“Break her hand. Break her fucking hand!” Lancaster was screaming as he clutched at the knife buried in his chest, unable to pull it out without ripping out his own lungs.
A hand closed around her forearm, and there was a horrifying crunch as a boot came down on her right wrist.
She watched the heel grinding her wrist into the stones.
They let go and she lay there in the street. Lancaster had already collapsed.
She tried to push herself up with her dislocated arm.
Run, Helena. You have to run.
One of the Aspirants had only one hand left, but he pulled out his sword and brought the hilt down on her head.
HELENA WOKE TO SCREAMING.
She was lying on something cold and hard, and when she tried to open her eyes, they were crusted shut. She lifted a hand to rub them, and white searing pain set her entire brain on fire. Her eyes tried to wrench open, but they still refused to part.
“It’s all right. Gentle. There’s blood in your lashes.” It was a familiar voice. She felt fingers rubbing along her eyes. “There.”
Helena peered out, vision swimming, and found Matron Pace staring down at her. Helena was lying with her head in Pace’s lap. It was still dark, the only illumination torchlight.
Her senses trickled back. She was in so much pain, but she could tell that she wasn’t even feeling all of it yet. She could smell blood. Dried blood and fresh.
There was screaming that kept going on and on.
And laughter, too.
She tried to sit, but Pace held her down.
“None of that. You’re badly injured,” she was saying. “I got your shoulder back in place, but they took your chest brace and your wrist is badly broken.”
“Where are we?” Helena managed to ask. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, but she recognised one of the healers as well as medics and orderlies. They were clustered around her.
Pace gave a strained smile. “At Headquarters. In the commons.”
Helena looked past Pace; there was something overhead. They were in a cage. A large kind used for animals. There were dozens of cages scattered around them.
“Let me up.” Helena struggled to sit up, her body beginning to scream in protest as the stimulants and sedative wore off. Without her chest brace, the strain bore down on her sternum as she peered past the bars. Looking for the source of the screaming.
Hanging by her wrists, Rhea was screaming. Titus stood beside her. He was covered in blood, and there were knives and sticks and spears sticking out of him. He pulled a knife from his leg and began slicing Rhea’s skin off with it.
Then he put it in his mouth and ate it.
He was dead. He had to be dead, but the sight of it still left Helena horror-stricken.
And Rhea was not dead.
Beside her there were pieces of meat dangling from chains. Helena squinted in the low light.
Severed arms.
A torso.
Alister’s head.
Her throat contracted, and she rolled to her side and vomited so violently, there was tearing pain through her back as her body convulsed.
She looked up again as Pace used a scrap of fabric to wipe her mouth for her.
Helena turned away. “How long have they been—”
“It started at dusk,” Pace said, her voice wavering, “once they were sure that Headquarters was secured. They don’t have Luc, though, or Sebastian. There’s still hope.”
Helena’s throat tightened so much, she thought she’d choke. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Pace that Luc wasn’t coming, that he couldn’t.
She looked down at herself. She’d been stripped completely and put into a grey smock. Everything was gone: hairpins, ties, hospital call bracelet. The only thing that remained was Kaine’s ring, hovering in the corner of her vision even when she looked directly at it. It had worked; even resonance hadn’t found it in a strip search.
Now her left wrist bore a suppression shackle, like what had been locked around Lila’s wrists. Her right wrist was bare, apparently too swollen for the matching shackle to fit around.
Rhea’s screams were growing fainter.
There was a roar of excitement, and Helena looked up, terrified of what would come next.
A long, low motorcar was pulling in through the gates. Helena’s heart dropped as it stopped at the steps leading to the Tower. The door opened, and Luc stepped out, his expression hesitant, almost bashful, as if arriving late to a party.
A hush fell across the courtyard. Everyone stared in shock as he surveyed the scene around him.
“No …” Helena said at the same time as Pace.
Luc turned and gave a low, obsequious bow as someone else emerged from the back of the motorcar. The person was tall, dressed in intricately decorative robes and a cloak of blue and gold, with a crescent-shaped crown rising from his head. Morrough.
He walked in front of Luc, ascending the marble stairs, which ran red with blood. All the remains of the Eternal Flame’s military leaders were in pieces on the ground or dangling against the walls.
Morrough turned as Luc ascended behind him, revealing a masked face; the crescent, like an eclipsed sun, concealed the upper half. The little bit of skin that showed was a pale, lipless mouth.
Helena had never seen Morrough. There had been stories of his appearance at a few early battles, but he’d let the Undying fight his war.
So this was Cetus. The first Northern alchemist.
The silence remained as Luc followed him up the steps obediently, while Morrough surveyed his audience.
“Paladia has followed this family of false deities for too long,” Morrough said in a rasping voice that barely seemed like it could carry. “They showed you fire and gold, and you thought these paltry tricks divine.” The mouth twisted in derision. “I have conquered death. Immortality is my gift, and I do not hoard this secret knowledge but grant it to all who are worthy.”
There were loud cheers at this. But that was not the worst of it. As Morrough spoke, Luc sank to his knees as if he were one of those begging for immortality.
Helena watched Luc’s every movement, trying to make sense of what she saw.
Luc was dead, she knew he was dead. Morrough must have found and reanimated him, made him seem so lifelike in order to have the satisfaction of being his executioner.
As everyone watched, Luc leaned forward, pressing his head to the stones which were slick with blood; it stained his clothes, his skin, his hair. The blood of those who’d followed him and his family so faithfully.
“Do you beg for immortality?” Morrough asked.
Luc paused as though hesitating, as if ashamed, then he lifted his head, looking up at Morrough like a supplicant, blue eyes wide, and nodded.
“You are unworthy,” Morrough said, but he held out a long bony hand as if extending it to Luc. Then his wrist turned, palm faced down, above Luc’s head.
Even from the distance, Helena felt the resonance in the air, and Luc’s head slammed down into the marble, skull splitting, breaking apart like a cracked egg. His face caved in, and his body toppled over, brains smeared across the blood-soaked marble.
The air filled with screams of horror.
Morrough turned away from the body. “Store him. He will never burn.”
Then he entered the Alchemy Tower, the monument his brother had built to memorialise necromancy’s defeat.
TIME PASSED IN A HAZE. Those who hadn’t gone into the Tower with Morrough began sorting the remaining prisoners, dividing them up, marking the numbers on the shackles into files.
Now that the “festivities” had come to an end, additional cars were arriving. The more decorated members of the Undying, in their black uniforms. Others who appeared to be government officials. The Guild Assembly. Governor Greenfinch.
Most were entering the Alchemy Tower, which had been rinsed of all the blood.
The door of the cage Helena was in screamed open, and guards began pulling the prisoners out, shoving them towards various areas.