Alchemised, page 85
Cetus stared at her, a bizarre look of calculation in Luc’s eyes. “You’re clever,” he said. “The Holdfasts had no idea what they’d found when they imported you. An indentured animancer. Perhaps Apollo was more cunning than I realised. I knew what you were the moment you reached in with your resonance—if I hadn’t thrown you across the room, you would have found me. Pity really. I had no choice but to have you sent off to the front. Matias was so happy to oblige. But somehow you came crawling back like a cockroach.”
Cetus smiled, a cruel glint in his eyes that Luc had never possessed. “Never mind, though. I’m glad I get to do this personally. Sebastian”—he looked at Luc’s last remaining paladin—“you’re finally going to die protecting a Holdfast from a necromancer.”
Luc moved so fast. There was a shriek of metal as Sebastian drew his weapon and blocked the attack. The room was small. Helena flung herself out of the way as Sebastian shoved Cetus back, drawing another weapon, slamming the hilt down on Luc’s hand before he could unleash a wave of fire.
Luc’s body was weak, tired from battle, and dying, and Sebastian was a fury unlike anything Helena had ever seen before. In an instant he’d hammered Luc into a corner, smashing through his defences, raising his arm to make a killing blow.
The instant before Sebastian brought his weapon down, Cetus’s expression morphed, mockery vanishing as it became Luc’s face, blue eyes wide in shock.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sebastian hesitated for less than an instant, and Luc’s knife sank into the base of Sebastian’s throat. There was no armour to stop it. Cetus dragged the blade down, sundering Sebastian’s ribs and gutting him.
Sebastian fell without a sound.
Cetus didn’t even watch Sebastian die; he’d already turned to Helena. “Your turn.”
He was blocking the door, and if she screamed, no one who came would take her word over Luc’s.
As Cetus came towards her, she focused on everything that Kaine had ever drilled into her. She needed direct contact.
An instant would be enough.
He swung his sword at her head, but he was tired, his hand injured by Sebastian. The blow was slow and weak. She whipped out one of her titanium knives and managed to transmute it quickly enough to block the blow.
Cetus’s knife flashed, Sebastian’s blood spattering, aimed at her throat. With her other hand, she slammed the hilt of her obsidian knife into his wrist. The sight of black glass captured Cetus’s focus. Helena dropped her titanium knife, her empty hand shooting out, her palm against his forehead, fingers tangling in his hair.
Her resonance slammed into his head with the force of an arrow, using the same trick of paralysis that Kaine had used on her so long ago.
The knife and sword in Luc’s hands clattered to the floor, and his knees gave out. She let him slide to the ground, her palm still firmly pressed against his skull, shoving her resonance deep into his mind.
Helena had never been inside Luc’s consciousness, but she knew from her interrogation work that a mind was like a home. It had the feeling of the person. Luc’s mind was like walking into a house and finding the walls covered in blood and torn apart. A parasite had grown through his consciousness and fed on every glimmer of the person who should be there.
Cetus had cannibalised Luc, wearing him like a skin.
She ripped her consciousness back out and nearly doubled over with nauseous horror.
Cetus’s eyes danced even though his face was strained by his inability to breathe.
“Luc, come back,” Helena asked, her voice tremulous. “I know there’s still a part of you in there. It’s Hel. Come back. I’ll help you.”
She moved the paralysis enough to let Luc breathe.
Cetus studied her with interest. He was not afraid at all. “You’re talented. If you joined me, your abilities would be valued.”
She stared coldly at him. “Let me talk to Luc.”
There was a strange hunger in his eyes. “You’re the one making that obsidian, aren’t you? I should have realised. Crowther was so tight-lipped. Tell me how you do it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Let me talk to Luc, and I’ll tell you.”
Anger flashed across Cetus’s face. “Why bother with him? He’s weak and useless, just like Orion, so satisfied with mere tricks that he suppressed his true power, denying his animancy.”
“Luc is an animancer?” she said in shock.
Cetus’s expression was jeering. “You never noticed? Never felt the way he could alter a room, entrance an audience?”
Yes, but she’d always assumed that was related to his pyromancy. The feeling of pressure that could come over her when he was upset. She shook her head.
“That’s not animancy.”
“It’s a form of it, one Orion was especially talented in. He wanted people to love him and he made sure they did, while he repressed and rejected all the rest of it. And then hunted everyone else with similar abilities out of existence.”
She shook her head again, but Luc had always had an uncanny magnetism. She had never questioned it. Had he even known?
“Let me talk to Luc,” she said again, “and I’ll tell you how to make the obsidian.”
Cetus’s expression morphed. “Hel?” The voice was wavering.
Helena’s fingers clenched into a fist, closing his throat, choking him. She shook him. “That’s not Luc. You think I can’t tell? Give me Luc.”
Cetus glared at her, and his eyes rolled back. This time Helena felt a shift through his mind as though something were being ripped out from beneath layers of membrane.
Cetus gave a ragged groan, and his eyes rolled dazedly back into focus.
Luc’s face drained of all colour.
“Run,” Luc rasped. “Hel, run. He’s going to kill you.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere,” Helena said, wanting to cry. “I’ve got you. I’m here now. I’m sorry I’m so late.”
She sensed the landscape of Luc’s mind shifting again. That he was being dragged back under, but she’d paid attention, found the shape of Cetus, how he was entwined through Luc. After years as a healer, months of interrogations, and the difficult task of learning to sense Lila’s baby—one spark of life hidden inside another—her resonance was surgical. It wrapped around Cetus, crushing him into submission.
Luc’s eyes went out of focus, and he gave a pained gasp, wavering as if he were about to faint.
“Luc?” Helena said sharply. “Luc, focus. Listen to me. I am going to figure out a way to save you. I’ll get rid of him.”
Her voice was shaking, as her focus was split between talking to Luc and trying to keep Cetus at bay without injuring Luc further. “I just need you to hold on a little longer.”
“Hel…” Luc’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I tried to—fight. He killed Ilva.”
“I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up in her eyes and fell onto his face. “I’m going to fix this. I promise.”
Luc shook his head. “No. Kill me, it’s the only way to stop him.”
“No!” she said sharply. “Look at me. I’m going to save you. That’s why I became a healer, remember? So that someday, when you needed me, I could save you.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He was talking, the words all coming out in a rush.
“Lila—she thought he was me—”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else she could say.
His jaw trembled. “Don’t tell her.”
“You’re not going to die, Luc.”
Her mind felt as if it were about to rip in two from the effort of keeping Cetus subdued.
She could barely see straight.
“You have a chance. Kill him. No one else can—”
“No—”
There was a knife in Luc’s hand. She saw it too late.
She was so focused on keeping Cetus back, she’d let the paralysis slip.
She didn’t think.
She blocked it on instinct and completed the parry exactly the way Kaine had taught her to: a quick sweep of her knife, so fast it knocked the blade from his fingers. In the same motion, the obsidian knife sank to the hilt into the left side of Luc’s chest, in the place under the arm where the armour was weak.
He gave a guttural gasp, body seizing uncontrollably. Helena gave a panicked scream as he collapsed in her arms.
“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said.
She ripped the knife out, wrenching his armour out of the way with her resonance, trying to reach the wound.
“No! No, no. Don’t do this to me. Luc, don’t.” She closed the wound as quickly as she could. It only took seconds to stop the bleeding and repair the place where her knife had sliced the aorta.
Fingers clamped around her throat, digging into her trachea, and she looked into Cetus’s expression of pure hatred.
“You stupid—bitch,” he said as she felt a quick pulse of that dead energy.
Luc’s face cleared as he gave a gasp of relief.
“Got him,” Luc said, letting go of her, forcing a smile.
Before Helena could speak, there was a hard knock on the door. “Principate, are you all right?”
Helena expected the door to burst open, for the room to fill with soldiers who’d find her kneeling over Luc with a bloody knife while Sebastian lay slaughtered beside them.
“I’m fine,” Luc immediately called, his voice straining. “Be out soon.”
The footsteps retreated, but Luc wasn’t fine.
Helena had closed the wound, there was nothing physically wrong with him, but she knelt there and felt that he was dying. It was happening slowly. Not a sudden cold pulse, but as if he were bleeding to death, his vitality slipping out rather than blood.
There was no cause for it, nothing to fix, but she felt it through her resonance. As though he were unravelling.
“What’s happening?” Her fingers scrabbled, trying to find a way to fix it, but she had never encountered a death like this.
His hand closed over hers, squeezing tight enough to stop her resonance. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, trying to pull her hands free. “I can figure this out. But if you’d given me time—I would’ve—”
“I died months ago, Hel—” he said, his breathing forced.
“No—you’re still alive—I’ll fix this if you just—” She tried to pull her hand free.
“Stop,” he said more forcefully, pulling her close and making her look at him, at his gaunt, nearly skeletal face. “Listen to me. You have to get out of here before anyone realises. I’ll help you. I think I can last that long. Get Lila, take her far away, where Cetus—Morrough—whatever he is, can’t find her. She won’t leave if I’m still alive.”
“She won’t leave if you’re dead, either. You’ll come with us. We’ll all go. I’ll heal you, and then—”
Luc swallowed hard. “She has another—another Holdfast to protect. Not me—anymore.”
Helena shook her head. “Luc, don’t do this to me.”
“I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be you, but it has to be.”
She tried to touch him again, to push his life back where it was seeping out through his skin.
“We have to go now.” His voice rose, hard and commanding. He shook her as if trying to startle her into compliance. “Get Sebastian up. People will notice if he’s not with me.”
She stared at him, before looking to Sebastian lying in a pool of blood.
“Y-You want me to use necromancy?”
“We have to leave together,” Luc said, the remaining traces of colour draining from his face as he pushed himself up, strapping on his armour. “Get him on his feet.”
Her heart was in her throat as she closed the wounds on Sebastian, regenerating only as much as was necessary, and brought him to his feet. She had learned her lesson reanimating Soren. She was careful and brought back only a shadow.
He stood up, blank-eyed. Empty. She put his armour back on to hide the blood.
She braced herself as she looked towards Luc.
Luc sat looking at his last paladin with open grief, but when his eyes rested on her, there was only that same sadness. “You’ve always done the worst things because of me.”
The words cut her to the quick. She should have known. She should have known Luc better, enough to know he wouldn’t turn on her like that. He was too faithful.
She drew a harsh breath. “I promised I’d do anything for you.”
She helped him stand, and he pulled her closer, into a hard hug. His chin resting on the top of her head.
Helena’s eyes were burning. His armour dug in through her uniform hard enough to leave bruises behind. His hand clutched at her shoulder as he caught his breath and opened the door.
He straightened as they walked out. The warehouse was mostly abandoned; only a few of the uninjured lingered, waiting for Luc. Everyone was blood-spattered; they barely noticed the fresh blood on Luc or Sebastian. They all stood at attention.
Luc walked with his head high, shoulders squared, his shrunken frame naturally falling into the posture he’d been raised to assume.
“Sebastian and I are heading out,” he said. “You all stay here; this is a solid base, and we need it to remain defended. If we can’t recover Headquarters, we’ll depend on places like this for our forces to fall back to.”
“But—” one of the soldiers started.
“Those are my orders,” Luc said. Beads of sweat formed along his temples, and Helena could feel him wavering, fading away, that cold energy seeping into the air around him. “Sebastian, with me. Marino, you too.”
They made it up one street and around a corner into a narrow alley between two towers before Luc’s legs failed. He was too heavy for Helena alone; Sebastian had to catch him, dragging him out of sight.
Luc sank against the wall, his breath shallow as he blinked up at the little bits of sky visible overhead between the towering buildings.
“Is it dawn?” he asked, his voice almost wondering.
Helena nodded. “First light.”
He exhaled. “We were—going to see the world together, remember?”
His fingers scrabbled to find hers, his eyes still on the sky.
She took his hand, squeezing tightly, as if she could keep him longer if she held on.
“Never did see Etras…” he said, his voice faint. “Sorry. Promised I’d—take you back.”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“Will you—take care of Lila? And the baby?”
She nodded.
“Don’t tell Lila—”
“I won’t.”
His hand trembled in hers. “Promise…?”
She swallowed hard. “I promise.”
He said nothing else. When she looked up, his eyes were unseeing, the dawn reflecting in the empty blue.
Chapter 64
Augustus 1787
Helena left Sebastian with Luc, pulling free the reanimation and leaving the two of them hidden in the alley.
Her only thoughts were of Lila.
The air was thick with smoke and blood. She could hear fighting as she moved through the city, trying to stay out of sight. She couldn’t save everyone. Anyone.
She had to reach Lila.
She neared the last wall that was intended to mark Resistance territory. There were necrothralls guarding it. Familiar faces. The field commander from Luc’s unit with a gash in his skull that showed brain tissue underneath.
Kaine had said no one paid close attention to whose necrothralls were whose. A necrothrall was presumed to belong to one of the Undying. If she pulled the reanimation from a few, she could use them to escort her into Headquarters as a prisoner, but these were too well armed.
She needed easier targets. She turned and fled, hiding in buildings, climbing and descending old stairs and evacuation ladders, trying to find a way back to Headquarters. The combatants all had harnesses that they used to swing and rappel through the streets, navigating the levels of the city easily, but she had to find a route on foot.
The necrothralls kept tailing her. She could tell she was being herded, hunted with persistent predation. She could not out-endure the dead.
She hid, crouching behind a pillar half covered in rubble, trying to catch her breath.
Footsteps came nearer. Her heartbeat was a drum. She drew a gasping breath and jumped up, fleeing her hiding spot. She ran straight into one of the Undying, all in black.
Before she could react, a large hand gripped her head, and everything went dark.
* * *
Helena woke with a panicked gasp. Kaine was leaning over her, his fingers at the base of her head. She jerked away, eyes roaming, not recognising where she was. Her head was swimming.
“It’s all right. You’re safe,” he said.
She stared up at him in confusion, trying to remember how she’d gotten there.
Everything came rushing back. Luc. Luc was dead.
She’d killed him.
The memory was like being punched in the throat.
“What—what happened?” Her mouth was dry. She looked dazedly around, trying to pinpoint their location.
Kaine’s fingers slipped away from the back of her head. His expression was calm, but his eyes were furious.
“The war is over,” he said. “The Undying have taken the city, including your Headquarters. The remaining Resistance factions are cornered; if they don’t surrender, they’ll be buried in rubble by the day’s end.”
She pushed herself up, too dazed to think clearly. She’d been trying to reach Lila…and then? She couldn’t remember anymore.
Kaine began pacing around the room.
