Alchemised, page 75
Northern alchemy almost always used either five or eight, the elemental or celestial numbers. Those were the only array formulas even taught at the Institute, the exception being the Holdfasts’ pyromancy, which operated with a seven-point array, but Helena only knew of that because she’d helped Luc with his homework.
She’d never heard of a nine-point array. She had no idea how it was supposed to work, and her only sample was full of obvious errors and drawn by someone wholly unfamiliar with alchemical principles.
How could she reverse what had been done to Kaine if she didn’t understand the method? She moved her fingers, trying to visualise the energy channels. Her mind kept going back to Soren.
She smothered the thoughts, burying them with animancy, trying to force her mind to go around her memories of him. It kept niggling at her, though—not his destruction but the moment in which he’d died. She always tried to break the resonance connection before a patient died, but she’d been fully focused on Soren in that moment.
The energy, the sensation of it, running through her like an electric current kept coming to mind whenever she tried to imagine channelling through a multiple of three.
It made her wonder. If Morrough could trap living souls inside bone, and the first Necromancer placed an entire town of living souls into a Stone, what would happen if someone captured the other form of energy? Had anyone ever done it?
The next time she felt a patient on the verge of death, rather than break away, she left the connection open and tried to hold the energy as it struck. It seared through her resonance, leaving her hand numb and twinging for hours.
Well, it made sense that she couldn’t just hold it. It would need a container of some sort. The sunstone amulet had been…quicksilver? Or glass? Maybe crystal. She tried a variety of substances from the storerooms, smuggling odd metals and other compounds into the hospital inside her pockets, to see if the energy would channel into any of them.
Sunstones cracked, while metal set her pocket on fire. In a box shoved to the back of a storage room, she found several large chunks of obsidian. Volcanic glass did have a higher melting point than normal glass.
She stuck a piece in her pocket.
She gripped it when she felt a patient’s vitality grow thin. He was one of the nullium patients, hit with shrapnel that had ripped apart his organs, and the infection hadn’t responded to treatment. She could force his heart to keep beating, but it would only make his death take longer; he’d die the moment she left. His skin was burning with fever, and he was gripping her hand, speaking to someone unseen, the words coming slower and slower.
She swallowed hard and kept her resonance open as his eyes went still. The death surge ran through her like an electric shock straight into the obsidian.
Her arm went briefly numb. When sensation returned, he was dead, and the obsidian hummed warm against her fingers. She could feel it, that strange dark energy.
Her fingers trembled as she closed his eyes, pulling the sheet over his face. Had she just trapped a soul in volcano glass? She squeezed it. No. She knew what that energy felt like, the amulet and Kaine. This was different.
Still, she tried to pretend it wasn’t there while she finished her shift.
She hurried to her lab. She opened the door, and stopped short at the sight of Lila, curled up on the floor, her face swollen, eyes red.
Helena froze. Gods, the tribunal. It must have begun.
She’d hardly seen and hadn’t spoken to Lila since before Luc’s rescue. She’d returned to her room one day to find all of Lila’s things gone and heard about a private memorial service held for Soren only afterwards.
As much as she had wanted to try to explain herself, she couldn’t, because officially Soren had simply died.
But Luc would have told Lila the truth.
Helena stood frozen, not sure what could have possibly driven Lila here.
“Lila.” Helena set the obsidian down, moving tentatively. “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.”
Helena swallowed hard. “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.”
Soren’s ghost seemed to hang between them.
“No.” Lila shook her head. “I’ve been lying to everyone. My whole life, I’ve been lying. Now—now I don’t know what to do…”
Her voice was so strained, it trailed off.
“Soren was the only person that knew,” Lila whispered. Her eyes were swimming, but the tears didn’t escape. “He always kept my secrets. Knew what to do about things. Said it was his job—looking out for me.”
“What happened?” Helena reached out tentatively.
Lila looked up and drew a deep breath, her chin trembling before she finally spoke. “I—I’m pregnant.”
Helena didn’t move. Couldn’t speak. She was too stunned to even believe the words Lila had just uttered.
To know she was pregnant meant she had to be at least two or three months along, and that was assuming her cycle was regular, which Helena knew it wasn’t. She’d been in the hospital at that time.
“How?” was the only question Helena could even think to ask. Never mind everything else that this meant.
Lila swallowed, her head moving jerkily, wincing when it pulled at the scars on her neck. “I know. I didn’t think I could. After—everything. I always assumed that it wasn’t even possible.”
“No,” Helena said impatiently. “I mean, yes, that too, but you weren’t pregnant when you were in the hospital. You’ve only been out for—How would you possibly know you’re pregnant?”
Lila looked down, avoiding Helena’s eyes. “That’s—that’s the secret. I know I’m pregnant.”
It was then that something incredibly obvious, which Helena should have realised years earlier, finally dawned on her.
Lila Bayard, who so often came back from battles nearly unscathed, who always recovered miraculously from her injuries, who adapted to a prosthetic leg in months when everyone said it would be a year. Who had never struggled to recover from an injury until she lost her resonance.
“You’re a vivimancer,” Helena said.
Lila didn’t meet her eyes as she gave a small nod. “I never used it on anyone except me. Soren a couple of times, but only when he asked. He said I couldn’t let anyone know. Not even Mum and Dad, because if people knew I wouldn’t be allowed to be Luc’s paladin.”
“All this time?” Helena said softly, startled by the sense of betrayal she felt.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you but—you know what it’s been like for you. I couldn’t risk that, not with Luc at stake. I couldn’t be like you—fighting’s all I’m good at.”
The revelation was more than Helena felt she could process right then.
“Who’s the father?” Helena asked, as if it wasn’t completely obvious.
“You know it’s Luc.”
Helena nodded. She wanted to be angry, but her own secrets were worse, and the fact that Lila had turned to her in Soren’s absence spoke volumes.
“You’ve probably heard, they’re planning a tribunal unless I step down as paladin voluntarily.” Lila’s voice was empty and despairing. “I used to tell myself it would all pay off in the end, but the war just kept going. I didn’t ever—I mean, a few times he tried—but I told him off every time.” Lila shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, though, seems everyone thinks we’ve been fucking each other at the front lines. Doesn’t mean anything that we didn’t.” She looked down. “When he came back from taking that district—I know it wasn’t about me, but I felt so ruined. Being left behind and knowing I always will be now. He came and found me after and told me that he’d been thinking about me the whole time, and—” She shrugged. “Everyone thinks we are anyway, so—”
Helena rested a tentative hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right. I can take care of it. If it’s early I can get ingredients or just use vivimancy, whatever you’d prefer. No one will know.”
“No.”
Helena stared at Lila, certain she’d misheard.
Lila drew a deep breath, avoiding her eyes. “I mean, that’s why I came. I knew you could do it, but—while I was waiting, I couldn’t stop thinking, what are the odds?” She shook her head. “I can’t remember the last time I had a cycle. It’s been years. I didn’t think I could. I always thought Soren would be the one who’d marry and have the next generation of Bayards, but now I’m all that’s left.”
Helena had no words.
Lila looked down, curling smaller, as if she could feel Helena’s judgement. “It probably won’t stick. So maybe I could just wait, and—have this for a little while.”
“And if it does—stick?” Helena asked.
Lila didn’t answer.
Helena’s chest grew tight. She wanted to say Lila was being stupid. A baby, during the war. Lila wouldn’t be the first, but still, those girls were different. Lila was an alchemist. A warrior. Neither of those things paired with motherhood. The rules were strict.
“It won’t stick,” Lila said.
“That’s not an answer,” Helena said sharply. “What if it does? You are going to have a baby during a war when you’re already facing a tribunal. You won’t be a paladin after that. They won’t ever let you fight again.”
Lila was picking at her nails, her cuticles bleeding. “Luc’s going to leave combat to take over leadership now. Ilva’s too old to continue as steward, and there’s no one he trusts to replace her. They say that if I step down as paladin primary, they won’t call a tribunal, Sebastian will replace me, and I’ll be cleared for combat again.” Lila drew a deep breath. “I’ll be in command of my own unit. First woman.”
Lila’s voice showed no pride or excitement for what would be a historic accomplishment, because there was no chance that she could reenter combat, stripped of her former rank, without the scandal following her. Her reputation and legacy were irrevocably stained.
“If you said I was sick with something, no one would know I’m pregnant—and if it doesn’t take, I’ll go back into service like it never happened.”
“Or you could retire from active combat and train recruits who could use someone with your experience,” Helena said. “Those aren’t your only two options.”
“I’m not going to retire. That’s not how it works for us Bayards,” Lila said, her blue eyes snapping. She winced. “Sorry. People keep telling me that it’s not all over, but—” She scoffed. “—I know how it works. What will be remembered. It won’t be anything I ever did in combat.”
Now Helena understood. A pregnancy altered the narrative. It didn’t erase the scandal, but it did reframe it; instead of a violation of vows that nearly led to calamity, it became a love story.
The Principate had already been in desperate need of an heir, but it was hard to make it a stated priority when Luc’s life was supposed to be shielded with divinity, and Luc had, for obvious reasons, always been resistant to the idea of a political marriage, which was what the Council wanted.
A Holdfast heir could reinvigorate the Resistance. How could it be a doomed war when there was such a tangible symbol of the future?
Of course Lila would prefer that version of her story, rather than the alternatives she was faced with.
Lila had always seemed unstoppable, but now Helena could see all the cracks she’d hidden. The desires she’d never let herself have.
Helena knew something about that.
“Will Luc know?”
Lila drew a breath, shaking her head. “No. I think it would distract him. He’s under so much pressure, and the transition will be a lot. If he knew and then it came to nothing—it would crush him, to have hoped.”
“Does Luc—want children?” Helena asked hesitantly. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Luc speak of children. His hopes for the future were of the war being over, of travelling. Then again, the matter of Lila had always been carefully unspoken. Helena had known, but he’d never admitted it outright, not even to her.
Lila nodded. “He talked about them that night. How he’s not like his father, he doesn’t want to just do his duty. That he wants to have a family for himself, not because of the Principate, or because he needs an heir, but just because he loves someone so much that he makes one. That’s what this would be.”
Helena swallowed hard. She still hated this, but she couldn’t refuse Lila. “I’ll need to talk to Crowther and see what the options are.”
Lila’s face screwed up. “Why would you go to him? He’s awful. Luc can’t stand him.”
Helena looked away. “He’s the most pragmatic choice. I don’t have the seniority to quarantine someone. I don’t think you want Elain or Matias involved. The choices are Crowther or Ilva, and Ilva hasn’t been very reliable lately.”
“Fine,” Lila sighed, wincing. “Crowther, then.”
Chapter 57
Maius 1787
According to records, Lila Bayard contracted a bad case of bog cough after helping deliver supplies to the water slums at the south end of the island.
Bog cough tended to crop up every year in the early summer after the floods, as the air grew warm and damp, and the dark, recessed levels of the city, far from sunlight, found their interiors blackened with mould.
The symptoms were a deep cough coming from low in the lungs, and an occasional rash. While mostly dangerous to children and the elderly, sometimes it would linger and transform into a virulent sickness that could sweep through the city like a plague. That was the ostensible reason why the upper levels of the city preferred to be restrictive with the lower sectors of the population.
Helena was familiar with the symptoms because her father used to treat it every summer. Most of the people who caught it couldn’t afford to travel up-city to a licensed apothecary. Helena could replicate the symptoms almost perfectly using vivimancy, creating purplish rashes on Lila’s inner wrists and the sides of her neck, and agitating her lungs enough to make her cough violently while Pace examined her and gave the diagnosis.
With so many people in tight quarters, plague was a constant fear.
Lila was promptly placed in isolation in the Alchemy Tower, and everyone else involved in the supply delivery was quarantined for three days until they were declared symptom-free.
Such a common sickness did not dampen morale, particularly since it was considered primarily an affliction of the poor and unsanitary. That Lila had caught it was taken as a sign that she was still too weak from her injuries. High in the sun-soaked rooms of the Alchemy Tower, she would recover.
Luc, however, was distraught. He demanded to see her, but he was flatly refused. His own lungs still showed signs of deterioration and damage; under no circumstances was he permitted to go anywhere near Lila.
Helena hardly knew where to begin with this new secret. Pregnancy was not something she’d ever studied. Her experience with newborns was mostly limited to emergency situations. She looked in the library for a few references but found the options lacking, until she remembered that Matron Pace kept most medical textbooks in the records office for easy access.
“I never thought I’d find you interested in pregnancy.” Matron Pace’s comment made Helena jump as she was caught hurriedly perusing one of the books.
Helena slammed it shut, cramming it into place. “I’m not. The title just caught my eye.”
“You’re welcome to borrow it.”
“No.” Helena shook her head. “Passing curiosity was all.”
She made for the door.
“Marino.” Pace’s voice was commanding.
Helena turned. Pace was watching her like a hawk.
“Are you in a family way?”
“No.”
“Accidents happen,” Pace said mildly, leaning back against her desk. “Especially during wartime. You wouldn’t be the first.”
Helena released an exploding little scoff. “I’m not pregnant.”
“I just hope your fellow is the responsible—”
“I can’t be pregnant. I’ve been sterilised,” Helena snapped, too mortified to keep listening.
Pace froze, shaking her head. “No. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t have possibly found that necessary at a time like this.”
Helena’s cheeks were burning, but her stomach had a gnawing pit inside it. “Well, they did. Maier did it. Ligature, same week I got back. It was—it was one of the Falcon’s conditions. So, like I said, not pregnant.”
She started again for the door.
“Helena, wait.” Pace’s voice was beseeching.
Helena winced, turning reluctantly back. Pace had one of her red, chapped hands pressed against her chest. “I shouldn’t have teased you. I had no idea. Maier never said anything.”
“It’s fine,” Helena said stiffly. “I wanted to be an alchemist more, and women don’t get to do both.” She lifted her chin. “Now I won’t ever have to worry about choosing. Besides—” She looked squarely at Pace. “—I’ll probably die young, so I’d be a terrible mother.”
Pace studied her. “Was your mother terrible?”
Pace couldn’t have hurt her more if she’d kicked her. The room swam.
Helena’s throat closed. “How dare you.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it that way,” Pace said, but she didn’t really look sorry. “But Helena, I don’t think you know how to be honest with yourself about what you want.”
“It was the only way to become a healer—we needed a healer, Ilva said I was the only person who could do it.” Helena’s jaw trembled, and she had to set it hard. “It was the choice I had, and I made it. Would you really rather I hadn’t?”
