Page 14 of Alchemised
The mood in the room suddenly shifted, growing electrified.
“That would be animancy, not healing,” Stroud said with slow incredulity.
“I do not know, the words were—different,” Shiseo said. “The mind, I was told, resisted another’s presence, but this healer believed that with many small treatments, it was possible. Like learning to tolerate a poison.”
“Mithridatism,” Morrough said slowly. He straightened into his full, tremendous height. “Soul mithridatism …”
He advanced on Shiseo as if intending to rip the answers out of him. “The Eternal Flame found a way to make living subjects survive soul transference? And you never thought to mention this?”
Helena thought she was about to watch another rib cage be torn open.
Shiseo remained eerily calm and bowed again. “I apologise. They asked me many questions. It is hard to remember.”
Morrough seemed appeased by this excuse and turned back, considering Helena once more as if still inclined to vivisect her in search of answers.
“If the Eternal Flame did have an animancer who developed a temporary transference method … could that explain this form of memory loss? If another person could enter someone’s mind like that, they might be able to alter thoughts and memories, just as we see here. It would explain everything,” Stroud asked, gesturing at Helena. “And … I must say it seems more likely than far-fetched notions of self-transmutation.”
“If the Eternal Flame discovered a viable method of transference, that has more significance than mere memory loss,” Morrough said. Helena could feel his resonance in her marrow, as if it were burrowing into her flesh, attempting to peel her apart, layer by layer.
He looked towards Stroud. “Record every detail Shiseo remembers of this procedure before his departure east. We will begin testing this gradual transference method. I want it perfected. If it is possible, we’ll use it to remove the transmutation on her and see what the Eternal Flame was so desperate to hide from me.”
Morrough drew a breath that rattled as he turned away.
“Your Eminence,” Stroud said, her voice nervous. “This transference procedure you wish to begin testing, it would require an animancer, I believe?” She gave a weak cough. “I’m sure Bennet would have been thrilled by the opportunity, but unfortunately souls are not within my resonance repertoire, and there’s only one other. Would this be something that you and I—” Her voice lifted hopefully.
“Let the High Reeve manage it.”
Stroud’s face fell. “But I found h—”
“I have other work for you.”
Stroud straightened but still looked disappointed.
“The High Reeve was Bennet’s favourite after all.” Morrough waved a dismissive hand as he vanished into the shadows. “It’s time he’s given more to do than hunting.”
CHAPTER 3
WHEN HELENA WAS ROLLED BACK INTO THE lift at Central, she counted the floors of the Tower as they passed.
The Alchemy Tower had been an architectural wonder for centuries. It was only five storeys when initially constructed as a memorial to the first Necromancy War. Back then, alchemical resonance was an arcane ability, regarded as magic. Its practitioners, figures cloaked in myth and mystery, like Cetus, the first Northern alchemist.
The Holdfasts and the Institute had changed that, establishing alchemy as the Noble Science, something to be studied and mastered. When the Alchemy Institute threatened to outgrow the Tower, it was raised with alchemically wrought pulley systems to add additional storeys to the base. It had stood as the tallest building on the Northern continent for almost two centuries, growing ever taller as the city around it expanded and alchemists flocked through its gates.
The study of Northern Alchemy itself was entwined with the Tower structure. The lowest five levels with the largest lecture halls were the “foundations,” filled with initiates still discovering their resonance and mastering basic transmutation principles. Annual exams were required to ascend. After five years, most students would depart with their certification to join the guilds, with only qualifying undergraduates ascending to the next tier in the narrowing Tower to study more technical fields and subjects. Even fewer would rise past the graduate and research floors to achieve the rank of grandmaster.
The lift stopped somewhere amid the former research floors.
Helena strained her eyes, forced to peer through an aura of pain steadily fogging her vision. The walls blurred, her eyes failing to focus until she was rolled to a stop in the centre of a sterile room.
It had probably been a private laboratory once.
The straps pinning her in place were unfastened, and Stroud paused, checking Helena’s wrists.
The tubes running between her ulna and radius were nauseating, evoking a deep sense of wrongness. She couldn’t even twitch her fingers without feeling the way her muscles, tendons, veins, and nerves in that narrow space were all forced to accommodate the nullification driven through her.
“Very good,” Stroud said to herself before she turned to leave. Just before the door shut, Helena heard her say, “No one enters this room without my approval.”
There was a heavy click and the grind of a lock, and Helena was left alone.
