still a lot of basic medical knowledge she needs to learn, and that's not
even considering some of the more advanced healing techniques that
she's been afraid to do. She's not as driven. I think the Council will need
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496 • SenLinYu
to officially designate her as my alternate so I can push her harder."
"I'll speak with Jan and look over the hospital's reports. If you could
make a list of which areas would have the least redundancy, that would
be useful."
"All right." Helena's voice came out stilted and mechanical. A
thought occurred to her. "Shiseo—he's a metallurgist. Could I ask him
to test my resonance for my alloy?"
Ilva coughed. "If you'd like."
Helena stood to leave.
"Helena," Ilva called softly just as she reached the door.
She paused, looking back. Ilva's expression was unreadable.
"Tell me, what's your strategy with Ferron right now?"
Helena paused, feeling tired. She couldn't rightly remember the last
time she hadn't been tired. She leaned against the door, letting it brace
her.
"I think . . . he wants me. Treating the array changed things between
us, but he knows what I'm doing." She swallowed hard. "He's very ob-
sessive about things. I think he always has been, but the array makes it
worse. If things go according to plan, that'll be good for us. I don't think
he'll ever abandon the Eternal Flame then. Willingness seems critical
with him, and he knows mine is conditional on the Eternal Flame's
survival. But—given how far he's willing to go for things, I'd say there's
a chance he'd destroy anything that stood in his way. That might include
me."
Ilva was silent, still watching Helena.
Helena felt raw, as if she'd been flayed and was now being kept under
observation. "Maybe I'm just overthinking it."
Ilva looked down at her desk, picking up a glass paperweight and
rolling it in her hands. "You've done much more than I expected."
Was that supposed to make her feel better?
Standing there, Helena thought she should feel something, but in-
stead her heart seemed to be compacting inside her chest, growing
smaller and harder day by day. She used to think she had so much to
give that she could never run out; now she felt like an upended pitcher,
with an impatient cup waiting for the last drop.
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Alchemised • 497
"I'm not— " she started, and then paused. She twisted at the ring
around her finger. "I think he's lonely."
Ilva straightened, rising several inches in her seat. "I hope you're not
getting attached, Helena. The Eternal Flame is depending on you to
stay on mission. If you're compromised, you should say so."
Helena shook her head, regretting the comment. "Never. My loyalty
will always be to the Eternal Flame."
Ilva's expression remained wary. "You know," she said slowly, "I can
only keep Luc and his unit away from the worst fights if we know which
ones they'll be."
Helena's heart slammed into her throat. "I know." Her voice was
tight. "I'm doing everything I can. I'll never do anything that could risk
Luc."
Ilva's posture softened. "All right, then. You can go." She waved her
hand in dismissal, returning to her files.
Helena turned, then gave a brittle laugh. "You know, I just realised,
if I succeed, you'll control Ferron the same way you use Luc to control
me. It makes me feel rather sorry for him."
Ilva didn't look at her. "Well, he'll deserve it more than you do."
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CHAPTER 42
Octobris 1786
When Helena asked Shiseo if he could test her resonance
for a weapon alloy, he'd seemed surprised by the request.
"You don't know?" he asked, looking up as he adjusted the tempera-
ture under an alembic.
"I never got around to it," she said, trying to make the request seem
casual. Shiseo was an excellent collaborator, but he was excruciatingly
private. He never spoke of himself or the Eastern Empire except in
ways specific to their work.
"It's all right if you don't have time," she said. "It's mostly curiosity."
Shiseo blinked slowly. His expressions were even more unreadable
than Kaine's. "Remind me, what part are you from?"
Helena exhaled, fingers skittering across the medical textbook she
was reading. She'd had an idea for an injected drug for emergency situ-
ations where a heart needed intense stimulation, but she was uncertain
about the composition she'd developed.
"Etras. It's south. Out in the sea. The crescent of islands between the
two continents. Not many alchemists there, since there isn't much metal,
and no lumithium."
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Alchemised • 499
"Is that why you came to Paladia?"
She nodded without looking up. "My father thought my repertoire
was too special to be—wasted there."
Shiseo gave a mysterious little hum and nodded. "I will bring my set
to test you, but I would like to ask a favour, if I may."
She straightened, and now she was looking at him curiously. "Of
course."
"The metals from that woman's blood some months ago. I heard
about them. May I try identifying them?"
Helena's mouth went dry at this casual mention of Gettlich. She'd
had no idea Shiseo was even aware of the event, much less knowledge-
able enough have picked up on the fact that there was anything unusual
retrieved from the body. Several metallurgists had tried to identify all the
trace metals and compounds found in the blood samples without success.
Shiseo's expression had not changed; he wore the same mild look he
always did. "I heard that some are not identified."
"I'll ask for a sample."
When Shiseo returned to Helena's lab, he brought a little case that
was filled with glass vials, each with pure compounds and metals inside,
labelled in a script that Helena couldn't read.
He arranged them in rows. "These"—he pointed to the closest—"are
common Paladian metals. These"—he pointed to the second and third
rows of compounds— "are a little more rare. We will see."
He removed them one by one, and Helena used her resonance to
manipulate them into hollow spheres while he timed her. Then he used
his own remarkably wide repertoire to slice them into quarters and ex-
amine the evenness of her distribution, the orderliness of the structure,
grading each aspect on a chart.
If some were graded lower than others, there was a mathematical
formula to calculate the level of lumithium emanations necessary to bal-
ance the potential alloy's resonance to match the alchemist's base level.
"You have an interesting repertoire," he said in his quiet voice as they
moved into the third row of vials. "Very unusual. Good attention to
detail. I am surprised you are not a metallurgist."
"I wasn't sure what to do," she said, handing another metal back for
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500 • SenLinYu
grading. "It felt like whatever I chose, someone was disappointed. Ev-
eryone— " She fluttered her fingers but, catching herself gesturing,
folded them in her lap. "Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I'm not sure
I ever knew what I wanted." She shrugged. "Probably good that I didn't,
since it didn't matter in the end."
Shiseo didn't reply. He was studying the notes he'd taken, then he
looked at her, staring at her folded hands. "I don't think a steel weapon
would suit you."
"What?" Her resonance for both steel and iron were excellent. There
was no reason why she wouldn't be perfectly suited for a steel alloy, it
was what most metallurgists were specialised in. Almost all the weap-
ons in Paladia were steel.
"You are exceptional with titanium. I met the titanium guildmaster
once, and even his work was not so perfect." Then he picked up a piece
of her nickel work, studying it as well. "Have you ever tried nickel-
titanium alloy?"
She shook her head.
"It would make a better weapon for you. Very light. You'd waste your
strength with steel."
"This isn't for a weapon," Helena said quickly. "It's just—curiosity."
Shiseo just made a little click with his tongue. "Well . . . if you wanted
a weapon, I would advise you to use nickel and titanium. Don't limit
yourself to what Paladians do."
She couldn't imagine giving Kaine Ferron, heir of the iron guild, a
resonance alloy without any iron in it. Titanium and nickel might not
even be in his repertoire. She'd be asking for a weapon he couldn't sense
or transmute. It would seem like a threat.
After some pleading, Shiseo finally consented to writing a steel alloy,
too.
She almost threw the titanium alloy away, but Crowther instructed
her to include it. He wanted to see what Kaine would do.
Elain did not undergo any new training.
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Alchemised • 501
When Helena had tried to add the additional training sessions and
one weekly foraging trip, Elain had filed a formal complaint with Fal-
con Matias that she was being overworked and had never agreed to be
an apothecary, and of course, not only did Matias side with Elain, but
he'd wanted to know how and why Helena was an apothecary, and who
had approved it.
A moratorium was placed on Helena's lab work, and the next thing
she knew, it was not her lab at all but Shiseo's, and Ilva had Helena
passed off as the lab assistant, tasked with running errands and fetching
supplies from the wetlands for him.
It was all technicalities, and better than being banned from chymia-
tria, but it still felt like a blow.
Her only solace was anticipating a bespoke knife. She'd given the
alloy slip to Kaine, and he'd taken it without comment.
It was hard to temper her expectations. Whenever she used any kind
of tool or weapon, she'd wonder what it would feel like to hold some-
thing made to resonate with her. Lila treated her weapons like they
were children, naming them, coddling them, spending hours caring for
them, ensuring they were in perfect condition. It was the same with her
prosthetic and armour. They were so intrinsically customised, it made
them an extension of herself.
However, weeks rolled by, and Kaine made no references to the knife.
Helena began to habitually push the thought down so she wouldn't
experience a pang of disappointment every time she saw him.
He finally decided she was "passable" at the forms and moved on to
attacks and techniques specific to her abilities.
"You're still doing it wrong," he said, standing and stalking over to
her. "The idea is to target the tendons. You start low. Left Achilles, then
the inside of the right thigh; they fall, and your blade is there to catch
them through the throat and into the skull. That is when you'll punch
your fist into their chest and rip out the talisman."
He demonstrated again, but she kept dropping the knife. The attack
wasn't complicated, but the knife-work had to be done with her off
hand, so that her right hand could perform the human transmutation at
the end.
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502 • SenLinYu
Three transmutational shapes in seconds while using her non-
dominant hand tested the limits of her coordination.
He stepped behind her. Not being able to see him made her keenly
aware of how close he was.
There was a pause before his hands wrapped around hers, fingers
brushing across the inside of her wrists, her back against his chest.
She could feel him through her resonance, and even though she
wasn't directly touching him, she was so keyed up from her constantly
flowing resonance that it formed a torus of energy around her. She tried
to block him out, but she was too frayed to only attenuate on her knife.
His arms ran against the length of hers as he guided her down into
a low lunge, her left hand angling to catch a tendon, transmuting her
knife into a curve, then—with a quick flick of the wrist upwards—using
a straight- edged blade to take out the hamstring of the opposite leg. In
this same upwards movement, the blade widened into a brutal spike
intended to maximise brain damage.
Then he drove her other hand forward in a brutal punch into empty
air. With her resonance behind it, she'd go straight through the bone
and find a talisman.
"It's one movement," he said, his voice near her ear. A shiver ran
through her gut. Helena could barely hear his words over her own
heartbeat. "You go quick. Hit as many points as you can. Tendons are
the best way to slow them. A blade through the brain will knock them
out for a few seconds, at least, and keep them disoriented for longer.
Even if you miss the talisman, they won't recover immediately. The re-
generation will focus on the brain. But miss that blow and you're dead."
He took her through the movement one more time slowly, and then
faster to demonstrate the upward lunge of a counterstrike intended to
be fluid and quick as lightning.
"Do you feel it now?" he asked, his voice low, the heat of his breath
near her ear, brushing through her hair, made it impossible to focus.
She didn't think he was helping at all. There was an intense pressure
that grew inside her whenever he was close, a sort of frantic desperation,
like swimming up towards the surface yet never reaching it.
She nodded, shakily and his hands slipped away from her wrists.
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Alchemised • 503
"Go again."
When the Tower bell went off, the air vibrated. An attack warning,
or else a call to be ready. For fighters to go out, and for the hospital to
prepare.
The sirens in the hallway began blaring loud enough to split her skull
as Helena hurried towards the hospital.
"What do we know?" she asked as she tied on her apron, stripping
her gloves off to wash and sterilise her hands.
Whatever had happened did so without warning. Normally as soon
as significant fighting started anywhere, messages to Headquarters were
dispatched and the hospital was prepped. This time the sirens had gone
straight to full alert.
"Nothing yet," Pace said as she directed medics. She'd only returned
from the other hospital a few days ago, worn to the bone, but she never
stopped working.
Orderlies and nurses rushed around, making sure everything was
ready.
The bell was still sounding.
"I'm going to the main gates to find out what's happening," Helena
finally said.
Out in the courtyard, without the walls acting as a barrier for the
sound, she could feel the Tower bell's ringing in her teeth, its low ca-
dence a vibration in her stomach.
The noise finally cut off as she reached the gates. There were dozens
of soldiers and guards, all awaiting orders. Even Crowther was lurking,
curious as everyone else.
"Do you know what's happened?" Helena asked a guard.
"Ambush," he said, his eyes locked out towards the street. "Don't
know much more than that. Two teams went out. That's all I know.
We've heard nothing else."
There was a commotion beyond the gates.
Then she heard Luc, his voice pure rage. "Let go. Let me go!"
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504 • SenLinYu
Then there were other voices. Shouts of "Watch out" and "Hold
him!" and a scorching whoosh of flames.
"Let me go!"
Helena went forward instinctively, along with a dozen others.
There was an explosion of fire as she emerged from the gatehouse to
the sight of nearly a dozen people trying to drag and wrestle Luc to-
wards Headquarters. Soren, Sebastian, Althorne, and several others
from Luc's unit had him by the arms and legs, trying to pin him to the
ground.
Luc had been disarmed, but they couldn't pry his ignition rings off
his fingers. Fire sparked but suddenly vanished as Crowther darted for-
ward. His left hand swept through the air and extinguished the flames
as he clenched his fist.
"Marino, put him down!" Crowther snapped.
"You left her! Let me go!" White fire exploded off Luc, flame tearing
in all directions, violent and uncontrolled, fuelled by rage. Luc lurched
to his feet.
A tongue of metal shot out, Althorne's arm jerked back, Luc hit the
ground, and there were several people on him again. Fire erupted and
vanished.
"Marino!" Crowther snarled.
Luc lunged violently, ripping one hand free, and a wall of fire shot in
all directions. It slammed into Crowther, and he hit a wall with a sick-
ening crunch.
Everyone froze, including Luc.
"I didn't mean to— " He was still trying to get free. "Just let me go—"
Helena reached out towards him.
"They got Lila," he said, taking her hand without hesitation.
She squeezed tight, resonance shooting down his arm. Betrayal
flashed in his eyes, and then he was unconscious.
The men pinning Luc down let go cautiously. Helena sank to her
knees, kneeling over him, her fingers slipping into the occipital dip of
his skull to ensure he would not wake.
He was bruised and covered in blood. Half his fingernails were miss-
ing.
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Alchemised • 505
Soren didn't get up; he was slumped next to Helena. One of his eyes
was black.
"Get him inside and keep him unconscious," Althorne was saying. "I
don't want that boy awake until we know what's happened to Bayard.
Someone get Crowther to the hospital."
There was heavy bruising on one side of Althorne's face, a gouge
across his cheek as if he'd been clawed at. Several soldiers picked Luc up
gently and started carrying him inside.
Helena was still kneeling on the ground.
Lila was taken. Whatever had happened next, the implications were
horrifying.
Lila as a necrothrall, all her proficiency in combat now targeted at
the Eternal Flame. At Luc. Or Lila in a laboratory, being used for ex-
perimentation.
"May I be dismissed?" Soren said, his voice muted but wavering with
emotion. He was looking to Althorne with an expression as if some-
thing had been carved out from inside him.
Althorne rested a large hand on Soren's narrow shoulder. "Until we
recover Lila, you're paladin primary. We can't lose you, too."
"They took my twin," Soren said, looking out towards the rest of the
island. "I have to bring her body back."
"There are three teams in pursuit. If she can be saved or recovered,
she will be. We need to debrief and prepare. And you need to protect
your Principate. You know where your sister would want you."
A stretcher arrived for Crowther, and Helena followed it.
In the hospital, Elain was already hovering over Luc, healing his
minor injuries, and asking if she could wake him up. She was sternly
forbidden.
Helena focused on Crowther. That soft-faced orderly, Purnell, hur-
ried over to assist. He had a gash on his face, but his paralysed arm had
taken the brunt of the injury, broken at the elbow.
As Helena began with her habitual block of the nerves, she found
why his arm was paralysed. There was an old break of the humerus, and
back when it had broken, the radial nerve had been severed. The gap was
tiny; any healer could have fixed it.
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506 • SenLinYu
The injury was old now, and the nerve's connection to the muscle
had died off. Helena wasn't sure how much dexterity could be recovered,
but surely some was better than nothing. If the day had proven any-
thing, it was that the Resistance desperately needed flame alchemists.
She fixed the severed nerve along with the broken elbow.
She'd just finished when she heard shouting.
"They got her! Bayard. They're bringing her in!"
A combat group practically ran into the hospital with the stretcher.
There was a flash of bloodstained blond hair. Pace's voice rose above the
chaos.
Helena barely heard the voices. She moved towards Lila on instinct
as the medics transferred her from the stretcher to a hospital bed. One
of them was holding gauze firmly against the side of Lila's neck.
Other injuries.
Priority.
Marino, get her healed. Whatever it takes.
She wasn't sure who gave that final order. It didn't really matter. She
didn't need to be told.
Lila was covered in blood, and even before Helena touched her, she
could see the broken bones. There were huge punctures all over the right
side of her chest, right through her armour.
The moment Helena's resonance touched her, she could feel it.
Lila was going to die unless someone cheated death, and fast.
Her right lung had been repeatedly punctured by bites. There was
blood pooling in the chest cavity. There was kidney damage, and her
liver was punctured. Her ribs were shattered. She'd lost so much blood.
It was a miracle she was alive.
Helena didn't have time to be delicate with her resonance. It was a
cascade of internal failures that she was stanching, but it was all hap-
pening too fast and there were too many things that had to be done at
once. The medics were cutting off her wrecked armour as fast they could,
everyone trying to work around one another without getting in the way.
The recovery team had been badly injured.
"It was Blackthorne in command," someone said. "That fucking psy-
chopath."
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Alchemised • 507
Helena could hear the flurry behind her, but she couldn't worry
about anyone but Lila.
If Lila died, so would Luc. Maybe not immediately; if he never saw
combat again, physically he'd live, but every day, bit by bit, the guilt and
grief would kill him.
"Don't you dare die," she said, shoving her vitality down through her
resonance, in a wild attempt to keep Lila from slipping away, forcing the
feeble heartbeat to keep going. "Don't you dare! Elain. I need Elain!
And a medic! Where is everyone?"
Elain appeared, her hands bloody. "I'm already—"
"I don't care," Helena cut in. "Stand near her head. I need you to keep
her breathing, and don't let her heart stop! Do you understand? I need
both hands to heal, and I need to know she's breathing and her heart is
beating while I work."
She waited until she felt Elain's tentative resonance assume the
rhythm of Lila's heartbeat, the laborious in and out of her breath, as the
last of Lila's armour was finally out of Helena's way and she worked easily.
A medic appeared at her elbow. Helena acknowledged her with a
jerk of her head.
"I need four vials of that blood-supplementing tonic in the cabinet.
You have to administer them without letting her choke."
"We're not supposed to—"
"I need more blood! If I can't regenerate more, this healing will kill
her, and if I do it without the tonics, it's going to make something else
fail. I don't have enough hands. Do it now!"
It was intense, delicate work. Helena's vision was blurring, and her
resonance had singed the inside of her bones as she fought to get Lila
stabilised. Elain was saying something about a hand cramp. Helena told
her to shut up.
When Lila finally stopped feeling on the verge of death, Helena
wanted to cry with relief. It had been so close. She could never tell any-
one how close.
She leaned over Lila, her hands covered in blood, and touched her
cheek for a moment.
"You can stop," she finally remembered to say to Elain.
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508 • SenLinYu
The punctures covering Lila's chest were roughly transmuted skin.
They'd scar, because Lila's body would be focused on vital recovery, but
she would live. Elain disappeared so the nurses and orderlies could take
over.
Helena's fingers trembled uncontrollably as she squeezed Lila's hand.
"Idiot. You know you're not allowed to die."
Her knees gave out. She sank to the floor, her head resting against
the mattress of the hospital bed. Lila still had at least twenty broken
bones, fractures in both legs. Half her fingers were broken, but Helena's
heart was pounding too violently to think straight.
"Marino, can you— " Pace was calling to her from another bed.
She tried to lift her head but couldn't move. Her whole body was
leaden. Why was it so heavy?
"Pace, check Marino."
Was that Crowther's voice?
She tried to look up, but instead the world tipped sideways. She
could see feet moving under the rows and rows of hospital beds. Blood-
stains on the floor.
She was rising upwards.
"Come on, Marino, no napping here," Pace was saying as she pulled
her to her feet. Someone was on the side as well. Her head lolled, and
she saw Crowther watching her from one of the hospital beds.
They passed through a door into the records closet that Pace used as
an office.
"Just here, Sofia. Thank you, I can manage from here," Pace was say-
ing as Helena was lowered into a camp bed.
Helena knew, dimly, that she'd gone too far.
She was normally careful, but there hadn't been any choice this time.
She was so cold and tired. Blankets were pulled up and tucked
around her. She heard Pace's voice, calling her a fool girl with no sense.
Helena just wanted to sleep for a few years.
She felt a needle in her arm. It made her skin itch, and when she
tried to transmute it out, her hand was smacked away.
"Worst patient I've ever had."
Thick velvet darkness that swallowed the world.
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CHAPTER 43
Novembris 1786
The hospital had grown quiet when Helena woke. She felt
weak as a kitten. She lay unmoving until Pace entered.
"How's Lila?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"Recovering," Pace said in a tart voice, "Quite a miracle that she
survived. All thanks to the recovery team's quick thinking and daring
rescue." She cleared her throat. "They'll all be medalled for bravery, and
there were several Ember Services called, to devote prayers of thanks to
Sol for his— grace in saving her."
Helena stared up at the ceiling. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Three days." Pace went over to her desk, sorting loudly through a
drawer without removing anything. "I said you were quarantined. All
that foraging exposes you to the elements too much, I think."
Helena's eyes threatened to slide closed again. "Thank you."
"I do what I can. Crowther wants to see you when you're up again,"
Pace said. She started to leave, but then paused. "Lila Bayard is not the
only person that the Resistance would suffer greatly for losing. I've told
Ilva, Crowther, and Matias as much time and again, though I can't say
they listen, but maybe you will. There are rare talents that shouldn't be
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510 • SenLinYu
squandered even if they are overlooked."
When Helena went out, Luc was sitting beside Lila, who lay so still
she scarcely seemed to be breathing. Lila was taller than most people,
but she looked shrunken without her armour. She was swathed in neat
bandages that had been packed with salves to ease the pain and sensi-
tivity from the new tissue. Her breathing was slow and laboured, but
Helena had only to brush her fingers against Lila's hand to feel that her
vital signs were stable.
She stood beside the bed, fingers just barely touching Lila's.
Luc was staring at Lila's face. His eyes were huge, purple-blue circles
bruised under his eyes as he held his paladin's hand in both of his. Soren
was across the hospital, stationed near the doors.
Paladins were as intrinsic as the Holdfasts in the history and tapes-
try of the nation. The country was named for them, in acknowledge-
ment of their vital role in the first Necromancy War. As the centuries
passed, the role had gradually become mostly ceremonial.
Lila had been something altogether new, though, a once-in-a-
lifetime talent. Her parents had wanted her to have all the chance for
the greatness traditionally limited to sons. Lila was placed solely in the
combat track, training to join the crusades to experience real combat
when she was only fifteen, while Soren was double-track at the Insti-
tute, like Luc. Soren would have been considered an excellent combat
alchemist if his twin sister weren't his competition, but no one com-
pared to Lila.
There'd been a procession when Lila came back after a year crusad-
ing. Helena hadn't really known Lila then, aside from her being Soren's
sister.
She'd dismounted from a charger, pulled off her helmet, and stood
resplendent, like a goddess stepped out of myth. Her pale hair was
wrapped around her head like a crown, and she presented her weapons
to Luc, who had stood, looking as if he'd been struck by lightning until
Soren kicked him in the ankle.
Luc, who'd always been a bit of larker about combat training and
dismissive of the idea of a paladin, developed a passion for it overnight.
He'd started constantly disappearing from study sessions and social
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Alchemised • 511
events to practice with Lila.
His interest had been so painfully obvious that Helena and Soren
were embarrassed just witnessing it, but before anything could happen,
Principate Apollo was dead.
Lila had spent her whole life training to be paladin. Soren was not
remotely prepared, and Sebastian Bayard, able as he was, had just failed
in his own vows by having been absent when Apollo was murdered.
Lila took the vows. To protect Luc with her life, to die for him. Luc
had no choice but to accept them. Whatever had or hadn't briefly ex-
isted between them was buried beneath the weight of those vows.
"I'm sorry . . ." Luc said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I lost
my head when I saw it take her."
His expression was dazed, and his blue eyes didn't seem to see the
room around them. Helena knew the look. He was back in the moment,
reliving it over and over, dissecting it into every instant when he could
have done things differently.
"It was after me. The chimaera. I couldn't get my sword out in time.
Should have just used fire." He shook his head. "Don't know why I
didn't. It was so fast. Lila threw herself in front of me and I heard the
sound when it bit her—"
His voice died.
People were often like this in the hospital; their failures poured out
of them.
"There was blood coming out of her mouth, but she didn't scream—
she told Soren to hold me back. It ran with her and I—I should have
just used fire—" he choked out. "Soren wouldn't let go and I—"
"She's going to be all right, Luc," Helena said. "All her vital signs are
stable. No lasting injuries."
He nodded jerkily, his eyes still fastened on Lila's face.
"When I was a kid," he said, his words rough, "I used to think it
wasn't fair that all the real wars were over before I was born. Used to be
afraid I'd be one of the Principates everyone forgot, because nothing
happened." He looked down, he was ripping at his nails, all his fingers
bleeding. "I'd do anything to have that now. I can't taste anything now
except blood and smoke, and I don't feel anything except when I'm on
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512 • SenLinYu
fire. The stories made it sound so good. Fighting for a cause. Being a
hero." He shook his head. "Why does everyone pretend it's anything
like that?"
Helena reached out, fingers brushing against his shoulder, not sure
what to say, how to comfort him.
"Maybe that's what they had to tell themselves, to live with it. Maybe
it's all they let themselves remember," Helena said, but she, too, won-
dered that anyone who'd seen war's true face would let it be so gilded.
The debriefing that occurred once Lila woke and was declared
out of danger was tense. It was the first time Luc would leave the hos-
pital.
Matias, Ilva, Althorne, and Crowther all stared down at Luc from
the dais while he glared defiantly back at them. All his penitence seemed
to have vanished.
"Lucien," Ilva said after a long silence, "Lila Bayard is your paladin.
It is her sworn duty to protect you, be it at the cost of her own life. You
endangered your entire unit, injured a dozen of your own men and
Council member Jan Crowther, and violated your vows as well as the
orders of General Althorne. You have been summoned for censure."
Luc lifted his chin. "I'm sworn to protect this country and represent
the values of the Eternal Flame which my forefathers established. Nei-
ther of those vows will be fulfilled if I let people die for me when I can
save them."
"You are the heart of the Resistance. A symbol of hope and light and
goodness. You do not get to choose one person's life over that. You be-
trayed the people who follow you, and you betrayed your paladins, par-
ticularly Lila, who knew her oaths and was prepared to do as she had
sworn. Your selfishness nearly rendered her sacrifice worthless."
"I'm not a symbol," Luc snapped, "or a heart. I'm Principate. We lead
by our actions, not our commands."
The argument was all theatre. The Council had to censure him, and
Luc stood there like a figure of myth, inexorable and resolute.
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Ilva sat, gaze like a serpent as she stared down at her great-nephew.
"That is not your choice. If you cannot follow orders and protocol in the
presence of your friends"— she emphasised the word carefully, the in-
sinuation crystal-clear— "then you will be reassigned to a different unit
and provided with new soldiers to act as your paladins. Although, in
keeping with tradition, we will allow you to retain Soren Bayard."
Luc's mouth snapped shut like a sprung trap, his face losing a shade
of colour.
"The choice is yours," Ilva said, seeming satisfied by his silence.
"Choose carefully."
Luc stood a moment longer, radiating fury. Soren was just behind
him, standing to his right, still acting as primary while Lila recovered.
There was a new gauntness to his face.
"I will uphold my vows and those which I have accepted." Luc's
voice hollow and defeated.
"Good," Ilva said, but her voice was still cold, disapproving at how
long it had taken Luc to choose. "The recovery team managed to kill the
chimaera before it escaped the East Island. A wall was found breached.
There will be an investigation into how that happened. Given the be-
haviour of the creature, we must assume that they're capable of more
than we realised. Based on reports, it appears likely they wanted Luc
taken alive, and the animal was capable of targeted hunting. Althorne,
you have the floor."
Helena put off the meeting with Crowther for as long as she could,
but eventually she ran out of excuses. In retrospect, her decision to re-
store the nerves in his arm had been impulsive. It hadn't been an emer-
gency; she could have waited for him to regain consciousness and asked
if he wanted it done.
It had been a reactive choice. She'd seen the danger Luc represented
to everyone and acted based solely on that. Now she regretted it.
Crowther was more likely to use two hands for torture than to ever use
them to protect Luc from himself again.
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514 • SenLinYu
Crowther was putting away a chess set as Helena entered, using his
right hand to slowly grasp each piece and place it in a box.
"Marino."
Helena just stood there, not sure what to expect. Crowther paused in
his work, staring at his hand, opening and closing it slowly. It was barely
more than skin and bone.
"I understand that I have you to thank for this."
She wasn't sure if he meant it sarcastically or not.
"I should have asked," she said, "I just—after Luc, I was worried
about what would have happened if you hadn't been there."
She couldn't read his expression, but he nodded slowly.
"You have an interesting intuition. I may have underestimated it," he
finally said. "I can't say I've ever thought much of vivimancy. However—
you do the Eternal Flame credit."
Winter bore down on Paladia. Icy mountain wind whipped across
the river basin, leaving the buildings and windows brilliant with frost.
With nothing left to forage, Helena had long hours to work in the lab.
Shiseo had done what no one else could and identified the remain-
ing compounds of the alloy which had been injected into Vanya Get-
tlich all those months ago.
The final compound in question had evaded analysis.
Shiseo and Helena had worked manually using old chymistry tech-
niques to determine, as the other metallurgists had, that it was not a
natural compound but a synthetic fusion of lumithium and something
that Helena had never encountered.
When Shiseo checked his work several times, his hands trembled.
"I don't know how they have this," he finally said. "This should not
be here."
"What is it?"
He was silent for a long time.
"In the East, there is a rare element found deep in the mountains. It
is— rarer than gold. Only the Emperor himself is permitted to possess
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Alchemised • 515
it. We called it mo'lian'shi. It—creates inertia."
Helena had never heard of such a thing. There were elements and
substances which were inert in their natural, raw state, and there was
lumithium and its emanations which could reverse inertia to create
resonance. Iron was often inert, but once it was processed into steel,
even without emanations, it developed a low resonance.
The Irreversibility of Resonance had been established by Cetus about
the nature of alchemy. One of his few principles to stand the test of time
and scientific interrogation.
Nothing could be made inert.
"I've never heard of that," Helena said.
He shook his head, his eyebrows drawn together.
"You wouldn't have. It is a part of the Emperor's power. As lumith-
ium can create resonance, mo'lian'shi takes it back. What this is—" He
looked down and seemed deeply troubled. "This is mo'lian'shi fused
with lumithium. The simultaneous effect of both together creates a res-
onance haze."
He looked at his notes again. "It is unstable. The fusion is deteriorat-
ing, but they may perfect their methods in the future. This was probably
only a first attempt. But . . ." His voice trailed off. "I don't know how
they have this."
He fell silent and did not elaborate for a long time, but finally said,
"When the new Emperor came to power, there were questions, myster-
ies about how he found the wealth to pay his armies."
Since working with Shiseo, Helena had heard a few rumours about
what had brought him to Paladia. That he'd been a eunuch who'd served
the previous Emperor, or the illegitimate child of someone in the court.
Helena stared at Shiseo, wondering just who he was. Exceptionally
educated was one thing, but knowledgeable about a secret imperial
metal was another.
"Perhaps the Undying bought it from the black market," she said,
but she was already thinking about how Crowther and Ilva would inter-
pret this. If Morrough had an alliance with Hevgoss and secret trade
connections with the Eastern Empire, the threat that loomed over Pal-
adia had just grown by magnitudes.
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516 • SenLinYu
If the new Emperor had obtained his throne selling something of
imperial value, that was violation of his own trade laws.
Shiseo shook his head. "You don't understand how carefully
mo'lian'shi is protected. It is a rare and delicate thing. Once mined, it
must be carefully processed to bring out the effects. It is often immedi-
ately alloyed to prevent it from degrading. But this—" He touched the
vial lightly. "—this was made from pure mo'lian'shi. Only someone of
royal birth, with an Emperor's seal, could access it."
"And you know of it," she said slowly.
Shiseo met her eyes briefly before they slid away. "And I know of it."
Now Helena was silent.
"Did you suspect this?" she finally asked. "Is that why you asked for
a chance to analyse it?"
He looked absently around the lab. "When I heard of the struggle
the metallurgists had, I thought it was a new variety. But this, I am sure,
is the Emperor's. They would not have an identical refining technique."
Helena felt as though she stood upon a political landmine. In their
hands was proof of a deal not merely between Morrough and another
country, but of a treachery between a ruler and his own Empire. The
information was dangerous and raised more questions than it answered.
If the Emperor was in debt, how would Morrough have gotten the
money to involve himself ?
Shiseo was likely the only person who could have discovered it.
When the deal was made, it had most likely been done under the as-
sumption that no one could ever connect it to the East.
"Officially, we can call it a synthetic fused element, using lumithium
and an unknown compound," she said slowly, trying to gauge his reac-
tion. "In the future, if it seems necessary to reveal the Empire's potential
involvement, perhaps we can—discover it then."
Shiseo nodded slowly.
"We will have to tell Ilva and Crowther at least. They'll need to
know about this."
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Alchemised • 517
"Kaine," Helena said quietly. She was seated on the floor, trying to
relieve the raw sensation in her resonance. "Do you think the Eternal
Flame can win the war?"
He was leaning against the wall. "Does it matter what I think?"
"I live among idealists, but all I see are bodies. I'd like the opinion of
someone who doesn't believe that optimism somehow improves the
odds."
He glanced at her. "Does the Eternal Flame have a strategy to win?"
She looked down. As far as she knew, the plan was to reclaim lost
territory, drive the Undying back, and burn as many of the dead as pos-
sible. The same method that the Eternal Flame had followed in all the
Necromancy Wars in the past.
She gave an awkward half nod.
"The High Necromancer will do whatever it takes to win. The
method doesn't matter. He wants Paladia, ideally with the city intact,
but if he can't get it, he'll raze it instead. You're fighting someone whose
only objection to genocide is the waste of potential resources. Even a
genocide is acceptable if it leaves him with the materials for more
necrothralls. And you're trying to win by—what? Waiting for Sol's in-
tervention? Is there any plan that doesn't hinge on the inherent superi-
ority of goodness?"
Not that she was aware of.
"Why aid us, then?" she asked. "If you don't think we can win."
His expression grew mocking. "Don't you think you're worth it?"
"Oh yes, your rose in a graveyard," she said, lip curling. "Was the
array for me, too?"
"Who else?" he asked, his voice empty, just a touch of irony in it.
"Aurelia, perhaps."
He smiled. "Right. Quite forgot about her."
"Why are you helping us, Kaine?"
He looked over at her. His features had grown markedly different in
recent months. He'd lost all trace of juvenile ungainliness; there was a
hardness to his features now that felt more accurate to who he was. His
hair more silver every time she saw him. There was no hazel left in his
eyes.
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518 • SenLinYu
He looked a world apart from the dark-haired, insolent boy he'd
been when she'd first come to the Outpost. There was an unearthliness
to him now.
Touch him and she'd bleed, and yet she could not escape the allure
of it.
Their eyes met, and a wave of bitterness swept across his face.
"It doesn't matter," he said, looking away.
She opened her mouth to argue, but anything she said would be a lie.
Whatever his motive was, he didn't trust the Eternal Flame not to use
it against him. They both knew Crowther would.
"I suppose not," she said, pulling on the thick green pullover to keep
out the cold. When she reached the door, she looked back.
Kaine's gazed flicked away as she turned, as if he hadn't been watch-
ing her go.
There was something haunted about him.
"Don't die, Kaine," she said. The line he walked frightened her. If the
array was the punishment for a failure, what would the price of betrayal
be?
A smirk twisted his mouth as he looked at her. "There are far worse
fates than dying, Marino."
She nodded. "I know. But that one, you don't come back from."
He gave a bitter laugh. "All right then, but only because you asked."
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CHAPTER 44
Decembris 1786
The war froze along with Paladia. The tension between the
two sides endlessly strung out. A fragile balance that might be lost at
any moment. Every battle was sudden, without warning and with ter-
rible casualties.
The tension between Helena and Kaine felt similar.
There was a new sharpness to him that had not been there before, as
though he were being ground down like the edge of a blade on a whet-
stone.
He'd show up sometimes badly injured, healing very slowly, and snap
savagely at her when she offered to help him.
Normally he'd recover by the time she left, but she wasn't sure how
he was being hurt at all. As if this was the consequence of her request
that he not die, she was instead forced to witness the misery of his in-
ability to. She worried there was a defect in the array.
One minute he was lounging in a chair, watching her train; the next
his eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled onto the floor.
There was a bloodstain under him when she got him on his back. His
clothes were soaked with it.
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520 • SenLinYu
Beneath his uniform, he was heavily bandaged, but his blood wasn't
clotting, and the wound wasn't healing. When Helena tried to find it,
her resonance seemed to fail.
She peeled the bandages off in terror and found a stab wound.
The injury had missed his organs, but whatever had been used had
broken off, and there were pieces of it left inside him.
It wasn't a lot of metal, but he wasn't healing.
Maier usually handled shrapnel injuries; their treatment wasn't
suited for vivimancy.
Helena's resonance faded, distorting when she tried to appraise the
injury and gauge how much metal was inside the wound.
She didn't have tools for surgery. She washed her hands and stuck a
finger into the wound, catching a piece and pulling it out.
Holding it, she could feel it as a physical, tangible object, but when
she channelled her resonance towards it, it felt drawn in towards the
metal but then—static. Her sense of resonance told her there wasn't
anything there. It began crumbling in her fingers, as though rusting,
little bits and grit, corroding in Kaine's blood.
This was the alloy. The lumithium and mo'lian'shi. Kaine had stabbed
with it, and it had been left it inside his body.
"You idiot," she said to Kaine, even though she knew he was insen-
sate.
She put the shard on a piece of gauze, wiping her fingers. If it dis-
tributed through his blood, she wasn't sure what would happen.
His body was stubborn when it came to its immutability, but based
on the way the alloying was interfering with regeneration, the Undy-
ing's progress in blocking resonance seemed much closer to success
than the Eternal Flame had expected.
She ran her hands across Kaine's skin, trying to get as clear a sense
as she could of the internal wound, her resonance flickering in and out
as if it was riddled with holes.
She retrieved her satchel; she'd put together a full kit of medicines
and materials for healing him on the off chance he ever allowed it. She
spread a salve around the wound to slow the blood loss as she tried to
figure out what to do. If she had the stimulant injection she'd been
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Alchemised • 521
working on, it might help, but she was still working out the right bal-
ance of epinephrine.
If she couldn't use resonance to remove the shards, she'd have to do
it with old- fashioned surgery.
Alchemical surgery was much less invasive. Most of the hospitals in
the North exclusively employed alchemists, while manual surgery was
viewed as archaic and brutal with its large incisions and scars.
She took her alchemy knife and muttered an apology to it as she
broke the components apart. A transmutational weapon was compli-
cated to reassemble. It would be near impossible once she was done
with it.
She tried not to think about the potential consequences of destroy-
ing an issued weapon as she manipulated the metal into a long set of
basic manual clamps, using part of the blade to make herself a scalpel.
She hoped the clamps would be enough.
She washed, heated, and cooled the metal, trying to get the pieces
sterile.
She used to watch her father perform surgery growing up. After her
mother died, she'd preferred it to being alone.
She used her resonance in reverse, identifying the location of the
shrapnel bits by the negative space they created. The pieces were deli-
cate, and they crumbled easily. She had to work slowly. She pulled them
out, depositing each one on a cloth.
Once she'd removed most of them, Kaine's body seemed to remem-
ber how to heal itself, and the wound began to close while there were
still pieces inside. She had to use the scalpel, making the incision over
and over until she had all the pieces out and had irrigated the wound as
best she could. She checked using her resonance several times to ensure
that there was nothing left. There was still a slight hum of interference
but nothing large; hopefully, his body could handle it.
She washed her hands and stashed half of the shrapnel pieces in a
bottle which she hid in the depths of her satchel and then placed the
rest in another more obvious bottle, in case Kaine demanded she give
them back.
The wound left a scar that didn't fully fade away. Looking him over,
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522 • SenLinYu
it wasn't the only one.
She placed her hand in the centre of his chest, letting her resonance
seep through. He was still weak with blood loss; the residual metal was
impacting his blood regeneration. She propped his head on her lap and
very cautiously poured an elixir down his throat, using her resonance to
ensure it ended up in his stomach and not his lungs. Even unconscious,
his expression was tense, as if braced for a blow.
She brushed his hair back from his forehead, trying to smooth the
tense furrow between his eyebrows, and just sat with him for a while.
When he felt closer to normal, she leaned forward, her fingers touching
the back of his head to help him wake.
His eyes shot open.
Faster than she could move, his hand was around her throat, jerking
her down as he jolted upright, his expression panicked fury.
He recognised her, catching her an instant before the back of her
head slammed into the ground. Her neck snapped back, and her vision
went white, pain shooting through her skull.
"What?" He still sounded dazed.
She felt his hands along her neck, resonance along her spine, as her
vision swam back into focus. He was kneeling over her, the back of her
neck cradled in his hands. Her heart was in her throat, pounding with
such shock she could barely breathe.
Kaine was also breathing hard. "What the fuck, Marino?"
"You— passed out," she managed to say.
He looked at himself, only then realising he wasn't wearing a shirt
and that the wound was gone. She thought he'd relax once he under-
stood, but he looked angrier.
"I nearly killed you."
"You were hurt," she said, releasing a shaky breath. "Badly. Even by
your standards." She sat up and winced, touching the side of her neck
gingerly. "As previously established, it's my job to keep the Eternal
Flame's assets alive. You're one of them."
"I wasn't going to die," he said scathingly, but he leaned towards her.
She almost drew back, but he reached out tentatively and she made
herself hold still.
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Alchemised • 523
He pulled her hand away from her neck, his eyes fastened on her
throat, his fingers moving slowly down the length of it. She felt his
resonance under her skin, warm along her spine. Another crack in his
façade of indifference.
"Were you not supposed to be healed?" she asked, suppressing a
shiver as his finger brushed along her neck. "I can—cut you open and
put it all back in if you want."
His fingers stilled, and he glared at her. "I'm not your patient."
He might have been intimidating if he weren't sitting on the floor,
both hands cradling her neck, tilting her head slowly from side to side.
He'd clearly come around to taking spinal injuries very seriously.
Her heart was beating even harder now, remembering his fingers in
her hair, pulling her towards him. When she was alone, she often went
back to that memory, wondering what could have happened.
She drew a shivering breath and reached up, her fingers wrapping
around his wrist. "I can't let you die."
He stilled. She felt her pulse against his fingers. She watched his eyes
darken, the slow shift of black expanding as the heat of his hands bled
into her skin.
He shook his head. "They don't let me die."
She squeezed his wrist tighter. "Are they—is Bennet still experi-
menting on you? I thought if you survived the array, then he couldn't—"
He pulled his hand free. "I have this habit of surviving against all
odds. Deserves to be studied, apparently."
Without thinking, she reached out, touching his cheek. "I'm so sorry,
Kaine."
He looked startled, and it made his expression turn so young and
scared, as if a part of him was still that sixteen-year- old. Then he went
rigid, wrenching himself away from her touch, and when he looked at
her again, he'd turned vicious. He shook his as if in disbelief.
"You are unbelievable," he said. "Truly."
She didn't know what he meant.
He shook his head. "When you first showed up here, I didn't think
you'd have it in you, but you are truly something else."
Her gut twisted into a hard knot. "What do you mean?"
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524 • SenLinYu
"You will do anything for that family, won't you? But someday, Hold-
fast will realise you don't belong in his kingdom of gold and purity. I
wonder what he'll do with you then."
She knew he was trying to hurt her, but it was something she had
thought about so much, the sting of it had worn away.
"He won't have to do anything; you took care of that for him." She
gave a tight- lipped smile. "But even if you hadn't, I knew I'd be expend-
able from the moment I became a healer."
She thought that would silence him, but he laughed.
"You think it started then? You've always been expendable. Do you
really think this war is about necromancy? That any of the wars have
ever actually been about necromancy?"
She shook her head warily. "No. It's always about power. And what
people will do without caring about the cost."
He tilted his head, studying her. "Have you never wondered why it
was so easy for the High Necromancer to recruit the guild families?
After all, plenty of them were devout, or owed their fortunes to the In-
stitute."
She shrugged. "Because you're jealous and petty and wanted more
than the plenty you already had."
He raised an eyebrow as he pulled his blood-drenched clothes back
on. "Well, I suppose that was a part of it, but no, what Morrough did
was widen a crack that the Holdfasts have been growing for centuries.
Since the moment they founded this city, they set themselves up as
kings while claiming not to be. They weren't the lowly sort who'd 'pur-
sue' power; no, they were divinely destined for it. Called, you might say."
"That's because they didn't want to rule," she said fiercely. "Luc cer-
tainly never did, and Apollo always cared most for the Institute. He
hated politics."
Kaine's mouth twisted. "Yes. Funny how often people in power hate
politics, as if what they really want is to do as they please and be praised
for it, and if they aren't, then it's all beneath them. Considering how
much they despised it, they certainly were unwilling to part with it.
Only handed the minutiae of governance over to those of faith, let the
Falcons and Kestrels and Shrikes manage all that tedium. While the
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Alchemised • 525
Institute was founded on the ideals of pursuing the heights of alchemy,
but even that began to crumble the moment the science began contra-
dicting the Faith. You should have seen the crisis when new metals were
first discovered. The Faith spent years insisting there could be only
eight, calling them compounds or alloys, and refusing to formally ac-
knowledge those guilds because religiously, celestially, the number was
limited to eight. So much for all those ideals of uniting the world
through the study of alchemy."
He eyed Helena. "Of course, they couldn't go back on all those
promises completely, Orion's legacy had to endure, so they'd import
someone from time to time. Some prodigy from a distant land that they
could show off as proof of their magnanimity, to serve their ends while
beholden to the Principate."
Fury rose in Helena like a volcano. "That's not what they did!"
He flicked his eyes over her derisively. "You were a desperate schol-
arship student who nearly cried every year when your exam scores were
listed because it bought you one more year of education, and your father
lived near the water slums because he couldn't get a job."
"Yes, but if they'd been any more generous, you guilds would have
thrown fits about it."
"Why would that have mattered? We already hated you. It would
have cost the Holdfasts a pittance to find your father some menial job,
but if you'd ever been able to stop struggling, you might have realised
what a web they had you trapped in. I hear Ilva Holdfast was particu-
larly talented at that kind of thing. Always knew just how much pres-
sure a person could take."
A sick feeling swept through her, but she shook her head.
"So all you guild students were just—what? Playing along?" she said
scathingly.
He laughed. "No. We did hate you. Consider it from our perspective:
You were the line the Holdfasts drew between the Eternal Flame and
all the rest of us. Some little nobody plucked from obscurity and given
the attention and praise that none of the guilds could ever earn. We
built ourselves from the dirt and emptied our pocketbooks annually
buying certification and lumithium from a family that could make
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526 • SenLinYu
wealth from nothing, and we were expected to be grateful to do so.
When we looked up at what we wanted, you were the first thing in the
way."
A chill ran down her spine.
Kaine looked across the room. "When Morrough came here, he
didn't even have to offer immortality or riches. He just offered to re-
move those who would never let us rise further. With the Holdfasts
gone, the Faith's grip on Paladia was supposed to crumble. An easy
takeover. The city should have barely been affected. Even the Institute
was intended to be left intact."
"But then your father was arrested."
He nodded, his eyes flat. "But then my father was arrested, and it was
all a lie anyway, but by the time those who'd object realised that, it was
too late for them."
"There were Undying who objected?" Her pulse sped up, thinking
about potential sympathisers. This was critical information. This could
change everything.
He nodded idly.
"Who?" She leaned in. "Who objected?"
"You really want to know?"
She nodded, fervently.
He reached out, fingers wrapping around her throat, and pulled her
close. "Basilius Blackthorne. Recognise that name?"
Her blood ran cold. Yes, she knew it.
"Blackthorne was— ?"
"Quite the monster now, isn't he? I told you about the phylacteries,
remember?" His fingers around her throat tightened. She gave a small
nod, heart rising.
"After I killed Principate Apollo, Basilius said he'd never agreed to
such methods and bloodshed. Morrough—he still went by Morrough
back then— pretended to give this some consideration. He called a
meeting of us all. We hadn't known our numbers until that night. Mor-
rough said he wanted us all there, to see him change Basilius's mind. He
brought out Basilius's phylactery in a box and reminded us that we had
all entrusted ourselves to him, and then he began carving into it using a
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Alchemised • 527
talon ring. Basilius began to scream and tear at his own body, until there
were pieces of him all over the floor, but it never stopped, he just kept
regenerating. Over and over until the floor was covered. When Mor-
rough finally was done, I'm told Basilius went home and ate his wife
alive in their marriage bed. I believe he had children, too. All gone."
Kaine described it without emotion, his fingers still wrapped around
her throat.
"We are all expendable to Morrough. So you see, I am intimately
acquainted with the illusion of choice." He smiled, slow and cruel.
"That's why I recognise it."
She shook her head, and he gripped her tighter, until she could feel
her pulse against his palm. Her heart was pounding in her chest. He
leaned in, looming over her, and she could tell he wanted her to be
afraid of him. But she wasn't. Not anymore.
"Luc isn't like that," she said. "The reason I remain loyal to him is
because I know he'd do the same for me."
His eyes turned black. "Really?"
His thumb had found the curve of her jaw. There was faint colour in
the pale hollows of his cheeks. His eyes darted down to her lips, and she
felt the draw between them. A feeling like a string instrument, stretched
taut and ready to vibrate.
He drew her closer until their faces were nearly touching, and every-
thing around them seemed to fade away. She watched his lips part,
hesitating, so close she could taste his breath. He inhaled.
"And what would your dear Luc say if he learned how you let his
father's killer buy you like a whore?" As he spoke, his free hand found
her waist and he pulled her close, hand sliding up her body, groping her
as if he were about to push her down and ravish her there on the bare
floor.
But his eyes were cold.
There was no desire. It was a pantomime of their kiss, now per-
formed with rough indifference, as he reminded her of who it was she'd
willingly given herself to.
She jerked away, skittering across the floor until she was out of reach.
He just laughed.
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528 • SenLinYu
Her cheekbones ached, body going hot and cold as she curled in-
ward, trying to compose herself. As if there was any point. What a gro-
tesque and pathetic creature she was.
Property. No, not even that.
She was a trinket. Something he'd thrown into his demands. So in-
significant that Ilva and Crowther had looked at her and seen no reason
to refuse.
He could talk all he wanted about how her education was to leverage
her, how the Holdfasts were to blame. But he was the one who'd turned
her into a whore.
Sometimes she wished she'd died in the hospital with her father, to
be remembered and mourned for her possibilities, rather than live day
by day growing ever lesser. Now it didn't matter if she'd been an alche-
mist, or a healer, or anything else. To anyone who ever learned of it, she
would only be that one thing. Women were always defined by the lowli-
est thing they could be called.
But worse still was knowing all that and still craving those rare mo-
ments in which he was gentle. Because that was all she had left.
"I have to go," she finally forced out. "Do you have—do you have any
information this week?"
It was almost ironic to ask that question right then.
He reached into his discarded coat, pulling out an envelope, its edges
bloodstained.
He tossed it, letting it land on the floor between them.
Helena was outwardly calm when she returned to Headquarters,
but her hands were shaking as she presented the shards to Crowther
and received instructions to have Shiseo analyse them. She took them
to the lab and went down to the hospital for her shift.
She wished it weren't such a quiet day. She couldn't stop thinking.
She returned to the empty lab after curfew and sat, left alone with
herself.
It was nearly the winter solstice. The North had many feasting tradi-
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Alchemised • 529
tions from back when they'd slaughter the animals they couldn't feed
through the winter before the new year set in, sharing supplies so that
everyone would survive until spring.
In modern times, supplies had been replaced with gifts; books, crafts,
puzzles, things to while away the dark hours of the long Northern win-
ters.
Helena had never been very good at gifts.
Her singular success had been a map she'd given Luc, upon which
she'd marked a route to all the places they'd travel someday.
She hadn't given anything last year, but this year she'd thought of
making medicine kits, with some basics that were good to have on hand
in case the field medics weren't nearby. But Ilva had made no mention
this year of her seeing Luc or anyone else for solstice, so she'd discarded
the idea.
After a few minutes, she went over and opened a cabinet, pulling out
vials from various shelves, laying them out on a strip of waxed canvas,
making marks on the fabric as she arranged everything to fit, blinking
hard every few minutes.
She had a job. She had to do it.
The icy, misting rain made it hard to see when Helena crossed the
bridge the next week. She gripped her foraging knife close as she walked
through the Outpost. It couldn't be transmuted without losing its edge,
but it was still serviceable.
It was going to be a while before she had an alchemy knife again.
A person couldn't lose an alchemical weapon and expect to get a new
one without an explanation. If Helena said she lost it, she'd be subject
to discipline and, as a noncombatant, be placed at the bottom of the
wait list. If she attributed the loss to an attack, she would have to specify
which attack.
Until Ilva or Crowther could find an unaccounted-for alchemy knife,
Helena had to make do.
The tenement was so cold that day, her breath condensed into a
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530 • SenLinYu
wisping cloud in the room. Kaine entered a minute later, shoving a hood
back from his face. She looked away but couldn't help but notice his
black uniform was drenched.
"Where is your knife?"
Her heart sank. She'd hoped he wouldn't notice immediately.
"Oh." Her voice lifted in an awkward attempt at casualness. "Well—"
She swallowed. "I lost it."
"You— lost it?" He said it slowly, and she could hear the implied use
of the word idiot punctuating each word. "When?"
She was still staring at the floor, watching his feet. He moved lightly,
almost like a cat, making very little noise.
"Last week."
His feet stilled. "You were attacked?"
He came towards her very quickly, and his eyes had that intense
gleam to them, looking her up and down.
She shook her head. "No, I, um—broke it. I needed tools for surgery
when you wouldn't wake up. So I made them."
She risked glancing up then to gauge his expression, and rather en-
joyed the stupefied look on his face.
"I'll get a new one," she added hurriedly. "There's just some—
logistical delays. Anyway, I brought you a present," she said, forcing her
voice to be bright.
She rummaged through her satchel and pulled out the wax-cloth
case, hurriedly holding it out.
"It's—it's an, um—it's an emergency healing kit," she said, trying to
explain herself quickly before he could refuse it. "I made it with things
that will work with your regeneration."
This seemed to catch him fully off guard. He stopped short and took
it, then—realising that she was waiting expectantly—he sighed and
flipped it open. "You realise I can buy medicine, and I don't particularly
need it."
"Not these. I developed them. They're designed to work with vivi-
mancy—or regeneration in your case."
She took a hesitant step closer and ran her finger along, pointing at
the various vials.
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Alchemised • 531
"They're all labelled, and I added notes about exactly how to use
them on the waxed paper here. These are made to support transmuta-
tional healing. Traditional medicine can interfere, so I've been develop-
ing things that complement a regenerative healing process."
She pointed to the nearest vial. "This is yarrow powder infused with
copper, to slow bleeding. You pack it around the wound before bandag-
ing. I know you're used to just letting yourself regenerate, but slowing
blood loss is still a good idea. This"—she tapped a blue-green bottle—
"will support blood regeneration; it has a high concentration of the
components your body needs, so when your blood is regenerating, you're
not giving yourself a deficit of crucial minerals and other things your
body requires to function. This is the salve I developed for your back, for
topical pain. If you have a wound that doesn't heal, you can at least
numb the area until—"
"Until what?" He looked sharply at her then.
She knew he expected her to say something like, Until you can come
to me, and I'll tenderly nurse you to health.
"That's the other part of your present," she said, meeting his eyes. "I
thought I could show you some healing techniques, so you can do them
yourself. I know most of the time you don't need it, but if you're strategic
and direct the way your body regenerates, you'll recover faster."
She reached towards him slowly. "May I?"
He gave the barest nod.
She took his hand and set it on her own arm, then rested her fingers
over his. She ran her resonance through his fingers, into her own body,
the sensation creating an almost ghostly feeling under her skin.
"Of course, my body isn't the same as yours, but—most of the anat-
omy is, and you do regenerate according to the same basic rules." She
spoke in the efficient way that she'd taught the trainees. She was grate-
ful now for the practice. "You've mentioned that regeneration starts
with the most vital parts of the body: brain, organs, limbs. When you
lost your arm, the reason it didn't regenerate was because you'd been
bleeding too long, and you'd already had to heal from extensive burns.
Just because you have the vitality to regenerate doesn't mean that you
necessarily have the physical resources for it. Those have to come from
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532 • SenLinYu
somewhere. If you're badly injured, you might not have a resonance
stable enough to heal yourself, but you can guide it, and the kit can
provide support."
She ploughed through as much information as she could. Showing
him all the different systems in the body, how they interacted, how a
disruption in one place could have effects elsewhere.
She kept rattling off tips for as long as she could, working through
all the major systems as quickly as possible.
"Eyes are awful. I mean, hopefully if you ever lost one, it would just
grow back, but if not . . ." She exhaled. "The tissue doesn't matrice the
same way. It's very tedious work, and nerve racking. You should—
probably come to me for that. Well, I mean—"
She stammered.
"The High Necromancer doesn't have eyes," he said.
She stopped short and looked up. "What?"
She'd never seen Morrough, but she'd heard that during his rare ap-
pearances, he wore a golden mask—a large crescent that obscured most
of his face and fanned out like horns on each side of his head. An eclips-
ing sun.
"It's rather gory to look at, but he doesn't seem to mind." He pulled
his hand free, clearly done with the lecturing. "It's like someone burned
them out. He uses his resonance to see."
"I didn't know that was possible." She rubbed her hands on her skirt,
"Well, that's the basics. If there's anything you'd want added to the kit,
or ideas you have, I can try to make them."
"The basics?" He pulled a watch out of his pocket. "You've been talk-
ing for over an hour."
She fumbled for her own watch, certain he was mistaken. No, he
wasn't. She was going to be late for her shift if she didn't leave.
"I mean . . . it was still only the basics," she said defensively, but she
added, "I should go. Happy solstice. I hope your days grow brighter."
He did not return the season's greeting but then spoke as she reached
the door.
"Marino."
She tensed, looking back. He was still standing where she'd left him,
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Alchemised • 533
irritation evident in the sweep of his eyes. He looked her up and down
as debating something.
"I have—something for you," he finally said, as if having a tooth
extracted. He pulled out something rolled up in an oilcloth and held it
towards her.
Inside lay a set of beautiful daggers, sheathed in mesh holsters. Hel-
ena felt her resonance respond before she even touched them.
"The longer one goes on your back, the smaller one on your forearm,"
Kaine said when she was silent. "They're sized for you. Titanium and
nickel is a mnemonic alloy, which will allow you to transmute them
further than most weapons; they'll still return to form. It has three
memory shapes depending on the resonance phase you use, and you can
alter them if you wish. That's why the sheaths are malleable."
She picked up the larger dagger.
After the months of training with a steel weapon, the dagger barely
weighed anything. She slipped it from the sheath, and it sang in her
fingers. She barely had to focus her resonance before it morphed, main-
taining its razor edge but changing shape and length entirely, unfurling
like a ribbon into a long, flexible whiplike blade. She altered the timbre
of her resonance just slightly, and without her even needing to guide the
metal, the blade morphed back into a perfect dagger.
She let out an unsteady breath, hardly able to believe that anything
could be so easy to transmute. It was as effortless as moving her own
fingers, and it weighed nothing.
She couldn't stop turning them over, taking in every detail, the
weight and texture, the incredible sharpness of the blades. There were
elegant curving details like vines on the hilts that made the grip more
secure.
She didn't know sure what to say. Thank you felt entirely insufficient.
Kaine was watching her, his eyes intent, but the expression vanished
the instant she looked up. His eyebrows drew down. "You are not ever
allowed to take these apart or turn them into medical instruments. Not
for anyone."
She flushed. "I thought you said the shapes were programmable."
"Not enough to be entirely deconstructed. Are we clear, Marino?"
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534 • SenLinYu
His voice was icy.
"All right. I promise," she said, rolling her eyes. Trust Kaine to ruin
any moment.
After a pause she looked at him again. "Thank you. I don't even know
what to say. They're beautiful."
He avoided meeting her eyes. "It's nothing." He cleared his throat.
"I'm glad you like them though, because I expect you to wear both every
time you set foot outside of Headquarters. Actually—you should always
be wearing them. They shouldn't come off unless you're asleep. These do
not belong in the bottom of your satchel. When you arrive here, I will
expect to see them already on you, every time. Are we clear?"
"Yes, I'll wear them," she said as if it were a concession. She didn't
ever want to put them down.
"Good." He shifted. "Well, this has been delightful. I can't even re-
member how many times I've wished someone would lecture me on the
systems of the human body."
She looked up, and he smiled insincerely at her.
He started turning to leave and then paused. "Now that you have a
decent weapon, I think we'll move on to training that's a bit more in-
tense. Be ready for that next week." He held out an envelope. "My latest
instalment."
As she reached to take it, he held on until she met his eyes.
"I must say, Marino, you've ended up being quite expensive."
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CHAPTER 45
Decembris 1786
Crowther was still absent from Headquarters, so Helena
had no choice but to take her report to Ilva.
As she ascended the floors to Ilva's office in the main building, she
kept thinking about all the things Ilva knew about her. She'd been on
the board that had approved Helena's scholarship each year, and likely
the admissions board, too.
The particular interest Ilva had personally taken in her since her fa-
ther's death felt much less warming now.
Ilva was staring down at a report, a pen dangling from one hand as
she read, and didn't look up when the guard let Helena in.
"Marino," she said, her voice cool. "Sit. I'll be with you in a moment."
Helena waited, fingers flexing.
"How is your work with Shiseo progressing on the nullium?" Ilva
asked, flipping the file closed and looking up.
The Council had named the lumithium-mo'lian'shi alloy nullium for
the sake of convenience. While the knowledge of the alloy was not