CHAPTER 24
Februa 1786
IT WAS DAWN WHEN HELENA REACHED THE top floors of the Alchemy Tower.
What had once been the Holdfast family’s city residence was now rooms for Luc and the paladins and a few other alchemists.
As Helena came around the bend of the hallway, the door ahead swung open, and Luc walked out.
“Hel!” His face lit up for an instant, but then he stopped short. “What happened?”
She stared at him, stunned that he’d read everything in her expression so quickly. Then she realised he was staring at her clothes.
She looked down. She was still covered in dried blood.
Soren and Lila both emerged from the room behind Luc, fully armed. The paladins would never make the mistake of believing anywhere was safe for the Principate after what happened to Apollo.
“It’s not my blood,” Helena said. “Hospital shift. I just got off.”
“Oh, that’s a relief.” Luc was clearly distracted; he took her by the shoulders. “Did you hear the news?”
His voice was buoyant, and his eyes alight.
Helena couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked like this.
“We retook the trade district during the battle, means we’re on track to get the ports by summer.”
“Really?” She tried to force some excitement into her voice.
If Soren hadn’t mentioned that the battle had been considered a success, she would have sounded completely disbelieving. She knew it was strategically significant. City warfare was fraught with danger and complicated logistics. All the levels and districts and zones of the city were porous. Attacks could come from any direction. To have captured such a large district was a remarkable success.
But how could that battle be a victory, when so many had died?
Because the ports meant food, resources, and medical supplies. Everything that had been rationed for months. The supplies smuggled from Novis only ever took the edge off their shortages. If they had the ports in time for summer, they’d be able to get the quantities they were desperate for.
“We’ve got a new trick,” he said, and smiled again. “You know those lumithium pieces we find sometimes after burning the liches and Undying? If you can rip it out, it kills them. All their necrothralls, too.”
Helena stared at him in surprise. “How’d you figure that out?”
The only reliable method for permanently removing the Undying from combat was by burning them so hot and fast that they couldn’t regenerate, but when on fire, the Undying and the necrothralls would often plunge straight into the nearest cluster of combatants.
That was why there were always so many burn wounds.
“Heard a rumour about it, so we figured we’d give it a try. Lila got the first one.” Luc grinned, nodding over his shoulder. “We’re going out to celebrate.
Just a few of us. You want to clean up and come?”
The no she knew she should give stuck in her throat. She didn’t want to be left alone with her thoughts. It would be so nice to see Luc happy.
“I—” she started to say, but she caught sight of Soren’s face, and he gave the faintest warning shake of his head.
The words died in her throat. Of course she couldn’t go. How had she already forgotten what she’d just done in front of the Council?
Even if people had been ordered to forget it, they wouldn’t if she was seen
anywhere near Luc.
“I can’t,” she said.
His face fell. “Just for a little while,” he said, and attempted a conspiratorial smile, the way he used to grin when he was coaxing her away from homework. “You don’t have to stay long.”
Soren spoke up. “Let her sleep, Luc. She was probably in the hospital longer than we were fighting.”
Luc ignored him. “Breakfast,” he said, setting his jaw stubbornly. “At least breakfast. You’re never in the mess. Go wash up. We’ll wait.”
“No. I really can’t,” she said. “I need to sleep. Maybe next time, all right?”
Her voice wobbled.
His face fell. “All right, if you really don’t want to.” He stepped back and forced a smile. “I’m holding you to that, though. Next time.”
. EverythingHELENA’S NORMALLY TIDY ROOM LOOKED as though a tornado had blown through. Lila had returned in full force, which meant there was a pile of filthy clothes, fireproof amiantos under-armour, and padding piled in one corner, while armour, weaponry, and holsters and harnesses were spread across Lila’s unmade bed as if she’d emptied her entire trunk getting dressed.
Undying? IfDespite the impression of coolheaded, sharp-eyed talent that Lila radiated as paladin, behind closed doors she could be chaos personified. Off duty, she was twitchy and incapable of keeping still or on any task that didn’t interest her, and she left things everywhere. Weeks after Lila departed, Helena would generate, butfind her things in odd places. Mostly padding or pieces of scale mail or little gears for her rappelling harness that Helena had to hope weren’t important.
Helena stood, staring tiredly at the mess for a moment before wincing at the sight of her reflection in Lila’s vanity. a got the firstShe was covered in dried blood. She wasn’t sure if her uniform could even be bleached clean. It was a pity that only amiantos fabric could be whitened by being thrown in fire.
She forced herself to sit down at Lila’s vanity and remove the pins holding her braids in place before she stripped for a shower. Her sunstone amulet, tucked under her uniform, was warm from her skin as she lifted it off. She paused, cradling it in her palm, throat working as she studied the golden sunrays and the shimmering red surface of the stone in the centre.
The Holdfast Suncrest, with seven points rather than eight, representing each of the seven planets, except the sun, centre of all.
Ilva had given it to her when Helena returned to the city and formally made her vows as a healer.
It had been a private ceremony, an informal recitation beneath the Eternal Flame’s light with only the steward and Falcon present as witnesses because Ilva did not want Luc to have any idea about the kinds of promises Helena made in his name. He already chafed against the traditional vows his paladins had made about protecting him. Luc didn’t want anyone to die for him, and nly. “At leastcertainly not to promise to as his paladins did.
Helena had also promised to. e, all right?”Most healers could practise for decades without consequence, but to heal injuries that cheated death came with a price. It was called the Toll.
To heal a mortal wound or reanimate the dead required vitality, a drop of life itself. The greater the scale of the work, the greater the cost. Healing
came with the highest cost; that was why the Faith considered it a purifying act and allowed its practice while forbidding all other forms of vivimancy.
Becoming a healer would slowly carve away Helena’s life span, like apile of filthy candle being burned at both ends. Someday, she didn’t know when, her resonance would begin to wither and fade, and Helena would go with it. She felt it sometimes while healing, a sensation like sand in an hourglass being diverted, flowing from her fingertips and into her patients.
She never knew how much was left, just that she was spending it.
After the avowal ceremony, when Matias had gone, Ilva had stopped her and draped an amulet around Helena’s neck, tucking it under the neckline ofHelena would her uniform.
“It’s traditional for a healer to wear a holy amulet,” Ilva had said. “This crest is only worn by the Holdfasts and their paladins, but I think it right that you wear it, too.”
Now Helena stood, staring at the amulet, cold and hollow inside. The protruding sunrays bit against her palm, leaving a circle of indentations, threatening to break skin. She squeezed harder until they sank into her palm and her blood ran across the gold.pins holding
HELENA WOKE BECAUSE HER HANDS hurt, a bone-deep ache radiating from her palms to fingertips. Repetitive strain injuries were common in alchemists.
She started to massage her right palm to try to loosen the muscles, wincing.
The circle of cuts from the amulet reopened, blood trickling down her wrist.
She should heal them—blood poisoning was a severe risk in the hospital— but instead she lay there staring at them until they stopped oozing.
Finally she dressed and braided her hair and headed for the hospital—only to be informed that she had no shifts for the next two days. The news should have been a relief, but being left to her thoughts was the last thing she wanted.s his paladins Helena departed reluctantly, compiling a list of tasks she’d been putting off. She’d check the hospital inventory first, and then— As she came around the corner, she found Crowther standing in the hallway, studying a mural of Orion Holdfast.
Every corner of the Institute was beautifully decorated with various forms of the alchemical arts, but that mural was Helena’s favourite. She often found
herself in front of it after her worst shifts, or when Luc hadn’t come back for a long time.
In most of the depictions of the Holdfast Principates, there was a sort of indifference in the expressions, likely intended to make them look regal and divine. In this mural, there was a tenderness to Orion’s face, a hint of a smile.
It made him look like Luc.
The sun’s rays were a halo behind Orion, and he wore the radiant crown on his head. His flaming sword was laid aside, still piercing the Necromancer’s skull, while cradled in his palms was a large orb of brilliant light.
Whenever Helena stood in front of it, she told herself that someday there would be paintings of Luc like that.
“I can see why you like this one,” Crowther said, glancing sidelong at her.
Helena knew little about Jan Crowther, even though he’d joined the faculty at the Institute when Helena was fifteen.
He’d been a sponsored student, like her, brought to Paladia as a child after being orphaned by a necromancer in the far north-eastern reaches of the continent. He’d attended the Institute, joined the Eternal Flame, and fought in the crusades, where he’d been injured. When he’d joined the Institute faculty, students expected he was there to train Luc, given the rarity of pyromancers, but Luc had nothing to do with Crowther. After less than a year, Crowther left again, only to immediately return after Principate Apollo’s assassination.
He turned and stared at her. His right arm was strapped tightly against his torso with a harness. Although he still wore ignition rings on his left hand, she’d never seen him use them.
“My office, I think,” he said, gesturing down the hall towards the Alchemy Tower. Helena said nothing. They rode the lift to one of the faculty floors, and he led the way to a door with his name on it.
His hand brushed across a metal panel, and the door clicked and opened.
The office within was clearly lived in. One wall was covered in maps, not only of Paladia but also of the neighbouring countries and other continents. A dilapidated sofa was crammed in a corner.
There was scarcely floor space to walk.
“Sit,” he said, slipping around his desk and seating himself. The only window in the room was directly behind him, leaving him cast in shadow.
“What do you know about the Ferron family’s history?” e often foundHelena sat staring at her lap rather than trying to make out Crowther’s expressions.
“Just the general things,” she said. “They were one of the early common guild families. Their resonance is mostly for steel alloys. They have iron mines, and a few generations back they developed the methods of industrial steel manufacturing. Most of the infrastructure in Paladia nowadays is made nt of a smile.with Ferron steel.”
Crowther’s silhouette nodded. “The Ferron family is arguably older than ant crown onPaladia. They were iron alchemists when the basin was still a floodplain; their early resonance and techniques were developed finding bog iron.”
Helena wasn’t sure how that information was relevant, but she supposed anything about the Ferrons was useful to know.
“I was Kaine Ferron’s academic advisor here at the Institute.”
She peered at him. “You knew him? Do you think his offer to spy is ed the facultylegitimate?”
Crowther sighed, pressing his fingertips down on the desk so the joints bowed inwards. “Ferron was a remarkable liar and an impersonal student. I believe he hated this institution. Our conversations were rarely more than
and fought inminimally cordial.” itute faculty,“Why?”
“Why? I should think it obvious. The Ferrons are ambitious. They’ve made no effort to hide their inflated opinions of themselves. Did you ever see the crest they bought with their fortune?”
Helena tried to remember. “Is it a lizard?”
“No.” Crowther shoved a slip of paper towards her.
Helena picked it up and stared. It was a dragon curled into a perfect circle, the Alchemylong fangs tearing apart its own tail. On the upper right, taloned wings arched above the curved body.
“It’s an ouroboros,” she said, doubtful about what character insights a family crest would reveal. Crowther remained silent, so she hazarded a guess.
“In Khemish alchemy, a serpent ouroboros is supposed to represent infinity continents. Aor rebirth. Perhaps that’s how the Ferrons saw their new fortune. Although in Cetus’s writing, it can also be used to represent greed and self-destruction.
Maybe that’s why they chose a dragon instead of the serpent. A mythical creature is an unusual choice either way.”
She tried to hand it back.
“Look. Again.”
She sighed, not sure what Crowther wanted her to see.
“Squint if you need to.”
She narrowed her eyes, letting the image blur. “Oh.” She felt like an idiot.
“They chose a dragon because the wings make it look like the symbol for iron.”
“Yes,” Crowther said. Her jaw clenched at the condescension in his voice.
“It says a great deal about how the family sees themselves. A circle is without hierarchy, and yet in this crest, it is iron that forms it.” Crowther drummed his fingers on his desk. “Iron will never be a noble metal, but it is indisputable at this point that Ferron steel has built as much of Paladia as Holdfast gold. The Holdfasts ruled for nearly five hundred celestial years by divine right, but the rest of the world has been catching up with our technological revelations. The tension between past ideals and present
realities is what enabled this war.”
“What do you mean?”
Crowther’s eyes gleamed in the shadows.
“I mean that time has allowed this country to begin questioning what is divine, and whether it matters. Our Principate can alchemise gold and wield holy fire. Two gifts of exceptional rarity. Once, that was miracle enough. But the world has changed, and the Principate has not. Morrough can raise the hey’ve madedead and grant immortality. The Ferrons have found a way to turn their lowly iron into seemingly infinite mountains of wealth. In a world like that, what purpose is there in fire or endless gold?”
Helena was dumbstruck to hear such criticism uttered by a Council
member.
“If you think that, why are you here?” wings arched“Because I wish to see every necromancer wiped from the face of this earth. That is the purpose of the Eternal Flame and the reason for the Principate’s crown. I will see this city burned to ash sooner than allow rded a guess.necromancers to use it as their stronghold,” Crowther said, baring his teeth.
“As long as the Eternal Flame is faithful to ridding the world of necromancers, I will be faithful to it.”
His words were chilling.
“Then taking Ferron’s offer is a compromise—working with one necromancer to stop others.”
“That and because we have no other options at this point,” Crowther said, waving his hand.
Helena refrained from mentioning her alternative. “Still, I would like to know that there’s some tangible purpose to this deal. I am the only healer the
Resistance has, and if Ferron—” She couldn’t bring herself to verbalise what Ferron could do. “Based on everything you’ve said, Ferron doesn’t seem to have any reason to help the Eternal Flame. I don’t understand how it could be worth it to trust him.” cle is withoutCrowther only scoffed. “I’m sure Ilva has filled your head with pretty stories about your importance, but you’re easily replaced. We already have several candidates under consideration.”
The room went briefly out of focus, and Helena felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.
Crowther’s features were just visible enough that she could see his cheeks stretch as he smiled. “As to why I believe in the legitimacy of Kaine’s offer, it is because I know he is not loyal or concerned with our cause that I believe him earnest in this. The Ferrons have spent the last century digging into their family lineage and convincing themselves of some imaginary right to rule that was usurped by the Holdfasts. They were not looking for someone else to serve when Morrough appeared; they thought he was a means to an end, an enough. Butoutsider with the resources to challenge and undermine the Principate for them. But now Morrough holds too much of an advantage. Ferron is making n their lowlythe gamble that he can sabotage the Undying by aiding us until the scales even.”
“Because if the Undying and the Eternal Flame destroy each other, then—”
“Who better to rule the ashes than the family whose steel can rebuild this city?”
Helena straightened, starting to see the strategy. “So he’ll betray us eventually, but not until we’re more of a threat to the Undying.”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly, ignoring the sick knot in her stomach.
“He won’t ever be loyal, but I expect he’ll be an excellent spy if for no other reason than his vanity. He’s already done more for us in a day than the Resistance has accomplished in the last year.”
“What do you mean?”
Crowther flicked two fingers; they were so long they reminded Helena of harvestman spiders. “When he made his offer and set his terms, as proof of his—sincerity, he told us how to kill the liches and Undying without fire.”
“The lumithium,” Helena said, remembering Luc’s words, the “rumour” they’d heard about.
“Yes. The vulnerability of the ‘talismans,’ as he calls them, was Ferron’s sample of the information he could offer. It’s likely to be a very beneficial w it could bearrangement for us in the immediate future.”
And when it wasn’t? What would happen to her then?
“However … I have no interest in accepting Ferron’s crumbs. We will take
advantage of this.”
Helena leaned forward. “How?” been kickedCrowther raised his eyebrows, an odd smile playing at his lips. “Because he made a mistake when he asked for you.”
Helena’s heart stuttered.
“He wanted us to believe the reason for his spying was his mother. When I wouldn’t let him get away with that lie, he was forced to improvise, and he did so by inventing an excuse of wanting you. Quite the misstep, I’d say.”
Her hand clenched, and she could feel the punctures in her palm begin to meone else tobleed, sticking to the inside of her glove. “Why?”
Crowther leaned forward, his thin features emerging from the shadows.
“It’s an odd request, don’t you think? Why would Kaine Ferron, the iron
guild heir, want Helena Marino?”
She shook her head.
“He could have asked for anything, cited a crisis of conscience, demanded ther, then—”a mountain of gold, but instead, he wants … you? It’s an irrational choice.”
Crowther drummed his fingers thoughtfully. “A sign of some kind of subconscious obsession perhaps.”
His eyes flicked over Helena appraisingly. “An obsession is a weakness, and a weakness is an opportunity for us. As we established, you’ll go to Ferron twice a week and bring his missives safely back to me, and during those visits, you will do anything he wants.”
“I know.”
“You will also make a study of him. It is your job now to notice everything. Discover his weaknesses, his secret desires. Make use of that allegedly clever mind of yours. Let him think he has all the power and gradually make him begin craving things he can’t demand from you.
Whatever passing interest prompted this, I want you to turn it into an obsession that consumes him.”
She stared at him, incredulous. “I don’t have any idea of how to do that.”
“Well, then it’s fortunate that you have an advantage over him.”
Helena stared at Crowther, at a loss.
“Ferron was already gone when your vivimancy was discovered. He doesn’t know what you are. With your abilities, you can make him feel however you want him to feel about you. Enthral him.”
Helena sat stunned. “I’ve never used my vivimancy to—” take“But you could, couldn’t you?” His face hardened, dark eyes narrowing.
This was the point of the conversation, the destination he’d been leading her to the whole time. “Your job, Marino, is to use any means necessary to bring Ferron to his knees. You will use those cursed abilities of yours to make him forget he ever wanted anything but you.”
Her throat closed, her face burning. “I don’t think that’s even possible—” ther. When I“Then make it possible. Or are you just the compliant lamb that Ilva sees
you as?”
Helena flinched.
“If you only want to be a victim, then by all means, go. Or you can do things my way, and Kaine Ferron will not be your owner, he’ll be your target, and your job will be to get as much information out of him as possible until it is we who have no more need of him.” He gave a thin smile. “The choice is yours.”
WHEN CROWTHER FINALLY LET HER leave, Helena felt as drained as if she’d just pulled another three-day hospital shift. He told her he’d “send word” when he had a date and location for the first liaison, and until then she was to behave as usual.
She went to the library archives and found old copies of the newspapers that had been printed after Principate Apollo’s assassination. There’d been a picture of Ferron included. His student portrait, taken only a week before.
She stared at the boy in the black-and-white photograph.
He was in his student uniform, the crisp white collar that kept the chin up, and the pins on his jacket with his guild sigils, iron and steel. Guild students only ever wore their guild metals, while Helena had been required to wear a sash with pins for all the metals she was ranked as competent in, as if she didn’t already stick out enough.
He had dark hair but pale Northern skin and eyes, and his expression was tense with just a hint of prideful defiance in it, as if he’d known then what the photo would be used for.
She studied him, memorising the details, trying to imagine what he’d be like now, more than five years later.
When she ran out of newspapers to read, she checked out several medical textbooks, as well as studies and theories on human behaviour and the mind.
She couldn’t find a reason why she wouldn’t be able to emotionally and physically enthral him with vivimancy the way Crowther wanted, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was doable. Only theoretically possible.
It couldn’t be anything too overt, only enough to alter the heart rate and stimulate certain hormones and reactions to stimuli until there was an ingrained physiological response. Using vivimancy would simply be taking a shortcut in old behavioural experiments.
Helena knew from years of healing that most people couldn’t tell when resonance was being used on them unless the manipulation was overt. That was part of what made people so afraid of vivimancers: the idea that e your target,something could be done without their knowledge. ssible until itBut if Ferron ever suspected it, he’d kill her in a heartbeat.
Which meant it would be a gradual process, requiring her to know Ferron intimately, to be able to read his body and emotions. The feelings she evoked would have to seem natural. Subtle as poison until he was too far gone for a cure.
n she was to
hen what the
She studied him, memorising the details, trying to imagine what he’d be like now, more than five years later.
When she ran out of newspapers to read, she checked out several medical textbooks, as well as studies and theories on human behaviour and the mind.
She couldn’t find a reason why she wouldn’t be able to emotionally and physically enthral him with vivimancy the way Crowther wanted, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was doable. Only theoretically possible.
It couldn’t be anything too overt, only enough to alter the heart rate and stimulate certain hormones and reactions to stimuli until there was an ingrained physiological response. Using vivimancy would simply be taking a shortcut in old behavioural experiments.
Helena knew from years of healing that most people couldn’t tell when resonance was being used on them unless the manipulation was overt. That was part of what made people so afraid of vivimancers: the idea that something could be done without their knowledge.
But if Ferron ever suspected it, he’d kill her in a heartbeat.
Which meant it would be a gradual process, requiring her to know Ferron intimately, to be able to read his body and emotions. The feelings she evoked would have to seem natural. Subtle as poison until he was too far gone for a cure.