Page 277 of Alchemised

It was only pain that drew her back into herself. She kept pinching at her skin, scratching at it. It wasn’t intense enough. She needed something stronger.

She blinked and found herself holding one of Lila’s knives, a second away from shoving it through her left forearm.

She dropped it and fled the room, wandering half blindly through the empty hallways of the Tower. It was night, quiet; almost everyone was asleep. It was so eerily still. She was consumed with a sort of mania.

She stumbled outside, hoping that the clear air would help centre her.

Lumithia hung overhead, bright as a white sun in the black abyss.

Helena’s eyes throbbed just looking up at her. The Ascendance always put everything on edge, but Helena was already on edge. Ascendance had shoved her right over.

She closed her eyes and she was drowning again, nails dragging welts across her skin.

Kaine.

Kaine would know what was wrong. He’d understand. He used necromancy; he must know how to deal with this.

Without pausing to think, she headed for the Outpost. The destination was deliriously urgent. Curfew would be soon. She had to get through the checkpoints.

The streets of the city were like silver ribbons gleaming under full Ascendance, the shadows like teeth.

Just a little farther, she kept telling herself with every step. Until she was across the bridge, the river high and roaring beneath her, the tenement looming in front of her.

It was only when she reached the steps that she stopped to think.

She’d promised Kaine she would never come to the Outpost unless there was a Resistance emergency. He was a spy. It was dangerous for him. She’d given her word.

She’d risk his cover—endanger him.

She turned away.

Without a destination, her focus fractured.

Soren. Helena. Soren.

She felt her jaw give way, cold air and blood as her oesophagus tore open. Fingers gouging into her eye sockets. Water closing over her head. She was drowning but couldn’t die, so she just kept drowning.

When her consciousness found her again, she was lying on the ground. The black sky, dark as ink, loomed overhead as Lumithia bore down, a scorching cold in Helena’s resonance.

“Marino, what have you done to yourself?”

She was barely conscious of being lifted off the ground. Hot hands touching her face and forehead, driving away the drowning cold. She burrowed into the heat.

She was delirious. Truly delirious now, because Kaine was there with a giant winged dog standing behind him.

She’d never had a hallucination before, but all things considered, it was oddly pleasant. Kaine was like a furnace, and when she buried herself in his arms, face pressed against his chest, she could scarcely feel the cold dead fingers anymore.

“Soren Bayard died and I—I brought him back, but the other necrothralls tore him to pieces. I can’t stop remembering how it felt. I think he took part of me with him. How do you do it again and again without going insane? Is it like this forever?”

One of his hands tilted her head back so she could see his eyes. In the moonlight, the grey glowed almost as bright as Lumithia, his hair gleaming that same colour.

“Had you ever used necromancy before?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t suppose anyone told you how to do it, did they?” He exhaled, the back of his fingers pressing against her forehead. “You had the shit luck of knowing him, too. You’re going into shock.”

A hysterical laugh bubbled up from her. Of course no one had told her how to perform necromancy.