Page 108 of Alchemised
But it wasn’t kindness.
He wasn’t kind; he simply wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t as monstrous as he could be.
And for Helena’s fracturing mind, an absence of cruelty was sufficient solace. For her starved heart, it was enough.
She fled to her room, tearing off the ruined dress in the damningly bright silver light, pulling on new clothes as if they could hide what she’d done.
She was better than this. She clutched at her chest, nails biting into her skin as if she could claw the resolve into herself.
“I’m so—sorry, Luc.” Her voice was strangled with guilt.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
She wasn’t going to let her mind trick her into wanting the attention of the person responsible for starting the war. His harm was incalculable. Everything. All of it. It was all his fault, but she could feel herself eroding, desperate to have something in her life that was not pain. That was not dead and gone.
But she couldn’t.
She could bear the horror of being betrayed by her body, but she wouldn’t let herself be betrayed by her mind.
She’d sooner break it.
She stared out the window at the enclosed courtyard, her inescapable prison, pressing her trembling hand against the cool glass and iron lattice, reaching for the power that was no longer there. There was nothing.
It was gone, like everything else.
She gave a broken, despairing sob and then drew her head back and smashed it against the glass and iron as hard as she could.
She did it again.
And again.
There was blood streaming into her eyes, but she kept going.
An arm closed around her waist, and a hand clamped over both wrists as she was dragged away from the window. A wash of red ran down the glass.
She fought, trying to twist her hands free, ignoring the pain that shot through them, digging her toes into the iron bars in the floor trying to lunge free.
“Don’t—don’t.” Ferron’s voice was in her ear.
Her vision had gone red as blood flooded down her face, and she was screaming. All the guilt and anguish that she had pressed down swallowed her whole. She screamed as if she could shatter the world with it.
She wanted to be done.
She couldn’t betray everyone. Luc. Lila. Soren. Matron Pace. Her father …
“I can’t—” She strained again to get free, clawing empty air as she grasped towards the window.
His hand around her wrists let go, and then his palm was pressed against her forehead.
“No—!”
It was too late. His resonance poured through her. It was as if she were a tapestry. He found the threads of emotion and ripped them out.
He didn’t sedate or paralyse her. It was worse, more violating than that. He took away all the things she felt, leaving her mind scrambling, trying to reconcile the dissonance.
It was like the tablets, except he only used his resonance to keep her there for as long as it took, until her body finally lost all the drive of those now vanished emotions.
The fight drained out of her. She hung limp against him. There was blood streaming down her face, dripping from her chin. His hand was stained with it when it fell away. He used just the tips of his fingers to heal the splits and gouges across her forehead. She could feel his resonance in her skull.
