Alchemised, page 40
For so long, all she’d seen was his pride and anger. Now she couldn’t help but feel that there was something terribly tragic about him, straining beneath the surface.
She felt an urgent need to smother that feeling.
Kaine Ferron was the enemy. The war was his fault. He’d murdered Luc’s father.
She washed his blood off her hands, getting ready for her shift in the hospital before remembering that she was off that day. She sat on her bed, staring at her notes, trying to make sense of the tangled contradictory emotions inside her.
The door opened, and Lila strode in, decked out in practice armour. She stopped short at the sight of Helena.
“You’re here.”
Helena closed her notebook. “Pace is having one of my trainees cover my shift today. She wants to see how they’ll perform on their own.” Her lips pursed. “I’m not allowed to be there because apparently I glare and it makes people nervous.”
Lila nodded, propping her weapon against the wall and then straightening her braid and cracking her neck in both directions as Helena winced.
“You do glare,” Lila said, unclasping her armour. “You’re going to get loads of wrinkles right here.” She touched the spot between her eyebrows.
Helena rolled her eyes and dropped her notebook casually into her trunk, her fingers bumping against the amulet. It felt strangely warm. A familiar solace. She almost picked it up but then turned her hand, staring at the scars on her palm instead.
“Not really something I worry about,” she said quietly.
“Hel…you all right?”
Her head shot up. “Yes. Why?”
Lila shifted, her unfastened armour clanking. She was always in armour. She even slept in a light mesh set, saying she felt naked without it, but Helena knew she was afraid of making the mistake her uncle Sebastian had as Principate Apollo’s paladin, of believing that anywhere was safe for Luc.
“You’ve seemed off lately. I thought you’d be glad about the new healers, might relax a little bit, but you seem—” Lila hesitated. “Withdrawn. You’re always disappearing. Luc’s noticed.”
“I just worry, is all,” Helena said. “Any luck killing the chimaeras?”
“No. We did go out yesterday, but they’re freakishly fast. I had one almost cornered, but it smelled atrocious. Worse than the greys. I could have killed it, but my gods, I couldn’t even see straight and then—” She shook her head abruptly. “Why are we talking about chimaeras?”
Helena averted her eyes.
“Screw you.” Lila gave a huff of exasperation. “Don’t distract me by changing the subject. I don’t want to talk about chimaeras.” She walked over, her right leg clicking with each step until she was standing over Helena. “You’ve been off and you haven’t been in meetings lately. I finally pried what happened out of Soren yesterday. So good job to you all, that was an impressive amount of secret keeping.”
Helena went tense. “Does Luc know, too?”
“No.”
Helena released a breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lila said nothing for a moment. “Couldn’t help but notice you picked a day when Luc and I weren’t there.”
“I would have said it anyway,” Helena said, picking at her cuticles. The skin around her nails was cracked and ragged from constant washing, and there were still traces of Ferron’s blood under them. “But I was glad Luc wasn’t there. I didn’t want him trapped in the middle of something. I knew they’d say no. I just—I needed to say it. Soren said that was a good battle for all of you, but in the hospital—we ran out of everything. Beds, bandages, laudanum, and antiseptic. And bodies kept coming, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t make up the difference.”
Lila sat on the edge of Helena’s bed. “Are you—” Lila wasn’t looking at Helena and seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Are you not all right anymore? Is that why you spoke and why there’s all the trainees now?”
There was a pause. Helena looked sharply at Lila, but Lila was focused on unfastening a buckle and didn’t meet her stare. It had never occurred to Helena that Lila might know of the Toll.
It was more than she could handle thinking about just then.
“No. I’m fine. The trainees are because Matias hopes to get rid of me.”
“Oh, good. I mean, not good, but that makes sense,” Lila said, and cleared her throat. “I can see why you’re not thrilled about them, then.”
Helena forced a laugh. But the tension, the new undercurrent between them lingered. It was Lila who spoke next.
“You know, you can talk about—anything with me, if you want.”
“No,” Helena said. “I don’t need to talk. There’s—no point in talking, and as I have now been reminded publicly, I’m not a fighter. I don’t know anything about what war really is. So—what would I even have to say?”
Lila’s prosthetic leg clicked as she shifted and then said, “I think the hospital’s worse than the battlefield.”
Helena went very still.
“I realised it when I was in there for my leg.” Lila’s gaze was faraway, eyebrows furrowing. “At the front—everything’s so focused, you know. The rules are simple. We win some. We lose some. You get hit sometimes. You hit back. You get days to recover if it’s bad. But—” She looked down, her fingers tapping absently along the place where her prosthetic was joined to her thigh. “—in the hospital, every battle looks like losing. I can’t imagine what that’s like.” She looked at Helena. “All you see in there is the worst of it.”
Helena said nothing.
Lila sighed and unclasped more pieces of her armour, leaving them all over Helena’s bed. “When Soren told me what you said—I don’t agree, but I get it.”
Helena didn’t answer.
Lila nudged her with her elbow and stood. “Even if the trainees are just because of Matias’s meddling, I’m glad you’re getting more time off. I think you’ve needed that—some space from it all.”
Chapter 31
Aprilis 1786
Ferron was waiting for Helena when she opened the door. The room had been cleaned, the floor, table, chairs, all spotless. Not even a trace of blood.
His mouth was set in a taut line as she walked in.
As she closed the door, he shrugged off his cloak. “Let’s see how you fight, Marino.”
He lunged so fast, his body blurred.
There was no time for Helena to go for her knife. She swung her satchel at his head.
It bought her a split second, but he snatched it out of midair, ripping the strap from her fingers, and threw it across the room.
She heard the glass vials shatter as she scrambled away. There was nowhere to run.
The door was too complicated to unlock.
She managed to get to the other side of the table, trying to create a barrier between them.
He kicked the table. The legs screamed across the tiles as it flew towards her. She dove. The table struck the wall so hard, the top split.
She hit the floor, her left hand bending the wrong way, a bone in her wrist cracking against the stone. Pain exploded up her arm.
She cradled it against her chest, trying to scramble to her feet.
“Ferron, stop!”
He didn’t stop. He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the wall, squeezing. His expression was void of emotion.
She clawed at his grip with her uninjured hand, fingernails carving grooves into his skin. She tried to knee him in the groin, and he kicked her foot out from under her and brought her to the floor.
The force knocked her breath out. She saw stars.
He pressed his knee into the middle of her chest, bearing down enough to make the bones strain. “Anything?”
She couldn’t breathe, her lungs spasming. She writhed, trying to twist out from beneath him, scrabbling at every part of him that she could reach.
He grabbed her hand in his, his eyes glinting. She tried to pull away, but he squeezed tighter. Pain shot down her right arm, the metacarpals grinding against one another.
“Don’t break my hand! You can’t—hurt my hands!” She screamed the words at him in pure panic.
He leaned closer. “Then fight me off.”
Both of her arms were on fire. She could barely breathe. He was seconds from caving her chest in. Struggle again and she was certain all the bones in her right hand would snap.
She went limp.
He held her for several more seconds, as if expecting her to suddenly spring into action. Confusion flashed across his face for a moment as he exhaled, then his expression hardened again.
“You’re pathetic,” he said, adding more weight to her chest. Her eyes watered but she didn’t make a sound. “I could do anything I wanted to you, hurt you in ways you cannot even imagine, and you couldn’t do anything to stop me. I wouldn’t even need my resonance. I could do it with my bare hands. That’s how weak you are.”
He sneered and let go. His hands were streaked with blood, but the marks she’d gouged were already gone. He stood, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the blood, straightening his clothes.
Helena remained gasping on the floor. Her spine and the back of her head throbbed. When she tried to brace herself into a sitting position with her right hand, she nearly cried.
Pain was radiating through her hands. There was blood and skin under her fingernails, staining her fingertips.
Her left wrist was beginning to swell. Her right hand was hardly better: When she tried to curl her fingers into a fist, pain burst like a halo up to her elbow.
“For the record,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “this qualifies as interfering with my work. If you want to hurt me”—her jaw trembled uncontrollably—“it can’t be my hands.”
So much for claiming she could say no to things.
Ferron said nothing, just walked over and pulled his cloak back on without looking at her again.
Helena stayed where she was. She’d known this was a possibility, but he’d lulled her into a false sense of security, waiting until she let her guard down to finally hurt her.
It was crueller than if he’d done it from the start.
“Do I get to know why?” she asked, still staring dully at the floor, ribs aching with every breath. “Did I—did I d-do something?”
“You exist, Marino. I think that’s reason enough.”
She had no response to that. She got up slowly. “Do you have any information today?”
He gave a thin smile. “No. That was all.”
She retrieved her satchel without a word, gingerly hooking an arm through the strap. She couldn’t get it up to her shoulder. Broken glass tinkled inside.
She’d added an emergency kit after last week, thinking that if Ferron was ever hurt again, she would come prepared. The waste of medicine it represented was almost as painful as her ribs, and the broken glass and contents would have contaminated everything she’d foraged that day. Hours wasted.
She went to the door and tried to flex her fingers enough to open it, but all she could feel was pain.
“Will you”—her voice finally betrayed her and shook—“will you let me out?”
* * *
If she’d hurt anything but her hands, it would have been easy to follow Crowther’s instructions and hide the bruises before she returned to Headquarters, but there hadn’t been any contingency plans made beyond that.
Once she was off the Outpost, Helena wandered up and down along the dam. She was functionally useless without her hands. If she tried to get back to Headquarters looking as bruised as she was, there could be questions that she couldn’t answer.
Finally, in desperation, she scrambled down the embankment towards the marshes. Without her hands, she was clumsy, quickly covered with dirt. She crawled back to the firm ground, drenched and muddy, smearing at her face and throat so that any bruises would be covered.
At the checkpoint, they recognised her and pitied her enough that they didn’t ask many questions. When she reached Headquarters, she was forced to go to the hospital because she couldn’t use the lift.
“What happened?” Matron Pace came to meet Helena as she arrived at the doors.
“I fell in the marsh,” Helena said without meeting her eyes. “Sprained my wrists.”
“Both of them?”
Helena didn’t look up as she nodded.
Pace didn’t move for a moment but then recovered. “Let’s get you out of these muddy clothes and see what needs to be done.” She led Helena towards one of the private rooms usually reserved for the high-ranked members of the Eternal Flame, shooing away anyone who came towards them.
Helena had always appreciated how professional Pace was. No matter the circumstances, she was unflappable. Helena’s hands were too swollen and cold to manage buttons or clasps. Pace didn’t say a word about all the mud that spread to her apron and sleeves and hands as she helped Helena undress.
“It’s a novelty after all the blood,” she said dismissively when Helena tried to apologise, squeezing out a wet cloth. “Now let’s get you clean, and see what the damage is. Elain will be the best choice for your hands.”
Helena tensed, but there was nothing to be done. Once the bruises were visible, Pace would realise that Helena had not sprained her wrists by tripping, and Elain, while the most competent trainee, was a terrible gossip.
Pace paused the instant Helena’s throat was clean enough to make the bruises ringing it unmistakable. Before Helena could think of anything to say, there was a knock on the door.
Pace pressed her lips together and went to answer, her body blocking out the hospital ward beyond.
“What is it, Purnell?” Pace said.
A hushed voice replied, “Message for you. Said it was urgent.”
Pace took something and then shut the door. She unfolded, read, and then ripped up a slip of paper as she walked back to Helena.
“I have instructions to send you to your room. Immediately,” Pace said, her cheeks a furious red. “But I think I can get you a little cleaner first.”
Once she was clean, Helena was bundled up as though she were hypothermic, and Pace accompanied her to the Alchemy Tower. Crowther was waiting as they exited the skybridge. Pace stiffened at the sight of him.
“Matron Pace,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
Broken blood vessels stained Pace’s cheeks. “I came to be sure that Marino is being looked after.”
Crowther’s eye twitched. “Of course.” He looked at Helena. “I presume, then, that you’re in a condition that requires healing?”
Helena had been considering the question. “If I have my left hand treated, I think I can manage the rest after that.”
“I’ll send for someone. Stay out of sight until then. Matron, you’re dismissed.” He turned and walked away without another word.
Pace didn’t return to the hospital; instead she went with Helena to her room, and stayed even after Helena was in her bed.
“You know, I knew a few healers when I was a midwife,” Pace finally said, sitting down at the foot of Helena’s bed and looking around the room. “City-trained doctors didn’t care much for working in the mountain villages. The ones I knew didn’t always call themselves healers, they just thought it was intuition. They were mostly older women who’d thought for a long time that they had a good sense for bodies. When I was told there was a healer coming from the mountains, I expected someone my age.” She finally looked over at Helena. “You’re so young. You don’t even know how young you are. You’re sacrificing things you don’t even comprehend the value of.”
Helena’s emotions were a tangle inside her. “No one’s forcing me to do anything I didn’t—agree to.”
“What have you ever said no to?” Pace asked. Before Helena could reply, she continued, “You think a man like Crowther hasn’t noticed that?”
Pace might have said more, but the door opened, revealing Crowther with a young girl beside him.
“You may return to the hospital, Matron,” Crowther said pointedly, holding the door.
Pace patted Helena on the knee and stood, glaring at Crowther as she passed. Crowther closed the door firmly before turning to Helena.
“This is Ivy; she’ll do as instructed to get your left hand working.”
The girl stepped forward. She moved haltingly, like a deer, but her eyes were sharp and foxlike. She was perhaps fifteen, but Helena doubted she was even that. She’d never heard of a vivimancer so young. As Pace had said, typically it manifested later in life.
The war had prematurely aged people in all kinds of ways.
Ivy didn’t say a word as Helena gestured at her left wrist and explained in the simplest terms what she thought was wrong with it, what needed to be done, and what to be careful of. Helena had never been healed by anyone except herself, and she shot several panicked looks at Crowther as Ivy reached out and touched her arm.
The girl was startlingly adept with her vivimancy, but her resonance was not subtle at all.
The pain and swelling in Helena’s wrist and fingers rapidly vanished, and Ivy searched for the fracture in Helena’s wrist. In a matter of minutes, Helena could move her fingers again without much pain and begin to feel her resonance.
“Thank you,” she said, drawing her hand away as quickly as she could.
Ivy’s hand dropped to her side. She watched Helena, an uncanny look of curiosity in her eyes. “My sister likes you.”
“Oh. Does she work in the hospital?”
“Ivy,” Crowther said sharply, “out now. And not a word about this to anyone.”
Ivy gave a careless nod as she left.
Crowther closed the door again. Helena wanted to ask who the girl was, but she dreaded the conversation and turned her attention to her right hand. She blocked the nerves at the elbow and began a cautious examination.
