Alchemised: A Novel, page 62
Soren had been on the edge of the blast and thrown by it. Only two others had survived, because they’d fallen behind. They’d been caught in the rubble with only minor injuries.
There’d been signs of a fight, char marks and a pool of blood, presumed to be Lila’s. Burned human remains, presumed to be necrothralls, a lich with his talisman ripped out. Luc’s sword, rings, and other weapons were found discarded, as if he’d left first and then been stripped.
There’d been no word from the Undying. No proclamation that Luc was dead or even captured. The guards had all been told to prepare for the possibility that he might return reanimated or with his body possessed by a lich. If Luc reappeared, all due diligence must be performed. No one was to believe in any miraculous escapes.
As time passed, the questions grew. Why would the Undying keep him alive? Wouldn’t they announce if he was dead, or were they keeping him hostage to negotiate a surrender?
If he was a hostage, why hadn’t they reached out?
“Until we know that Lucien is dead, we will assume that he is alive,” Ilva said in an icy voice, rousing herself when one of the lead metallurgists referred to planning for contingencies. “The Undying have no reason to conceal his capture. It’s been twelve hours, and we haven’t received word. It may be a sign that not everything is as it seems.”
As the meeting closed, Matias stood, announcing his intention to entreat the heavens to return Luc to them safely. Many people followed him.
Ilva remained at the table, speaking to Crowther.
“Marino, a word before you go,” Ilva said when Helena rose to return to the hospital.
Helena waited until the room was empty. Ilva flicked a hand, and the guards closed the doors.
“You’ll head to the Outpost. We’re going to use Ferron,” Ilva said in a brusque voice. “Every piece of information he has or can obtain about the circumstances of Luc’s capture—I want it all. As well as an explanation as to why we received no warning about this.”
“Of course.” She’d expected as much.
“Tell him this is a critical mission,” Ilva added as Helena turned to go. “Those precise words, Marino. A top priority. If he has an opportunity to get Luc back for us, that would be preferable to the losses we’ll suffer with a rescue.”
They meant to sacrifice Kaine to recover Luc. It was the obvious choice. An easy trade-off. The kind that any strategist would make.
But—
“All right.” Her voice was lifeless.
LUMITHIA HUNG LIKE A GIANT silver disc in the sky, so near full Ascendance that she blotted out the planets, leaving the night sky as an endless black abyss overhead. The bright silver light cast glaring shadows across the city.
When Helena reached the landing in the tenement, she paused and stepped intentionally into the silver shaft of light cascading from the broken skylight, looking up at the eye hidden in the corner. Then she waited.
It was a long wait.
The windows rattled in the wind, but she didn’t hear anything until the door clicked and Kaine strode in. Everything about him seemed sharper. “What happened?”
The instant he asked the question, she realised he didn’t know.
Ilva had been right: If the Undying had Luc, it was being kept secret.
“There was an attack today. A bombing,” she said, and her voice trembled. “Killed most of a battalion, the Bayard twins barely survived, and Luc—is missing.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave a stiff nod. “They used a weapon made from that resonance-interference alloy. We call it nullium. Lila was stabbed and nearly killed with it. You didn’t know this was in the works?”
He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t. There’s suspicion of a spy due to—recent sabotage. And I haven’t had the leisure to be as present as I used to be.”
She looked down, drawing a deep breath before she spoke. “We have to get Luc back. I was told to tell you it’s critical. Your top priority.”
“Right …”
“Any information you can get on his capture, who did it, where he is, if he’s alive … The Council wants you—” Her words caught. “—to do anything you can.”
“Of course,” was all he said, and he turned to go.
She watched his back, the shift of his shoulders, one dipping as he reached for the knob. She didn’t know if she was ever going to see him again.
“Wait,” she said.
He paused but didn’t look back. “I’ll call you when I have something.”
“Kaine … when I kissed you, I—”
He turned suddenly. In one moment he was across the room and in the next, he was in front of her, his expression venomous, his teeth bared. “Really, you want to discuss this now?”
Her throat was so thick with guilt, she could barely speak. But she was desperate. “Will you look at me, at least?”
A cruel glint entered his eyes as they locked squarely on her face. It was like being punched to have his full attention again.
“You want me to look at you?” His voice was light, almost cajoling, but there was fury beneath the surface. He leaned towards her. “Fine. I’m looking. I must say, it’s delightful, seeing all the guilt in your eyes.”
He sneered, drawing back. “You know, I used to think the circumstances of my servitude to the High Necromancer as cruel an enslavement as anyone could conceive, but I must admit, it pales beside you.”
He tilted his head. “At least before, I could console myself that it wasn’t my fault; acceptance was the best I could do to keep my mother safe. It’s different when I have no one to blame but myself.”
His hand came up, his gloved fingers wrapping around her throat, pulling her forward. “After all, I did choose you.”
She met his eyes, that deadened despair so visible when he looked at her.
“I envied your naïveté, how you credited me with goodness and failed to realise that it was a setup from the very beginning. When you begged for a chance to heal me, I gave in. When you touched me, I didn’t push you away. I thought, Where’s the harm? It all ends soon enough, and life has been cold for such a long time.”
She didn’t realise she’d started crying until his thumb brushed across her cheek.
“By the time I realised I’d miscalculated, you’d already forced your way in. You were so obvious, but that only made it worse; knowing you’d let me do anything to you in the hope it would save everyone else, even the people who’d sold you in the first place. At least when I sold my soul, my mother prostrated herself, begging to take my place. I suppose, in some regards, I am luckier than you.”
She gave a low sob.
“After you nearly bled to death here, I thought, at least I can keep her alive. She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive. I thought eventually you’d give up. But you will do anything to save the people you feel responsible for. Of course you’d weaponise your guilt in order to use mine.” He gave a low bitter laugh. “I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”
He let go and stepped away from her, heading for the door. “So forgive me if I dislike looking at you. I’m still adjusting to the ways these new ones chafe.”
SOREN WAS SITTING NEXT TO Lila when Helena returned to the hospital, heart dead in her chest.
In her absence, nothing had happened except meetings and arguments in which no one agreed about what to do. Helena had known it was Luc who held everything together, but it was startling to see how fast it all crumbled.
Lila’s hair was cropped short like a boy’s, the area near the wound was shaven. Her face was so swollen and bruised, she was almost unrecognisable. Maier’s careful sutures had tried to rejoin the torn skin, but that scar would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“She’s younger than me, you know,” Soren said. Helena nodded. “No one ever guesses that.”
He leaned forward and whispered something in Lila’s ear, his voice so low Helena couldn’t make out the words. Then he straightened, walking out.
Helena followed him. The hollow under his remaining eye looked like a crater. His face was drawn, pain lines visible around his mouth and the corner of his eye. Someone had removed his cast already. Elain.
“Come on,” she said, taking him into a curtained-off area and making him sit down.
She worked on his arm and hand first. The bone had been mended well, but it was a new injury, which made it more at risk of being broken again. She knew he wasn’t going to be careful. He’d be out in the field as soon as there was word. The best she could do was heal as far as she could, imitating the way Kaine’s body regenerated, not merely to “fixed” but all the way back to its prior state.
“I need your help,” he said as she placed new gauze over his eye.
Her hands stilled. “For what?”
“I need a healer, and you’re the best.”
She drew back, tilting his head to study his face even though his expressions were always evasive. “Soren, what have you done?”
He raised his eyebrow. “Nothing … yet.” A helpless smile just barely touched the edge of his lips. “You have to promise to help first before I can tell.”
Helena hesitated. With Luc or Lila around, Soren had never needed to create his own trouble. He was, Lila once joked, like a cat, feigning indifference but somehow always in the same room with you.
Soren alone was a mystery. She didn’t know what he might do when all the choices were his to make.
“All right. I promise. Tell me.”
“Not here,” he said, standing up.
They left Headquarters, wound through several alleys, and entered an abandoned shop.
“I got a healer,” he said as they entered the back room, his hand on Helena’s shoulder to push her through the door as if she might bolt otherwise. Which she might have, given how clearly planned her presence was.
Waiting there, fully armed, stood the two remaining members of Luc’s unit, Alister and Penny, as well as Sebastian and Crowther’s informant from the hospital, Purnell, who carefully avoided Helena’s eyes.
“Marino?” said Alister. “I thought you were getting a medic.”
“A medic’s not good enough,” Soren said as he walked up to the table in the centre of the room. Helena hung back. “We need a healer. Helena’s the best.”
“Maybe …” Alister said, dubiously, “but she’s never been in combat. She’ll be deadweight in a fight. Same as this one.” He pointed at Purnell. “You’re going to get us all killed if we don’t get this perfect.”
“We don’t need her to fight. We can fight. The thing none of us can do is make sure we can get Luc out alive. Hel’s the best bet for that. We don’t know what kind of condition he’s going to be in when we find him. She can fix anything.”
Helena wasn’t sure she appreciated the degree of confidence Soren was placing in her.
“Have you ever been to the front?” Alister was staring at her.
“No.”
“This is insane,” Alister said. “I’d follow you anywhere, Soren, but this is not a good plan. What if Luc’s in a bad way, and all we have is her; is she going to carry him out?”
“I’ll help!” Purnell spoke up abruptly. “After I show you the way, I can help with Luc. I’m good in the hospital.”
“Soren.” Helena’s voice was tight. “Can I talk to you?” She dragged him back outside. “What are you doing?”
“We’re getting Luc back,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve gathered that,” she said, shaking him, not caring that he was injured, because he was about to go commit suicide. “You’re barely recovered. Why is Purnell here?”
“Sofia?”
Since when was Soren on a first-name basis with a hospital orderly?
“Yes, the orderly. Do you know who she is?”
“She’s the one who knows where Luc might be.”
Helena stared stunned as it dawned on her why Purnell was there. This had Crowther’s fingerprints all over it. This wasn’t Soren’s rescue, this was Crowther, pulling the strings once again.
But then, what was he planning to do with Kaine? Was Kaine a distraction? Or was this because Crowther hoped to avoid losing Kaine prematurely?
Helena’s molars ground together.
“And how would she know that?” she asked, trying to get Soren to see how insane this all was.
Soren gave a tight smile. “Crowther uses her to keep an eye on us, but she doesn’t like it. She came clean with Luc a while back. She’s seen maps for a secret prison that can be accessed from the West Island’s waterways.”
“Soren.” Helena exhaled, closing her eyes. “Why would she have seen maps like that?”
Soren shrugged, not seeming concerned about it. “Crowther uses her for carrying messages. I guess she peeked.”
If Crowther was the mastermind behind this, Helena wanted him directly involved, giving clear instructions about how he thought it was going to work, not some shadowy an orderly saw a map sleight of hand.
She was sick of how Ilva and Crowther both defaulted to manipulation to get their “miracles” to show up. As if people couldn’t be counted on unless they were tricked.
“If that’s the case, then that means Crowther knows about this prison, and he might have a lot more information than just a map. We should talk to him.”
Soren immediately shook his head. “No. The Council is adamant that no one can take any action until they ‘know’ who has Luc. Ilva somehow thinks she’s going to negotiate a trade to get Luc back. No mention, though, of what she possibly thinks we could offer.”
Helena knew exactly what it was that Ilva probably had in mind.
“My duty is to Luc,” Soren was saying, “not the Eternal Flame. As long as Lila’s out, I’m primary. The Council doesn’t command me, my duty is to my vows and my vows are to Luc.”
She’d thought they wanted Kaine to rescue Luc—to risk his cover to spare their own troops. But if that failed, Ilva would sell him out without a second thought.
Which meant Crowther was being forced to go behind Ilva’s back. That was why he was using Sofia Purnell to pass the relevant information to Soren, the one person with the ability to act on his own.
“All right,” Helena said, nodding. “I’ll come.”
Soren looked startled, then sagged with relief. “Good. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
Helena scrutinised him. “What do you mean?”
His eyes were heavy-lidded. When he was pensive, they got soulful. Now there was just one, but she still recognised the expression.
“I need you to do anything, Hel, whatever it takes, to save him. No matter the price. Anyone in the Resistance would die for him; I need you there because it might take more than that.”
Her eyes went wide. “Do you realise what you’re asking?”
He held his head high. “My vow is to protect my Principate with my life and my death. You’re the one who said that if someone’s willing to die, why not give them a chance to keep fighting.”
Her hands had gone numb. “You can’t volunteer the others for a mission like that. Are you planning to tell them that’s why I’m here? That you chose me because you want necromancy as your backup plan?” Her voice dropped to a furious whisper as she retreated, but he caught her by the arm.
“That’s not the only reason,” he said. “You are the best. I’m not volunteering them, just me. If something goes wrong, you do anything you have to to get them out. This is me giving you permission.”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I can. I’ve never—”
“We both know that if someone can do vivimancy, they can do necromancy. And if there’s anyone who can figure it out on the fly, it’s you. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just—” He swallowed. “I need to know this is going to work. Hel, this has to work.”
She wavered a moment longer, but what were the alternatives? Every choice had become unbearable. And this was the price she’d already offered to pay.
“Fine.” She swallowed. “For Luc.”
“For Luc. Come on.”
Helena wanted very much to corner Purnell and interrogate her about exactly what Crowther knew, and how he expected the mission to unfold, but Purnell was constantly in motion, moving around the room, staying out of reach.
“How do you know all this?” Helena asked pointedly, after she was told about the location of the prison and how there was a floodwater cathedral that they would use to reach it.
“I know people who use them. The scouts—and others, when they need escape routes and safe places to go,” Purnell said.
“Why aren’t they more patrolled?”
Purnell shrugged. “It’s a maze. The greys can’t see in the dark, or they get lost, and the Undying don’t like crawling in sewer water.”
Helena’s own throat convulsed at the thought. “I see.”
“It won’t be bad, though. It’s flood season now,” Purnell said. “The water will mostly be mountain water. It’ll be cold, but nothing like it is in the summer.”
Small mercies. Helena was well acquainted with how cold the river snowmelt was; the mere thought of crawling through it was enough to make her bones ache. “And these tunnels are connected to where Luc is?”
Purnell was avoiding Helena’s eyes again. “A lot of old access points to the sewers were built over, but they’re easy to reopen if you have the building schematics. Someone investigated it a few months ago. It’s very high-level compared with the other prisons, but almost completely empty. Like it’s being reserved for something.”
“If Luc’s there, then this means his capture is something they’ve been working towards for a long time,” Sebastian said in a tight voice.
Fear sliced down Helena’s spine. “Why are you so sure Luc’s there?”
“If it’s a secret they have him, they’d have to put him in a secret place,” was all Purnell said.
Helena couldn’t help but feel that the girl’s involvement had already destroyed Crowther’s chance at plausible deniability. Surely he could afford to be less opaque.
“If he’s not there, no one will even know we went in,” Soren said. “We have to go tonight. Ascendance is tomorrow; the floodwaters are already high, and none of us will be clearheaded enough to go. We’d have to wait two more days, and Luc can’t afford that.”
