Page 75 of Alchemised

H ELENA SET OUT EARLY IN THE EVENING to ensure she wasn’t late, carrying new travel papers that claimed she was going to the Outpost to deliver medical relief.

She felt guilty that it wasn’t the real purpose of her trip. The Outpost had grown crowded, but the Resistance couldn’t afford to reduce their limited supplies by distributing anything.

When she reached the tenement, there were dozens of people inside, clustered around a fire.

She stopped short, not sure what to do.

With his injury, Ferron couldn’t possibly get there without being noticed. Someone might recognise him. She wasn’t even sure how he managed it normally.

As she stood, trying to find a path to the stairs around the huddled group, a figure crumpled against a nearby wall stood up. The hood covering the face slipped back for a moment, just long enough to reveal the waxy features of a necrothrall.

Helena started back.

It had been a man. A tangled beard covered half his face, with thick eyebrows almost hiding the milky white of his eyes. He’d been expertly reanimated. He showed no signs of decay other than the sheen on his skin and the clouding of his eyes.

She was so used to hearing of necrothralls being aggressive, she hadn’t considered that they could be concealed, waiting.

It came towards her, and her heart lurched into her throat. A pulse in her temples began, throbbing like a drum, a burn of pain across the side of her neck—

Don’t think about it.

The necrothrall paused and pulled up his sleeve. Painted onto his arm was the same stylised symbol for iron that was on the doorway of the tenement.

This necrothrall belonged to Ferron. She’d almost forgotten that he was a necromancer. The sleeve slipped back down as the necrothrall gestured to the left.

Knowing the necrothrall was Ferron’s didn’t make it easier to voluntarily follow into the bowels of the Outpost.

Her heart was pounding inside her chest as they reached a door that blended into the wall. The necrothrall produced a small key and unlocked it, revealing metal stairs that descended into the belly of one of the factories.

There were dim electric lights that flickered unsteadily overhead.

They entered a boiler room—the passage was cramped—then went through another locked door into a more spacious hallway.

There was a large door, and as they approached, it swung open from the inside.

The door was thicker than the length of her forearm, as though it were a bank vault.

Through the doorway was a large room filled with decadent furniture, chandeliers with glittery prisms dangling, and Ferron—drinking.

The indulgence in the room felt grotesque.

The walls were covered in heavy luxuriant drapes and murals.

There were rows of decanters and bottles lining a wall.

One section of the room had a seating area with ornate side tables, a large sofa, and chairs.

On the other end was a mahogany desk and chaise.

Everything was ornate, with the kind of craftsmanship that cost a fortune.

“There you are,” Ferron said, drawing her attention away. He was wearing only trousers and a white shirt with half the buttons undone.

She was used to seeing him always fully dressed, layered in his defensive shell of a uniform, and while she’d stripped him to the waist twice now, both occasions had been for medical purposes.

The room they were standing in did not feel professional. Despite his haggard state, Ferron—Kaine, she mentally corrected—looked oddly striking, as if she’d never seen him in the proper environment before.

“What is this?” she asked, stepping cautiously into the room.

The necrothrall didn’t enter, instead stepping back and closing the door, which sealed with a heavy reinforced thud.

“A panic room,” Ferron said. “My grandfather had it built during a strike a few decades ago. In case of emergencies.”

“I can’t imagine why they’d want to hurt your grandfather when he clearly spent his money on such reasonable things,” she said, glancing at the three crystal chandeliers hanging overhead.

“A mystery indeed.” There were several fingers of liquid in his tumbler, but he knocked it all back in one gulp.

She looked at him sidelong. “You know, you could take pain relief in those quantities, if you’re going for numbness.”

“No fun in that,” he said, hand trembling as he poured himself more.

“Alcohol only dulls things for a few minutes. I prefer poison when I really want to feel intoxicated. Generally, it lasts longer, and some poisons have very interesting side effects. I thought you might disapprove, though.” He sighed.

“Given the current atmosphere in the Outpost and the fact that I have no desire to lie upon a kitchen table ever again, I thought this location made more sense.”

Helena nodded, not sure if she was offended or grateful that this was not where they usually met. She probably would have panicked if she’d initially arrived in a place like this.

She dragged one of the spindly-legged side tables over and refused to worry about scratching the polished surface as she pulled out her supplies.

Ferron knocked back the contents of his second drink and straddled a chair backwards, unbuttoning his shirt. Before she could help him, he twisted his shoulders to pull it off, stifling a low gasp of pain.

“Did you feel any better?” she asked, placing her bare hand against his arm. He flinched away. His skin was unnaturally cold. No fever, though, which she hoped was a good sign.

He didn’t answer.

She cleaned her hands with a dilution of carbolic acid and unwrapped the bandages as carefully as she could until there was only the gauze over the wounds. She used a saline irrigation and tried to lift one, but it stuck. Kaine jerked, his body shuddering.

“Fuck! Don’t—!” His knuckles were white where he was gripping the back of the chair.

She snatched her hand back. “I have to get the gauze off.”

“Do you really?” He pressed his forehead against the chair back, breathing raggedly.

She felt that the answer was obvious.

He shuddered again. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up!”

She stood silently, waiting until his breathing slowed.

“Fine,” he bit out. “Go on.”

“Do you want me to knock you out again?” she asked.

He lifted his head and looked at her. His eyes were empty. His face bruised with exhaustion. “Is there really a point to this?”

Helena met his stare. She could fix this. She wasn’t going to let him suffer and die for finally doing something good in his life.

“Please, let me try.”

Something incredulous flickered in his eyes. His lips started to move, but then he turned away, forehead pressed against the back of the chair.

“Fine,” he said, sounding resigned.

She slid her fingers against the base of his skull. It took only a few seconds, and he went limp.

She removed the gauze and cleaned the wounds, washing his entire back with saline and then a carbolic dilution. At least the Resistance had enough supplies now that she could treat him properly.

She examined him with her resonance, working slowly to better understand what the array was doing to him.

When she’d finished in the lab, she’d gone to the library and researched arrays, trying to find any information that might be relevant.

There was nothing. No one had ever carved an active array into a human before.

She could feel it in her resonance that his body was dying. Tiny flashes of that horrible dissipating coldness, over and over. The array was not only draining the energy from the talisman, but also stripping his body of every resource he had.

Ferron didn’t have the physiological resources to counterbalance the deterioration, so it grew worse with every passing moment.

She pressed a hand on his arm, using her resonance to try to warm him. If she’d known sooner, if he’d summoned her, maybe she could have done something more—

She was so late.

She stood staring at him, throat too tight to swallow.

She’d reported the injury to Crowther, and he hadn’t seemed to care, either that Kaine was hurt or that Helena had revealed her vivimancy.

He’d provided her with the papers and instructed her to do what she could to get any further information from Ferron, adding that if he was beyond hope of recovery, she should bring back the talisman. They had no use for Ferron as a lich.

Save him or kill him.

She stood, staring at the array, gripping her amulet through her shirt, feeling its points prick the scars in her palm.

She couldn’t kill him. Not after he’d trusted her. Not after he’d helped them.

A month ago, perhaps, but not now.

The Resistance needed him. All the advantages and territory they’d retaken was because of Kaine, and the war was still not won. She had to save him.

She pulled the amulet off, rubbing her thumbs across the surface.

She’d realised after she started wearing it again that she’d stopped feeling so tired, so physically strained by her vivimancy.

She knew the sunstone amulets were supposed to be special, to hold some of Sol’s light and strength within them, but she hadn’t realised what a difference it had been making all these years. Buying her time. Getting her to this moment.

If it could do that, maybe it could save Kaine, tilt things into balance and give him a chance.

If he died, it didn’t really matter what happened to her. There were other healers now, and with the ports back, her medicine wasn’t needed anymore, either.

She was replaceable. Ferron wasn’t.

She’d never had much resonance for gold, but she tried to use it to bend down the golden rays on the amulet. Kaine would never agree to wear the Holdfast crest, but if it looked a bit more ordinary—

The setting bent, and the sunstone slipped, plummeting to the floor.

It hit the ground and shattered.

Helena stared in horror as red shards scattered everywhere, and on the ground all that remained was something silvery white.