Page 357 of Alchemised

You cannot die here.

Her left wrist was caught in a brutal grip. She twisted, wrenching to get free, hot white pain enveloping her shoulder as her arm rolled out of the socket. She whirled back, getting a hand on the attacker. She didn’t stop to think, she just ripped apart everything her resonance touched. There was an animalistic scream of agony as her wrist came free.

She dragged herself away, trying to pull her shoulder back into its socket. She could barely move her fingers, but she refused to stop.

Fast and clever, Kaine had said. That was what she needed to be to survive.

Lancaster swung into her path, a grin of triumph on his face, thinking her beaten. She slammed her dagger into his chest. He dropped like a stone.

She found her feet and ran straight into the smoke. She could see the city beyond, glittering with all its false promises.

The necrothralls were still in pursuit; she could hear them through the smoke. She was winded to the point that her vision was blurring. The combination of stimulants and sedatives was doing a remarkable job of keeping her from feeling how injured she currently was.

She saw a large figure in the smoke and went towards it. Althorne. She reached for her obsidian dagger, wishing her left arm worked. She keyed up her resonance until it sang around her in a torus as she rushed forward.

Through the smoke, something huge and heavy swung towards her. She barely dodged in time. It slammed into the ground.

The lich was fighting with a glaive, the way Lila did, but with far less speed and elegance. Helena had never fought a lich, but this one didn’t seem accustomed to the body. If she could hit it with the obsidian once, it would sever the reanimation in the body. If she stabbed close enough to the talisman, it would kill whoever he was.

“You’re quite the alchemist,” came Althorne’s voice. The glaive rushed past, so close its wind nearly sliced her cheek open. “What are you?”

Helena was too winded to reply. Her focus was on his weapon and getting past it. She could see Althorne clearly now. His face was grey, and he had a festering head wound. He was in armour, which made it harder to stab him.

When she finally got too close for his glaive, he backhanded her. She went flying but the obsidian caught his wrist, slicing the grey skin wide open. She hit the ground so hard, she couldn’t breathe. She forced her head up, gasping as she watched the reanimation unspool from Althorne’s corpse, like an infection moving up his arm.

She struggled to her feet. The necrothralls were still coming but slower. The lich didn’t fend her off as she closed in again.

Helena only had one fully functional hand, and she hardly managed to grip the obsidian in her left hand while her right ripped the armour out of the way. The lich noticed then, tried to grab at her, but she caught him by the throat and wrenched. Althorne’s oesophagus came out. He dropped. She swayed, shoving his armour out of the way, trying to feel for the talisman, to identify where to stab. Purple dead blood oozed from his throat, covering everything, the clothes and armour and the silver chain that hung around his neck. A pendant, coated in blood, had nearly tumbled into the gaping wound.

It was a dragon, with wings arched above it and its tail caught in its teeth.

She paused, staring. This was Atreus Ferron.

She tried to grip the dagger, but her left arm was numb. Was it better to kill him, or to give the talisman to Kaine and let him choose what to do?

No. She had to do this. Kaine shouldn’t have to kill his own father.

She reached out with her resonance again, trying to feel for the talisman.

Thwack!

Red exploded in her vision as something slammed across her skull. She toppled across Althorne’s corpse, and when she tried to get up, everything spun. She got halfway up and collapsed again.

Lancaster stumbled towards her, half his chest coated in blood. He was gripping the glaive. He’d used the pole section to crack Helena across the back of her head.

“I’m going to kill you,” she said, trying again to push herself up.

He gave a wheezing laugh. “Try.” He gestured at her. “Get her up.”

Two Aspirants pulled Helena off the ground, kicking the obsidian knife out of her hand. Her legs would barely hold her. Everything swayed, but the drug still screamed through her veins, and her resonance was razor-sharp. She didn’t fight, instead slumping against the more heavily armed of the two.

They were stupid to fall for the same trick twice.

She found a knife loose enough to slip from its sheath as they dragged her over to Lancaster. Standard-issue combat knife. She was very familiar with the model.

Lancaster was pale with blood loss, but he smiled and kept his distance, clearly preferring to risk his compatriots. “I’m going to have so much fun with you. Once I’m Undying, I’m going to have them keep you alive as they turn you inside out.”

She used the last of her strength to lunge at him.