Page 399 of Alchemised

A low howl floated through the house. Helena went to the window.

Amaris was standing in the courtyard, a huge shadow, only her edges catching the moonlight. Her head kept dipping down to nuzzle something on the ground, and then she’d tilt her head back and give a soft breathy howl with those horse lungs of hers, like a moaning gust of wind.

As Helena watched, Amaris circled and pawed the ground, wings fluttering nervously. For an instant the feeble moonlight reached the ground, illuminating pale hair.

Helena ran to the door, finding one of the servants in the hall.

“Get Davies and the butler, I don’t know his name,” Helena said. “Kaine’s in the courtyard.”

It moved, but very slowly.

Helena barely had time to think about the dark or the shadows, clutching at the wall as she descended the stairs, willing her heart to stay steady. She faltered at the doorway. The house was all dark; there were no signs of Atreus. She tried to tell herself that it was good it was dark, Morrough wouldn’t be able to see well if he was watching.

She drew a deep breath and rushed across the gravel to where Amaris was giving another helpless howl.

The chimaera snarled, whirling when Helena got close. Helena stopped, showing her empty hands.

“It’s me,” she said. “Remember? I’ll help him.”

Amaris stopped snarling, but her muzzle remained curled back. She let Helena kneel and crawl the remaining distance to Kaine.

He was lying face down and when she rolled him over, her hands came away wet with blood. He smelled of rot, of that awful hall underground. His skin was cold, and he was barely breathing.

“Kaine? Kaine? What did he do to you?” She shook him gently. She’d seen him injured by nullium before, but she’d never seen anything like this. She had no resonance to reach out and find what was wrong. It was so dark outside, she could scarcely see more than his outline. She felt his pulse, but it was irregular in a way that would kill a human. Stopping intermittently and then restarting, pulsing and stopping again.

She tried to lift him, but with the nullium in her wrists, she couldn’t hold him. She hooked her elbows under his arms but didn’t have the weight or strength to move him across the ground. She sank back into the gravel, and his head lolled against her shoulder.

“Kaine—”

He didn’t respond.

She looked around for the servants and spotted Davies and the butler and several other servants coming out, carrying electric torches. They moved as if only half there.

Amaris snarled, and Helena quieted her, petting her ears and urging her back enough for the servants to reach Kaine.

“Take him to my room,” she said softly. “Be gentle, I don’t know where he’s hurt.”

The butler pulled Kaine carefully over his shoulder.

Amaris was trembling, a low groaning whine as her nose followed Kaine up the steps, head bobbing like she wanted to go with him into the house.

“He’ll be all right. I’ll take care of him. You did everything you could.” Helena stayed a moment longer, pressed against the immense, reassuring warmth of the chimaera, and then she forced herself to turn and cross the open gravel back to the far door.

Calm. Stay calm, she told herself over and over, willing her heart to stay even, not to let her mind slip into the shadows. You have to get upstairs to Kaine.

She reached her room before the servants did, in enough time to turn down the bed and clear the table of everything except what medicine she thought might be useful. She started wetting towels while she waited.

The butler was smeared with blood where Kaine’s body had pressed against him.

“Hold him so I can get these clothes off,” Helena said, pulling off his clothes and discarding them onto the floor, trying to find the source of the injury now that she had light. There were no wounds anywhere. Not anymore. What had they done to him? Where had the blood come from?

The more she couldn’t find a cause, the more her chest clenched in dread. Had they done something inside him?

“Bring me all the medical supplies you have in this house,” she said to the other two servants who hovered uselessly, their eyes even more unfocused than usual. “And hurry if you can.”

The butler laid him on the bed, and she wiped the residual blood away.

She wrapped all the bedding around him, trying to keep him warm, and then hurried back to the pile of blood-soaked, stinking clothes lying on the floor, rummaging through his coat until her fingers grazed a familiar shape. She gave a small gasp of relief and pulled out the medical kit.