Page 395 of Alchemised

“Yes, you seem intent on destroying everything this family has ever built,” Atreus said, his face contorting so much, it seemed the dead grey skin might tear as he glared at his son. “What sin did your mother ever commit to deserve such a son?”

Kaine leaned forward, a razor-thin smile spreading across his face, pure contempt in his eyes. “I believe it was when she married you.”

Fury seemed to ignite inside Atreus, but Aurelia broke in.

“See? See? I told you. It is all his doing! I have been a perfect wife. You should have seen this hideous mouldering place when he brought me. I’ve done everything to be a proper wife that I have had means to, trying to restore this house, to get rid of all the ugly, fussy old-fashioned things everywhere, and to make it the heart of society. Everything decent in this house is because of me. I’m just like your wife, I—”

Atreus turned sharply. There was a wet snick and a gasping burble as Aurelia stopped speaking.

She reached up towards her neck as a line of blood gushed from a slit across her throat. She blinked once, mouth opening, but no sound came out, only a blood-filled gasp, and then her head toppled backwards, slit throat opening, body following, and she collapsed onto the white gravel. Her pink dress turned redder and redder.

Helena had to cram her hand against her mouth to smother the sound that nearly escaped her.

The side of her neck burned as her heart began pounding, but she couldn’t move as Atreus glared down at his former daughter-in-law, the fish knife dangling once more from his fingertips, a drop of blood on the curved tip.

“Do not ever compare yourself to my wife,” he said, staring down at Aurelia.

Kaine made no move except to step forward and block the sight of Aurelia’s slit throat from Helena’s view.

“I hope you intend to deal with the Ingram family,” he said. “Given that you contracted me into marrying her.”

“What can they do?” Atreus said with a sneer that Helena knew well. It was eerie seeing Kaine’s traits in Crowther’s dead face. “You clearly had no intention of ever putting an heir inside her.”

Atreus leaned down, pulling Aurelia’s body up off the ground by an arm. “I’ll deal with this, but once this matter is resolved, you will give me the name of a woman you will cooperate in marrying and producing a guild heir with. Otherwise, once I’ve found the last member of the Eternal Flame and gifted them to the High Necromancer, I will request that he order your cooperation in producing an heir, and I will choose the bride.”

Atreus turned and disappeared into the house, dragging Aurelia with him. The scent of the roses mixed with the coppery tang of fresh blood.

Helena turned and walked away, heading towards the far wing of the house. Once they were inside, in a hallway where they couldn’t be watched, she stopped. Kaine was only steps behind her. She knew he was about to ask if she was all right, but she spoke first.

“You planned that.”

He froze for an instant. “What makes you say that?” His voice was light.

“Because she’s a loose end. If you’ll let Amaris die, you won’t let Aurelia live.”

His expression hardened. “What did you expect? She tried to gouge out your eyes.”

Helena flinched at the memory of Aurelia’s talons hooking behind her eyeball. Her terror of being blinded, left in the dark forever. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“I would have killed her then, but it diverted suspicion to have a pretty wife in the house. Living here alone with you could have attracted attention. That was the only reason I let her live.”

Helena nodded listlessly. None of that surprised her, but it didn’t change anything, either. “I hate it when you kill people because of me,” she said.

She reached up, pressing her left hand against the scar on her neck, remembering her father’s face and the horrible gash below his jaw. That mockery of his smile as her last memory of him.

There was so much easy, indifferent death. It had bled together. The quantity had grown beyond a tragedy, into a figure so large it was almost abstract. Even for her, after so many years of fighting for every life, pouring herself into preserving them, eventually she had ceased to bleed. There was so much now, it was scarcely comprehensible.

She and Kaine stood in the centre of it.

“There’s so much more to you,” she said, “but sometimes I feel like all I do is bring out the worst. You would never go so far if it weren’t for me. You wouldn’t be like this. I did this to you.”

“You’re right. I don’t imagine I would.”

“I used to have so many dreams for us,” she said, voice thickening. “When I’d worry about you, when I’d do things I didn’t want to, when the war felt so heavy that I was sure I’d break under it, I’d tell myself: Someday you’re going to run away with him. Somewhere quiet. You won’t ask for very much, just you and him, and that will be enough.” A lump welled up in her throat, and she shook her head. “That was all I wanted. It was my whole dream, to see what we could be away from the war. I thought it would all be worth it for that.”

She exhaled, right hand clenching, feeling the scars from the amulet across her palm. “But look at everything we’ve done, and it’s still not enough. I guess in the end, I am like Luc. I thought that we could suffer enough to earn each other.”

He said nothing, and she was so tired of his resignation.