something like that could be survivable.

He managed a grimacing smile. “I think I owe the Principate an apology—terrible way to go. Although growing back was the worst part …”

His voice trailed off again.

She was glad he couldn’t see as she forced herself to breathe slowly several times. She pressed her hand over his heart, feeling the heartbeat.

“And then?” she prompted.

His face twisted. “I’m not—I was still—” He gestured at his chest. “It was something—to my spine, I think. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t move. I don’t remember when my eyes stopped—”

Helena’s throat closed, but she kept her voice steady. “Well, your heart is stable now. I don’t know how long the neurological symptoms might last. The best thing is to rest and give your body time to recover.”

The servants finally returned, carrying several wooden cartons of medical supplies.

Helena sat beside him, going through their contents.

Many more vials of the stimulant, which she hoped not to need.

Kaine fell asleep after a little while but kept jerking, his fingers twitching spasmodically.

He’d start awake, still blind, searching for her, his fingers grasping, trying to feel her heartbeat.

Helena would reassure him that she was fine, and he’d pass out again.

She worried the most about his spasticity. He kept tensing, twitching, his muscles curling inwards, hands and fingers curving into claws.

Helena knew the stimulant caused withdrawal symptoms like that, but she was worried about those symptoms being combined with some kind of brain or spinal injury. Should she have let him be? Was it possible for him to end up with permanent nerve damage? He regenerated so poorly now.

She took his right hand in hers, working at it slowly, knuckle by knuckle, until the muscles were no longer curved and rigid.

Every time she moved her thumbs, the tendons twinged against the nullium, but she didn’t care.

She kept going, working up his arm to his shoulders, and then she started on the other hand.

A gnawing pain radiated up her left arm, but she couldn’t stop.

This was all she could do, and she would do it.

She checked his heart. It was finally steady. His expression relaxed when she spoke. So she talked to him softly, about anything she could think of. All the things she’d always meant to tell him.

After half a day without waking, she hooked him up to a saline drip. He still didn’t stir. A few times, she heard footsteps in the hallway, but if Atreus was lurking about the house again, he didn’t come too near.

Finally, Kaine’s eyes fluttered and opened, falling on her.

She went very still. “Can you see me?”

He squinted. “Shapes at least.” He squeezed his eyes shut, wincing and reopening them. “I think it’s getting better.”

“Good.” She nodded shakily. “I was thinking perhaps the heart injury could have caused blood clotting, or maybe there was nerve strain. Either could cause temporary blindness.”

He gave an absent nod because it hardly mattered either way. His fingers trailed over, finding her. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said, grateful he couldn’t see clearly, because she was too exhausted to lie convincingly.

He started to close his eyes, but then they snapped open again. “My father is at my door.” He sat up stiffly with a groan. “I need to go deal with him. There’s still arrangements I haven’t—”

Helena caught him by the shoulder. “You can’t get up yet. You’re not recovered.”

He placed his hand over hers, trying to squeeze, but instead his fingers spasmed. “My father cannot find me here. I don’t need to recover anymore. You have to leave tonight. I can’t make it a perfect trip, but there’s enough in place. You’ll be able to manage.”

“T-Tonight?”

He said nothing else. He stood up, pulling the needle from his arm, and dressing quickly. He struggled with the buttons on his shirt; Helena had to help him.

“My eyes are getting better already,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I can see how disapproving you look.”

He took her hands in his and after some difficulty managed to get his fingers steady enough to remove the manacles. She locked the copper back around her wrists herself.

“Keep the door locked,” he said. “I’ll be back by nightfall.”