Page 318 of Alchemised
He looked up.
“The obsidian I told you about. I had some in my pocket when the necrothralls came. I think—I think I severed a reanimation with it.”
“Are you sure?”
She squinted, trying to remember more details, but all she recalled was the red-orange light, and the pain. “Not entirely, but I think we should test it again.”
“Well, don’t worry about that right now.” He snapped his book shut and came over to change the bandages.
She’d regained enough mobility that as he peeled off the gauze, she lifted her head, determined to see. Running like a ragged seam down the centre of her chest was a huge incision, sewn closed with black thread and bone wire. The skin was swollen, yellow, and white and pink.
Helena had seen more wounds than she could count, watched innumerable people grieve over the loss of who they’d been before and what their bodies had become. She knew all the things to say, the encouragement and reassurances, that it would be all right, that it would get better.
Staring at the wound, she forgot all of it.
“My gods,” she said, head dropping, her throat convulsing, too horrified to keep looking.
“It’ll heal. Give it time,” he said quietly as he checked for signs of infection.
She knew from treating Lila that she would scar. Even if she tried to heal herself afterwards, organised all the matrices, there was a limited time frame for preventing scars, and something about nullium seemed to have a mild keloid effect on the tissue.
She drew several sharp breaths.
She was lucky to be alive. A few scars were nothing compared with the injuries others in the Resistance would carry for life. She still had all her limbs, both eyes and ears. Even all her teeth.
She was very lucky by any metric. What did a scar matter? It would be fine.
She could feel Kaine watching her and forced herself to speak. “I think your scars are prettier than mine,” she finally said.
“I have a better healer.”
IT TOOK THREE WEEKS JUST for the nullium in Helena’s blood to reduce enough that Kaine could use resonance to monitor her healing, although actual transmutation was still far off.
Her own resonance was barely a hum in her veins.
Whenever Kaine was absent, Davies stayed with her. Helena’s head was finally clear enough to notice more of her surroundings.
The room was sterile. Almost bare. There was a bed, a towering wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. Falcon Matias had more indulgent quarters, and he was supposed to be an ascetic.
When she teased Kaine about it, he grimaced. “This is my room.”
Helena fell silent, looking around again, abashed. “Oh. I thought that a country house would have bigger rooms.”
He nodded. “There are larger ones. I moved in here because it was closer to my mother’s room, then never left.”
“I’m sorry I brought you back,” she said.
He shook his head. “You didn’t. I come back to check on the servants.”
She hesitated but then asked, “Are they all dead?”
He nodded.
“Why did you—?”
He looked away, his throat dipping as he rubbed his hands together. “It was just after. I don’t remember everything. I could feel them screaming inside me. I found their bodies piled up in a corner like discarded rags. They were still warm. I’d never—I didn’t even realise what I was doing. I was trying to put them back.”
“So they’re—them?”
