Page 217 of Alchemised

He was leaning against the wall. “Does it matter what I think?”

“I live among idealists, but all I see are bodies. I’d like the opinion of someone who doesn’t believe that optimism somehow improves the odds.”

He glanced at her. “Does the Eternal Flame have a strategy to win?”

She looked down. As far as she knew, the plan was to reclaim lost territory, drive the Undying back, and burn as many of the dead as possible. The same method that the Eternal Flame had followed in all the Necromancy Wars in the past.

She gave an awkward half nod.

“The High Necromancer will do whatever it takes to win. The method doesn’t matter. He wants Paladia, ideally with the city intact, but if he can’t get it, he’ll raze it instead. You’re fighting someone whose only objection to genocide is the waste of potential resources. Even a genocide is acceptable if it leaves him with the materials for more necrothralls. And you’re trying to win by—what? Waiting for Sol’s intervention? Is there any plan that doesn’t hinge on the inherent superiority of goodness?”

Not that she was aware of.

“Why aid us, then?” she asked. “If you don’t think we can win.”

His expression grew mocking. “Don’t you think you’re worth it?”

“Oh yes, your rose in a graveyard,” she said, lip curling. “Was the array for me, too?”

“Who else?” he asked, his voice empty, just a touch of irony in it.

“Aurelia, perhaps.”

He smiled. “Right. Quite forgot about her.”

“Why are you helping us, Kaine?”

He looked over at her. His features had grown markedly different in recent months. He’d lost all trace of juvenile ungainliness; there was a hardness to his features now that felt more accurate to who he was. His hair more silver every time she saw him. There was no hazel left in his eyes.

He looked a world apart from the dark-haired, insolent boy he’d been when she’d first come to the Outpost. There was an unearthliness to him now.

Touch him and she’d bleed, and yet she could not escape the allure of it.

Their eyes met, and a wave of bitterness swept across his face.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, looking away.

She opened her mouth to argue, but anything she said would be a lie. Whatever his motive was, he didn’t trust the Eternal Flame not to use it against him. They both knew Crowther would.

“I suppose not,” she said, pulling on the thick green pullover to keep out the cold. When she reached the door, she looked back.

Kaine’s gaze flicked away as she turned, as if he hadn’t been watching her go.

There was something haunted about him.

“Don’t die, Kaine,” she said. The line he walked frightened her. If the array was the punishment for a failure, what would the price of betrayal be?

A smirk twisted his mouth as he looked at her. “There are far worse fates than dying, Marino.”

She nodded. “I know. But that one you don’t come back from.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “All right, then, but only because you asked.”

CHAPTER 44

Decembris 1786

THE WAR FROZE ALONG WITH PALADIA. THE tension between the two sides endlessly strung out. A fragile balance that might be lost at any moment. Every battle was sudden, without warning and with terrible casualties.