Page 104 of Alchemised
This was the cruellest thing Stroud could have done.
“Just—do it now,” she said, rolling back onto her back, refusing to look at him.
She stared up at the canopy, willing her mind away. There was a long pause before the bed shifted.
She hadn’t thought it could be worse the second time, but it was a thousand times worse. Now her body wanted him.
She tried closing her eyes, but she was restless. She couldn’t keep them shut. They fluttered open and she looked at Ferron again, taking in all the details she’d never cared to notice before. His sharp cheekbones and eyes, his thin lips, the precise lines of his jaw, and the way his pale throat disappeared in the collar of his shirt. She wanted to press close and breathe against his skin, to feel the warmth of another body.
“Hurry up,” she said through clenched teeth, trying to hold herself rigid.
There was no need for oil, but he used it anyway. She arched back until she could see the headboard, spine trembling, burying her face in her hands, biting down viciously on her palm, and felt ruined.
Whimpers formed in her throat when he moved. Her fingers twisted, clawing the duvet, threatening to tear it.
She was nauseous with horror. She hated every fibre of her being—the physicalness of herself that she could not overcome, that was perpetually scared, and weak, and now wanting—and she could not escape from any of it. Perhaps Matias had been right all along, and it was her nature to be feeble.
She wished she could tear herself out of her body. Slice it to pieces and watch it burn away so that she was not human anymore.
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.
WHEN 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.
