Page 406 of Alchemised
“What happened? What did he do to you?” Kaine’s hands were shaking so hard, he couldn’t form a stable resonance channel.
Something huge and black suddenly closed in on her, blotting out the sky until Kaine snapped an order and Amaris backed away.
Helena couldn’t manage words. Her lungs kept spasming for air, and everything was swimming. Breathing made her want to scream from pain. Kaine kept asking questions, but her mind struggled to focus.
Atreus came staggering out into the courtyard. His face was streaked with smoke, and his expression alight with rage.
At the sight of him, Helena clutched at Kaine’s arm. “He knows about your mother. I’m sorry. I told him.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said as he stood.
Black smoke was filling the courtyard as if the house were a smouldering corpse.
“Why didn’t you tell me what happened to your mother?” Atreus asked, his voice a low snarl.
Kaine faced him, his shoulders stiff. “What difference would it have made?”
Atreus lunged at Kaine. “You should have told me. She was mine!”
Kaine sidestepped, but not as easily as he ordinarily would have. The movement was stiff, his fingers spasming unnaturally. Helena caught sight of his face. His eyes were aglow.
“Yes, and what a terrible curse for her that was. You told Morrough, after all. You never cared what rumours they spun in the city, but you told him about her, that she was everything to you, that you’d do anything for her. She was your proof of how loyal you’d be to the cause.” Kaine’s voice was filled with fury. “Do you think he cared how long it took for torture to break you? No. All that mattered was that you broke, and she was right there. Your most treasured possession. You loved her right into her grave.”
Atreus’s long, thin, spider-like fingers curled, ignition rings gleaming on his hands.
Kaine laughed bitterly. “They must have found you terribly amusing when they brought you back and you stayed loyal. And you called me the dog.”
Atreus’s grey skin purpled with rage. “You should have told me.”
“Why? What would it have done if I had? What grand vengeance would you have exacted that I should have risked my work to tell you?”
“What work is that? Crawling, snivelling between the legs of Holdfast’s pet whore?” Atreus sneered at his son. His rings flashed against each other.
Kaine’s resonance split the air. The spark of fire hung in place as Atreus flew in one direction, and his ignition rings were ripped into another. Atreus hit the gravel, skidding several feet. The flames vanished. When he lifted his head, purple blood seeped from gouges down one side of his face.
“Oh dear,” Kaine said, standing over him, pure malice in every word. “Seems you’ve lost your fire again, Father.”
CHAPTER 74
Julius 1789
THE WROUGHT IRON THAT FILIGREED THE HOUSE unfurled like serpents and wound around Atreus, pinning him like an insect. He’d snap all the bones in his body long before he’d escape.
Kaine went back to Helena. His hand trembled as he touched her face. “How badly did he—”
“Just—just my back, and it’s not—too deep. The nerves are still intact.” Which was a good thing, but it was also why the pain was excruciating. She sat, leaning on her knees as she felt his resonance sweep along her back, numbing the searing pain.
“I just need to catch my breath,” she said, but she was shaking uncontrollably.
“It’s almost over now. Once you’re healed, you’re going to go on Amaris. Do you think you can?”
She wasn’t sure if she could even stay conscious much longer, but she couldn’t say no to him.
“Is that what this was for?” Atreus’s furious voice broke in from where he lay contorted on the ground. “All this because you’re trying to save her?”
Helena thought Kaine would ignore his father, but he looked at him. “It seems I am cursed to love as you do.”
“After he has killed you, Morrough will have her hunted to the ends of the earth. There is nowhere she can hide. You’re wasting yourself for nothing.”
