Helena sat on a hospital bed in the main room, an intravenous drip in her arm, while Elain fixed a fracture in her sternum and spread a salve across the bruise that spanned most of her chest, then treated the back of her head, where she’d hit the far wall.
It wasn’t the first time Helena had been injured by a patient, but it felt different.
Luc was never going to forgive her for what she’d done to Soren. She’d broken him.
The curtain around the hospital bed rustled, and Ilva stepped through. Elain lingered until Ilva glared, and then the healer fled. Helena closed her shirt and didn’t look up.
“We’re taking reports on what happened,” Ilva said, her tone unreadable.
Helena sat numbly. Would they put her on trial now? Or would it wait until after the war?
“What have you heard?” she asked in a dull voice.
Ilva cleared her throat. “Luc is delirious, his version of events hardly reliable given that he was not only severely injured but also heavily drugged. Alister and Penny both gave statements that Soren Bayard died protecting them. Sebastian Bayard—” Ilva paused for a moment. “Sebastian corroborates this, and claims that the two of you managed to drag the others to safety after the rising floodwater washed away a large number of the attacking forces.”
“And?” Helena asked.
“Lucien—hallucinated Soren Bayard’s alleged reanimation. Perhaps Soren fell briefly. In the confusion of a battle, it is impossible to know. The point is, this was a heroic rescue. The Principate was saved though the price was great. Sol’s will was done.”
Helena knew she was supposed to be grateful, but she also knew the lie wasn’t for her sake. It was all for the story. It didn’t matter what had really happened, only what people believed.
“The obligations of Soren and Sebastian’s vows supersede any orders by the Council,” Ilva said. “Alister and Penny were obeying the orders of their direct superiors. You would have a reprimand on your military record for your participation, but as a healer you’re not part of the military. Matias will be the one to decide what sort of reprimand you deserve. Until then, you’ll be off duty. I believe it would be best if you stay out of sight until the official story has circulated.”
Helena went back to her room and collapsed into her bed, exhaustion rolling over her like a wave. It was dark oblivion at first, but then the landscape of her mind morphed.
She was sinking, down, down. There were teeth sinking into her. Hands clawing, curling around her limbs, tearing her apart. She kept fighting. Cold fingers carving gouges through her flesh, stabbing into her bones. She tried to fight. The weight bore down on her.
Her bones cracked. Teeth sank into her flesh. The tendon behind her knee ripped out. Wet hands found her mouth, clawing in so deep she couldn’t bite down. Her jaw gave way, ripping until her throat tore open. She was still fighting as water closed over her head.
Helena started violently awake, gasping to breathe, hands clutching at her open throat.
Just a dream, just a dream, she tried to tell her pounding heart.
Not really a dream, though. A memory. Soren’s memories postmortem were lodged inside her consciousness as though they were her own. Bright and lurid in all their details.
She hadn’t known necromancy was like that. That she would never be free of the person she brought back. No wonder necromancers went mad. Who could stay sane with the minds of the dead inside them?
The place where Soren had been was like a pit of festering guilt. Her body and mind had been cored, and now something dead and rotting was left there. Everyone always talked of what a curse necromancy was. Warned against it and its consequences, but Helena had been so convinced of its necessity, and so distracted by the eternal consequences, that she’d never paused to consider there being immediate ones.
She lay there, still feeling phantom fingers tearing her apart; her body was unutterably cold, reliving the cold, snowmelt water. She pulled more blankets onto herself, stealing Lila’s bedding, and huddled, trying to sleep, to escape from the deadness Soren had left inside her. Every time she closed her eyes, Soren’s final memories and sensations flashed through her mind.
She hadn’t brought back his ability to feel pain or emotions, but her own mind dutifully tried to fill in those blanks, phantom sensation and terror rippling through her until her mind threatened to fissure, splitting between two realities.
It was only pain that drew her back into herself. She kept pinching at her skin, scratching at it. It wasn’t intense enough. She needed something stronger.
She blinked and found herself holding one of Lila’s knives, a second away from shoving it through her left forearm.
She dropped it and fled the room, wandering half blindly through the empty hallways of the Tower. It was night, quiet; almost everyone was asleep. It was so eerily still. She was consumed with a sort of mania.
She stumbled outside, hoping that the clear air would help centre her.
Lumithia hung overhead, bright as a white sun in the black abyss.
Helena’s eyes throbbed just looking up at her. The Ascendance always put everything on edge, but Helena was already on edge. Ascendance had shoved her right over.
She closed her eyes and she was drowning again, nails dragging welts across her skin.
Kaine.
Kaine would know what was wrong. He’d understand. He used necromancy; he must know how to deal with this.
Without pausing to think, she headed for the Outpost. The destination was deliriously urgent. Curfew would be soon. She had to get through the checkpoints.
The streets of the city were like silver ribbons gleaming under full Ascendance, the shadows like teeth.
Just a little farther, she kept telling herself with every step. Until she was across the bridge, the river high and roaring beneath her, the tenement looming in front of her.
It was only when she reached the steps that she stopped to think.
She’d promised Kaine she would never come to the Outpost unless there was a Resistance emergency. He was a spy. It was dangerous for him. She’d given her word.
She’d risk his cover—endanger him.
She turned away.
Without a destination, her focus fractured.
Soren. Helena. Soren.
She felt her jaw give way, cold air and blood as her oesophagus tore open. Fingers gouging into her eye sockets. Water closing over her head. She was drowning but couldn’t die, so she just kept drowning.
When her consciousness found her again, she was lying on the ground. The black sky, dark as ink, loomed overhead as Lumithia bore down, a scorching cold in Helena’s resonance.
“Marino, what have you done to yourself?”
She was barely conscious of being lifted off the ground. Hot hands touching her face and forehead, driving away the drowning cold. She burrowed into the heat.
She was delirious. Truly delirious now, because Kaine was there with a giant winged dog standing behind him.
She’d never had a hallucination before, but all things considered, it was oddly pleasant. Kaine was like a furnace, and when she buried herself in his arms, face pressed against his chest, she could scarcely feel the cold dead fingers anymore.
“Soren Bayard died and I—I brought him back, but the other necrothralls tore him to pieces. I can’t stop remembering how it felt. I think he took part of me with him. How do you do it again and again without going insane? Is it like this forever?”
One of his hands tilted her head back so she could see his eyes. In the moonlight, the grey glowed almost as bright as Lumithia, his hair gleaming that same colour.
“Had you ever used necromancy before?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t suppose anyone told you how to do it, did they?” He exhaled, the back of his fingers pressing against her forehead. “You had the shit luck of knowing him, too. You’re going into shock.”