There was a kitchen, a table, and a bed in the far corner, mostly hidden
behind a curtain. It seemed so ordinary for Lila. A world away from the
Institute and Solis Splendour, the shining paladin armour.
Helena found herself at loss.
"Have you been here this whole time?" she finally asked.
Lila shook her head. "No. Back when Ferron thought he'd find you
soon, we were just across the river in Novis. It was later that he brought
me and Pol here." She gave a wan smile. "He's sleeping, do you want to
see him?"
Helena followed her tentatively, and they both peeked around the
curtain, to be met with the sight of a golden-headed little boy, with soft
round cheeks, thick dark lashes, and chubby limbs sprawled like a star-
fish across the bed.
Lila stared at her son, a heavy adoration in her eyes. "He's going to
be so excited to have company," she said softly. "We don't go to the vil-
lage much. It's just the two of us most of the time."
"You never ran?"
Lila swallowed. "I couldn't at the first place. First I was pregnant, and
then with an infant. And no leg. By the time we got here . . . I'd realised
I didn't have anywhere to go. Ferron said that even if I could get some-
where like the Novis court and they believed who I was, I'd be a dis-
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Alchemised • 977
graced paladin with an illegitimate child. If they decided to treat Pol as
Principate, they wouldn't let someone like me take care of him or pro-
tect him. It would have been dangerous to look for my mother's family.
Every time I'd think about leaving, I'd worry that the minute I did, you'd
show up and we'd have missed each other."
Lila pushed the curtain to block the light from falling on Pol, turn-
ing away. "Ferron paid off someone in the village to make sure we don't
starve since I'm not much good at farming. We have chickens and these
awful ducks. I knit now, just like my mum did, although Pol grows out
of everything about as fast as I can make them."
"You know we're not staying here," Helena said, "We're going to take
a ship."
Lila's expression tightened, but she nodded. "Yes. Ferron's mentioned
the plan. Although he's said a lot of things. I learned not to expect
much." She exhaled. "Is he really—is he really coming with us? You're
planning to— play house with him?"
Helena's shoulders tensed. "Yes. Running away together was always
our plan. I added you to it because Luc asked me to make sure you and
Pol were safe."
Lila's eyes went wide. "You saw Luc before he—?"
Helena's stomach shrivelled as she realised the lie she was about to
begin telling. Could she really do this? Lie to Lila forever?
She started to speak, but Lila looked so desperate for any last pieces
of Luc, his final moments. She swallowed.
"I was worried about him that day, so I left Headquarters. We—we
reconciled just before his unit headed back to Headquarters. I think
somehow he knew things were going wrong—he asked me to promise
that I'd take care of you. It was the last thing he said to me."
Lila gave a strained gasping sound in her throat. "Do you know how
he was captured— how they got him?"
Helena's lips pressed tight as she shook her head.
To the world, to history, Lucien Holdfast had died on the steps of
the Alchemy Tower. Lila would have to believe that, too.
The door opened, and Kaine entered. Lila's visible emotions van-
ished, the temperature of the room dropping. Kaine paid no attention
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978 • SenLinYu
to her, his eyes for Helena only. He frowned.
"Have you fed her?" He looked at Lila.
"No . . ." Lila looked at Helena. "Are you hungry?"
"She's pregnant, and all we had was travel rations, so she's barely
eaten in days," Kaine said, glaring at Lila.
"You could have mentioned." Lila went over to a cabinet and rum-
maged about, bringing over a pitcher of milk and some bread, cheese,
and grapes, setting them on the table.
Helena picked at the food because Kaine was watching, but her
stomach was still unsettled and she didn't know if it was from the ex-
haustion of travel or a general anxiousness worsened by the reunion and
realisation that there was no point when things would be easy.
"Before we leave," she said, "we need to take Lila's manacles off. And
is there some way to get materials so I can make her a prosthetic?"
Lila brightened at this, but Kaine's jaw set, then he sighed.
"There's no need," he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out
a small wire key, tossing it to Lila. With no further explanation, he went
back outside. When he returned, he was carrying a metal chest that was
covered in dirt as if it had been dug up. There was a lock that came eas-
ily open, and inside lay Lila's prosthetic, wrapped in canvas but looking
little worse for wear.
"Has that been here the entire time?" Lila asked after a minute of
stunned silence.
"I brought it here before you arrived," Kaine said. "But I didn't really
trust you not to draw attention to yourself. I was going to tell Helena
where to find it. It was in the wreckage from the bombing."
"The Abeyance is in three days," Kaine said while Helena was tin-
kering with the prosthetic, making sure the components still worked as
she got it fitted for Lila again. "The trade routes have been open for a
fortnight, but the sea is calmest now and the ships will be the most
crowded, which will serve us well."
"Where exactly are we going?" Lila asked as Helena was adjusting
the balance.
"There's hundreds of islands running from Etras towards the main-
land," Kaine said. "We're headed for one of the smaller islands near one
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Alchemised • 979
of the trade cities."
Helena met Apollo Holdfast the next day.
Pol was shy, burrowing his face in against Lila's neck and peering at
Helena with dancing eyes as his mother introduced them.
He was a sturdy chap, with more of the Bayard build about him. He
would grow up to be very tall, Helena could tell just from looking at
him.
"Pol," Lila said, nuzzling her face in his messy blond hair, "this is
your godmother, Helena. Do you remember that I told you about her?
She was one of your father's best friends. She always looked out for him
and me, and now— " Lila swallowed. "Now she's going to help look out
for you. Isn't that nice? She came here with Ferron. You might not re-
member him, but you met him when you were smaller."
Pol peered through Lila's hair at Helena, with Luc's dancing eyes,
and it was like meeting Luc again—the young version of him that she'd
watched vanish.
Her throat closed, and she struggled to speak. "Hello, Pol, I'm glad
to finally meet you."
Pol snorted and covered his face with his hand.
"He'll warm up to you soon," Lila said. "Never met a living creature
he hasn't wanted to be best friends with."
"He looks so much like Luc," was all Helena could think to say. Her
heart was beginning to pound, and she couldn't hear what Lila was say-
ing, something about teething. Kaine's voice abruptly broke in.
"I think Helena needs to rest."
Lila's expression froze, but then she looked more closely at Helena
and nodded. "Right. Pol and I need to feed the chickens. Come on,
chappy."
Helena watched them head out the door, Lila moving easily again.
She looked at Kaine and almost jumped.
His hair was brown, nearly as dark as it used to be. It made him look
starker, given the contrast with his pale skin and eyes. He was dressed in
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980 • SenLinYu
common clothes, brown trousers and a rough-spun shirt. He looked
entirely out of place. No one would ever look at him and believe he was
a farmer.
"You don't like it," he said, touching his hair.
She couldn't stop staring. "It's not what I'm used to," she said, almost
wanting to laugh as she reached out, touching it, remembering when it
had first started to lose its colour. "I'm going to miss the silver."
"It'll wash out. You'll still see it sometimes."
He said that, but she didn't see Kaine much at all. Helena stayed
inside the house; when she stepped out, the open and stillness unsettled
her. After spending so much time in danger and on the move, the ordi-
nariness of the cottage felt surreal.
Kaine and Lila seemed to alternate who was inside with her. When
Lila was with Helena, he went out and would only reappear when Lila
took Pol outside.
Helena assumed he was busy making final arrangements until Lila
mentioned that he was in the stable. That he was always in the stable.
Hearing it, Helena immediately hurried outside, pausing only a mo-
ment before entering the shadowy interior.
Just as Lila had said, he was sitting on the floor in the stable, and
Amaris was lying down, her enormous head resting on his lap.
He didn't look up when she entered; he was rubbing his hand
through Amaris's fur behind her ears.
"I should put her down," he said softly. "It would be kindest. She
won't understand if I leave her behind."
Helena's chest clenched as she came closer.
"You said she can hunt for herself," she said.
He nodded. "But the transmutations on her will wear off over time.
It'll kill her eventually, like it did all the rest, assuming someone else
doesn't first. And if she's seen in this area, it could point to us, where we
went."
"Has there been any word?"
"None that's reached this far south."
Helena looked down at Amaris. "She's done growing, isn't she?
Maybe she won't need help as much anymore. She might be fine on her
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Alchemised • 981
own."
He was silent for a long time. "It's not worth the risk."
Helena's throat tightened. "I don't think it's fair not to give her a
chance. We wouldn't be here without her."
"She's just an animal."
Helena said nothing, because he wasn't saying it to her. She could
tell this was an argument he'd been spending days making with himself.
Amaris lifted her head and gave a low whine and licked across Kaine's
entire face. He grimaced and pushed her nose away.
He sighed, tilting his head back. "I've killed so many people," he fi-
nally said. "I never thought I get stuck on an animal of all things."
The morning they left, Kaine got up silently and went out to the
stable while Lila was packing up the last few things she wanted to bring.
Helena sat tense as he disappeared inside, her stomach twisting into a
sick knot.
A minute later he came back out. He stood there, staring up at the
sky for so long that her heart began to pound in her chest. When finally
he came back inside, he stopped behind her.
"Someday," he said softly, resting a hand on her shoulder, "your mercy
is going to have consequences."
She held his hand in place. "There's blood enough on both our hands
without adding hers."
He squeezed her shoulder.
"Bayard," he said after a minute. "It's time to go."
The sea was a wild and roiling even at its lowest and calmest ebb. The
port was crowded with people arriving and departing. There were false
identity papers waiting for the group at the postal service in the port
town.
Helena had forgotten how different the world could be. There was
such consistency in fashion and feature in the North, she'd grown ac-
customed to it, but a port city during the Abeyance was a melting pot
with sailors and travellers from every country across the sea, taking ad-
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982 • SenLinYu
vantage of the annual opportunity to travel between the continents in a
week rather than months.
There were enough Northerners that Kaine and Lila blended in,
while Helena disappeared among the many Etrasians. She hadn't seen
so much dark, curly hair and olive skin since she'd left Etras. It was
shocking to hear Etrasian casually spoken, and to realise that it had
been so long, she struggled now to follow it.
They descended the cliffs to the boarding wharf, and Helena clung
to Kaine's hand in a near death grip as their papers were approved and
tickets stamped.
The deck of the ship was crowded. Lila was so terrified that Pol
would be knocked into the sea that they went inside to look out from
the windows rather than standing on the bow.
Helena's heart hammered inside her chest, bracing for someone to
recognise one of them. To hear a raised voice calling their names.
Kaine sat tense and wary. She could feel his resonance tracking her
heartbeat as his thumb moved in slow circles across her palm, keeping
her grounded. Amid the clamour, a loud Northern voice rose from the
table beside them.
"Trying to get as much oil across as I can before the new war starts.
The liberators will pay out of the nose for it once they hit Paladia."
Lila whirled. "What war?"
Kaine's fingers twitched, tightening around Helena's wrist. Amid the
preparations and attempts at keeping the peace, Helena had avoided
mentioning what she and Kaine had left behind when fleeing.
A Northerner with a large moustache and sideburns looked at Lila.
"You don't read the papers? That High Reeve of Paladia's is finally gone.
Novis and the other countries are expected to be moving in any day. It's
been in all the news lately."
Lila's face seemed to drain of colour. "Do you have a paper?"
The man reached into the pocket of his frock coat and pulled a pam-
phlet out. "See? There'll be a lot of machinery going in, dealing with all
those corpses and whatever else those necromancers have cooked up.
They'll need oil. If I get to Khem and back before the Abeyance, I'll
make a fortune, but even if I take the land route, if I get the first order
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Alchemised • 983
in, it'll still pay out. You should've seen how much opium was going for
a few years back." His moustache rose. "There's nothing to rival war for
money."
They were all too distracted clustering around the newspaper to
reply. It wasn't a proper paper with full articles but instead a bulletin, the
kind popular among businessmen.
At the very top the first bulletin read in bold, high reeve dead, and
then in smaller text, The world breathes a sigh of relief at reports that the
steel magnate and iron guild heir Kaine Ferron, better known to the world
as the High Reeve, was killed in the most recent Resistance attack, crippling
the Undying regime.
Helena clutched at Kaine's hand.
In the next bulletin were the words eternal flame banners rise
again: as the countries unite against paladia, some do so in
remembrance.
Lila finally spoke. "Did you know this was happening?"
Kaine said nothing.
Helena answered quietly, reaching across to squeeze Lila's now bare
wrist. "We knew that there was an alliance developing, but we didn't
know how fast it would move, or if they'd believe news of the death."
Lila sat back, clutching Pol in her arms, but she was looking out the
window, back towards the mainland as the ship horns sounded, signal-
ling castoff.
Lila kept shaking her head. "I had no idea."
Helena was seasick for most of the journey, the pregnancy making
what would have been mild symptoms much worse. She still felt green
when they arrived on one of the major trade islands. Kaine offered to
get a room at an inn and complete the journey the next day, but Helena
knew he wanted to leave as little trace of their journey behind as pos-
sible. The fewer places they stopped, the fewer people they spoke to, the
harder they'd be to track down. They took a bus across the island. It was
so different from the North. The city sprawling rather than climbing
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984 • SenLinYu
vertically as Paladia did. Stonework was a world apart from architecture
utilising alchemy. They rode in a cart across a sea road leading to their
destination.
The sea road was an immense causeway built up and paved smooth
to allow crossing to the island during most of the monthly low tides.
With the Abeyance dragging the tides away completely, the seabed lay
bare, far below the causeway. There were people wandering across it,
gathering whatever treasures the tide had left.
Helena watched them, she and her father used to go down for the
tides, searching for shells and treasures, studying the fish trapped in the
tide pools. Treasure hunting was popular during Abeyance. There had
been countless cities washed away in the Disaster, and even millennia
later, their remnants lingered beneath the waves.
She looked over to see Lila and Kaine's reactions to it all. Kaine was
impassive, his eyes scanning the horizon. However, Lila looked more
frightened than Helena had ever seen her. It took a moment to remem-
ber that the sea was regarded as terrifying in the North. The coasts were
described as fraught with risk, as if it were a suicidal act of bravery for
humanity to persevere in such a place. To those inland, the idea of living
with the sea was simply too foreign.
"Don't worry," she said to Lila. "I'll teach Pol to be careful of the sea.
But he'll like it. You both will."
Lila gave a nervous nod.
The residence they arrived at was high up on a cliff. It was a large
stone two- storey house with a stable and a few other buildings. The is-
land, Kaine mentioned off-handedly, was privately owned, and the
house had belonged to the previous owner, which was why it was so
much larger than those in the village they'd passed through.
It came mostly furnished. A woman in the village had been paid to
maintain it and unpack the items that had arrived. There were warm
stone floors, and raw beams, and sunlight streaming through all the
open windows, carrying the strong scent of the sea.
Kaine entered the house first, walking through quickly. Helena could
feel the wariness about him, his resonance tingeing the air. She bit her
tongue, wanting to remind him to be careful, but his paranoia was
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Alchemised • 985
ingrained— object and he'd just revert to deception.
"I need to make sure everything's in order here," he said, leaving
Helena and Lila in the house.
"Well, this is definitely bigger," Lila said, cradling a sleeping Pol in
her arms and looking around. "Shall we find the bedrooms? My arm's
about to fall off."
They went upstairs, peeking into the various rooms in search of beds.
The first bedroom they managed to find was very large, but it also
looked more like a library with a bed in it. Lila got one look at it and
scrunched her nose. "I think this one's supposed to be yours. You should
rest—you still look green. Pol and I will find somewhere else. What do
you think the odds are that Ferron will let me have a sword if I promise
not to use it on him?"
Lila departed, and Helena stepped into the room.
It was not too large; the ceilings were whitewashed with exposed
beams overhead that made the space a less overwhelming than the dark
rooms in Spirefell. There were large windows on the far side of the room
where the bed was, looking out over the sea.
She moved carefully along the wall, tracing her fingers over the
shelves, noticing the various titles and collections. Alchemy books but
also literature and histories, and travel diaries.
There was a desk and chairs, and a sofa, with a soft rug underfoot.
She paused at the desk and found papers and pens, and etching plates
and styluses, all arranged in the drawers as if waiting for her.
There was enough in this room to keep her busy for a lifetime.
That was what the room was, a life Kaine had tried to set her up
with.
She wanted to appreciate the effort it must have required, but it felt
all wrong. Too perfect. As if it were all a trap set specifically to lure her
in and lull her with a false sense of safety.
Kaine was so vulnerable now.
Lila wasn't anywhere near fighting form, and even if she was, her
priority would always be Pol's safety. If Helena let herself believe they
were safe, let down her guard for an instant, something would go wrong.
She was sure it would.
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986 • SenLinYu
Her life was a perpetual countdown to disasters that she always
failed to see coming. She huddled in the corner between the bed and
wall, her right hand gripping her chest, trying to keep her heart steady.
Calm down. She squeezed her eyes shut. Breathe.
Where was Kaine? Outside of Spirefell, he wouldn't know that she
needed him . . .
Her eyes popped open, and she grasped at her left hand, finding the
ring on her numb ring finger. Gripping it tight, she used her resonance
to send a quick flare of heat through the silver.
A moment later, warmth pulsed back in response.
She stayed where she was, eyes closed, hand pressed against her
heart, until she heard the door open.
"Helena?"
"Here." Her voice came out thin, wavering.
In an instant, Kaine was there in front of her. "What's wrong?"
She swallowed several times before she could speak. "I thought I
would be glad to get here, but—what if they catch us? What if someone
finds us because we've stopped running?"
His eyebrows furrowed as he ran his thumb across her cheek. "Do
you want to keep running?"
Her stomach threatened to upend at the thought of more ships and
new places and never stopping, always looking over her shoulder. "No,
but why does everything feel wrong? Like it's not even real? This is what
we wanted."
He pulled her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. "I
don't think that an ordinary life will ever feel real for either of us."
Exhausted despair tore at her as she realised that he was right. "I
think I always saw running away as the destination. I never actually
thought about what would be left of me by the time I got here."
She stayed there, numb and drained by the realisation.
"Do you like the house?" he finally asked.
She looked around the room. "I do. How did you manage this?"
"It was mostly by correspondence. You talked about the sea, so I
started looking before the war was over. I thought it would be easier for
you, if you were going somewhere you liked."
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Alchemised • 987
"Just me. In this big house?" She said it lightly, but she was horrified
at the idea.
"Lila was part of the arrangement by then. I came here briefly last
summer. It was one of my last trips," he said quietly. "Before that, I'd just
sent things along as I thought of something I thought you'd like."
She looked around again. All this, while he hadn't even known if she
was alive.
"Come on now. You'll like it better once you've rested."
He closed the shutters, and Helena collapsed in bed. The linens were
soft and airy from the sea breeze, and it was like coming home. Kaine
sat beside her, their fingers enlaced, his thumb running along the ridges
of her knuckles. There was an odd pause each time he reached the last
two, and she couldn't feel the sweep of his fingers.
She was starting to drift off when he set her hand down.
She watched through her lashes as he walked slowly around the
room, kneeling and running his fingers along the floor, then going over
to the walls, peering appraisingly up into the corners of the room. He
started towards the door, footsteps so light that they made no sound.
"Kaine."
He froze and turned back.
"Are we safe?"
His fingers spasmed, and he clenched them into a fist. "Yes . . .
There's a few things I'd like to adjust . . . but we were careful. I doubt
anyone looking could have moved fast enough to beat the tides. You
don't need to worry."
"Do you need to worry?"
He looked baffled by the question. She held out her hand.
"We're supposed to get to rest now," she said. "You and me both. I
didn't bring you here so you'd have to keep soldiering on."
His eyes flicked around the room, and he suddenly looked boyish
and uncertain.
She studied him sadly, realising their difference: He didn't have any
dreams about what he'd do or be after the war. He had never even al-
lowed for the possibility. He had no idea how to do anything but be a
soldier.
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988 • SenLinYu
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
"Stay with me," she said. "You're supposed to rest now, too."
He nodded as if he understood the idea conceptually, but he re-
mained standing by the door. She went to him, taking him by the hand.
She found a surprising number of unusual weapons hidden in his plain-
looking clothes, and he was wearing body armour beneath them, which
she hadn't even realised he'd brought.
"Did you bring anything else?" she asked teasingly when she made
him sit down on the edge of the bed and found an obsidian gimlet knife
hidden in his shoe.
He avoided the question.
They lay facing each other, but his eyes kept flickering over to the
weapons she'd taken. She touched his chin with her index finger, draw-
ing his attention back.
"What did you want to do, before the war?" she asked.
"I was the iron guild heir—that was all I was allowed to be," he said.
"The only thing I did that I wanted was staying at the Institute after I
was certified. My father didn't think it was necessary, but my mother
had wanted to study longer when she'd been there. Her family couldn't
afford it. I had the ranking to qualify, so she convinced my father to let
me. But when I returned, Crowther showed up, wanting to know why
someone of my class wanted more than a trade education. My father
was furious. I doubt I would have returned the next year if he hadn't
been arrested."
"We'll have to figure something out now, then," she said, and pressed
her head against his shoulder. He tangled his hand in her hair, holding
her close. "Are we really safe?"
"We are."
She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Good. I'm so tired."
When she woke, Kaine was asleep. He did not stir, even when she
moved. It was as if years of exhaustion had risen up and swallowed him.
He slept for days. He didn't even twitch when Helena pressed a
hand against his chest, her resonance reaching in. His soul finally
seemed to begin integrating itself back into him.
Helena slept beside him for the first week. She hadn't thought she
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Alchemised • 989
was tired enough to sleep for consecutive days, but it was as if a relent-
less tension had finally released and this was the first time she'd ever
truly rested.
They woke to eat, and Kaine would go out, and she'd watch him walk
along the edge of the cliff and survey the island and wander the house,
and then he'd come back and pass out again.
But he only slept if Helena stayed near him. When she got up and
went to peruse the various shelves to see what kinds of books there
were, he immediately sat up.
"I can get up now," he said.
"No. I'm still tired," she lied. "I just want to read a little."
She brought a few books over and laced her fingers with his as she
read, and he was asleep again in minutes. When she touched him with
her resonance, he'd ceased to feel like something on the verge of unrav-
elling.
He'd been sleeping almost two weeks when the door opened and
Lila peeked across the room at them. "Pol's napping. Can I come in?"
Helena closed her book, nodding. They'd seen each other only in
passing since their arrival.
Lila came over and stared at Kaine for a moment before she turned
and sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him. "I wanted to talk
to you, but there's never been time. The people in the village say the tide
will be rising past the sea road soon."
Helena nodded.
Lila inhaled. "You know, when he told me about you two, I didn't
believe him. He said that Luc and everyone else was dead. He brought
newspapers to prove it, and he said the only reason I was still alive was
because of you. I believed him about most of it, but not what he said
about you." Lila was staring hard at the floor as she spoke. "I couldn't
believe it could have happened—that you wouldn't ever—But then I
thought about how withdrawn you got, right when things started get-
ting better. We used to talk about it, Luc and Soren and I, and none of
us could understand why. When Ferron told me when everything
started, I realised it was right around that same time. But I was sure
you'd tricked Ferron into thinking you cared about him. Thought he was
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so pathetic for believing you'd ever care about him."
Helena's fingers, entwined with Kaine's, spasmed.
"At first, he used to come check on me almost every week. It was like
watching someone starve to death, him looking for you. I think he went
mad for a while. He started threatening me, saying it was all my fault. If
it weren't for me, you'd be safe, and he started telling me that when he
found you, it'd my job to take care of you for a change. Eventually he
stopped saying anything about what would happen once he found you."
Lila pressed her lips together tightly. "Then I got word that you'd
been found, but he said you'd forgotten everything, about him and me
and Pol, that they'd try to smuggle you out before the Abeyance, but it
had to be just before, because you'd be hunted when you escaped. Then
I started hearing rumours about the repopulation program. I didn't
think you'd be part of that—"
"He didn't have any choice," Helena said. "If it hadn't been him, it
would have been someone else. It was that or kill me."
Lila drew an unsteady breath. "Well, I am glad that you're alive," she
finally said. "But I still hate him, and I hate that you're trapped with
him. Because you were right, and no one listened to you; you stayed
with us despite knowing the whole time. You didn't deserve any of this.
You shouldn't have to spend the rest of your life trapped by all the
promises that people forced you to make."
Helena stiffened, and Lila noticed, her mouth tensing. "I don't just
mean Ferron. I mean with me and Pol, too. Luc made you promise, and
I know you'd stay with us for the rest of your life without ever complain-
ing, but you don't have to. You've already done more than anyone should
have ever asked from you. You deserve to make some choices for your-
self. Don't spend any more of your life chained to old promises. Not to
anyone. Not Luc, or me—or Ferron."
Lila closed her eyes and exhaled. "I just—I had to say that once,
before we're all trapped on this island."
She stood up and left the room as quietly as she'd come in.
Helena sat in silence for a moment and finally looked down. "You
can stop pretending to be asleep."
Kaine's silver eyes slid open, and he stared up at her, his expression
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carefully closed.
Helena raised her eyebrows. "Do you really think I went to all the
trouble of saving you just because of an old promise?"
He said nothing, but she knew he did.
She shook her head, throat aching. "That's not fair. You said that I'm
the worst promise keeper you've ever met, that I just do whatever I
want. You can't have it both ways, you know."
"Helena . . ." He said her name gently.
She wouldn't let him finish.
"We said always, didn't we?" she asked, her voice strained. "Always.
Well, if you don't want that promise in full any longer, I'll give it to you
in increments." She clutched his hand tighter. "Every day. I'll choose
you. That way you know it's still what I want."
She looked out towards the rising sea. "I'm sure there will be good
days and bad days for us. Too much has happened for us to ever really
put it behind us, but if you choose me, and I choose you, I think we're
strong enough to make it."
A bundle of old newspapers from the North had arrived just before
the tides cut off the island from the rest of Etras.
A full article had been written about the High Reeve's death.
Spirefell had been burned to the ground. A skeleton of warped iron was
all that remained. Countless charred bodies had been recovered from
the wreckage. Kaine Ferron, his wife, Aurelia, and Atreus Ferron were
listed as dead. The killer had been identified as Ivy Purnell; she'd com-
mitted suicide nearby using one of the obsidian weapons developed by
the Eternal Flame. Purnell was one of the Undying, but her family had
ties with the Eternal Flame prior to the war. She was believed to be
responsible for all the assassinations during the last year.
There were also articles about the Liberation Front, a confederation
of armies organising against Paladia. It seemed only a matter of time
before they attacked, but as Etras was once more cut off the from the
continents, the declaration of war had still not been made.
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On the island, time warped. There was so much of it. Other than the
tidal shifts, everything grew nebulous and unhurried.
Alchemy. Paladia. The war. It all barely existed in Etras.
Helena began to forage again, and soon the kitchen was strung with
herbs, and she had decoctions and oil infusions, extracts and distilla-
tions. It was more medicines than four people would ever need, and so
Lila—who was more sociable than Kaine or Helena—would take them
to the village.
Kaine disliked the idea. He did not want Helena becoming respon-
sible for a village of strangers, but he relented because having things to
do kept Helena's anxiety from gnawing through her.
Instances of upper-class Northerners fleeing south to escape scandal
were apparently relatively common. The previous owners of the house
had been a minor Novisian noble family, and the arrival of new North-
ern strangers was predictably a source of curiosity on the island.
Kaine, Helena, and Lila frequently discussed the risks and the proper
balance of keeping to themselves without seeming like they were trying
to hide. A few careless rumours escaping the island might be enough to
discover them. However, once Helena, an Etrasian herself, proved to be
useful, the village grew protective of their strange neighbours.
Kaine struggled the most to adapt. He was always paranoid, plan-
ning for the worst. When he wasn't with Helena, he was constantly
walking the property and going to the village to bring back any news
that came from the main islands, watching for signs of newcomers.
Late one evening, Helena sat working on a brace design for her left
hand. The purpose was to make her two paralyzed fingers bend and
open with a transmutational device connected to her other fingers.
A low wind howled, and the shutters rattled. She thought nothing of
it at first, until she noticed that Kaine had gone unnaturally still. She
looked up as another gusting howl wafted through the house.
Her eyes went wide, and they both bolted to the front door. Running
back and forth outside the house, wings outstretched, nose to the
ground, was Amaris.
She looked up as Kaine came out the door and immediately dropped
to her belly and crawled across the ground to him, wings and tail flap-
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ping, whining and whimpering all the way. He pulled her enormous
head into his arms.
"You mad thing—how did you get here?" He could barely get the
question out, because Amaris was licking his face over and over, her
wings sending up a dust storm.
"I guess she couldn't let you go," Helena said.
Amaris was set up in the stable, which she was only allowed out of
at night. It was the best solution they could come up with given her size
and unusual qualities. She didn't seem to mind. In the evening, she
would burst out and run in circles for a little while, and Kaine would
take her flying out across the sea.
Helena was glad that he finally had something to do with himself.
Until Amaris's reappearance, he had floated. He would read and keep
Helena company, but he didn't seem to know how to want anything.
He'd spent his whole life with a collar around his throat.
As weeks turned into months, the full breadth of his possessiveness
began to reassert itself. During the day, he would watch Helena work
with an intensity that she could feel in her marrow. When they were
alone, she would stop what she was doing and let him consume her. His
lips whispering perfect, beautiful, mine with every nip and caress.
"Yours, always," she'd promise.
It grew steadily apparent that Helena sat at the centre of Kaine's
universe, and now that she was safe, his unrestrained attention had
nothing else to obsess over. Everything except Helena was superfluous.
She thought at first that it was a phase, but as autumn arrived, and As-
cendance came and went, she began to suspect that he had no intention
of taking interest in anything else. Lila, Pol, alchemy projects: It was all
to indulge her.
Even the baby. Helena's pregnancy became increasingly an undeni-
able piece in their relationship, but his concern remained limited to
Helena. The condition of her heart. The risk of the Toll manifesting
again.
When he wasn't reminding her that "their daughter" needed Helena
to breathe, and that she had to keep herself safe for "their daughter," his
interest faded.
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One night, when they were lying in bed and she was trying to show
him how to feel the constant kicking that she was subjected to, she re-
alised his attention had wandered to her wrists, the punctures from the
manacles that still ran through each of them.
She knew he worried that her ulnar nerve snapping was only the
beginning, and that there might be more damage. He was constantly
watching how she worked and rarely allowed her to carry or lift any-
thing that might strain her wrists.
"Kaine," she said quietly.
His attention snapped back.
"Kaine, you have to care about her."
He stared at her blankly.
Her mouth went dry. "You can't be like your father."