CHAPTER 8
L UC H OLDFAST SAT ON THE ROOFTOP OF the Alchemy Tower, hunched back against the tilt of the tiles as he absently spun an opium pipe in his fingers. The spire of the Tower, lit with the Eternal Flame, burned above him, a beacon of white light.
The sun was setting, the world hued with bronze shadows as Helena clambered across to join him.
He was so gaunt, he already looked older than his father. The war had chewed him down to the bone. The tendons along his neck stood out like cords when he swallowed, looked over, and then away again.
“What happened to us, Hel?” he asked as she crouched down beside him.
She stared at the horizon, past all the towers, towards the south.
“A war,” she said.
“You used to believe in me. What did I do to make you stop?” His voice was faraway.
“I still believe in you, Luc,” she said. “But we have to win this war; we can’t make choices because we want a certain story to tell later. There’s too much at stake.”
“No,” he said. “This is how we win. This is how we’ve always won. My father, my grandfather, all the Principates going all the way back to Orion. They won by trusting that good would triumph over evil, and I have to do the same.”
His thumb flicked against his index finger, ignition rings sparking.
Pale flames flared to life, filling his palm, a light like a small sun.
His fingers closed around them, leaving only a tongue of fire along a fingertip as he tucked the opium pipe between his lips and brought the flame close to the bowl.
Helena looked away, listening to him inhale.
“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we’ll remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”
He shook his head. “Orion became sun-blessed because he refused to break his faith.”
Helena exhaled, burying her face in her hands.
She heard his rings spark, and the pipe hissed as the opium vaporised.
“Luc—please, let me help you.” She tried to reach towards him.
He flinched away. “Don’t—touch me.”
He was teetering dangerously close to that immense fall, as if the Abyss still called to him. She didn’t know how to draw him back anymore, what to say that he’d still hear.
“Do you remember what I promised you, Luc, that night you came out here?” she asked, her voice pleading.
He gave no response. His gaze had settled back into a dim stupor, the sunset limning his gaunt features as though gilding him.
“I promised I’d do anything for you.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “Maybe you didn’t realise how far I was willing to go.”
T HE MEMORY OF L UC LINGERED in Helena’s mind when she woke in the morning.
She lay in bed, replaying it. It was a forgotten memory, which should have frightened her, but there seemed to be no information in it that Ferron could find useful, and she missed Luc desperately, even if it was a memory bitter as seawater.
He’d been smoking opium. How had that happened?
He must have been horrifically injured to be allowed drugs like that.
His great-aunt Ilva, who’d acted as steward for the Principate when Luc was at the front, had always been reluctant to allow him drugs, preferring to utilise Helena’s abilities than to risk addiction.
But he wouldn’t even let Helena touch him.
She lay in bed, turning the memory over and over, taking note of every detail. The evening light, the way it bronzed his features and illuminated his eyes. The nervous, intense way his fingers moved as he’d sparked his rings, bringing the flames to life.
She’d loved his pyromancy. It always felt more like magic than alchemy, the way he could make fire an extension of himself with those sun-bright flames.
The Holdfasts were always depicted wreathed in fire. The creation of sacred fire and the alchemisation of gold were the two unique gifts which Sol bestowed upon the Holdfasts.
Alchemisation, the transformation of one metal into another, was the most difficult form of alchemy. Prior to Orion Holdfast’s founding of the Institute, early alchemical writing was more entwined with mythological ideas than science.
The mythical Cetus, often called the first Northern alchemist, was credited with hundreds, even thousands of the earliest alchemical writings, which spanned centuries.
Scholars had speculated that Cetus was the name of a school or an alchemical sect.
The mystery was later revealed to be a consequence of superstition.
Early alchemists were forced to write pseudonymously, initially to avoid persecution, while later novice alchemists used the names of more famous alchemists in their attempts to legitimise their theories and discoveries.
As a result, “Cetus” had written almost all the surviving alchemy texts.
While the works of Cetus were considered historically seminal, they were highly inaccurate, and it was doubted that any alchemist by the name had even existed, but with no one else to credit, almost all early alchemical theories and discoveries prior to Paladia’s founding remained attributed to him.
It was Cetus’s early writings that established the alchemical princi ple that a metal could only be alchemised into a less noble form, often in keeping with the planetary hierarchy.
Later, Orion Holdfast discovered the modern principles of alchemisation, overturning Cetus’s claims and laying forth the methods and array principles needed to transform the ignoble metals into those less corruptible.
In Orion’s work, alchemisation was predicated upon spiritual purity; only an alchemist with a soul as pure as the metal they sought to create could alchemise it.
It was Sol’s own light and purity bestowed in blessing upon the Holdfasts that endowed them with the divine ability to turn lead into pure gold.
However, Luc had always preferred pyromancy.
There were strict rules the family had to abide by when alchemising gold.
The heavenly metal could not be abused or used for selfish purposes; after all, the neighbouring countries’ and Paladia’s own currency had to be respected.
There were rules about fire, too, but not nearly so elaborate as those involving gold production.
She remembered the first time Luc showed her his fire. She’d been sure the flames would burn him, but they simply danced across the surface of his fingers, shining like a star in his hand.
Even without the flames, she’d always felt warm near Luc; even the cold Paladian winters were thawed by his presence. All alone now, she missed him so intensely, her bones and skin ached for the familiarity and comfort of a hug.
H ELENA HAD FINISHED WITH HER exploration of the second-floor wing and resolved to explore the downstairs next.
She stood staring down the shadowy twist of the stairs as the windowpanes rattled like chattering teeth, the wind moaning through the corridor.
Her fingers curled tight around the banister, smooth as bone against her palm. She squeezed until she could feel the wood grain, wrist twinging against the manacle.
She refused to let her eyes sink into the shadows as she stepped forward.
She thought about the cliffs on Etras, the endless roar of the sea.
In her memory, she was a child again, scrambling among tide pools during the summer Abeyance when Lumithia waned and the sea retreated, leaving its bed laid bare and full of treasures.
The brilliant summer sun radiating across her skin.
Helena would go south. Run away and follow the river from the mountains all the way to the sea and sail home.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and found a necrothrall waiting, all the amber lights already aglow. Ferron’s wordless reminder that she could do nothing and go nowhere without his knowledge.
She swallowed hard, letting go of the fantasy. She would die in Spirefell.
The rooms on the main floor flowed from one to the next. Spirefell seemed to have more rooms than the Ferrons had ever known what to do with.
“Come back here, I’m not done with you.” A harsh voice made Helena freeze before she realised it was not directed at her.
“There’s nothing more to say,” came Ferron’s voice. “I’m not interested.”
“Don’t walk away from me! Disobey me and I’ll have you disowned, your name stricken from the guild!”
Helena peeked out into the corridor to see Ferron turning to face the lich that she’d seen with Stroud at Central, the one using Crowther’s body.
“You’re dead, Father. Perhaps you forgot.
That corpse has no claim to my estate or my inheritance.
And”—Ferron’s voice grew pointed—“you have no iron resonance inside that body. Regardless of the titles the guild indulges you with, you have no real power. It took nearly a year before anyone even remembered you, and longer before they wanted you back. The only reason I let you continue as guildmaster is because I have better things to do with my time than dealing with the minutiae of factory management.”
The lich’s face darkened until it was almost purple with rage. Helena would never have guessed this was Atreus Ferron. Crowther was a dif ferent build entirely, so slight he was needle-like and more than half a head shorter than Ferron.
“I should have refused your mother’s pleas and had you killed in the womb,” Atreus said, his face contorted with rage. “You deserve none of the suffering we endured for you.”
Ferron seemed unfazed, even slightly bored.
“A pity you didn’t, if it would have spared me this tedious conversation.” He turned away, his grey eyes still alight with scorn. “Get out of this house, Father, before I have it throw you out.”
Helena ducked back out of sight, dreading discovery. The necrothrall tailing her blinked placidly.
“You’ll regret this. The High Necromancer will remember that you did not volunteer yourself.”