Alchemised, page 12
Stroud stared back expectantly, and it took her a moment to remember that the woman thought walks might prevent them.
“Yes,” Helena bit out.
“Good. It’s been noted that you have a nervous disorder.”
Helena’s jaw tensed. Of course Ferron would have told Stroud.
“Yes. I don’t like—dark places I don’t know.”
There was a snort of laughter from Mandl.
“Well, not much to be done about that,” Stroud said, and resumed her examination of Helena. “You know, it’s a pity I can’t use you as one of my program’s trial subjects. I was rereading your admission paperwork. You had a remarkable repertoire.”
Helena’s throat closed.
“The Holdfasts did love collecting rare alchemists,” said Mandl.
Helena bit her tongue until she tasted blood.
Stroud nodded. “Once the High Reeve is done with you, I think I might request to have you next.”
Helena’s chin snapped up. “Well, you won’t have much luck with me. I’m sterilised.”
She winced as Stroud’s resonance suddenly jabbed into her lower abdomen. A moment later, disappointment and anger lit Stroud’s face.
“When did this happen?”
Helena looked away, staring across the room so hard, her vision blurred. “It was one of the conditions the Falcon had for allowing me in the city. Since vivimancy is a corruption of the soul that begins in the womb, it could—it could be passed on. I’d already taken vows as a healer that I wouldn’t ever marry or have children, but he—” She swallowed. “He wanted to be sure.”
“And of course you agreed,” Stroud said, withdrawing her hand. “Because you thought they’d accept what you are if you only reduced yourself enough.”
Heat spread along Helena’s jaw. “There wasn’t any point in refusing. Like I said, I’d already made the vows.”
Stroud chuckled. “Usually, it was children who fell for that lie.”
Helena looked at her, eyes narrowing.
Stroud had an arch expression and glanced at Mandl again. “Didn’t you know? Your Eternal Flame was quite adept at identifying potential vivimancers not even born. It was, what, thirty years ago that Principate Helios mandated that all pregnancies be managed by the Faith’s hospitals. Devout doctors trained to know what to look for and what solutions to offer. What kind of parents would want to keep a monster once they’re warned of the danger?”
Helena’s stomach clenched.
“Mandl here was abandoned at birth, raised as an orphan in one of the aeries. Children like her were told their soul’s corruption must be purified, and that if they did what was asked, they might be wanted someday.” Stroud shrugged. “Of course, neither the Faith nor Paladia ever did want them for anything but forced labour. And look, they handled you the same way.”
“No,” Helena said, shaking her head. “Luc wasn’t like that. He didn’t even know about the conditions for me becoming a healer. Or how healing worked. He wouldn’t have let me, if he’d known. People like Falcon Matias had harsh views, but Luc was always reining people like the Falcon in. Once it was over, he wanted to—”
“If he didn’t know, all that means is that he was a puppet and a fool. And you’re still one,” Mandl said, her dead face seething with hatred, before she turned to Stroud. “You should tell her what His Eminence did with Holdfast after he killed him.”
Helena’s stomach dropped like a stone. She looked quickly between them, but Stroud shook her head. “Remember your place, Mandl.”
When they were gone, Helena sat, frozen and wondering what had happened to Luc.
Of course it was no surprise they hadn’t cremated him properly, but—what had been done that Mandl wanted Helena tortured with knowledge of?
Luc had never deserved the cruelty and hatred he’d been subjected to.
She’d admit he hadn’t known everything, but that wasn’t because he was a puppet. The position of Principate was complex. Being a religious head and ruler was a difficult task, especially during war when he was expected to be fighting and governing. He couldn’t be weighed down by everyone else’s personal decisions.
Some choices had to be made without him, certain sacrifices that would have paralysed him to make or even know of. That didn’t make him a puppet. It made him human.
Helena had loved him for how human he was. He didn’t need to be Principate or favoured by the gods. He’d been good enough just as he was.
* * *
Ferron made his routine appearance after Helena’s inedible lunch. She went resignedly to fetch her cloak.
“No need today,” he said. She paused, looking at him warily.
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
His fingers spun, and his resonance seized hold of her. She was pulled forward. Once she was near the bed, his hand flicked, toppling her back onto the mattress.
Ferron sauntered over, expression bored, the only emotion a glint in his eyes.
Helena bit her lip to keep quiet, willing her breathing to steady as she fought against his resonance.
He stared down at her through hooded eyes.
She hadn’t even considered this. She should have. She knew he was a monster, but he’d never shown interest.
As if interest had anything to do with it. Her mind raced. Why now? Why today? Had Stroud mentioned that Helena was sterile, and he’d seen that as an opportunity? Something he could exploit without consequence?
A whimper crept up her throat. She wished she could sink through the surface of the mattress and suffocate there. Wished she could scream. Her fingers managed to flex, but in the place where her resonance should be, there was nothing but a gaping wound.
His right hand pressed into the mattress by her head, and he turned her chin until she was looking straight up at him.
Her heart shuddered.
His pupils were contracted, the grey of his irises like a storm.
His cool fingers followed the curve of her jaw to her temple. She lay, viscerally aware of the almost-weight of his body as his resonance pierced her mind.
Her mind was like an upturned snow globe, all her thoughts whirling like snow flurries through her consciousness.
It wasn’t transference, but she could still vaguely sense his mind through the connection. Endured his amusement at all her ideas for killing him—it had grown into a veritable constellation of fantasies. He skimmed through them all without concern, and then sank deeper into her mind, watching her tentative explorations of the house, the courtyard, the necrothralls, the newspaper she’d stolen, Stroud. The only moment in which she felt any glimmer of a reaction from him was at her constant thoughts of Luc, the scale of her grief.
Then she was in her room reaching for her cloak, and he was closing the door, and she knew what was about to happen.
The memory evaporated like fog beneath bright sun, and she found herself lying on the bed, Ferron staring down at her with a scathing expression on his face. He snatched his hand away.
“I have no desire to touch you,” he said, sneering. “Your presence here is offensive enough.”
“Small mercies,” Helena said in a dry voice. It wasn’t a very clever retort, but her head was throbbing again, as if the scab on a wound had been peeled off while the skin was fresh.
He straightened, and she thought he’d walk out in offence, so she quickly asked the question haunting her.
“Did you kill Principate Apollo?”
He paused and leaned against the bedpost, crossing his arms and cocking his head to the side. “Not…officially.”
“But it was you. Wasn’t it?” The more she’d thought about it, the more convinced she’d become.
“You don’t remember?” He shook his head. “Did you even do anything during the war? The way the Holdfasts used to parade you around, you’d think you would have at least tried to be useful, but you have the most unexceptional personnel file I’ve ever seen.” He scoffed. “How many years of your life did you spend in that hospital? And for what? Saving people who would have been better off if you’d let them die. But no, you put them back together and sent them right back out to suffer a bit more.” He gave a slow smile. “Perhaps Stroud’s wrong, and you were sympathetic to our cause.”
He couldn’t have hurt her more if he’d struck her.
All those years. All the people she’d healed, her resonance knitting them back together so they could live to fight another day, and for what? So they could be tortured to death, or enslaved, or—worse?
Until that moment, healing had been the only thing she hadn’t felt guilt over. Luc might be dead, but she had done some good. Now Ferron had ripped that shred of comfort away from her, turning the act into its own form of atrocity.
She clamped her hands over her mouth until she could feel the outline of her teeth, curling onto her side.
He laughed. “You Resistance fighters are always easy to break.”
He turned to leave.
The grief swelled inside her lungs, but she fought it back. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said through gritted teeth.
He paused.
“Right…Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. The High Necromancer personally requested that I kill the Principate. He’d been in Paladia for some time already, quietly gathering followers, but with Apollo in power, the Guild Assembly would never have garnered enough public support. The country needed to be destabilised, the future made to feel uncertain. The Principate was impossible to target in public with his paladin, guards, and everyone else flocking around, worshipping his radiance. But the Holdfasts were always careless at the Institute, convinced that anyone who walked through those gates would be too dazzled by their magnificence to lay a finger on them.”
She watched from the corner of her eye as Ferron held up his left hand, studying it. “I’m sure you know what a fascinating resonance vivimancy is. Sinking my hand into his chest cavity was like breaking the surface of water. Slipped right in”—his fingers curled—“then I pulled out his beating heart. You should have seen the shock on his face. I hadn’t realised he’d still be alive for a moment, but he lived just long enough to know exactly who killed him.”
Principate Apollo had been a warm, generous man with an easy smile, jokes ready for any nervous student who approached. Luc had been so much like him. The same crooked smile. Being near them felt like standing in the summer sun.
“I suppose your master was quite pleased with you,” she said dully, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of witnessing her horror.
“He was indeed. They were all waiting for me when I returned. We had a celebratory dinner with him, my mother and I. I was declared a prodigy…”
Helena glanced up. His eyes were locked on the window, as though his mind had gone elsewhere.
He roused himself, glancing down.
“Any other questions?” He arched an eyebrow as if daring her.
“No,” she said quickly, looking away. “You’ve done enough.”
Chapter 8
Luc Holdfast sat on the rooftop of the Alchemy Tower, hunched back against the tilt of the tiles as he absently spun an opium pipe in his fingers. The spire of the Tower, lit with the Eternal Flame, burned above him, a beacon of white light.
The sun was setting, the world hued with bronze shadows as Helena clambered across to join him.
He was so gaunt, he already looked older than his father. The war had chewed him down to the bone. The tendons along his neck stood out like cords when he swallowed, looked over, and then away again.
“What happened to us, Hel?” he asked as she crouched down beside him.
She stared at the horizon, past all the towers, towards the south.
“A war,” she said.
“You used to believe in me. What did I do to make you stop?” His voice was faraway.
“I still believe in you, Luc,” she said. “But we have to win this war; we can’t make choices because we want a certain story to tell later. There’s too much at stake.”
“No,” he said. “This is how we win. This is how we’ve always won. My father, my grandfather, all the Principates going all the way back to Orion. They won by trusting that good would triumph over evil, and I have to do the same.”
His thumb flicked against his index finger, ignition rings sparking. Pale flames flared to life, filling his palm, a light like a small sun. His fingers closed around them, leaving only a tongue of fire along a fingertip as he tucked the opium pipe between his lips and brought the flame close to the bowl.
Helena looked away, listening to him inhale.
“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we’ll remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”
He shook his head. “Orion became sun-blessed because he refused to break his faith.”
Helena exhaled, burying her face in her hands.
She heard his rings spark, and the pipe hissed as the opium vaporised.
“Luc—please, let me help you.” She tried to reach towards him.
He flinched away. “Don’t—touch me.”
He was teetering dangerously close to that immense fall, as if the Abyss still called to him. She didn’t know how to draw him back anymore, what to say that he’d still hear.
“Do you remember what I promised you, Luc, that night you came out here?” she asked, her voice pleading.
He gave no response. His gaze had settled back into a dim stupor, the sunset limning his gaunt features as though gilding him.
“I promised I’d do anything for you.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “Maybe you didn’t realise how far I was willing to go.”
* * *
The memory of Luc lingered in Helena’s mind when she woke in the morning.
She lay in bed, replaying it. It was a forgotten memory, which should have frightened her, but there seemed to be no information in it that Ferron could find useful, and she missed Luc desperately, even if it was a memory bitter as seawater.
He’d been smoking opium. How had that happened? He must have been horrifically injured to be allowed drugs like that. His great-aunt Ilva, who’d acted as steward for the Principate when Luc was at the front, had always been reluctant to allow him drugs, preferring to utilise Helena’s abilities than to risk addiction.
But he wouldn’t even let Helena touch him.
She lay in bed, turning the memory over and over, taking note of every detail. The evening light, the way it bronzed his features and illuminated his eyes. The nervous, intense way his fingers moved as he’d sparked his rings, bringing the flames to life.
She’d loved his pyromancy. It always felt more like magic than alchemy, the way he could make fire an extension of himself with those sun-bright flames.
The Holdfasts were always depicted wreathed in fire. The creation of sacred fire and the alchemisation of gold were the two unique gifts which Sol bestowed upon the Holdfasts.
Alchemisation, the transformation of one metal into another, was the most difficult form of alchemy. Prior to Orion Holdfast’s founding of the Institute, early alchemical writing was more entwined with mythological ideas than science.
The mythical Cetus, often called the first Northern alchemist, was credited with hundreds, even thousands of the earliest alchemical writings, which spanned centuries. Scholars had speculated that Cetus was the name of a school or an alchemical sect. The mystery was later revealed to be a consequence of superstition. Early alchemists were forced to write pseudonymously, initially to avoid persecution, while later novice alchemists used the names of more famous alchemists in their attempts to legitimise their theories and discoveries. As a result, “Cetus” had written almost all the surviving alchemy texts.
While the works of Cetus were considered historically seminal, they were highly inaccurate, and it was doubted that any alchemist by the name had even existed, but with no one else to credit, almost all early alchemical theories and discoveries prior to Paladia’s founding remained attributed to him.
It was Cetus’s early writings that established the alchemical principle that a metal could only be alchemised into a less noble form, often in keeping with the planetary hierarchy.
Later, Orion Holdfast discovered the modern principles of alchemisation, overturning Cetus’s claims and laying forth the methods and array principles needed to transform the ignoble metals into those less corruptible.
In Orion’s work, alchemisation was predicated upon spiritual purity; only an alchemist with a soul as pure as the metal they sought to create could alchemise it.
It was Sol’s own light and purity bestowed in blessing upon the Holdfasts that endowed them with the divine ability to turn lead into pure gold.
However, Luc had always preferred pyromancy. There were strict rules the family had to abide by when alchemising gold. The heavenly metal could not be abused or used for selfish purposes; after all, the neighbouring countries’ and Paladia’s own currency had to be respected. There were rules about fire, too, but not nearly so elaborate as those involving gold production.
She remembered the first time Luc showed her his fire. She’d been sure the flames would burn him, but they simply danced across the surface of his fingers, shining like a star in his hand.
Even without the flames, she’d always felt warm near Luc; even the cold Paladian winters were thawed by his presence. All alone now, she missed him so intensely, her bones and skin ached for the familiarity and comfort of a hug.
* * *
Helena had finished with her exploration of the second-floor wing and resolved to explore the downstairs next.
