Page 396 of Alchemised

“Why are you always so ready to die?” she said, whirling on him even though she’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t be angry anymore. “Even at the beginning when you made your offer to Crowther, you were already planning to die, like it didn’t matter to anyone. But why are you still like that now, when it does?”

Kaine sighed, jaw jutting forward. His thumb pressing against the ring on his hand. “I didn’t have anyone, Helena,” he said quietly. “After my mother died, I was alone. My life was blown apart when I went home at sixteen, and everything I did from that point on was to keep from losing the only thing I had left. When she died—it didn’t matter. Revenge was all I could do to make up for it, and dying for that didn’t matter to anyone—not until you came along.”

His voice grew bitter.

“I didn’t make plans past the war because there were never any plans to make. Holdfast, the Eternal Flame, they were never going to win, and I always knew that. Falling for you didn’t change that—it just … it just made knowing worse.”

The lights flickered, and a distant buzzing came from the main wing.

Kaine tensed, his head snapping right. “Something’s wrong. He never uses that to call for me anymore. Go to your room and bar the door.”

He left quickly. She watched from the window as he emerged in uniform, including the helmet that concealed his hair. He led out Amaris, swinging onto her back, and then they were gone, flying towards the city.

Helena waited. In less than an hour, a motorcar came. She watched it pull up, knife in hand. Had Ivy been captured or betrayed them? Was the summons meant to lure Kaine away from the estate?

Instead Atreus emerged in uniform, sliding into the rear. The motorcar pulled away.

What had Ivy done?

It was the middle of the night when she heard the door disbarred from the outside.

Kaine entered, still in uniform, his helmet in his hand.

His expression was unreadable.

“We received word that while the Eastern envoy was passing through Novis, the train was attacked. Everyone on board was killed—including Shiseo.”

CHAPTER 72

Julius 1789

SHISEO WAS DEAD.

His return had hung over Helena like a raised sword, so long a foregone conclusion. He would return and she would go. That fact had felt immutable.

Kaine was shaking his head slowly, as if he could scarcely believe it himself.

“Is it confirmed?”

“They sent his head. Novis is claiming they had no direct part in it, that it’s a surviving faction of the Eternal Flame, but—there isn’t one. Not with those kinds of abilities. This was an experimental salvo. The queen is calculating, and she wants to see if the allying countries will distance themselves if pressured to choose a side, and whether New Paladia has any recourse.” He lowered his head, and the air warped with his resonance, but then he laughed. “The irony is, this is what we orchestrated, this was our plan, except they weren’t supposed to do it until I was gone.”

He threw his helmet against the wall. “Now they’ve given Morrough warning and time to assemble forces and recall the necrothralls from the mines, and I am still here and I can’t refuse orders. Fuck!”

So they were all going to die, then. Kaine was going to die, she would die, their daughter would die. Spirefell was a cage and a tomb.

She reached out to him, her fingers almost numb. “It’s all right, Kaine. You did everything you could.”

I’d rather die in your arms.

His eyebrows knit together for a moment. “You’re still leaving.”

Helena stared at him, not understanding. The escape plan had hinged on Shiseo.

He pulled off his gloves. “There are other ways, they’re just … not as clean. There’s more risk of being tracked down if they move quickly to pursue, which is likely to happen. Morrough will do anything to recover you. If you can reach the coast in time, you’ll disappear into the islands long before they can catch up. But—you’ll have to get to Lila alone. Unless you think you’re strong enough to take Amaris by yourself.”

“How—alone?”

Even before, during the war when she’d been stronger, not prone to fits of panaphobia, flying on Amaris was something she’d endured only out of necessity. The height and speed had always terrified her, and Amaris had known where to go, requiring no guidance from Helena.