Page 57 of Alchemised

I T WAS DAWN WHEN H ELENA REACHED THE top floors of the Alchemy Tower. What had once been the Holdfast family’s city residence was now rooms for Luc and the paladins and a few other alchemists.

As Helena came around the bend of the hallway, the door ahead swung open, and Luc walked out.

“Hel!” His face lit up for an instant, but then he stopped short. “What happened?”

She stared at him, stunned that he’d read everything in her expression so quickly. Then she realised he was staring at her clothes.

She looked down. She was still covered in dried blood.

Soren and Lila both emerged from the room behind Luc, fully armed. The paladins would never make the mistake of believing anywhere was safe for the Principate after what happened to Apollo.

“It’s not my blood,” Helena said. “Hospital shift. I just got off.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.” Luc was clearly distracted; he took her by the shoulders. “Did you hear the news?”

His voice was buoyant, and his eyes alight.

Helena couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked like this.

“We retook the trade district during the battle, means we’re on track to get the ports by summer.”

“Really?” She tried to force some excitement into her voice.

If Soren hadn’t mentioned that the battle had been considered a success, she would have sounded completely disbelieving.

She knew it was strategically significant.

City warfare was fraught with danger and complicated logistics.

All the levels and districts and zones of the city were porous.

Attacks could come from any direction. To have captured such a large district was a remarkable success.

But how could that battle be a victory, when so many had died?

Because the ports meant food, resources, and medical supplies. Everything that had been rationed for months. The supplies smuggled from Novis only ever took the edge off their shortages. If they had the ports in time for summer, they’d be able to get the quantities they were desperate for.

“We’ve got a new trick,” he said, and smiled again. “You know those lumithium pieces we find sometimes after burning the liches and Undying? If you can rip it out, it kills them. All their necrothralls, too.”

Helena stared at him in surprise. “How’d you figure that out?”

The only reliable method for permanently removing the Undying from combat was by burning them so hot and fast that they couldn’t regenerate, but when on fire, the Undying and the necrothralls would often plunge straight into the nearest cluster of combatants.

That was why there were always so many burn wounds.

“Heard a rumour about it, so we figured we’d give it a try. Lila got the first one.” Luc grinned, nodding over his shoulder. “We’re going out to celebrate. Just a few of us. You want to clean up and come?”

The no she knew she should give stuck in her throat. She didn’t want to be left alone with her thoughts. It would be so nice to see Luc happy.

“I—” she started to say, but she caught sight of Soren’s face, and he gave the faintest warning shake of his head.

The words died in her throat. Of course she couldn’t go. How had she already forgotten what she’d just done in front of the Council?

Even if people had been ordered to forget it, they wouldn’t if she was seen anywhere near Luc.

“I can’t,” she said.

His face fell. “Just for a little while,” he said, and attempted a conspiratorial smile, the way he used to grin when he was coaxing her away from homework. “You don’t have to stay long.”

Soren spoke up. “Let her sleep, Luc. She was probably in the hospital longer than we were fighting.”

Luc ignored him. “Breakfast,” he said, setting his jaw stubbornly. “At least breakfast. You’re never in the mess. Go wash up. We’ll wait.”

“No. I really can’t,” she said. “I need to sleep. Maybe next time, all right?”

Her voice wobbled.

His face fell. “All right, if you really don’t want to.” He stepped back and forced a smile. “I’m holding you to that, though. Next time.”

H ELENA’S NORMALLY TIDY ROOM LOOKED as though a tornado had blown through.

Lila had returned in full force, which meant there was a pile of filthy clothes, fireproof amiantos under-armour, and padding piled in one corner, while armour, weaponry, and holsters and harnesses were spread across Lila’s unmade bed as if she’d emptied her entire trunk getting dressed.

Despite the impression of coolheaded, sharp-eyed talent that Lila radiated as paladin, behind closed doors she could be chaos personified.

Off duty, she was twitchy and incapable of keeping still or on any task that didn’t interest her, and she left things everywhere.

Weeks after Lila departed, Helena would find her things in odd places.

Mostly padding or pieces of scale mail or little gears for her rappelling harness that Helena had to hope weren’t important.

Helena stood, staring tiredly at the mess for a moment before wincing at the sight of her reflection in Lila’s vanity.

She was covered in dried blood. She wasn’t sure if her uniform could even be bleached clean. It was a pity that only amiantos fabric could be whitened by being thrown in fire.

She forced herself to sit down at Lila’s vanity and remove the pins holding her braids in place before she stripped for a shower.

Her sunstone amulet, tucked under her uniform, was warm from her skin as she lifted it off.

She paused, cradling it in her palm, throat working as she studied the golden sunrays and the shimmering red surface of the stone in the centre.

The Holdfast Suncrest, with seven points rather than eight, representing each of the seven planets, except the sun, centre of all.

Ilva had given it to her when Helena returned to the city and formally made her vows as a healer.

It had been a private ceremony, an informal recitation beneath the Eternal Flame’s light with only the steward and Falcon present as witnesses because Ilva did not want Luc to have any idea about the kinds of promises Helena made in his name.

He already chafed against the traditional vows his paladins had made about protecting him.

Luc didn’t want anyone to die for him, and certainly not to promise to as his paladins did.

Helena had also promised to.

Most healers could practise for decades without consequence, but to heal injuries that cheated death came with a price. It was called the Toll.

To heal a mortal wound or reanimate the dead required vitality, a drop of life itself.

The greater the scale of the work, the greater the cost. Healing came with the highest cost; that was why the Faith considered it a purifying act and allowed its practice while forbidding all other forms of vivimancy.

Becoming a healer would slowly carve away Helena’s life span, like a candle being burned at both ends.

Someday, she didn’t know when, her resonance would begin to wither and fade, and Helena would go with it.

She felt it sometimes while healing, a sensation like sand in an hourglass being diverted, flowing from her fingertips and into her patients.

She never knew how much was left, just that she was spending it.

After the avowal ceremony, when Matias had gone, Ilva had stopped her and draped an amulet around Helena’s neck, tucking it under the neckline of her uniform.

“It’s traditional for a healer to wear a holy amulet,” Ilva had said. “This crest is only worn by the Holdfasts and their paladins, but I think it right that you wear it, too.”

Now Helena stood, staring at the amulet, cold and hollow inside. The protruding sunrays bit against her palm, leaving a circle of indentations, threatening to break skin. She squeezed harder until they sank into her palm and her blood ran across the gold.

H ELENA WOKE BECAUSE HER HANDS hurt, a bone-deep ache radiating from her palms to fingertips.

Repetitive strain injuries were common in alchemists.

She started to massage her right palm to try to loosen the muscles, wincing.

The circle of cuts from the amulet reopened, blood trickling down her wrist. She should heal them—blood poisoning was a severe risk in the hospital—but instead she lay there staring at them until they stopped oozing.

Finally she dressed and braided her hair and headed for the hospital—only to be informed that she had no shifts for the next two days. The news should have been a relief, but being left to her thoughts was the last thing she wanted.

Helena departed reluctantly, compiling a list of tasks she’d been putting off. She’d check the hospital inventory first, and then—

As she came around the corner, she found Crowther standing in the hallway, studying a mural of Orion Holdfast.

Every corner of the Institute was beautifully decorated with various forms of the alchemical arts, but that mural was Helena’s favourite. She often found herself in front of it after her worst shifts, or when Luc hadn’t come back for a long time.

In most of the depictions of the Holdfast Principates, there was a sort of indifference in the expressions, likely intended to make them look regal and divine. In this mural, there was a tenderness to Orion’s face, a hint of a smile.

It made him look like Luc.

The sun’s rays were a halo behind Orion, and he wore the radiant crown on his head. His flaming sword was laid aside, still piercing the Necromancer’s skull, while cradled in his palms was a large orb of brilliant light.

Whenever Helena stood in front of it, she told herself that someday there would be paintings of Luc like that.

“I can see why you like this one,” Crowther said, glancing sidelong at her.

Helena knew little about Jan Crowther, even though he’d joined the faculty at the Institute when Helena was fifteen.