CHAPTER 19 #2
Her body contracted against her will. Ferron gave a ragged gasp, and the sound burned through her. His weight pressed down, and she broke with a despairing sob.
He thrust a few more times and shook with a tortured groan.
In an instant, he was gone, recoiling as if he couldn’t get away fast enough.
She barely opened her eyes in time to see him as he vanished through the door.
She caught only a glimpse of his face just before the door slammed. He looked grey, as though he was going to faint.
He was gone. The room was empty, and she was alone.
She curled onto her side and sobbed into her hands. The desperation burning beneath her skin was temporarily dulled by the magnitude of the horror she felt. She crawled into the bathroom, retching until nothing else would come up.
She’d always known of sex. In Etras, it was part of life—like birth and death—but in the North, sentiments were different, the subject kept rigidly behind closed doors.
Boys could get into trouble for going to the entertainment districts, but it was considered an irrepressible part of their nature to hunger, and a sign of their vitality, and so punishments were usually light, more a consequence of being caught than for the act itself.
The expectations were different for girls, even those allowed beyond the traditional confines of Paladian society.
Lumithia was a virgin goddess, pure and gleaming.
Women associating with her cult and the opportunities it permitted were required to be likewise.
Helena’s life at the Institute revolved around her scholarship, which, in addition to being dependent on her academic performance, had included a morality clause.
She’d adhered to it more devoutly than she would have any faith, in greater terror of earthly consequences than of divine threats.
Her fear stifling even the smallest potential spark of desire towards anyone.
She’d thought sometimes that someday, when she’d repaid her debts, accomplished all that was expected, and reached her own goals, she would like to be loved. To know what it was to feel wanted.
Now this sick shame was all she knew.
W HEN THE DRUG FINALLY WORE off, Helena lay trying to make herself think of something, anything else, but there was little to turn her mind to. The only question left to wonder over was why she was somehow a piece in a labyrinthian conspiracy.
She could mostly make out Morrough and Stroud’s motives, what use they found in her, but no matter what angle Helena considered things from, she could not place Ferron’s motives in all this, even though he was the last person she wanted to think about at all.
At least wondering at his political motives kept her from thinking about him as a human.
She was certain he’d somehow engineered the revelation that he was High Reeve. There may have been extenuating circumstances, but if he hadn’t wanted the rumour to spread, he would have contained it. He wanted Paladia and the surrounding countries to know that it was Kaine Ferron.
Why? Could it be an attempt to escape Morrough’s punishments? To make himself harder to replace? There had to be more to it than that.
New Paladia was presently surrounded by enemies.
The Novis monarchy across the river to the east had age-old ties to the Holdfasts: Luc’s mother had been the queen’s distant cousin.
Novis was unlikely to ever acknowledge the Guild Assembly.
Hevgoss, looming over Paladia from the west, had a long history of surreptitiously interfering with nearby countries to provoke a crisis as context in which to “intervene.” Interventions which usually resulted in a government beholden to them.
The Eternal Flame had suspected from the beginning that Morrough was being used by Hevgoss, but it seemed something, possibly Helena, had soured that relationship.
Paladia’s economy and legitimacy depended on alchemy, and the war had decimated both the population and the industry.
The natural resources and centuries of alchemical science remained, but the country was weak, and the wolves were closing in.
It was only the fear of the Undying that held their enterprising neighbours at bay, but now that myth was shattered.
Morrough had all but vanished from the public eye; the High Reeve was the only true power that remained.
Perhaps Ferron was secretly negotiating with Hevgoss to overthrow Morrough.
Terrifying as the High Reeve was, the Ferrons were an old family, considered a part of Paladia’s history even before they’d made their fortune.
The Undying maintained their regime entirely through fear, and those in Paladia still benefitting from it could fit in Spirefell’s ballroom.
The disillusionment was reaching its climax.
Once it finally crumbled, people would want someone familiar, someone with power they could take pride in.
The whole world knew the revolutionary power of Ferron steel. It had forged the industrial era.
At this point, Paladians might consider Ferron a saviour if he usurped Morrough. He could blame the bulk of his atrocities on Morrough, and take responsibility only for what benefitted him.
From everything Helena knew, Ferron had no competition. Greenfinch was little more than a puppet, and the Guild Assembly was a joke. Ferron was Morrough’s only visible crutch.
It would explain why Morrough was torturing him so much: out of resentment for his own failing immortality. He was critically dependent on Ferron and without alternatives.
Yet Helena couldn’t shake the sense that she was missing something.
How did she fit into Ferron’s plans?
Whatever machinations were in place, she somehow played a role. He was too invested in her safekeeping for it to be otherwise. Ferron devoted an excessive degree of effort to ensuring her well-being while trying not to appear so.
She kept thinking about his hesitation when she asked him to kill her. He had considered it. Why? If she was a necessary part of his plan, how could killing her possibly be an option? But if she wasn’t, why all the effort?
I T WAS AFTER NIGHTFALL WHEN Ferron returned. When he entered the room, they stared at each other, neither speaking.
There was nothing to say.
He turned, slipped a tablet under his tongue, and when he turned back, his gaze went through her.
Helena lay, eyes fastened on the canopy.
She didn’t flinch when she felt the bed shift. She didn’t make a sound when her skirts were pushed up to her waist. He moved between her legs, and she stared straight up so intently, her vision blurred.
When he entered her, she gave a small choking gasp and turned her face towards the wall, writhing with internal anguish.
Her body had anticipated it. Just as the drug had acclimated her to the house, it had attuned her body to this.
It was such a profound betrayal.
She thought of shoving him off. If he’d physically force her, pin her down, or paralyse her, then she might hate herself less.
But she was so tired of being hurt, and so she didn’t move.
When it was over, he left without a word. She didn’t look at his face.
After five days, the door stayed shut, and the house was silent. It was finally over, but she scarcely felt any relief.
She was going mad. She could feel herself fragmenting with anxiety, coming apart, consumed by the cage holding her.
What if it worked? What if it failed?
She didn’t know what she was more afraid of.
A S THE DAY LENGTHENED INTO evening, Helena grew increasingly agitated, but it wasn’t until it grew briefly dark and then searingly bright again that she realised why.
Lumithia had reached full Ascendance. The world outside lay cast in silver almost bright as day, radiating light from amid a black sky. Every star and planet erased. Luna, halfway across the sky, looked like a broken piece of pottery in contrast.
Lumithia’s slow orbit meant she waxed full only twice each year, in the spring and autumn, while entering her Abeyance in summer and winter.
When she was in Ascendance, it had an intense effect on alchemists.
For those with low resonance, Ascendance was the only time of year when they could transmute, while alchemists with strong abilities found themselves disoriented by her radiance. Moon-drunk, people called it.
Ascendance had a particularly heightened influence on Paladians.
A sign of Paladia’s deep connection to the gods, according to the Faith.
Luc and Lila used to get so intoxicated from it, they’d have trouble walking straight, while Helena—in the true fashion of a foreign unbeliever—had only ever felt anxious, a heavy sense of dread pressing down on her.
That night, dinner failed to appear.
It was the first time in all the months of her imprisonment that there was no meal.
Something was wrong. Even with Ascendance, the necrothralls should still be present and somewhat active.
She looked out into the courtyard and saw the two necrothralls stationed by the front doors, still as statues.
But there were no sounds of footsteps outside the door, and when she left her room, no one appeared.
Helena went towards the foyer, staying within the path of Lumithia’s silver gleam, constantly expecting one of the necrothralls to emerge. The shadows were black as ink, their edges crisp against the bright white light.
The foyer was empty, the white marble practically glowing under the moonlight. The dragon ouroboros on the floor gleamed as though it had scales, its dark body shimmering amid the white marble.
The weight of Lumithia was oppressive. Helena’s resonance sang in her blood, as though attempting to overpower the nullification, creating a sensation like being in a cage too small to turn in.
She scanned the space, looking for any signs of movement. Necrothralls didn’t need to be consciously maintained. According to research, they could be given orders and then they’d fulfil them repetitively ad infinitum. Even if Ferron was drunk off the Ascendance, they should operate as usual.
Unless Ferron was dead …
She froze in her tracks. What if the Eternal Flame had come during the Ascendance, taking advantage of his disorientation to kill him? The Undying at the party had said the murderer was like a ghost, in and out without a trace except for the body left behind.
She looked around the foyer more slowly. The stark silver-white and black surrounding her made her vision swim as she went towards the front door.
Her fingers trembled as she tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn. She twisted at the lock beneath the handle, but it spun. She jerked, ignoring the pain that shot up her arms, trying to rattle the door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was sealed shut.
Her chest clenched, but she forced herself to head towards the next exterior door.
Locked tight.
She moved through the house, breath coming faster and faster with each door she found sealed.
Was Ferron dead somewhere in Spirefell? Was she going to stumble across his corpse? She braced herself each time she entered a room, certain she’d find blood seeping from the shadows.
Surely the Eternal Flame wouldn’t have left her, though. If they’d come here, they would leave a door or window unlocked. Give her that much at least.
She just had to find it.
She tried another door. Jerking at it over and over until a bright shock of pain left her hand numb.
The longer she searched, the more convinced she grew. Ferron was dead. She was trapped alone in this house.
Soon Stroud would come to retrieve her. Helena would be taken to Central, and if she wasn’t pregnant, Stroud would find someone else to rape her.
Her arms were going numb, her head growing light. She went to the second floor and down the first corridor. She’d avoided this part of the house because both Ferron’s and Aurelia’s rooms were down that hallway.
If Ferron was dead, she had to see it with her own eyes. She had to know, or he’d haunt her.
She reached the first door on the left and stood trying to breathe, to make her hand steady enough to grasp the knob.
It opened silently.
The room was swallowed by shadows. The moonlight poured like a molten silver river through the windows. Her eyes went to the bed. It was empty.
As she stood in the doorway, the air in the room shifted.
She turned sharply towards the desk. It was mostly in shadows, the edge covered in bottles. Then a shadow moved, and the moonlight fell across Ferron’s face, catching his pale hair and skin so that he seemed to glow.
“Helena,” he said softly.
She stood frozen, not sure if she felt relief or terror at the sight of him.
He had never called her anything before. “The prisoner” was the only way he’d ever referred to her in all the months she had been at Spirefell. Stroud called her Marino, but Ferron never called her anything. It had been so long since she’d heard anyone use her name.
“I—” She felt foolish. “I thought you were dead.”
She should turn and leave, but he looked so unearthly that she couldn’t tear her eyes away. His expression was one of utter despair, but as he stared at her, a look of starvation filled his eyes.
He stood slowly.
There was an uncharacteristic looseness to the way he moved. She looked past him, towards the desk, finally understanding.
He was drunk. Excessively intoxicated, under the influence of both Lumithia and actual inebriation. With his regenerative abilities, he probably needed the combination.
As he came towards her, she tried to back away, but then the wall met her shoulders, and there was nowhere to go, and then no space left between them.
He raised a pale hand, and his fingers wrapped around her throat.
His eyes were dark, ringed in glowing silver. Her pulse fluttered against his grip as he stared down at her.
It was no wonder the servants had disappeared. Maybe everyone else knew to hide from him on these nights. Except her.
“Oh, Marino.” His thumb trailed along her neck, following the scar below her jaw. “If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.”
He sighed, and she could smell the liquor on his breath as his head dipped closer. She had no idea what he meant, if she was supposed to apologise.
“But at this point I suppose I deserve to burn. I wonder if you’ll burn, too.”
His face was so close the words brushed against her lips, and his mouth crashed against hers.