Page 16 of Alchemised
How many years of education did she complete at the Institute? Six.
Did she remember Principate Apollo Holdfast’s death? Yes, she had been in class with Luc.
When did she join the Resistance? When the guilds overthrew legitimate government and there was a Resistance to join.
Stroud had not liked that answer.
When did she become a member of the Order of the Eternal Flame? Helena tried to avoid answering, but Stroud had the book of members, with Helena’s vows and name all written in her blood.
“Did the Eternal Flame’s Council know you were a vivimancer when you joined?”
Helena shook her head.
Stroud sat glaring at her, waiting for a verbal response.
“I didn’t know I was a vivimancer,” Helena finally said. “And after—once everyone knew—Luc didn’t care. He didn’t think a person’s abilities changed who they were, only what they did with them.”
“How magnanimous.” Stroud’s voice was chilly. Her fingers were creasing the file in her hand. “A pity he didn’t also step down. A great many people might still be alive then.”
“His family was Called,” Helena said, despite knowing there was no point in arguing.
“Yes, by the sun,” Stroud said, scoffing, her voice growing sharp. “I know they didn’t teach modern astronomy at the Institute, but did you ever study the newer astrological theories? You’re from the trade islands after all; you must have been exposed to all kinds of ideas. Did you really believe that the sun looked at the earth and chose a favourite? That a drop of sunlight endowed Orion Holdfast with such godlike abilities that all his descendants deserved to rule Paladia like gods themselves?”
Helena set her jaw, but Stroud would not stop.
“According to your academic records, you were considered bright. Surely you didn’t swallow every story you were told about the Holdfasts. Look me in the eyes and tell me: Do you really think the Holdfasts had a right to rule?”
Stroud’s fingers dug beneath Helena’s chin, forcing her to look up.
She stared squarely into Stroud’s face, feeling the threat of her resonance. “Better them than people like you.”
Stroud’s hand dropped, her resonance vanishing before she slapped Helena across the face so hard her head cracked against the wall.
“If you’d joined our cause, you could have been great.” Stroud was breathing heavily as she stood over Helena. “You would have been somebody. You’re nothing now. You spent yourself on the wrong side. No one will ever remember you. You’re ash, like all the rest. And a traitor to your kind.”
Once she was alone, Helena cradled the swollen side of her face, head throbbing.
The Resistance had considered the war a holy war—a divine battle between good and evil, a testing of the Faith. But Helena’s motives had been more personal than that.
Luc didn’t need to be divine for her to want to save him. He could have been entirely ordinary, and she would have made all the same choices.
Was there something she could have done that could have changed things?
When she’d first immigrated to Paladia, she’d thought it was paradise. Etras did not have much metal as a natural resource. Resonance was rare. There were a few alchemy guilds, but they offered no formal training. Reaching Paladia had felt like coming home; like finding the place where she’d always been meant to be.
She’d been vaguely aware that there was a hierarchy among alchemists that divided even the student body, splitting the devout families in close alliance with the Holdfasts apart from the guilds, but she wasn’t familiar enough with the city-state’s politics to understand the intricacies of it.
All she knew was that some students wouldn’t speak to her, laughed when she asked questions, and mocked her accent and way of gesturing with her hands when she talked. Later she learned that those were the guild students and to be wary of them.
It was Luc who’d had to explain that the guild students thought Helena’s enrolment had taken a spot that should have gone to the guilds—though Luc assured her that they were wrong. His family’s Institute hadn’t been founded for guilds but for people like her, the ones who didn’t have opportunities to study alchemy on their own. The guild students didn’t even need to attend; their places and futures were all assured. For them, enrolment at the Institute was a status symbol. Once they had their certification, they’d all leave.
Helena was special, though. She’d be the one who’d stay beyond Year Five, who’d study more than just the principal foundations of alchemy. She’d ascend to the highest floors, make discoveries, and do the kind of work that would change the world. Her name remembered forever.
Why would his family want another guild student at their Institute when they could have someone like her?
Luc had always had a talent for making Helena feel like she was special rather than painfully out of place. She’d wanted to prove him right—that she was something, that she’d be worth believing in. His family wouldn’t be wrong about her.
She’d focused on her education and ignored the political hostilities around her.
