Page 266 of Alchemised
“You can’t rest yet, you have to protect Luc,” she said, and heard the words echo through him.
Soren knew her. She could feel it. The familiarity she represented. It was horrible, feeling this abomination of life in her arms. For all her efforts, this was a shadow. Soren was a puppet she’d slipped her hand inside.
After so many years of healing, necromancy was effortless. There was nothing to hurt. She simply told Soren’s body that it could not die. He would fight as he’d always fought. He would protect them, because he knew how to do that.
He stood and helped her up, weapon already in hand.
Muscle memory lingered, like a sleepwalker’s habits, even when the person was gone.
She could see herself through him. Her consciousness kept flickering back and forth along the connection forged between them. He turned then and saw Luc, and she felt the pull towards him. He looked for Lila next.
Luc saw Soren standing, and for an instant, relief flooded across his face. Then vanished.
Luc knew. In an instant, he somehow knew.
Still Soren started towards him. Helena stopped him.
“You need to protect Penny and Alister,” she said, both in her mind and aloud, pointing, turning his focus away from Luc. “Get us out.”
Soren turned and obeyed. Helena watched, her mind swimming from the disorienting secondary awareness in her mind. Her consciousness didn’t know where to go.
A chimaera leapt towards her face.
She dodged. A scythe flashed before her eyes.
Soren.
She blinked, trying to make out her own surroundings.
Soren killed the chimaera without breaking his stride as he reached Penny and Alister, shoving Penny to safety before turning back.
A blur from the left. Helena lurched sideways, trying to dodge, not sure if she was seeing her assailants or Soren’s. Her focus narrowed for an instant, bringing her surroundings back into the forefront of her own mind.
If she died, Soren would be gone, too. She had to stay alive until they got Luc out.
She tried to block out Soren, but he was rooted in her mind. She sensed something and turned an instant before it slammed into her. The air was knocked out of her lungs. She looked down, blinking through her fragmenting consciousness.
Soren. Helena. Soren.
There was a knife driven to the hilt into the right side of her chest.
Helena.
If she’d turned a split second later, it would have gone through her heart, but—as she squinted, struggling to focus—she didn’t think it had hit anything immediately vital.
Pain was what it took to drag Helena’s consciousness securely back into her own body.
She managed to slice off the hand of the necrothrall that had stabbed her before it could pull the knife out. Using her throbbing right hand, she held the knife in place, trying to keep it from being jostled as she stomped down on the inside of the necrothrall’s knee.
She stumbled away, gasping, the edge of the blade slicing the wound wider as she moved.
A chimaera’s fangs closed around Soren’s leg, tearing it open. He cut off its head, unmindful of the injury.
He was being torn apart. She could feel the injuries, even though pain didn’t register. She hadn’t brought that part of his brain back.
He didn’t stop fighting.
Get the knife out, close the wound. She went towards the far wall.
