Page 428 of Alchemised
IN LILA’S ABSENCE, POL AND Enid grew intensely attached to each other, to the point that Helena and Kaine began to watch them with worry.
“She’s not going to handle it,” Helena said as they watched Enid and Pol run from tide pool to tide pool. “She’s so much like us. I don’t know if it’ll be better or worse to begin preparing her for it.”
Kaine nodded as the children teased a large crab which then chased after them, scuttling sideways. Enid and Pol both tripped, shrieking with laughter as they tried to drag each other away from the pursuing claws, and Cobalt barked wildly.
Word had come that Lila was leading reconstruction efforts to have the Alchemy Institute reopened. There would be a new Tower, a new school, but not all Northern alchemy would be funnelled through the narrow admissions rate of the Institute. Generations of knowledge and alchemy had been destroyed; the continent was in desperate need of more alchemists, as many as could be trained. Alchemy certification would no longer be exclusive to Institute students but overseen by external bodies and given to anyone who could pass the necessary resonance tests and exams.
The Institute would return to its original purpose of new heights and advancements in alchemy.
After fierce debate, vivimancy was added as a field of alchemical study at the Institute. Lila had insisted on it. Healers had been vital to the Eternal Flame during the war. The potential of the resonance was being villainised and wasted by superstitious paranoia; it should not be an ability exclusive to those willing to abuse it. Paladia’s discriminatory treatment of vivimancers had played a role in how easily the Undying had recruited them. Paladia had to evolve.
It took a year and a half, but finally Lila returned, but she had not come to stay. She was taking Pol home.
Helena tried to change her mind, but Lila would not be moved. Luc’s son had to go to Paladia and see what his family had built.
The only consolation to Helena was that Pol would never be the Principate, for there would be no more Principate.
The world had seen Lucien Holdfast grovel at Morrough’s feet and beg for immortality before his execution. Even with claims that perhaps he’d been coerced, promised leniency for the rest of the Eternal Flame, the mythos surrounding the Holdfasts and the idea of a lineage of divinity had been irrevocably shattered.
Pol would go to Paladia as a Holdfast, and he and his mother would rebuild what had been dearest to his family’s heart. The Alchemy Institute.
“Come back with me, Helena,” Lila said as Kaine took the children on a walk along the cliffs. “You can run the vivimancy department; think of what a difference you could make. You’d be establishing a whole new formalised field of alchemy. You’d be perfect for it.”
“How would that work?” Helena asked. She could tell that reality was setting in for Lila, the realisation of all the politics and pressure that were the price of her choices.
“Do I leave Enid here? Or take her with me while I try to clear Kaine’s name?”
Lila looked away, staring out at the sea. “You can’t clear his name. It’ll never happen. I know you think he’s a tragic hero with no choice, but he’s done the most terrible things. People talk about Morrough, make jokes about him, but do you know who no one ever jokes about? The High Reeve. People look sick at the mere mention of him. His signatures and seal are everywhere. He was involved in everything. There was nothing that happened in that regime that Kaine didn’t know about.”
Helena’s throat tightened. “Well, that’s the thing about being a spy and destabilising a regime. You have to know about things. How else did you expect him to do it?”
Lila’s shoulders drooped. Helena understood why Lila did not want to be a sole survivor, the lonely hero. In Paladia, she was still surrounded by vultures, watching her, waiting for any mistake, some means to tear her apart, just as they had when she was a paladin.
Now Pol would be in their clutches, but even knowing that, Lila couldn’t leave her family, country, or legacy. It was not in her nature to give up a fight.
“I’m not going to leave him,” Helena said after a pause. “There’s no version of me that survived the war without Kaine. I was loyal to Luc, and I know you want Paladia to remember him, but that country killed him, as much as Morrough did. I can’t go back to it.”
Lila nodded, starting to turn, but then stopped.
“I know I said I wouldn’t say anything else, but I have to say this before I go and leave you here.” Lila’s throat dipped, her scar growing stark on her face the way it did when she was upset. “You’re all I have left besides Pol. I know you love Kaine, and he loves you, I don’t deny that. But I don’t think you realise how inhumanly cold he is to anyone who isn’t you or E. The rest of the world could burn and he wouldn’t care. I don’t think he’d even notice. Is this really what you want?”
“I know what he’s like,” Helena said sharply. “It’s the reason you and I are alive.”
Frustration lit Lila’s face, and she started to open her mouth.
“When you killed Morrough, what did you think about?” Helena asked.
Lila’s mouth snapped shut, and she looked away, her face growing anguished. “Luc. I was thinking of everything he did to Luc.”
Helena stared down at her left hand. The concealment on the ring had faded with time, but now the brace on her hand nearly covered it.
“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”
WHEN ENID REALISED THAT LILA was taking Pol away, she was initially uncomprehending and then hysterical.
“No! No, you can’t! He’s mine. He’s my best friend. You can’t take him away!”
She refused to be comforted by Kaine or Helena. She clung to Pol, not letting go. Pol was clearly conflicted, but he didn’t let go of Lila’s hand for even a second.
