Alchemised, page 26
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Helena’s eye had recovered enough to finally handle light again, so she pushed the curtains back, her new room revealing a view of the courtyard rather than the mountains. Outside, the world had metamorphosed, showing early signs of spring. The deadened grey she was accustomed to now showed pricks of colour amid the toppled grass and the tree branches.
A few weeks before, she would have been comforted by it, but there was a pit inside her now, even beauty turned to horror.
Two days. Her thoughts circled relentlessly, like a trapped animal ready to gnaw off her own limbs to escape.
In war, rape had always loomed as a possibility. There were stories about the prisoners in the laboratories, warnings of what could happen to women captured from Resistance territory. But rape for the purpose of pregnancy was a layer of intention that she still had not fully wrapped her mind around.
Her experiences in the matter of pregnancy had never been favourable.
Precautionary measures were in short supply during the war. Girls would show up at the hospital from time to time, nervously asking to talk to Matron Pace. Oftentimes, that was the end of it, but other times, they’d keep coming back.
Helena had been an only child. As an apothecary, her mother mostly prevented pregnancies. It was the village midwives who handled the rest. Mothers only came to a surgeon like Helena’s father when things had gone wrong. Most of the babies Helena saw growing up were deformed, or deathly sick, or stillborn.
That pattern continued during the war. As a healer, Helena was only summoned when a baby was born too early or had gotten stuck in the wrong position, or the milk wouldn’t come in because there wasn’t enough food. She would be asked if she could do something. Most often she couldn’t. The babies were tiny and fragile, and even vivimancy couldn’t fix everything.
She’d watch the mothers break, something seismic inside them rupturing. They’d scream sometimes. Others would be silent, and that was often worse in the end.
Helena had been grateful that it would never be her. She would never marry or have children, so would never have to endure losing them.
It was the one thing she’d thought herself safe from.
She lay in bed unable to sleep. Lumithia was nearing her biannual Ascendance, waxing so full that the night glowed silver, the light stark against the black shadows. The air had a nearly constant feeling of resonance.
Helena flexed her fingers, wishing she could shove her hand inside her body as easily as Ferron had into Lancaster’s belly. She’d rip out her organs right there in the bed.
The thought of her body’s forced complicity made her sick, and yet the idea of not becoming pregnant left her frozen with fear. Stroud’s threat kept ringing in her head.
Faced with the choice of struggling or cooperating with her own rape so that it would not be as bad as it could be made her feel so guilty, her mind threatened to shear apart. If the destination was inevitable, her only choice was in how horrifying the journey would be.
The night dragged like sandpaper across her skin until she was nearly raw from it.
When Ferron walked into her room, she gave a ragged gasp and nearly burst into tears.
When he saw her, he seemed to almost turn, as if to walk out.
She started to reach a hand forward, then snatched it instantly back, clenching her fingers into a fist. The movement was enough to still him.
His eyes flicked between her and the door as if still debating with himself.
What if he refused and just let Stroud take her?
The room swam. Her hands had already gone numb.
If he left, she would let him. She would go to Central. She would not be so complicit as to ask.
She couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was impassive, as if he wasn’t fully there.
Finally he turned away. Helena didn’t know if she should laugh or cry that this was the line he wouldn’t cross. The sole command he’d refuse. After all, he was known to be the High Reeve now; Morrough couldn’t kill him.
He pulled a small tin case out of his pocket, putting something from it under his tongue.
“Bed,” he finally said without looking at her.
Helena didn’t move.
He turned to face her, his eyes flat.
“Wait—” She held her hands out, as if she could ward him off. “What if you just kill me?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You could now. You said that everyone knows now that you’re the High Reeve. Morrough wouldn’t be able to justify killing you because of me. I’m no one.”
Ferron’s attention sharpened. For a moment, he stood considering it, calculation visible in his eyes.
Her pulse sped up.
“I can do it myself, if you want, so he won’t realise,” she offered. “If you just—give me something. It doesn’t need to be easy, or quick; it could be something small. You can say you left briefly and—”
She knew the instant she misspoke. Ferron’s expression abruptly hardened, his eyes going flat and his gaze sliding through her again.
“Bed,” he said again, this time through clenched teeth.
Her hands fell to her sides. She turned slowly, eerily disconnected from her body as she walked over. She bit down on her inner lip, harder and harder, trying to feel something. Blood gushed across her tongue as she lay down, but her body remained numb.
Ferron approached a few moments later. He’d only removed his coat.
She tensed as soon as he got close, trying not to grind her teeth.
His expression was set like granite; he stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the headboard.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She forced herself to obey and tried to focus on breathing. Don’t think. She could smell him in the room, the scent of juniper, metal, and the decay of the house.
The mattress dipped to her right. Her breathing stuttered and sped up.
“Don’t—open your eyes.”
She squeezed them tighter. There was a pause as her skirts pushed up towards her hips, underclothes stripped down. Her heart seemed to stop.
She heard Ferron inhale. She could feel his body through the air.
“Breathe,” he said near her left ear.
There was a touch between her legs, something warm and slippery. She flinched away, then realised it was oil.
She drew a rasping breath, squeezing her eyes so tight, they throbbed as his weight pressed against her hips.
She choked back a garbled whimper.
She closed her eyes tighter. Her mind scrabbled, trying to find an escape. In stasis, in the tank, she’d learned to take herself away when her mind teetered on the edge.
That was how she’d survived. She’d learned she could endure.
Now that escape didn’t work.
She was trapped inside her body, as if someone had nailed her consciousness in place with a spike.
This is better than Central, she reminded herself, struggling to keep from hyperventilating, from clawing and screaming and trying to shove him off.
Her chest spasmed. There were tears sliding from the corners of her eyes.
Better than Central.
What if this failed? What if Stroud was right about him, that it wasn’t even possible, but Helena had cooperated anyway? What if it was all for nothing?
She gave a frantic, panicking gasp, unable to keep from recoiling just as he jerked and stilled.
He was gone so suddenly, it was as if he’d evaporated.
Helena opened her eyes and couldn’t see him anywhere. The violent sound of retching emerged from the bathroom.
Eventually she heard the toilet flush and the sound of water running from the tap for several minutes.
She managed to shove her skirts down but couldn’t make herself move beyond that. Her body was numb.
It’s over, she kept telling herself, trying to make herself calm down, but she couldn’t stop trembling. Her nails had carved crescents into her palms.
Ferron emerged from the bathroom, his tense expression faded, as if he couldn’t maintain it. His face was drawn, his eyes stark and reddish.
He looked strangely mortal. She wished he didn’t.
She looked away.
He crossed the room silently, picked up his coat, and left.
Helena sat up slowly, trying not to feel her body.
Going into the bathroom, she turned on the shower’s spray and curled up beneath it without taking her clothes off. When the water ran cold, she still didn’t move.
Chapter 19
Helena tried to make herself go outside the next day. She was desperate for fresh air, to escape the oppressive weight of the house, but when she reached the doorway, a warm spring breeze rushed across her face, filling her lungs with the scent of loam and spring blossoms. She could see little clusters of crocuses and snowdrops peeking through the dead grass. The blackened vines covering the house were tipped with specks of green, and flocks of birds chirped as they soared overhead.
It was beautiful, and it felt like a betrayal.
The world was not supposed to be beautiful any longer. It was supposed to be dead and cold, forever mirroring the misery of Helena’s life. Instead it had moved on, tilting into a new season, and she could not. She was trapped forever in winter, in the season of death.
She retreated into the house.
When the door to her room opened in the afternoon, she was relieved to see Stroud instead of Ferron.
Stroud looked amused. “I thought I’d stop by and make sure there wasn’t any damage from this first time. We wouldn’t want an infection interfering. Was there blood?”
Helena hadn’t looked, but she shook her head slowly.
Stroud’s eyes flicked curiously up and down. “Well, you are over twenty. There isn’t always.”
Helena tried not to react to Stroud’s resonance when she laid her hand on Helena’s pelvis, but when she felt the resonance wave glide through the most intimate parts of her body, she shuddered uncontrollably.
“We likely won’t know if you’re pregnant for a few weeks after, but we will know soon enough. I’ve grown quite adept at detecting them early.” There was the most unnerving sensation of something inside her lower abdomen being adjusted, and Helena gave a sharp gasp. “Yes, this is definitely the right window. You’re as ready as I can make you.”
Helena’s skin crawled until Stroud stopped.
“So, how was it?”
“Horrible,” Helena said, looking away.
Stroud made a sound of false sympathy. “Not surprising. You’re high-strung.”
Helena stared towards the window, her jaw trembling.
Stroud’s lips stretched like rubber, and she set the file down, running her fingers idly across Helena’s name and the two prisoner numbers stamped across the front.
“Did you know, I studied in the Alchemy Tower. It was years before your time, obviously. My repertoire and resonance levels weren’t good enough to keep ascending, but I was allowed to transfer to the science department and study as a medical assistant. That’s where I first heard of vivimancy. It wasn’t until years later that I realised what power I had and began the struggle of mastering it. I would never have imagined I’d become one of the few vivimancers to survive the war.”
Helena didn’t understand why Stroud was telling her this.
Stroud rummaged in her bag and pulled out a vial of tablets, breaking one in half. “Open.”
“Why?” Helena asked, locking her jaw.
Stroud did not answer, she just stepped forward and, using her fingers and resonance to pry Helena’s mouth open, pushed a crumbling piece into her mouth and forced her to swallow as it began dissolving. Helena recognised the taste as it moved down her throat.
“Artemon Bennet saved people like me. Gave us a chance to test our abilities openly and be proud of them.” Stroud was still gripping Helena’s jaw; her fingers were digging into the skin.
Helena could feel Stroud tinkering with her physiology, tuning her. It was wholly different from what Ferron had done when acclimating her to the house. Rather than feel physiologically detached from her mind, she realised that her skin had begun to warm, starting at the surface and slowly sinking deeper.
Stroud kept talking. “I’m not saying he was perfect; Bennet considered other vivimancers too feeble-minded to appreciate his genius.” Her pale eyebrows rose. “But I served him without question, gave up my personal ambitions to stay by his side. That’s why I’m still here, even though everyone always underestimated me.”
Helena tried to pull away, but Stroud’s resonance had strangled her motor nerves. A pulsing tension bloomed from her lower abdomen, and her skin was growing so sensitive, it ached.
“There.” Stroud let go, letting Helena topple sideways on the bed. “You’ll enjoy it much more now.”
Helena lay paralysed, unable to resist or scream as Stroud arranged her on the bed, flat on her back, legs parted.
No. No. No.
“I’ll tell the High Reeve you’re ready for him on my way out,” Stroud said as she left.
Helena waited for what felt like hours, want carving itself into her bones. Her body screamed for movement, for touch, for friction, need crawling beneath her skin.
When Ferron finally arrived, if she could have moved, she would have shuddered just at the vibration of the door shutting, but she could only lie there, eyes fastened on him, begging him to notice that something was wrong.
He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was staring past her, through her, his gaze in an unseeing mid-distance as he slid off his coat and draped it over the sofa.
She watched him move, her eyes suddenly ravenous, intent on cataloguing all the details about him. The wait had left her hollow inside, a pit of harrowing want that kept growing.
His hands, she knew, were warm.
A tremor swelled inside her.
Stop thinking.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but the need she felt corroded her willpower.
The bed shifted. A shiver ran down her spine. Her skirts were shifted, pushed up, and the brush of fabric against her thighs made her inhale raggedly. The only reaction she could muster.
“Breathe,” Ferron said, as he had the night before.
She was keenly aware of him, more so than the day before, except now her wants were inverted. She could barely feel his weight. She wanted to arch up, press into him even as an endless scream throbbed inside her skull. Her eyes snapped open, and she stared up at him.
She felt as though she’d never truly looked at him before.
There’d always been a sharp and wary distance between them. When she observed him, it was in search of tells, for weakness. She’d never looked at him as something human or hot-blooded.
Now he felt very human to her. She wanted him to touch her. She remembered what his hands felt like, the press of his fingertips along her jaw. She craved it so much, her skin ached. The weight she’d been desperate to escape from the night before—she wanted it.
Tears burned a hot trail down her temples.
For the briefest moment, Ferron’s eyes flicked to her face before averting again. He went still and looked at her again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She stared at him, willing for him to understand.
He drew away, wrenching a glove off. He was still wearing them, even now.
He barely touched her, but that was all it took. The paralysis melted away.
Helena’s body shuddered back into motion, and she instantly curled onto her side with a sob, pressing her legs tight together as her body throbbed, gasping raggedly. Even her breath burned in her lungs.
“What did she do to you?”
She couldn’t look at him.
“She said it was to make it b-better.” Her voice shook uncontrollably. “Because I—complained. H-How long do those tablets you gave me last?”
“Eight hours.”
“She gave me half.” She drew a ragged breath. “Can you—change it to something else?”
“Not once it’s taken effect,” he said. “It has to wear off on its own.”
She nodded. She’d assumed as much but hoped to be wrong.
She tried to draw another breath.
“Can we—can we wait till—after?” Her voice was strangled.
There was a silence.
“I have to leave after this. I won’t be back until late tomorrow.”
She lay there, trying to think clearly, not sure that she was rational anymore.
This, or maybe not pregnant. For all the accidental pregnancies she’d treated, she knew that children didn’t always come easy. For her parents, it had taken years; she’d arrived after they’d given up. A miracle, they’d said.
Two months, and then she’d go to Central, to Stroud, and—
She was going insane. She couldn’t do this. A choice like this—it wasn’t fair to make her choose between things like this. No good choices, just worse and worse, which way to hate herself forever.
This was the cruellest thing Stroud could have done.
“Just—do it now,” she said, rolling back onto her back, refusing to look at him.
She stared up at the canopy, willing her mind away. There was a long pause before the bed shifted.
She hadn’t thought it could be worse the second time, but it was a thousand times worse. Now her body wanted him.
She tried closing her eyes, but she was restless. She couldn’t keep them shut. They fluttered open and she looked at Ferron again, taking in all the details she’d never cared to notice before. His sharp cheekbones and eyes, his thin lips, the precise lines of his jaw, and the way his pale throat disappeared in the collar of his shirt. She wanted to press close and breathe against his skin, to feel the warmth of another body.
