“I thought you liked us dead.” Her head hurt so much, she wanted to vomit.
He gave a barking laugh. “Consider yourself the sole exception to that rule. The High Necromancer wants your secrets, and until he has them, you will not die.”
He glanced around her room, and his eyes seemed to glow.
He closed them, shaking his head. “I thought transference would be enough for one night, but it seems you’re determined to make this as difficult for yourself as possible.”
He leaned over her.
Helena stared at him in dread.
“Let’s see what other ideas you’ve had.” His cold fingers pressed against her temple.
It wasn’t transference, and she was so relieved that she almost relaxed when she realised he was only violating her memories.
His resonance swept through her mind like a breeze, sending her thoughts fluttering.
He moved slowly. Instead of a long pass across time, he took interest only in recent events, winding through her memories like a current.
He seemed to pore over every detail. Exploring her room. The way the hallway frightened her, and her musings over him and his family. Her attempts at exercise.
When he finally stopped, the blood on her face had dried in tracks down her cheeks.
“Industrious as always,” he said mockingly, pulling his hand away.
Her jaw clenched.
He was still leaning over her, hand pressed into the mattress by her head. “Do you really think you can trick me into killing you?”
She stared stonily at the canopy.
“You’re welcome to try.” He turned to leave, then paused as if just remembering something. “Don’t enter my room again. If I want to deal with you, I’ll come here.”
Once he was gone, Helena didn’t move.
She hadn’t placed much faith in her plans. She’d known the odds of success were impossibly small, and yet she’d tried to convince herself otherwise. Luc wouldn’t give up. If it were him, he’d fight to the very last. How could she betray him by doing less?
But Luc was dead.
No matter what she did, it wouldn’t bring him back.
Her shivering grew uncontrollable. She curled onto her side, burrowing into the bedding. The wounded feeling in her head grew until it was a sinkhole drawing her inwards, her skin growing taut like a membranous exoskeleton.
The sheets became damp with her sweat as her fever rose. Her body was freezing, but her brain was on fire.
Time morphed, twisting, and she lost track of everything beyond her misery.
There were voices. So many voices. Vile things were poured down her throat, making her gag, burning concoctions that blistered her organs. Hot and cold and slimy things on her skin. She was picked up and plunged into ice-cold water, dragged out to breathe, and then shoved under again.
Her mind burned on like an ember, charring everything around it.
There were needles. Little pricks she hardly felt, then large agonising lances of pain that punctured her arms.
The pain in her head grew until it blotted out all thought.
Finally, she slipped away, her mind untethering itself in a free fall.
There was blood everywhere.
She was in the hospital in Headquarters. The bells were ringing. There were bodies being rushed in by nurses and medics whose faces blurred as they passed.
There was a boy in her arms, dying. She tried to calm him, trying to focus, not to feel the building panic of the room catching like claws through her lungs, but he wouldn’t let her heal him. No matter how she tried, he’d shove her back. Blood kept pouring out in dark spurts. The sticky warmth seeping into her skin. People kept calling her amid the clamour, but she had to save this boy.
She was right here.
Finally, he stopped fighting. She felt him through her resonance. A rush of hope in her heart at the vibrant sense of living. Then he was gone, like a fist through her chest. Too late.
She looked up at the bodies piled around her, one on top of the next, a wall rising endlessly, rivulets of blood running down it as it swayed, threatening to crush her.
She tried to breathe. The smell of bile, charred flesh and blood, sweat, filth, and antiseptic burned in her nose and lungs, suffocating her.
Everywhere she turned, there were more bodies, even under her feet. She crushed them when she moved.
Choose.
Who lives and dies. She had to decide.
It would be her choice.
She reached out, fingers trembling, but a hand caught hers, stilling it.
It was Luc.
She gave a panicked gasp of relief, clutching at him.
He was standing in his golden armour, helmet off so she could see his face. He smiled at her. For a moment the nightmare vanished.
Then blood began to trickle down his face.
Lila was just behind him, glaive in hand, pale hair a crown around her head, but half her face was rotted away, peeling back to reveal her skull. Someone else stood just beside her, but Helena couldn’t remember his face.
Beside them were Titus and Rhea, and after them the Council and the Eternal Flame, all standing in a ring around her.
Their faces were blank except Luc’s.
Luc was still alive. He was bleeding, but she could heal him. Her hand shook as she reached out, but he spoke.
“I’m dead because of you.”
She shook her head, voice failing her.
“Look, Hel,” Luc said. He touched his breastplate, and the golden armour melted away, revealing his bare chest. A gleaming black knife was shoved between his ribs, a bloodless wound. The incision grew, running down his torso until the knife fell, shattering on the ground, and his organs came sliding out, blackened with gangrene, the smell of decay filling the air as if he’d been rotting for months.
“See?”
“No. No …” She tried to reach for him anyway, but he melted away, leaving her fingers stained with his blood.
Her mother was there now. Helena couldn’t make out her face, but she knew it was her mother. The scent of dried herbs clung to her as she stood in front of Helena.
Helena reached for her, but her mother vanished into mist.
Then her father.
He stood out among the Northerners. His eyes were dark, and his black hair curled just like hers.
He wore his white medical coat, and when she met his eyes, he smiled at her. Just below his jaw was a gash mimicking the curve of his smile, running from ear to ear.
“Helena,” he said, “I’m dead because of you.”
He stepped towards her, a scalpel gleaming in his hand.
She didn’t move, didn’t resist this time when he took her in his arms and slit her throat.
WHEN THE WORLD SWAM BACK into focus, Helena wished she’d died.
Her head throbbed, and her hair was plastered to her cheeks and forehead. The room was stiflingly hot. Her mouth was so dry, her tongue threatened to crack.
She managed to roll onto her side. The bedside table bore a pitcher, a cup of water, and several vials. She fumbled for the cup, gulping it down.
She slumped back, kicking off the blankets. The smell of a mustard poultice burned in her nose. She craned her head, looking at the vials on the table again. There were iron and arsenic tablets, smelling salts, and ipecac.
She reached for the arsenic, but she’d no sooner lifted her hand than the door opened, and that nervous stuttering man from Central entered, accompanied by Ferron.
“It’s unlikely the fevers will improve as the procedure continues,” the man was saying, looking as terrified of Ferron as he’d been of Morrough.
Ferron didn’t appear to be listening; his gaze had gone instantly to the table and the vial that Helena had been about to steal. He strode across the room, sweeping up all three vials and pocketing them with the barest glance down at her.
Bastard.
“I’m expected to put up with this every week?” Ferron asked, scowling down at Helena as if she were a stray he wanted to drown.
The man’s head bobbed. “As I understand, the assimilation process of transference that the Eternal Flame developed was intended to cultivate a progressive degree of tolerance. As with traditional mithridatism, there will be side effects. The next time should result in further progress on your part, but as a result the brain fevers will likely be of a similar magnitude. You must understand, it’s hardly a natural state of being. A living body surviving even a brief presence of another soul has never been achieved before. That she’s alive at all should be considered a miracle. As the purpose of this is only to keep her alive long enough to reverse the transmutations, the long-term deterioration will be immaterial.”