Page 414 of Alchemised

“Hi,” she said, because she was too overwhelmed to say anything else. She cleared her throat, sitting up. “I need to check you.”

Amaris stood up, stretching, and abandoned them, wandering off into the woods, while Helena had Kaine open his shirt. She pressed her hand against his chest, trying to sense his condition now that she was no longer dazed with exhaustion.

He was still nothing natural, that was undeniable, but there wasn’t anything they could do except give him time and hope that his body could find its way back to a semblance of normalcy. There was a fragile tenuousness to his vitality, as if a careless touch could shred it apart.

She was equally worried about his physical condition. It would have been better if they could have waited. He’d still been recovering from what Morrough had done to him, and now it was possible that he never fully would. Both his heart and his tremors worried her, and the thought of the array charring his back open if he ever leaned into it again made her throat close. Her hands shook.

“There are things you’re used to treating as ordinary that you can’t survive anymore,” she said.

“I know,” he said. His voice was still rasping. She shifted closer, pressing her hand against his throat to repair all the damaged tissue.

“I know you know rationally,” she said, “but I mean instinctively. You have years of bad habits that you don’t realise.”

The thought terrified her. What if they were attacked? Kaine was highly competent in combat, but immortality was a crutch that he did not know how to fight without.

She should have planned more carefully. He’d told her to get her strength back, but she had focused on research, and that had saved him, but what if they were attacked, and she couldn’t fight, and he was killed? What if it was all for nothing?

Fear ran like a fissure through her chest.

She looked around, trying to spot the saddlebag. There were knives in it. She needed to get them. She should be carrying them.

Everything was so bright, blurring—

“Helena—Helena, breathe. Look at me. I’m going to be careful. I’m not going to let anything take me from you.”

She tried to nod, but her throat caught.

“But what if something goes wrong?” she asked, her voice straining. “It’s going to fall apart. It always—falls apart.”

She tried to pull away, eyes casting around. They were in the open, endless forest around them. Danger could come from any direction. It wouldn’t even need to be the Undying. It could be anyone.

He turned her so she’d face him. “Look at me. We have not left any trace to follow. I’ve hunted fugitives, I know how you get caught. And we are not going to get caught. You’ve seen me fight carelessly because I could afford to in the past, but I have learned to be more careful. Slower regeneration has taught me caution. Look at me: I trusted you, and you got us here. It’s your turn to trust me.”

She nodded jerkily.

“Now then,” he said, reaching towards her lap, “are you going to tell me what’s wrong with your hand?”

She looked down. The last two fingers of her left hand were curving inwards and didn’t move with the others. She curled her hand into a fist to hide it.

“The array had quite a pull to it. It took a bit of straining to manage everything. The ulnar nerve just—came apart. I tried to fix it, but—there was too much long-term damage, it wasn’t really salvageable.”

Kaine took her left hand gently in his and straightened all her fingers. When his thumb stroked the last two, Helena couldn’t feel it. Not in her fingers or along the outer part of her palm. His fingers trembled.

“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s not even my dominant hand, so I can still do most alchemy. I bet I’ll barely notice.”

“Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “Don’t act like it’s fine.”

She pulled her hand free. “It is fine if I get you instead.”

There was food in the saddlebags, and Helena used retrieving them as a pretext for digging out her daggers and concealing them in her clothes.

The day wore on. The longer they were free, the more anxious she grew.

Kaine was restless, too, although he hid it better. The more he recovered, the more he wanted to patrol and verify that they were as safe as he claimed they were, but he stayed beside her so she could bury her face against his chest, fingers tangled in his shirt, sleeping restlessly.

After flying that night, they reached another hunting cabin. The travel exhausted them both. They barely spoke, just slept tangled in each other’s arms until it was nearly evening. When she woke, Kaine was sitting beside her. His eyes had the faintest gleam to them again.

He looked almost like a painting.