Alchemised, page 29
Her eyes drifted shut, head swimming.
When they opened again, Ferron was looking at her, and the necrothrall was across the room.
Now that she wasn’t panicking anymore, Helena thought she was going to be sick from the sight of him. She squeezed her eyes shut, curling into a defensive ball as he walked over.
“You are not allowed to hurt yourself or do anything that might cause an abortion or miscarriage,” he said. “You’ll be monitored full-time now, just in case your newfound desperation drives you to previously unknown heights of creativity.”
The words were caustic, but he sounded more tired than anything else.
Helena said nothing, waiting for him to leave.
She curled protectively around her stomach. She knew there was little more than nothing there, but eventually there would be, and she could do nothing to stop it.
When she wouldn’t get up for several days, Ferron returned.
“You cannot lie in bed moping for nine months,” he said when she refused to acknowledge him. “You need to eat and go outside.”
She ignored him.
“I have something for you,” Ferron finally said.
Something heavy pressed onto the duvet. She glanced over.
There was a thick book beside her. The Maternal Condition: An In-Depth Study on the Science and Physiology of Gestation.
She looked away. “Why?”
“Because you’ll wear your brain smooth if you don’t find answers to all the things you want to know.” He sounded resigned.
There was a pause; clearly, he’d hoped for some reaction.
“I’ll expect you out of bed tomorrow,” he said, and left.
When his footsteps had finally faded, Helena reached towards the book and almost shoved it off the bed, then hesitated and pulled it against her chest, holding it tightly.
The next day, she got out of bed and sat by the window, where the light was strongest. The book was brand new, with a leather spine that creaked when she lifted the cover and pages that still smelled of machine oil and ink.
It was a medical textbook, not a housewife’s guide that would have avoided technical and medical terminology in favour of the more accessible explanations of pregnancy.
She was several chapters in when he returned.
She clutched at her book reactively, but he simply studied her.
“When did you last go outside?” he asked.
She looked down. “I—went out—”
She didn’t know how long the necrothralls retained information, whether they could observe the passage of time. If she lied, would he know?
“Last week,” she said.
“No, you didn’t. You haven’t been outside in weeks.”
She stared down at her book, not blinking until the words began to blur. She didn’t want to go outside. She didn’t want to see the spring or smell the scent of the world coming to life.
“Put your shoes on.”
She stood, holding her book tightly against her chest. He sighed with irritation.
“You cannot bring that; it weighs nearly five pounds.”
Helena only held it tighter. Other than her shoes and gloves, it was her only possession.
Ferron gripped his temples as though he had a migraine.
“No one is going to steal your book,” he said as if he was trying very hard to be patient. He gestured around. “Who even would? If they do, I will buy you a new one. Leave it.”
She placed it carefully on the table, fingers lingering on the cover a moment longer before she went to retrieve her boots.
The courtyard was reborn by spring. There was grass, and little red buds covered the trees. The vines on the house had bright-green leaves, transforming their previously gruesome appearance.
It was beautiful, Helena couldn’t deny it, but every detail felt tainted and poisonous.
Ferron said nothing, but he walked with her around the courtyard a few times and then back to her room.
As he turned to leave, she forced herself to speak.
“Ferron.” Her voice wavered.
He was already in the hall, but he paused and turned slowly back. His expression was closed, eyes guarded.
“Ferron,” she said again, voice barely more than a whisper. Her jaw trembled uncontrollably, and she gripped the post of the bed, trying to steady herself. “I—I will never ask anything of you—”
His expression went flat and cold, and something inside her broke but she kept speaking.
“You can do anything you want to me. I’ll never ask for any mercy from you, but please—don’t do this…”
He stood, impassive.
“It—this baby—it’ll be half yours. Don’t let them—” she said in a broken voice. “I’ll do anything you want—I’ll—I’ll—”
She didn’t have anything to offer. Her heart was racing too fast, and her voice cut off when she couldn’t breathe. She clawed at her chest, trying to force her lungs to inhale.
Ferron’s eyes flickered, and he stepped into the room, shutting the door. He walked over and took her by the shoulders, practically holding her up as she fought to breathe.
“No one is going to hurt your baby,” he said, meeting her eyes.
She gave a small gasp of relief. It was what she’d so desperately wanted him to say.
She dropped her head, her hair falling and concealing her face.
“Really?” She let her desperation fill her voice.
“Nothing will happen to it. You have my word. Calm down.”
What an empty promise. There was no point in begging. He had every reason to lie to her, to say whatever was necessary to lull her into compliance, to keep her calm and docile with reassurances that meant nothing.
She jerked free, backing away.
“You’ll say anything, won’t you?” she said, her voice shaking. “I guess you have to, whatever it takes to ‘maintain my environment.’ ”
She wrapped her arms around herself and sank to the floor.
“Stay away from me,” she said. “I’ll only exercise and eat if I don’t have to see you.”
* * *
She went outside alone the next day, intent on poisoning herself with everything and anything she could find. Spring was a good time for it. With a garden so overgrown, there was a chance of white hellebore being somewhere in the overgrowth. She crawled through the beds, ignoring the pain in her hands and arms, searching everywhere, but there was nothing abortive or poisonous.
Even the crocuses and snowbells that she was certain she’d seen were gone, the soil loose in their wake. She raked through it with her fingers, but there wasn’t a single bulb left behind.
She went out searching every day, desperate to find some overlooked sprout as she began to develop headaches and nausea. What was briefly a grinding pain in the back of her skull seemed to expand by the hour. It worsened week by week until she couldn’t read, her vision swimming in an aura of pain.
The heavy winter drapes were kept closed, blotting out all light. She ate less and less. When she couldn’t eat or drink or get out of bed for two days, Ferron reappeared.
“You said you’d eat,” he said.
She scoffed, and her head throbbed so painfully it was as though someone had driven a metal rod into her skull. Her vision turned blood red. She moaned, hardly able to breathe until it passed.
“If I could even think of anything that sounded edible, I doubt I could keep it down,” she said in a strained voice. “Sickness isn’t unusual in early pregnancy. It’ll pass. Statistical probability indicates I’m unlikely to die from it.”
She felt the air shift as Ferron stiffened, as if her words had startled him.
“My mother nearly did,” he said.
She felt as if there was something she was meant to realise at the comment, but her head hurt too much to wonder.
Ferron didn’t leave. He was still standing beside her bed when she fell into exhausted sleep.
He brought Stroud a few days later.
“I can’t imagine that the Toll of the animancy is already manifesting,” she was saying loudly as she entered the room. “It generally doesn’t develop until the final months. However, she was a healer. Perhaps she has less vitality left than we’d realised.”
She stopped beside Helena, not really looking at her at all. She flipped the duvet back and shoved Helena’s nightgown up to her stomach without warning.
Helena flinched, and Ferron looked away.
“Now, it’s still early, but I think—” Stroud rummaged in her bag and pulled out a resonance screen.
Stroud held the screen up in her left hand while her right rested on Helena’s lower abdomen. Stroud’s resonance sank through her skin, and the gas within the glass morphed into a series of nebulous shapes. In the negative space, there was something small, pulsing so rapidly it seemed to flutter.
Helena stared, stricken.
“There.” Stroud sounded pleased. “Your heir—” She caught herself. “Well, progeny, I suppose we should say.”
Ferron’s face had gone ashen.
Stroud pulled her hand away. “It all appears normal, nothing irregular that I can detect. Have you checked her brain recently?”
Ferron shook his head.
Stroud clicked her tongue but nodded. “Given the seizures she’s had, it’s probably for the best not to disrupt things at such a fragile juncture.” She rested her hand on Helena’s head, sending out the barest wave of resonance. Helena shuddered from the pain. “If she really is an animancer, I suspect the headaches are self-inflicted, so there’s not really anything to be done about it. In fact, it might prompt the recovery of her memories.”
Ferron’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
Stroud pulled the covers back over Helena. “If the High Necromancer is correct, she’s keeping the memories hidden by internalising her resonance. Which means that she’s probably been putting most of her energy into maintaining it. It might explain her lethargy, since it’s unlikely that it’s being done efficiently. Now she’s pregnant. She doesn’t have the strength to sustain both, especially if this embryo is an animancer. The High Necromancer says that his power was so great, he’d claimed every drop of his mother’s life while still in the womb and was birthed from her corpse upon the funeral pyre. We’ll have to be sure to maintain Marino. Perhaps if we’re lucky, we’ll end up with both a baby and the memories before she succumbs to the Toll.”
“You didn’t think to mention this until now?” Ferron’s words were fine and sharp as a razor.
Stroud gave a tight shrug. “It’s not as though I have much data to theorise on.” She shot him a snide look. “You should ask your father. He’s our resident expert, you know.”
Something unreadable flashed across Ferron’s face. “I wouldn’t rely on his cooperation in this case.”
“Well, I can have an intravenous drip put in, but that’s as much as I can do.”
Stroud left, but Ferron stayed behind.
Helena closed her eyes. Now she understood: She was expected to die, and they’d all known. She only hoped it would happen too early for the pregnancy to be viable.
That fluttering negative space in the resonance screen danced in her mind’s eye.
Her chest tightened, heart pounding as if she were running.
The mattress shifted, and cool fingers touched her cheek, brushing back her hair and resting against her forehead.
A few days later, a doctor visited, and an intravenous drip was inserted into her left arm. Her days became ruled by the unending drip of saline and drugs inside the glass vial.
The morning sickness seemed to fade, but the headaches didn’t; if anything, they grew worse. Helena could barely move. She was poked and prodded by countless doctors, but none offered useful advice.
When they’d gone, Ferron would sit on the edge of the bed and smooth her hair. Sometimes he would take her hand, his fingers moving absently against hers. The first time he did it, she thought he was playing with her fingers; then she realised he was massaging them.
He always started at her palms, careful not to bend her wrists or bump the manacles, working slowly to her fingertips, knuckle by knuckle. It made them spasm less, so she let him, but she told herself she didn’t like it.
She grew thin, until the manacles were loose enough that she could see the tubes where they penetrated her wrists, and the necrothrall maid who most frequently watched her grew fretful to the point that Helena began to doubt that the woman was a necrothrall at all.
She’d hover over Helena, wordlessly offering mint and ginger tisanes, clear broths, and bits of toast, giving her sponge baths, and carefully combing and plaiting Helena’s hair into a loose braid so it wouldn’t mat. She seemed strangely experienced in nursing for a lady’s maid.
Ferron began to hover, too. He had to leave to hunt and perform whatever duties Morrough still gave him, but he was often in her room. Sometimes he’d come in, completely filthy, verifying that she was still alive before even cleaning up.
He didn’t speak or meet her eyes, but he was there constantly. Sitting sometimes for hours with her hand in his as if it could keep her from slipping away.
Stroud visited again when Helena was barely conscious. She heard comments about not expecting it to take such a toll already, blaming the transmutation in Helena’s brain, and complaining that it was far too early for viability.
Atreus was mentioned again.
Helena dreamed that her room was filled with moonlight, except instead of coming through the windows, the light came from Ferron. His eyes had that eerie silver glow as he sat next to her, her hand in his once more, but this time her palm was pressed against his chest so that she could feel his heartbeat.
She couldn’t help but think something was supposed to happen, but nothing did. The dead sensation in her wrists was like a pit.
She felt like an hourglass, the final grains of sand finally running down. It was almost over. She could feel herself slipping away.
The room flipped as she was dragged up and crushed tight.
“Stay…please…stay.”
The light grew and the strangest sensation came over her, a glow inside her chest, familiar even though she was certain she’d never experienced anything like it before. The constant feeling of strain inside her chest, like a thread pulled to the verge of snapping, slowly faded away.
She closed her eyes, drawing a struggling breath, and the dream dissolved into nothingness.
* * *
Helena woke with a start, panic gripping her. She pushed herself up in bed, swaying as the room swam around her. She braced herself, ripping the needle from her arm, and tumbled from the bed.
There was something important she needed to do—
Her legs nearly gave out when they hit the floor. She stumbled, catching herself. A shock of pain lanced through her arms, but she ignored it.
She was supposed to be doing something.
What was it, though?
She couldn’t remember.
She was waiting. She needed to be ready for…
The knowledge danced just beyond reach, but she could feel it.
Don’t break.
She’d promised…
What? What had she promised? Think, Helena.
She had to remember now. She pressed her hands against her temples.
There were red spots dancing in her vision. Pain ballooning until it was larger than she was.
Ferron appeared in front of her. “What’s—”
She stared at him wildly. “I’m waiting—I promised I’d wait—”
Pain sheared through her brain, and the world split in two.
When her vision cleared, Ferron was still there, but his eyes had turned a flat grey, his hair darkened by shadows as he lunged towards her.
She fell back instinctively, fingers scrabbling, trying to find—
He vanished.
The room splintered.
Ilva Holdfast was sitting in front of her, her expression tense. “We’re losing the war.”
Before Helena could answer, Ilva was gone. Helena was falling.
No…She wasn’t falling.
Ferron had her by the throat, and he was slamming her onto the floor. His eyes narrowed into slits.
Cold water filled her mouth.
Everything was dark, ice-cold. She was surrounded by water. She could see Luc. He was clawing at his own throat, fingers leaving gouges in his skin.
Lila, with her hair cropped short, curled up against the wall, crying. “I made a mistake.”
“Surely I deserve something in return, to warm my cold heart.”
A hard kiss where she was pinned against a wall.
“You seem pleased, to have successfully whored yourself.”
Matron Pace standing, looking over her shoulder. “Lila Bayard is not the only person that the Eternal Flame would suffer greatly for losing.”
“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me.” The words were growled in her ear.
Jan Crowther, alive, his eyes narrowed and furious. “You’re more likely to destroy the Eternal Flame than save it.”
Helena herself crying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did this to you.”
Everything was falling in fragments around her as Ferron reappeared, his face white with rage, his eyes glowing that bright unearthly silver.
“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”
It was like falling. The past broke free, surging through her mind and swallowing her.
Chapter 22
