Once she was alone, Helena cradled the swollen side of her face, head throbbing.
The Resistance had considered the war a holy war—a divine battle between good and evil, a testing of the Faith. But Helena’s motives had been more personal than that.
Luc didn’t need to be divine for her to want to save him. He could have been entirely ordinary, and she would have made all the same choices.
Was there something she could have done that could have changed things?
When she’d first immigrated to Paladia, she’d thought it was paradise. Etras did not have much metal as a natural resource. Resonance was rare. There were a few alchemy guilds, but they offered no formal training. Reaching Paladia had felt like coming home; like finding the place where she’d always been meant to be.
She’d been vagu
