Alchemised, page 17
She walked out into the main hall, expecting to find the necrothrall waiting, placid as always. Instead, the woman was all the way across the room, clouded eyes wide as if in fear. The necrothrall’s lips moved, mouthing something silently as she looked at Ferron.
Kaine, Helena realised. The woman was saying Ferron’s name over and over.
Ferron gave a sharp flick of his hand, and the woman fled.
Helena watched her disappear, feeling a vague sense of guilt. “Don’t hurt her.”
“She’s dead,” Ferron said coolly as he closed the door. She heard it lock from within, and then the iron in the wall screeched, warping. The door would not reopen for anyone without iron resonance. “She can’t be hurt.”
He said it almost glibly, but Helena suspected he was not as indifferent as he tried to appear.
Helena rounded on him. “Why keep them?”
He shrugged. “It’s hard to find good staff nowadays.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How long have you had them?”
His mouth split into a grin. “Interested in keeping a few of your own? I doubt necromancy would agree with you.”
She lifted her chin, watching him archly. “You’re avoiding the question.”
His eyes flickered, but he shook his head. “I’ve reanimated so many, I don’t keep track anymore. Now, are you done in this wing, or are you still holding out hope that there are weapons lying around for you to find?”
She refused to rise to his baiting; a trick like that didn’t work when she was drugged. He was usually so direct, it was interesting to catch him being evasive.
“I assumed I was allowed in any rooms I found unlocked. Aurelia never said I shouldn’t go anywhere, just to keep out of sight.”
“Well,” he said, fingers spanning her lower back as he pushed her firmly away from the now warped door. “I doubt Aurelia would feel much disappointment if you met an unfortunate end. It might spell my demise as well, and then she’d be a wealthy widow, free to conduct her tawdry affairs even more publicly than she already does.”
Helena eyed him appraisingly as they walked. “You don’t care?”
He didn’t look at her. “I was commanded to marry her, so I married her. I was never commanded to care.”
Helena stopped in her tracks. “You sound as enslaved as I am.”
He paused and turned slowly to face her. “Are you trying to provoke me? Or sway my allegiance?” He gave a dark chuckle. “How terribly audacious of you.”
“You’ve already thought it,” she said, relishing how clearly she was able to think when she wasn’t overcome with the need to scan and watch for every shadow, when she wasn’t perpetually suffocating. “If you hadn’t, you’d be offended right now.”
He seemed momentarily impressed by her drug-induced bravado, but then glanced dismissively away. “It’s a pity the way you wasted yourself.”
She wasn’t sure she followed the line of thought but responded anyway. “Luc was worth it.”
“Why?”
The question caught her off guard. She shook her head. “Some people just are. You look at them, and you know it.”
“Blind adoration, then,” he said, turning to walk away.
“It wasn’t blind. I chose him,” she said.
He stepped back, and something about his expression sharpened. “Did you? Remind me, how many other choices were there?”
Her hand curled into a fist, the scars in her palm pressing against her fingertips. “Not many, I admit, but I knew whose fault that was.”
He began circling her idly. “You think the guilds invented the divide between us and the Eternal Flame? The Holdfasts claimed all their preferences were divinely moral and treated any concessions as a violation of their consciences; where exactly did that leave the wants and needs of the rest of us? When anything we wanted became a sin or form of vice simply because it inconvenienced them for us to have it? All we did was become what they’d already convinced themselves we were. Ignoble and corrupt.” He stopped, hands clasped behind his back. “You think it was an accident that we hated sponsored students like you? If we hadn’t, how would they have kept you so lonely and desperately grateful to them?”
She shook her head. It wasn’t true. The guilds were the ones who’d started it. Luc had always tried to see the best in everyone. To him, his family’s responsibilities were a weight he’d had no choice but to accept for the sake of everyone else. He’d tried to solve the problems that plagued the city, but none of the solutions were ever good enough for the guilds.
Ferron was a snake, trying to present himself as though he were on Helena’s side. As if her morality were dictated based on who was nicest to her.
She looked at him in disbelief, but after a moment the vague emotion faded, her attention drawn away by new questions. Staring up at him, she couldn’t help but wonder again at what he was.
He would have been sixteen when he murdered Principate Apollo. Something like that should have been enough to become one of the Undying, but Ferron did not look sixteen.
Overlooking his colouring, his general appearance was that of someone in their twenties. Yet if his ascendance was so recent, he should look more aged by the years of war. He was almost pristine, as though all the death and destruction he’d caused had never touched him. The only sign that he’d even seen battle was his eyes: There was a hollow rage lurking behind them that she’d only ever seen in those who’d spent a long time at the front lines.
As if Ferron had any reason for that kind of anger.
Even locked out from her emotions, the hatred Helena felt for him was an inescapable structure in her mind.
Why do any of it? He didn’t seem to find any enjoyment in what he did. There’d been many sadistic Undying who fought in the war; Helena had cared for their victims. Ferron seemed devoted to brutal efficiency and yet seemed to derive neither pleasure nor benefit from it.
As High Reeve, he was merely a weapon, not permitted the prestige of his abilities. He was the only anonymous figure; no one else was kept hidden behind a title.
That must chafe, particularly when the rest of the Undying were filling their days with debauchery while Ferron still lived at the beck and call of the High Necromancer. Obedient as a dog.
What did he gain from it? Surely he was too intelligent to be so void of ambition. He had to be playing a long game. And if Helena could only deduce it, that would give her leverage, a means of manipulating him.
Or perhaps that was merely Helena’s vanity distorting her assessments—needing her captor to be cunning, because how pathetic was she, as his prisoner, if he was not?
She opened her mouth, wanting to prod, but reconsidered.
He smirked. “Analysing me again?”
Before she could reply, the sharp click of hurrying heels echoed down the hall. Helena moved to disappear, but Aurelia had already swept around the corner, her expression eager until she caught sight of Ferron.
Her eyes instantly narrowed, her lips pursing as she drew up, looking accusingly at them. The ringlets framing her face trembled.
“Are we all socialising together now?” she asked, her voice like sweetened arsenic.
“Just touring the house,” Ferron said, gesturing idly around the large hall, which was full of dusty portraits and busts of men who’d presumably been important members of the family.
Aurelia’s lips pressed together, turning white.
“I thought you had business today. You said your afternoon was quite full when I asked you to stop by the fundraiser.” She tossed her head, the perfect curls bouncing like springs. “And yet”—she was speaking through clenched teeth—“here you are, ‘touring the house.’ I thought we weren’t beholden to the Eternal Flame anymore.”
Helena stood very still.
Ferron’s eyes flicked upwards for a moment. “The High Necromancer was quite clear that this assignment takes precedence over everything else. Those are my orders.”
Aurelia gave a sharp, shattering laugh. “But you’ve already killed the rest of the Eternal Flame, so why does she matter?”
“Whatever the High Necromancer wishes to be done, I fulfil,” Ferron said with the impatience of someone who’d had this argument many times already. “If he wanted handmade paper clips, I’d do that with equal devotion.”
He wasn’t even looking at his wife anymore. His gaze passed over Aurelia’s head, staring at a mirror that reflected himself and Helena.
“Ah, and that’s supposed to explain why you spend so much time with her. And when you’re not, it’s the thralls following her.” Aurelia scoffed. “As if she’ll disappear otherwise.” She cast a hateful glare at Helena. “There’s no need to act as if she’s anything precious. I asked Stroud, and she told me: She was a nobody. No one’s coming for her, but you’re still hovering about like you’re hoarding her.”
Ferron gave a dark laugh, and a glint entered his eyes as they dropped from the mirror to Aurelia. Uncertainty flashed across her face, as if she was caught off guard by the weight of his attention.
“I thought you didn’t want to lay eyes on her, Aurelia.” The way he said his wife’s name was unnervingly intimate.
Aurelia flushed, the colour rising from her neck and staining her cheeks.
Ferron stepped towards her. “If you feel that I’m hoarding her, keeping her all to myself, perhaps I should include you more. She could have dinner with us. I could move her into our wing of the house, bring her when we visit the city. Perhaps we should have included her in that solstice photo that you bought.”
Aurelia was turning paler and paler.
“The world already knows she’s mine,” Ferron said, his words pointed, “but if you’d like, I can remind them. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m hiding anything, my dear.”
Aurelia trembled as if on the verge of imploding.
“I don’t care what you do with her, just keep her out of my sight!” She turned on her heel, storming away.
Ferron stared after her with a look of annoyance, then turned and directed his scowl at Helena.
“You irritate my wife,” he said.
“Seems I do,” she said blandly. “If you want to do something about it, you could kill me.”
He snorted, amusement lighting his face for an instant.
“Those tablets really do a number on you.”
“I feel like I can breathe again,” she said, wishing she could feel this calm without being frozen. “Like I’d been drowning so long, I’d forgotten what oxygen feels like.” Then she grimaced. “The withdrawal leaves something to be desired, though.”
“Well, I’m not the one to blame for that.” He turned to walk on. “Besides, if I didn’t leave you on the floor retching, you might make the mistake of thinking I care.”
Helena inclined her head. “Yes. You seem strangely concerned about me thinking such a thing.”
Ferron froze for an instant, then turned back, a cruel smile thawing his face. “Your friends must have thought very little of you, if this seems like care.”
Helena was so stunned by his words, she felt her heart try to beat faster.
“Yes, they did,” she said quickly. “Of course they cared.”
He tilted his head. “Who?”
She swallowed. “Luc, and Lila, and—” There was a name on the tip of her tongue, but her mind seemed to swerve around it until she focused. “And S-Soren. Lila’s twin brother. He was—he was my friend, too.”
How had she forgotten Soren? She barely had time to wonder. Ferron seemed to be waiting for more names.
“Ilva Holdfast, Luc’s great-aunt. She advocated for me when my vivimancy was discovered. And—and Matron Pace. She managed the hospital.”
Ferron still seemed to be waiting, and it upset her so much that her anger broke through for an instant.
“Having a vivimancer as part of the Eternal Flame wasn’t something everyone was going to be comfortable with. Especially since I was—foreign. It was too much for some people. I didn’t have the same kinds of connections that others did. If there’d been problems, it could have—it could have undermined Luc.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, you seem to have it all very thoroughly rationalised for yourself. Congratulations. It was clearly all worth it in the end.”
He flashed an insincere smile and walked away.
Helena was tempted to fling a marble bust after him and ask exactly who cared about him. His own father wanted to disown him, his wife couldn’t stand him, and he couldn’t even keep living staff on to run his house.
If she hadn’t been drugged, she would have, but she was rational enough to know it was pointless, and her time was limited.
The necrothralls appeared and vanished like ghosts as she resumed her exploration. When she finished with the east wing, she fetched her cloak and gloves, determined to spend her remaining time on the outbuildings.
The sky was unusually clear, a stark winter blue. The reborn sun was a pale golden disc, too feeble for much warmth but a comfort to see.
The garden shed was locked. The next building was a small iron forge. Locked too. Hardly surprising. So were the connecting storehouses. She tried the stable, feeling the eyes of the necrothralls on her as she tested the large sliding doors and found them locked. She tugged at them a few more times, wishing they’d give.
She’d always liked horses. They reminded her of the donkeys in Etras that were always nuzzling into people’s pockets with their velvety noses, looking for treats.
Animals were rare on Paladia’s islands. The city was so dense and multi-levelled, there was no place for them except as pets, and there’d been no pets allowed at the Institute. The highroads became exclusively for motorcars and lorries, and so horses were only brought into the city for ceremonial events and parades.
Luc had the handsomest white destrier named Cobalt, who’d loved carrots but hated the city, and he was always taken back out to the countryside as soon as the summer solstice parade passed. Luc had told her that if she ever visited their country estate, they’d go riding.
Helena tried a smaller stable door around the corner and was surprised when it opened.
She slipped inside. The sweet smell of hay filled the air, and another scent she couldn’t place. She squinted into the dark. All the stalls seemed empty; no stomping or snorting greeted her.
She clicked her tongue and heard shuffling at the far end of the stable. The sound of something very large getting up.
She clicked again and heard a deep, huffed breath, but she couldn’t see anything.
“Hello,” she said tentatively, stepping a little farther in.
The door behind her swung wide open. Bright light spilling in.
She expected Ferron, but it was the two necrothralls from Central shoving their way in.
A snarl—almost a roar—rolled through the darkness. Every hair on Helena’s body rose on end.
There was the sound of a heavy chain being dragged, another snarl, more furious than the first, and Helena saw what was in the shadows. An enormous creature, black as night, lunged towards them.
It was a wolf.
No. Bigger than a wolf. It was larger than a destrier. So immense it seemed to fill the stable.
Grace had said the High Reeve had a monster, but Helena had not taken that literally.
The creature was monstrous. Fangs longer than her fingers flashed in the light. Wind rushed across the room. The smell of blood struck her face as a foaming mouth burst from the shadows, jaws snapping.
There was the sharp sound of a chain reaching its end. Taloned claws scrabbled across the wood floor as the monster lunged again.
The necrothralls grabbed Helena by the hair and dragged her back out into the courtyard, dumping her on the gravel.
Helena scrambled to her feet, heart trying to beat with fear but unable to. She was stunned by what had happened. Her captivity was so rigidly controlled, it was startling to brush with danger.
She couldn’t help but wonder if the stable door being unlocked was also Aurelia’s doing.
The creature was still snarling, and then a low gusting howl emerged, a sound like moaning wind.
She caught her breath and looked back at the necrothralls, who’d both stationed themselves in front of the stable, watching her as the creature inside quieted.
She moved away. The next building was a small, geometric one. Helena tried the door, and it clicked, swinging inwards. As soon as she saw the interior’s five walls, she knew what it was. A chantry.
She stepped inside, letting the door close behind her. Helena had always struggled with the rigidity of Northern religion, but now, at the end of everything, there was a bittersweetness to a place like this.
Paladia had been a culture shock for Helena in many regards. In Etras, gods didn’t require being believed in any more than the mountains did. They existed. A person accommodated them respectfully, and sometimes made little offerings and prayers requesting favour, but the gods represented facets of life on Etras, not purpose itself.
Things were different in Paladia. While the ancient gods were said to have required blood for their sacrifices, Sol required life itself, lived out in service to him. Northerners were expected to devote their every moment in ritual sacrifice so that in death their souls might ascend to the heavens. Everything revolved around what Sol did or did not allow.
Luc had tried everything to earn the favour Sol had extended to his forefathers. He’d possessed the alchemical gifts, sun-blessed like all the rest, but he never received the miracles his ancestors had enjoyed, which had ensured their triumphs in battle and the riches of their rule.
Luc would have given up all his gifts for one miracle, anything to bring the war to an end, but his prayers were never answered, his devotion never acknowledged.
