Page 284 of Alchemised
His pupils had shrunken into sharp points of black, the denial stark.
“He was a lich,” she said as gently as she could. “Would he have wanted her to see him like that?”
He started to speak several times as if to protest but then stopped. “What happened?”
“Soren and Sebastian killed him. He was between us and Luc. We didn’t have time to find the talisman, though. You didn’t know he was Undying?”
He shook his head. “I thought he was arrested before all that began.” He drew a scoffing breath, his expression growing bitter. “So in the end, he didn’t even manage to die for her.”
“Your mother?”
He nodded slowly. “It was all because of her. I know what people said about them, about why he married her, but he—adored her. She was life itself to him. When I was born and she was sick, he grew obsessed with keeping her well, not allowing visitors or any potential disease near her. Morrough claimed he could cure her, that she’d live forever.”
“He must not know what happened after he was arrested,” Helena said.
There was a strained look in Kaine’s eyes. “Likely not.”
“If he knew, do you think—?”
Kaine shook his head. “I’m sure he’d blame me. He always did.” There was a pause, and he looked over at her. “Speaking of dying, or rather, not dying … would you mind telling me why I haven’t?”
Helena suddenly found the thread count of the sheets fascinating.
“It was a failed experiment. Bennet spent weeks trying to heal it, and everything he did made it worse. When it was finally deemed a failure, he tried to scrap my body, but the array was pulling so much energy from the talisman, he couldn’t touch it. He assumed that eventually the energy would run out, or my body would incinerate around it, so they sent me home, because they didn’t want the potential fallout to contaminate the new lab.
“Since my miraculous recovery, Bennet’s tried to repeat the experiment. Every subject has died, slowly and terribly, and Bennet cannot find any explanation for why I alone survived. You are the only person who has never questioned my survival, and I would like to know why.”
There was a long pause. Helena cleared her throat. “I had this amulet of the Holdfasts’. A holy relic, you could say. Ilva gave it to me when I became a healer, and it helped.”
“Helped?” The scepticism in his voice was heavy.
“I could—work longer.” She avoided his eyes. “I didn’t get tired or—burn out when I had it. When you were injured, you’d deteriorated so much that the array was using more energy and resources than you had. I thought since it had helped me maybe it would work for you, too, give you enough strength to recover.”
His eyebrows rose. “What kind of relic would have the power to do that?”
She coughed. She should probably lie, given that telling the truth was possibly treason.
But she couldn’t think of a lie to tell. She’d already committed treason anyway.
“The Stone of the Heavens,” she said. “I didn’t know that’s what it was, and it’s not—really what the stories said. It was something made by the Necromancer, but Orion ended up with it, and people just assumed it was heaven-sent.”
“And they gave it to you?” Kaine’s eyes were narrowed.
“Apparently, it—chose me. It doesn’t work for most people.”
Kaine had his hands on his hips. “And that’s how you healed me?”
She gave a tight nod. “That’s how I healed you.”
He was silent for a long time. She couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t tell if he believed her.
“Where is it now?”
“Gone,” she said, averting her eyes. “It’s gone now.”
He sighed. “Well, I suppose it makes sense they wouldn’t let you keep it, if I’m what you used it on.”
She forced a self-deprecating smile. It was probably best he thought that. “Ilva wasn’t pleased.”
