Alchemised

Helena lies paralyzed inside a stasis tank, conscious in total darkness.

Helena lies paralyzed inside a stasis tank, conscious in total darkness. She has a body but cannot make it move. Electrical surges jolt through her every three hours—maintenance pulses to prevent muscle decay. She counted them at first, tracked the frequency, then the total, but the numbers grew too terrifying to continue. She gives herself routines: imagined walks along Etrasian cliffs, books she once read, anything to keep her mind sharp. She was placed here as a prisoner, kept preserved, and she clings to the belief that someone will come for her. She will not let herself fade. No one comes.

After fourteen months in darkness, Helena wakes to worse

Workers wrench Helena from a stasis warehouse, her muscles atrophied, her eyes unable to process brightness. She's the only conscious prisoner found—someone tampered with her sedation and erased her records. Doctor Stroud, a vivimancer running operations at Central—the commandeered Alchemy Tower—discovers intricate transmutational barriers lacing Helena's brain: someone rewired her thoughts to hide memories even she doesn't know exist. She's brought before Morrough, the High Necromancer, now a grotesquely mutated figure with empty eye sockets and too many bones, who rips through her consciousness with agonizing resonance. Finding nothing useful, he orders his enforcer, the High Reeve, to crack her open through repeated transference—a procedure that forces one mind inside another until the host's secrets surface or her skull gives out.

Helena's former classmate awaits her at Spirefell

Helena is transported to Spirefell, the Ferron estate, built entirely of iron that hums with latent power. She recognizes Kaine Ferron instantly—they shared classes at the Institute, competed for top exam rankings, never spoke. The dark-haired boy she remembers has been replaced by something almost inhuman: silver-white hair, bloodless skin, quicksilver eyes. He is the High Reeve, the regime's most feared weapon, responsible for hunting down every surviving Resistance member. His wife Aurelia resents Helena's presence; the dead servants hold doors. Kaine scans Helena's memories with surgical precision, skimming years in minutes. Helena resolves to provoke him into killing her—the secrets in her mind would die with her. But Kaine anticipates every attempt, monitoring her through reanimated eyes embedded in walls and using vivimancy to keep her alive against her will.

Transference leaves Helena bleeding from the eyes and desperate to die Kaine seats her in a chair and presses his fingers to her skull. His consciousness pours in like rising water until hers is crushed beneath it—her vision turns red, blood streams from her eyes, and she screams until her vocal cords shred. When he withdraws, her mind collapses around the void he leaves. Brain fevers follow: days of delirium,…