CHAPTER 13
IT WAS THE MISPLACED GLEAM OF SILVER that caught Helena’s attention as she was passing along the outer edge of the main foyer. On the far side of the room, she spotted a door left ajar—a door which she knew was always kept locked.
She pretended not to notice, making her way there slowly. All too aware of the eyes everywhere.
The dining room was well lit and in the process of being arranged for a dinner party. Dishes and chests of cutlery had all been laid out for selection.
Helena only gave herself a moment to draw a steadying breath before slipping through the door.
She knew better than to lock it, knowing that would draw in every necrothrall like a lure.
Instead, she walked calmly, exploring as she always did, heading towards the large display cabinet filled with intricate silver candlesticks and epergnes, not letting herself look too closely at the silverware chests on display.
When she was hidden behind a large floral arrangement, her right hand shot out, snatching up a beautifully sharp-edged table knife with one smooth motion. Her hand dropped again, hiding the knife amid her skirts as she kept walking.
Her heart began pounding violently in her chest.
All these months, and she’d finally managed to get her hands on a weapon.
One of the maids was close behind her. Helena knew better than to attack a necrothrall unless she was sure she could sever the head completely. Better to
smuggle the knife back to her room.
Then what? Her temples pulsed.
Should she kill herself? A month before, the answer would have been obvious, but the possibility of rescue tugged at her. Luc’s insistent voice haunting her, begging her to live.
Perhaps she only needed to wait a little longer.
No. No more waiting.
She squeezed the knife, feeling the weight of it tucked in her palm until her wrist nearly spasmed.
If she went into her bathroom and lodged herself between the door and sink, she would have enough time to slash her wrists and throat before anyone reached her.
She’d just need a minute, enough time to lose as much blood as possible before there was any intervention, which wouldn’t be too hard because Paladia, for all its scientific medical advancement, was superstitiously terrified of blood transfusion or anything else involving the bodies or fluids of others. They thought it would contaminate their resonance.
A vivimancer could force blood regeneration, but with enough blood loss, the energy and materials for new blood would take their own lethal toll.too aware of Stroud might be knowledgeable enough to avoid it, but someone like Ferron wouldn’t be.
If she severed her carotid arteries, even if he did manage to keep her alive, her brain wouldn’t be usable.
The room threatened to sway, but she steeled herself. She kept moving idly, pausing to pretend she was studying the silver dishes displayed. They were beautiful, intricate pieces made with elegant, organic lines, a stark contrast with the heavy ironwork.
The butler entered the room, gesturing towards the door.nd epergnes, Helena turned and headed out, careful to keep the knife from sight, moving only a little quicker than usual as the front door opened and Ferron walked in, followed by Atreus, whose mood had turned Crowther’s thin face sour.
Ferron paused, his eerie eyes instantly alighting on Helena, his gaze flicking to the open dining room doors.
“I didn’t realise you let your prisoner have free rein in the house,” Atreus said, looking at her with distaste.on a weapon.
Ferron raised a silencing hand, his focus on Helena, a predatory intensityan to attack a illuminating his eyes.ely. Better to Her instincts screamed for her to flee, but she didn’t want to find out how fast he could set the house on her; the cage of iron bars in that foyer could
easily chase her down.
Best to avoid suspicion.
She forced herself to stop and face them, burying her hand in her skirts.
Ferron drifted towards her. His gaze seemed to be cataloguing her, as if alm until herthere was a checklist he was reviewing. He idly pulled his gloves off, pocketing them.
She took an involuntary step back, the pattern of the knife hilt biting into her palm.
“I don’t often see you in this part of the house.” His voice was casual.
“Was that your first time in the dining room?”
Her mouth went dry. “I was—looking at the flowers.”
He glanced towards the dining room again, eyes narrowing. “Were you, now?”
She used his distraction to adjust her grip on the knife. “Yes. I like— flowers.”
Heat rushed along her neck, a cold pit forming in her stomach.
“Let’s see it, then.” His eyes were on her hand where it was hidden amid her skirts.
Helena’s heart dropped like a stone as she tried not to react, to appear innocent.
“What did you take?” He held out his hand.
She could try lying. He wouldn’t believe her. She could try running. He’d
catch her.
She could try killing him.
Yes. She’d do that. ight, movingShe let her eyes widen, jaw slackening with surprise. His mouth curved
on walked in,into a faint smirk.
She lunged.
She had minimal training in combat alchemy, but her body moved on instinct. The blade sliced through the air as she flung herself at him.
Ferron dodged, as she’d known he would. A perfect basic defence dodge.
She let go of the knife, sending it spinning through the air.
Resonance would have made it easier, but she could do without.
She caught the hilt in her left hand, ignoring the pain that shot up her arm.
With resonance she would have transmuted the length, but it took a split second longer to slam the blade into his chest, straight for his heart.
Pain exploded through her wrist. She’d thrown all her weight into the blow, but she could have been stabbing granite; the blade barely pierced him.
Ferron gave a low gasp as if she’d knocked his breath out, catching her by the shoulders as he doubled over. She used both hands and pushed harder as
something inside her left wrist tore, trying to force the blade through his heart.
Ferron laughed, his lips close enough to her neck that his breath ran down her spine.
“And here I thought you’d use poison,” he said, his voice mocking.
Rage ignited inside her. She flung herself backwards, taking the knife with her.
Atreus was crossing the room, hands outstretched, face contorted with
fury.
She had no chance against two.
Her left wrist was on fire. She could barely manage to grip the handle, but she wouldn’t let go.
She angled the blade back and drove it towards her own throat, meeting
Ferron’s eyes with savage triumph.
Ferron moved so fast he blurred.
The world morphed, going silver as resonance exploded outwards and the knife was ripped away from her throat, pain tearing up her arm all the way
into her shoulder.
Her mind struggled to catch up.
Ferron had caught the blade in his fist, wrenching it up overhead. His other hand was wrapped around her throat, holding her back.
She couldn’t move. His resonance had her frozen, every bone, muscle, and tendon under his control. She couldn’t even breathe. Her heart was constricted. Atreus, a few feet away, was trapped in place as well.
This was how Ferron killed.
His hand around the knife blade was seeping blood, running over her fingers and down her arm. His eyes were a reflective silver so bright, they appeared to glow.
“Why don’t you ever stop?” He let go of her, shoving her back.
Her hand, numb with pain, lost its grip.
“Why don’t you die?” There was no point in being coy. She wanted to kill him; they both knew it.
Blood was still flowing down the hilt of the knife, dripping scarlet across the white marble floor, spattering across the ouroboros mosaic. pierced him.His lips curved into an insincere smile. “Prior commitments, I’m afraid.”
He glanced back at his father, coming towards them again. Ferron’s expression turned vicious. “Did I ask for your help?”
He turned back to Helena, examining the knife in his hand. It had sliced into his palm so deep, it was lodged in the bones. He didn’t even wince as he pulled it free, holding it up so the blade caught the light, scarlet blood gleaming along the edge.
“How good of Aurelia to have these freshly sharpened and left within your he knife withreach.”
With a careless flick of his wrist, he tossed it back towards the dining room. With the lazy way he threw it, it shouldn’t have made it across the room, but his resonance still sang in the air.
The knife gained velocity as it flew straight through the barely open doorway and into the large vase in the centre of the table. It shattered on impact, glass flying in all directions as the water flooded across the table.
He glanced down at his hand. The wound was already gone.
Helena knew the Undying could regenerate but it was still startling to witness. It would have taken her at least half an hour to heal a wound like that; hands were delicate, intricate, full of nerves.
Her left wrist hurt so much she could hardly think straight. A stream of blood ran down from beneath the manacle into her palm, joining Ferron’s on the floor. ad. His otherShe watched dully as Ferron curled his fingers. Then his eyes alighted on her hand. His jaw tensed. “You would injure the one place that is difficult to muscle, andrepair. I’ll have to call in Stroud.”
He turned towards one of the necrothralls.
“Take our prisoner to her room,” he said in a cool voice. “Be sure she stays there until tomorrow.”
Helena didn’t wait to be nudged along. She turned and left.
“I’ve seen that girl somewhere,” she heard Atreus say as she reached the hallway.
“She was the only southerner at the Institute, rather hard to miss, I’d say,”
Ferron said, not seeming to care.
The rush of adrenaline was ebbing from Helena. When she reached the stairs, her legs trembled, almost giving out. She listed towards the nearest wall, fingertips seeking the surface and wincing as they made contact. Her blood smeared along the wallpaper.
She should have cut her throat open the instant she’d gotten her fingers on that knife.
IT WAS MIDWINTER WHEN GOVERNOR Fabian Greenfinch was nearly assassinated.
It happened during the unveiling ceremony for Morrough’s new statue.
The governor was giving a speech about New Paladia’s liberation, and within yourMandl, Warden of the re-education centre on the Outpost, whose “members” had built the statue, had been standing beside him on the dais. As the ribbon cutting commenced, a crossbow bolt emerged from one of the nearby buildings. It narrowly missed the governor, instead striking Mandl.
Mandl died.
In front of a crowd of reporters and international visitors, citizens, and foreign dignitaries, one of the Undying, whose appearance marked her as undeniably and visibly among the immortal, died.
The death sent shock waves across Paladia and beyond. The newspaper headlines were almost audibly hysterical. The Resistance terrorists believed to have been wiped out had reappeared in a spectacular manner, before an audience that could not be as easily cowed into silence as the national press was.
Lancaster’s visits to Spirefell abruptly ceased. Aurelia floated around the house, wan and paranoid, starting at every sound as if expecting Resistance fighters to emerge from the walls and murder her next. Several times Helena heard her interrogating Ferron about what protections the estate had, and couldn’t they have more necrothralls?
Ferron, when Helena caught glimpses of him, was no longer in coats and ure she stayscloaks and pristine white shirts or even armour, but what appeared to be a combination of light combat gear and hunting clothes. He regularly returned to the house covered in mud, soaked from rain, and pale with rage.
Helena was thrilled.
She read the coverage obsessively, her heart soaring. The Resistance was still out there.
The papers emphasised over and over that it was a failed assassination attempt, trying desperately to gloss over the fact that someone ostensibly immortal had been killed by accident instead.
Helena knew the continent had to be alight with speculation of how it had been done, and how it might be replicated.
There was a way to kill the Undying.
Her steps were light for days.
Stroud visited again. Unlike Ferron and Aurelia, she seemed unfazed by the upheaval and new danger.
The butler accompanied her, carrying in a folding medical table, setting it up in the middle of the room before leaving.
“Strip and seat yourself,” Stroud said, patting the table and then turning to
review a file.
Helena set her jaw as she obeyed.
“I would have thought you’d have more urgent concerns than coming here,” Helena said, hoping to lure out some new information.
Stroud glanced over. Her “no” was casual, like she couldn’t think of anything.
“You’re not worried you might be targeted?”
“I’m not one of the Undying,” Stroud said with a careless shrug.
“You’re not?” Helena was startled. She’d assumed anyone so close to Morrough must be.
“No. Someday, perhaps, but I have no interest at present. The High Necromancer empowers me to carry on his work so that I will not weaken or fade so long as I am faithful.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.” Helena’s fingers ached; her left hand was still in a splint, recovering from her attempt on Ferron’s life.
“There are many things you don’t know. The Toll of extensive vivimancy is reversible for those who know the means.” Stroud glanced derisively at Helena.
Helena watched her curiously. “But why not become Undying?”
Stroud shook her head. “The Undying have their own—limitations. Bennet was one of the earliest to ascend. He used the High Necromancer’s great knowledge to experiment beyond what was believed possible. He spent decades seeking to unlock the secrets of transference. Anyone who knew him could not help but appreciate his genius. I was among the few who worked most closely beside him …”
Visible emotion swept across Stroud’s face, and she cleared her throat.
“But even I could not deny that near the end, he began slipping. He poured tremendous resources, including his own vitality, into experiments, and the more he did it, the more obsessed he became. The Undying frequently develop a tendency towards sadism over time. Some more quickly than others. I don’t want my work marred by such preferences. Perhaps once transference is perfected, I will request ascendance. But until then, the High
Necromancer provides what I need. He knows it makes me even more loyal than the others.”
The Undying had always seemed psychotic, but Helena hadn’t realised it was a side effect of their immortality.
Stroud touched Helena with her hard, soap-rough hands, murmuring to herself that Helena was already showing signs of eating properly.
“Take these.” Stroud held out several tablets.
“What are they for?”
Impatience flashed across Stroud’s face. “The High Necromancer wishes
to see you.”
Helena recoiled. “Why?”
Stroud ignored the question. “If you don’t take them yourself, I have a tube here.” She pulled it out of her medical satchel. “I can paralyse you and shove it down your throat all the way to your stomach and then pour the tablets down. I’ve done it many times before. It will bruise the oesophagus, and you’ll struggle to swallow or speak for a few days. It’s your choice.”
Helena shoved the tablets into her mouth, dry-swallowing them and ignoring the way they tried to stick in her throat. As they dissolved, they burned against the tissue.
Stroud turned away, rummaging through her bag again. She’d brought considerably more items with her than on previous visits. Helena squinted, trying to make out what they were, but her vision was suddenly fogging.
“Wait—”
Stroud pulled out several vials and large syringes, laying them out in a ions. Bennetrow.
“What are you—” Her face was going numb.
She blinked. Stroud had filled a syringe and stood before her, flicking it to ho knew himremove air bubbles.
Helena tried to read the words on the vial. The letters blurred.
“Don’t …” she managed to say.
“It’s all to get you ready, like I said,” Stroud said as she jabbed the needle
into Helena’s arm, injecting it.
Helena scarcely felt it.
Stroud picked up the next vial and a larger syringe.
Helena’s head lolled back, and she swayed, nearly falling off the table as she tried to get away.
“Lie down.” Stroud’s words ballooned around her.
It only took slight pressure, and Helena collapsed sideways. The table was cold against her temple as another needle sank into her arm. The room had gone dark.
She heard the flick of Stroud’s fingers against another syringe.
Then she didn’t remember anything.
WHEN HER EYES OPENED, IT was dark. She was in her bed, her arms and legs aching with injection bruises. The splint on her hand was gone.
It was like someone had kicked her repeatedly in the lower abdomen and then stabbed her all over for good measure. Her whole body had a taut, swollen feeling, as though her skin was stretched too tight. She wanted to curlI have a tube into a ball, but it hurt too much to lie on her arms.
In the bathroom mirror, she found her eyes wildly dilated, the sclera bloodshot. Her mouth was parched, but water hurt inside her stomach. She nearly collapsed on the floor of the bathroom.
Ferron arrived the next day, or perhaps two days later. Helena had lost track of time.
“The High Necromancer wishes to see you,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Helena had no idea what was wrong, she just knew she’d been dosed with
something horrible.
“Stroud,” she muttered.
He swore and left, then came back looking incensed.
He had her carried to a motorcar idling in the courtyard. She was bundled in blankets and tucked into the back seat. The fresh air made her feel marginally better, enough that she could sit up and look out the windows, arms still throbbing from the bruises.
Rather than head to Central, the bridge they took turned towards the lower parts of the city and into a tunnel. The car drove on and on and didn’t emerge. Instead, it stopped somewhere in the gloom. Dim amber lights shone weakly through a sort of vaporous mist that hung over the ground, darkness pressing in on all sides.
The air was stale and damp. She could smell the river threatening to seep in.
Ferron got out and opened the far passenger door, his expression tense.
“Can you walk?”
The few figures Helena could make out were old, rotted necrothralls. She
swallowed hard and nodded.
Don’t look at the shadows.
“Come, then.” He took her by the arm. He didn’t grip hard, but it still made the bruises throb.
Helena had no choice but to follow, her breath growing short. His silver- white hair became the only thing visible in the dark. She reached out, trying to ground herself by finding a wall to touch.
A damp, slimy surface met her fingertips. She snatched her hand back.
The tunnel finally opened into a large room with green glass sconces illuminating it; dozens of other tunnels all opened into it, as if they were in wanted to curlthe centre of a warren. The walls were covered with intricate but faded murals. It looked almost like an abandoned temple.
She’d never seen this place. She knew Paladia had been built on the ruins of a city long ago destroyed by plague. Rivertide. The site of the first Necromancy War. She’d thought all traces of it gone.
The air was thick with the smell of decay, a vile miasma that came from the far end of the room.
Her every instinct screamed to run, but Ferron pulled her forward. Her feet slipped across the floor until they reached the far end of the room.
“Your Eminence.” Ferron knelt, pulling Helena to the ground with him.
“I’ve brought the prisoner. My deepest apologies for the delay.”
There was a long silence, so long Helena began to doubt there was anyone there.
“Bring her closer.” The words floated, blurred and mumbled, from the darkness.
Ferron pulled Helena to her feet and dragged her up a series of steps she could barely make out before shoving her to her knees again.
Helena stared in horror at the sight before her. She barely recognised the grotesque shape. lights shoneMorrough lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him. Morrough seemed shrunken somehow from the immense distorted being he’d been.
Now he looked as though the skin was rotting off him.
One of the faces in the throne was briefly illuminated in the dim light, and Helena thought it might be Mandl’s old face, but she couldn’t be sure because the throne shifted, lifting Morrough towards her. t it still madeMorrough tilted his head, his empty sockets like blackened holes. “Have I thought too well of you, High Reeve? I wanted those memories by now, and you’ve brought me only scraps.”
There was something wrong with Morrough’s tongue, the words slurred as if he were speaking around some large object in his mouth.
“I apologise. I will strive to do better.”
“Yes, you are always striving, aren’t you?” The words did not seem kindly meant. “I shall inspect these memories myself. Hold her fast.”
There was a pause, and the only sound was the heaving of the decayed bodies. Another face appeared, half rotted, but she recognised the wide scar that ran along the side of Titus Bayard’s skull.
Before she could shrink back, Ferron’s knee lodged between her shoulder blades and his hands wrapped around her jaw, holding her in place.
Morrough extended his decrepit right hand, over-large with fingers jointed like spider legs. The bones were emerging through the tips of his fingers, ard. Her feetexcept for two which hung limp, dangling strips of flesh.
The resonance that struck Helena was blistering in its power. It jolted through her like a live wire, charring her from the inside. Her body spasmed, jerking violently.
She screamed through her teeth as it ravaged its way through her skull.
Morrough’s examination of her memories wasn’t some disorienting state of reliving; it was like having her consciousness flayed. Morrough peeled her mind apart, ripping her memories from wherever he found them.
While he’d said he wanted to see the lost memories, he seemed in no hurry to find them, instead focusing his attention on her imprisonment at Spirefell.
The claustrophobic monotony, the endless isolation, punctuated only by Ferron’s occasional appearance to check her memories or perform contorted andtransference.
Morrough seemed particularly interested in the transference sessions and the nightmares and fevers that followed. He found her fears amusing and the agony of transference a novelty, replaying it over and over, Ferron crushing and consuming her until there was no end or beginning of either of them.
It was only when she’d stopped screaming and gone limp, no longer struggling at all, that he finally turned to the glimmers of memory, but even
those he distorted.
Luc on the roof, but stripped of all the details that had made the memory beautiful: the white fire, the light in his eyes, the gilding of the city at sunset, each disappeared until all that remained was the distance between them, the way Luc recoiled from her, the reproach in his voice, and the drug washing him away. ds slurred asMorrough watched the memory of Lila asking about the trainees several times with a sort of idle curiosity, but it was her memory of Lila scarred and crying that he took the greatest interest in. seem kindlyWhen he tired of it, she hoped he was done, but he was not. He went back to the last transference session.
Whatever power she’d briefly possessed to push Ferron from her mind failed her now. Morrough stretched the memory, drawing out every excruciating moment of Ferron’s mental violation, the backlash from her attempted resistance, until she didn’t even realise when he finally stopped.
Her mind was awash in so much pain that it blotted out everything else until she grew aware of her lungs seizing. Her eyes unable to focus. She had no sense of where she was until she felt her pulse fluttering against the pressure of Ferron’s fingers, his knee pressed against her spine.
“So …” Morrough’s voice came from somewhere in the dark. “The Eternal Flame’s animancer is not dead after all.”
“You believe Boyle is still alive?” Ferron sounded startled.
“Who?”
Ferron loosened his grip on Helena, and she slumped against him in the gh peeled hersuffocating darkness. “Stroud mentioned her. Based on the Resistance records of Elain Boyle, it was presumed that she—” d in no hurry“Boyle was no one. Haven’t you noticed that the transference was different
with the others?”
Helena’s eyebrows furrowed. Others?
“I was told that the transmutations in her mind would cause difficulty,”
Ferron said.
“Those difficulties are because she is resisting, because she can resist. This —she is the animancer.”
There was a pause punctuated only by the heaving rhythm of necrothralls.
Ferron seemed frozen with surprise.
“You did not notice, or even suspect?” Morrough sounded so enraged, he had to pause to catch his breath. “I had wondered at your progress, the
reported intensity of the brain fevers in her, unlike our test subjects. How could so much be concealed if the mere penetration of her mind is so difficult?”
Morrough spoke so slowly that dread seemed to build with his every word.
Ferron remained silent.
“There is only one answer: She is the animancer. Even now, with her resonance all but gone, she is still resisting. She erased her memory of what she is in an attempt to escape me.”
The pressure growing in Helena’s head was so intense, her vision disappeared.
“Surely not.” Ferron’s voice broke through. “Stroud said it was impossible for any person to erase their own—”
“What does Stroud know of anything? She cannot imagine talent beyond her own abilities. This is the animancer. I could feel her attempts to resist me.” The corpses oozed Morrough towards Helena again, his eye sockets looming, his resonance a sharp hum in her bones.
“I beg your forgiveness for my failure,” Ferron said, his voice sounding hoarse with shock. “I never considered it.”
Morrough was silent for a long time, his skeletal face bloated and rippling “The Eternalin her vision.
“Your father was recently here, begging for an audience as you now beg for forgiveness. He claims he tried to tell you what he remembered, but you did not listen.”
Ferron’s grip on Helena tightened again. “His memory is hardly reliable, Your Eminence. It seemed imprudent to indulge his fits of paranoia. I did not realise he would disturb you with his claims. However … I did quietly begin was differenta reinvestigation due to his comments.”
“And …”
“It would seem that she was apprehended near the West Port shortly after
the bombing.”
“To rescue the Bayard paladin?” resist. This“A bombing seems a careless method of rescue. The paladin’s escape may have been coincidental. As you recall, Bayard was already dying when I
captured her.”
“It was because of Bayard. I am sure.”
Helena’s mind throbbed as she tried to understand what they were saying.
A rasping, wheezing sigh rose from all the bodies at once. “All this time we thought Hevgoss … but it was the Eternal Flame after all. They must have caught on to him.” every word.“Surely if they’d realised, they wouldn’t have allowed their Headquarters to be so easily taken.”
“Perhaps …” Morrough did not sound convinced. “But that is not for you to decide. I determine what was pointless. This proves that the Eternal Flame was more cunning than we thought. I suspect our captive animancer knows far more than she realises.”
“Then I will continue to break her,” Ferron said. He started to pull Helena up from the floor to drag her away.
“Did I give you leave to go?” Morrough’s body was suddenly raised high, his massive, distorted form now looming over them both. He was barely clothed, and his skin sagged, rotting off him so that Helena could see his organs pulsing where it tore away. Bright beneath the decaying flesh. She stared dazedly.
There were too many bones, some greyish and crumbling, others white.
Morrough’s wasted hand fell on Ferron’s shoulder. “You are growing presumptuous, High Reeve.”
Ferron instantly released Helena. She dropped to the ground at his feet. It was warm, and something wet clung to her skin, seeping through her clothes.
She could smell viscera and old blood. In the darkness, cold fingers tugged at her dress as the throne morphed with another rasping, rotting heave.
“How can I trust someone who presumes and overlooks as much as you
oia. I did nothave of late?”
Ferron drew a sharp breath.
“Your failures seem to be multiplying. Overlooking your prisoner’s signs of animancy. Ignoring your father’s counsel. And where are the assassins that I ordered you to find?”
The copper-tanged rot in the air choked Helena as the darkness closed around her, cold dead fingers scrabbling, trying to drag her deeper. All her fears coming to life.
“I am your most loyal servant. I will not fail you. If it was the Eternal Flame, I will find them.”
“It was the Eternal Flame. Who else could it be? Who would dare to kill the Undying? The weapon was obsidian. Crowther is ours now, but he must have shared the secrets with someone overlooked during the purge. Perhaps
their identity is one of the secrets our captive animancer is trying so hard to ey must havekeep from us.”
As Morrough spoke, the resonance in the air became a solid, weighted mass bearing down. Helena’s ribs bowed under the pressure, threatening to snap inwards and shred her lungs.
“Mandl’s death was a humiliation. For one so illustrious, you should have foreseen it.”
The pressure eased enough for Helena to manage one desperate breath, but the miasma coated her throat, choking her.
“I am investigating all potential avenues,” Ferron said, breathing heavily.
“The records indicate that Crowther collaborated with a metallurgist killed during the final battle. I have assigned cryptologists to re-evaluate his research for any hints of other collaborators.”
“That is old information,” Morrough snarled. “How many weeks have you been investigating the deaths with nothing to show for it? Have you forgotten
what happens when I am disappointed?”
“I—”
The thrumming of Morrough’s resonance concentrated and vanished.
There was a crack, sharp and sudden like branches snapping. Ferron gave a broken gasp and dropped like a stone, falling not prone but over Helena, one arm braced just above her head. ers tugged atShe could just barely make out his face. His silver eyes above her seemed to glow as blood spurted from his mouth, dripping from his lips and onto the floor. His expression twisted, his body contorting and his pupils dilating until his irises were narrow bands of silver.
Then he screamed and went limp, collapsing on top of her.
The weight of his body, the jut of broken bones, pressed down on her, but assassins thatshe couldn’t feel a heartbeat.
No hint of breathing. He was completely still.
He jerked, a garbled gasp rattling in his lungs as his chest began pulsing.
He convulsed as though drowning, coughing up blood, as he pushed himself off her.
“I-I will not f-fail you, I swear.” His voice shook, barely more than a whisper, and he rose unsteadily back to his feet.
“Be sure that you don’t,” was all Morrough said.
Ferron reached down, fingers spasming as he pulled Helena up from the ground again. Her head lolled back.
“Watch her carefully. The Eternal Flame will come for her soon, I am certain of it.”
“I will die before I lose her,” Ferron said, his grip tightening.
“I want them alive this time, High Reeve. These last embers who dare mock me. You will bring them to me, to kill at leisure.”
“You will have them. As I have given you all the rest.” Ferron’s voice had grown steadier. He bowed low. e breath, butHelena craned her neck, peering through her swimming vision at the green, rotted faces visible on the throne, terrified of how many she’d recognise if she could see them clearly.
She tried to rip herself free, but she couldn’t escape. Ferron squeezed harder as he dragged Helena out of the hall, pulling her through winding tunnels, not stopping even when her legs failed, feet tripping. He wouldn’t let go. you forgottenFinally he stopped and, without releasing her, allowed Helena to slide to the floor. She crumpled, gasping, still struggling to breathe. The air was cleaner, damp and swampy, but there was no more scent of blood. The stones in the tunnel were dry.
Her head hurt so much that trying to think was like touching a raw wound, but she had so many questions.
“I—” Her throat closed, convulsing. “I—attacked a prison?”
“It was after the final battle,” Ferron said, sounding far away. “Seems you were captured after levelling more than half the West Port Laboratory. You’d dilating untildisguised yourself as a Hevgotian during the attack, and then disappeared into that tank afterwards, resulting in contradictory reports. The investigation was considered inconclusive until my father realised where he recognised you from. He was present that night.”
She shook her head. “I was a healer,” she said. “I wasn’t—they didn’t let
me fight.”
Ferron said nothing.
She still didn’t understand. “And Lila was there?”
“Yes.”
“But she was dying when you—caught her.”
“The West Port Laboratory was Bennet’s experimental research site.”
A low sound of horror tore from Helena. She doubled over, retching.
Ferron had to prop her up.
“Drink this,” he said, pressing a vial of something into her hand. “It’ll help.”
Helena’s hand shook, but she swallowed without question. There was nothing he could give her that could make things worse. Instead pain relief so bitter it was mouth-numbing washed across her tongue. She sat breathing unsteadily as it took effect.
She tried to focus but felt concussed. With brain injuries it was important at the green,to remain conscious. Conversing was supposed to help, keeping patients talking. She kept herself talking.
“Did this happen to you?” Her tongue was sluggish. She felt Ferron look at her, his pale eyes gleaming briefly in the darkness.
“More than once …” he said after a long silence. “My training was
wouldn’t letrigorous.”
“Why?”
He shifted, muffling a low groan. “To see if I’d be better than my father, or if I’d break under interrogation, too.” d. The stonesShe furrowed her eyebrows. “Was that—before you killed Principate Apollo?”
He released a huffing breath, as if suppressing a laugh.
“Are you wanting a confession?” he finally asked. “Shall I tell you everything I’ve done?”
She could only make out the vaguest shape of him, crouched in front of atory. You’dher. His breathing was still strained as he held her upright.
She wondered then if they’d paused there so she could recover, or so he could. The dose of laudanum she’d taken had eased the pain splintering her head.
A question rose to her lips, and she felt as if it was vital that she ask. She leaned forward, trying to see his face. “Do you want to?”
He was silent for a long moment, and then stood without answering, pulling her to her feet. Her body was half numb, and he had to nearly carry her the rest of the way to the motorcar.
In the light, she found she was covered in putrefied remains, rotted blood and gore smeared around her clothes and hands. All the necrothralls were watching as Ferron pulled her over to the car, handing her off to one of his own servants, letting it strip off her dress and wrap her in a wool lap cloth.
She collapsed across the back seat.
Ferron sat up front. When the motorcar emerged from the tunnel, she was almost blinded by the vivid white of the overcast sky, but she managed to make out his profile. He was slumped forward, eyes closed. Pale as death. pain relief so
IT TOOK TWO DAYS BEFORE Helena could see reliably, and three before she could sit up without feeling dizzy. She tried to read but the words swam, leaving her with nothing but her thoughts to preoccupy her.
One the third day, one of the maids brought a tray of porridge to her bed.
She looked at it, meeting the cloudy blue eyes.erron look at “Ferron, will you come here?”
The maid stared at her, and then looked away, leaving without acknowledgement, but that evening as she was picking at her dinner, the door opened and Ferron entered.
“You called?” His tone was sardonic.my father, or “I had a question I wanted to ask you,” she said, sitting forward even though it made her head throb until her eyes threatened to pop.
She drew a slow breath, gathering up all the threads of information she’d collected over the months. As if without realising it, she’d been weaving a tapestry, and only now could she make out the image forming at her fingertips.
“Mandl wasn’t the first of the Undying to be killed,” she said at last.
“They’ve been dying for weeks. I didn’t realise what the disappearances had in common until now. I thought it was censorship, that maybe they were dissidents, but it’s the Undying. They’re disappearing because they’re being killed, and you’re the one who’s been covering it up.”
Ferron said nothing, his expression carefully blank.
She swallowed hard. “You know, the Undying have never made much sense to me. Scientifically or logically. Immortality seems like a dangerous thing to just—gift to people, and Morrough’s hardly the altruistic type. I know how vivimancy works. There’s a price for complex regeneration, and someone always has to pay it. There’s no way around that. In order to regenerate the way the Undying can, someone is paying for it.”
“I thought you had a question,” Ferron said.
“I’m getting there,” Helena said calmly, trying to ignore the throbbing in the back of her head. “When the Undying are in dead bodies, they don’t retain their old resonance; they get whatever resonance the new body has.
Like your father: He’s an iron alchemist, he doesn’t know anything about pyromancy. So if someone like you, an animancer, lost their body, you’d lose that ability, and if you thought being a lich was a punishment, something you do to teach someone a lesson, you’d cling to your body no matter what condition it was in and be desperate to figure out transference. But even if you did, you’d still need to find an animancer. But someone like that would fight the transference.”
She winced, pressing her hand against her forehead as if she could push back the pressure. “So … that’s where the repopulation program comes in,” she said unsteadily. “Morrough doesn’t care about the economy or what kind of alchemists there are in New Paladia. The real reason Stroud’s using selective breeding is to find a way to control what resonance children are ner, the doorborn with. That’s why they brought back your father and I saw him at Central. She’s trying to produce an animancer for Morrough. If transference is perfected by the time she does, he’d have the means and the perfect vessel to use, but he’s—he’s running out of time.”
Ferron’s eyes narrowed.
She drew a deep breath. “Something’s wrong about him. He’s too old, and that should affect resonance, but it hasn’t with him. He’s got some other source for his power, something he can draw from. But he’s deteriorating anyway. I saw him only a few months ago, and he wasn’t like that. That throne is now keeping him alive. I kept trying to guess what could possibly hurt someone like him. It’s not like anyone could get close. Then I thought, maybe the source of his power is right in front of us, but it’s been disguised, so that people wouldn’t realise. Perhaps it’s presented as a gift, something people are desperate to earn, but really he’s the one who needs it.”
Pain shot through Helena’s head. Her vision turned red. She gave an agonised gasp, toppling sideways. Ferron was moving towards her.
She looked up, forcing her question out.
“The Undying. You’re his source of power, and the Resistance—we figured that out, didn’t we? How to kill him. How to kill all of you.”
Like your father: He’s an iron alchemist, he doesn’t know anything about pyromancy. So if someone like you, an animancer, lost their body, you’d lose that ability, and if you thought being a lich was a punishment, something you do to teach someone a lesson, you’d cling to your body no matter what condition it was in and be desperate to figure out transference. But even if you did, you’d still need to find an animancer. But someone like that would fight the transference.”
She winced, pressing her hand against her forehead as if she could push back the pressure. “So … that’s where the repopulation program comes in,” she said unsteadily. “Morrough doesn’t care about the economy or what kind of alchemists there are in New Paladia. The real reason Stroud’s using selective breeding is to find a way to control what resonance children are born with. That’s why they brought back your father and I saw him at Central. She’s trying to produce an animancer for Morrough. If transference is perfected by the time she does, he’d have the means and the perfect vessel to use, but he’s—he’s running out of time.”
Ferron’s eyes narrowed.
She drew a deep breath. “Something’s wrong about him. He’s too old, and that should affect resonance, but it hasn’t with him. He’s got some other source for his power, something he can draw from. But he’s deteriorating anyway. I saw him only a few months ago, and he wasn’t like that. That throne is now keeping him alive. I kept trying to guess what could possibly hurt someone like him. It’s not like anyone could get close. Then I thought, maybe the source of his power is right in front of us, but it’s been disguised, so that people wouldn’t realise. Perhaps it’s presented as a gift, something people are desperate to earn, but really he’s the one who needs it.”
Pain shot through Helena’s head. Her vision turned red. She gave an agonised gasp, toppling sideways. Ferron was moving towards her.
She looked up, forcing her question out.
“The Undying. You’re his source of power, and the Resistance—we figured that out, didn’t we? How to kill him. How to kill all of you.”