Page 223 of Alchemised
“That’s the other part of your present,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I thought I could show you some healing techniques, so you can do them yourself. I know most of the time you don’t need it, but if you’re strategic and direct the way your body regenerates, you’ll recover faster.”
She reached towards him slowly. “May I?”
He gave the barest nod.
She took his hand and set it on her own arm, then rested her fingers over his. She ran her resonance through his fingers, into her own body, the sensation creating an almost ghostly feeling under her skin.
“Of course, my body isn’t the same as yours, but—most of the anatomy is, and you do regenerate according to the same basic rules.” She spoke in the efficient way that she’d taught the trainees. She was grateful now for the practice. “You’ve mentioned that regeneration starts with the most vital parts of the body: brain, organs, limbs. When you lost your arm, the reason it didn’t regenerate was because you’d been bleeding too long, and you’d already had to heal from extensive burns. Just because you have the vitality to regenerate doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the physical resources for it. Those have to come from somewhere. If you’re badly injured, you might not have a resonance stable enough to heal yourself, but you can guide it, and the kit can provide support.”
She ploughed through as much information as she could. Showing him all the different systems in the body, how they interacted, how a disruption in one place could have effects elsewhere.
She kept rattling off tips for as long as she could, working through all the major systems as quickly as possible.
“Eyes are awful. I mean, hopefully if you ever lost one, it would just grow back, but if not …” She exhaled. “The tissue doesn’t matrice the same way. It’s very tedious work, and nerve-racking. You should—probably come to me for that. Well, I mean—”
She stammered.
“The High Necromancer doesn’t have eyes,” he said.
She stopped short and looked up. “What?”
She’d never seen Morrough, but she’d heard that during his rare appearances, he wore a golden mask—a large crescent that obscured most of his face and fanned out like horns on each side of his head. An eclipsing sun.
“It’s rather gory to look at, but he doesn’t seem to mind.” He pulled his hand free, clearly done with the lecturing. “It’s like someone burned them out. He uses his resonance to see.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.” She rubbed her hands on her skirt. “Well, that’s the basics. If there’s anything you’d want added to the kit, or ideas you have, I can try to make them.”
“The basics?” He pulled a watch out of his pocket. “You’ve been talking for over an hour.”
She fumbled for her own watch, certain he was mistaken. No, he wasn’t. She was going to be late for her shift if she didn’t leave.
“I mean … it was still only the basics,” she said defensively, but she added, “I should go. Happy solstice. I hope your days grow brighter.”
He did not return the season’s greeting but then spoke as she reached the door.
“Marino.”
She tensed, looking back. He was still standing where she’d left him, irritation evident in the sweep of his eyes. He looked her up and down as if debating something.
“I have—something for you,” he finally said, as if having a tooth extracted. He pulled out something rolled up in an oilcloth and held it towards her.
Inside lay a set of beautiful daggers, sheathed in mesh holsters. Helena felt her resonance respond before she even touched them.
“The longer one goes on your back, the smaller one on your forearm,” Kaine said when she was silent. “They’re sized for you. Titanium and nickel is a mnemonic alloy, which will allow you to transmute them further than most weapons; they’ll still return to form. It has three memory shapes depending on the resonance phase you use, and you can alter them if you wish. That’s why the sheaths are malleable.”
She picked up the larger dagger.
After the months of training with a steel weapon, the dagger hardly weighed anything. She slipped it from the sheath, and it sang in her fingers. She barely had to focus her resonance before it morphed, maintaining its razor edge but changing shape and length entirely, unfurling like a ribbon into a long, flexible whiplike blade. She altered the timbre of her resonance just slightly, and without her even needing to guide the metal, the blade morphed back into a perfect dagger.
She let out an unsteady breath, hardly able to believe that anything could be so easy to transmute. It was as effortless as moving her own fingers, and it weighed nothing.
She couldn’t stop turning them over, taking in every detail, the weight and texture, the incredible sharpness of the blades. There were elegant curving details like vines on the hilts that made the grip more secure.
She didn’t know what to say. Thank you felt entirely insufficient.
Kaine was watching her, his eyes intent, but the expression vanished the instant she looked up. His eyebrows drew down. “You are not ever allowed to take these apart or turn them into medical instruments. Not for anyone.”
She flushed. “I thought you said the shapes were programmable.”
