CHAPTER 42
Octobris 1786
WHEN HELENA ASKED SHISEO IF HE COULD test her resonance for a weapon alloy, he’d seemed surprised by the request.
“You don’t know?” he asked, looking up as he adjusted the temperature under an alembic.
“I never got around to it,” she said, trying to make the request seem casual.
Shiseo was an excellent collaborator, but he was excruciatingly private. He never spoke of himself or the Eastern Empire except in ways specific to their work.
“It’s all right if you don’t have time,” she said. “It’s mostly curiosity.”
Shiseo blinked slowly. His expressions were even more unreadable than Kaine’s. “Remind me, what part are you from?”
Helena exhaled, fingers skittering across the medical textbook she was reading. She’d had an idea for an injected drug for emergency situations where a heart needed intense stimulation, but she was uncertain about the composition she’d developed.
“Etras. It’s south. Out in the sea. The crescent of islands between the two continents. Not many alchemists there, since there isn’t much metal, and no
lumithium.”
“Is that why you came to Paladia?”
She nodded without looking up. “My father thought my repertoire was too special to be—wasted there.”
Shiseo gave a mysterious little hum and nodded. “I will bring my set to test you, but I would like to ask a favour, if I may.”
She straightened, and now she was looking at him curiously. “Of course.”
“The metals from that woman’s blood some months ago. I heard about them. May I try identifying them?”
Helena’s mouth went dry at this casual mention of Gettlich. She’d had no idea Shiseo was even aware of the event, much less knowledgeable enough to have picked up on the fact that there was anything unusual retrieved from the body. Several metallurgists had tried to identify all the trace metals and compounds found in the blood samples without success.
Shiseo’s expression had not changed; he wore the same mild look he always did. “I heard that some are not identified.”
“I’ll ask for a sample.”
When Shiseo returned to Helena’s lab, he brought a little case that was filled with glass vials, each with pure compounds and metals inside, labelled in a script that Helena couldn’t read.
He arranged them in rows. “These”—he pointed to the closest—“are common Paladian metals. These”—he pointed to the second and third rows of compounds—“are a little more rare. We will see.” seem casual.He removed them one by one, and Helena used her resonance to manipulate them into hollow spheres while he timed her. Then he used his own remarkably wide repertoire to slice them into quarters and examine the evenness of her distribution, the orderliness of the structure, grading each aspect on a chart.
If some were graded lower than others, there was a mathematical formula to calculate the level of lumithium emanations necessary to balance the potential alloy’s resonance to match the alchemist’s base level.
“You have an interesting repertoire,” he said in his quiet voice as they moved into the third row of vials. “Very unusual. Good attention to detail. I am surprised you are not a metallurgist.”
“I wasn’t sure what to do,” she said, handing another metal back for grading. “It felt like whatever I chose, someone was disappointed. Everyone —” She fluttered her fingers but, catching herself gesturing, folded them in her lap. “Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I’m not sure I ever knew what I wanted.” She shrugged. “Probably good that I didn’t, since it didn’t matter in the end.” my set to testShiseo didn’t reply. He was studying the notes he’d taken, then he looked at her, staring at her folded hands. “I don’t think a steel weapon would suit you.”
“What?” Her resonance for both steel and iron were excellent. There was no reason why she wouldn’t be perfectly suited for a steel alloy, it was what
most metallurgists were specialised in. Almost all the weapons in Paladia ble enough towere steel. ved from the“You are exceptional with titanium. I met the titanium guildmaster once, and even his work was not so perfect.” Then he picked up a piece of her nickel work, studying it as well. “Have you ever tried nickel-titanium alloy?”
She shook her head.
“It would make a better weapon for you. Very light. You’d waste your strength with steel.”
“This isn’t for a weapon,” Helena said quickly. “It’s just—curiosity.”
Shiseo just made a little click with his tongue. “Well … if you wanted a weapon, I would advise you to use nickel and titanium. Don’t limit yourself to what Paladians do.”
She couldn’t imagine giving Kaine Ferron, heir of the iron guild, a resonance alloy without any iron in it. Titanium and nickel might not even be in his repertoire. She’d be asking for a weapon he couldn’t sense or transmute. It would seem like a threat.
After some pleading, Shiseo finally consented to writing a steel alloy, too.
She almost threw the titanium alloy away, but Crowther instructed her to include it. He wanted to see what Kaine would do.
ELAIN DID NOT UNDERGO ANY new training.
When Helena had tried to add the additional training sessions and one weekly foraging trip, Elain had filed a formal complaint with Falcon Matias that she was being overworked and had never agreed to be an apothecary, and of course, not only did Matias side with Elain, but he’d wanted to know how and why Helena was an apothecary, and who had approved it.
A moratorium was placed on Helena’s lab work, and the next thing she knew, it was not her lab at all but Shiseo’s, and Ilva had Helena passed off as the lab assistant, tasked with running errands and fetching supplies from the wetlands for him.
It was all technicalities, and better than being banned from chymiatria, but it still felt like a blow.
Her only solace was anticipating a bespoke knife. She’d given the alloy slip to Kaine, and he’d taken it without comment.
It was hard to temper her expectations. Whenever she used any kind of tool or weapon, she’d wonder what it would feel like to hold something made to
resonate with her. Lila treated her weapons like they were children, naming them, coddling them, spending hours caring for them, ensuring they were in perfect condition. It was the same with her prosthetic and armour. They were so intrinsically customised, it made them an extension of herself. nium alloy?”However, Kaine made no references to the knife. Helena began to habitually push the thought down so she wouldn’t experience a pang of disappointment every time she saw him.
He finally decided she was “passable” at the forms and moved on to attacks and techniques specific to her abilities.
“You’re still doing it wrong,” he said, standing and stalking over to her.
“The idea is to target the tendons. You start low. Left Achilles, then the inside of the right thigh; they fall, and your blade is there to catch them through the throat and into the skull. That is when you’ll punch your fist into t not even betheir chest and rip out the talisman.”
He demonstrated again, but she kept dropping the knife. The attack wasn’t complicated, but the knife-work had to be done with her off hand, so that her right hand could perform the human transmutation at the end.
Three transmutational shapes in seconds while using her non-dominant hand tested the limits of her coordination.
He stepped behind her. Not being able to see him made her keenly aware of how close he was.
There was a pause before his hands wrapped around hers, fingers brushing across the inside of her wrists, her back against his chest.
She could feel him through her resonance, and even though she wasn’t othecary, anddirectly touching him, she was so keyed up from her constantly flowing resonance that it formed a torus of energy around her. She tried to block him out, but she was too frayed to only attenuate on her knife.
His arms ran against the length of hers as he guided her down into a low lunge, her left hand angling to catch a tendon, transmuting her knife into a curve, then—with a quick flick of the wrist upwards—using a straight-edged blade to take out the hamstring of the opposite leg. In this same upwards movement, the blade widened into a brutal spike intended to maximise brain damage.
Then he drove her other hand forward in a brutal punch into empty air.
With her resonance behind it, she’d go straight through the bone and find a y kind of tooltalisman.
“It’s one movement,” he said, his voice near her ear. A shiver ran through her gut. Helena could barely hear his words over her own heartbeat. “You go quick. Hit as many points as you can. Tendons are the best way to slow them.
A blade through the brain will knock them out for a few seconds, at least, and keep them disoriented for longer. Even if you miss the talisman, they won’t recover immediately. The regeneration will focus on the brain. But miss that blow and you’re dead.”
He took her through the movement one more time slowly, and then faster to demonstrate the upward lunge of a counterstrike intended to be fluid and quick as lightning.
“Do you feel it now?” he asked, his voice low, the heat of his breath near her ear, brushing through her hair, making it impossible to focus.
She didn’t think he was helping at all. There was an intense pressure that grew inside her whenever he was close, a sort of frantic desperation, like swimming up towards the surface yet never reaching it.
She nodded shakily, and his hands slipped away from her wrists.
“Go again.”
WHEN THE TOWER BELL WENT off, the air vibrated. An attack warning, or else a call to be ready. For fighters to go out, and for the hospital to prepare.
The sirens in the hallway began blaring loud enough to split her skull as Helena hurried towards the hospital.
“What do we know?” she asked as she tied on her apron, stripping her gloves off to wash and sterilise her hands.
Whatever had happened did so without warning. Normally as soon as significant fighting started anywhere, messages to Headquarters were dispatched and the hospital was prepped. This time the sirens had gone straight to full alert.
“Nothing yet,” Pace said as she directed medics. She’d only returned from the other hospital a few days ago, worn to the bone, but she never stopped working.
Orderlies and nurses rushed around, making sure everything was ready.
The bell was still sounding.
“I’m going to the main gates to find out what’s happening,” Helena finally said.
Out in the courtyard, without the walls acting as a barrier for the sound, she could feel the Tower bell’s ringing in her teeth, its low cadence a o slow them.vibration in her stomach. , at least, andThe noise finally cut off as she reached the gates. There were dozens of soldiers and guards, all awaiting orders. Even Crowther was lurking, curious as everyone else.
“Do you know what’s happened?” Helena asked a guard.
“Ambush,” he said, his eyes locked out towards the street. “Don’t know much more than that. Two teams went out. That’s all I know. We’ve heard
nothing else.”
There was a commotion beyond the gates.
Then she heard Luc, his voice pure rage. “Let go. Let me go!”
Then there were other voices. Shouts of “Watch out!” and “Hold him!” and
a scorching whoosh of flames.
“Let me go!”
Helena went forward instinctively, along with a dozen others.
There was an explosion of fire as she emerged from the gatehouse to the sight of nearly a dozen people trying to drag and wrestle Luc towards Headquarters. Soren, Sebastian, Althorne, and several others from Luc’s unit had him by the arms and legs, trying to pin him to the ground.
Luc had been disarmed, but they couldn’t pry his ignition rings off his fingers. Fire sparked but suddenly vanished as Crowther darted forward. His left hand swept through the air and extinguished the flames as he clenched his fist.
“Marino, put him down!” Crowther snapped.
“You left her! Let me go!” White fire exploded off Luc, flame tearing in all directions, violent and uncontrolled, fuelled by rage. Luc lurched to his feet.
A tongue of metal shot out, Althorne’s arm jerked back, Luc hit the ground, and there were several people on him again. Fire erupted and
vanished.
“Marino!” Crowther snarled.
Luc lunged violently, ripping one hand free, and a wall of fire shot in all directions. It slammed into Crowther, and he hit a wall with a sickening
crunch.
Everyone froze, including Luc.
“I didn’t mean to—” He was still trying to get free. “Just let me go—”
Helena reached out towards him.
“They got Lila,” he said, taking her hand without hesitation.
She squeezed tight, resonance shooting along his arm. Betrayal flashed in his eyes, and then he was unconscious.
The men pinning Luc down let go cautiously. Helena sank to her knees, kneeling over him, her fingers slipping into the occipital dip of his skull to ensure he would not wake.
He was bruised and covered in blood. Half his fingernails were missing.
Soren didn’t get up; he was slumped next to Helena. One of his eyes was black.
“Get him inside and keep him unconscious,” Althorne was saying. “I don’t want that boy awake until we know what’s happened to Bayard. Someone get Crowther to the hospital.” old him!” andThere was heavy bruising on one side of Althorne’s face, a gouge across his cheek as if he’d been clawed at. Several soldiers picked Luc up gently and started carrying him inside.
Helena was still kneeling on the ground.
Lila had been taken. Whatever happened next, the implications were horrifying.
Lila as a necrothrall, all her proficiency in combat now targeted at the Eternal Flame. At Luc. Or Lila in a laboratory, being used for experimentation.
“May I be dismissed?” Soren said, his voice muted but wavering with clenched hisemotion. He was looking to Althorne with an expression as if something had been carved out from inside him.
Althorne rested a large hand on Soren’s narrow shoulder. “Until we tearing in allrecover Lila, you’re paladin primary. We can’t lose you, too.”
“They took my twin,” Soren said, looking out towards the rest of the island. “I have to bring her body back.”
“There are three teams in pursuit. If she can be saved or recovered, she will be. We need to debrief and prepare. And you need to protect your Principate.
You know where your sister would want you.”
A stretcher arrived for Crowther, and Helena followed it.
In the hospital, Elain was already hovering over Luc, healing his minor injuries, and asking if she could wake him up. She was sternly forbidden.
Helena focused on Crowther. That soft-faced orderly, Purnell, hurried over to assist. He had a gash on his face, but his paralysed arm had taken the brunt of the injury, broken at the elbow.
As Helena began with her habitual block of the nerves, she found why his arm was paralysed. There was an old break of the humerus, and back when it had broken, the radial nerve had been severed. The gap was tiny; any healer could have fixed it.
The injury was old now, and the nerve’s connection to the muscle had died off. Helena wasn’t sure how much dexterity could be recovered, but surely some was better than nothing. If the day had proven anything, it was that the Resistance desperately needed flame alchemists.
She fixed the severed nerve along with the broken elbow. ying. “I don’tShe’d just finished when she heard shouting.
Someone get“They got her! Bayard. They’re bringing her in!”
A combat group practically ran into the hospital with the stretcher. There was a flash of bloodstained blond hair. Pace’s voice rose above the chaos. up gently andHelena barely heard the voices. She moved towards Lila on instinct as the medics transferred her from the stretcher to a hospital bed. One of them was holding gauze firmly against the side of Lila’s neck.
Other injuries.
Priority.
Marino, get her healed. Whatever it takes.
She wasn’t sure who gave that final order. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t need to be told.
Lila was covered in blood, and even before Helena touched her, she could see the broken bones. There were huge punctures all over the right side of her chest, straight through her armour.
The moment Helena’s resonance touched her, she could feel it.
Lila was going to die unless someone cheated death, and fast.
Her right lung had been repeatedly punctured by bites. There was blood pooling in the chest cavity. There was kidney damage, and her liver was ered, she willpunctured. Her ribs were shattered. She’d lost so much blood.
It was a miracle she was alive.
Helena didn’t have time to be delicate with her resonance. It was a cascade of internal failures that she was staunching, but it was all happening too fast and there were too many things that had to be done at once. The medics were cutting off her wrecked armour as quickly as they could, everyone trying to hurried overwork around one another without getting in the way. ken the bruntThe recovery team had been badly injured.
“It was Blackthorne in command,” someone said. “That fucking psychopath.”
Helena could hear the flurry behind her, but she couldn’t worry about anyone but Lila. scle had diedIf Lila died, so would Luc. Maybe not immediately; if he never saw combat again, physically he’d live, but every day, bit by bit, the guilt and grief would kill him.
“Don’t you dare die,” she said, shoving her vitality down through her resonance, in a wild attempt to keep Lila from slipping away, forcing the feeble heartbeat to keep going. “Don’t you dare! Elain. I need Elain! And a medic! Where is everyone?”
Elain appeared, her hands bloody. “I’m already—”
“I don’t care,” Helena cut in. “Stand near her head. I need you to keep her breathing, and don’t let her heart stop! Do you understand? I need both hands to heal, and I need to know she’s breathing and her heart is beating while I work.”
She waited until she felt Elain’s tentative resonance assume the rhythm of Lila’s heartbeat, the laborious in and out of her breath, as the last of Lila’s armour was finally out of Helena’s way and she worked easily.
A medic appeared at her elbow. Helena acknowledged her with a jerk of her head.
“I need four vials of that blood-supplementing tonic in the cabinet. You ht side of herhave to administer them without letting her choke.”
“We’re not supposed to—”
“I need more blood! If I can’t regenerate more, this healing will kill her, and if I do it without the tonics, it’s going to make something else fail. I don’t have enough hands. Do it now!”
It was intense, delicate work. Helena’s vision was blurring, and her resonance had singed the inside of her bones as she fought to get Lila stabilised. Elain was saying something about a hand cramp. Helena told her was a cascadeto shut up.
When Lila finally stopped feeling on the verge of death, Helena wanted to cry with relief. It had been so close. She could never tell anyone how close.
She leaned over Lila, her hands covered in blood, and touched her cheek for a moment.
“You can stop,” she finally remembered to say to Elain.
The punctures covering Lila’s chest were roughly transmuted skin. They’d scar, because Lila’s body would be focused on vital recovery, but she would live. Elain disappeared so the nurses and orderlies could take over.
Helena’s fingers trembled uncontrollably as she squeezed Lila’s hand.
“Idiot. You know you’re not allowed to die.”
Her knees gave out. She sank to the floor, her head resting against the mattress of the hospital bed. Lila still had at least twenty broken bones, fractures in both legs. Half her fingers were broken, but Helena’s heart was pounding too violently to think straight.
“Marino, can you—” Pace was calling to her from another bed.
She tried to lift her head but couldn’t move. Her whole body was leaden.
Why was it so heavy?
“Pace, check Marino.” d both handsWas that Crowther’s voice?
She tried to look up, but instead the world tipped sideways. She could see feet moving under the rows and rows of hospital beds. Bloodstains on the
floor.
She was rising upwards.
“Come on, Marino, no napping here,” Pace was saying as she pulled her to her feet. Someone was on the other side as well. Her head lolled, and she saw Crowther watching her from one of the hospital beds.
They passed through a door into the records closet that Pace used as an office.
“Just here, Sofia. Thank you, I can manage from here,” Pace was saying as Helena was lowered onto a camp bed. e fail. I don’tHelena knew, dimly, that she’d gone too far.
She was normally careful, but there hadn’t been any choice this time.
She was so cold and tired. Blankets were pulled up and tucked around her.
She heard Pace’s voice, calling her a fool girl with no sense.
Helena just wanted to sleep for a few years.
She felt a needle in her arm. It made her skin itch, and when she tried to transmute it out, her hand was smacked away.
“Worst patient I’ve ever had.”
Thick velvet darkness swallowed the world.
pulled her to and she saw
was saying as