CHAPTER 28
Martius 1786
AS MUCH AS HELENA HATED IT, SHE had to admit that Ferron’s training was doing something, although perhaps not what he’d intended.
His repeated invasions had awakened in her a newfound sense of her own mental landscape. It reminded her of when she’d first realised she was a vivimancer, as if her resonance could suddenly reach something wholly unfamiliar.
Ferron’s resonance through her mind made her conscious of an energy there which she could manipulate.
She wasn’t sure if she’d always had the ability and simply didn’t notice, or if it was the “animancy” Ferron had mentioned. It wasn’t as if she could ask.
As far as Ferron was concerned, Helena was only learning to concentrate.
However, she’d realised that she could supplement her focus with her resonance, pushing away her thoughts, rerouting her mind down preferred paths. At first, she practised it simply for their meetings, but she found herself using it constantly at Headquarters, too, pushing away all the thoughts and feelings eating at her.
After another test, Ferron stepped away from her, glancing outside one of the dirty windows. There was barely a view; the Outpost was crowded, but there was a sliver of sky visible in the direction of the islands. He stared towards it. The white, overcast sky was stained with smoke.
He looked at her. “There’s always smoke rising from your Headquarters.
It’s from the crematorium, isn’t it?”
Helena said nothing, but his guess was right. They were constantly burning
the dead.
“How many soldiers do you have left?”
Helena’s mouth went dry. That was one of the Eternal Flame’s greatest concerns: that the Undying would realise how exhausted the Resistance ranks
were. That one brutal push might be enough to wipe them out entirely.
She said nothing.
Ferron stood silhouetted by the window’s pale light. “How much longer do you think you all can keep fighting?”
That, she could answer. “Until there’s no one left. There’s no surrendering for us.”
“Good to know,” he said softly, looking back at the smoke.
THE HOSPITAL HAD BEEN RUNNING on fumes for months, so short on supplies that any smuggled in from Novis seemed to instantly evaporate.
“We’re completely out of gauze, and we used the last of the opium resin last week,” Pace said as she and Helena stood together in the nearly empty supply room. “The Council wants to use the new healers to cover for the shortage, but they’re not anywhere near reliable.”
Even without a war, opium products were often in short supply. The dual moon tides limited sea trade from the Ortus regions for most of the year, except during the summer ebb, when Lumithia was in Abeyance and the sea n’t notice, orseparating the continents briefly calmed. The rest of the year, supply caravans had to circumnavigate the sea—a journey which could often take half a year and resulted in prohibitive prices.
The Eternal Flame needed far more than just opium. They needed more food, medicine, clothing, and bandages. Anything not made of metal or transmutable materials was in desperately short supply. If the Resistance the thoughtscouldn’t regain control of the ports before the summer trade influx, they’d be starved into submission before the next winter.
“The floodings won’t be so bad for a little while,” Helena said. “I can find sphagnum outside of the city, and that’ll help with the gauze shortage at least.
Lots of willow this time of year, too.”
Pace nodded, still staring at the empty shelves. “It’d be something, at least.”
Without clean, sterile gauze and bandages, injuries would get infected, antly burningrecovery would be slower, the risk of disease and contagious infections would rise. Even with five healers providing pain relief, their support would come at the cost of other healing they could be doing.
As Helena headed out towards the wetlands in the early morning, she istance rankscaught sight of Luc and Lila in the commons, armed to the teeth and sparring.
She hadn’t even heard they were back again.
She’d been sleeping on a camp bed in Pace’s office. Pain was often the uch longer doworst for patients at night.
She paused a moment to watch.
Luc preferred fighting in the traditional Holdfast style that involved an enormous flaming sword that he could transmute into two smaller flaming swords. He was exceptional with fire alchemy. White flames bright as the sun fanned out around him like wings, making his blue eyes glow like sapphires, and even the gauntness of his features somehow made him look more
ethereal.
His power really did seem otherworldly.
Helena knew it wasn’t; in fact, she probably knew more about how it worked than he did. While Luc had a natural talent for pyromancy, he lacked both patience and interest when it came to the science. As a student, he used to rely on Helena to make sense of the theory sections of his homework.
Pyromancy was more varied than metal transmutation. A pyromancer in combat needed to be able to rapidly improvise without hesitation or miscalculation based on numerous variables—wind, enclosed space, target pply caravansdistances, oxygen levels.
She watched Luc’s fingers, mentally calculating which techniques and array sourcing he was using. He was so fast, she could barely keep up.
Because basic projectiles had negligible effect on necrothralls or the Undying, most fighting was either incendiary or close-range.
“Hel!” Luc’s voice split the early morning as he stopped short, waving her over.
Luc grinned as she neared. He was all in white, wearing just his amiantos under-armour to keep his clothes from singeing. His face was glistening from
rtage at least.the heat. “How was I?”
Her lips pursed.
He laughed. “You can be honest.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “You’re overusing oxygen. It’s a bad habit. It can be dangerous if you’re in an enclosed space,” she said.
Luc scrubbed his forehead. “I know, I’m trying to extend the accuracy of my reach, but I can’t keep it stable without losing control of how much air it takes.”
Helena gnawed on the inside of her lip. “Which formula are you using?” and sparring.
Luc grimaced. “I don’t know, haven’t written out an array in ages. Just do it in my head. You know, what feels right.”
“You could probably work it out if you actually wrote it down,” she said, giving him a pointed look.
He got a sly gleam in his eyes. “Well, maybe I will if you’ll look at it.
We’re about to go on break anyway, and I hear you’ve got trainees now, ght as the sunwhich means there’s no excuses left. It’s next time. Come on. I’ll set something on fire if you try to say no.”
She exhaled. “I was actually on my way to—”
The sky above them burst into flames with a crackling roar, drowning out
her words.
“Sorry, you were saying?” Luc asked.
“You should come, Hel,” Lila said as she mopped her face with a towel.
“Luc’s been going on about this new thing he’s doing for weeks, and none of us has any idea what he’s talking about.”
Helena’s heart quickened, and she dared a smile. “I guess I have to help, then.”
“You guess,” Luc grumbled as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her along with them all. “You should be delighted. I’m
delightful.”
Helena laughed.
She had no idea what had him in such a good mood, but she was glad of it.
Kaine Ferron was a small price to pay if it meant there were moments like
this again.
“Marino.”
Crowther’s voice was like a knife through her back. stening fromShe flinched, freezing in her tracks.
Crowther was standing behind them in the corridor. “Marino, I need to discuss the hospital inventory sheet you turned in last night,” he said, gesturing in the opposite direction.
Luc spoke first, his voice unusually cool. “I’m sure it can wait, Jan. I need Hel for something.”
“I apologise, Principate, but it cannot,” Crowther said, his voice mild, but his eyes boring a hole through Helena. “It’s a matter of some urgency.”
Helena started to speak, but Luc squeezed her shoulder and smiled, all teeth. “Sorry. I need her.”
Crowther’s eyebrows rose. “Are you injured?”
Luc stiffened. “No. She’s helping me with something related to pyromancy.”
Everything about Crowther seemed to sharpen, like a cat extending its claws, but he bowed. “If you require help with your pyromancy, I would be more than happy to advise. I was personally trained by your family.”
“I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Luc said in a tone of false civility.
“I am always at the service of the Principate,” Crowther said, inclining his head. “And as such, I must insist that Marino come with me. The matter of inventory may sound trivial, but it is of vital importance that the hospital is properly equipped; it can make the difference between life or death for our soldiers.” His gaze flicked to Lila, then Soren, then Alister, and onwards, resting on each one of them, as if to insinuate that Luc was choosing Helena’s companionship over their lives.
Luc stood silent. Helena could feel his rising resentment, a pressure growing in the air.
A standoff like this could only hurt the Resistance. Ferron’s spying would be of little use if Luc disregarded information from Crowther out of dislike.
“He’s right, I should go. Sorry, Luc,” she said as she stepped away. She looked back. “Next time.”
Lila’s eyebrows were drawn together, but she didn’t speak. It wasn’t a paladin’s place to speak in situations like this. Soren looked resigned but as glad of it.unsurprised, as Lila noticed; she cast a sharp, interrogative look at her twin.
Luc forced a smile. “Of course. I’m holding you to that.”
WHEN THEY’D GONE, LEAVING HELENA alone with Crowther, his vaguely congenial expression vanished as he looked at her.
“You are a known advocate for necromancy with entirely conditional clearance now. Whatever allowances Ilva has permitted in the past, consider them all revoked until you have results that would make the effort of rehabilitating you worth it.”
Crowther’s words were still ringing in her ears as she set out for the wetlands. There was heavy fog hanging over the river, bringing with it a cold that penetrated to the bones, but there was no smell of blood or miasma, no smoke filling her lungs. Even before the war, being outside within the city never really felt like being outside.
The wetlands were too flooded to traverse, and she was forced to forage along the banks. There was a large copse of willows just below the dam.
Willow bark was best before the sap began to run. While its efficacy paled against laudanum, it could provide some minor pain relief and was also good for reducing inflammation, for managing fevers, and as a disinfectant for wounds. They were getting dangerously low on antiseptic, too.
She harvested ruthlessly, leaving all the stripped branches behind. It was mindless and frigid work.
She had no idea what Crowther expected of her. She didn’t know how to make progress with Ferron. She’d expected the mission to be awful but straightforward, but Ferron gave her no opportunities to do anything. sing Helena’sShe slit open a thick willow shoot with the tip of her harvesting knife, exposing the white wood beneath and removing the bark with a quick sweep of her arm.
The sound of one of the floodgates opening was almost lost amid the rush of water. A hinge shrieked, startling the marsh birds which burst out of the winter grass.
Helena dropped to the ground on instinct.
Cold mud seeped through her clothes as she peered across the water. The fog was slowly rising with the light, and she could just make out the upper tip of the West Island across the flooded wetlands and river channels. She didn’t think she was in danger, but she knew better than to allow herself to be seen.
The floodgates were connected to an intricate tunnel system which led into cavernous flood cathedrals beneath the West Island. As she watched, several necrothralls appeared through the mouth of the open floodgate, dragging a large box by chains.
Behind the necrothralls came several people in black or dark-grey uniforms.
One man waved a hand, and the necrothralls simultaneously pulled long bolts from the top of the box, causing one side to fall open.
Helena watched with fascinated horror as a creature crawled out from inside. with it a coldIt was larger than a dog, and pinkish like a pig, except its shape was wrong. It had catlike legs and a long, flattened body, but the head was the most grotesque. Reptilian. Flat, with a snout so elongated that the creature struggled to hold it out of the way as it crept forward. There were massive jutting teeth curving out of both the upper and lower jaws.
Helena’s mouth went dry. She knew what it was, but it was impossible.
Like homunculi, chimaeras were one of Cetus’s prescientific alchemical myths.
But she couldn’t deny what she saw with her own eyes.
One of the men in black waved a hand, and a necrothrall stepped into the creature’s path.
Teeth flashed as the mutated body lunged, moving impossibly fast.
The necrothrall went down, and the creature used its hooked teeth to peel the greyish skin off the limbs. The necrothrall continued trying to stand until the over-large jaws ripped the head off.
Helena’s fingers shook as she buckled the straps of her satchel and began to crawl slowly away, trying to keep hidden.
The men across the water were all in conversation together, watching the monster as it ate the necrothrall. As a group, they turned and reentered the floodgate tunnel, leaving the creature behind, a pale and monstrous sentinel crouched on the bank.
Helena watched from across the water as the monster wandered along the shore with short, disproportionate steps. It struggled to move and stayed out of the water, sticking to the bank. the upper tipHelena resumed crawling, not wanting to find out if the chimaera could swim. Her hands had turned purplish grey from the cold. She rubbed them together rapidly, trying clumsily to use her resonance to bring warmth back hich led intointo her fingertips.
She was just crossing the bridge, able to see the gate and checkpoint, when a searing heat encased her hand, so painfully hot she almost screamed.
The heat instantly faded.
She looked down, realising what it was. The skin around her left ring finger had a red tinge to it, and when she tilted her hand, the ring reappeared
for an instant.
It burned again.
She nearly ripped it off. With her hands so cold, the heat was excruciating.
Bastard. There was no reason to make the ring that warm unless he thought she had nerve impairment.
He was probably summoning her to tell her about the chimaera, which she already knew about. Her bag was heavy, and she was freezing, and all she wanted to do was get back to Headquarters.
But Ferron wouldn’t know that she already knew. She turned reluctantly and headed for the Outpost.
SHE ARRIVED FIRST. SHE’D KNOWN she would, but it was still irritating to be so cold and forced to wait. She was barely able to get the door open.
She removed her cloak and then peeled off her jacket, wringing the sleeves so that marsh water trickled out, then she twisted at the extra fabric of her shirtsleeves, trying to make them slightly drier. Her boots squelched every time she moved, and her toes were numb.
The door finally swung open, revealing Ferron, whose eyes instantly narrowed at the sight of Helena.
“What are you doing?” he asked, eyes following the trickle of the muddy water Helena was squeezing onto the floor.
“I was wet.”
Irritation flashed across his face, but Helena was beyond caring. She shook her jacket so that it snapped. “So, chimaeras. Is there more than the one?”
When he didn’t answer, she looked up.
His eyebrows were drawn together. “You’re already aware.” There was
crisp irritation in his voice.
She nodded. “I saw it.”
The most indescribable expression passed across his face. “You saw it?
How?”
“I was down in the wetlands when they set it loose.”kpoint, when
“You were in the barrens?”
She’d always hated that name for it.
“Yes. I go there for medical supplies. There’s a lot to forage, it’s—” She hesitated. “—it’s good in a pinch. Is there only one chimaera?”
Ferron refused to return to the matter at hand. “This is something you do often?”
“Well, it’s seasonal. There’s not much I can get during heavy flooding but —” Helena paused at Ferron’s stunned expression.ss he thought She sighed impatiently. “I mentioned that I do this every Saturnis and Martiday. I was out today getting some extra.”
“No …” Ferron said slowly, a dangerous edge to his voice. His posture was still casual, but his tone gave him away. “You said you were getting medical supplies. I assumed that meant meeting a smuggler in the city.”
“Why would the Eternal Flame send me to meet a smuggler? I’m getting medicinal plants; it helps stretch the supply.”
He flicked his hand towards her. “Alone?”
“Obviously,” Helena said. “That’s why we can meet after I finish. How have you not realised this? You’re constantly crawling through my memories.” g the sleeves“Your mind is considerably less interesting than you imagine. Why would I pay attention to the frivolous things you do on the way here?”
It was almost funny how blindsided he was.
“Tell Crowther to come up with some other excuse for you coming out of the city,” he finally said. “You come here, and you go back. I’m not risking my cover having you crawl through a marsh for a few weeds.”
Helena stood, stunned with indignation. “You—you can’t do that.”
His expression hardened and now he moved, finally, stalking her across the room. “Actually, I can. Have you forgotten? I own you.” g. She shook“Yes,” she said, refusing to back down; she’d done enough bending and complying that day. “But you also gave your word not to interfere with my responsibilities to the Eternal Flame. Foraging is part of my work. I’ve been doing it for years. If you want to control everything I do, you can wait until we win.”
Ferron stood glaring at her for several seconds, and she was afraid that he’d go over her head, contact Crowther, and force an alternative.
Crowther would do it. She just knew. Anything to make Ferron happy.
Her heart pounded fiercely in her chest, praying he wouldn’t call her bluff.
He stepped back, eyes steely. “Fine. Then tell me, how are you protected out there? What weapons do they have you carrying? I want to see if they’ll work on the chimaeras.”
He held out a gloved hand. Helena stared at it. Despite her still-numb hands, heat crawled across the back of her neck and a lump rose in her throat.
She swallowed. “It’s—um, not like that,” she said awkwardly, trying to
sidle past him.
“Not like what?”
“I don’t—have an issued weapon. They pulled me from combat before I qualified. When you only work in Headquarters, you don’t—” She gestured at her clothes. “I forage as a civilian.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’re travelling through the city and out into the barrens alone and unarmed?”
Helena squirmed. It sounded much worse than it was. She had vivimancy, but she couldn’t tell him that. It also didn’t help that her trips weren’t officially sanctioned.
Pace knew. Crowther knew. Matias, her actual superior, did not. Helena didn’t want to give him the chance to forbid her from making medicine for some reason.
She tried to make it sound more reasonable. “If I had an issued weapon, that would put me in even more danger if I were apprehended.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said in flat disbelief.
“I have a harvesting knife.” She held it up.
He blinked slowly. “And what could you do with that thing?”
She lifted her chin. “We all did the basic combat training at the Institute. I still know the forms; they work with or without transmutation.” her across theHe looked her up and down. “And when did you last practise them?”
She averted her eyes. “I don’t know, I don’t keep track of things like that.”
She shoved the knife back into her satchel; her fingers stayed wrapped around the handle, its varnish worn away but the wood smooth from use.
“I’m rather busy.”
“Well, now I know what I’m doing with you next,” he said with a sigh. “I thought your mind would be the biggest danger to me, but it turns out you’re somehow still a walking liability. I’m not wasting my time training a new contact after all the time I’ve wasted on you.”
Helena sighed. “It’s not necessary. No one’s ever bothered me.”
Ferron raised an eyebrow. “You think there’s only going to be one chimaera out there? Bennet’s been working on this project for years. Now that he’s cracked it, he’ll have the barrens and low districts overrun with the creatures. What you saw is one of the early prototypes.”
“Tell us how to kill them, then,” she said sharply. “We’re not going to give in her throat.up food and medicine because you psychopaths decided to set monsters loose everywhere.”
She was already being pulled in so many directions, she couldn’t stand to think about having to add combat training.
“Obviously, I’ll be working on that,” he said through gritted teeth. “That’s why I called you here, to let you know to be alert for them. If you’re going out there, you have to be trained.”
Helena gave an exasperated huff, turning towards the door. “Then I’ll drill at Headquarters.”
She unlocked the door as he spoke again.
“You don’t want me to train you?” His voice had turned slippery and dangerous. “Why not? I’d have thought you’d prefer to fill our time with training rather than with some of the other activities I could demand.”
Helena stopped short and looked back. He was cornering her.
He must have realised that she was supposed to seduce him, even if he didn’t have any idea of her vivimancy. Damn it all.
“Fine,” she snapped. “You can train me.”
She knew already that whatever physical training he chose would probably be even worse than the mental training he’d already subjected her to. Combat training hardly seemed the context in which to evoke a sense of obsessive
want.
Violent want was more likely.
There was a dull pounding in her head. She could feel Luc being pulled gs like that.”further and further from reach. All light in her life disappearing.
“You look so bitter.” Ferron’s mocking voice drew her back. His eyes glittered. “You’d think I just demanded you fuck me rather than not.
Disappointed?”
Slow rage was seeping through her. “Do you always buy your company?”
It was only a guess, but Ferron seemed the type. Guild families with a tradition of resonance-based marriages had reputations for wandering into the beds of others. Marriage among the guilds was as much a business arrangement as the silk entertainment houses on the West Island.
Ferron’s eyes gleamed. “I admit, I enjoy the professionalism,” he said with a shrug. “Clear lines. No expectations. And I don’t have to pretend I care.”
His lip curled at the last word, as though caring were the most offensive
concept known to man. going to give“Of course. How very you.” onsters loose“Quite,” he agreed with a thin smile.
She wished she could hurt him, that there was a way for her to do it that counted.
He hurt her so much, without even trying, without needing to know anything about her. He’d simply spoken her name and reduced her to property, his whims locking an iron chain around her throat.
“Do you talk to them, tell them all about the tragic life you’ve had? Or are you just in and out, quick as you can?” she asked, her voice lilting with the taunt.
His eyes flashed.
“Want me to show you?” His voice was sharp and cold as a splinter of ice.
She met his eyes and raised her chin. “You won’t.”
His expression hardened. She knew that she could goad him if she kept going.
She’d finally get it over with, stop enduring Crowther and Ilva’s search for signs that she’d been ravished or ravaged. Stop lying awake at night, cold with dread, wondering when it would finally happen. She was sick of uld probablywaiting. Of wondering on and on. Like bracing for a sword to fall. r to. CombatShe kept talking. “It would be too real for you, wouldn’t it? If it was someone you knew. I think that’s why you haven’t. You’re afraid I’ll mess with those clear lines, so you’re making up all these excuses about needing to
train me.”
The muscle in his jaw rippled.
“Testing me, Marino?” His voice was cool, like the flat side of a knife
blade.
She didn’t blink. “Yes. I am.”
There. She’d done it now.
He walked towards her across that cold, filthy room, and rather than quicken, her heart slowed. Each beat heavy, drawn out as he leaned forward ering into theuntil their eyes were level.
“Strip.”
It was all he said. he said withShe couldn’t move.
She knew she was supposed to do whatever he wanted. That was the deal she’d made. And she’d wanted it to be over, but now her body wouldn’t obey.
She stood frozen. The tenement was nothing but an empty room with a chipped tile floor and a wooden table, and every aspect of Ferron that she could read screamed that he was about to exact a profound degree of cruelty upon her.
“I see now.” He smiled like a wolf. All teeth. “It’s been killing you, hasn’t it? Wondering. You expected me to do this to you right off. The waiting— trying to guess when I might get around to it—that bothers you more than having to fuck me. Well, you have your wish. Take your clothes off, Marino.”
She barely managed to swallow. Her ears were ringing until she could scarcely hear herself think.
He wasn’t even aroused. She could tell. He was doing it to teach her a lesson.
Crowther was wrong. He was so desperate to get some kind of leverage on ’s search forFerron, he’d convinced himself of some kind of slowly germinating obsession, but there wasn’t any. Ferron had simply identified what Crowther
wanted to believe about him.
The whole mission was pointless.
Her jaw began to tremble uncontrollably. “You don’t even want me. Why did you ask for me?” ut needing toHe laughed. “You’re right, I don’t want you, but owning you will never get old. As long as you live. What a promise to make. I wonder how much I can make you regret it.” His teeth flashed again. “Take your clothes off, Marino.
It’s time to see what I’ve been paying for.”
Her hands trembled as she reached up and began unfastening the top button of her shirt.
“It’s power that gets you off, isn’t it?” Her voice shook with rage as she forced herself to move down to the next button. “Hurting people is the only way you know how to feel anything. But now even that barely does it for you, so you have to find new ways to do it, make your victims responsible for their pain; making it a choice they made, a vow they consented to. That’s what thrills you now. Using what people care about to coerce and enslave them rather than having to do the physical work of hurting.” She scoffed in his face. “You think you’re better than us because you’re immortal, but you’re dead inside already.”
She said it despite knowing he’d probably enjoy her attempt at bravado, because she wanted to say it at least once. He didn’t laugh at her words, though; instead the malice in Ferron’s expression vanished.
He stood there staring at her, growing paler and paler.
Then something metal inside the walls of the tenement groaned and the air hummed. Helena could feel Ferron’s resonance in the room, an uncontrolled surge of energy distorting the room. This was one of the many reasons alchemists were dangerous. When they lost control, their resonance could expand beyond them. It was a combat technique, but without stability and control, it could annihilate anything within their repertoire.
And Ferron was a vivimancer, which meant Helena was within his repertoire. She could feel his resonance in her bones.
Her skin vibrated. A thrum ran through her heart.
Ferron’s expression contorted into one of pure rage. “Get out!”
She didn’t move, terrified that in an instant she’d be atomised.
He snarled and turned away from her, and the door warped, the sharp sound of metal and mechanisms splintering as it folded in on itself and split
apart, writhing as if alive.
“Get out!”
Helena did not need further invitation. She bolted through the door, leaping across the wreckage and fleeing down the stairs so fast, she slammed into the will never getlanding wall. She shoved herself back to her feet and fled the Outpost.
sponsible for
And Ferron was a vivimancer, which meant Helena was within his repertoire. She could feel his resonance in her bones.
Her skin vibrated. A thrum ran through her heart.
Ferron’s expression contorted into one of pure rage. “Get out!”
She didn’t move, terrified that in an instant she’d be atomised.
He snarled and turned away from her, and the door warped, the sharp sound of metal and mechanisms splintering as it folded in on itself and split
apart, writhing as if alive.
“Get out!”
Helena did not need further invitation. She bolted through the door, leaping across the wreckage and fleeing down the stairs so fast, she slammed into the landing wall. She shoved herself back to her feet and fled the Outpost.