Alchemised
by SenLinYu
Contents
Chapter 73
Overview
Atreus attacks Helena after Kaine leaves, burning through her cell and torturing her for the identity of the hidden Undying traitor behind the bombings. Helena turns his desperation against him by revealing Kaine’s connection to the sabotage and forcing Atreus to confront Enid’s torture and Kaine’s soul injury.
Kaine returns in time to save Helena from the fire, then openly confronts his father over the past. The chapter shifts the conflict from concealed secrets to direct rupture, exposing Atreus’s fear for Kaine and Kaine’s hatred for the father whose choices doomed their family.
Summary
In Julius 1789, Helena waits in her prison-like room at Spirefell after Kaine leaves on Amaris despite Atreus shouting after him. Helena checks the reinforced iron door, studies an array she has designed, and realizes it would work only with five components while she has three. Her dread proves justified when Atreus, occupying Crowther’s corpse, begins burning through the door and iron bars.
Atreus forces Helena toward him by setting the room on fire. He reveals that the corpse’s residual memories and Helena’s attack on Stroud reminded him of the bombing, making him suspect Helena knows the identity of the hidden Undying traitor responsible for sabotaging Morrough. Atreus believes Helena was used as a decoy for the true last member of the Eternal Flame, and he wants the killer’s name to save Kaine from Morrough’s punishment.
When Helena insists she does not remember, Atreus burns her back and shoulders, using pain and smoke to break her. Helena realizes Kaine will not arrive in time and deduces that Atreus’s desperation comes from fear that Morrough will kill Kaine if Atreus fails. Helena then turns the interrogation against Atreus by invoking Enid, accusing Atreus’s choices of leading Morrough to torture Enid and rip out Kaine’s soul.
Helena claims responsibility for designing the West Port Lab bombing and says she handled the spy, then identifies the killer Atreus seeks as Kaine. When Atreus attacks her, Helena uses animancy on his lich mind and pushes memories into him: Kaine’s soul injury, Enid’s suffering, and Kaine’s accusations about what happened after Atreus confessed. The mental assault shakes Atreus, but the fire consumes the room and Helena nearly collapses.
Kaine arrives, pulls Helena from the burning room, and carries her outside despite her severe burns. When Atreus follows, Helena tells Kaine that Atreus now knows about Enid. Kaine confronts his father, blaming Atreus for exposing Enid’s importance to Morrough and loving her into destruction. Atreus tries to use pyromancy, but Kaine rips away his ignition rings and throws him to the ground, mockingly noting that Atreus has lost his fire again.
Who Appears
- HelenaPrisoner and pregnant healer; tortured by Atreus, reveals Kaine’s secrets, and uses animancy.
- KaineHigh Reeve who rescues Helena from the fire and confronts his father’s failures.
- Atreus FerronKaine’s father in Crowther’s corpse; interrogates and burns Helena to find Morrough’s enemy.
- EnidKaine’s mother and Atreus’s lost beloved; her torture becomes the confrontation’s emotional core.
- MorroughHigh Necromancer whose threats drive Atreus’s desperation and whose past cruelty is exposed.
- AmarisKaine’s mount; carries him away and later appears near Helena after her rescue.