Alchemised, page 9
Then he was gone. His resonance and mind ripped out like an invasive taproot.
Everything inside her mind collapsed around the empty space, the integrity of her own consciousness crumbling.
She fell sideways out of the chair, the room tumbling with her.
Her thoughts rolled like dice in her skull.
Where was she?
“Get out.”
She knew the words, but they came from far away. Sounds. Not Etrasian. Etrasian was prettier. Melodic.
This was—
Dialect.
Her thoughts were very slow.
She tried to lift her head, but the room kept moving.
She must be on a ship. Crossing the sea. Leaving the cliffs and islands behind.
Where was she going?
To school. Yes, she was going to study alchemy.
There was something wet on her face. She tried limply to lift her hand and managed to smear it away.
Her fingers came away red. Why red?
“Get out!”
The room shook. Helena was picked up by an unseen force and shoved towards the door. She collapsed dazedly, but the jolt knocked her back into herself, remembering.
Ferron. The transference.
Her stomach turned over. If it hadn’t been empty, she would have vomited.
She looked back. He was right there, his face white and terrifying, twisted with fury. The room hummed.
“I said get out!” He looked like an animal, ready to lunge and rip her throat open with his bare teeth.
Absolute terror flung Helena into action. She pushed herself up, wrenched the door open, and fled.
The ground rolled beneath her feet. Her vision was stained red no matter how much she blinked, as if the walls were dripping with blood, shadows turned to gore. She kept smearing her hands across her eyes as she tried to find her way.
All she could hear was her panicked breathing and her feet on bare wood, the iron in the floor like ice.
She reached the top of the stairs. She could feel herself going into shock, her limbs turning leaden, dragging her down. Her body growing colder and colder as a feverish chill consumed her.
She swayed and nearly toppled down the steps, clinging to the banister to keep upright, staring down into the foyer.
The roses rippled as if underwater, floor shifting, and around it circled a black dragon.
It was curled inwards around the table, wings spread out, head curved down so that its tail was caught within its teeth, consuming itself.
An ouroboros.
In her red-stained vision, it looked as if it were swimming in blood.
What if she just threw herself over the balcony?
There was no one to stop her. The secrets Luc had entrusted to her would be safe, and Ferron would have failed.
She leaned forward, hands trembling.
Headfirst.
Dead on impact or Ferron could use vivimancy to keep her alive.
Just a little—
A vise-like grip closed around her arm and wrenched her back an instant before she toppled over the railing.
She whirled and found Ferron glaring at her.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
She tried to jerk loose, lunging towards escape, but he dragged her back from the railing and down the stairs as she beat and clawed at him, trying to rip herself free. He didn’t stop. He pulled her through the house, practically kicking in the door of her room before shoving her onto the bed.
Helena collapsed, breathing unsteadily, hands and wrists throbbing.
“Did you think I didn’t know you’d try to kill yourself?” Ferron asked venomously. “As if there’s anything the Eternal Flame loved more than dying for their causes.”
“I thought you liked us dead.” Her head hurt so much, she wanted to vomit.
He gave a barking laugh. “Consider yourself the sole exception to that rule. The High Necromancer wants your secrets, and until he has them, you will not die.”
He glanced around her room, and his eyes seemed to glow.
He closed them, shaking his head. “I thought transference would be enough for one night, but it seems you’re determined to make this as difficult for yourself as possible.”
He leaned over her.
Helena stared at him in dread.
“Let’s see what other ideas you’ve had.” His cold fingers pressed against her temple.
It wasn’t transference, and she was so relieved that she almost relaxed when she realised he was only violating her memories.
His resonance swept through her mind like a breeze, sending her thoughts fluttering.
He moved slowly. Instead of a long pass across time, he took interest only in recent events, winding through her memories like a current.
He seemed to pore over every detail. Exploring her room. The way the hallway frightened her, and her musings over him and his family. Her attempts at exercise.
When he finally stopped, the blood on her face had dried in tracks down her cheeks.
“Industrious as always,” he said mockingly, pulling his hand away.
Her jaw clenched.
He was still leaning over her, hand pressed into the mattress by her head. “Do you really think you can trick me into killing you?”
She stared stonily at the canopy.
“You’re welcome to try.” He turned to leave, then paused as if just remembering something. “Don’t enter my room again. If I want to deal with you, I’ll come here.”
Once he was gone, Helena didn’t move.
She hadn’t placed much faith in her plans. She’d known the odds of success were impossibly small, and yet she’d tried to convince herself otherwise. Luc wouldn’t give up. If it were him, he’d fight to the very last. How could she betray him by doing less?
But Luc was dead.
No matter what she did, it wouldn’t bring him back.
Her shivering grew uncontrollable. She curled onto her side, burrowing into the bedding. The wounded feeling in her head grew until it was a sinkhole drawing her inwards, her skin growing taut like a membranous exoskeleton.
The sheets became damp with her sweat as her fever rose. Her body was freezing, but her brain was on fire.
Time morphed, twisting, and she lost track of everything beyond her misery.
There were voices. So many voices. Vile things were poured down her throat, making her gag, burning concoctions that blistered her organs. Hot and cold and slimy things on her skin. She was picked up and plunged into ice-cold water, dragged out to breathe, and then shoved under again.
Her mind burned on like an ember, charring everything around it.
There were needles. Little pricks she hardly felt, then large agonising lances of pain that punctured her arms.
The pain in her head grew until it blotted out all thought.
Finally, she slipped away, her mind untethering itself in a free fall.
There was blood everywhere.
She was in the hospital in Headquarters. The bells were ringing. There were bodies being rushed in by nurses and medics whose faces blurred as they passed.
There was a boy in her arms, dying. She tried to calm him, trying to focus, not to feel the building panic of the room catching like claws through her lungs, but he wouldn’t let her heal him. No matter how she tried, he’d shove her back. Blood kept pouring out in dark spurts. The sticky warmth seeping into her skin. People kept calling her amid the clamour, but she had to save this boy.
She was right here.
Finally, he stopped fighting. She felt him through her resonance. A rush of hope in her heart at the vibrant sense of living. Then he was gone, like a fist through her chest. Too late.
She looked up at the bodies piled around her, one on top of the next, a wall rising endlessly, rivulets of blood running down it as it swayed, threatening to crush her.
She tried to breathe. The smell of bile, charred flesh and blood, sweat, filth, and antiseptic burned in her nose and lungs, suffocating her.
Everywhere she turned, there were more bodies, even under her feet. She crushed them when she moved.
Choose.
Who lives and dies. She had to decide.
It would be her choice.
She reached out, fingers trembling, but a hand caught hers, stilling it.
It was Luc.
She gave a panicked gasp of relief, clutching at him.
He was standing in his golden armour, helmet off so she could see his face. He smiled at her. For a moment the nightmare vanished.
Then blood began to trickle down his face.
Lila was just behind him, glaive in hand, pale hair a crown around her head, but half her face was rotted away, peeling back to reveal her skull. Someone else stood just beside her, but Helena couldn’t remember his face.
Beside them were Titus and Rhea, and after them the Council and the Eternal Flame, all standing in a ring around her.
Their faces were blank except Luc’s.
Luc was still alive. He was bleeding, but she could heal him. Her hand shook as she reached out, but he spoke.
“I’m dead because of you.”
She shook her head, voice failing her.
“Look, Hel,” Luc said. He touched his breastplate, and the golden armour melted away, revealing his bare chest. A gleaming black knife was shoved between his ribs, a bloodless wound. The incision grew, running down his torso until the knife fell, shattering on the ground, and his organs came sliding out, blackened with gangrene, the smell of decay filling the air as if he’d been rotting for months.
“See?”
“No. No…” She tried to reach for him anyway, but he melted away, leaving her fingers stained with his blood.
Her mother was there now. Helena couldn’t make out her face, but she knew it was her mother. The scent of dried herbs clung to her as she stood in front of Helena.
Helena reached for her, but her mother vanished into mist.
Then her father.
He stood out among the Northerners. His eyes were dark, and his black hair curled just like hers.
He wore his white medical coat, and when she met his eyes, he smiled at her. Just below his jaw was a gash mimicking the curve of his smile, running from ear to ear.
“Helena,” he said, “I’m dead because of you.”
He stepped towards her, a scalpel gleaming in his hand.
She didn’t move, didn’t resist this time when he took her in his arms and slit her throat.
* * *
When the world swam back into focus, Helena wished she’d died.
Her head throbbed, and her hair was plastered to her cheeks and forehead. The room was stiflingly hot. Her mouth was so dry, her tongue threatened to crack.
She managed to roll onto her side. The bedside table bore a pitcher, a cup of water, and several vials. She fumbled for the cup, gulping it down.
She slumped back, kicking off the blankets. The smell of a mustard poultice burned in her nose. She craned her head, looking at the vials on the table again. There were iron and arsenic tablets, smelling salts, and ipecac.
She reached for the arsenic, but she’d no sooner lifted her hand than the door opened, and that nervous stuttering man from Central entered, accompanied by Ferron.
“It’s unlikely the fevers will improve as the procedure continues,” the man was saying, looking as terrified of Ferron as he’d been of Morrough.
Ferron didn’t appear to be listening; his gaze had gone instantly to the table and the vial that Helena had been about to steal. He strode across the room, sweeping up all three vials and pocketing them with the barest glance down at her.
Bastard.
“I’m expected to put up with this every week?” Ferron asked, scowling down at Helena as if she were a stray he wanted to drown.
The man’s head bobbed. “As I understand, the assimilation process of transference that the Eternal Flame developed was intended to cultivate a progressive degree of tolerance. As with traditional mithridatism, there will be side effects. The next time should result in further progress on your part, but as a result the brain fevers will likely be of a similar magnitude. You must understand, it’s hardly a natural state of being. A living body surviving even a brief presence of another soul has never been achieved before. That she’s alive at all should be considered a miracle. As the purpose of this is only to keep her alive long enough to reverse the transmutations, the long-term deterioration will be immaterial.”
“I don’t have time to play nurse,” Ferron said, sneering at him. “Your cure was nearly as bad as the disease. At this rate, I can’t see how she’ll survive long enough for me to find anything. Getting her to tolerate transference and manage a full reversal of what’s been done to her memory will only be the first steps. I’ll still have to find the information. That could take months. I will not be set up for failure because you’ve decided something is ‘immaterial.’ ”
The man shrivelled, his neck seeming to sink into his chest cavity, shoulders rising past his ears. “I assure you, High Reeve, the arsenic is unlikely to kill her. She may begin to show symptoms of poisoning, but based on our theories, this procedure will be complete before she develops any serious necrosis or—significant liver damage.”
“How do you know how long this procedure will take? We don’t even know if it worked on Bayard.” Ferron’s voice had grown deadly. “If you’re certain that she will not die before the High Necromancer has his answers, and I am to follow your advice, then you will go attest to this, now, before our preeminent leader, and make clear to him that I am acting on your advice and assurances.”
The man lost all remaining colour. “W-Well, when considered in that light, it’s possible that if the sessions were spaced out more generously, we might reduce the side effects and brain fevers. But I would not dare make recommendations on my own. I’m no expert in this new science. This would be for Stroud or the High Necromancer himself to decide.”
“I was sent you. I’d expect you to at least have enough expertise to have an opinion,” Ferron said.
The man mopped his forehead. “I will strongly advise Stroud to visit so that she can make a recommendation,” he said, avoiding Ferron’s stare.
“Get out!”
Helena flinched.
Ferron watched him disappear through the door before glancing scathingly down at her, as if it were all her fault.
He reached towards her and she shrank back, but his hand passed harmlessly and slid under the pillow instead, searching the bed to ensure she hadn’t managed to squirrel away any of the arsenic. She glared at him until he was satisfied that she had no poison hidden anywhere and left again with a slam of the door.
Her legs were wobbly when she got up. She had to sit on the floor under the shower spray because it was too tiring to stand, but she felt vaguely human again when all the sweat and smell of poultices had washed away.
The awful red dress had been washed, pressed, and put away in her wardrobe, along with several more dresses, also all red. Some were almost burgundy, while others were luridly bright. Freshly dyed. There were hints of the original sage green and pale pink barely visible along the hems.
Clearly Aurelia did not move on once she had an idea in her head.
* * *
Stroud arrived the next day, followed into the room by a dead servant and Mandl, or rather the corpse that Mandl now occupied.
The servant was an older woman, dressed as household staff of some kind. She had light-brown hair that was neatly combed back and age lines around her mouth and eyes. Her eyes had an eerie lack of focus which contrasted sharply with the glowering resentment in Mandl’s new face.
“Sit up,” Stroud said to Helena, setting a medical bag on the table.
Helena obeyed without a word, remaining impassive while Stroud prodded her, noting the way Helena’s wrists had shrunk inside the manacles, and checking her vital signs, tsking with irritation.
“Well, this is disappointing,” she said at last. “I’d really hoped you’d handle it better.”
Helena said nothing, a gleam of triumph rising in her chest.
“I suppose it was too much to hope you had the physical resilience of a man like Bayard,” Stroud added with a disgruntled huff after another minute of running her resonance intrusively through Helena’s organs.
She pressed her fingers against Helena’s head, pushing a little frisson of energy into her mind, making Helena wince. Her mind still felt raw. “This degree of inflammation after seven days is worrying.”
She sucked her teeth and glared at Mandl. “A pity you didn’t report her at the time. This would all be so much easier.”
Mandl bobbed her head stiffly, which was not enough penitence for Stroud.
“You should be grateful that I haven’t pointed out to His Eminence that if we’d learned about her sooner, we might have retained Boyle’s corpse and had an animancer for one of the Undying to use.”
“I said I was sorry,” Mandl said. “I don’t know what else you want me to do, or why you dragged me here.”
“You were gifted ascendance on my recommendation. If I am going to be inconvenienced by this, then so will you,” Stroud said. “And if this costs me anything, I will see that it costs you more.”
Stroud turned back to Helena, examining her again with an increasingly sour expression. “We’ll need to delay the next procedure until she’s stronger. If she dies prematurely, we’ll lose the information.”
She turned to the other necrothrall in the room. “High Reeve!”
The servant turned her head, cloudy eyes focusing on Stroud.
“I will speak with you. Privately.”
The necrothrall servant nodded and gestured towards the door.
Of all the uses of necromancy that Helena had witnessed, the creation of the Ferrons’ servants seemed a particularly vile choice. In a war, she could see the horrific rationale leading to the act, but the servants in Spirefell were all civilians, murdered for the sake of cheap convenience.
