Page 188 of Alchemised
Beginning on his left shoulder, she pressed two fingers very close to one of the incisions. He tensed, but it had been a long time now since he’d flinched at her touch.
The edges of the wound looked freshly cut. The effect of the lumithium was weaker because of the Abeyance.
Extrapolating heavily on the way he’d regenerated when he lost his arm, she believed her vivimancy could guide his regeneration back on track, but she had to proceed cautiously. Make a mistake and he might be stuck with it.
She applied a thick layer of topical opium to the area she wasn’t working on.
“Ready?”
He nodded.
She began with a small section where the titanium-lumithium alloy had been fused into the bone, regenerating enough tissue to close the incision over the metal. Not too much scar tissue, but not too little.
Once formed, the tissue stayed alive. Ferron’s regenerative abilities were finally strong enough to withstand the array’s energy.
She made him fully rotate, extend, arch, and stretch his shoulder. The other incisions began to bleed. Helena winced.
The new scar tissue pulled, threatening to tear. She tried altering the tissue composition to increase its elasticity, but the regeneration was stubborn.
She used a scalpel to cut it away, and as she’d feared, it began regenerating back. She had to use her own resonance to suppress his regeneration as she sliced the healed tissue open and started again.
Kaine said nothing, but his breathing was shallow, and his resonance hummed through the air.
When she finished with the first array point, she could no longer feel the lumithium there, as if he’d internalised it.
She completed a second one before Kaine finally broke.
“I need a minute.” His voice was shaking as he stood and walked over to the bar. He grabbed the closest bottle and drank straight out of it.
She wiped her forehead with a cloth, realising only then how hard her heart was pounding.
Kaine returned, gripping one bottle by the neck and two more laced in the fingers of his other hand, dropping onto the chair and pressing his forehead against the back of it.
He drank steadily through the rest of the night until there was an accumulation of bottles littered around him. It was enough alcohol to kill most people. Helena’s hands began to cramp. Every time she had to pause to massage them and force her fingers back into compliance, Kaine would go and retrieve another bottle.
When it was finally over, she wiped away the remaining blood and applied a copper-based ointment.
The scars were all an angry, agitated red, but every incision was finally closed.
“There.” She felt lightheaded, as if she were high in the mountains, the air turned thin.
Kaine said nothing, finishing the bottle in his hand.
She turned, wincing at the mess of bloodstained linen and all the dirty instruments. Even with the ports open, they were always short on bandages.
She wiped the tools clean and packed everything away. When she turned back, Kaine had stood. His shoulders were twisting and contorting as he moved. Small movements at first, but they progressed until his arms were overhead, his back arched like a strung bow. He gave the most indecent-sounding moan, his face slack with relief.
His arms dropped to his sides as he drew a deep breath, shoulders still rotating, giving a low shuddering sigh that Helena felt through her own nerves.
She snatched up her satchel, lightheaded with exhaustion and relief. “Well, I’ll be off now.”
He turned instantly. His eyes were dark, but there was that silvery sheen to them she’d noticed a few times before.
His movements were loose and languid, the way he used to move, except now he looked entirely different from the boy he’d been a few months ago. Not just because of the silver threading at his temples, or because pain had reset his expression into something much harder. He’d aged, his body seemingly lurching through time.
“Why so eager to be off?” he said.
She felt like a cornered animal. She hadn’t realised how accustomed she’d grown to his injury, to the energy he devoted to tolerating the pain.
