Page 36 of Alchemised

“I am investigating all potential avenues,” Ferron said, breathing heavily. “The records indicate that Crowther collaborated with a metallurgist killed during the final battle. I have assigned cryptologists to re-evaluate his research for any hints of other collaborators.”

“That is old information,” Morrough snarled. “How many weeks have you been investigating the deaths with nothing to show for it? Have you forgotten what happens when I am disappointed?”

“I—”

The thrumming of Morrough’s resonance concentrated and vanished. There was a crack, sharp and sudden like branches snapping. Ferron gave a broken gasp and dropped like a stone, falling not prone but over Helena, one arm braced just above her head.

She could just barely make out his face. His silver eyes above her seemed to glow as blood spurted from his mouth, dripping from his lips and onto the floor. His expression twisted, his body contorting and his pupils dilating until his irises were narrow bands of silver.

Then he screamed and went limp, collapsing on top of her.

The weight of his body, the jut of broken bones, pressed down on her, but she couldn’t feel a heartbeat.

No hint of breathing. He was completely still.

He jerked, a garbled gasp rattling in his lungs as his chest began pulsing. He convulsed as though drowning, coughing up blood, as he pushed himself off her.

“I-I will not f-fail you, I swear.” His voice shook, barely more than a whisper, and he rose unsteadily back to his feet.

“Be sure that you don’t,” was all Morrough said.

Ferron reached down, fingers spasming as he pulled Helena up from the ground again. Her head lolled back.

“Watch her carefully. The Eternal Flame will come for her soon, I am certain of it.”

“I will die before I lose her,” Ferron said, his grip tightening.

“I want them alive this time, High Reeve. These last embers who dare mock me. You will bring them to me, to kill at leisure.”

“You will have them. As I have given you all the rest.” Ferron’s voice had grown steadier. He bowed low.

Helena craned her neck, peering through her swimming vision at the green, rotted faces visible on the throne, terrified of how many she’d recognise if she could see them clearly.

She tried to rip herself free, but she couldn’t escape. Ferron squeezed harder as he dragged Helena out of the hall, pulling her through winding tunnels, not stopping even when her legs failed, feet tripping. He wouldn’t let go.

Finally he stopped and, without releasing her, allowed Helena to slide to the floor. She crumpled, gasping, still struggling to breathe. The air was cleaner, damp and swampy, but there was no more scent of blood. The stones in the tunnel were dry.

Her head hurt so much that trying to think was like touching a raw wound, but she had so many questions.

“I—” Her throat closed, convulsing. “I—attacked a prison?”

“It was after the final battle,” Ferron said, sounding far away.

“Seems you were captured after levelling more than half the West Port Laboratory. You’d disguised yourself as a Hevgotian during the attack, and then disappeared into that tank afterwards, resulting in contradictory reports.

The investigation was considered inconclusive until my father realised where he recognised you from. He was present that night.”

She shook her head. “I was a healer,” she said. “I wasn’t—they didn’t let me fight.”

Ferron said nothing.

She still didn’t understand. “And Lila was there?”

“Yes.”

“But she was dying when you—caught her.”

“The West Port Laboratory was Bennet’s experimental research site.”

A low sound of horror tore from Helena. She doubled over, retching. Ferron had to prop her up.

“Drink this,” he said, pressing a vial of something into her hand. “It’ll help.”

Helena’s hand shook, but she swallowed without question. There was nothing he could give her that could make things worse. Instead pain relief so bitter it was mouth-numbing washed across her tongue. She sat breathing unsteadily as it took effect.

She tried to focus but felt concussed. With brain injuries it was important to remain conscious. Conversing was supposed to help, keeping patients talking. She kept herself talking.

“Did this happen to you?” Her tongue was sluggish. She felt Ferron look at her, his pale eyes gleaming briefly in the darkness.

“More than once …” he said after a long silence. “My training was rigorous.”

“Why?”

He shifted, muffling a low groan. “To see if I’d be better than my father, or if I’d break under interrogation, too.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Was that—before you killed Principate Apollo?”

He released a huffing breath, as if suppressing a laugh.

“Are you wanting a confession?” he finally asked. “Shall I tell you everything I’ve done?”

She could only make out the vaguest shape of him, crouched in front of her. His breathing was still strained as he held her upright.

She wondered then if they’d paused there so she could recover, or so he could. The dose of laudanum she’d taken had eased the pain splintering her head.

A question rose to her lips, and she felt as if it was vital that she ask. She leaned forward, trying to see his face. “Do you want to?”

He was silent for a long moment, and then stood without answering, pulling her to her feet. Her body was half numb, and he had to nearly carry her the rest of the way to the motorcar.

In the light, she found she was covered in putrefied remains, rotted blood and gore smeared around her clothes and hands.

All the necrothralls were watching as Ferron pulled her over to the car, handing her off to one of his own servants, letting it strip off her dress and wrap her in a wool lap cloth. She collapsed across the back seat.

Ferron sat up front. When the motorcar emerged from the tunnel, she was almost blinded by the vivid white of the overcast sky, but she managed to make out his profile. He was slumped forward, eyes closed. Pale as death.

I T TOOK TWO DAYS BEFORE Helena could see reliably, and three before she could sit up without feeling dizzy. She tried to read but the words swam, leaving her with nothing but her thoughts to preoccupy her.

One the third day, one of the maids brought a tray of porridge to her bed. She looked at it, meeting the cloudy blue eyes.

“Ferron, will you come here?”

The maid stared at her, and then looked away, leaving without acknowledgement, but that evening as she was picking at her dinner, the door opened and Ferron entered.

“You called?” His tone was sardonic.

“I had a question I wanted to ask you,” she said, sitting forward even though it made her head throb until her eyes threatened to pop.

She drew a slow breath, gathering up all the threads of information she’d collected over the months. As if without realising it, she’d been weaving a tapestry, and only now could she make out the image forming at her fingertips.

“Mandl wasn’t the first of the Undying to be killed,” she said at last. “They’ve been dying for weeks.

I didn’t realise what the disappearances had in common until now.

I thought it was censorship, that maybe they were dissidents, but it’s the Undying.

They’re disappearing because they’re being killed, and you’re the one who’s been covering it up. ”

Ferron said nothing, his expression carefully blank.

She swallowed hard. “You know, the Undying have never made much sense to me. Scientifically or logically. Immortality seems like a dangerous thing to just—gift to people, and Morrough’s hardly the altruistic type.

I know how vivimancy works. There’s a price for complex regeneration, and someone always has to pay it.

There’s no way around that. In order to regenerate the way the Undying can, someone is paying for it. ”

“I thought you had a question,” Ferron said.

“I’m getting there,” Helena said calmly, trying to ignore the throbbing in the back of her head.

“When the Undying are in dead bodies, they don’t retain their old resonance; they get whatever resonance the new body has.

Like your father: He’s an iron alchemist, he doesn’t know anything about pyromancy.

So if someone like you, an animancer, lost their body, you’d lose that ability, and if you thought being a lich was a punishment, something you do to teach someone a lesson, you’d cling to your body no matter what condition it was in and be desperate to figure out transference.

But even if you did, you’d still need to find an animancer.

But someone like that would fight the transference. ”

She winced, pressing her hand against her forehead as if she could push back the pressure.

“So … that’s where the repopulation program comes in,” she said unsteadily.

“Morrough doesn’t care about the economy or what kind of alchemists there are in New Paladia.

The real reason Stroud’s using selective breeding is to find a way to control what resonance children are born with.

That’s why they brought back your father and I saw him at Central.

She’s trying to produce an animancer for Morrough.

If transference is perfected by the time she does, he’d have the means and the perfect vessel to use, but he’s—he’s running out of time. ”

Ferron’s eyes narrowed.

She drew a deep breath. “Something’s wrong about him.

He’s too old, and that should affect resonance, but it hasn’t with him.

He’s got some other source for his power, something he can draw from.

But he’s deteriorating anyway. I saw him only a few months ago, and he wasn’t like that.

That throne is now keeping him alive. I kept trying to guess what could possibly hurt someone like him.

It’s not like anyone could get close. Then I thought, maybe the source of his power is right in front of us, but it’s been disguised, so that people wouldn’t realise.

Perhaps it’s presented as a gift, something people are desperate to earn, but really he’s the one who needs it. ”

Pain shot through Helena’s head. Her vision turned red. She gave an agonised gasp, toppling sideways. Ferron was moving towards her.

She looked up, forcing her question out.

“The Undying. You’re his source of power, and the Resistance—we figured that out, didn’t we? How to kill him. How to kill all of you.”