Page 37 of Alchemised
Finally, she turned back to the house in despair.
Everywhere she looked was grey: the dead grass and leafless, skeletal trees, the dark house with its black vines and spires, even the washed-out slope of the mountains, white peaks shrouded by the mist of an overcast sky.
It was as if all colour had been leached from the world. Except her. She stood there in blood red, stark against the monochrome.
The wind drove the rain into her, striking like droplets of ice, making her shudder. She was drenched through. Her hands were turning white, the tips of her fingers aching with every gust of wind. The metal from the manacles sent a chill radiating into her bones.
She pressed her fingers over her eyes, trying to think. What could she do? Surely there was something.
No. Her plan remained the same. Die, by Ferron’s hand or her own.
The rain was streaming through her hair and down her face as she forced herself to walk back towards the house. There were two necrothralls stationed outside, at the top of the stairs leading to the main wing. She recognised them from Central. Weathering outside, they were so decrepit that they almost blended in with the stones, but both watched as she neared Ferron.
Ferron glanced up, his eyes hard. “You haven’t been out long enough. Keep walking.”
She slunk back into the courtyard. There were a few trees in the centre that hid her from view as she huddled in the cloistered walkway across the courtyard, trying to warm herself. She could see her cloak lying in the gravel, soaked with rain. She wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to conserve body heat.
Gradually the shivering stopped. Another gust of wind tore through her. She felt thin as paper, so tired she could fall asleep out there.
Which might indicate hypothermia …
If she fell asleep, her organs would begin to shut down, and she’d die. She’d read it was a gentle way to go. She let herself sink into the oblivion until everything grew comfortingly vague.
“Creative.” Ferron’s voice was colder than the wind. Fingers gripped her arm, and heat surged through her, her heart suddenly racing, hot blood pulsing through her body.
She gave a startled gasp, wrenching herself away from him, but it was too late.
He glared at her. “Get up.”
She pushed herself awkwardly to her feet, wrists twinging. She was still blue with cold, limbs stiff with chill, but now too warm to die.
“Don’t make me drag you,” he said through clenched teeth as he turned and walked away.
She followed him sullenly. There was a servant waiting at the door. The third she’d seen. Dead like all the rest. This one was younger, uniformed as a housemaid. She was holding a brush and cloth. Helena tried to slink past but found herself trapped in place.
“Aurelia will throw a fit if you track mud into her house. Sit.”
“I can clean myself,” Helena said stiffly.
“I didn’t ask,” Ferron said. His resonance twanged through her nerves, and Helena’s knees gave out, dropping her onto a chair. The maid knelt and began cleaning Helena’s wet slippers while Helena sat rigidly, torn between horrified fascination and shame.
The Faith said that a soul and body remained joined together as one until cremation. It was only when fire consumed the flesh that the ethereal soul was untethered from the crude earthly form. A person who had lived devoutly and without vice would release a pure soul that could ascend to the highest of the heavenly realms.
If a body was not burned, the soul was left trapped, unable to ascend and in danger of becoming tainted by the body’s putrefaction. Left too long, the impurity of the body could metamorphise the soul into maggots and insects, plagues, and other grotesque forms of evil, doomed to sink beneath the surface of the earth to be consumed forever in the dark wet fire of the Abyss.
Reanimation risked that metamorphosis. Tethering both body and soul to a necromancer meant that even the purest souls could become too corrupted to ever ascend unless they were freed with sacred fire.
Helena couldn’t help but peer into the maid’s face, looking for any sign that there might be a soul still inside, slowly decaying, trapped in a state of neither life nor death. The maid’s gaze was empty. If there was any trace of her soul, it was smothered beneath Ferron’s will.
She looked up at him. “You’re a monster.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”
CHAPTER 6
FERRON LEFT AS THE MAID FINISHED WITH Helena’s slippers, and Helena immediately stood, refusing to let the corpse touch her further.
The maid headed inside. The instant her back was turned, Helena snatched up Ferron’s discarded newspaper, hiding it behind her back as she drew a deep breath and stepped inside.
