Page 63 of Alchemised

A S MUCH AS H ELENA HATED IT, SHE had to admit that Ferron’s training was doing something, although perhaps not what he’d intended.

His repeated invasions had awakened in her a newfound sense of her own mental landscape. It reminded her of when she’d first realised she was a vivimancer, as if her resonance could suddenly reach something wholly unfamiliar.

Ferron’s resonance through her mind made her conscious of an energy there which she could manipulate.

She wasn’t sure if she’d always had the ability and simply didn’t notice, or if it was the “animancy” Ferron had mentioned. It wasn’t as if she could ask.

As far as Ferron was concerned, Helena was only learning to concentrate.

However, she’d realised that she could supplement her focus with her resonance, pushing away her thoughts, rerouting her mind down preferred paths.

At first, she practised it simply for their meetings, but she found herself using it constantly at Headquarters, too, pushing away all the thoughts and feelings eating at her.

After another test, Ferron stepped away from her, glancing outside one of the dirty windows. There was barely a view; the Outpost was crowded, but there was a sliver of sky visible in the direction of the islands. He stared towards it. The white, overcast sky was stained with smoke.

He looked at her. “There’s always smoke rising from your Headquarters. It’s from the crematorium, isn’t it?”

Helena said nothing, but his guess was right. They were constantly burning the dead.

“How many soldiers do you have left?”

Helena’s mouth went dry. That was one of the Eternal Flame’s greatest concerns: that the Undying would realise how exhausted the Resistance ranks were. That one brutal push might be enough to wipe them out entirely.

She said nothing.

Ferron stood silhouetted by the window’s pale light. “How much longer do you think you all can keep fighting?”

That, she could answer. “Until there’s no one left. There’s no surrendering for us.”

“Good to know,” he said softly, looking back at the smoke.

T HE HOSPITAL HAD BEEN RUNNING on fumes for months, so short on supplies that any smuggled in from Novis seemed to instantly evaporate.

“We’re completely out of gauze, and we used the last of the opium resin last week,” Pace said as she and Helena stood together in the nearly empty supply room. “The Council wants to use the new healers to cover for the shortage, but they’re not anywhere near reliable.”

Even without a war, opium products were often in short supply.

The dual moon tides limited sea trade from the Ortus regions for most of the year, except during the summer ebb, when Lumithia was in Abeyance and the sea separating the continents briefly calmed.

The rest of the year, supply caravans had to circumnavigate the sea—a journey which could often take half a year and resulted in prohibitive prices.

The Eternal Flame needed far more than just opium.

They needed more food, medicine, clothing, and bandages.

Anything not made of metal or transmutable materials was in desperately short supply.

If the Resistance couldn’t regain control of the ports before the summer trade influx, they’d be starved into submission before the next winter.

“The floodings won’t be so bad for a little while,” Helena said. “I can find sphagnum outside of the city, and that’ll help with the gauze shortage at least. Lots of willow this time of year, too.”

Pace nodded, still staring at the empty shelves. “It’d be something, at least.”

Without clean, sterile gauze and bandages, injuries would get infected, recovery would be slower, the risk of disease and contagious infections would rise. Even with five healers providing pain relief, their support would come at the cost of other healing they could be doing.

As Helena headed out towards the wetlands in the early morning, she caught sight of Luc and Lila in the commons, armed to the teeth and sparring. She hadn’t even heard they were back again.

She’d been sleeping on a camp bed in Pace’s office. Pain was often the worst for patients at night.

She paused a moment to watch.

Luc preferred fighting in the traditional Holdfast style that involved an enormous flaming sword that he could transmute into two smaller flaming swords.

He was exceptional with fire alchemy. White flames bright as the sun fanned out around him like wings, making his blue eyes glow like sapphires, and even the gauntness of his features somehow made him look more ethereal.

His power really did seem otherworldly.

Helena knew it wasn’t; in fact, she probably knew more about how it worked than he did. While Luc had a natural talent for pyromancy, he lacked both patience and interest when it came to the science. As a student, he used to rely on Helena to make sense of the theory sections of his homework.

Pyromancy was more varied than metal transmutation. A pyro mancer in combat needed to be able to rapidly improvise without hesitation or miscalculation based on numerous variables—wind, enclosed space, target distances, oxygen levels.

She watched Luc’s fingers, mentally calculating which techniques and array sourcing he was using. He was so fast, she could barely keep up.

Because basic projectiles had negligible effect on necrothralls or the Undying, most fighting was either incendiary or close-range.

“Hel!” Luc’s voice split the early morning as he stopped short, waving her over.

Luc grinned as she neared. He was all in white, wearing just his amiantos under-armour to keep his clothes from singeing. His face was glistening from the heat. “How was I?”

Her lips pursed.

He laughed. “You can be honest.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You’re overusing oxygen. It’s a bad habit. It can be dangerous if you’re in an enclosed space,” she said.

Luc scrubbed his forehead. “I know, I’m trying to extend the accuracy of my reach, but I can’t keep it stable without losing control of how much air it takes.”

Helena gnawed on the inside of her lip. “Which formula are you using?”

Luc grimaced. “I don’t know, haven’t written out an array in ages. Just do it in my head. You know, what feels right.”

“You could probably work it out if you actually wrote it down,” she said, giving him a pointed look.

He got a sly gleam in his eyes. “Well, maybe I will if you’ll look at it. We’re about to go on break anyway, and I hear you’ve got trainees now, which means there’s no excuses left. It’s next time. Come on. I’ll set something on fire if you try to say no.”

She exhaled. “I was actually on my way to—”

The sky above them burst into flames with a crackling roar, drowning out her words.

“Sorry, you were saying?” Luc asked.

“You should come, Hel,” Lila said as she mopped her face with a towel. “Luc’s been going on about this new thing he’s doing for weeks, and none of us has any idea what he’s talking about.”

Helena’s heart quickened, and she dared a smile. “I guess I have to help, then.”

“You guess,” Luc grumbled as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her along with them all. “You should be delighted. I’m delightful.”

Helena laughed.

She had no idea what had him in such a good mood, but she was glad of it. Kaine Ferron was a small price to pay if it meant there were moments like this again.

“Marino.”

Crowther’s voice was like a knife through her back.

She flinched, freezing in her tracks.

Crowther was standing behind them in the corridor. “Marino, I need to discuss the hospital inventory sheet you turned in last night,” he said, gesturing in the opposite direction.

Luc spoke first, his voice unusually cool. “I’m sure it can wait, Jan. I need Hel for something.”

“I apologise, Principate, but it cannot,” Crowther said, his voice mild, but his eyes boring a hole through Helena. “It’s a matter of some urgency.”

Helena started to speak, but Luc squeezed her shoulder and smiled, all teeth. “Sorry. I need her.”

Crowther’s eyebrows rose. “Are you injured?”

Luc stiffened. “No. She’s helping me with something related to pyromancy.”

Everything about Crowther seemed to sharpen, like a cat extending its claws, but he bowed. “If you require help with your pyromancy, I would be more than happy to advise. I was personally trained by your family.”

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Luc said in a tone of false civility.

“I am always at the service of the Principate,” Crowther said, inclining his head.

“And as such, I must insist that Marino come with me. The matter of inventory may sound trivial, but it is of vital importance that the hospital is properly equipped; it can make the difference between life or death for our soldiers.” His gaze flicked to Lila, then Soren, then Alister, and onwards, resting on each one of them, as if to insinuate that Luc was choosing Helena’s companionship over their lives.

Luc stood silent. Helena could feel his rising resentment, a pressure growing in the air.

A standoff like this could only hurt the Resistance. Ferron’s spying would be of little use if Luc disregarded information from Crowther out of dislike.

“He’s right, I should go. Sorry, Luc,” she said as she stepped away. She looked back. “Next time.”

Lila’s eyebrows were drawn together, but she didn’t speak. It wasn’t a paladin’s place to speak in situations like this. Soren looked resigned but unsurprised, as Lila noticed; she cast a sharp, interrogative look at her twin.

Luc forced a smile. “Of course. I’m holding you to that.”

W HEN THEY’D GONE, LEAVING H ELENA alone with Crowther, his vaguely congenial expression vanished as he looked at her.

“You are a known advocate for necromancy with entirely conditional clearance now. Whatever allowances Ilva has permitted in the past, consider them all revoked until you have results that would make the effort of rehabilitating you worth it.”