Page 423 of Alchemised

Kaine’s silver eyes slid open, and he stared up at her, his expression carefully closed.

Helena raised her eyebrows. “Do you really think I went to all the trouble of saving you just because of an old promise?”

He said nothing, but she knew he did.

She shook her head, throat aching. “That’s not fair. You said that I’m the worst promise keeper you’ve ever met. You can’t have it both ways, you know.”

“Helena …” He said her name gently.

She wouldn’t let him finish.

“We said always, didn’t we?” she asked, her voice strained. “Always. Well, if you don’t want that promise in full any longer, I’ll give it to you in increments.” She clutched his hand tighter. “Every day. I’ll choose you. That way you’ll know it’s still what I want.”

She looked out towards the rising sea. “I’m sure there will be good days and bad days for us. Too much has happened to ever really put it behind us, but if you choose me, and I choose you, I think we’re strong enough to make it.”

A BUNDLE OF OLD NEWSPAPERS from the North had arrived just before the tides cut off the island from the rest of Etras.

A full article had been written about the High Reeve’s death. Spirefell had been burned to the ground. A skeleton of warped iron was all that remained. Countless charred bodies had been recovered from the wreckage. Kaine Ferron, his wife, Aurelia, and Atreus Ferron were listed as dead. The killer had been identified as Ivy Purnell; she’d committed suicide nearby using one of the obsidian weapons developed by the Eternal Flame. Purnell was one of the Undying, but her family had ties with the Eternal Flame prior to the war. She was believed to be responsible for all the assassinations during the last year.

There were also articles about the Liberation Front, a confederation of armies organising against Paladia. It seemed only a matter of time before they attacked, but as Etras was once more cut off from the continents, the declaration of war had still not been made.

On the island, time warped. There was so much of it. Other than the tidal shifts, everything grew nebulous and unhurried.

Alchemy. Paladia. The war. It all barely existed in Etras.

Helena began to forage again, and soon the kitchen was strung with herbs, and she had decoctions and oil infusions, extracts and distillations. It was more medicines than four people would ever need, and so Lila—who was more sociable than Kaine or Helena—would take them to the village.

Kaine disliked the idea. He did not want Helena becoming responsible for a village of strangers, but he relented because having things to do kept Helena’s anxiety from gnawing through her.

Instances of upper-class Northerners fleeing south to escape scandal were apparently relatively common. The previous owners of the house had been a minor Novisian noble family, and the arrival of new Northern strangers was predictably a source of curiosity on the island.

Kaine, Helena, and Lila frequently discussed the risks and the proper balance of keeping to themselves without seeming like they were trying to hide. A few careless rumours escaping the island might be enough to discover them. However, once Helena, an Etrasian herself, proved to be useful, the village grew protective and tight-lipped about their strange neighbours.

Kaine struggled the most to adapt. He was always paranoid, planning for the worst. When he wasn’t with Helena, he was constantly walking the property and going to the village to bring back any news that came from the main islands, watching for signs of newcomers.

Late one evening, Helena sat working on a brace design for her left hand. The purpose was to make her two paralysed fingers bend and open with a transmutational device connected to her other fingers.

A low wind howled, and the shutters rattled. She thought nothing of it at first, until she noticed that Kaine had gone unnaturally still. She looked up as another gusting howl wafted through the house.

Her eyes went wide, and they both bolted to the front door. Running back and forth outside the house, wings outstretched, nose to the ground, was Amaris.

She looked up as Kaine came out the door and immediately dropped to her belly and crawled across the ground to him, wings and tail flapping, whining and whimpering all the way. He pulled her enormous head into his arms.

“You mad thing—how did you get here?” He could barely get the question out, because Amaris was licking his face over and over, her wings sending up a dust storm.

“I guess she couldn’t let you go,” Helena said.

Amaris was set up in the stable, which she was only allowed out of at night. It was the best solution they could come up with given her size and unusual qualities. She didn’t seem to mind. In the evening, she would burst out and run in circles for a little while, and Kaine would take her flying out across the sea.

Helena was glad that he finally had something to do with himself. Until Amaris’s reappearance, he had floated. He would read and keep Helena company, but he didn’t seem to know how to want anything. He’d spent his whole life with a collar around his throat.

As weeks turned into months, the full breadth of his possessiveness began to reassert itself. During the day, he would watch Helena work with an intensity that she could feel in her marrow. When they were alone, she would stop what she was doing and let him consume her. His lips whispering perfect, beautiful, mine with every nip and caress.

“Yours, always,” she’d promise.

It grew steadily apparent that Helena sat at the centre of Kaine’s universe, and now that she was safe, his unrestrained attention had nothing else to obsess over. Everything except Helena was superfluous. She thought at first that it was a phase, but as autumn arrived, and Ascendance came and went, she began to suspect that he had no intention of taking interest in anything else. Lila, Pol, alchemy projects: It was all to indulge her.

Even the baby. Helena’s pregnancy became increasingly an undeniable piece in their relationship, but his concern remained limited to Helena. The condition of her heart. The risk of the Toll manifesting again.