CHAPTER 50
Aprilis 1787
ACCESSING THE WEST ISLAND’S FLOOD CATHEDRAL WAS a mission of its own.
There were Resistance patrols they had to hide from until they finally found a weak point in the wall that Alister could open. They crawled through, straight into ice-cold floodwater. The spring floods had started early, and with Lumithia at near Ascendance, the tributaries had climbed out of their banks and threatened to drag them all downriver. They had to cling to the wall as they made their way to a crossing point, one of the old pre-war bridges which was nearly destroyed. It swayed dangerously, threatening to collapse as Helena crawled across it, not daring to look down at the swirling, freezing death below.
Things only got worse once they were across. The flood cathedrals were immense towering underground rooms, designed to fill with several storeys of water and redirect it downriver, and they were filling. The grate to access one was half covered in floodwater and made of inert iron, which required time to break through to reveal a terrifyingly deep drop. Even with electric torches, they couldn’t see the bottom. The roar of water rose from the dark.
The others were unfazed. They were used to traversing the city levels, rappelling up and down dozens of storeys during combat. Their armour had harnesses built in, with spools of wires and hooks to anchor themselves.
Penny, a reconnaissance scout, went first. She was terrifyingly quick. In seconds, she was anchored and dove headfirst into the dark without a backwards glance. For a minute, there was nothing but the taut wires; then they slackened and drew tight again, and began to vibrate at intervals.
Alister touched them with his fingers. “All clear,” he said, flicking the wires so they’d vibrate back down.
The anchors came loose, slithering into the darkness after Penny like a pair of serpents. The rest of them followed. Helena and Purnell, without their own
armour and harnesses, were deadweight in the literal sense. Alister took Helena with him, and Sebastian carried Purnell, and the water poured down on them like a waterfall. They were soaked to the bone, nearly numb by the time they reached the bottom. It was too loud to hear anything but water crashing down, echoing off the walls with a cacophonous roar.
Alister was shaking with cold, but he knelt down, putting his hands underwater for several minutes.
“It’s shallow along the edges but about ten feet left, there’s a drop, and the water’s fast. I can’t feel the bottom.” He had to shout to be heard. “If we go straight, it should be fine, but let’s anchor a line before we cross. I’ll go first, I know the safest route.”
Once they reached the far wall, there was a ladder leading to an upper nally found a walkway that ran above the dozens of huge tunnels feeding into the cathedral. ough, straight Helena used her vivimancy to warm everyone, but there was nothing to be done about their soaking clothes except to keep moving.
Penny took the lead again. She’d memorised the route through all the tunnels that wound bewilderingly. She had a slight limp from an old injury, ridges which but she was still quick and light-footed. She moved forward, checking the route, making sure things were clear before using her torch to signal the rest of them forward.
They did not encounter a single necrothrall.
Helena’s dread grew.
They climbed an endless ladder that connected to a tunnel, and after crawling so long that Helena began to wonder if she’d ever see light again,
they emerged into a basement.
“Wait here,” Soren said.
Penny leaned against a wall. She was breathing hard, stooped over, her hand pressing against her knee.
“Let me see,” Helena said. There’d been a torn ligament—it had been healed, but she should have been on bedrest for a few days and then worked slowly back into active duty.
“I’m fine, I’ll get fixed up again once we get back,” Penny said, but Helena could tell she wouldn’t.
There was a muffled shout, the quick snick of steel, and a thud. Soren’s head popped back through the doorway to those waiting in the basement.
“Clear,” he said softly.
ny like a pair out their own
They ascended three floors. Helena had never seen Luc’s unit in actual combat, only their practices. They were deadly. Dark blurs of steel and spilled blood. Their weapons morphed like water in their hands, the blades twisting and altering, reaching out and slaughtering anything that crossed their paths, using their harnesses to make gravity-defying attacks.
The prison was unquestionably occupied. There were too many guards and necrothralls for it to be abandoned, but not as many as would be expected for keeping Luc prisoner.
Helena kept telling herself it wasn’t a trap, but it felt like one. They moved fast, trying to search every room before their victims were discovered and the alarms went off. There was no point in hiding the bodies; Soren left a trail of blood in his wake. he cathedral.Alister was defence. He had spectacular resonance reach. He could throw up a wall, or shove back attackers by moving the ground under them. He’d hang back and queue them so that Sebastian and Soren could kill methodically without getting crowded or overrun in the narrow hallways.
Penny, no longer scouting, acted as Alister’s cover, protecting him from any attacks.
They checked every room. Cell after cell. No Luc. No prisoners at all. The place seemed empty. Except there were guards.
They finally found a prisoner in the last cell in the block. A huddled figure under a blanket.
“Luc?” Soren’s voice was ragged with desperation.
The figure lying on the cot stirred, and a grey-haired man lifted his head.
When he saw them, his eyes went wide and he lunged towards the bar,
jabbering in broken Northern dialect.
“Resistance?”
That was all Helena managed to make out among the many words she
didn’t know. He sounded western.
“Save?” The man pointed at himself.
“No,” Soren said, shaking his head. “We’re looking for someone else.” d, but Helena“Save.” He pointed at himself again.
“We’re only here for one person,” Soren said, already turning.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Boy?” He touched his own hair. “Gold?”
They all turned back.
“Is he here?” Helena asked.
The man set his jaw. “Save.” He pointed at himself again.
“We don’t have time to drag around a prisoner,” Soren said. “We’ll find
him ourselves.”
“No!” The man sounded terrified now.
Helena studied him. “What’s your name?”
“Vagner,” he said slowly. y guards andThe name was familiar. Vagner.
Wagner? That was the name Crowther and Ivy had tortured out of Lancaster.
They movedShe turned to Soren. “We’ve been looking for him.” vered and the“Helena.” Soren looked at her with exasperation. “We can’t deal with a prisoner.”
“This one is important. Crowther’s had people trying to find him. If this is where they’re hiding the prisoners they don’t want anyone knowing about, that’s all the more evidence this is a prisoner we need.”
Soren hesitated. “If he slows us down or does anything that puts the mission at risk, I will kill him, and you won’t stop me. Agreed?”
Helena nodded.
Luc wasn’t anywhere on that floor. They ascended again. Hope dwindling.
Maybe all these guards were just for Wagner, who followed them, cowering behind her and Purnell as though they were human shields.
They turned a corner and found an immense grey-skinned necrothrall standing in front of the door. He smiled.
Not a necrothrall, then, a lich.
“There you are,” he said in a rasping voice, raising a huge spiked club, as his other hand rapped a warning on the door behind him. “I wondered if the remaining Bayards might show up. Two down and two to go.” He paid no attention to Soren, his focus on Sebastian. “That pretty niece of yours made a sound like a rotten gourd when I ran her through. You should have seen how fast your Principate dropped his sword when she fell.”
Sebastian stilled Soren. “Who are you?”
The lich smiled again, the corpse’s bloated lips splitting into a rotten grin.
“Don’t you recognise me, Sebastian? I’d think you would, after all the effort you and Apollo put into executing me. Afraid it didn’t stick. Not like the axe did when I split your brother’s skull.”
“Atreus,” Sebastian said, his voice soft, but his grip on his weapon tightening.
Helena stared in horror. Kaine’s father was still alive?
Before she could process the revelation, both paladins attacked, and Atreus swung at them. The wall exploded, tile and stone flying, dust filling the air.
The hallway was narrow, a tiny combat space in which speed was a far greater advantage than size and muscle. If Atreus landed a blow, he would have killed Sebastian and Soren, but he had to hit them. They were faster, slicing at him a dozen times before he could raise the club and give it momentum.
The other wall cracked open as Atreus swung again.
The air was so thick with dust, it was almost impossible to see anything but the gleam of metal. There was a horrifying crunch and squelch and something came flying through the debris and hit the ground. The lich’s head.
“Come on,” Soren’s voice barked from amid the choking dust. The rest of them moved forward. Soren was favouring his right arm and Sebastian was bleeding at the temple, but they were mostly unscathed. The huge corpse that had been Atreus Ferron lay at their feet, gouged all over with deep wounds that would have killed anyone who wasn’t already dead.
“Shouldn’t we get the talisman?” Helena asked as they all stepped around e dwindling.it.
“There’s no time to search a corpse that big,” Soren said as he stumbled
forward and shoved the door open.
There was Luc.
They all froze.
He was strapped down on a medical table, a mask fitted over his nose and mouth attached to several tubes. There was a cluster of people around him, swathed in surgical gowns.
His torso had been sliced open, peeled back to expose all the organs, but yours made athey were blackened, almost necrotic.
“Fuck!” said a woman’s voice, and she glanced over towards them.
They were clearly trying to finish what they’d been doing when Atreus knocked to warn them.
Two people lunged across the floor and through a door on the far side without a backwards glance, leaving the rest.
The room exploded into violence.
Soren had been waiting for this moment. He shot across the room, his weapon sweeping into a long curving blade. He killed everyone violently.
There was nothing quick or clean about it. Warm blood spattered across her face as Helena went for Luc.
d, and AtreusDespite being strapped down, his hands had been pierced through with spikes of nullium that Helena instantly recognised by the telltale way they were dissolving into his blood.
Her fingers trembled as she reached out, looking for a pulse, not sure if her resonance would work. She pressed her fingers below his jaw and gave a small sob of relief. He was alive. Drugged and cut open, but alive.
She ripped the mask off his face as Purnell twisted a nozzle on the tank, cutting off whatever they’d been using on him. anything butWhat had they done? nd somethingHer hands shook as she searched for a talisman inside him, but she felt no signs of lumithium or any other metal. His organs were darkened, as if he’d been poisoned with something, but there was no time to try to heal it all.
She closed the incisions, working carefully, aligning everything. Purnell was prying the spikes from his hands, her breath coming out in rapid pants as she struggled to get them loose. There was a stark look of terror starting to creep across the girl’s face.
The veins and arteries in Luc’s arms had been constricted, the gas administered keeping his heartbeat impossibly sluggish. The combination had kept his resonance inactive while allowing the now dead scientists to use their own on him. He was also conscious, but just barely.
Soren and Alister were trying to force open the door that two attackers had attempted to escape through, without success.
Helena worked as fast as she could, speeding up Luc’s metabolism and forcing his damaged kidneys back into action, making his heart beat more rapidly once Purnell had the spikes out. Helena shoved a decoction into her hands, ordering her to wash the wounds and get them wrapped in gauze.
Then her ring burned.
Pain like fire ran up her left hand. She gave a choked gasp as she kept working. The sensation barely faded before it burned again.
“Is he alive?” she dimly heard Soren asking, his voice shaking.
“Yes. Just give me a minute,” she said, touching Luc’s face desperately.
“Come on, Luc. Do you hear me?”
Her ring burned again.
Alarms started. A deafening ringing that filled the air.
“We’ve got to go!” Soren yelled over the din. “Fuck. We’ll just carry
him.”
“Luc, wake up.” Helena shook him.
They didn’t have the manpower for Luc to be deadweight. There was no way that Helena and Purnell could carry him all the way out if there was fighting. ot sure if herShe had a vial and a needle. Her hands were shaking as she filled a syringe.
She’d never used this—epinephrine combined with painkillers and a few other things to jump-start his body into action. If it was too strong, it would kill him. It would all be for nothing.
“Come on,” she muttered, and jabbed it through his chest into his heart.
Luc lurched, giving a sudden gasp as his body jolted into violent consciousness.
Helena saw a flash of sky blue as his eyes cracked open.
“Hel?” he croaked, his voice dry. He reached out, touching her face with his bandaged hand as if he couldn’t believe she was real. apid pants as“Yes,” she said, trying not to cry. “We’ve come to take you home.”
His eyes rolled around, searching, skimming past everyone clustered around him. “Where’s—where’s Lila?”
“Headquarters,” Soren said, his voice gruff, “waiting for you.” mbination hadLuc stiffened. “Is she really—?”
“She’s alive,” Helena said quickly. “We took care of her. It’s your turn now. Come on.” attackers hadLuc gave a shuddering gasp of relief. “They said if I went—they wouldn’t kill her. She was—bleeding—so much. Wouldn’t even let me burn it closed.
She’s—she’s all right?”
“She’s alive, getting better,” Helena said. “Come on. Take this. We’ve got to go.”
She pulled him upright and he groaned, clutching at his chest.
“What did they do to me?”
“I don’t know. I’ll fix you better once we’re safe,” she said, breaking a tablet in half and pushing it past his lips. She just had to hope he was still strong enough that everything she was doing wouldn’t kill him. “Hold still.”
She pressed her hands on each side of his neck, and used the dissolving tablets to manipulate his physiology, getting his internal systems working the way they needed to.
He’d crash terribly once it all wore off, but she’d be there. She could make up all the difference once they were safe.
“Up now,” she said. He was breathing too fast; she could feel his heart racing dangerously. She tried to slow it a little, but the more conscious he
became, the more he comprehended their danger.
She pulled one of his arms over her shoulder and Purnell took the other, and they dragged him to his feet. led a syringe.“You came …” Luc said, slumping heavily on her.
“You’re my best friend,” Helena said, staring ahead. “Of course I did.
Come on. We need to get you out.”
He kept tripping over his feet, his body bearing down so hard that her knees nearly buckled. She was grateful he was not in armour, or she didn’t know how they’d manage. The floor was slick with blood and gore.
“You shouldn’t be here. You’re not—trained,” he said when they were halfway down a flight of stairs.
“Helping you is exactly what I’m trained for,” she said.
Her ring kept burning, again and again. She ignored it.
She had been afraid that after all the fighting to get there, Soren and the others would be too exhausted to keep going, but recovering Luc had reinvigorated them.
However secret the prison had been, it was not so secret that there weren’t plenty of necrothralls now that the alarms had gone off. Not shoddy, damaged necrothralls that shambled and ravaged carelessly; these greys were expertly reanimated, so capable it was hard to believe they were dead except they kept coming no matter how Soren and Sebastian sliced them apart. The narrowness of the hallways and tight corners was both gift and curse.
“I need a weapon,” Luc said, trying to pull away from Helena as Soren was slammed against the wall and crumpled. A necrothrall nearly took his head off, but Sebastian rammed into it, buying Soren enough time to scramble to his feet and decapitate it.
He was fighting left-handed, his right arm cradled against his body.
The drugs were taking effect. Luc was strong enough to resist Helena’s attempts to hold him back and alert enough to realise how outnumbered they were. Still she tried to stop him.
“Luc, you’re injured. I’m not even sure how much. You’re just not feeling working theit.”
“I’m not watching them die.” He tried again to shove her and Purnell off. could makeShe dug her fingers into his arms. “Luc, you don’t have resonance.”
“Then heal me again later,” he said, finally ripping himself free and throwing himself into the fight. He kicked a necrothrall so hard his foot went through its chest. He snatched up its sword.
Soren called him several names, but there was no time to do more than curse as they kept fighting their way down.
Helena pulled out a knife when they reached the basement. Wagner was huddling behind Purnell as if he expected her to protect him. Purnell’s eyes were wide, the whites glaring with visible panic as she clutched back. They shouldn’t have brought her. The girl was beginning to fall apart. She didn’t have the nerve for combat.
They got into the room and blocked the door, but it was barely secured before the whole wall shook. They fled into the tunnels, scrambling after one another into the sewers, trying to reach the flood cathedral. Alister brought up the rear, crushing and sealing the tunnel behind them, step after step, so that pursuit would be slow.
They reached one of the larger tunnels and paused, gasping for breath.
“You’re not supposed to be fighting, you moron,” Soren said, slumping against the wall. In torchlight, he’d turned very grey and his nose was broken, blood streaming down his mouth and chin.
Purnell was crouched on the ground, rocking and muttering, Mummy?
Mummy, please don’t, over and over. e greys were“Don’t tell me what to do,” Luc said, breathing hard, shifting his grip on the sword. “This sword is shit. You could have brought a weapon for me. Do you have my rings at least?”
“You don’t have resonance,” Helena snapped. as Soren wasLuc grimaced but gripped the sword harder.
“I don’t know how Lila’s never killed you,” Soren said, pushing himself up but looking ready to topple over.
“Hold on.” Helena went over and checked him. His arm was broken again.
Three times in a year. It was unlikely to ever heal properly after this. She aligned the bones again and fused them.
“Do you have something for pain?” Penny asked in a small voice. “Or maybe you could block off some nerves.”
When she was done with Penny, she made them all take her blood tonics, so that if they required healing, what she’d need would already be there.
She’d brought two for everyone but hadn’t expected an extra prisoner.
Wagner drank hers while she was passing out the others.
“We need to keep moving,” Soren said. They had to drag Purnell with them; she was completely gone, staring blankly as if she didn’t know where she was anymore, still saying Mummy, her voice chillingly childlike.
They retraced their steps, following the maze of tunnels back to their entry point. At first it was a relief that they weren’t being pursued, but the closer
they got, the eerier it was.
Helena’s ring burned again.
“Sol save us. It’s Blackthorne!” Penny said, her voice strangled with terror as they rounded the corner.
The shallow sections of the flood cathedral were filled not only with a horde of necrothralls but also a number of what looked to be the mortal Aspirants, lined up and blocking their path. er brought up“Go back!” Soren immediately said, but he’d barely spoken the words before there came a scream of metal behind them, followed by a savage roar.
Chimaeras.
They were penned in.
Blackthorne stood at the front, barely armoured. “Capture Holdfast, kill the e was broken,rest, and you will receive the immortal reward!”
There was an eager roar among the Aspirants, while the necrothralls just stood still, waiting.
“Stay close,” Luc ordered as he fell in, shoulder-to-shoulder, with Soren
and Sebastian.
“Get across,” Soren said.
The plan, as much as there had been a plan, fell apart. There was no escaping with Luc when he was in the thick of the fighting. Helena’s fingers went for her daggers.
The first wave of necrothralls hit, and the group splintered like a wrecked ship. roken again.Several necrothralls rushed towards Helena. There was no time to think.
She moved on instinct, blocking, slicing, her dagger morphing to chase after crucial joints, while her other palm pressed flat and she jerked back, ripping their reanimation free.
The energy struck her, a blistering flare of power, and she sent it outwards, pulverising the necrothralls closing in. There was light somewhere, fire, torches, reflecting across the frigid water that was already up to their knees.
The noise was deafening. The roar and chaos shattered the senses. She looked for the others, but it was impossible to see them in the throng. So many bodies, living and dead, moving through the dark. Kaine had trained her to defend herself and flee, not fight in a melee. She tried to key up her resonance, but there were so many bodies and movements and weapons
swinging, it was dizzying. She ducked a swinging club and lashed out with her knife, the blade singing with resonance as it tore through the waxy decaying skin, up the torso and throat, slicing through bones like butter, into the brain. d with terrorShe twisted her resonance and the blade curved, severing the head completely.
Something collided with her, bowling her over. A warm hand, wrenching her up. Ally, she thought, until she saw the steel-gauntleted fist, gripping a sword and swinging it towards her head. She drove her knife up, the handguard just barely large enough to deflect, and then she stabbed towards the weak point near the shoulder, narrowing the blade as thin as she could until her resonance with the metal told her she’d pierced flesh. She flared out the knife blade as it sank into the hilt. She jerked it back and felt the warm, dfast, kill theheavy spurt of hot blood across her hand as the grip on her loosened. The sword fell, barely missing her head, and the Aspirant crashed into the water on top of her.
Cold water hit her head-on, painful as a kick to the ribs. She scrambled to her feet, fighting to get free of the body nearly drowning her.
She stabbed blindly, the water and noise and disorientation making it impossible to sense anything clearly.
She crawled out of the throng, found a wall, and got up, trying to catch her breath, trying to find the others in the flickering dark. There was screaming. It kept going on and on. It was Purnell. She’d snapped out of her daze and was now screaming at the top of her lungs, the sound bouncing off the walls, drawing attention. A group of necrothralls was closing in.
Wagner, who was nearest to Purnell, shoved her straight at them as he tried to escape. As she fell, Purnell seemed to become lucid again, comprehending terror sweeping across her face.
She was weaponless but quick. She leapt, somehow evading the clawing it outwards,hands, and fled into the centre of the flood-filled room.
Half a dozen steps and then Purnell stepped too far, vanishing underwater.
Helena watched, praying that she’d resurface, that somehow she’d escaped s. She lookedthe current. Something rammed into Helena, knocking her sideways. A boot came down on her wrist, and she inhaled water when she gasped with pain.
Fire tore along her ribs.
She crawled back towards the wall. Her clothes freezing on her skin. She turned, looking desperately for the others, coughing up water.
Wagner had somehow managed to reach the far wall and had a spear he was beating off necrothralls with.
Luc and Sebastian were fighting together in the centre of a horde, while Soren had broken away and was trying to reach Alister and Penny, who’d been backed into a corner far from everyone else.
The light flickered madly off the water, only giving glimpses. The chimaeras had caught up. Fangs and claws were flashing as Alister tried to raise a barrier. Penny gave a cry as her weapon caught in the shoulder of a chimaera and was ripped from her hands.
Soren raced through the water, his weapon morphing as he ran, trying to reach them before the chimaeras closed in.
An axe came swinging through the air, barely missing Soren’s leg.
Soren caught himself, stumbling in the water, and turned hard, looking around wildly to find his attacker. His weapon flashed, barely blocking a blow that nearly threw him off his feet. Now he was facing his opponent.
Blackthorne barred the way.
Blackthorne, realising the disadvantage of his opponent, kept moving to the right. Making all his attacks from Soren’s blind spot. Tiring him.
“Soren!” Luc suddenly shouted.
Soren pivoted sharply as a chimaera leapt at him. He beheaded it in one clean sweep of his blade. screaming. ItThere was a horrible, wet cracking sound.
When Soren turned, Blackthorne had swung from the right.
The axe head was buried all the way through his ribs to his spine.
Blackthorne jerked the axe free and licked it as Soren dropped, vanishing
m as he triedinto the water.
Everything went out of focus.
Luc was screaming, but Helena’s body seemed to abruptly come alive. She stumbled forward, slashing at anything in her path, trying to reach Soren before the river took him.
Luc was faster. By the time Helena reached him, Luc was already on his he’d escapedknees, pulling Soren up into his arms, stained with the rush of blood that poured out of him. Sebastian was a moment behind him, immediately throwing himself into Blackthorne’s path and holding him off as Luc knelt in the water, Soren clutched against his chest.
Luc looked up when Helena reached him.
“Y-You can heal him, right?”
“Luc—”
But he was already pushing Soren into her arms, the weight dropping her to her knees in the water.
She held on to Soren with trembling hands, ignoring the throb of her wrist.
“I’ll cover you,” Luc said, picking up his sword. And then he was gone.
The battle did not stop for Soren.
Helena tried to ignore the fighting that raged around her, trying to focus. A thread was all she needed. She could keep him alive.
Just like she’d kept Lila alive.
But the wound was so big. Wounds like this didn’t survive a journey to the hospital. This blow had been lethal. Soren’s remaining life was feeble, slipping away as her resonance tried to grasp it.
Fingers brushed against her hand.
Soren was staring at her. “Two souls is still a bargain.”
The words had barely passed from his lips when a surge of cold deathly energy hit, slamming through Helena’s resonance.
She was so raw with exhaustion, so focused on trying to keep him alive, her vision blotted out as a jolt of death ran through her. She doubled over, for a moment too dazed to comprehend what had happened. Her vision cleared and Soren’s blank, sightless gaze met hers.
He was gone.
“No. No. No. Soren!”
He hung in her arms, his blood still flooding against her skin, the only warmth.
Helena looked around. Alister was calling to Penny to fall back as she fought the chimaeras using a knife, letting them get dangerously close before she could hit them. One mistake was all it would take. me alive. SheSoren was dead. Purnell was dead.
Sebastian was doing everything he could to keep Luc protected, holding off Blackthorne. Luc was fighting, but his focus was split. He kept checking on Helena where she knelt with Soren clutched in her arms. She could see the desperation in his eyes. The certainty that she was going to save Soren. That she could.
She met his eyes for one guilt-stricken moment and turned back, pulling Soren’s body against her.
“Anything,” she said, pressing a hand against his neck. “Whatever the price.”
She pushed the energy out of her body and brought him back.
It was more than just easy. It was instinctive.
She knew Soren, knew exactly what it felt like when he was alive. of her wrist.Her resonance wound through him like a current, knitting the wound closed with absolute efficiency, stitching the severed sections of his organs back together, rejoining the bones, but she didn’t stop there. g to focus. AShe felt his mind return, a shadow, the barest glimmer of him, and she
poured her energy into that.
Come back. Come back. You can’t go yet. ourney to theSoren blinked up at her, and she felt a connection materialise between them, a wisp. She strengthened it, because she couldn’t let him go.
“You can’t rest yet, you have to protect Luc,” she said, and heard the words echo through him.
Soren knew her. She could feel it. The familiarity she represented. It was horrible, feeling this abomination of life in her arms. For all her efforts, this was a shadow. Soren was a puppet she’d slipped her hand inside.
After so many years of healing, necromancy was effortless. There was bled over, fornothing to hurt. She simply told Soren’s body that it could not die. He would fight as he’d always fought. He would protect them, because he knew how to do that.
He stood and helped her up, weapon already in hand.
Muscle memory lingered, like a sleepwalker’s habits, even when the person was gone.
She could see herself through him. Her consciousness kept flickering back and forth along the connection forged between them. He turned then and saw Luc, and she felt the pull towards him. He looked for Lila next.
Luc saw Soren standing, and for an instant, relief flooded across his face.
Then vanished.
Luc knew. In an instant, he somehow knew.
Still Soren started towards him. Helena stopped him. could see the“You need to protect Penny and Alister,” she said, both in her mind and aloud, pointing, turning his focus away from Luc. “Get us out.”
Soren turned and obeyed. Helena watched, her mind swimming from the disorienting secondary awareness in her mind. Her consciousness didn’t
know where to go.
A chimaera leapt towards her face.
She dodged. A scythe flashed before her eyes.
Soren.
She blinked, trying to make out her own surroundings.
Soren killed the chimaera without breaking his stride as he reached Penny and Alister, shoving Penny to safety before turning back.
A blur from the left. Helena lurched sideways, trying to dodge, not sure if she was seeing her assailants or Soren’s. Her focus narrowed for an instant, bringing her surroundings back into the forefront of her own mind.
If she died, Soren would be gone, too. She had to stay alive until they got Luc out.
She tried to block out Soren, but he was rooted in her mind. She sensed something and turned an instant before it slammed into her. The air was knocked out of her lungs. She looked down, blinking through her
fragmenting consciousness.
Soren. Helena. Soren.
There was a knife driven to the hilt into the right side of her chest.
Helena.
If she’d turned a split second later, it would have gone through her heart, but—as she squinted, struggling to focus—she didn’t think it had hit anything immediately vital.
Pain was what it took to drag Helena’s consciousness securely back into her own body.
She managed to slice off the hand of the necrothrall that had stabbed her before it could pull the knife out. Using her throbbing right hand, she held the knife in place, trying to keep it from being jostled as she stomped down on the inside of the necrothrall’s knee.
She stumbled away, gasping, the edge of the blade slicing the wound wider as she moved.
A chimaera’s fangs closed around Soren’s leg, tearing it open. He cut off its head, unmindful of the injury.
He was being torn apart. She could feel the injuries, even though pain didn’t register. She hadn’t brought that part of his brain back.
He didn’t stop fighting.
Get the knife out, close the wound. She went towards the far wall.
She huddled in the freezing water. Another chimaera had attacked Sebastian and Luc. The size of it, it had to be part bear. Luc’s strength was flagging.
The chimaera was huge, mostly mammal but with longer, reptilian jaws and skin so thick, their weapons glanced off. It screamed like a human.
She tried to focus, biting down on her lip, bracing herself to pull out the knife.
Fingers dug into her braided hair, and Helena was abruptly dragged up until her toes barely touched the ground.
Basilius Blackthorne peered at her, teeth bared in a grin, bloodstains from mouth to chin.
He ate his wife and children with those teeth … “The Eternal Flame has a necromancer, I see.” His voice was raw and rasping.
She tried to stab the arm gripping her, but he batted her hand away with a blow so hard, her left hand nearly went numb. Her knife hit the water with a
splash.
She grabbed for his wrist.
Her fingers grazed his skin, her resonance lashing out.
But Kaine had always warned her: Once the Undying knew what she was, d hit anythingthey’d be wary.
Before her resonance could connect, he wrenched her hand off, fingers closing around the knuckles of her left hand, squeezing and twisting. His grip was like iron, and her bones broke like twigs.
Helena screamed. The knife in her chest shifted, painful pressure growing , she held theinside her lungs.
Blackthorne looked at her shattered hand expectantly and then laughed.
“Forgot, you won’t regenerate.” wound widerHis gaze turned to her right hand, eyeing the awkward way she had the knife braced. “I think this one is already broken, but let’s make sure.”
With unexpected gentleness, he pulled it away from the knife hilt and snapped her wrist. Black spots of pain danced in her eyes as another strangled scream burst out of her.
“I should keep you alive,” he said as he pulled the knife from her chest very slowly, savouring the glide of the blade.
Helena was in so much pain that her mind kept flickering over into Soren’s, seeking an escape.
He was mobbed by necrothralls. The chimaeras were dead, but there were too many necrothralls, dozens of them, shoving him down into the water,
tearing him apart. His leg twisted as teeth bit down, tearing out the tendon behind his knee.
He was still fighting. His weapon was gone, but he had a knife. Penny was screaming behind him, but Alister held her back. Soren kept stabbing, tearing, clawing his way through, following her instruction not to stop fighting even as he was ripped apart. Dead fingers scrabbled across his face, finding his remaining eye. His jaw was torn down, his throat left gaping.
Helena jerked reflexively each time a little more of him was ripped away, but the pain was all with Helena. She couldn’t feel her fingers; there was just a beacon of agony radiating up her arms.
A warm gush of blood ran down the side of her body.
She thought Basilius would stab her again, but he dropped the knife into the water. He touched her side, fingers light across the wound. Her raw nerves screamed in protest.
His fingers traced along the slit between her ribs, and without warning he shoved two of them into it. Helena screamed as her skin tore wider. The bones bowed as he forced his fingers inside the wound, slick with her blood.
“Did you know, my favourite things are wounds,” he said, the words breathless. “Wetter, hotter, and tighter than anything else.” ing. His gripHelena’s legs thrashed, her broken hands scrabbling to push him away, the ruined bones grinding, but it was no use. She screamed and screamed but no one noticed, bashing her head against his chest until he gripped her by the throat with his free hand, his thumb shoving hard against her trachea until she stilled. Her lungs seized, spasming.
“Yes, just like that,” he said with an approving groan. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you die. You’ll still be alive when I hand you over. Bennet is going to love you.”
Her consciousness had frayed to its outermost limit. Her vision blurred. her strangledShe couldn’t even breathe to scream anymore.
She was only half aware as Soren was ripped from her mind, his body washed downriver, the connection unravelling like blood in the water.
“One more scream. You do it beauti—”
Blackthorne stumbled, gasping as if the breath had been knocked out of him. His grip on her loosened, fingers sliding free an instant before he was wrenched backwards.
Helena dropped like a stone. The frigid cold drove her back into consciousness or she would have drowned. She cowered back, looking for
Blackthorne in terror and spotted him being dragged by his throat through the water, a wire or rope wrapped around his neck.
The person dragging him wasn’t one of the Resistance.
It was one of the Undying. Immediately identifiable by the helmet and black uniform.
By the time the two were in range of each other, Blackthorne had recovered himself and lunged at his attacker. He’d snatched up a sword from the water and swung, going straight for the head, but the other Undying sidestepped.
Blackthorne tried again, and again. His attacks were precise, the movements of a highly accomplished combat alchemist, but his opponent simply dodged. No weapon. No counterattack. Quick and light, evading as if it were a dance, until Blackthorne left himself open for an instant. An instant was all it took.
The Undying stepped past a blow and with his bare hand, punched through Basilius’s armour and into his chest as easily as if reaching through water. A pale, long-fingered hand dripped red with blood as it pulled out a gleaming piece of metal from Blackthorne’s chest cavity.
Blackthorne collapsed into the floodwater, vanishing. im away, theThe entire fight had not even lasted a full minute.
In the chaos, no one else had noticed. Helena tried to breathe in but choked from the pressure inside her lungs. She pressed her arm against the wound, chea until shetrying to prevent more air from seeping into her chest cavity.
The necrothralls began to drop. A few Aspirants noticed the newcomer and seemed confused about what had happened. Before they could react, they were dead. A weapon gleamed so quick that she barely saw it, just watched
the bodies fall.
It was Kaine.
She’d never seen him fight. He’d never really fought with her. But she knew. There was no mistaking that brutal efficiency.
He was as deadly as she’d imagined.
She could see the techniques he’d tried to drill into her, the fluidity that she’d lacked, how quick he was. No movement wasted. The momentum of
one kill led to the next.
Bodies fell like stars.
He stalked through the water towards Helena. Not a step wavering, cutting down everything that crossed his path.
t through theWhen a chimaera leapt at him, he lifted his hand, and the instant it touched the creature, the body unravelled, limbs sloughing apart as if he’d ripped out all the invisible stitches assembling it. One minute a monster, and the next
dead in the water.
It wasn’t combat, it was slaughter.
A numbers game. Minimum effort, high return.
It was impossible that he’d ever fought to his full potential before. If anyone had ever fought like that, everyone would have known about it.
He reached into a pocket, pulling out a fistful of something and flinging it outward.
They looked like shimmering bits of metal, and as they flew, she felt his resonance expand, carrying them.
The metal sang through the air, moving like an avian murmuration, and hit like a spray of bullets, tearing through the necrothralls’ skulls. ched throughRather than fall, the metal stayed suspended in midair, sweeping back, dripping blood and gore. Kaine drew his hand up and they came darting back, cutting through more bodies. A flick of his fingers and they shot out again.
When he reached Helena, his eyes were burning with rage behind his mask, glowing bright as molten silver.
“You idiot,” he said, and dragged her up out of the water, crushing her n but chokedhard against his chest.
His resonance in the air grew heavier. A wave that swept outwards. She watched it hit the nearest necrothralls and Aspirants. They began jerking and ewcomer andseizing, dropping into the water. The necrothralls crumpled, while the chimaeras and those living were gasping as if their lungs were being compressed, clawing at their throats.
Helena could still breathe, although laboriously, but everyone around her was suffocating.
Sebastian was trying to reach Luc but collapsed into the water. Luc was tearing gouges down his throat as his face turned blue, eyes bulging.
“Stop it,” she gasped, realising that Kaine was making no distinction between the Undying and the Eternal Flame. He was killing everyone. “Stop it! You can’t kill them! Stop!”
She tried to wrench away as Luc’s eyes rolled back and he slumped in the water.
The invisible wave reached the walls. Penny collapsed. Alister followed.
The struggle was coming to an end.
nt it touched“Stop. Stop! Stop!” She fought to get free. “Stop!”
“Shut up,” he snarled through his helmet, letting go of her. “Wait here.”
He stormed over to Sebastian and Luc, Penny and Alister and even Wagner, although she hardly cared if he died. He placed a hand on their chests, and one at the back of their heads, and she watched them jerk and start breathing again without regaining consciousness.
She tried to stand up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. By the time Kaine was coming to her again, everything was swaying.
He dragged her to the far wall, where several tunnels disappeared into darkness.
“Can’t leave them,” she rasped, trying to pull free.
“Shut up.” The water was only to their ankles, and there was a ladder leading up to a walkway that was shoulder height.
“You can’t leave them,” she said, struggling. “Bring them, or I won’t go.”
He turned without a word and went back, kicking most of the necrothralls darting back,into the current, but pausing beside a few dead Aspirants and reanimating them. They crawled to their feet and began helping to carry Luc and the others over and shoving them up onto the walkway while Kaine lifted her as gently as he could. She nearly bit through her lip at the pressure on her ribs.
His palms were red with her blood, but he said nothing as he swung up the ladder and scooped her up again.
The necrothralls hauled the rest of the rescue team up over their shoulders and followed.
Helena faded in and out of consciousness in the dark, briefly coming to as she heard the sound of grinding metal and a loud roar of rushing, rising water coming from the flood cathedral before they continued on.
Kaine stopped walking and kicked the wall. A door almost invisible along the endless passages swung open. He carried her into a small room.
There was a table against one wall, and he laid her on it. He turned away, shoving the door closed, and reached up to rip off his helmet. His face was twisted with fury.
“Tell me you can last long enough for me to get a doctor.” His voice was
shaking.
She shook her head.
He was breathing fast, but he swallowed. “Then you’ll have to tell me how. Can you still do that?”
“All right,” she said unsteadily, even though she wanted to pass out more than anything. “The first is—my liver. It’s where the blood is coming from. I think. There’s air—in my chest, collapsing my lung. After—after you—fix my liver, you can—stimulate blood generation. I don’t have the tonic, but jerk and startyou should be able to manage some.”
He unbuckled the straps on her satchel and cut away her soaking clothes so he had clear access to the wound between her ribs that had been ripped wide.
She flinched, trying not to recoil as he staunched the bleeding. He listened carefully as she described what he needed to sense to identify and repair biliary ducts.
Without her hands working, without resonance, it was like instructing the blind.
“Shut up,” he told her when she apologised for not being sure of what was wrong. He reached into his cloak, pulling something out. “This one’s for
blood, right? Does it work for you?”
He held up a familiar green-blue vial.
Her throat tightened and she nodded. “Yes. That works for me.”
The process of siphoning the air collapsing her lung was difficult because she didn’t have the supplies for it. She swallowed hard. “There’s a tube in my satchel.”
He found it, and she gingerly indicated where to numb and puncture, giving only a small whimpering gasp as it sank through the tissue and into her chest cavity.
She swallowed, staring up at the ceiling overhead, able to think more rising waterclearly as breathing grew easier. “You need to look for damage to the lung tissue next, then you wash the wound and close the diaphragmatic muscle and —”
His fingers brushed near the wound, and her mind stalled, careening violently.
“Don’t—don’t touch it!” The words came out a strangled scream. She almost fell off the table, trying to get away.
He snatched his hand back as she collapsed and lay there, drawing sharp laboured breaths as she tried to calm down, choking back panicked sobs.
Her heart was pounding so hard, she could feel it in her temples.
“He was going to—going to—” She tripped over her own tongue, trying to protectively cradle that side of her body. Keep it from being touched.
“He’s gone.” Kaine’s expression was pulled taut, a forced flatness to his entire demeanour. “He won’t ever come back. Should I just cover the wound and fix your hands instead?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll stay still. Just—” She swallowed. “Sorry.”
The muscle in his jaw set. As he worked, he began telling her each time he ng clothes sowas about to touch her, what he was about to do, his voice low, calm, and she realised he was imitating the way she used to narrate her treatment of the array.
It was the simplest part of the procedure, but she wanted to throw up
because she was so sick with terror.
“There.”
The immediate danger had passed. Kaine also seemed to finally breathe.
“Why were you there?” he finally asked.
She stared at him for a moment and then looked away. “The Council was going to do whatever it took to get Luc back.”
“You aren’t experienced in combat,” he said. His hands trembled as he wiped blood off her face. “Why would they bring you without even giving you a partner.” a tube in my“I had a partner,” she said. “She died in the fight.”
“Who?”
“Purnell. She was an—orderly.”
He glared at her.
“It had to be a small team; we were supposed to get in and out without being noticed. Sofia and I weren’t supposed to fight.”
“You knew it was a suicide mission. That is what the Bayards do, they die c muscle andfor the Holdfasts. They know nothing else.”
“Yes, but if Luc dies it’s over, for all of us. It was worth it to go.”
“And if you’d died?” He looked up, his eyes glittering with rage.
“There’s plenty of people to replace me. I’ve always been expendable, remember?” She used her elbows to sit up. “I need you to fix my hands now.”
The strain showed around his eyes. “I know.”
She forced herself to inhale. “Start with my left. It won’t matter as much if it doesn’t all set right.”
He blocked off most of the feeling from her elbow down but left enough gue, trying tothat she could sense if he was setting it correctly, working as gently as he could. The broken pieces ground together, sending a sudden pain through her arm into her shoulder, even with most of the sensation gone.
“Good,” she choked out, dropping her head onto his shoulder as she fought back tears.
He rejoined the bones in her wrists before he worked on her hands directly.
He had to physically move several bones back into alignment, twisting the each time heparts that Blackthorne had mangled. alm, and sheThe pain without the adrenaline surge of battle bore into her. She was sobbing into his shoulder by the time he finished aligning the bones and began fusing them.
Her hand was swollen, purple and red from bruising when he finished.
He cradled it in both of his and ran his thumbs across her palm and up to her wrist, his resonance like a balm, repairing the damaged tissue and the broken blood vessels with the sweep of his thumbs, then working along each finger. He was so gentle.
She recognised the technique. She hadn’t realised he’d paid attention.
“You could be a healer,” she finally said as he removed the block on her nerves. She flexed her hand, opening and closing. It was still sore, and fragile as though hairline-fractured. “You have a natural talent for it.”
“That’s one of the most ironic things anyone has ever said to me,” he said quietly.
He turned his attention to her other hand.
“You can numb it all the way,” she said. “I can use my resonance now.”
Working together, it was surprising how quick the process was. When he finished, he massaged her hand again, in the same way he had with the first.
“Don’t ever go on another mission,” he said without looking up, her hand
trapped in his.
She looked away, drawing a deep breath.
“That’s not your call,” she said, slipping her hand free and standing. The room swam. She was dangerously lightheaded. She didn’t have a saline drip or the plasma expanders that would be on hand in the hospital. Tonic or not, hands now.”she didn’t physically have the resources needed to regenerate all the blood she’d lost.
She pulled her satchel gingerly over her head, trying to be gentle with her hands as she prepared to leave. They’d never said goodbye before, and she didn’t see any point in starting now.
He blocked the door, his eyes gone cold. “Remind Crowther that if the through herEternal Flame wants my continued assistance, they will keep you alive.”
as she foughtHis eyes had that cold silver gleam in them as he stared at her. Her heart wavered for a moment and then turned to lead. He’d been quite clear about ands directly.what she was, how he regarded her, and how much he hated her for having any hold on him.
This concern, this obsession with her preservation, wasn’t about her at all.
It was about his mother, Enid Ferron, and his failure to save her. To him, Helena was an opportunity to try to get it right. A consolation prize he didn’t even want but couldn’t bring himself to give up on.
No wonder Crowther had been so pleased. Well done, Marino.
She knew she was supposed to accept that, but she couldn’t bear it anymore. “You’re doing this for your mother, Kaine. Would you really give that up because of me?”
She knew that would anger him: to outright insinuate that what he felt towards her was in any way comparable to his feelings for his mother. He would make a point of proving her wrong. e, and fragileHe went very still.
She stepped around him, reaching for the door, but he caught her shoulders, turning her back, the expression on his face stark.
“She’s dead,” he said. “You are not. My loyalty was to those least responsible for her suffering, but if the Eternal Flame has decided that you are an affordable casualty, I will not be noble or understanding. I can exact dual revenge. I will make them pay if they get you killed.”
She stared at him, startled. She hadn’t accounted for this. She knew Kaine wasn’t a spy because of any ideological reasoning; it was purely a sense of personal interest. He hated the Holdfasts and the Eternal Flame but he hated Morrough and the Undying more. That fact was immutable. The source of all his motivation.
But now, because of a careless comment from her, he was re-evaluating whether the Eternal Flame served his interests.
She swallowed hard. She should be cold. She should remind him that she would always put the Eternal Flame’s interests first. If he expected more than that, he would have to wait. And earn it.
She looked up at him, willing the words to form, but they stayed trapped in her throat. She was so tired. Life had been cold for such a long time.
The others are hurt. You don’t even know what’s been done to Luc, and you’re wasting your time here.
She flexed her hands, feeling the new tissue, focusing on it as she attempted to pull away. “I have to go.” Her voice shook.
He wouldn’t let go. He gripped her tighter. “You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you
and letting you die.”
She shook her head.
“This is war,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “It’s not some sort of tragic self-condemnation to be expendable. It’s a strategic liability not to be.” She met his eyes. “That was why you picked me, remember?” Her voice broke. “Well, thanks to you, I’m worth less now. They added all these new healers after you asked for me. I had to train all my replacements.” She gave a bitter laugh. “You made me as expendable as I am now. And you didn’t even want me, either.”
He flinched, his grip loosening enough that she pulled free, turning again.
He caught the door as she opened it, shoving it closed.
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.”
He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”
She shook her head, giving a broken sob and—before she let herself think —she kissed him.
source of all
ed more than
ed trapped in
She flexed her hands, feeling the new tissue, focusing on it as she attempted to pull away. “I have to go.” Her voice shook.
He wouldn’t let go. He gripped her tighter. “You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you
and letting you die.”
She shook her head.
“This is war,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “It’s not some sort of tragic self-condemnation to be expendable. It’s a strategic liability not to be.” She met his eyes. “That was why you picked me, remember?” Her voice broke. “Well, thanks to you, I’m worth less now. They added all these new healers after you asked for me. I had to train all my replacements.” She gave a bitter laugh. “You made me as expendable as I am now. And you didn’t even want me, either.”
He flinched, his grip loosening enough that she pulled free, turning again.
He caught the door as she opened it, shoving it closed.
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.”
He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”
She shook her head, giving a broken sob and—before she let herself think —she kissed him.