Page 220 of Alchemised

“You will do anything for that family, won’t you? But someday, Holdfast will realise you don’t belong in his kingdom of gold and purity. I wonder what he’ll do with you then.”

She knew he was trying to hurt her, but it was something she had thought about so much, the sting of it had worn away.

“He won’t have to do anything; you took care of that for him.” She gave a tight-lipped smile. “But even if you hadn’t, I knew I’d be expendable from the moment I became a healer.”

She thought that would silence him, but he laughed.

“You think it started then? You’ve always been expendable. Do you really think this war is about necromancy? That any of the wars have ever actually been about necromancy?”

She shook her head warily. “No. It’s always about power. And what people will do without caring about the cost.”

He tilted his head, studying her. “Have you never wondered why it was so easy for the High Necromancer to recruit the guild families? After all, plenty of them were devout, or owed their fortunes to the Institute.”

She shrugged. “Because you’re jealous and petty and wanted more than the plenty you already had.”

He raised an eyebrow as he pulled his blood-drenched clothes back on. “Well, I suppose that was a part of it, but no, what Morrough did was widen a crack that the Holdfasts have been growing for centuries. Since the moment they founded this city, they set themselves up as kings while claiming not to be. They weren’t the lowly sort who’d ‘pursue’ power; no, they were divinely destined for it. Called, you might say.”

“That’s because they didn’t want to rule,” she said fiercely. “Luc certainly never did, and Apollo always cared most for the Institute. He hated politics.”

Kaine’s mouth twisted. “Yes. Funny how often people in power hate politics, as if what they really want is to do as they please and be praised for it, and if they aren’t, then it’s all beneath them. Considering how much they despised it, they certainly were unwilling to part with it. Only handed the minutiae of governance over to those of faith, let the Falcons and Kestrels and Shrikes manage all that tedium. The Institute was founded on the idea of pursuing the heights of alchemy, but that began to crumble the moment the science began contradicting the Faith. You should have seen the crisis when new metals were first discovered. The Faith spent years insisting there could be only eight, calling them compounds or alloys, and refusing to formally acknowledge those guilds because religiously, celestially, the number was limited to eight. So much for all those ideals of uniting the world through the study of alchemy.”

He eyed Helena. “Of course, they couldn’t go back on all those promises completely, Orion’s legacy had to endure, so they’d import someone from time to time. Some prodigy from a distant land that they could show off as proof of their magnanimity, to serve their ends while beholden to the Principate.”

Fury rose in Helena like a volcano. “That’s not what they did!”

He flicked his eyes over her derisively. “You were a desperate scholarship student who nearly cried every year when your exam scores were listed because it bought you one more year of education, and your father lived near the water slums because he couldn’t get a job.”

“Yes, but if they’d been any more generous, you guilds would have thrown fits about it.”

“Why would that have mattered? We already hated you. It would have cost the Holdfasts a pittance to find your father some menial job, but if you’d ever been able to stop struggling, you might have realised what a web they had you trapped in. I hear Ilva Holdfast was particularly talented at that kind of thing. Always knew just how much pressure a person could take.”

A sick feeling swept through her, but she shook her head.

“So all you guild students were just—what? Playing along?” she said scathingly.

He laughed. “No. We did hate you. Consider it from our perspective: You were the line the Holdfasts drew between the Eternal Flame and all the rest of us. Some little nobody plucked from obscurity and given the attention and praise that none of the guilds could ever earn. We built ourselves from the dirt and emptied our pocketbooks annually buying certification and lumithium from a family that could make wealth from nothing, and we were expected to be grateful to do so. When we looked up at what we wanted, you were the first thing in the way.”

A chill ran down her spine.

Kaine looked across the room. “When Morrough came here, he didn’t even have to offer immortality or riches. He just offered to remove those who would never let us rise further. With the Holdfasts gone, the Faith’s grip on Paladia was supposed to crumble. An easy takeover. The city should have barely been affected. Even the Institute was intended to be left intact.”

“But then your father was arrested.”

He nodded, his eyes flat. “But then my father was arrested, and it was all a lie anyway, but by the time those who’d object realised that, it was too late for them.”

“There were Undying who objected?” Her pulse sped up, thinking about potential sympathisers. This was critical information. This could change everything.

He nodded idly.

“Who?” She leaned in. “Who objected?”

“You really want to know?”

She nodded, fervently.

He reached out, fingers wrapping around her throat, and pulled her close. “Basilius Blackthorne. Recognise that name?”

Her blood ran cold. Yes, she knew it.