Page 340 of Alchemised
Sebastian had gone very still.
Luc shook his head. “Can’t say I do.”
He said it calmly, but there was a growing pressure in the air.
Helena found the cracks in Sebastian’s rib. “You surrendered yourself to save Lila. You knew it would cost everything, but you did it anyway. You told me that you chose her as your paladin because you wanted her by your side, so you’d have a chance of protecting her, even though you knew you weren’t supposed to. I know how it killed you every time she got hurt. You didn’t even want me to clear her for combat again after she lost her leg.” She kept looking for any glimmer of the person she knew. “Now she’s the mother of your child, and instead of getting her to safety, you’ve kept her in isolation for months. And right this minute, you have every reason to think she’s been captured, that she’d be one of the first people they’d kill, but instead of running to her, you’re here with me. Luc would never do that.”
“Luc, what have you done?” Sebastian was staring at him in horror.
Helena asked, “Who are you?”
It was like watching a curtain being pulled back.
One moment, the expression and characteristics were still there, and then Luc sighed and seemed to vanish beneath his own skin.
“Well.” He grinned at them both, a smile like a slit throat. “I thought you’d realise months ago, but you’re all such fools when it comes to the Holdfasts.”
Sebastian trembled beneath Helena’s fingers as they both stared at this thing standing in front of them.
Helena’s hand slipped to her back. “Who are you?” she asked again.
“I’ve gone by so many names, I don’t even remember them all,” said the person in Luc’s body. “Once, long ago, my brother called me Cetus.”
Helena’s eyes widened.
“Cetus?” she said.
He inclined his head, but she shook hers.
That would make him older than Paladia, older than the Holdfasts, older than the first Necromancy War. No one could live that long. Cetus was an invention, centuries of alchemists pseudonymously writing under one name. Not a person.
It had to be a lie, an attempt to distract her.
“I checked Luc,” Helena said, trying to keep her voice steady. “There was no talisman. How is this possible?”
“Cetus” tilted his head to one side so that Luc’s neck popped, as if Luc’s body were a suit of armour that didn’t fit properly.
“My brother and I were born entwined. We entered the world as one when we slid from our mother’s womb. We’d sucked her dry from within, and the fires of her pyre licked across our skin, branding us from birth. Cursed children, they called us, when they called us anything at all. Our shared blood has endured for centuries and now we’re one again, as we always should have been.” He gestured down at himself.
“You’re—related to Luc?” Helena said in disbelief.
The smile split Luc’s face again.
“You should have seen Orion. He had such a way about him. People worshipped the ground he walked on. He could charm with a look. He found us sponsors, lodging, funds so I could do the Great Work and he could find audiences to adore him. He would do anything for adoration, and I taught him the tricks to do it. Gold and fire, and he thought that should be enough for us; we could buy ourselves a kingdom.” Cetus looked scornful. “But I had greater aspirations. Kings and kingdoms rise and fall. We were made for eternity, my brother and I, we were gods.
“I lacked my brother’s natural charm, but I’m a fair actor. Orion drew so much attention, most overlooked me, so I pretended to be Orion, coaxed just a few of his followers into cooperation. I needed trust, the kind that he earned so easily. It was necessary for my work, and he had always benefitted most, but when Orion learned what I’d done, the source of this new power, he called me a monster and left me. I knew he’d come back, once I discovered the true secrets of immortality. When he realised that humans were mere puppets and saw what I could offer, he would beg for me to take him back.”
“You were the Necromancer,” Helena said, realising. “The one who built the cult in Rivertide. After you made that Stone, you called Orion here, but when he saw what you’d done, he tried to kill you.”
Rage flashed across Cetus’s face. “His mind was poisoned by those paladins of his. If he’d come alone, he would have seen reason—”
“Why did you come back now?” Helena asked. “You disappeared for half a millennium. The Holdfasts don’t want anything from you. Why are you helping Morrough?”
She studied Luc, or what was left of him. Gaunt, sweated down to nearly bone. He was dying; it was just a slower death than what she’d witnessed in the field hospital.
Luc laughed. It was the timbre and note she’d heard a thousand times over the years, but the malice and mockery in it were all new. “I am Morrough.”
Sebastian shot to his feet, but before he had even drawn a weapon, Luc had his sword out and stopped him, tsking.
