Page 397 of Alchemised
Flying at night as Lumithia’s crescent shrank out of sight was almost unimaginable. It would be black as pitch, the world an abyss beneath her. Her head felt light just thinking about it.
“I’ll take you as far as I can, and there will be a ship downriver that will sail to the coast. I’ll show you maps and the route you’ll take inland to find Lila. I can arrange transportation, but it would be safest if you travelled at least part of the way on foot, if you think you’d be able to manage the distance. Just before the Abeyance, you’ll go to the ports; there is passage booked and false identification papers waiting. You’ll take a ship to Etras. I’ve arranged a place there.”
Her heart stuttered, tripping over itself as she tried to think.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Kaine said, his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll arrange for both, and you can choose. I know it’ll be hard, but it will be worth it. Lila’s been waiting for you a long time.”
She nodded shakily.
Everything had to move fast. The Abeyance wouldn’t wait, and if there was a war about to break out between Paladia and the surrounding countries, Kaine did not want her there for it.
After all the years spent hoping that Novis or any of their neighbours might intervene on their behalf, they now acted at the worst possible moment.
“I have to go,” he said after a bit. “I’ll come see you when I can. Try to eat and rest as much as you can. Keep the doors barred. Fortunately, with Aurelia gone, the door is more secure. Crowther had no iron resonance to speak of, despite my father’s efforts to plumb some from the decrepit depths of his corpse. As long as the door’s locked, he can’t open it.”
He was rambling, because he was nervous; things were slipping out of his control. All his carefully laid plans destroyed by the very intervention the Resistance had been waiting for when annihilated.
SHE BARELY SAW KAINE AFTER that. For days, he was gone; she didn’t think he slept at all. She tried to do her part, to eat and perform callisthenic exercises inside her room to build up stamina and get a little stronger so that preparations were not so limited by her.
Atreus returned to Spirefell, apparently no worse off for having murdered Aurelia, assuming it had become known. He seemed to have run out of prisoners; instead he prowled around the house. She heard his footsteps in the hallway outside her door and spotted him entering and leaving the chantry several times.
When the windows rattled from the wind of Amaris’s wings, she knew Kaine had returned at least briefly. He was busy with more than merely preparations for her escape. He was the High Reeve; he’d be expected to coordinate the response to the attack.
She was surprised when only a few minutes later, the door opened and he walked in.
His eyes were so bright, they seemed to actually glow. He was the furthest from human he had ever appeared. He walked towards her as if he sensed but did not actually see her.
“Kaine?” she said, her heart in her throat.
He didn’t respond. The wrongness of whatever had happened to him was visceral. Cold swept through her. The instinct to run frayed her every nerve, but she went towards him.
She touched his face. “What happened?”
He blinked, and a little humanness seemed to seep into him. She held his face, tilting it down towards hers.
“Kaine?”
“I’ve never killed so many at once before …” he said softly.
“How many?”
His eyes flickered, darting as if trying to calculate the number. Then he shook his head.
“What happened?”
He was looking through her, as if he still wasn’t quite there.
“I was ordered to make a show of strength. A warning.” He swallowed. “There were rows and rows of prisoners. I don’t know where they got so many.”
As he spoke, his expression slowly thawed, growing younger and younger until he looked painfully boyish, his eyes huge. He was going into shock. He didn’t seem to be talking to Helena so much as trying to explain it to himself.
“I didn’t know there’d be so many,” he said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen until I was gone.”
She pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He felt cold, even though it was nearly the peak of summer, and his skin was clammy.
It seemed impossible that he could continue much longer. As if he were trying to outrun fate, but every time he managed to outpace it, Morrough demanded something else.
And she couldn’t do anything. The impotence burned inside her. “Have you seen Ivy? Has she said anything to you? Is she still trying? Maybe if you both—”
