Page 38 of Alchemised
She focused on the paper in her hand as she hurried towards the stairs.
The shadows loomed but Helena refused to let herself look at them, counting each step, hand pressed against the banister and then along the wall, focusing on the amber pools of light cast by the sconces, until she reached her room.
In her absence, it had been aired out. The bed stripped, linens changed. The air was almost as cold as it had been outside, but the windows were closed and locked again.
Helena was drenched and freezing but Ferron might realise he’d left the newspaper and come for it. She had no time to waste.
She huddled near the window where the light was strongest, her eyes drinking in every word, starting at the very top. NOVEMBRIS 1788.
She stared at the date in shock. That couldn’t be right. Her last memory with a clear date was the hearing about Lila Bayard resuming paladin duties and returning to combat early in 1786.
If the war had ended fourteen months ago, that would have been in late summer of 1787. Which meant that she had no memory of nearly nineteen months of the war. It blurred out of focus when she tried to think back, to remember anything more than the hospital shifts. She had no recollection of anything, not of conversation or the seasons, or Lumithia’s Ascendance and Abeyance, of anything but the endless loop of shift after shift in the hospital, like an eternal scream.
She squeezed her eyes shut, racking her brain. There must be something. She couldn’t have lost that much, but it was like trying to catch the wind with her fingers. A sharp pain splintered through her skull.
She blinked, vision flickering red as her eyes opened.
There was a newspaper in her hands.
She clutched it tightly. She had to read quickly before Ferron noticed she’d taken it. Her eyes raced to the first article.
The last fugitive of the extremist group calling themselves the Order of the Eternal Flame has been apprehended and faces interrogation. New Paladia’s Central office has confirmed the identity of Helena Marino, a foreign alchemy student from the southern islands of Etras. The Etrasian government denies any involvement in or support of the Eternal Flame’s terrorist activities. To protect the citizens of New Paladia from further violence, Marino has been imprisoned outside the city at Spirefell while her fate is decided.
Spirefell, the renowned Ferron estate, was built of iron by Urius Ferron. With a unique structure, built as a celebration of the family’s exceptional resonance, the house makes a secure location for dangerous prisoners.
The Ferrons, one of New Paladia’s oldest families, have a history in the region that predates the Holdfasts. They were frequent victims of the Eternal Flame’s persecution. Iron Guildmaster Atreus Ferron was arrested and executed for speaking against the Holdfasts’ oppressive regime, and his son, Kaine Ferron, was baselessly accused of assassinating Principate Apollo Holdfast. All charges against father and son were later dropped …
Ferron had been accused of killing the Principate? The assassination responsible for causing the war?
She stared at the words until they blurred.
She remembered Principate Apollo’s death. He was found brutally murdered in the Alchemy Institute’s commons, and an investigation had immediately been opened. She didn’t remember there being any conclusion. There’d been so much happening at the time: the funeral, the preparations for Luc to be crowned Principate. What should have been a joyous occasion was shrouded by grief and shock, Luc in denial even as his friends were swearing oaths to die protecting him. The ceremony was barely over before the sedition and the Undying, and the war that never seemed to end.
Had Ferron killed Principate Apollo? Surely not, he would have been only sixteen. Perhaps the claim had been fabricated to further portray the Ferron family as victims of the Holdfasts? That seemed more likely.
She read the rest of the article, hoping for more information but finding simply a reiteration of the Undying’s usual narrative about the war: that they had not started it; that in fact there had never been a “war” but instead civil unrest caused by a small group of religious extremists who refused to acknowledge the democratically elected Paladian Guild Assembly.
It made Luc out to be a power-hungry monster who’d tried to burn down the entire city rather than let anyone else have it.
Luc, who’d gone up onto the roof of the Alchemy Tower the night before becoming Principate, standing alone on the very edge.
Helena had followed him and stood as close as she dared, promising him that she would do anything for him if he would just step back and take her hand.
He hadn’t listened, not until she swore that if he jumped, then she would, too. He’d stepped back to save her.
They’d sat together there on the roof until sunrise. She’d gripped his hand and talked the whole night, telling him about Etras, the cliffs, and the little villages with the donkeys pulling painted carts, the olives, all the farms, and the sea on summer days. They’d go there someday, she told him. Once everything was better, she’d take him and he’d see how beautiful it was.
Luc had never wanted to be Principate. If there had been anyone else, he would have given it up in a heartbeat.
Helena turned the page of the newspaper, blinking hard.
A column within listed executions performed by the High Reeve the previous week. There was a picture of wretched-looking men and women on their knees on a platform. Dressed all in black, with an intricate helmet obscuring his face and hair, stood Ferron, one pale hand outstretched.
She could tell it was Ferron just by his posture and the familiar tilt of his long fingers, but the article only referred to him as the High Reeve.
There was no reference anywhere to Kaine Ferron being the High Reeve.
Was that a secret?
