Alchemised, page 18
He’d always blamed himself for that.
If he were still alive, he’d pray even now, but the ritual words stuck in Helena’s throat.
Each wall was for one of the five gods of the Quintessence. The radiant, unconquerable Sol, giver of life, was at the centre, flanked by the rest. The altar brazier that should have been burning ceaselessly with a flame from the eternal fire was cold, its amiantos wick dusty and dry.
The Ferrons had probably had a chantry built for their private worship and interments because that was something the upper classes did—although given the number of spires decorating the house, it did seem that the family had been religious at some point. Paladians loved decorating in sets of five even though their venerations and celebrations were primarily for Sol and Lumithia.
Along the walls there were dozens of stones with plaques bearing names and dates. With limited land, Paladians kept the ashes of their dead for generations rather than burying them in cemeteries as some countries did.
Despite the visible neglect, the chantry was not entirely abandoned. One plaque was brighter than the rest, carefully polished. It sat beneath the altar of Luna, the lesser moon goddess.
Enid Ferron. Always beloved. A wife and mother.
Based on the celestial dates, she’d died during the war, 1785, three years into Luc’s reign. She must have been Ferron’s mother.
Helena studied the inscription, finding it ironic. However “beloved” Enid Ferron had been by her husband and son, it had not been enough to be granted the immortality they enjoyed.
Then again, the guilds had always been intensely patriarchal.
Ironically, the one thing the guilds thought the Holdfasts weren’t traditional enough about was women. Girls had been welcomed to study at the Institute for decades. There were female lecturers, instructors, and board members in the school. It had been with Principate Apollo’s blessing that Lila Bayard had trained from childhood to become paladin primary.
The guilds, for all their talk of progress and equality, and freedom from rigid traditionalism, had very specific ideas about precisely who deserved that equality and freedom.
A low view of women was common in the North, especially among those of faith. Prior to the pressure exerted by the Principate, the Faith regarded women as categorically lesser, and even after the official distancing occurred, the belief remained pervasive.
It had been viewed as a fact of nature. Men were of Sol, active, hot and dry, full of vitality, and the source of life’s seed. Women, it followed, were an inferior human form. Wet and cold, passively bound to the monthly cycle of Luna, the lesser moon. While their bodies were the necessary vessels for birth, it was their blood that was the source of all defects. Both vivimancy and necromancy were regarded as a corruption of resonance caused by a “poisonous womb.”
Hence the long-standing obsession with creating homunculi even among the Faith, to erase women’s defective hold on humanity.
However, not all women were doomed to cold passivity. To avoid such categorisation, a girl could devote herself to the cult of Lumithia, goddess of warfare and alchemy, who’d been born from the heart of Sol. Women associated with Lumithia were not expected to be traditional; they could be alchemists, surgeons, paladins, anything.
But there was a price. Were they to marry or bear children, they had to give it all up. Lumithia was a virgin goddess. Mothers and married women were not welcome at her altar.
When Helena was done exploring, she stayed outside despite the cold, watching the winter sun sink behind the mountains. The stars appeared in the night sky, shining briefly before the moons rose. Luna first, a deformed quarter moon in the far horizon with her soft light, ushering in a gentle twilight.
Then Lumithia rose. She was a waning crescent, but still more than double Luna’s size and so bright it hurt to stare directly at her. She ascended into the sky like a white sun, the constellations vanishing behind her light until only the planets and a few stars remained visible in the black abyss of sky. Glimmers fine as diamond dust.
Chapter 12
Helena opened the door, a piece of crystal clutched in one hand, and found Lila sitting on the floor, curled up like a child trying not to be found. She was out of her armour. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her long pale hair cropped short, and when she turned to look at Helena, it brought the right side of her face into view.
A roping scar tore through the side of her face and throat.
“Lila. Lila, what’s wrong? What happened?”
Lila stared at Helena without responding for a long time.
“I made a mistake,” Lila finally said, her voice barely a whisper, “I’ve made such a mistake.”
“It’s—all right. I’m sure it’ll be all right. Whatever you’ve done—I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”
“No.” Lila shook her head. “I’ve been lying to everyone—”
Helena woke abruptly, lurching up as the dream was cut short.
The withdrawal from the tablet hit like a brick wall, and she collapsed again, emotions crushing her. Even breathing hurt.
She tried to ignore it, to focus on the memory.
What had Lila been about to say? And what had happened to her? The injury had looked recent, the scarring reminiscent of what was on Helena’s own chest, no vivimancy used.
Helena couldn’t imagine why. Lila wasn’t someone who’d ever refused healing. As Luc’s paladin primary, there was a tremendous pressure on her to keep him safe, to prove that she deserved her rank.
She would often grow short-tempered when she wasn’t allowed to recover as quickly as she wanted to, brushing off Helena’s warnings about the balance of things, that healing took a much greater toll on the body than natural recovery did; too much and it could kill her. That there was a price that had to be paid, somehow, by someone.
Lila never cared about any of that. Protecting Luc was all that mattered to her.
* * *
Mountain snow blanketed the estate a few days later, cutting Spirefell off from the rest of the world, and life fell into a monotonous routine until the third session of transference arrived.
Once again, Helena’s consciousness was crushed down to the brink of oblivion, all the way to that moment of singularity as Ferron enmeshed his mind with hers.
This time, she felt him blink, and her own eyes closed. She was being puppeteered not physically but across her now shared mental landscape. She could feel his mind orienting itself within the patterns of hers, his consciousness attempting to sway her.
With his presence, she could finally feel the strange shape of her thoughts, the unnatural ways they swerved.
Much of it was seamless, smooth channels of evasion that refused to veer from their course, but there was a fault line, as if one part had been constructed separately.
She felt Ferron notice it, and before he could push towards it, she reacted.
A self-destructive wave of desperation exploded from inside her, like a bomb going off in her head.
Ferron vanished. Everything vanished.
When she regained consciousness, she could barely form thoughts. The vibrations of her own breathing hurt like the tongue of a whip lashing through her mind.
She wasn’t particularly feverish, but she also didn’t get better after several days.
In her dreams, there were people crowded around her. Dozens of them. Each time she slept, they’d drag her underwater and drown her. Bloodless hands grasping at her. Icy water filled her lungs. Her arms and legs were twisted and wrenched at. Splintered nails clawing at her skin. Fingers hooking inside her mouth, pulling down on her jaw until it came loose. Fingernails sinking into her eyeballs, and she never died.
She just kept drowning.
She’d wake, choking and gagging as her body tried to expel the phantom water from her lungs. She couldn’t make her mouth work. Her vision was upside down.
She recognised the voice of the stuttering mind specialist, saying things about the mind being complex and not fully understood, that Helena’s condition was unprecedented, and there was little to be done but wait and see what would happen.
When she finally began to recover, she felt as though a part of her had died.
Ferron’s encroachment was inevitable, progressing a little further with each month, the cracks in her mind widening to accommodate him. She had neither the strength nor the will to keep resisting.
The war was lost. Her suffering would not bring anyone back, not any more than Luc’s had saved them.
When she was no longer bedridden, she braved the cold and went out to the stables. The side door was unlocked, and she entered quickly before the thralls could stop her.
It was empty. Death slipping from her fingers again.
The winter deepened, sinking into an oppressive cold that crawled into the recesses of the house, the iron acting like veins, carrying the midwinter frost into every hallway and inner room, leaving the house frigid no matter how much the radiators hissed.
The Ferrons fled to the city, leaving Helena behind. In their absence, the meals were improved by the lack of table scraps, and the bread was less stale, although the inclusion of protein was scarcer.
For several weeks, newspapers became her only glimpse into the world beyond. The repopulation program, which had initially been treated as an economic necessity, was gradually reframed as the new scientific frontier. New Paladia would forge its own future; no longer would alchemical repertoires be left to chance. Parentage in the program was to be selected based on the strength and variety of resonance. Tests were being done to discover the ideal combinations.
The guild families, editorials effused, had the right ideas about marrying into resonance. Without the interference and backwards notions of the superstitious, there would be a new world order. Resonance-based abilities would achieve heights never before seen.
Scientific terminology and the overuse of words like genius and groundbreaking tried to frame the program as if it were an obvious next step. There were never any explanations about where these assets would go, or who’d raise them, or that they were people, just that they would exist and be industrially and economically valuable resources.
New Paladia sounded more like a factory than a city, intended to produce exactly the variety of alchemists the guilds wanted.
The society pages, which Helena had taken only a passing interest in, gradually became the sections that she read most avidly as she noticed a pattern. Over the course of several weeks, several familiar names vanished. Paladian guild society only had so many visible members, which made their abrupt disappearances noticeable, especially when pages usually brimming with gossip were reticent to speculate about their whereabouts.
Helena couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign of a growing insurrection. Perhaps New Paladia’s cracks were finally beginning to show.
She began having dreams of herself sitting across from Ilva Holdfast, with Crowther beside her. Her eyes darting back and forth between Ilva’s strained expression and Crowther’s appraising stare.
She could feel that they were waiting for her to say something, but she always woke before she’d answered.
As Helena was left to her own devices, Spirefell became her domain. With Aurelia gone, she spent little time in her room, accustomed to ignoring the necrothralls’ constant orbit around her. She avoided the largest rooms and spaces with deep shadows, and it became an ingrained habit to open the doors and pick things up gingerly so that it didn’t agitate the manacles.
Her familiarity was fortunate, because when Aurelia returned from the city, Helena knew every hidden alcove and servants’ passage to hide in.
Aurelia had not come alone. She’d brought a companion, the same broad-shouldered man Helena had glimpsed during the solstice party. The first time Helena encountered them together, Aurelia was entirely naked, splayed out across a bearskin rug, giggling beneath the body of her paramour. Ferron was still in the city, and they seemed to be taking liberal advantage of his absence.
It was more than a week before Helena finally saw the pair of them fully clothed. At the rear of the house sprawled an enormous hedge maze. Helena would sometimes pass the time trying to navigate through it with her eyes. She was nearly to the centre when Aurelia exited the maze, her companion close behind.
Aurelia was speaking animatedly, the first time Helena had ever seen her happy, while her companion seemed absorbed by the house, peering up and giving Helena a clear look at his face.
Lancaster.
Helena shrank from sight instantly.
Lancaster was Aurelia’s lover? The same person who’d just happened to find her room during the party.
That couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
Could he—
Helena was afraid to even allow the possibility to exist in her mind where Ferron might return and discover it, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering.
Could Lancaster be a spy? What if he was from the Resistance and that was why he’d looked for Helena? Was that what he’d been trying to communicate to her?
Was he a piece of her hidden memory? He must be. It would explain his surprise when she didn’t recognise him.
She went back to the window, but he and Aurelia had moved on.
Helena began watching for Lancaster, growing increasingly convinced that he had ulterior motives in visiting. He’d often try to slip away from Aurelia, eyes and attention constantly wandering.
Helena weighed the risk of approaching him. If her suspicions were correct, it would be vital that she escape before Ferron returned. If she acted prematurely, she might doom them both.
Better unconfirmed suspicions than anything concrete for Ferron to discover.
She was grateful for the choice when Ferron returned without warning.
He seemed tired. A sense of exhaustion hung about him, but he grew sharp and focused once Helena was in his sights.
“Stroud will be here tomorrow,” he said at last. “She’s concerned about your physical condition.”
Helena stiffened. “I’ve been walking. There’s been nothing different.”
“She’ll arrive after lunch,” was all he said before leaving. “Make sure you’re in your room.”
Stroud arrived without Mandl and made Helena strip to her underclothes and stand shivering in front of her. Stroud walked around her, fingers trailing over Helena’s shoulders, resonance sinking into her skin.
“Don’t they feed you?” Stroud finally asked, sucking her teeth as she paused, squeezing Helena’s arm and then pushing two fingers against her stomach. “You’re showing signs of malnutrition. What are you eating?”
Helena’s skin hurt from the cold, the air piercing straight to her bones. “K-Kitchen scraps,” she said, shivering.
“What?” Stroud drew back, looking Helena up and down. “Describe exactly what you’ve been eating.”
Helena swallowed, trying to concentrate. “Um. It’s all boiled together, some grains, vegetable peels, cores, and sometimes meat trimmings. When they’re here, I think what’s left on the plates is put in, too. But they haven’t been, so there’s not been much meat lately.”
“That’s what we feed the thralls. Why are you eating that?”
Helena blinked at this revelation. It made sense, but she was too cold to muster emotion at the news. “Because I’m a prisoner. I don’t think they thought it necessary to feed me well.”
“You are a”—she paused as though debating what to call Helena—“an asset. The Ferrons are supposed to be feeding you properly. That is not nearly enough nutrition, it’s no wonder you’ve been so sickly.” Stroud’s expression grew irate. She turned and went to the door. One of the necrothrall maids was waiting outside.
“I want the High Reeve. Here. In person. Now.”
Ferron entered a few minutes later wearing a scowl, barely glancing at Helena, who was still shivering in her underclothes. “You summoned me?”
“Is there a reason you’re starving her?” Stroud said, her hard fingers digging into Helena’s arm, lifting it and turning her. “Look at her. You complain about her fevers while feeding her little more than kitchen scraps.”
Ferron finally looked at Helena properly. “Pardon?”
“She isn’t a necrothrall,” Stroud said sharply. “She needs real food. You can’t expect her to handle transference if you’re starving her.”
Ferron said nothing, but Helena could have sworn he’d somehow paled. “I assumed she’d been eating as Aurelia and I do.” His fingers flexed. “Aurelia has always managed the menu. I will make enquiries.”
“I want her eating full meals. As much as she wants, with proper cuts of meat and vegetables. And porridge or broths in between until she’s healthy.”
Ferron gave a tight nod. “She’ll be fed properly. I will ensure it.”
“Thank you, High Reeve. See that she does.” Stroud turned back to Helena.
Ferron didn’t move, still looking at Helena until Stroud glanced over her shoulder at him. “Perhaps go see if there’ll be a proper meal tonight.”
He blinked, gave a short nod, and left.
“Lie down,” Stroud said as soon as the door closed. “I want to examine things more closely.”
Helena was so cold, she was grateful to climb onto her bed. Even Stroud’s cold fingers felt warm as she appraised Helena’s limbs and then worked up to her abdomen, pressing down with the heel of her hand, feeling at Helena’s organs.
Helena hadn’t really considered malnutrition as something happening to her. Food had often been in short supply during the war, and those who fought were prioritised; they needed consistent and high-quality food. Noncombatants made do with what was left.
After the Resistance lost the ports, there’d been shortages of almost everything.
