CHAPTER 18
EVERYTHING AROUND HELENA BLURRED. STROUD REMOVED THE paralysis after Ferron icily excused himself, but Helena still didn’t move.
The grating, scratching sound of Stroud’s pen on paper was the only sound in the quiet room.
Helena’s mouth had gone parched, but she struggled to swallow, trying to think of some way to reverse what had so suddenly happened.
Her fingers flexed, running across the linen sheets as she tried to focus on external sensations. A half-whimpering rasp escaped her throat.
She thought she might scream. Just scream and scream and never stop.
“What’s wrong?” Stroud asked, glancing up from Helena’s medical file.
Helena stared at her.
“I would have thought you’d be pleased to have a break from transference.
With the way you’ve been resisting, you’d likely have liver failure before the year’s out.” Stroud tapped absently on Helena’s file. “I’m very particular about the alchemists in my program. The war cost us so many priceless lineages. You should be grateful to still provide something with such lasting significance.”
“You’re having me raped, and you expect me to be grateful about it?”
Helena’s voice was dead, coming from far away.
Stroud’s expression soured. “I’m giving you an opportunity for your life to mean something.”
Helena’s rage was the only thing keeping her from losing her mind. “If it’s such a great thing, it’s a wonder you don’t volunteer yourself.”
Stroud froze, anger flashing like lightning across her face, darkening every line. Helena braced herself to be struck, but Stroud’s mouth pressed into a thin-lipped smile and she leaned over Helena almost tenderly.
“The High Reeve has been married for more than a year without any children to show for it. His Eminence insists Ferron be your first candidate, but I doubt anything will come of it. After everything Bennet did to him, he’s
scarcely what I’d call human. After he’s made his attempts, you’ll come back to Central, and I’ll be the one to decide who goes next. For however long it
takes.”
Helena’s blood ran cold.
Stroud touched Helena’s chin with the tip of her finger. “With that in mind, I think you’d best learn to watch that tongue of yours. I don’t have to let you keep it.”
Helena did not make another sound until Stroud was gone. Dread welled up inside her like poison, corroding her organs, burning her lungs. She went through the house, every unlocked door, searching the rooms in a desperate frenzy to find something, anything. There had to be something.e only sound Ferron did not reappear until the following evening. When he did, his expression was hard, but his eyes seemed to slide off her, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at her anymore.
Her hands started spasming over and over, nerves twinging.
“It’s not tonight,” he said abruptly. “I’m told”—he was still not looking at her—“you won’t be fertile for three more days.”
She wasn’t surprised— He was a murderer and a necromancer. What reason did she have to think he’d be above this?ransference.
Yet somehow, irrationally, she’d thought he was … safe.re before the
Stupid.
“Come here,” he finally said.
She walked mechanically, staring at the buttons on his coat and shirt. He reached out, leather gloves pressing against her jaw, tilting her face up until her eyes met his.
“How much can you see?” he asked, gaze flickering from one eye to the
other in comparison.r your life to Helena laughed.
She had no idea when she’d last laughed. A lifetime ago. But the questionmind. “If it’s was funny. Hilarious even.
Every good thing she had ever had in her life was destroyed, every scrap ofkening every solace ripped away as though there was nothing left of her now except hurting. She had been imprisoned and violated in almost every way imaginable, and now he would inflict this final atrocity upon her, but he was
worried about her eyesight. to him, he’s
She laughed and laughed and then she wasn’t laughing anymore, she wasll come back crying. She was crying until she was rocking, back and forth, half screaming, and Ferron just stood there.
She didn’t stop until she was hollow, as though she’d sobbed out everything inside her and now the only thing left was a shell. She was so tiredthat in mind,
of existing.
“Feel better?”
She swallowed, her throat aching. “No.”
His fingers spasmed, and she watched him curl them into a fist, tucking it behind his back. She knew that trick.
She looked up at him, noticing then the odd pallor and haggard set of his jaw.
Well, at least they were both suffering.
“What were you tortured for this time?” she asked dully, relieved to wonder about something, anything else.
He gave a slight hum. “It was for a few things. As I am frequently reminded, I am a constant disappointment, and now the public, through their vast collective intelligence, has deduced that I’m the High Reeve.”
The news piqued her curiosity. “Was it because you killed Lancaster?”
“I imagine that played a part, and Aurelia’s little fit didn’t help. I had to leave suddenly, and the High Reeve was supposed to be in attendance.
International papers are less reluctant to print such theories, so word’s gotten out. I’ll soon be acknowledged as the High Necromancer’s successor.” He gave a grimacing smile. “This previous anonymity was all for my protection, you see.”
“Of course,” Helena said. “So you were only tortured a little bit.”
“It was nothing,” he said, but his hands were both behind his back.
He shifted, as if he was about to leave. Even though she didn’t want to be anywhere near him, the alternative was being alone with her thoughts.
“Why’d you kill Lancaster?” she asked.
“He endangered my assignment. I would have done a formal execution, but I was busy, and I wanted him taken care of.”very scrap of “So you killed him in the middle of the hospital?” she said, eyeing him doubtfully.
“I was going to kill him in his hospital room, but he tried to run.” He shrugged. “I improvised.”
The image of Lancaster lying split open while Ferron gutted his remains was seared into Helena’s mind.
Ferron rolled his neck. “If you have no more questions, we should get this over with. Sofa, or bed?” e was so tiredThe words were like a steel rod rammed down the length of her spine, and it took her a moment to realise he intended to check her memories.
She’d assumed that was over now. “I thought—”
Thought what? That she wasn’t still a prisoner and that in exchange for her body, she’d now be permitted her mind? She swallowed her words and went to the sofa.
He followed her, expression unreadable as he extended his hand, fingers barely grazing her forehead before his resonance slid through her skull.
By the time he stopped, Helena felt as though she’d collapsed inwards upon herself. Reliving all the recent days made her jaw clench until her teeth threatened to crack.
She lay slumped back on the sofa, Stroud’s threat echoing in her head.
She pressed her face into the fabric of the sofa, smelling the age and dust, and tried to shut out the surrounding world. Ferron left without a word.
HELENA’S EYE HAD RECOVERED ENOUGH to finally handle light again, so she pushed the curtains back, her new room revealing a view of the courtyard rather than the mountains. Outside, the world had metamorphosed, showing early signs of spring. The deadened grey she was accustomed to now showed pricks of colour amid the toppled grass and the tree branches.
A few weeks before, she would have been comforted by it, but there was a pit inside her now, even beauty turned to horror.
Two days. Her thoughts circled relentlessly, like a trapped animal ready to gnaw off her own limbs to escape.
In war, rape had always loomed as a possibility. There were stories about the prisoners in the laboratories, warnings of what could happen to womenxecution, but captured from Resistance territory. But rape for the purpose of pregnancy was a layer of intention that she still had not fully wrapped her mind around.
Her experiences in the matter of pregnancy had never been favourable.
Precautionary measures were in short supply during the war. Girls would show up at the hospital from time to time, nervously asking to talk to Matron
Pace. Oftentimes, that was the end of it, but other times, they’d keep coming back.
Helena had been an only child. As an apothecary, her mother mostly prevented pregnancies. It was the village midwives who handled the rest.
Mothers only came to a surgeon like Helena’s father when things had gone wrong. Most of the babies Helena saw growing up were deformed, or deathly sick, or stillborn. hange for herThat pattern continued during the war. As a healer, Helena was only summoned when a baby was born too early or had gotten stuck in the wrong position, or the milk wouldn’t come in because there wasn’t enough food.
She would be asked if she could do something. Most often she couldn’t. The babies were tiny and fragile, and even vivimancy couldn’t fix everything.
She’d watch the mothers break, something seismic inside them rupturing.
They’d scream sometimes. Others would be silent, and that was often worse in the end.
Helena had been grateful that it would never be her. She would never marry or have children, so would never have to endure losing them.
It was the one thing she’d thought herself safe from.
She lay in bed unable to sleep. Lumithia was nearing her biannual Ascendance, waxing so full that the night glowed silver, the light stark against the black shadows. The air had a nearly constant feeling of resonance.
Helena flexed her fingers, wishing she could shove her hand inside her body as easily as Ferron had into Lancaster’s belly. She’d rip out her organs now showedright there in the bed.
The thought of her body’s forced complicity made her sick, and yet the idea of not becoming pregnant left her frozen with fear. Stroud’s threat kept ringing in her head.
Faced with the choice of struggling or cooperating with her own rape so that it would not be as bad as it could be made her feel so guilty, her mind threatened to shear apart. If the destination was inevitable, her only choice was in how horrifying the journey would be.
The night dragged like sandpaper across her skin until she was nearly raw from it.
When Ferron walked into her room, she gave a ragged gasp and nearly burst into tears.
When he saw her, he seemed to almost turn, as if to walk out.
She started to reach a hand forward, then snatched it instantly back, clenching her fingers into a fist. The movement was enough to still him.
His eyes flicked between her and the door as if still debating with himself.
What if he refused and just let Stroud take her?
The room swam. Her hands had already gone numb. d, or deathlyIf he left, she would let him. She would go to Central. She would not be so complicit as to ask.
She couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was impassive, as if he wasn’t fully there.
Finally he turned away. Helena didn’t know if she should laugh or cry that this was the line he wouldn’t cross. The sole command he’d refuse. After all, he was known to be the High Reeve now; Morrough couldn’t kill him.
He pulled a small tin case out of his pocket, putting something from it under his tongue.
“Bed,” he finally said without looking at her.
Helena didn’t move.
He turned to face her, his eyes flat.
“Wait—” She held her hands out, as if she could ward him off. “What if you just kill me?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You could now. You said that everyone knows now that you’re the High Reeve. Morrough wouldn’t be of resonance.able to justify killing you because of me. I’m no one.”
Ferron’s attention sharpened. For a moment, he stood considering it,
calculation visible in his eyes.
Her pulse sped up.
“I can do it myself, if you want, so he won’t realise,” she offered. “If you just—give me something. It doesn’t need to be easy, or quick; it could be something small. You can say you left briefly and—”
She knew the instant she misspoke. Ferron’s expression abruptly hardened, his eyes going flat and his gaze sliding through her again.
“Bed,” he said again, this time through clenched teeth.
Her hands fell to her sides. She turned slowly, eerily disconnected from her body as she walked over. She bit down on her inner lip, harder and harder, trying to feel something. Blood gushed across her tongue as she lay down, but her body remained numb.
Ferron approached a few moments later. He’d only removed his coat.
She tensed as soon as he got close, trying not to grind her teeth.
His expression was set like granite; he stood at the foot of the bed, staring
at the headboard.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She forced herself to obey and tried to focus on breathing. Don’t think. She could smell him in the room, the scent of juniper, metal, and the decay of the uld not be sohouse.
The mattress dipped to her right. Her breathing stuttered and sped up.
“Don’t—open your eyes.”
She squeezed them tighter. There was a pause as her skirts pushed up towards her hips, underclothes stripped down. Her heart seemed to stop.
She heard Ferron inhale. She could feel his body through the air.
“Breathe,” he said near her left ear.
There was a touch between her legs, something warm and slippery. She flinched away, then realised it was oil.
She drew a rasping breath, squeezing her eyes so tight, they throbbed as his
weight pressed against her hips.
She choked back a garbled whimper.
She closed her eyes tighter. Her mind scrabbled, trying to find an escape.
In stasis, in the tank, she’d learned to take herself away when her mind wouldn’t beteetered on the edge.
That was how she’d survived. She’d learned she could endure.
Now that escape didn’t work.
She was trapped inside her body, as if someone had nailed her consciousness in place with a spike.
This is better than Central, she reminded herself, struggling to keep from hyperventilating, from clawing and screaming and trying to shove him off.
Her chest spasmed. There were tears sliding from the corners of her eyes. tly hardened,Better than Central.
What if this failed? What if Stroud was right about him, that it wasn’t even possible, but Helena had cooperated anyway? What if it was all for nothing? cted from herShe gave a frantic, panicking gasp, unable to keep from recoiling just as he jerked and stilled.
He was gone so suddenly, it was as if he’d evaporated.
Helena opened her eyes and couldn’t see him anywhere. The violent sound of retching emerged from the bathroom.
Eventually she heard the toilet flush and the sound of water running from the tap for several minutes.
She managed to shove her skirts down but couldn’t make herself move beyond that. Her body was numb.
It’s over, she kept telling herself, trying to make herself calm down, but Sheshe couldn’t stop trembling. Her nails had carved crescents into her palms.
Ferron emerged from the bathroom, his tense expression faded, as if he couldn’t maintain it. His face was drawn, his eyes stark and reddish.
He looked strangely mortal. She wished he didn’t.
She looked away.
He crossed the room silently, picked up his coat, and left.
Helena sat up slowly, trying not to feel her body.
Going into the bathroom, she turned on the shower’s spray and curled up beneath it without taking her clothes off. When the water ran cold, she still didn’t move.
robbed as his
wasn’t even
ng just as he
violent sound
She managed to shove her skirts down but couldn’t make herself move beyond that. Her body was numb.
It’s over, she kept telling herself, trying to make herself calm down, but she couldn’t stop trembling. Her nails had carved crescents into her palms.
Ferron emerged from the bathroom, his tense expression faded, as if he couldn’t maintain it. His face was drawn, his eyes stark and reddish.
He looked strangely mortal. She wished he didn’t.
She looked away.
He crossed the room silently, picked up his coat, and left.
Helena sat up slowly, trying not to feel her body.
Going into the bathroom, she turned on the shower’s spray and curled up beneath it without taking her clothes off. When the water ran cold, she still didn’t move.