Page 341 of Alchemised

“A piece of him, I should say. When young Luc so boldly surrendered himself, I was curious how alike we were. I have lived for so long now, and he was so—fresh. I bound a piece of my soul to my bone and placed it inside him. I’d hoped he would accept me—hoped that we could be one as my brother and I should have been—but he’s as self-righteous as Orion. It’s fortunate that healer Boyle is so eager to please, she keeps him sedated for me.”

“Luc’s still alive, then?” Helena’s voice shook.

“Of course. This is his body after all.” Morrough, or Cetus, or whoever he was, gestured downwards. “I’m just a shadow in the back of his mind, or I would have been, if he hadn’t gone so mad trying to tear me out that they drugged him to a stupor. Gave me free rein.”

“You’re puppeting him like a necrothrall? Is that how you infiltrated Headquarters?”

Luc’s features twisted in offence. “I’m not a puppet. I know what’s in the interest of my primary self, and I have found the means of pursuing it. You can kill me, and it’ll do nothing—only Luc will die. As for your Headquarters—” He shook his head. “It seems that young Luc isn’t your only traitor.”

“But what is all this for?” Helena asked. Apollo, Luc, Lila … she couldn’t understand. “Why come back to Paladia after all these centuries?”

“Because I want to erase my brother’s legacy the same way he destroyed mine.” Fury swept across Luc’s face. “He tried to blot my name from history, to discredit any of my work that he couldn’t steal and claim as his own. Attributed my discoveries to charlatans, taking my research and making himself a god with it. It’s only fair to return the favour.”

Helena shook her head. She didn’t believe that. Morrough had too many opportunities to wipe out the Holdfasts; even Kaine had remarked on it, that Luc was being intentionally spared.

She thought of Luc, cut open on that table, all those decaying organs inside him.

“You’re dying,” she said. “Your original body, wherever it is. You came to Paladia because all the power in the world isn’t enough to keep regenerating forever. There’s a limit and you’ve reached it and you can’t push beyond that no matter how much vitality and how many souls you harvest. When you had Apollo killed, you took his heart, and when you had Luc, we couldn’t heal his organ damage because those organs were yours. You’re harvesting Orion’s descendants for parts. And—” It dawned on her slowly. “—that’s—that’s why Lila’s pregnant. You’re making yourself another descendant. That’s why you wouldn’t let her go to Novis: because you’ll need that baby next.”

Cetus stared at her, a bizarre look of calculation in Luc’s eyes. “You’re clever,” he said. “The Holdfasts had no idea what they’d found when they imported you. An indentured animancer. Perhaps Apollo was more cunning than I realised. I knew what you were the moment you reached in with your resonance—if I hadn’t thrown you across the room, you would have found me. Pity really. I had no choice but to have you sent off to the front. Matias was so happy to oblige. But somehow you came crawling back like a cockroach.”

Cetus smiled, a cruel glint in his eyes that Luc had never possessed. “Never mind, though. I’m glad I get to do this personally. Sebastian”—he looked at Luc’s last remaining paladin—“you’re finally going to die protecting a Holdfast from a necromancer.”

Luc moved so fast. There was a shriek of metal as Sebastian drew his weapon and blocked the attack. The room was small. Helena flung herself out of the way as Sebastian shoved Cetus back, drawing another weapon, slamming the hilt down on Luc’s hand before he could unleash a wave of fire.

Luc’s body was weak, tired from battle, and dying, and Sebastian was a fury unlike anything Helena had ever seen before. In an instant he’d hammered Luc into a corner, smashing through his defences, raising his arm to make a killing blow.

The instant before Sebastian brought his weapon down, Cetus’s expression morphed, mockery vanishing as it became Luc’s face, blue eyes wide in shock.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Sebastian hesitated for less than an instant, and Luc’s knife sank into the base of Sebastian’s throat. There was no armour to stop it. Cetus dragged the blade down, sundering Sebastian’s ribs and gutting him.

Sebastian fell without a sound.

Cetus didn’t even watch Sebastian die; he’d already turned to Helena. “Your turn.”

He was blocking the door, and if she screamed, no one who came would take her word over Luc’s.

As Cetus came towards her, she focused on everything that Kaine had ever drilled into her. She needed direct contact.

An instant would be enough.

He swung his sword at her head, but he was tired, his hand injured by Sebastian. The blow was slow and weak. She whipped out one of her titanium knives and managed to transmute it quickly enough to block the blow.

Cetus’s knife flashed, Sebastian’s blood spattering, aimed at her throat. With her other hand, she slammed the hilt of her obsidian knife into his wrist. The sight of black glass captured Cetus’s focus. Helena dropped her titanium knife, her empty hand shooting out, her palm against his forehead, fingers tangling in his hair.

Her resonance slammed into his head with the force of an arrow, using the same trick of paralysis that Kaine had used on her so long ago.

The knife and sword in Luc’s hands clattered to the floor, and his knees gave out. She let him slide to the ground, her palm still firmly pressed against his skull, shoving her resonance deep into his mind.

Helena had never been inside Luc’s consciousness, but she knew from her interrogation work that a mind was like a home. It had the feeling of the person. Luc’s mind was like walking into a house and finding the walls covered in blood and torn apart. A parasite had grown through his consciousness and fed on every glimmer of the person who should be there.

Cetus had cannibalised Luc, wearing him like a skin.

She ripped her consciousness back out and nearly doubled over with nauseous horror.

Cetus’s eyes danced even though his face was strained by his inability to breathe.