CHAPTER 49
Februa 1787
THE MOOD IN HEADQUARTERS GREW SOMBRE AS the winter crawled on. The days felt endlessly dark, the air so cold and damp that even quick walks across the commons were bone-chilling.
After months of largely successful defence and fortification, the Resistance was hit hard and sudden. One of the walls along the East Island was blown up by a bomb blast so large, it took down several buildings. Then more blasts, and before they’d even begun to evacuate the survivors, the necrothralls and chimaeras poured in.
The Resistance lost a battalion and an entire swath of the East Island.
Luc’s battalion was trapped inside a building, pursued down to the river level where they ended up cornered for more than a day until the Resistance assembled a large enough force to get them out. The casualties were terrible.
Half of them were badly injured. One medic was killed in the retreat, and another died from injuries during the siege. Luc had held back the chimaeras and necrothralls by maintaining a wall of flame for hours on end. He and Lila had been coated in smoke and grime, too exhausted to even speak when they were brought back. Soren sustained a shattered right arm when the floor collapsed under him and several others. He’d been held back from defence during the siege, caring for the injured and watching them die one by one.
He refused to talk about it.
BEFORE HELENA COULD RETURN TO the Outpost, Crowther informed her that she would see Kaine only once a week now. No explanation about why; those were simply the new terms of the deal. When Martiday came, she didn’t know what to expect, how different things might be, but when Kaine arrived, he wordlessly kicked the padding cloths across the floor and began training
her as if nothing had changed, except he didn’t look at her anymore. His eyes seemed to go through her.
“How do you know all this?” she asked when he paused in attacking her to show her several techniques for breaking arms in ways that would shatter the bone or pierce the skin, slowing regeneration.
“The same way I know any of it,” he said, staring across the room. “When you can’t die, people keep hurting you until you can hurt them more.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at her sharply, fury in his eyes. “I’m sure you are.”
There was no more conversation. He attacked and she had to fend him off.
She managed to get a jab in under his arm but experienced only a moment of triumph before his fingers were wrapped around her throat, dragging her close. he ResistanceThey both froze, eyes meeting, and it was as if time stopped. was blown upHe snatched his hand back with a scathing glare. “Unless you start thinking faster than you move, you’re going to be killed.”
She failed twice more.
“That’s enough for today.” He finally turned away from her, reaching into his cloak, and pulled out an envelope, setting it on the table.
Helena’s chest clenched in dread as she went over to her satchel and pulled out an envelope of her own, fidgeting with it as she turned to face him.
“Crowther said to give you this.”
A sort of deadness filled his eyes as he looked over. “Right … My orders for the week.” . He and LilaHe pulled it from her fingers with a listless jerk.
“Kaine—”
“Run along, Marino. I have work to do.”
IT WAS HELENA’S JOB TO examine Luc to ensure he was healthy before he was allowed to leave Headquarters. He was still so shattered he scarcely seemed to notice her, which was for the best, as they hadn’t spoken since the solstice.
He and Lila watched each other with a fervent intensity, as though the ut why; thoseother person were their only touchstone.
If it were possible, Helena would have recommended a break—a few weeks to recuperate at least. Luc was dangerously haggard, and his lungs worried her, but they could not afford the luxury. Both were dispatched back
ore. His eyesto the front in their newly polished armour to reassure the now nervous battalions. acking her toSoren was only a few days behind them.
Each week Kaine would train her, hand over intelligence reports, take his orders, and leave without even a backwards glance.
They didn’t talk anymore. If she asked questions and it wasn’t about combat, he ignored them. It felt as if there were a canyon between them now.
It was fine, though. He was alive. Every week she got to see him and know he was alive.
However, that was not something he seemed to care about. There was a raw despair visible in his eyes. Even his rage was smothered, as though he were existing out of sheer obligation.
After three weeks, she caught him by the wrist as he was taking Crowther’s envelope from her. “Please—look at me.” start thinkingHe snatched his hand back but then stared squarely at her, that cold rage briefly reappearing. “Is this not enough for you? Is there something else you want, too?”
“No—” She looked at him helplessly. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
He gave a dry laugh. “Perhaps someday, if I have time again, I can make el and pulledyou a list of all the things that apologies don’t fix.”
Her hands dropped. “Kaine, I—”
“Don’t—use my name. I hate the way it sounds on your tongue.” He ripped the envelope from her fingers and left.
There was another deluge of injuries. Helena could barely keep track of all the battles and skirmishes, the victories and losses. In the hospital it all blurred together into endless screaming. Time seemed to morph into a horrific monotony, punctuated only with Kaine’s cold resentment.
She tried to stay busy. With Rhea’s permission, she attempted a tentative treatment of Titus, but he reacted poorly, becoming severely sick with a fever, putting an immediate end to the attempt.
She was cut loose. Left to her own devices. Everyone else seemed to come the solstice.and go—even the other healers got dispatched down-island to the new hospital every few weeks—but Helena was always at Headquarters.
Ilva and Crowther no longer made any demands of her except to pass on their orders.
She was a collar around Kaine’s neck, and her job now was to bear it.
SHE WAS RETURNING FROM THE Outpost when her hospital charm grew hot. She sprinted the rest of the way back. There was blood smeared across the ground of the gatehouse.
The guards were waiting for her. “Where were you?”
“Who? What—” she gasped out as they cleared her.
“Lila,” said one of the young guards. “And Soren.” n them now.Dread flooded through her like poison. “Where’s Luc—” im and knowThere was a pause and she knew before the older guard spoke.
“Missing.”
Helena’s body moved but her mind had stalled as she raced to the hospital.
No. This couldn’t be happening.
The casualty ward was in a frenzy as Helena entered. Elain immediately turned to Helena, hands covered in blood, her face white with panic.
“My resonance doesn’t work!” she said, her voice rising with panic. “I can’t stop the bleeding.”
Lila was laid out on a bed, covered in dust and dirt and blood. The remains of her armour were smashed and split, her clothes shredded, as if she’d been caught in an explosion. Nurses were cutting off the straps and transmuting her armour to get it off her. A wide gouge ran down her face, from temple to cheek, and below that, at the base of her neck, a large puncture was pouring blood.
“I don’t know what’s wrong!” Elain was saying as Helena washed her hands under scalding water and doused them in carbolic dilution. “I think p track of allthere’s something inside her, but my resonance doesn’t work! When I try to
feel her, it’s like—my hands—”
“Soren too? Or just Lila?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t tried him. We just got them in. She’s bleeding out, and I can’t feel anything!”
“Check Soren,” Helena said. “I need medics for Lila, and Pace. Tell her I need her now.” med to comeShe moved next to Lila. The neck was one of the few openings in her armour if her helmet had been off. Her blood was soaking the bed. She’d been hooked up to an intravenous drip with plasma expanders, but it wouldn’t do any good if they couldn’t get her to stop bleeding.
Lila’s head was lolled back. She was still conscious, muttering under her breath, over and over. “… told him—to run. I—told him—t-to run—”
grew hot. SheHelena reached out with her resonance and felt the horribly familiar ss the grounddisruption of nullium.
She’d hoped to be wrong. That Elain was just hysterical. Or even burned
out.
Anything but this.
The nullium was much stronger than the shrapnel Helena had retrieved from Kaine. Altered in some way to intensify the effect.
She tried to at least get a vague sense of the size of what had been driven into Lila’s chest cavity. Trying to determine if there was a risk of puncturing the hospital.her heart if they put pressure on the wound. It was like peering through fog.
Her hands felt as though they were asleep, needlepoints pricking across her nerves as she tried to search for the most intense sense of dissonance.
It was long and slender. It had likely pierced her lung, possibly grazed her heart, but it was hard to tell.
This was so much worse than she and Shiseo had been prepared for.
The remains“What is it?” Pace appeared at her side.
Helena was pressing gauze over the wound, trying to keep it from bleeding more. Lila had gone silent.
“It’s nullium. She’s going to need manual surgery to get it out. Maier isn’t trained, but you were in the hospitals, back when they still used it, right?”
Pace went very white. “It’s been a long time. I only assisted.”
Helena drew a harsh breath. She couldn’t disclose her own surgical experience with nullium. “I—used to help my father, sometimes. If you’ll lead, and I keep her stable, then maybe. Is Soren—?”
She was afraid to know if Soren had nullium injuries. If she and Pace had to choose which twin to save, protocol dictated that the person with better bleeding out,odds of survival should receive priority, but as paladin primary, Lila had priority.
“The others can heal him,” Pace said. “He took a bad blow to the head, but it’s nothing Elain can’t manage.”
Helena closed her eyes as she fought to stay calm, trying to will Lila to survive, because this time she could not make her do it. ut it wouldn’t“Move her into the operating theatre,” Pace said. “I’m sure Maier will help as much as he can. We’ll need medics and nurses for support. I’ll brief them.
You keep her stable.”
It had been only a handful of times that Helena had assisted her father with surgery. Before the massacre.
Observant with a good head in a crisis, he’d said. But that was a long time ago.
Handing over surgical instruments was very different from performing surgery without resonance. No one was prepared. The nullium they’d been familiar with only interfered when they worked with it directly. This was much more diffuse.
When Lila was sedated, Matron Pace used a long pair of clamps to reach into the puncture just above Lila’s collarbone and pull out a long, rusting spike. It was fragile, degrading already due to the unstable fusion. Shards kept breaking off, forcing Pace to reach in over and over, removing them piece by piece.
Helena could feel through her resonance that even with the bulk of the spike removed, there were shards dissolving into Lila’s blood. The nullium was spreading through her body like a fog, thicker and more impenetrable with every passing moment.
The fragility of the nullium was both a gift and a curse. It had taken the om bleedingpath of least resistance. There was a small puncture in Lila’s lung, but her heart was not damaged, nor her oesophagus. It had stayed within the cavity.
But the pieces were everywhere, and the alloy was so unstable that it was rapidly dissolving.
Pace wiped her forehead with a cloth. “We’re going to need to do a thoracotomy to get the pieces out. Is she stable enough?”
An alchemical surgeon like Maier could normally perform a thoracotomy without needing to open a patient. It only needed incisions large enough to get slender tools inside; with training and resonance, their instruments were an extension of their fingers and senses.
Helena held back her resonance, using ordinary touch to check Lila’s vital signs, because it was easier than trying to parse all the interference. “She’s the head, butholding on.”
They made an incision between Lila’s ribs, using makeshift retractors to pry the bones apart so they could reach all the remaining shards. The pieces varied in size and crumbled if they weren’t picked out carefully enough. aier will helpThere were little cuts and grooves in Lila’s lungs and heart where shards had nicked her—wounds that could be easily repaired if Helena could use her resonance but were laborious and dangerous now, each requiring manual er father withsutures.
The procedure was all unfamiliar, and they were racing against time. The longer the nullium had to break down and distribute into Lila’s blood, the greater the likelihood that she might die from the metal toxicity. The surgery was pushing her body to its utmost limits, and Lila had to survive on her own.
Helena manually siphoned the blood, keeping Lila’s heart beating as Pace worked. A nurse had taken the larger shards to Shiseo to analyse and synthesise the sequestering agent, but that treatment was hours away.
It was possible that until they managed to purge the metal from Lila’s bloodstream, they would be unable to use any kind of resonance on her.
“A thoracic lavage next,” Pace said at last, setting down her tools. Her eyes were bloodshot from strain by the time they finished.
Maier took over the sutures. His stitches were beautifully neat, but he looked shaken as he worked.
Helena looked up and found it was growing dark outside. “I should check on Soren.”
She felt so strange as she washed her hands. She’d barely used her resonance, but the pressure of the last several hours had her head throbbing.
Stepping out of the operating theatre, she found most of the hospital crowded around one bed.
Soren was awake and propped up. All the privacy curtains had been pushed aside, and at the forefront of the people surrounding him was Ilva.
Soren’s arm was in splints, and bandages covered half his face. He kept shaking his head. “I don’t—remember. It happened so fast.”
“Did you recognise anyone? Even imagine that you saw a face?” Ilva said, grasping Soren’s wrist.
“I don’t know,” Soren said again, his voice straining. “There was—an explosion. Something hit me. Might have been out seconds or minutes. When I got up, I couldn’t see. Luc was gone, and Lila was on the ground, bleeding out. She kept saying, Told him to run. I didn’t know where to look—so I came back.”
“There was no warning?” The questions seemed to be exploding from Ilva.
She was visibly agitated. “No signs at all? Who was leading the unit?”
“I—” Soren’s expression twisted, and he seemed to struggle to remember.
“I always said it was a mistake, allowing a female paladin,” Matias said.
“If I had been Falcon at the time, I would never have allowed such a violation of tradition to be entertained. I warned you, Ilva, Luc was partial to her, but
no: Lila Bayard was too exceptional to separate from him. Now look what’s happened.”
“Shut your mouth!” Ilva snarled over her shoulder at Matias, her fingers e on her own.still digging into Soren’s wrist. Then she turned back and shook him. “Did she say Luc surrendered himself? Did he hand himself over because of Lila?”
“I don’t know,” Soren half whispered.
Elain was standing near Soren’s bed, too awed by the number of Eternal Flame members currently flanking the bed to interfere.
“Pardon,” Helena said in a curt voice, and she pushed herself through the ols. Her eyescrowd. “Soren Bayard has a head injury. It’s inadvisable to stress him.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“Is Lila awake? Can she answer questions?” Ilva said, instantly rising to her feet.
Helena shook her head sharply. “She is not available for anything. We performed an extensive manual surgery to remove a spike of nullium that she’d been stabbed with, but the alloy deteriorated and distributed through her bloodstream, which will interfere with anything involving resonance until ital crowdedit’s removed.”
“How long will that take?” The panic on Ilva’s face was clear.
Helena shook her head. “We have her under anaesthesia right now, but we’re working blind. She may wake in the next few hours, or it could take days. Lila is very strong, but this will still be harder on her than past injuries.
Nothing’s certain yet.”
Soren had slumped back and looked as if he was on the verge of a panic attack, but Ilva drew herself up like a viper.
“I thought you had prepared for this eventuality,” Ilva said. “What have inutes. Whenyou all been doing?”
Helena’s jaw tensed. Why was it always the hospital’s fault when things went wrong? If Helena had come out and said that surgery was a success and Lila was already getting out of bed, they’d all be off to the perihelion to offer ng from Ilva.Sol flames of thanksgiving. But bad news was always the hospital’s fault.
How nice it must be, to be a god.
“The alloy has been altered, and the interference is much more intense.
Manual procedures are not simple, especially in a hospital where only two ch a violationpeople have any experience performing them. If you want the hospital prepared to perform manual surgery, the Falcon will need to approve the cadavers for practice, as we requested several months ago.”
Matias coughed as if he’d swallowed something the wrong way and suddenly stopped looking like he wanted to be present.
Ilva was gripping her cane but looked ready to topple. It was as if Luc’s loss had ripped the ground out from beneath her. use of Lila?”“Examine him, then,” Ilva said, moving unsteadily away from Soren’s bed.
“There will be a Council meeting in an hour. I want full reports on both the Bayards.”
Everyone filed out. Helena glared and jerked her head, indicating that Elain put the privacy curtains back as she sat down next to Soren.
He was leaning back amid the pillows which had propped him up, covered in newly healed cuts. She could tell, as soon as her resonance touched him, that he’d lost his right eye. Whatever had hit him had fractured the socket and
crushed it.
Her fingers trembled.
“She’s never going to forgive me,” he said, his voice a near whisper.
Helena didn’t know if he was referring to Ilva or Lila. sonance untilShe squeezed his hand. “If you’d gone after Luc in this state, all three of you might be dead. That wouldn’t have been any help. I’m sure there’s more people looking for him because you came back.”
Elain had done well with her healing. He’d had several broken bones, including the same arm he’d shattered just a few weeks ago. It hadn’t fully healed, and it was likely to have lingering issues now.
“Do you think he’s still alive?” Soren asked.
Helena’s heart caught. She couldn’t think of any reason the Undying wouldn’t immediately kill Luc.
“Until we know he’s dead, he’s still alive. And we’re going to get him back,” she said, forcing her voice to sound hopeful. “Stop worrying now. I need to check your head.”
He had a concussion, but his eye and brow bone had absorbed most of the blow. All her visits to Titus had made her more familiar with brains; she felt as if she understood them better and could at least diagnose accurately, rather than shying away.
Elain hadn’t known what to do with the destroyed eye and had left it, just wrapping gauze over it and repairing only the bone.
“Soren, your right eye’s—”
“I know,” he said brusquely, as if it didn’t matter. “I can still fight, though, right?”
Her hands stilled. “You’ve broken your arm and lost half your range of vision. That’s going to require adapting. You’re going to be vulnerable. You won’t see things from the right.”
“I’ll just turn my head,” he said in a flat voice. “Handy thing, necks.”
Soren’s bed.She sighed. “You’re not going back out. Not for weeks at least.”
He shook his head. “Lila’s out. I have to bring Luc back before she wakes.
She can’t wake up and find out I didn’t go after him.” His chin trembled. In twelve years of knowing him, Helena had never seen Soren cry. He looked down. “I didn’t tell them, but she told me to leave her. To go find him. But I didn’t. I told her I’d go, as soon as I got her safe—”
He started trying to climb out of the bed. It only took one hand to push him he socket andback. He was barely strong enough to sit up.
“Soren, I need to deal with the ruptured tissue in your eye,” she said, trying to sound firm.
He ignored her, trying to shove her off, but she was adept enough at combat now. She deflected his hand and slipped her fingers behind his head.
It took only a frisson of resonance and his remaining eye rolled back as he collapsed, unconscious.
She closed his eye gently so it wouldn’t dry out. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she set to work.
If there was anything intact inside the socket, there would have been a small chance of saving some of his sight, but Soren’s eye was wrecked.
She removed all the tissue that couldn’t be repaired so that it wouldn’t rot or cause infection, then carefully rebandaged him. In a few weeks, someone would make a beautiful glass eye for him, or perhaps shape a gem.
Assuming there still was a Resistance in a few weeks.
Rhea arrived just as Helena finished.
It had been a long time since both twins had been in the hospital.
Rhea’s expression was stoic, but her eyes were searching as she moved towards Soren. rately, ratherHelena stood up. “I just finished. I can wake him,” she said, quickly covering all the eye tissue with a cloth.
“No, let him rest.” Rhea sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, studying the parts of Soren’s face that weren’t obscured. “My little boy,” she said softly, her voice a murmur, as if she feared Soren might wake. ight, though,Helena stepped back, not sure if Rhea would want privacy or answers.
“You know, he was such a little thing when he was born,” Rhea said, one of her hands reaching and covering Soren’s. “Titus could fit him into one hand. The doctors didn’t think he’d make it. Lila came out bright red and screaming, but my little Soren was just a wisp of a baby. Quiet and pale.
Even when he needed to nurse, he’d barely make a sound. He always followed Lila around, never caused trouble himself, but was always right there, getting into hers.”
Rhea gave a sobbing laugh. “I thought I was doing such a great thing when they were born. Twins. Two babies for the Bayard family. Our little paladins.” Rhea’s body trembled as she held Soren’s hand. “And now Titus d to push himdoesn’t even know what’s been done to our beautiful children—all my family, I only have pieces of them left.” e said, tryingShe folded over Soren. Her body was shuddering, but she cried silently.
There was a trick to sobbing like that; it was something a person had to learn to do.
Helena slipped away, to give her space to grieve.
THE MEETING WAS SOMBRE. ILVA sat at the Council table, looking almost drugged while the reports were being given. The attack had occurred on the lower part of the East Island. Luc and Lila had been leading the battalion towards Headquarters; they’d passed a condemned building, and just as Luc and Lila stepped beyond it, there had been an explosion. The building had collapsed.
Soren had been on the edge of the blast and thrown by it. Only two others had survived, because they’d fallen behind. They’d been caught in the rubble with only minor injuries.
There’d been signs of a fight, char marks and a pool of blood, presumed to be Lila’s. Burned human remains, presumed to be necrothralls, a lich with his talisman ripped out. Luc’s sword, rings, and other weapons were found discarded, as if he’d left first and then been stripped.
There’d been no word from the Undying. No proclamation that Luc was dead or even captured. The guards had all been told to prepare for the possibility that he might return reanimated or with his body possessed by a lich. If Luc reappeared, all due diligence must be performed. No one was to believe in any miraculous escapes.
As time passed, the questions grew. Why would the Undying keep him alive? Wouldn’t they announce if he was dead, or were they keeping him hostage to negotiate a surrender?
If he was a hostage, why hadn’t they reached out?
“Until we know that Lucien is dead, we will assume that he is alive,” Ilva said in an icy voice, rousing herself when one of the lead metallurgists referred to planning for contingencies. “The Undying have no reason to t thing whenconceal his capture. It’s been twelve hours, and we haven’t received word. It may be a sign that not everything is as it seems.”
As the meeting closed, Matias stood, announcing his intention to entreat the heavens to return Luc to them safely. Many people followed him.
Ilva remained at the table, speaking to Crowther.
“Marino, a word before you go,” Ilva said when Helena rose to return to the hospital.
Helena waited until the room was empty. Ilva flicked a hand, and the guards closed the doors.
“You’ll head to the Outpost. We’re going to use Ferron,” Ilva said in a brusque voice. “Every piece of information he has or can obtain about the circumstances of Luc’s capture—I want it all. As well as an explanation as to
why we received no warning about this.”
“Of course.” She’d expected as much.
“Tell him this is a critical mission,” Ilva added as Helena turned to go.
“Those precise words, Marino. A top priority. If he has an opportunity to get Luc back for us, that would be preferable to the losses we’ll suffer with a rescue.”
They meant to sacrifice Kaine to recover Luc. It was the obvious choice.
An easy trade-off. The kind that any strategist would make.
But— lich with his“All right.” Her voice was lifeless.
LUMITHIA HUNG LIKE A GIANT silver disc in the sky, so near full Ascendance that she blotted out the planets, leaving the night sky as an endless black abyss overhead. The bright silver light cast glaring shadows across the city.
When Helena reached the landing in the tenement, she paused and stepped intentionally into the silver shaft of light cascading from the broken skylight, looking up at the eye hidden in the corner. Then she waited.
It was a long wait.
The windows rattled in the wind, but she didn’t hear anything until the door clicked and Kaine strode in. Everything about him seemed sharper.
“What happened?”
The instant he asked the question, she realised he didn’t know.
Ilva had been right: If the Undying had Luc, it was being kept secret.
“There was an attack today. A bombing,” she said, and her voice trembled.
“Killed most of a battalion, the Bayard twins barely survived, and Luc—is
missing.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave a stiff nod. “They used a weapon made from that resonance- interference alloy. We call it nullium. Lila was stabbed and nearly killed with it. You didn’t know this was in the works?”
He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t. There’s suspicion of a spy due to— recent sabotage. And I haven’t had the leisure to be as present as I used to be.”
She looked down, drawing a deep breath before she spoke. “We have to get Luc back. I was told to tell you it’s critical. Your top priority.” anation as to“Right …”
“Any information you can get on his capture, who did it, where he is, if he’s alive … The Council wants you—” Her words caught. “—to do anything you can.”
“Of course,” was all he said, and he turned to go.
She watched his back, the shift of his shoulders, one dipping as he reached for the knob. She didn’t know if she was ever going to see him again.
“Wait,” she said.
He paused but didn’t look back. “I’ll call you when I have something.”
“Kaine … when I kissed you, I—”
He turned suddenly. In one moment he was across the room and in the next, he was in front of her, his expression venomous, his teeth bared.
“Really, you want to discuss this now?”
Her throat was so thick with guilt, she could barely speak. But she was desperate. “Will you look at me, at least?”
A cruel glint entered his eyes as they locked squarely on her face. It was like being punched to have his full attention again.
“You want me to look at you?” His voice was light, almost cajoling, but there was fury beneath the surface. He leaned towards her. “Fine. I’m
looking. I must say, it’s delightful, seeing all the guilt in your eyes.”
He sneered, drawing back. “You know, I used to think the circumstances of my servitude to the High Necromancer as cruel an enslavement as anyone could conceive, but I must admit, it pales beside you.”
He tilted his head. “At least before, I could console myself that it wasn’t my fault; acceptance was the best I could do to keep my mother safe. It’s ce trembled.different when I have no one to blame but myself.”
His hand came up, his gloved fingers wrapping around her throat, pulling her forward. “After all, I did choose you.”
She met his eyes, that deadened despair so visible when he looked at her.
“I envied your naïveté, how you credited me with goodness and failed to y killed withrealise that it was a setup from the very beginning. When you begged for a chance to heal me, I gave in. When you touched me, I didn’t push you away.
I thought, Where’s the harm? It all ends soon enough, and life has been cold for such a long time.”
She didn’t realise she’d started crying until his thumb brushed across her cheek.
“By the time I realised I’d miscalculated, you’d already forced your way in. You were so obvious, but that only made it worse; knowing you’d let me do anything to you in the hope it would save everyone else, even the people o do anythingwho’d sold you in the first place. At least when I sold my soul, my mother prostrated herself, begging to take my place. I suppose, in some regards, I am
luckier than you.”
She gave a low sob.
“After you nearly bled to death here, I thought, at least I can keep her alive.
She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive. I thought eventually you’d give up. But you will do anything to save the people you feel responsible for. Of course you’d weaponise your guilt in order to use mine.” He gave a low bitter laugh. “I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”
He let go and stepped away from her, heading for the door. “So forgive me if I dislike looking at you. I’m still adjusting to the ways these new ones chafe.”
SOREN WAS SITTING NEXT TO Lila when Helena returned to the hospital, heart dead in her chest.
In her absence, nothing had happened except meetings and arguments in which no one agreed about what to do. Helena had known it was Luc who held everything together, but it was startling to see how fast it all crumbled.
Lila’s hair was cropped short like a boy’s, the area near the wound was shaven. Her face was so swollen and bruised, she was almost unrecognisable.
Maier’s careful sutures had tried to rejoin the torn skin, but that scar would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“She’s younger than me, you know,” Soren said. Helena nodded. “No one ever guesses that.”
He leaned forward and whispered something in Lila’s ear, his voice so low Helena couldn’t make out the words. Then he straightened, walking out.
Helena followed him. The hollow under his remaining eye looked like a crater. His face was drawn, pain lines visible around his mouth and the corner of his eye. Someone had removed his cast already. Elain.
“Come on,” she said, taking him into a curtained-off area and making him sit down.
She worked on his arm and hand first. The bone had been mended well, but it was a new injury, which made it more at risk of being broken again.
She knew he wasn’t going to be careful. He’d be out in the field as soon as there was word. The best she could do was heal as far as she could, imitating the way Kaine’s body regenerated, not merely to “fixed” but all the way back regards, I amto its prior state.
“I need your help,” he said as she placed new gauze over his eye.
Her hands stilled. “For what?” eep her alive.“I need a healer, and you’re the best.”
She drew back, tilting his head to study his face even though his expressions were always evasive. “Soren, what have you done?”
He raised his eyebrow. “Nothing … yet.” A helpless smile just barely touched the edge of his lips. “You have to promise to help first before I can tell.” o forgive meHelena hesitated. With Luc or Lila around, Soren had never needed to create his own trouble. He was, Lila once joked, like a cat, feigning indifference but somehow always in the same room with you.
Soren alone was a mystery. She didn’t know what he might do when all the
choices were his to make.
“All right. I promise. Tell me.”
“Not here,” he said, standing up.
They left Headquarters, wound through several alleys, and entered an abandoned shop.
“I got a healer,” he said as they entered the back room, his hand on Helena’s shoulder to push her through the door as if she might bolt otherwise. ecognisable.Which she might have, given how clearly planned her presence was.
Waiting there, fully armed, stood the two remaining members of Luc’s unit, Alister and Penny, as well as Sebastian and Crowther’s informant from the hospital, Purnell, who carefully avoided Helena’s eyes.
“Marino?” said Alister. “I thought you were getting a medic.” voice so low“A medic’s not good enough,” Soren said as he walked up to the table in the centre of the room. Helena hung back. “We need a healer. Helena’s the best.” nd the corner“Maybe …” Alister said, dubiously, “but she’s never been in combat.
She’ll be deadweight in a fight. Same as this one.” He pointed at Purnell.
“You’re going to get us all killed if we don’t get this perfect.”
“We don’t need her to fight. We can fight. The thing none of us can do is make sure we can get Luc out alive. Hel’s the best bet for that. We don’t know what kind of condition he’s going to be in when we find him. She can fix anything.”
Helena wasn’t sure she appreciated the degree of confidence Soren was he way backplacing in her.
“Have you ever been to the front?” Alister was staring at her.
“No.”
“This is insane,” Alister said. “I’d follow you anywhere, Soren, but this is not a good plan. What if Luc’s in a bad way, and all we have is her; is she going to carry him out?”
“I’ll help!” Purnell spoke up abruptly. “After I show you the way, I can help with Luc. I’m good in the hospital.”
“Soren.” Helena’s voice was tight. “Can I talk to you?” She dragged him
back outside. “What are you doing?”
“We’re getting Luc back,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve gathered that,” she said, shaking him, not caring that he was injured, because he was about to go commit suicide. “You’re barely o when all therecovered. Why is Purnell here?”
“Sofia?”
Since when was Soren on a first-name basis with a hospital orderly?
“Yes, the orderly. Do you know who she is?”
“She’s the one who knows where Luc might be.”
Helena stared stunned as it dawned on her why Purnell was there. This had Crowther’s fingerprints all over it. This wasn’t Soren’s rescue, this was olt otherwise.Crowther, pulling the strings once again.
But then, what was he planning to do with Kaine? Was Kaine a distraction? Or was this because Crowther hoped to avoid losing Kaine
prematurely?
Helena’s molars ground together.
“And how would she know that?” she asked, trying to get Soren to see how insane this all was.
Soren gave a tight smile. “Crowther uses her to keep an eye on us, but she doesn’t like it. She came clean with Luc a while back. She’s seen maps for a secret prison that can be accessed from the West Island’s waterways.”
“Soren.” Helena exhaled, closing her eyes. “Why would she have seen maps like that?”
Soren shrugged, not seeming concerned about it. “Crowther uses her for carrying messages. I guess she peeked.”
If Crowther was the mastermind behind this, Helena wanted him directly involved, giving clear instructions about how he thought it was going to work, not some shadowy an orderly saw a map sleight of hand.
She was sick of how Ilva and Crowther both defaulted to manipulation to get their “miracles” to show up. As if people couldn’t be counted on unless they were tricked.
“If that’s the case, then that means Crowther knows about this prison, and he might have a lot more information than just a map. We should talk to him.”
Soren immediately shook his head. “No. The Council is adamant that no one can take any action until they ‘know’ who has Luc. Ilva somehow thinks she’s going to negotiate a trade to get Luc back. No mention, though, of what she possibly thinks we could offer.”
Helena knew exactly what it was that Ilva probably had in mind.
“My duty is to Luc,” Soren was saying, “not the Eternal Flame. As long as Lila’s out, I’m primary. The Council doesn’t command me, my duty is to my vows and my vows are to Luc.”
She’d thought they wanted Kaine to rescue Luc—to risk his cover to spare their own troops. But if that failed, Ilva would sell him out without a second thought.
Which meant Crowther was being forced to go behind Ilva’s back. That ere. This hadwas why he was using Sofia Purnell to pass the relevant information to Soren, the one person with the ability to act on his own.
“All right,” Helena said, nodding. “I’ll come.”
Soren looked startled, then sagged with relief. “Good. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
Helena scrutinised him. “What do you mean?”
His eyes were heavy-lidded. When he was pensive, they got soulful. Now en to see howthere was just one, but she still recognised the expression.
“I need you to do anything, Hel, whatever it takes, to save him. No matter the price. Anyone in the Resistance would die for him; I need you there because it might take more than that.”
Her eyes went wide. “Do you realise what you’re asking?”
He held his head high. “My vow is to protect my Principate with my life and my death. You’re the one who said that if someone’s willing to die, why not give them a chance to keep fighting.”
Her hands had gone numb. “You can’t volunteer the others for a mission like that. Are you planning to tell them that’s why I’m here? That you chose me because you want necromancy as your backup plan?” Her voice dropped to a furious whisper as she retreated, but he caught her by the arm.
“That’s not the only reason,” he said. “You are the best. I’m not volunteering them, just me. If something goes wrong, you do anything you have to to get them out. This is me giving you permission.”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I can. I’ve never—”
“We both know that if someone can do vivimancy, they can do necromancy. And if there’s anyone who can figure it out on the fly, it’s you.
I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just—” He swallowed. “I need to know this is going to work. Hel, this has to work.” ugh, of whatShe wavered a moment longer, but what were the alternatives? Every choice had become unbearable. And this was the price she’d already offered
to pay.
“Fine.” She swallowed. “For Luc.”
“For Luc. Come on.”
Helena wanted very much to corner Purnell and interrogate her about exactly what Crowther knew, and how he expected the mission to unfold, but Purnell was constantly in motion, moving around the room, staying out of reach.
“How do you know all this?” Helena asked pointedly, after she was told about the location of the prison and how there was a floodwater cathedral that they would use to reach it.
“I know people who use them. The scouts—and others, when they need escape routes and safe places to go,” Purnell said.
“Why aren’t they more patrolled?”
Purnell shrugged. “It’s a maze. The greys can’t see in the dark, or they get lost, and the Undying don’t like crawling in sewer water.”
Helena’s own throat convulsed at the thought. “I see.”
“It won’t be bad, though. It’s flood season now,” Purnell said. “The water will mostly be mountain water. It’ll be cold, but nothing like it is in the summer.”
Small mercies. Helena was well acquainted with how cold the river snowmelt was; the mere thought of crawling through it was enough to make her bones ache. “And these tunnels are connected to where Luc is?”
Purnell was avoiding Helena’s eyes again. “A lot of old access points to the sewers were built over, but they’re easy to reopen if you have the building schematics. Someone investigated it a few months ago. It’s very high-level compared with the other prisons, but almost completely empty. Like it’s being reserved for something.”
“If Luc’s there, then this means his capture is something they’ve been working towards for a long time,” Sebastian said in a tight voice.
Fear sliced down Helena’s spine. “Why are you so sure Luc’s there?”
“If it’s a secret they have him, they’d have to put him in a secret place,” was all Purnell said.
Helena couldn’t help but feel that the girl’s involvement had already need to knowdestroyed Crowther’s chance at plausible deniability. Surely he could afford to be less opaque.
“If he’s not there, no one will even know we went in,” Soren said. “We have to go tonight. Ascendance is tomorrow; the floodwaters are already high, and none of us will be clearheaded enough to go. We’d have to wait two more days, and Luc can’t afford that.”
Helena hadn’t considered that aspect. They captured Luc just before Ascendance. Why? Just to increase the complexity of the rescue efforts? Or o unfold, butwas it a coincidence?
The plan was only the vaguest shape of a plan. Get in, find Luc, get out.
Helena’s job was to keep Purnell close and out of the way. The others cathedral thatwould deal with any fighting. When they found Luc, she’d examine him, make sure he was still alive, and, if necessary, heal him as rapidly as possible. Then she would get him out. Purnell would help her carry him if he couldn’t walk on his own.
Helena’s job was getting him back to the East Island by any means possible. If she had to leave everyone else behind, she was to do that. Once Luc was safe, the others would scatter and regroup.
“Let’s go,” Soren said, pulling on his armour as Alister and Penny snapped to attention.
“Wait!” Helena said, fighting to keep her voice steady, overwhelmed with the feeling that the plan was wrong. “I need to get my medical kit.”
Soren’s eye narrowed with suspicion. “Don’t you just use your hands?”
She shook her head. “No. If Luc’s really hurt, there’s elixirs and salves, restoratives that will make him recover faster. Relying on vivimancy would —drain him or me. If I have my medicines, we’ll have a better chance of him e the buildingmaking it out if he’s badly hurt.”
Soren relaxed marginally. “All right. Go fast. If you don’t come back in fifteen minutes, we’ll leave without you.”
She ran out the door, straight to Headquarters and the Alchemy Tower.
The lift had never felt so slow as it cranked upwards.
“Please be there, Shiseo,” she prayed as the doors opened and she hurried to her lab, beginning to doubt whether she was making the right decision.
Shiseo was there, synthesising chelators when she burst in.
“I need your help,” she said as she rushed to her satchel. She went to the cabinet filled with all her medicine and snatched up vial after vial, enough doses for everyone twice. She found needles, bandages, manual medical tools, then packed everything she could into waxed, water-sealed bags and put all of it into her satchel until it was full to bursting.
Then she opened a small drawer that held her knives and started strapping them on.
“You got the titanium-nickel,” Shiseo said, watching the knives mould against her skin. “May I see them?”
“Not now,” she said, pulling the satchel over her head and buckling the extra strap to her waist so she could run with it. “I need you to do something for me. I can’t tell you all the details, but I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
She snatched up a piece of paper and started scribbling notes. Everything she knew, all the relevant details. Location. Strategy. Exit.
Written out plainly, it was obvious there was no way it would work, but she didn’t know what else she could do but go along with it.
She looked up. “Do you know the way to the old factory Outpost?”
Shiseo nodded. “Yes. I visited when it was operational.”
She nodded shakily. “I need you to go there, as quickly as you can. It’s— enemy territory, but if you see a necrothrall, say ‘Helena sent me’ and they nny snappedshould leave you alone. Take this route.” She sketched it roughly on a slip of paper. “You’ll find a tenement building with the iron symbol on it. On the second floor there’s a door. Shove this under the door and then come back.
Or—if you don’t want to do any of that, give this to Ilva. I can’t—I don’t
know how to make this choice.”
She held the paper out.
Shiseo looked from her to the paper, an odd gleam of interest in his dark hance of himeyes. “I always knew you were very interesting.”
“I have to go,” she said.
He took the paper, and she turned and ran, not waiting to see which choice he made. She kept running.
Soren and the others were emerging from the shop as she careened down the alley.
“Thought you’d split,” Alister said, giving her a sideways grin. He seemed to have accepted her presence now.
“No,” Helena said, breathing raggedly. “I’m all in.”
e to turn to.”
She snatched up a piece of paper and started scribbling notes. Everything she knew, all the relevant details. Location. Strategy. Exit.
Written out plainly, it was obvious there was no way it would work, but she didn’t know what else she could do but go along with it.
She looked up. “Do you know the way to the old factory Outpost?”
Shiseo nodded. “Yes. I visited when it was operational.”
She nodded shakily. “I need you to go there, as quickly as you can. It’s— enemy territory, but if you see a necrothrall, say ‘Helena sent me’ and they should leave you alone. Take this route.” She sketched it roughly on a slip of paper. “You’ll find a tenement building with the iron symbol on it. On the second floor there’s a door. Shove this under the door and then come back.
Or—if you don’t want to do any of that, give this to Ilva. I can’t—I don’t
know how to make this choice.”
She held the paper out.
Shiseo looked from her to the paper, an odd gleam of interest in his dark eyes. “I always knew you were very interesting.”
“I have to go,” she said.
He took the paper, and she turned and ran, not waiting to see which choice he made. She kept running.
Soren and the others were emerging from the shop as she careened down the alley.
“Thought you’d split,” Alister said, giving her a sideways grin. He seemed to have accepted her presence now.
“No,” Helena said, breathing raggedly. “I’m all in.”