Alchemised, page 86
“How did this even happen? What kind of plan was stretching yourselves across the entire city and leaving your Headquarters unguarded? And where the fuck is Holdfast?”
Helena flinched. “He’s dead.”
Kaine froze and turned sharply. “What do you mean?”
Helena stared down at her hands. She was in the same clothes. Luc’s blood was among the stains, but she couldn’t pick out which ones belonged to him. She couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“How?” Kaine asked.
She swallowed. “It was—an accident.”
She told him everything. What she’d realised, and who it had been, and everything over the months. That Luc had tricked her, and she’d reacted, and then it was too late.
“I tried to heal him…” she said, her voice shaking. “But it was like there wasn’t enough of him left to hold on. He was unravelling and I couldn’t—” Her chest seized, threatening to crack. “I was supposed to save him—” The words came out a whisper.
Her throat contracted and her whole body shook and she couldn’t make herself speak. Kaine was silent until she managed to compose herself again.
“Morrough must be so old,” she said. “Paladia’s more than five hundred years old.”
“This whole war was just two brothers fighting over who gets to play god?” Kaine gave a disbelieving, bitter laugh. “You think you’re picking a side, and you’re just on the opposite end of the same fucking coin.”
Helena didn’t speak, gripping the blankets draped over her until her knuckles turned white. She had to get up, but she felt like glass a breath away from shattering. “I have to get Lila.”
“The war is over, Helena.”
She flinched at the way he said her name. That he’d used it to say that.
“I know,” she said, going hot and cold all over. “You don’t need to tell me. I know we’ve lost!”
She pressed her lips together, grinding the heels of her hands against her eyes as she tried to control herself.
“I’m not saying it’s not over.” Her voice still shook. “But we have the obsidian now, we can both make it, and if we’re more covert—we could still bleed him dry by killing off the Undying.”
“There is no ‘we’ anymore,” Kaine said. “You’re leaving Paladia.”
She looked up sharply. He stood over her, arms crossed.
“I’ll kill them, but you’re done. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame is gone. It’s time for you to go.”
She shook her head. “I can’t leave you here.”
His expression was hard as stone. “I don’t want you here. It’ll be easier for me to work if Morrough assumes a complete victory.”
Helena’s jaw tensed. “Fine,” she finally said in a tight voice. “I’ll collaborate long-distance initially, if you think that’ll make things easier.”
“Good.” He stepped back, turning away. “I’ll have everything arranged.”
She watched him warily, not sure she believed him. Reasonable as it was, she knew he’d already wanted her out of Paladia. There were no other choices, though. She had to get Lila to safety. Until Lila was secure, Helena had no room to negotiate.
“I’m only going if Lila’s with me,” she said.
Kaine rocked back. “No chance. If she goes missing, they’ll hunt her across the continent. She’s not worth it.”
Helena stood. “I’m not asking. I have to take her. If she’s not with me, I won’t leave. I promised Luc I’d take care of her. She’s been under quarantine at the top of the Alchemy Tower. They might not have found her yet. The sooner we go, the better our chances are of getting her without being noticed. We could—we can find a body and I’ll use vivimancy, disguise it, so it looks like her. No one will know she’s gone.”
Something about Kaine suddenly shifted, a tension around his mouth.
“You can take me as a prisoner, use that as an excuse to go inside. It’s only been a few hours—”
“Helena…”
He said her name slowly, a note of warning but also a plea in the way he said it. His eyes flicked around the room, pausing briefly on the curtains. Her voice died. Half in a daze, she stood up and walked forward, pushing the curtain back. It was dark outside.
It was night.
But how could it be night? It had been dawn; the sun was just rising when Luc died.
“How…how long did you keep me unconscious?” Her voice shook. “How—how long has it been?”
He gave no reply.
She turned and lunged for the door, but he caught her, dragging her back. “I can explain—”
She struggled, trying to rip herself free. “What did you do?” Her voice rose. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Listen.” He shook her, and there was a wildness to his eyes. “After the bomb went off, when the Resistance began to attack, Morrough had everyone remaining fall back. They knew your numbers, how many combatants you had left. It was obvious that Headquarters would be vulnerable. They expected an attack before Hevgoss arrived—they were waiting for it. They had someone on the inside. Once your forces had been lured onto the West Island, they sent us to infiltrate. When I got there, you were missing. No one knew where you’d gone. I abandoned my post to find you. Once I had you safe, I had to go back.”
“So you—left me here for how long? A day?” Her voice was raw with betrayal.
“I came back as soon as I could.”
She started to tremble, her body going into shock. “I was going to get Lila. That’s where I was headed, but I kept getting cut off—and—” She flinched. “That was you, wasn’t it? You knocked me out. You didn’t even—”
All those necrothralls tailing her. He’d killed those soldiers, set them up, all watching and waiting for her. There was so much blood on his hands.
He cradled her face with them. “What did you expect me to do? Let you walk back into that massacre? The orders were to kill anyone who tried to resist.”
“Are they all—?” She couldn’t even finish the question. It didn’t matter. “I won’t leave without Lila. You can help me or I’ll go alone, but I’m going back for her.”
Kaine was unmoved. “If you want Morrough defeated, there’s no rescuing anyone.”
“We won’t defeat him if we don’t rescue Lila. She’s pregnant. Morrough needs another Holdfast, and Lila’s the one carrying it. I promised Luc I’d get her out—it was the last thing I told him before he died. It was all that mattered to him.”
“Why should I care about what Holdfast wanted?” he said, his voice implacable.
He was not going to do this. Not even for her.
Her chest tightened. She could feel her ribs curved around her heart like a cage.
You always lose.
Everyone you love dies.
“Because if you do, I’ll stop—everything,” she said. “I’ll leave, and I won’t come back. Just like you want, if you’ll help me get Lila Bayard. Whatever you want. Anything you ask. I’ll do it, I swear.”
Her fingers shook as she reached out for him.
“Please.”
He’d gone very still. “Will you?”
She nodded. “Yes…” Her voice struggled and failed. “Yes, I promise.”
He studied her, eyes narrowed and calculating. “Those are your terms? The Bayard girl, and then you’ll do anything I ask?”
Her throat closed. “Yes. Anything you ask. I swear.”
He nodded slowly. “All right. If those are your terms, I’ll get her for you.”
Helena gave a shuddering gasp of relief. “Thank you.”
He just nodded, but he seemed distracted. She waited to hear how they’d do it, but he was silent, just studying her.
“What do you need me to do?” she finally asked.
Irritation instantly flashed across his face. “Stay here.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “But I could help. I can—”
“I don’t need help.”
When she opened her mouth to argue, he looked her up and down. “You’re too memorable. It’ll be easier for me to look for her alone. If you want me to get her out, stay here and let me work in peace without succumbing to your desperate need to insert yourself into everything I do.”
She tried to protest, and he raised a finger, pointing it at her face.
“If you leave this suite while I’m gone, if I have even the slightest inkling that you’re trying to help me in any way, I will come back and the deal will be off. Do you understand? Stay here.”
Her jaw tensed, throat tightening, but she nodded.
“There’s food in the cupboard. Keep the curtains closed. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Where is this?” she asked, looking around.
He sighed. “This was the suite of the Hevgotian ambassador, who tragically died in a recent explosion.”
“The one you were—?”
He nodded and left without another word.
Helena waited. Kaine had recovered her satchel when he’d apprehended her, and she took inventory of her remaining supplies. She was out of most things beyond what she kept for Kaine. She went through it carefully, hoping he wouldn’t need any of it when he got back with Lila.
There was a good chance Lila would be injured. She wouldn’t let herself be taken without a fight. How would Kaine convince her to cooperate?
Helena stood and went to the door but refrained from touching it. Surely he had a plan.
She went back to inventorying. Kaine had put her knives back into the outer pocket.
She tried to keep herself busy, because if she stopped to think, her grief and guilt would crush her to death. Luc. It was all her fault. She could have saved him if she’d only noticed. Now she was leaving everyone behind, knowing what was likely to happen to them.
All her worst fears coming true and there was nothing she could do.
You can’t save everyone. You never could.
This was the only way.
Once Lila was safely away, if Kaine could slowly kill off the Undying, eventually the nightmare would end.
Time seemed to crawl past. Helena showered, washing away the blood and grime from the city. Luc’s blood. Sebastian’s blood.
She found clothes in the wardrobe. Hevgotian traditional clothing, which involved an unexpected number of tassels. In the cupboard was bread and very strong, hard cheese, which she forced herself to eat even though everything tasted like chalk in her mouth.
She was about to ignore Kaine’s orders and go looking for him anyway when the door abruptly swung open and Kaine walked in, Lila hanging limp in his arms. Her prosthetic was gone, and there were metal bands locked around both her wrists.
Helena flung herself across the room as he laid Lila on the bed.
Helena searched for any signs of injury, but Lila was not injured at all beyond a few bruises. As Helena searched her, her resonance failed at Lila’s wrists, and she realised they were alchemy-suppressing cuffs.
They were crudely made; she would only need a few tools to get them off.
“Was she still in the Tower?” she asked as she pushed an eyelid open, trying to pinpoint whether Lila had been physically knocked out or sedated.
“No,” Kaine said. “They’d already transported her when I got there.”
The alchemy suppression was external, and since the effects were at Lila’s hands, Helena could still use her resonance everywhere else.
“Where was she?” she asked, checking for the baby’s heartbeat.
“They’d taken her to Bennet’s lab, but I was able to retrieve her. We need to move quickly now. You both need to be out of the city before dawn.”
Helena was so panicked over Lila that she didn’t immediately notice that there was something unnerving about Kaine’s voice. She looked up. He was staring at her with a look that was almost starved; she’d never seen him look that way before.
Reaching out, she took his hand, feeling for any sign of injury. He wasn’t hurt, though. His pale hair was smoke-stained, but he looked unscathed. And yet there was something off about his expression.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, standing up, forgetting Lila.
The corner of his mouth curved into a wistful smile, and he inhaled.
“Kaine?” She searched his face. “What happened?”
He stared at the floor a moment before finally meeting her eyes. “I blew my cover getting the Bayard girl for you.”
The world stopped spinning. Time stalling as the air froze, and it was just them, and nothing else existed.
“What?” She tried again, shaking her head. “You—you what?”
She was certain she was misunderstanding him, but it was there in his eyes. He was saying goodbye to her.
She shook her head again. “No.”
He said nothing. Her protest vanished into the silence replaced by a horrible, waiting stillness, like the space between slowing heartbeats, when a heart finally stops. The sound of ending.
“No,” she said, her voice straining, breaking the quiet again, refusing to believe him.
“There wasn’t any other way,” he said gently, catching her by the arm as she swayed.
Her heart had started to beat again, and now it was beating faster and faster. She kept shaking her head, backing away from him, her eyes going for the door, looking for an escape, a way out. This was not happening.
He caught her, held her by the shoulders. “You know they’ve been looking for the spy. There were counter-espionage measures in place at the lab, and there wasn’t time to find a way past them. To get to Bayard, there are entry records indicating that I was there, that I entered a laboratory with highly controlled access. I couldn’t burn down the building and fight my way out carrying an unconscious, pregnant woman. When the next security shift begins tomorrow, the lab will be found and the records will show that I was the only one who left alive.”
She shook her head again, twisting free. “No. No, we can go back.” She turned to get her satchel. “There must be a way to destroy the records—I can—”
He jerked her back, his expression set. “You’re leaving, remember? That was the deal you made, Marino. I met the terms.”
Helena gave a low, pained sound as she shrank away from him.
His eyes were aglow, as if he was willing her to understand. His gaze flickered across her face as if trying to take it in, memorising her, because this was the end. The last time he’d ever see her.
She might have forgiven him for that, but the adoration in his eyes was tempered by a sharp-edged triumph. The satisfaction of getting his way.
“Anything I wanted if I went and got Bayard for you; those were your terms.”
He would have hurt her less if he’d reached in and ripped her heart out.
“You gave your word,” he said, when she refused to reply, his voice hardening.
“No—” Her voice broke.
His expression softened as she stopped struggling. “We had a good run, but we were never going to last.” His fingers slipped a loose curl behind her ear before his hand drifted down to rest briefly at the base of her throat. “You knew that.”
“Kaine, please, let me—” she started, her voice shaking.
His expression turned cold again. “Anything I wanted. It was your deal.”
Her lungs were beginning to burn. She tried again to pull away, but she couldn’t breathe. The crisp edges of him were blurring. He was speaking, but the words were growing rounded.
Kaine pulled her closer, and the cold determination on his face was shifting into worry.
“Helena—breathe.”
Her vision tunnelled, all darkness except him.
He shook her. “Helena—don’t—come on—breathe—Helena, please…”
Her fingers grasped at him as she fought to speak.
“No—” Her voice was broken. “—don’t do this to me.”
The devastation swallowed her like a tidal wave, and he vanished.
* * *
When she regained consciousness, Kaine was leaning over her once again. She stared at him. Her left arm hurt as if there was a deep bruise just below the shoulder. Her body felt wrong. Numb. Her mind sluggish.
She blinked, and even that took effort and concentration. Then everything came back with almost violent anguish.
She struggled to focus. The pain in her arm was likely some kind of injected sedative. Kaine had drugged her, but there was also a mineral salt aftertaste on her tongue that she recognised as her tablets. He’d used them to erase the panicked surge of adrenaline, to set her heart at a slow, steady rhythm. He’d made her calm and malleable.
She glared up at him, trying to find words.
“I’m never going to forgive you for this,” she finally managed. The words came out slurred, giving them an irregular lilt.
Kaine’s lips tightened into a flat line, but then he nodded. “I know you won’t, but you’ll be alive and away from the war. Those were always my terms.”
Helena went silent, trying to think despite being transmuted to the verge of incoherence.
There was a well of rage seething through her that she couldn’t quite reach, as if it were just beyond her fingertips.
She had to think slowly, laboriously, struggling to keep her focus razor-sharp because when she let it falter, her thoughts turned nebulous. She was surreptitious as she curled her fingers against her palm, just enough to send her resonance through her own body, trying to reverse Kaine’s tampering, but it had settled.
“If you die, who’s going to stop Morrough?” Her voice was dull.
His expression turned cold. “He can have Paladia for all I care. If the Eternal Flame wanted to win, they should have made better choices. They all knew the risks, but that was never enough incentive for them. They refused to pay the price that victory demands, and I am sick of watching you try to pay it for them.”
