Page 180 of Alchemised
She gripped the glass, pouring herself a bit more.
“I think that’s enough,” Ferron said behind her. “I don’t believe your liver regenerates.”
She’d only intended to add a little, but at those words she upended the bottle, pouring all the rest into her glass. It sloshed over the side, spilling onto the rug.
“Fuck off,” she said.
“I didn’t know you could swear.” He sounded amused.
Her jaw clenched, and she turned and told him to fuck off in three more languages.
He arched an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to take you more seriously now?”
“I hate you.”
He gave a strained laugh. “I am aware.”
She looked down at the drink. She wanted to leave—she was tired, jittery, and knocked completely off kilter—but the door was closed again. Ferron clearly intended to keep her. She went over and curled up at the end of the sofa, as far from him as she could get.
“I hate you,” she said again.
“I hate you, too.”
The alcohol had set her tongue loose. “This war is your fault. Everyone who’s died. It’s on your head. And now, because of you, even when it’s over, I’ll still have nothing.”
“Am I supposed to care? Do you think that ruining your life is the worst thing I’ve ever done?”
She looked away.
“When did you find out you were a vivimancer?” he asked.
She was not drunk enough for that conversation. She gulped more of her drink. She was going to have the most blistering hangover tomorrow.
“I should’ve wondered that sooner, shouldn’t I?”
She said nothing so he kept talking.
“Vivimancy is often a late-onset ability. Mid to late adulthood. Young people tend to manifest it as a reaction to a traumatic event. You weren’t surprised at what you did to those thralls, which tells me that wasn’t the first time you’ve done that. So what did it? What happened to set you off like a bomb?”
Helena tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling. Everything inside her went soft when she was this drunk.
“We thought at the beginning that the usual rules of war would apply. We set up field hospitals so that people wouldn’t have to travel through combat zones to reach a hospital.”
“The massacres.”
She nodded.
The hospital massacres had been the first major atrocity in the war. Apollo’s assassination had been devastating, but the massacres were when it all became irrevocably real.
The Undying followed no rules. It was not an “honourable” war. Morrough wanted people to be afraid or dead.
The Guild Assembly defended the attacks, saying that the hospitals were run by the Eternal Flame as covers for military bases, and the surrounding countries swallowed the lie, because it was easier than involving themselves in Paladia’s conflict.
“My father was a Khemish surgeon. Here in Paladia, manual surgery is considered antiquated, so he didn’t have much luck getting a job.” Helena swallowed hard, staring across the room. “When the war started, he wanted to go back to Etras, but I’d promised Luc that I’d stay. When I wouldn’t go, he didn’t, either. The Resistance was setting up the field hospitals. It was my idea—him working there. I thought he’d be safe, and if the people saw how talented he was, he’d have opportunities—afterwards.”
She gulped more from her drink. The room was swaying.
“I was going to be a combat medic, so I’d volunteer at the hospital while we were training for dispatch. That day—we thought it was poison. All these people came in with fevers. We couldn’t bring them down. One of them, he kept getting hotter and hotter, screaming, ‘Get him out’—and he got violent. My father sent me to look for someone, and the patient was dead when I got back. They were trying to find a cause of death, and the patient suddenly sat up.” She hiccoughed. “We knew about the Undying regenerating, but we didn’t know about the liches then.”
