Page 83 of Alchemised
She didn’t struggle. Her mind still felt tenuous as spider silk. She was afraid that if she unravelled, Ferron would have free rein.
He didn’t try to push into the hidden spaces but simply settled himself into the landscape of her mind and stayed there. He blinked, and her eyes fluttered. Her left hand rose; she watched it open and close. Her consciousness was split between herself and him, but with every passing second, she felt more like him than she did herself. Slowly devoured.
She tasted blood.
It was streaming from her eyes and nose.
When it was over, she stayed limp where she was, head tilted back, gazing at the ceiling until the necrothralls came and picked her up, putting her to bed.
Because of her lack of resistance, she was only mildly feverish for a few days. It seemed she was the animancer after all.
The realisation lay like a stone on her chest. She’d been sure her memory loss had been part of the Resistance strategy, intended to protect some vital secret for Luc. That it was something grandly self-sacrificing that she had cooperated with, entrusting her mind and memories to the mysterious Elain Boyle.
Had it just been her, hiding herself all this time? Was that all it was in the end? Surely there was something, but nothing she remembered, none of her glimmers of returning memory, hinted at anything of importance.
Ferron was constantly busy, spending most of his time trying to hunt down the last members of the Eternal Flame. When she did happen to see him from the courtyard windows, he looked visibly ground down. Sometimes he came back covered in blood.
She couldn’t help but notice the strain around his eyes and the stiff way he often moved.
She began to suspect that Morrough was torturing him regularly.
Since Ferron couldn’t stay dead, Morrough got the pleasure of killing him over and over.
He wasn’t returning to the house pale with fury; he was in shock from torture. The symptoms showed more distinctly every time she caught sight of him. It was as though he were mentally eroding as the physical ramifications vanished.
She tried not to notice. When she couldn’t help it, she tried not to care.
He was trying to hunt down the Resistance. Every time he was tortured was a sign he had failed. Hadn’t she wanted him punished?
He’d chosen this, after all. Morrough was dying, and Ferron knew it, and yet he still chose to serve him, carrying out everything that Morrough now lacked the strength to do himself.
He deserved to suffer.
WHEN SHE FOUND SPOTS OF blood between her legs, she sat staring in total incomprehension until it dawned on her that she was menstruating. Even before the war, the stress of her scholarship had kept her irregular. It had stopped completely after the assassination.
She’d forgotten that it was something her body was supposed to do.
When she’d been sterilised, Matias had wanted her womb removed, but Ilva had insisted that the procedure be as non-invasive as possible. A ligature. Which meant she could still bleed.
She shoved a cloth between her legs, and when her lunch was brought, she had to ask the maid if she could have something for her monthlies. If it had happened sooner, she might have enjoyed thinking about Ferron’s discomfort at being forced to deal with the reality of a female prisoner, but now Ferron’s discomfort was something she tried not to think about.
Ten days after transference, when he came to her room to check her memories again, he seemed less on edge. When he encountered Helena’s reluctant but fixated concern over him, he broke the connection.
She blinked and found him staring down at her.
“Worrying about me?” His face twisted into a gloating smile. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
Her face burned. “Don’t take it as a compliment. I hate torture.”
“What a saint,” he said dryly, laying a hand across his chest. “I’m sure sweet Luc would be touched by your tender heart.”
“Don’t use his name,” she said sharply. “You were never his friend.”
She sat up even though her head was still swimming.
He leaned against the bedpost. “You know, I wonder sometimes who’s responsible for more Resistance deaths, Holdfast and his morals or me. What do you think?”
“It’s not the same.”
