Page 370 of Alchemised
She sat in bed, watching him stare out the window. It was night and there was nothing to see; he simply didn’t want to look at her. She knew he’d leave in a moment, if she didn’t say something.
“How—have you been?” she finally asked in desperation, then winced because it was a stupid question.
“Fine,” he said.
She blinked down at her lap. “You’re married.”
He went rigid at that, and she watched him inhale. “Yes, to Aurelia Ingram.”
She nodded. She didn’t know why it mattered, given everything else. She’d never at any point imagined Kaine marrying her. Yet her mind couldn’t move away from the detail. He had a wife now. Which made her—
She wasn’t sure what she was. What she’d ever been.
“Morrough ordered it,” he said, even though she hadn’t said anything else. “The Guild Assembly wanted a high-profile event, proof that things were back to normal. I didn’t have any choice.”
She nodded again wordlessly.
“I—” He looked towards her and started to speak again but then stopped.
The space between them was like a chasm filled with every sin they’d ever committed against each other, but even from that distance, she could feel his anger.
No matter what he said, she knew he was angry at her.
“You’re able to travel now?” she asked. “You said you went to Hevgoss lots of times.”
“Yes.”
She twisted the linen hem of the sheet between her fingers. “Then … after things here are done, will you—will you come south, too?”
“Lila has a rather abiding hatred for me.”
Helena kept waiting for an answer. We’re supposed to run away together. You promised.
He glanced back out into the courtyard. “With luck, I won’t be in Paladia for long afterwards.”
“So you’ll come—eventually?” Her voice was hopeful.
It felt impossible for things to ever be repaired within the suffocating confines of Spirefell, but if they went somewhere far away, maybe it could be done. They’d found each other once, after all. With time, they could do it again.
His eyes glittered for a moment, and she saw the briefest curve of his lips as he quietly said, “If that’s what you want.”
It felt like a lie.
CHAPTER 67
Maius 1789
TIME DID NOT HEAL ALL WOUNDS, BUT it did make a difference for Helena’s mind. With each day, her memories seemed to settle, falling into a semblance of order.
She gradually remembered tricking Kaine and finally understood why he’d been so deeply paranoid from the moment of her arrival. Why he had checked her mind, wanting to know even her most inconsequential occupations.
He’d underestimated her once; now he would never trust her again. He was still lying to her.
She’d suspected, but it was difficult to rely on her judgement or interpretation of anything. Lacunae were scattered across her consciousness. Her thoughts still compulsively turned away from their conclusions, and her mind was habitual in its tendency to overlook what was missing. But as time passed, she grew certain of his deceit.
He was managing her, “maintaining her environment,” and trying to trick her even now. What the deceit was, she wasn’t sure. She mulled over it, trying to sense the holes in the carefully crafted narrative he’d begun feeding her from the moment she’d regained consciousness. She needed more perspective, a stronger sense of what was real and what was not.
She went out into the hallway, staring down the passages. It used to terrify her, the hallways, the house, the ghastly sense of death and mourning that permeated it.
