Page 144 of Alchemised
Ferron stood silhouetted by the window’s pale light. “How much longer do you think you all can keep fighting?”
That, she could answer. “Until there’s no one left. There’s no surrendering for us.”
“Good to know,” he said softly, looking back at the smoke.
THE HOSPITAL HAD BEEN RUNNING on fumes for months, so short on supplies that any smuggled in from Novis seemed to instantly evaporate.
“We’re completely out of gauze, and we used the last of the opium resin last week,” Pace said as she and Helena stood together in the nearly empty supply room. “The Council wants to use the new healers to cover for the shortage, but they’re not anywhere near reliable.”
Even without a war, opium products were often in short supply. The dual moon tides limited sea trade from the Ortus regions for most of the year, except during the summer ebb, when Lumithia was in Abeyance and the sea separating the continents briefly calmed. The rest of the year, supply caravans had to circumnavigate the sea—a journey which could often take half a year and resulted in prohibitive prices.
The Eternal Flame needed far more than just opium. They needed more food, medicine, clothing, and bandages. Anything not made of metal or transmutable materials was in desperately short supply. If the Resistance couldn’t regain control of the ports before the summer trade influx, they’d be starved into submission before the next winter.
“The floodings won’t be so bad for a little while,” Helena said. “I can find sphagnum outside of the city, and that’ll help with the gauze shortage at least. Lots of willow this time of year, too.”
Pace nodded, still staring at the empty shelves. “It’d be something, at least.”
Without clean, sterile gauze and bandages, injuries would get infected, recovery would be slower, the risk of disease and contagious infections would rise. Even with five healers providing pain relief, their support would come at the cost of other healing they could be doing.
As Helena headed out towards the wetlands in the early morning, she caught sight of Luc and Lila in the commons, armed to the teeth and sparring. She hadn’t even heard they were back again.
She’d been sleeping on a camp bed in Pace’s office. Pain was often the worst for patients at night.
She paused a moment to watch.
Luc preferred fighting in the traditional Holdfast style that involved an enormous flaming sword that he could transmute into two smaller flaming swords. He was exceptional with fire alchemy. White flames bright as the sun fanned out around him like wings, making his blue eyes glow like sapphires, and even the gauntness of his features somehow made him look more ethereal.
His power really did seem otherworldly.
Helena knew it wasn’t; in fact, she probably knew more about how it worked than he did. While Luc had a natural talent for pyromancy, he lacked both patience and interest when it came to the science. As a student, he used to rely on Helena to make sense of the theory sections of his homework.
Pyromancy was more varied than metal transmutation. A pyromancer in combat needed to be able to rapidly improvise without hesitation or miscalculation based on numerous variables—wind, enclosed space, target distances, oxygen levels.
She watched Luc’s fingers, mentally calculating which techniques and array sourcing he was using. He was so fast, she could barely keep up.
Because basic projectiles had negligible effect on necrothralls or the Undying, most fighting was either incendiary or close-range.
“Hel!” Luc’s voice split the early morning as he stopped short, waving her over.
Luc grinned as she neared. He was all in white, wearing just his amiantos under-armour to keep his clothes from singeing. His face was glistening from the heat. “How was I?”
Her lips pursed.
He laughed. “You can be honest.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “You’re overusing oxygen. It’s a bad habit. It can be dangerous if you’re in an enclosed space,” she said.
Luc scrubbed his forehead. “I know, I’m trying to extend the accuracy of my reach, but I can’t keep it stable without losing control of how much air it takes.”
Helena gnawed on the inside of her lip. “Which formula are you using?”
Luc grimaced. “I don’t know, haven’t written out an array in ages. Just do it in my head. You know, what feels right.”
“You could probably work it out if you actually wrote it down,” she said, giving him a pointed look.
He got a sly gleam in his eyes. “Well, maybe I will if you’ll look at it. We’re about to go on break anyway, and I hear you’ve got trainees now, which means there’s no excuses left. It’s next time. Come on. I’ll set something on fire if you try to say no.”
She exhaled. “I was actually on my way to—”
