wards. We're simply reprioritising for a little while."
Stroud went to the door where the maid was waiting. "High Reeve,
a word."
Helena lay, unable to move. Ferron wouldn't let this happen. He'd
spent months practising transference; Stroud couldn't come and upend
everything.
She tried to make herself breathe steadily. If she started hyperventi-
lating, Stroud would probably sedate her or knock her out completely.
What if she woke up back in Central, waiting for someone to come
through the door to—
Her vision swam, terror crawling through her like insects.
What was she going to do? Try to argue that her memories were
more valuable than a pregnancy?
If she had to choose one or the other, what was worse? Cooperating
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234 • SenLinYu
with Ferron's extraction of the Eternal Flame's secrets, or letting herself
be raped to produce the child Morrough needed for his own transfer-
ence?
But even if she did stop resisting transference, if she cooperated with
Ferron, wouldn't they just forcibly impregnate her afterwards?
"You called," Ferron said as he entered, his tone clipped with irrita-
tion.
"High Reeve, yes, I wanted to inform you that I've been able to re-
verse Marino's sterilisation. The High Necromancer wants her trans-
ferred into the repopulation program," Stroud said.
Ferron's expression did not so much as ripple, but he went uncannily
still.
"You did what?" he finally said.
Stroud laid a hand proudly on Helena's stomach. "You know how
rare animancers are. If she really is one, it would be a waste not to use
her. I've spent the last few months experimenting with a reversal pro-
cess, and it's finally complete. They were careless, really; they should
have taken out the womb, although I would have replaced it if they had.
I have plenty of healthy subjects to choose from. It was a relatively
minor process compared with what Bennet and I used to do to the chi-
maeras."
"You didn't mention this." Ferron's voice had grown dangerous.
"The program is not your purview, and you talk so frequently of how
fragile she is, I thought it better to wait until I was sure. However, the
High Necromancer wants her enrolled immediately. The matter of
transference will resume once we have the child. I suspect she'll be
much more cooperative about it then." She looked down at Helena.
"Won't you?"
Ferron was silent.
"Now, I could take her back to Central. We have a long list of prom-
ising sires, and Marino here has such an unusual repertoire that we
could pair her with practically anyone." Stroud looked squarely at Fer-
ron. "However . . ." Her voice was idle, meandering like a summer brook.
"When it comes to resonance, there is one candidate who stands out
from the rest."
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Alchemised • 235
"Get to the point," Ferron's voice was flat, but Helena could hear
murder ringing underneath.
Stroud straightened imperiously. "It's time you had children. I know
your family's concern is with iron, but you have a wife for that. As our
other animancer, the High Necromancer has chosen you to be the first
to make an attempt with Marino here. If she becomes pregnant, we'll
look for signs of animancy. Your father was a great help in detailing your
mother's condition, so we know just what symptoms to look for. How-
ever, given how tight our timeline has become, the High Necromancer
considers it best to keep alternatives under consideration. You'll have
two months to produce results, or she'll be transferred to Central, and
we'll see if we have better luck with other candidates."
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CHAPTER 18
Everything around Helena blurred. Stroud removed the
paralysis after Ferron icily excused himself, but Helena still didn't move.
The grating, scratching sound of Stroud's pen on paper was the only
sound in the quiet room.
Helena's mouth had gone parched, but she struggled to swallow, try-
ing to think of some way to reverse what had so suddenly happened.
Her fingers flexed, running across the linen sheets as she tried to
focus on external sensations. A half-whimpering rasp escaped her
throat.
She thought she might scream. Just scream and scream and never
stop.
"What's wrong?" Stroud asked, glancing up from Helena's medical
file.
Helena stared at her.
"I would have thought you'd be pleased to have a break from trans-
ference. With the way you've been resisting, you'd likely have liver fail-
ure before the year's out." Stroud tapped absently on Helena's file. "I'm
very particular about the alchemists in my program. The war cost us so
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Alchemised • 237
many priceless lineages. You should be grateful to still provide some-
thing with such lasting significance."
"You're having me raped, and you expect me to be grateful about it?"
Helena's voice was dead, coming from far away.
Stroud's expression soured. "I'm giving you an opportunity for your
life to mean something."
Helena's rage was the only thing keeping her from losing her mind.
"If it's such a great thing, it's a wonder you don't volunteer yourself."
Stroud froze, anger flashing like lighting across her face, darkening
every line. Helena braced herself to be struck, but Stroud's mouth
pressed into a thin-lipped smile and she leaned over Helena almost
tenderly.
"The High Reeve has been married for more than a year without any
children to show for it. His Eminence insists Ferron be your first can-
didate, but I doubt anything will come of it. After everything Bennet
did to him, he's scarcely what I'd call human. After he's made his at-
tempts, you'll come back to Central, and I'll be the one to decide who
goes next. For however long it takes."
Helena's blood ran cold.
Stroud touched Helena's chin with the tip of her finger. "With that
in mind, I think you'd best learn to watch that tongue of yours. I don't
have to let you keep it."
Helena did not make another sound until Stroud was gone. Dread
welled up inside her like poison, corroding her organs, burning through
her lungs. She went through the house, every unlocked door, searching
the rooms in a desperate frenzy to find something, anything. There had
to be something.
Ferron did not reappear until the following evening. When he did,
his expression was hard, but his eyes seemed to slide off her, as if he
couldn't bring himself to look at her anymore.
Her hands started spasming over and over, nerves twinging.
"It's not tonight," he said abruptly. "I'm told"—he was still not look-
ing at her—"you won't be fertile for three more days."
She wasn't surprised—
He was a murderer and a necromancer. What reason did she have to
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238 • SenLinYu
think he'd be above this?
Yet somehow, irrationally, she'd thought he was . . . safe.
Stupid.
"Come here," he finally said.
She walked mechanically, staring at the buttons on his coat and shirt.
He reached out, leather gloves pressing against her jaw, tilting her face
up until her eyes met his.
"How much can you see?" he asked, gaze flickering from one eye to
the other in comparison.
Helena laughed.
She had no idea when she'd last laughed. A lifetime ago. But the
question was funny. Hilarious even.
Every good thing she had ever had in her life was destroyed, every
scrap of solace ripped away as though there was nothing left of her now
except hurting. She had been imprisoned and violated in almost every
way imaginable, and now he would inflict this final atrocity upon her,
but he was worried about her eyesight.
She laughed and laughed and then she wasn't laughing anymore, she
was crying. She was crying until she was rocking, back and forth, half
screaming, and Ferron just stood there.
She didn't stop until she was hollow, as though she'd sobbed out
everything inside her and now the only thing left was a shell. She was
so tired of existing.
"Feel better?"
She swallowed, her throat aching. "No."
His fingers spasmed, and she watched him curl them into a fist,
tucking it behind his back. She knew that trick.
She looked up at him, noticing then the odd pallor and haggard set
of his jaw.
Well, at least they were both suffering.
"What were you tortured for this time?" she asked dully, relieved to
wonder about something, anything else.
He gave a slight hum. "It was for a few things. As I am frequently
reminded, I am a constant disappointment, and now the public, through
their vast collective intelligence, has deduced that I'm the High Reeve."
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Alchemised • 239
The news piqued her curiosity. "Was it because you killed Lancaster?"
"I imagine that played a part, and Aurelia's little fit didn't help. I had
to leave suddenly, and the High Reeve was supposed to be in atten-
dance. International papers are less reluctant to print such theories, so
word's gotten out. I'll soon be acknowledged as the High Necroman-
cer's successor." He gave a grimacing smile. "This previous anonymity
was all for my protection, you see."
"Of course," Helena said. "So you were only tortured a little bit."
"It was nothing," he said, but his hands were both behind his back.
He shifted, as if he were about to leave. Even though she didn't want
to be anywhere near him, the alternative was being alone with her
thoughts.
"Why'd you kill Lancaster?" she asked.
"He endangered my assignment. I would have done a formal execu-
tion, but I was busy, and I wanted him taken care of."
"So you killed him in the middle of the hospital?" she said, eyeing
him doubtfully.
"I was going to kill him in his hospital room, but he tried to run." He
shrugged. "I improvised."
The image of Lancaster lying split open while Ferron gutted his re-
mains was seared into Helena's mind.
Ferron rolled his neck. "If you have no more questions, we should get
this over with. Sofa, or bed?"
The words were like a steel rod rammed down the length of her
spine, and it took her a moment to realise he intended to check her
memories.
She'd assumed that was over now. "I thought—"
Thought what? That she wasn't still a prisoner and that in exchange
for her body, she'd now be permitted her mind? She swallowed her
words and went to the sofa.
He followed her, expression unreadable as he extended his hand,
fingers barely grazing her forehead before his resonance slid through
her skull.
By the time he stopped, Helena felt as though she'd collapsed in-
wards upon herself. Reliving all the recent days made her jaw clench
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240 • SenLinYu
until her teeth threatened to crack.
She lay slumped back on the sofa, Stroud's threat echoing in her
head.
She pressed her face into the fabric of the sofa, smelling the age and
dust, and tried to shut out the surrounding world. Ferron left without a
word.
Helena's eye had recovered enough to finally handle light again, so
she pushed the curtains back, her new room revealing a view of the
courtyard rather than the mountains. In a week, the world had meta-
morphosed, showing early signs of spring. The deadened grey she was
accustomed to now showed pricks of colour amid the toppled grass and
the tree branches.
A few weeks before, she would have been comforted by it, but there
was a pit inside her now, even beauty turned to horror.
Two days. Her thoughts circled relentlessly, like a trapped animal
ready to gnaw off her own limbs to escape.
In war, rape had always loomed as a possibility. There were stories
about the prisoners in the laboratories, warnings of what could happen
to women captured from Resistance territory. But rape for the purpose
of pregnancy was a layer of intention that she still had not fully wrapped
her mind around.
Her experiences in the matter of pregnancy had never been favour-
able.
Precautionary measures were in short supply during the war. Girls
would show up at the hospital from time to time, nervously asking to
talk to Matron Pace. Oftentimes, that was the end of it, but other times,
they'd keep coming back.
Helena had been an only child. As an apothecary, her mother mostly
prevented pregnancies. It was the village midwives who handled the
rest. Mothers only came to a surgeon like Helena's father when things
had gone wrong. Most of the babies Helena saw growing up were de-
formed, or deathly sick, or stillborn.
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Alchemised • 241
That pattern continued during the war. As a healer, Helena was only
summoned when a baby was born too early or had gotten stuck in the
wrong position, or the milk wouldn't come in because there wasn't
enough food. She would be asked if she could do something. Most
often she couldn't. The babies were tiny and fragile, and even vivimancy
couldn't fix everything.
She'd watch the mothers break, something seismic inside them rup-
turing. They'd scream sometimes. Others would be silent, and that was
often worse in the end.
Helena had been grateful that it would never be her. She would
never marry or have children, so would never have to endure losing
them.
It was the one thing she'd thought herself safe from.
She lay in bed unable to sleep. Lumithia was nearing her biannual
Ascendence, waxing so full that the night glowed silver, the light stark
against the black shadows. The air had a nearly constant feeling of reso-
nance.
Helena flexed her fingers, wishing she could shove her hand inside
her body as easily Ferron had into Lancaster's belly. She'd rip out her
organs right there in the bed.
The thought of her body's forced complicity made her sick, and yet
the idea of not becoming pregnant left her frozen with fear. Stroud's
threat ringing in her head.
Faced with choice of struggling or cooperating with her own rape so
that it would not be as bad as it could be made her feel so guilty, her
mind threatened to shear apart. If the destination was inevitable, her
only choice was in how horrifying the journey would be.
The night dragged like sandpaper across her skin until she was nearly
raw from it.
When Ferron walked into her room, she gave a ragged gasp and
nearly burst into tears.
When he saw her, he seemed to almost turn, as if to walk out.
She started to reach a hand forward, then snatched it instantly back,
clenching her fingers into a fist. The movement was enough to still him.
His eyes flicked between her and the door as if still debating with
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242 • SenLinYu
himself.
What if he refused and just let Stroud take her?
The room swam. Her hands had already gone numb.
If he left, she would let him. She would go to Central. She would not
be so complicit as to ask.
She couldn't read the expression on his face. It was impassive, as if he
weren't fully there.
Finally he turned away. Helena didn't know if she should laugh or
cry that this was the thing he wouldn't do. The sole command he'd re-
fuse. After all, he was known to be the High Reeve now; Morrough
couldn't kill him.
He pulled a small tin case out of his pocket, putting something from
it under his tongue.
"Bed," he finally said without looking at her.
Helena didn't move.
He turned to face her, his eyes flat.
"Wait— " She held her hands out, as if she could ward him off. "What
if you just kill me?" she asked, her voice shaking. "You could now. You
said that everyone knows now that you're the High Reeve. Morrough
wouldn't be able to justify killing you because of me. I'm no one."
Ferron's attention sharpened. For a moment, he stood considering it,
calculation visible in his eyes.
Her pulse sped up.
"I can do it myself, if you want, so he won't realise," she offered. "If
you just— give me something. It doesn't need to be easy, or quick, it
could be something small. You can say you left briefly and—"
She knew the instant she misspoke. Ferron's expression abruptly
hardened, his eyes going flat and his gaze sliding through her again.
"Bed," he said again, this time through clenched teeth.
Her hands fell to her sides. She turned slowly, eerily disconnected
from her body as she walked over. She bit down on her inner lip, harder
and harder, trying to feel something. Blood gushed across her tongue as
she lay down, but her body remained numb.
Ferron approached a few moments later. He'd only removed his coat.
She tensed as soon as he got close, trying not to grind her teeth.
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Alchemised • 243
His expression was set like granite, he stood at the foot of the bed,
staring at the headboard.
"Close your eyes," he said.
She forced herself to obey and tried to focus on breathing. Don't
think. She could smell him in the room, the scent of juniper, metal, and
the decay of the house.
The mattress dipped to her right. Her breathing stuttered and sped
up.
"Don't—open your eyes."
She squeezed them tighter. There was a pause as her skirts pushed up
towards her hips, underclothes stripped down. Her heart seemed to
stop.
She heard Ferron inhale. She could feel his body through the air.
"Breathe," he said near her left ear.
There was a touch between her legs, something warm and slippery.
She flinched away, then realised it was oil.
She drew a rasping breath, squeezing her eyes so tight, they throbbed
as his weight pressed against her hips.
She choked back a garbled whimper.
She closed her eyes tighter. Her mind scrabbled, trying to find an
escape. In stasis, in the tank, she'd learned to take herself away when her
mind teetered on the edge.
That was how she'd survived. She'd learned she could endure.
Now that escape didn't work.
She was trapped inside her body, as if someone had nailed her con-
sciousness in place with a spike.
This is better than Central, she reminded herself, struggling to keep
from hyperventilating, from clawing and screaming and trying to shove
him off.
Her chest spasmed. There were tears sliding from the corners of her
eyes.
Better than Central.
What if this failed? What if Stroud was right about him, that it
wasn't even possible, but Helena had cooperated anyway? What if it was
all for nothing?
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244 • SenLinYu
She gave a frantic, panicking gasp, unable to keep from recoiling just
as he jerked and stilled.
He was gone so suddenly, it was as if he'd evaporated.
Helena opened her eyes and couldn't see him anywhere. The violent
sound of retching emerged from the bathroom.
Eventually she heard the toilet flush and the sound of water running
from the tap for several minutes.
She managed to shove her skirts down but couldn't make herself
move beyond that. Her body was numb.
It's over, she kept telling herself, trying to make herself calm down,
but her body refused to stop trembling. Her nails had carved crescents
into her palms.
Ferron emerged from the bathroom, his tense expression faded, as if
he couldn't maintain it. His face was drawn, his eyes stark and reddish.
He looked strangely mortal. She wished he didn't.
She looked away.
He crossed the room silently, picked up his coat, and left.
Helena sat up slowly, trying not to feel her body.
Going into the bathroom, she turned on the shower's spray and
curled up beneath it without taking her clothes off. When the water ran
cold, she still didn't move.
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CHAPTER 19
Helena tried to make herself go outside the next day. She
was desperate for fresh air, to escape the oppressive weight of the house,
but when she reached the doorway, a warm spring breeze rushed across
her face, filling her lungs with the scent of loam and spring blossoms.
She could see little clusters of crocuses and snowdrops peeking through
the dead grass. The blackened vines covering the house were tipped
with specks of green, and flocks of birds chirped as they soared over-
head.
It was beautiful, and it felt like a betrayal.
The world was not supposed to be beautiful any longer. It was sup-
posed to be dead and cold, forever mirroring the misery of Helena's life.
Instead it had moved on, tilting into a new season, and she could not.
She was trapped forever in winter, in the season of death.
She retreated into the house.
When the door to her room opened in the afternoon, she was re-
lieved to see Stroud instead of Ferron.
Stroud looked amused. "I thought I'd stop by and make sure there
wasn't any damage from this first time. We wouldn't want an infection
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246 • SenLinYu
interfering. Was there blood?"
Helena hadn't looked, but she shook her head slowly.
Stroud's eyes flicked curiously up and down. "Well, you are over
twenty. There isn't always."
Helena tried not to react to Stroud's resonance when she laid her
hand on Helena's pelvis, but when she felt the resonance wave glide
through the most intimate parts of her body, she shuddered uncontrol-
lably.
"We likely won't know if you're pregnant for few weeks after, but we
will know soon enough. I've grown quite adept at detecting them early."
There was the most unnerving sensation of something inside her lower
abdomen being adjusted, and Helena gave a sharp gasp. "Yes, this is
definitely the right window. You're as ready as I can make you."
Helena's skin crawled until Stroud stopped.
"So, how was it?"
"Horrible," Helena said, looking away.
Stroud made a sound of false sympathy. "Not surprising. You're high-
strung."
Helena stared towards the window, her jaw trembling.
Stroud's lips stretched like rubber, and she set the file down, running
her fingers idly across Helena's name and the two prisoner numbers
stamped across the front.
"Did you know, I studied in the Alchemy Tower. It was years before
your time, obviously. My repertoire and resonance levels weren't good
enough to keep ascending, but I was allowed to transfer to the science
department and study as a medical assistant. That's where I first heard
of vivimancy. It wasn't until years later that I realised what power I had
and began the struggle of mastering it. I would never have imagined I'd
become one of the few vivimancers to survive the war."
Helena didn't understand why Stroud was telling her this.
Stroud rummaged in her bag and pulled out a vial of tablets, break-
ing one in half. "Open."
"Why?" Helena asked, locking her jaw.
Stroud did not answer, she just stepped forward and, using her fin-
gers and resonance to pry Helena's mouth open, pushing a crumbling
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Alchemised • 247
piece into her mouth and forcing her to swallow as it began dissolving.
Helena recognised the taste as it moved down her throat.
"Artemon Bennet saved people like me. Gave us a chance to test our
abilities openly and be proud of them." Stroud was still gripping Hele-
na's jaw; fingers were digging into the skin.
Helena could feel Stroud tinkering with her physiology, tuning her.
It was wholly different from what Ferron had done when acclimating
her to the house. Rather than feel physiologically detached from her
mind, she realised that her skin had begun to warm, starting at the sur-
face and slowly sinking deeper.
Stroud kept talking. "I'm not saying he was perfect; Bennet consid-
ered other vivimancers too feeble- minded to appreciate his genius." Her
pale eyebrows rose. "But I served him without question, gave up my
personal ambitions to stay by his side. That's why I'm still here, even
though everyone always underestimated me."
Helena tried to pull away, but Stroud's resonance had strangled her
motor nerves. A pulsing tension bloomed from her lower abdomen, and
her skin was growing so sensitive, it ached.
"There." Stroud let go, letting Helena topple sideways on the bed.
"You'll enjoy it much more now."
Helena lay paralysed, unable to resist or scream as Stroud arranged
her on the bed, flat on her back, legs parted.
No. No. No.
"I'll tell the High Reeve you're ready for him on my way out," Stroud
said as she left.
Helena waited for what felt like hours, want carving itself into her
bones. Her body screamed for movement, for touch, for friction, need
crawling beneath her skin.
When Ferron finally arrived, if she could have moved, she would
have shuddered just at the vibration of the door shutting, but she could
only lie there, eyes fastened on him, begging him to notice that some-
thing was wrong.
He wasn't looking at her, though. He was staring past her, through
her, his gaze in an unseeing mid-distance as he slid off his coat and
draped it over the sofa.
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248 • SenLinYu
She watched him move, her eyes suddenly ravenous, intent on cata-
loguing all the details about him. The wait had left her hollow inside, a
pit of harrowing want that kept growing.
His hands, she knew, were warm.
A tremor swelled inside her.
Stop thinking.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but the need she felt corroded her will-
power.
The bed shifted. A shiver ran down her spine. Her skirts were shifted,
pushed up, and the brush of fabric against her thighs made her inhale
raggedly. The only reaction she could muster.
Breathe," Ferron said, as he had the night before.
She was keenly aware of him, more so than the day before, except
now her wants were inverted. She could barely feel his weight. She
wanted to arch up, press into him even as an endless scream throbbed
inside her skull. Her eyes snapped open, and she stared up at him.
She felt as though she'd never truly looked at him before.
There'd always been a sharp and wary distance between them. When
she observed him, it was in search of tells, for weakness. She'd never
looked at him as something human or hot- blooded.
Now he felt very human to her. She wanted him to touch her. She
remembered what his hands felt like, the press of his fingertips along
her jaw. She craved it so much, her skin ached. The weight she'd been
desperate to escape from the night before—she wanted it.
Tears burned a hot trail down her temples.
For the briefest moment, Ferron's eye flicked to her face before avert-
ing again. He went still and looked at her again.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
She stared at him, willing for him to understand.
He drew away, wrenching a glove off. He was still wearing them,
even now.
He barely touched her, but that was all it took. The paralysis melted
away.
Helena's body shuddered back into motion, and she instantly curled
onto her side with a gasping sob, pressing her legs tight together as her
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Alchemised • 249
body throbbed, gasping raggedly. Even her breath burned in her lungs.
"What did she do to you?"
She couldn't look at him.
"She said it was to make it b-better." Her voice shook uncontrollably.
"Because I—complained. H- How long do those tablets you gave me
last?"
"Eight hours."
"She gave me half." She drew a ragged breath. "Can you—change it
to something else?"
"Not once it's taken effect," he said. "It has to wear off on its own."
She nodded. She'd assumed as much but hoped to be wrong.
She tried to draw another breath.
"Can we—can we wait till— after?" Her voice was strangled.
There was a silence.
"I have to leave after this. I won't be back until late tomorrow."
She lay, trying to think clearly, not sure that she was rational any-
more.
This, or maybe not pregnant. For all the accidental pregnancies she'd
treated, she knew that children didn't always come easy. For her parents,
it had taken years; she'd arrived after they'd given up. A miracle, they'd
said.
Two months, and then she'd go to Central, to Stroud, and—
She was going insane. She couldn't do this. A choice like this—it
wasn't fair to make her choose between things like this. No good choices,
just worse and worse, which way to hate herself forever.
This was the cruellest thing Stroud could have done.
"Just— do it now," she said, rolling back onto her back, refusing to
look at him.
She stared up at the canopy, willing her mind away. There was a long
pause before the bed shifted.
She hadn't thought it could be worse the second time, but it was a
thousand times worse. Now her body wanted him.
She tried closing her eyes, but she was restless. She couldn't keep
them shut. They fluttered open and she looked at Ferron again, taking
in all the details she'd never cared to notice before. His sharp cheek-
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250 • SenLinYu
bones and eyes, his thin lips, the precise lines of his jaw, and the way his
pale throat disappeared in the collar of his shirt. She wanted to press
close and breathe against his skin, to feel the warmth of another body.
"Hurry up," she said through clenched teeth, trying to hold herself
rigid.
There was no need for oil, but he used it anyway. She arched back
until she could see the headboard, spine trembling, burying her face in
her hands, biting down viciously on her palm, and felt ruined.
Whimpers formed in her throat when he moved. Her fingers twisted,
clawing the duvet, threatening to tear it.
She was nauseous with horror. She hated every fibre of her being—
the physicalness of herself that she could not overcome, that was per-
petually scared, and weak, and now wanting—and she could not escape
from any of it. Perhaps Matias had been right all along, and it was her
nature to be feeble.
She wished she could tear herself out of her body. Slice it to pieces
and watch it burn away so that she was not human anymore.
Her body contracted against her will. Ferron gave a ragged gasp, and
the sound burned through her. His weight pressed down, and she broke
with a despairing sob.
He thrust a few more times and shook with a tortured groan.
In an instant, he was gone, recoiling as if he couldn't get away fast
enough.
She barely opened her eyes in time to see him as he vanished through
the door.
She caught only a glimpse of his face just before the door slammed.
He looked grey, as though he was going to faint.
He was gone. The room was empty, and she was alone.
She curled onto her side and sobbed into her hands. The desperation
burning beneath her skin was temporarily dulled by the magnitude of
the horror she felt. She crawled into the bathroom, retching until noth-
ing else would come up.
She'd always known of sex. In Etras, it was part of life—like birth
and death—but in the North, sentiments were different, the subject
kept rigidly behind closed doors.
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Alchemised • 251
Boys could get into trouble for going to the entertainment districts,
but it was considered an irrepressible part of their nature to hunger, and
a sign of their vitality, and so punishments were usually light, more a
consequence of being caught than for the act itself. The expectations
were different for girls, even those allowed beyond the traditional con-
fines of Paladian society. Lumithia was a virgin goddess, pure and
gleaming. Women associating with her cult and the opportunities it
permitted were required to be likewise.
Helena's life at the Institute revolved around her scholarship, which,
in addition to being dependent on her academic performance, had in-
cluded a morality clause. She'd adhered to it more devoutly than she
would have any faith, in greater terror of earthly consequences than of
divine threats. Her fear stifling even the smallest potential spark of de-
sire towards anyone.
She'd thought sometimes that someday, when she'd repaid her debts,
accomplished all that was expected, and reached her own goals, she
would like to be loved. To know what it was to feel wanted.
Now this sick shame was all she knew.
When the drug finally wore off, Helena lay trying to make herself
think of something, anything else, but there was little to turn her mind
to. The only question left to wonder over was why she was somehow a
piece in a labyrinthian conspiracy.
She could mostly make out Morrough and Stroud's motives, what
use they found in her, but no matter what angle Helena considered
things from, she could not place Ferron's motives in all this, even though
he was the last person she wanted to think about at all. At least wonder-
ing at his political motives at least kept her from thinking about him as
a human.
She was certain he'd somehow engineered the revelation that he was
High Reeve. There may have been extenuating circumstances, but if he
hadn't wanted the rumour to spread, he would have contained it. He
wanted Paladia and the surrounding countries to know that it was
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252 • SenLinYu
Kaine Ferron.
Why? Could it be an attempt to escape Morrough's punishments?
To make himself harder to replace? No. There had to be more to it than
that.
New Paladia was presently surrounded by enemies.
The Novis monarchy across the river to the east had age-old ties to
the Holdfasts: Luc's mother had been the queen's distant cousin. Novis
was unlikely to ever acknowledge the Guild Assembly. Hevgoss, loom-
ing over Paladia from the west, had a long history of surreptitiously
interfering with nearby countries to provoke a crisis as context in which
to "intervene." Interventions which usually resulted in a government
beholden to them.
The Eternal Flame had suspected from the beginning that Mor-
rough was being used by Hevgoss, but it seemed something, possibly
Helena, had soured that relationship.
Paladia's economy and legitimacy depended on alchemy, and the war
had decimated both the population and the industry. The natural re-
sources and centuries of alchemical science remained, but the country
was weak, and the wolves were closing in. It was only the fear of the
Undying that held their enterprising neighbours at bay, but now that
myth was shattered. Morrough had all but vanished from the public eye,
the High Reeve was the only true power that remained.
Perhaps Ferron was secretly negotiating with Hevgoss to overthrow
Morrough.
Terrifying as the High Reeve was, the Ferrons were an old family,
considered a part of Paladia's history even before they'd made their for-
tune. The Undying maintained their regime entirely through fear, and
those in Paladia still benefitting from it could fit in Spirefell's ballroom.
The disillusionment was reaching its climax. Once it finally crumbled,
people would want someone familiar, someone with power they could
take pride in.
The whole world knew the revolutionary power of Ferron steel. It
had forged the industrial era.
At this point, Paladians might consider Ferron a saviour if he usurped
Morrough. He could blame the bulk of his atrocities on Morrough, and
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Alchemised • 253
take responsibility only for what benefitted him.
From everything Helena knew, Ferron had no competition. Green-
finch was little more than a puppet, and the Guild Assembly was a joke.
Ferron was Morrough's only visible crutch.
It would explain why Morrough was torturing him so much: out of
resentment for his own failing immortality. He was critically dependent
on Ferron and without alternatives.
Yet Helena couldn't shake the sense that she was missing something.
How did she fit into Ferron's plans?
Whatever machinations were in place, somehow she played a role.
He was too invested in her safekeeping for it to be otherwise. Ferron
devoted an excessive degree of effort to ensuring her well-being while
trying not to appear so.
She kept thinking about his hesitation when she asked him to kill
her. He had considered it. Why? If she was a necessary part of his plan,
how could killing her possibly be an option? But if she wasn't, why all
the effort?
It was after nightfall when Ferron returned. When he entered the
room, they stared at each other, neither speaking.
There was nothing to say.
He turned, slipped a tablet under his tongue, and when he turned
back, his gaze went through her.
Helena lay, eyes fastened on the canopy.
She didn't flinch when she felt the bed shift. She didn't make a sound
when her skirts were pushed up to her waist. He moved between her
legs, and she stared straight up so intently, her vision blurred.
When he entered her, she gave a small choking gasp and turned her
face towards the wall, writhing with internal anguish.
Her body had anticipated it. Just as the drug had acclimated her to
the house, it had attuned her body to this.
It was such a profound betrayal.
She thought of shoving him off. If he'd physically force her, pin her
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254 • SenLinYu
down, or paralyse her, then she might hate herself less.
But she was so tired of being hurt, and so she didn't move.
When it was over, he left without a word. She didn't look at his face.
After five days, the door stayed shut, and the house was silent. It was
finally over, but she scarcely felt any relief.
She was going mad. She could feel herself fragmenting with anxiety,
coming apart, consumed by the cage holding her.
What if it worked? What if it failed?
She didn't know what she was more afraid of.
As the day lengthened into evening, Helena grew increasingly agi-
tated, but it wasn't until it grew briefly dark and then searingly bright
again that she realised why.
Lumithia had reached full Ascendance. The world outside lay cast in
silver almost bright as day, radiating light from amid a black sky. Every
star and planet erased. Luna, halfway across the sky, looked like a bro-
ken piece of pottery in contrast.
Lumithia's slow orbit meant she waxed full only twice each year, in
the spring and autumn, while entering her Abeyance in summer and
winter.
When she was in Ascendance, it had an intense effect on alchemists.
For those with low resonance, Ascendance was the only time of year
when they could transmute, while alchemists with strong abilities found
themselves disoriented by her radiance. Moon-drunk, people called it.
Ascendance had a particularly heightened influence on Paladians. A
sign of Paladia's deep connection to the gods, according to the Faith.
Luc and Lila used to get so intoxicated from it, they'd have trouble
walking straight, while Helena—in the true fashion of a foreign
unbeliever— had only ever felt anxious, a heavy sense of dread pressur-
ing down on her.
That night, dinner failed to appear.
It was the first time in all the months of her imprisonment that there
was no meal.
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Alchemised • 255
Something was wrong. Even with Ascendence, the necrothralls
should still be present and somewhat active. She looked out into the
courtyard and saw the two necrothralls stationed by the front doors, still
as statues. But there were no sounds of footsteps outside the door, and
when she left her room, no one appeared.
Helena went towards the foyer, staying within the path of Lumith-
ia's silver gleam, constantly expecting one of the necrothralls to emerge.
The shadows were black as ink, their edges crisp against the bright
white light.
The foyer was empty, the white marble practically glowing under the
moonlight. The dragon ouroboros on the floor gleamed as though it had
scales, its dark body shimmering amid the white marble.
The weight of Lumithia was oppressive. Helena's resonance sang in
her blood, as though attempting to overpower the nullification, creating
a sensation like being in a cage too small to turn in.
She scanned the space, looking for any signs of movement. Necro-
thralls didn't need to be consciously maintained. According to research,
they could be given orders and then they'd fulfil them repetitively ad
infinitum. Even if Ferron was drunk off the Ascendance, they should
operate as usual.
Unless Ferron was dead . . .
She froze in her tracks. What if the Eternal Flame had come during
the Ascendance, taking advantage of his disorientation to kill him? The
Undying at the party had said the murderer was like a ghost, in and out
without a trace except for the body left behind.
She looked around the foyer more slowly. The stark silver-white and
black surrounding her made her vision swim as she went towards the
front door.
Her fingers trembled as she tried the knob. It wouldn't turn. She
twisted at the lock beneath the handle, but it spun. She jerked, ignoring
the pain that shot up her arms, trying to rattle the door, but it wouldn't
budge. It was sealed shut.
Her chest clenched, but she forced herself to head towards the next
exterior door.
Locked tight.
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256 • SenLinYu
She moved through the house, breath coming faster and faster with
each door she found sealed.
Was Ferron dead somewhere in Spirefell? Was she going to stumble
across his corpse? She braced herself each time she entered a room,
certain she'd find blood seeping from the shadows.
Surely the Eternal Flame wouldn't have left her, though. If they'd
come here, they would leave a door or window unlocked. Give her that
much at least.
She just had to find it.
She tried another door. Jerking at it over and over until a bright
shock of pain left her hand numb.
The longer she searched, the more convinced she grew. Ferron was
dead. She was trapped alone in this house.
Soon Stroud would come retrieve her. Helena would be taken to
Central, and if she wasn't pregnant, Stroud would find someone else to
rape her.
Her arms were going numb, her head growing light. She went to the
second floor and down the first corridor. She'd avoided this part of the
house because both Ferron's and Aurelia's rooms were down that hall-
way.
If Ferron was dead, she had to see it with her own eyes. She had to
know, or he'd haunt her.
She reached the first door on the left and stood trying to breathe, to
make her hand steady enough to grasp the knob.
It opened silently.
The room was swallowed by shadows. The moonlight poured like
molten a silver river through the windows. Her eyes went to the bed. It
was empty.
As she stood in the doorway, the air in the room shifted.
She turned sharply towards the desk. It was mostly in shadows, the
edge covered in bottles. Then a shadow moved, and the moonlight fell
across Ferron's face, catching his pale hair and skin so that he seemed to
glow.
"Helena," he said softly.
She stood frozen, not sure if she felt relief or terror at the sight of
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Alchemised • 257
him.
He had never called her anything before. "The prisoner" was the only
way he'd ever referred to her in all the months she had been at Spirefell.
Stroud called her Marino, but Ferron never called her anything. It had
been so long since she'd heard anyone use her name.
"I— " She felt foolish. "I thought you were dead."
She should turn and leave, but he looked so unearthly that she
couldn't tear her eyes away. His expression was one of utter despair, but
as he stared at her, a look of starvation filled his eyes.
He stood slowly.
There was an uncharacteristic looseness to the way he moved. She
looked past him, towards the desk, finally understanding.
He was drunk. Excessively intoxicated, under the influence of both
Lumithia and actual inebriation. With his regenerative abilities, he
probably needed the combination.
As he came towards her, she tried to back away, but then the wall
met her shoulders, and there was nowhere to go, and then no space left
between them.
He raised a pale hand, and his fingers wrapped around her throat.
His eyes were dark, ringed in glowing silver. Her pulse fluttered
against his grip as he stared down at her.
It was no wonder the servants had disappeared. Maybe everyone else
knew to hide from him on these nights. Except her.
"Oh, Marino." His thumb trailed along her neck, following the scar
below her jaw. "If I'd known what pain you'd cause me, I never would
have taken you."
He sighed, and she could smell the liquor on his breath as his head
dipped closer. She had no idea what he meant, if she was supposed to
apologise.
"But at this point I suppose I deserve to burn. I wonder if you'll burn,
too."
His face was so close the words brushed against her lips, and his
mouth crashed against hers.
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CHAPTER 20
It was a punishing kiss.
The moment their lips touched, he crushed her body against his. The
hand on her throat slid back into her hair, tangling in the curls, gripping
them tight as the kiss deepened, angling her head back so that he could
consume her. He kept kissing her, hard enough to hurt but not bleed,
like a storm poured down her throat.
When she was gasping for breath, he pulled away from her lips, kiss-
ing along her jaw and the side of her neck. His other hand curled around
her waist.
Helena stood frozen in shock. Pliant and stunned in his possessive
hands.
He pulled at her dress until the buttons snapped, giving away. Her
back was against the wall, his knee pressed between her legs, pinning
her by her skirts while his hands worked quickly, fabric ripping open,
and she was stripped to the waist.
Cool air bit across her skin for an instant before the warmth of his
hands and mouth erased it. An ache shuddered through her. His face
was buried against her throat, lips pressed below her ear, kissing down
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Alchemised • 259
the length of her neck to the juncture of her shoulder, nipping, and he
reached a spot, and she— moaned.
The sound shattered the quiet.
They both froze. Ferron wrenched himself away.
Helena stared at him, too dazed to move. Moonlight poured through
the window, a stark and damning silver path to where she was slumped
against the wall, half stripped and—aroused.
Ferron's eyes were wide with shock, his pale hair falling across his
face. As he stood staring at her, his eyes developed that eerie light to
them that seemed to illuminate him from within. He ran a hand across
his face, combing his hair back, and his jaw tightened, rolling, a look of
derision spreading across his face even before he opened his mouth to
speak.
Before he could say anything, a sob of horror tore from Helena. Her
fingers scrabbled, trying desperately to pull her dress back on. It was
rent open, buttons gone, so she clutched at the fabric, using her arms to
cover herself, backing away until she reached the door.
She bolted, fleeing through the house as the reality of what she'd
done nearly ripped her legs from beneath her.
She'd been receptive to Ferron.
He'd come towards her and kissed her and she had let him. In the
moment, it hadn't even occurred to her to push him away. Instead, she'd
melted at the warmth of being held.
Trapped in Spirefell, she was latching on to any glimpse of kindness,
any sense of tenderness her mind could fabricate.
But it wasn't kindness.
He wasn't kind; he simply wasn't cruel. He wasn't as monstrous as he
could be.
And for Helena's fracturing mind, an absence of cruelty was suffi-
cient solace. For her starved heart, it was enough.
She fled to her room, tearing off the ruined dress in the damningly
bright silver light, pulling on new clothes as if it could hide what she'd
done.
She was better than this. She clutched at her chest, nails biting into
her skin as if she could claw the resolve into herself.
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260 • SenLinYu
"I'm so— sorry, Luc." Her voice was strangled with guilt.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't.
She wasn't going to let her mind trick her into wanting the attention
of the person responsible for starting the war. His harm was incalcula-
ble. Everything. All of it. It was all his fault, but she could feel herself
eroding, desperate to have something in her life that was not pain. That
was not dead and gone.
But she couldn't.
She could bear the horror of being betrayed by her body, but she
wouldn't let herself be betrayed by her mind.
She'd sooner break it.
She stared out the window at the enclosed courtyard, her inescap-
able prison, pressing her hand trembling against the cool glass and iron
lattice, reaching for the power that was no longer there. There was noth-
ing.
It was gone, like everything else.
She gave a broken, despairing sob and then drew her head back and
smashed it against the glass and iron as hard as she could.
She did it again.
And again.
There was blood streaming into her eyes, but she kept going.
An arm closed around her waist, and a hand clamped over both
wrists as she was dragged away from the window. A wash of red ran
down the glass.
She fought, trying to twist her hands free, ignoring the pain that
shot through them, digging her toes into iron bars in the floor trying to
lunge free.
"Don't—don't." Ferron's voice was in her ear.
Her vision had gone red as blood flooded down her face, and she was
screaming. All the guilt and anguish that she had pressed down swal-
lowed her whole. She screamed as if she could shatter the world with it.
She wanted to be done.
She couldn't betray everyone. Luc. Lila. Soren. Matron Pace. Her
father . . .
"I can't—" She strained again to get free, clawing empty air as she
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Alchemised • 261
grasped towards the window.
His hand around her wrists let go, and then his palm was pressed
against her forehead.
"No— !"
It was too late. His resonance poured through her. It was as if she
were a tapestry. He found the threads of emotion and ripped them out.
He didn't sedate or paralyse her. It was worse, more violating than
that. He took away all the things she felt, leaving her mind was scram-
bling, trying to reconcile the dissonance.
It was like the tablets, except he only used his resonance to just keep
her there for as long as it took, until her body finally lost all the drive of
those now vanished emotions.
The fight drained out of her. She hung limp against him. There was
blood streaming down her face, dripping from her chin. His hand was
stained with it when it fell away. He used just the tips of his fingers to
heal the splits and gouges across her forehead. She could feel his reso-
nance in her skull.
"Slight fracture," he said, and the remaining pain had mostly seeped
away before he finally let her go.
She stood, empty and lost. He'd gutted her emotions so deeply, it
was like trying to reach into the bottom of a well.
She looked towards the bloodstained window and considered a sec-
ond attempt, but there was no point. He'd just do it again until she was
hollowed out and compliant. A statue worn featureless.
Ferron turned her to face him, his eyes still silver-bright. "Why?"
She stared dully back at him; her head was still throbbing. At least
something hurt.
"Why what?" she asked.
"Why this sudden need to go so far?" There was movement behind
him. One of the necrothralls entered the room, both hands full, the
door left open behind her. It was the older woman, but for a moment
there was something strangely lifelike about her.
She was not as stilted and blank as Helena was accustomed to; she
moved more like a lich.
Under Helena's scrutiny, she slowed and grew more mechanical as
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262 • SenLinYu
she brought a bowl and cloth over and began wiping Helena's face clean.
"Why not?" Helena said in a dead voice. "I've always been trying to
kill myself. You know that."
His eyes narrowed. "You know as well as I do that that wouldn't have
killed you."
She made no response.
"If you won't tell me, I'll look for myself," he said when she refused
to reply.
Helena recoiled, jerking her face away from attempts to get the re-
maining blood from the corners of her eyes.
She opened her mouth several times before she could speak. "I think
there's something wrong with me," she said at last.
He gave her a sidelong glance which communicated that this was
obvious.
"It's a survival instinct or"—her body was so taut with humiliation
that the words choked her—"a coping mechanism, maybe."
She looked away. "I read this research proposal once at the Institute.
The author had an idea of trying to make test subjects emotionally at-
tached to their—superior."
Her voice was straining, threatening to fail.
"He believed that with his methods, he could make subjects proac-
tively compliant. That if they were conditioned with a sufficiently strong
sense of dependence, they would begin to rationalise and justify any—
any harm they suffered, and even try to form an emotional connection
or even feelings towards the person controlling them, as a sort of sur-
vival instinct."
She felt as though she might pass out. She could feel the weight of
Ferron's eyes on her.
"It was just a proposal, I don't know that there was any truth to it, but
lately, I can't stop thinking about it," she said, her voice straining.
She stared across the room to the bloodstained window. "I would
rather spend the rest of my life being raped in Central than spend a
minute of it having feelings for you."
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
"Well," Ferron said after a long silence, "with luck you're pregnant,
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Alchemised • 263
and there will be no need for either choice. You'll be left to yourself."
He turned away, and Helena's resolve shattered. Her hand darted
out, catching hold of his coat to stop him.
Her body was shaking but she couldn't let go. She gripped harder.
She didn't want to be alone; she couldn't bear it.
His hand rose, resting on her shoulder, and that was all it took. She
crumpled, huddling closer. She could barely feel his fingers on her arm,
but breathing no longer felt like a rope burn dragged through her lungs.
She dropped her head against his chest.
She was so tired of the space around her being always cold and
empty and endless.
Ferron's head suddenly whipped around as he shoved her away. Hel-
ena stumbled back, falling against the bed. His eyes had gone wide and
there was something strained in his expression, his gaze flicking around
the room and then towards the open door.
Then he gave a soft, bitter laugh.
"Oh, you're pathetic, aren't you?" he said. "Survival? Really?"
She didn't know what he meant.
He laughed again. "You expect me to believe that you suddenly care
about surviving? When everyone in the Resistance has always been so
rabid to die for their cause? But you're different? Een though you've
been fantasising a grand murder-suicide for the two of us for months?"
He crouched in front of her, and she had never seen his face this vi-
cious. There was a raw malice in his eyes. "No, the thing eating you alive
isn't surviving or some subconscious instinct to appease me. What you
can't bear is the isolation. The Eternal Flame's lonely little healer, left
with no one to save. No one needs you, and no one wants you."
He smiled at her, his grin almost fanged. "That's all this is. You can't
bear being alone. You'll do anything for the people who'll let you love
them." He raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't that what the war was? You
wanted to fight, but when they realised what you were, Ilva Holdfast
decided you were better suited as Holdfast's sacrificial lamb. They put
you on death row before Holdfast even saw combat."
"That's—not— how—it— was." Helena's hands were clenched into
fists, the punctures in her palm beneath her fingers.
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264 • SenLinYu
"That is exactly how it was. You know, Falcon Matias left his quarters
almost entirely intact. He had a whole stack of correspondence from
Ilva dated from when you were in training. She knew all she had to do
was dangle Holdfast's life over your head, and you'd do whatever she
asked." He tilted his head back. "You would have done anything for
your friends: made all the hard choices, paid the price without com-
plaint, whored yourself for the war effort. But tell me . . . because I am
sincerely curious, what did Holdfast ever do for you to deserve it?"
She glared at him through burning eyes. "Luc was my friend. He was
my best friend."
"So?"
Helena drew a shuddering breath, looking away. "My father gave up
everything so I could study at the Institute, but—it was—it was hard.
I— I didn't want him to know how hard it was." There was a feeling like
a stone lodged in her throat. "But I was—so afraid I'd fail and I—I
didn't know anyone. Luc could have been friends with anyone, but he
picked me. I wouldn't have had anyone without him."
"So, what now?" Ferron said, straightening his coat, erasing the div-
ots in the fabric where Helena's fingers had crumpled it. "I'm your re-
placement Holdfast, is that it? If anyone makes the mistake of speaking
to you, you can't help but latch on to them?"
Helena shrank away, but Ferron wasn't done. "Let me be very clear,
then. I don't want you. I never wanted you. I am not your friend. There
is nothing I want more than the moment I'm finally done with you."
He turned and left.
When Stroud returned two weeks later, Helena sat wordlessly for
examination. The time had passed in such a dull haze, she'd scarcely
even been aware of the days. Like a ghost, she'd let the world slip by
around her while she remained frozen in time.
"You're looking rather grey," Stroud said, her mouth quirking. "How
did the High Reeve's efforts progress?"
Helena's throat closed and she said nothing, staring down at her lap,
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Alchemised • 265
rolling the thin linen fabric of her slip between her fingers.
"Lie back," Stroud said, setting her satchel on the bedside table.
Stroud pulled Helena's slip up and aside, setting a cold hand on the
lowest part of her abdomen. "It might be too early to tell, but sometimes
I'm able to. In your case, the sooner we know, the better."
Helena's head pulsed with her heartbeat.
Stroud's eyebrows furrowed her face into rows of wrinkles as her
resonance prodded deeper. A look of surprise swept across her face.
"You're pregnant."
Helena felt nothing at first. The words were abstract. Conceptual.
Then they ran her through like a longsword.
There were no emotions built up inside her, though; Ferron had
ripped them out, and she was still empty.
So she fell inwards.
It was like being forced deep under freezing water: no air, simply
unending pressure that crushed her on all sides. Her heart surged until
the roar of her blood was all she could hear.
Stroud was still speaking. Helena couldn't make out the words.
No.
Please, no.
No. No. No.
This was her fault. She'd complied, she hadn't struggled.
Stroud was still talking to her, speaking more loudly. The words muf-
fled away, the sounds rounded and indecipherable.
The room blurred, threatening to dim. Helena's throat compressed,
strangling her. A sharp stabbing pain ripped through her chest, some-
thing tearing open inside of her.
No. Please. No.
Stroud reached out, fingers pressing against the side of Helena's
neck, and Helena started screaming.
Not with anguish as she had with Ferron, but shattering screams like
a dying rabbit. Sharp, quick, repetitive. They kept bursting out of her.
Stroud seemed bewildered. She slapped Helena hard across the face.
Helena couldn't stop screaming.
Everything was bleeding together, the edges of her vision fading.
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266 • SenLinYu
Ferron was in front of her, his hands on her shoulders.
"Calm down." His voice was hard, but his hands weren't. He pulled
her close until the world narrowed into the space between them.
"Breathe."
He squeezed her shoulders hard enough to reach through the numb-
ness.
"Come on. You have to breathe."
Helena managed one ragged breath and burst into tears.
"No . . ." Her voice rose staccato. "No, no, no. Please. No!"
"Keep breathing, that's all you have to do. You breathe," Ferron said,
his expression drawn. The muscles in his jaw were taut.
He turned to glare at Stroud without letting go.
"You know she is prone to fits. You cannot spring something like
that on her," he said in a low voice.
Stroud straightened. "You said she was afraid of shadows. If she's
going to keep adding things perpetually, you should make a list and put
them up on the wall somewhere." She rolled her eyes, arms crossed at
her chest. "Shouldn't she be glad to know the conception efforts are
over?"
"No. And you should have known that. I'm beginning to think you're
purposely torturing her. Why is that?"
"I'm not," Stroud said, too quickly.
Ferron's eyes narrowed. "Do be honest. You won't enjoy the way I
take answers."