Alchemised, page 99
He took her hands in his and after some difficulty managed to get his fingers steady enough to remove the manacles. She locked the copper back around her wrists herself.
“Keep the door locked,” he said. “I’ll be back by nightfall.”
Chapter 73
Julius 1789
Helena studied the room around her. It was still cold there, even in the heat of summer. All the iron did not allow for much warmth. The sheets of her bed were stained with blood. The scent of decay lingered on the air, a creeping necrotic rot that had infected everything in her life.
It was strange to stand inside a prison, and dread leaving it.
She heard shouting and went to the window in time to see Kaine emerging from the front doors. He was moving more easily now. Atreus stood in the doorway, screaming at him with such rage that Helena couldn’t make out his words.
Kaine just went into the stable and brought out Amaris, pulling himself onto her back with almost convincing ease.
Atreus was still shouting as Amaris flew away.
She watched him shake his fists at the sky. Seeing Crowther’s living corpse never failed to unnerve her.
Atreus finally stopped screaming at the sky and stood a moment longer, before looking directly at the window where Helena stood.
She stepped back instantly, but it was too late; he’d seen her watching. An inexplicable sense of dread pierced her to the marrow.
She went and checked that the door was securely locked, feeling all the iron inside the door and walls. It was barricaded and reinforced. There was no way for him to get in.
Reassured, she sat studying the array she’d designed, tracing her fingers along the lines. The design would work, it would create the power and stability she’d need, but it didn’t matter because it required five components, and she only had three of them.
She’d wasted so much time.
She buried her face in her hands for a moment, but her head jerked up at the smell of smoke and charred meat.
There was black smoke wafting into her room, and then the door began to char, the iron barring smouldering, as a dim red glow grew slowly brighter.
“Come out, come out, little prisoner.” Crowther’s voice came from the other side. “I want to talk to you.”
Helena watched in horror as the wood charred away, and Atreus became visible through the iron bars. He looked almost alive, the red glow giving colour to the dead grey skin.
The bars keeping him out grew hotter and brighter, changing from a red to orange, and the room began to burst into flame, the wallpaper spontaneously igniting. There was a sharp crack as the glass casing in the corner broke, the eye plummeting into the fire that was crawling up the wall.
Crowther would never in his life have bothered to utilise his pyromancy to manipulate something as inferior as iron, but Atreus Ferron, the iron guildmaster, was trying to bend iron to his will once more.
If he couldn’t, he’d probably burn her alive in this room instead.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I have questions for you,” Atreus said. “Come here.”
She hesitated.
“You don’t want to smother to death inside that room, do you?” The rug began to smoke. “Come. Here.”
Helena went forward, carefully, trying to stay back from the most intense heat. She could only hope that Atreus still lacked Luc and Crowther’s talent for distance pyromancy.
A terrible smile spread across his face. “I’ve had many bodies over the years, but it’s strange—this one has a violent reaction to the sight of you. You knew him, didn’t you? Well, I believe.”
Helena’s steps faltered. She’d never heard of liches retaining the memories of the corpses they occupied, but there was no reason why some remnants might not linger.
“I didn’t remember you at first. I thought it was only the corpse reacting, but when you attacked my son, it reminded me of that night. I barely recalled that body, it was too long dead before they brought it back, but I remembered you. The High Necromancer was pleased to finally get some answers about that bombing. As a reward, he shared some of the technique this resonance requires.” Crowther’s spider-like fingers twisted, and the heat intensified.
Helena said nothing. The iron between them glowed brighter, and the wall smouldered as it charred away. Atreus was keeping the fire contained, but he could burn the room down around her if he chose.
The heat of the glowing iron was distorting the air and threatening to scorch her skin.
“Strange attack, that bombing. That Lancaster mongrel was beside himself at the sight of you. I was told you did it all alone, but I’ve seen your records. You were nobody. No training, no combat experience. I’m expected to believe an unranked healer was single-handedly responsible for one of the most devastating attacks we sustained?”
Stroud had also commented on the lack of records surrounding Helena. She hadn’t questioned it at the time—much of her healing had been treated as religious intercession rather than medical work—but Crowther had made her put her name down in the prisoner files, chaining her to him. And there had been all her work with Shiseo, the medicine, the chelators. The bomb. There would have been records of that.
Unless…
Kaine wouldn’t have wanted her to be a person of interest to the Undying. And Shiseo, if he had been planted, waiting in Central in case Helena ever reappeared—he couldn’t have any records tying him to her.
“You were a decoy, weren’t you?” Atreus said, interrupting her thoughts. “Everyone knows how the Eternal Flame saw your kind; who better to use as a sacrificial pawn to protect the true last member of the Eternal Flame.”
He grinned maniacally as he said it, his face aglow with triumph.
Helena had assumed that Atreus had come because he was suspicious about Kaine’s injury, but no, this was about his mission. All his interrogations and victims had yielded no results, and so he’d turned his sights to Helena.
“You were sent here because you know something of vital importance. The High Necromancer entrusted my son to find it, but now he’s grown so concerned with the thing growing inside you, he’s forgotten that you know who the killer is. The one who bombed the banquet and the West Port Lab. Once I’ve caught them, the High Necromancer will have nothing to fear.”
The iron glowed yellow, and the bars were beginning to droop as they turned molten.
“I don’t remember,” Helena said, her blood becoming a roaring pressure in her ears as the growing heat rippled across her skin. It was getting hard to breathe. “I can’t remember anything about that. The High Reeve tried to find out, but if I ever knew it, it’s lost.”
“I don’t believe you.” Atreus stepped back and kicked the door. The drooping iron bars folded in on themselves, collapsing. As he stepped through, Helena caught sight of a charred mass crumpled on the floor.
One of the servants had tried to stop him.
Atreus forced her to fall back. With each snap of his fingers, fiery red flames materialised around him.
Atreus tilted his head. “My son is always worrying over you. Your delicate heart. One would think you were quite the exotic flower. He thinks that success comes by acting as an obedient enough slave.” Atreus shook his head. “He’s always been too terrified of failure to understand that success requires risks…”
Atreus’s voice trailed off.
Helena’s eyes darted towards the window, hoping desperately to catch sight of Amaris.
“Are you hoping he’ll come for you?” Atreus was suddenly terrifyingly close. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the window, pinning her chest against it. “My son. Do you think he’ll save you?”
Helena’s throat closed as Crowther’s thin, spider-like fingers dug into her arm, the iron window lattice biting against her skin. The sky was empty.
She was on her own.
She’d never fought a pyromancer. If she tried to fight back using her resonance, she’d give Kaine away. Atreus would immediately know who’d removed the suppression on her manacles. She’d have to go for the kill. No hesitating this time. The obsidian knife was hidden under the mattress of her bed, but the bed was on fire. The room was on fire.
Atreus pressed his face close to hers, looking up at the empty sky with her. The powdery lavender scent on his skin almost overpowered the stench of blood on his clothes.
“You’re fond of him, aren’t you? You can admit it to me. After all, he takes you for walks and keeps you so comfortable in this room, with protective servants at your beck and call. I do believe he enjoys keeping an eager creature like you around. The Holdfasts must have trained you well.”
Helena only managed to draw one ragged breath.
Crowther’s lips brushed against her ear. “My son will enjoy you far less if I’m required to burn the information out of you.”
One chance. She had one chance to catch him off guard and rip out the talisman.
“I don’t remember,” she said again, trying to gauge how fast she’d need to move, which direction to twist free.
“Maybe you just haven’t wanted to enough,” Atreus said, and before she could move, his fingers snapped.
Pain exploded across her back as her dress caught fire. Pain like a brand across her shoulders. Her knees gave out as she screamed.
There was a hiss and the fire across her shoulders vanished, but the pain didn’t stop, the heat didn’t disappear. Her mouth worked soundlessly, her vision turned white.
All she could smell was smoke and burned hair.
“That was your only warning. Don’t lie to me,” Atreus said, dragging her back onto her feet and pinning her against the window, his weight bearing down on the burns, forcing a rasping scream from her. “I don’t ordinarily move so quickly during interrogations, but I don’t have time to build your dread.” His mouth moved against her ear. “Tell me who it is, or I will hurt you exquisitely.”
“I don’t know—” she said. The words came out a half sob. “I promise I don’t.”
Atreus sighed. “Kaine will be so disappointed when he finds you.”
His fingers snapped again. Fire ran down her back like the lash of a whip.
She seized so violently that her head slammed against the window, nearly knocking her out.
Her ears were ringing from the blow, and everything seemed to slow, her panic giving way to a slow lucidity.
Kaine wasn’t going to come in time.
They’d used up all their luck surviving this long. Half a day short, and it had run out.
Atreus dragged her upright again. “I’m no fool. Everyone knew there was a spy among the Undying in the year leading up to the Eternal Flame’s defeat. The Resistance knew too much. The High Necromancer suspected that one of his most trusted had betrayed him, but they were never identified. They are the piece that remains unaccounted for. The evidence is undeniable. The massacres and acts of sabotage that were so uncharacteristic of the Eternal Flame. That person was responsible for the bombings, including the one that destroyed the West Port Lab. They disappeared after the final battle only to reemerge shortly after you did. You know exactly who it is.”
Helena tried to twist free, fingers clawing, trying to reach his face. Contact was all she needed, but Atreus crushed his weight against her burning shoulders, forcing a strangled scream from her. There were black spots in her vision.
“Tell me who it is.” He shook her.
“Kaine will be killed—if you hurt me,” she choked out. Her body was going numb, sinking her into a dissociative shock, as though she were a prey animal already hanging by her throat.
“The High Necromancer will forgive my means if I find the killer,” Atreus said. She could see his face reflected in the glass. His eyes had a burning look of utter desperation. It was strange how reminiscent of Kaine his expressions could be even in Crowther’s face.
“Kaine will survive. He can have more children,” he said.
Helena’s head grew light. She could hardly breathe in the smoke. The room was engulfed in flames behind them.
Knowing she’d never see Kaine again, she couldn’t help but look for any traces of him in Atreus. There was a similar evasiveness of their eyes in the way they spoke. The same look of furious desperation that Kaine wore all too often when he was cornered, when he thought he had nothing left to lose.
Despite their contempt for each other, Kaine had inherited his fatal flaws from his father.
Enid had been everything to Atreus, and now she was gone, and he was left grasping after shadows.
What would Kaine be like with someone who glimmered with constant reminders of what he’d lost? Perhaps something like Atreus, who could neither stand his son nor stay away.
She finally understood.
“He’s going to kill Kaine…if you don’t find the killer, isn’t he? That punishment—it wasn’t just because of Hevgoss, it was a warning for you, wasn’t it?”
Atreus’s expression turned black. He shook her so violently she nearly fainted. “Who is the last member of the Eternal Flame?”
“He looks like your wife, doesn’t he? It’s the eyes and mouth; they’re so much like hers. He’s all you have left of her now. But every time he sees you, he hates you with your wife’s eyes.”
Atreus raised his hand, ignition rings glittering.
“I’m the one who blew up the West Port Lab,” she said quickly, before the rings could spark. “I used to help Luc study pyromancy theory. I wasn’t supposed to, but he did better with companionship, so I studied it, too, even though I didn’t have the resonance. I used those principles and theory to design the bombs, and then I used necrothralls to plant them. Because I am the last member of the Eternal Flame.”
She drew a deep breath. “But you’re right—there was a spy. I was his handler.”
There was a flash of triumph in Atreus’s eyes. He saw victory in his grasp.
“But you won’t save Kaine by finding him. The killer you’re searching for is your son.”
Atreus stared at her dumbfounded before his expression contorted into fury. He forgot his pyromancy. His fingers wrapped around her throat. “My son would never ally himself with the Eternal Flame.”
“Yes, he would. He hates Morrough,” she rasped out. “He always hated him. Did you never wonder what happened to your family after you were arrested?”
Atreus sneered at her. “Nothing. When Kaine killed the Principate, my failure was forgiven.”
Helena shook her head. “Then why is there an inert iron cage in this house, and a transmutational array carved into the floor? Why are all your servants dead? Do you really think someone like Morrough was understanding during all those months before Kaine went back to the Institute?”
Doubt flashed across Atreus’s face.
“He kept your wife in that cage; he tortured her. He made her watch as he ripped out your son’s soul. Kaine killed Apollo trying to save her. And it was all your fault.”
“You’re lying!”
She knew she should go for the kill, but she wanted to hurt him.
She grabbed hold of his head, even though her shoulders screamed in protest, and shoved her resonance through his skull. He was too startled to stop her.
She’d never used any type of animancy on a lich before. It was easy, like shoving her hand into a rotted gourd. There was a simpleness about the mind; it lacked the noise of the truly living. Atreus’s thoughts were linear, flattened. They all ran towards Kaine and Kaine alone, because that was all he had left of Enid.
She knew that when Kaine had checked her memories, she could feel his consciousness, his emotions. There was no reason why she couldn’t push her own memories through that connection instead of looking for Atreus’s.
She wanted him to know. To understand the consequence of what he’d done.
Her mind was a cacophony of rage, and she shoved it all through Atreus’s skull.
Kaine was kneeling in front of her as she was reaching towards him.
“Did—did any of them say anything that could incriminate you?”
No. That wasn’t what she wanted to show him. She tried to focus.
Kaine kissing her, hands cradling her face, pushing her back onto the bed, his body over hers, pressed close.
Her memories were so disjointed and overlaid, she wasn’t even sure if that memory was old or new.
“Your soul has been ripped out of your body. With time I think it will reintegrate, but initially it would need to be secured, like—like the servants’ souls are doing to the phylactery.”
“A sacrificial soul.”
She nodded, unable to look up. “The person would have to be willing.”
Not this. Enid. Something about Enid.
“My life was blown apart when I went home at sixteen, and everything I did from that point on was trying not to lose the only thing I had left. When she died—it didn’t matter…”
She could feel Atreus’s shock, his outraged disbelief. He tried to tear free, and she nearly lost her grip. The connection between their minds turned red.
Kaine’s face, clearly younger, his hair still dark, appeared in front of her, fury radiating from him. “Who do you imagine was alone with the High Necromancer when word came that my father had been caught and confessed?”
Atreus stopped struggling. Helena’s lungs were fighting for air, but she was lost in her memories, trying to crystallise them.
“I’d hear her screaming for hours sometimes.”
Searing heat was swallowing her, but Helena wouldn’t stop.
“She kept saying it was all her fault, and her heart stopped—”
Helena was jerked up. Her head lolled back, and everywhere she looked fire was crawling across the walls, consuming everything.
A pale face loomed in front of her. She struggled to focus.
