Page 240 of Alchemised
On his knees, ready to do anything, Ilva had said.
She still didn’t know how to do that, though. It wasn’t as if Ilva or Crowther would see any significance in the fact Kaine had finally slept with her; that was what they’d expected him to do from the start.
She was torn between the desire to laugh and cry, her mouth twisting in a grimacing smile.
“Well, you seem pleased,” he said in a bitter voice, his lip curling, “to have finally whored yourself.”
Her fingers froze, and the room went out of focus.
“That was my job,” she said. “You had to have known it was my mission.”
“Of course,” he said tonelessly, looking around the room as if he couldn’t quite believe he was there. His arms were hanging limp at his sides. “I just—I never thought you’d actually succeed.”
There was a pause while Helena finished dressing.
“I wasn’t going to betray the Resistance,” he finally said. “I was never going to. You were already losing when I made the offer, and you’re probably still going to lose now, but I never cared. I just wanted to avenge my mother.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and looked down at the floor. “Unfortunately, by the time I had an opportunity to offer my services, she’d been dead too long and there was the coroner’s report saying she’d died of natural causes. What could I possibly have to avenge?” The bitterness in his voice and on his face was unadulterated. “I knew Crowther well enough to know he’d only consider me as valuable as the strings he could pull, so I thought I’d give him a dead end to dig himself into.”
Then his expression turned vicious and disdainful. “I tried to think what could I possibly want from the Eternal Flame. A pardon, because it was as ridiculous as it was obvious. But the Resistance was losing, everyone knew you were losing. I knew I’d need a contact, someone who could retrieve messages for me and come when called. I didn’t want Crowther choosing one of his rats, and I thought demanding someone specific would play into—what they expected of me.”
He swallowed. “But the Eternal Flame’s noble families are too precious, I had to want someone they’d consider disposable, and Crowther was standing there, waiting for an answer. I had to come up with something. I remembered your name, on the exam lists. When I said Helena Marino, Crowther got this look in his eyes, and I knew he’d taken the bait.”
He sneered. “As if I would betray the High Necromancer for you. I knew they’d send you with instructions to try to play up the obsession I was supposed to have—to ensure I wouldn’t get bored or change my mind—but I wasn’t worried. You were no one, just an awkward shadow behind Holdfast, following him like a dog. I thought it would be funny, watching you try.”
He looked away from her then, his face twisting. “But you—you—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. You outmanoeuvred me. Or maybe I’m just too tired and grieving to keep pushing you away. You won.” He met her eyes for a moment, his expression bitter and derisive. “Well done.”
Then he went and leaned against the wall, shutting his eyes.
Helena watched him sceptically. She wasn’t sure what angle he was trying to play with this confession.
What he said about her was believable enough. It aligned with their inconsistent interactions, but to claim that avenging his mother was his true impetus? Avenging her for what?
“You switched sides because your mother died of a heart attack?” She gave a loud scoff, standing up, hiding a wince. “Her death wasn’t anyone’s fault, and even if it was, did you murder Principate Apollo by ripping out his heart by accident? Ran off with it and joined the Undying for three years, saw her die, kept going, and then what? You got so melancholy because you can’t get drunk that you decided to turn spy?”
She was baiting him. She knew it would enrage him. She hoped that if she goaded him enough, he’d finally tell the truth.
His eyes snapped open. They’d turned silver, and two splotches of colour flushed in the hollows of his cheeks. “Fuck you.”
She flinched but spat back, “You already did.”
Her back felt bruised, the skin rubbed raw from the floor, and her lower abdomen ached as if she’d been punched low in the pelvis. She’d never felt so cold as she did then, standing there, but she was so angry, and finally it was all out in the open. No more of this game.
“You are a monster,” she said, crossing her arms. “Do you expect me to forget what you’ve done? To think you became so high-ranking because of that delightful personality of yours? You think invoking your mother’s death can erase all that? Everyone has lost someone, and most of them, more than you ever could. If you want to blame her death on Morrough, then maybe you shouldn’t have spent all that extra time supporting him after she was gone. After you started this war. And chose to become Undying.”
He was so angry that she could feel his resonance humming in the air, pushing at her skin. He would probably flay her if she didn’t use her own resonance to push back.
“Do you want to know why I’m like this?” he asked slowly, his teeth flashing like fangs. “You asked once if it was a punishment, and I was honest when I said it wasn’t. It was the bargain I made.”
He walked towards her, rage radiating off him until she could feel the room warp.
“After my father’s failure, after he revealed Morrough’s plans, do you think the High Necromancer was understanding?”
Helena stared at him, frozen in place.
“I was still at the Institute, finishing up the year. Who do you imagine was alone with him when word came that my father had been caught and confessed to treason?” Kaine’s expression contorted with grief. “He had my mother in a cage when I got home. He’d been torturing her for weeks.”
His breathing grew ragged and uneven. “You sold yourself to save the person you care about. Well, so did I. What was I supposed to do, fail to kill Principate Apollo knowing I wouldn’t be the one who’d suffer for it? This”—he gestured towards himself—“this was how I proved I’d be loyal, how I got him t—” His breath caught. “—to stop hurting her.”
