Page 70 of Alchemised
Helena looked sharply at Lila, but Lila was unfastening a buckle and didn’t meet her stare.
“No. I’m fine. The trainees are because Matias hopes to get rid of me.”
“Oh, good. I mean, not good, but that makes sense,” Lila said, and cleared her throat. “I can see why you’re not thrilled about them, then.”
Helena forced a laugh.
“You know, you can talk about—anything with me, if you want.” Lila looked over at her.
“No.” Helena shook her head. “I don’t need to talk. There’s—no point in talking, and as I have now been reminded publicly, I’m not a fighter. I don’t know anything about what war really is. So—what would I even have to say?”
Lila’s prosthetic leg clicked as she shifted and then said, “I think the hospital’s worse than the battlefield.”
Helena went very still.
“I realised it when I was in there for my leg.” Lila’s gaze was faraway, eyebrows furrowing. “At the front—everything’s so focused, you know. The rules are simple. We win some. We lose some. You get hit sometimes. You hit back. You get days to recover if it’s bad. But—” She looked down, her fingers tapping absently along the place where her prosthetic was joined to her thigh. “—in the hospital, every battle looks like losing. I can’t imagine what that’s like.” She looked at Helena. “All you see in there is the worst of it.”
Helena said nothing.
Lila sighed and unclasped more pieces of her armour, leaving them all over Helena’s bed. “When Soren told me what you said—I don’t agree, but I get it.”
Lila nudged her with her elbow and stood. “Even if the trainees are just because of Matias meddling, I’m glad you’re getting more time off. I think you’ve needed that—some space from it all.”
HELENA SPENT DAYS REPLAYING THE conversation. She bitterly missed having people to talk to, who cared about what she said.
She’d had trainees?
She remembered Stroud mentioning there being other healers like Elain Boyle, but Helena had assumed they’d come from somewhere else.
She couldn’t imagine Falcon Matias approving the addition of more healers.
Ilva Holdfast had worked very hard to make Helena’s vivimancy palatable to the Resistance. She’d declared that it was the gods’ will that the Eternal Flame had a vivimancer in their ranks, and that Helena had been born, found, and brought to Paladia destined to become a healer, so that if Luc was struck down in battle, vivimancy might save him; a resonance of corruption purified by Sol’s will.
Helena had needed to leave the city and go into the mountains to train with an ascetic monk. Matias had been a Shrike at the time, living in a hut near the Holdfast estate, acting as a spiritual advisor for the family.
He’d disliked healers on principle and hated Helena the moment he laid eyes on her.
Nothing about her fell in line with what he regarded as appropriate for a healer. He’d been more an obstacle than a teacher, but Helena was stubborn, and familiar enough with medicine to manage her own training. She was determined to become a healer, whether he wanted it or not.
When Ilva began demanding that Helena be sent back to the city because Luc had gone to the front lines, Matias tried to resist, denying Helena’s suitability until Ilva practically bribed him with the offer that Luc would make him Falcon, a religious rank high enough to join the Council, and even then he agreed only on the condition that if Helena was to be the Eternal Flame’s healer, then she would heal all who served Sol’s sacred cause.
The Principate, after all, was not above others, but first among equals.
What would make Matias approve trainees?
Helena couldn’t help but think wistfully about Lila.
When Helena came back as a healer, it had been inadvisable for her to seem too close to Luc. A childhood friendship was all very well, but someone like Helena couldn’t appear to have undue influence over a figure like the Principate.
Paladia’s survival depended on the Resistance’s unwavering faith in Luc. If his judgement was questioned, all Paladia would suffer the consequences. Certain sacrifices had to be made.
Lila as Luc’s paladin primary had been the closest to Luc that Helena was allowed to be after that. Lila had been primary …
Helena blinked.
There’d been a paladin secondary. Soren. Lila’s twin brother. Where was Soren?
Helena’s head throbbed.
