Mercurial Page 16

  He looked down at himself, examining his clothing—a worn sweater and borrowed pants—and the room, which was a tiny area with barely enough space for the bed, a single dresser, and the washstand. Then, finally, he glanced down at his left wrist, which was connected via manacle and chain to a bedpost. He looked bewildered for a moment and then inhaled sharply, his eyes snapping up to find the sheathed twin swords that Nyx had retrieved and then placed across the room, out of his reach.

  “Nyx,” he said urgently, turning back to her, “where is—the Destroyer?” He fumbled her name but recovered quickly. “What did they—”

  Nyx bared her teeth. “Don’t worry, little brother, she’s alive and well enough to face her trial. Your oath is satisfied for now. Helenia even insisted on giving her what little of the healing potion supply they didn’t use on you. Personally, I think we should’ve let her bleed all the way to the base.”

  Tal reached out to steady himself against the bed and then sank down on it. He covered his face with his hands. The manacle’s chain clanked against the wood. He took in a shuddering breath. “I fear,” he said, his voice muffled, “that I have done something foolish.”

  Nyx hesitated, gazing down at him. She considered, not for the first time, the ways in which the past two years might have changed him beyond just the way he looked. She spotted the edge of a scar at the neckline of his shirt, and remembered the Destroyer running a hand over it on the icy lake. A black rage rose up and Nyx waited until it passed before easing down on the bed beside her brother.

  “You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you,” she said as gently as she could, trying to channel sweet Helenia. She hesitated again, not sure how to phrase what she needed to ask. “Back on the ice…you’d given her your shirt. She was mostly naked. And she—” Her throat closed up, thick with anger. In her mind, she ran through a few different methods in which she could kill the Destroyer, until at last she felt calm enough to go on. “She acted…familiar…with you. Tal, has she ever used you in any way other than as a guard?”

  Tal lifted his head, looking genuinely confused for a moment until his eyes cleared and he huffed a dry, startled-sounding laugh. “Nyx, no. It’s never been like that. I don’t think she’s ever been with anyone that way, in fact. And I would be the one to know. I was at her side every moment of the day and night.”

  “I saw her face,” Nyx insisted. “I saw the way she was looking at you.”

  His mouth twisted. “That was Elodie. Not…her.”

  He’d managed to tell them the barest details of what had happened after the train wreck before succumbing to unconsciousness as they’d packed him on the sled. He’d explained how the Destroyer had forgotten her identity, how her powers had seemingly evaporated, how she’d dared to call herself by a name other than the only one that suited her. Nyx’s face twisted and she desperately wished she could spit on the floor—but Helenia was staying in this room too, and her girlfriend would first kill her and then put her on eternal mopping duty if she dared transgress against its cleanliness. She settled for hissing, “Elodie is the Destroyer. That’s her birth name. She told it to me, when she was torturing me.”

  He recoiled, and Nyx immediately felt terrible for reminding him of what she’d been through.

  His hands fisted in the sheets. “I had a vision of what you did,” he said quietly. “The poison. Nyx, how could you? How could you do such a thing for me?”

  She wanted to shake him. “I did it for you because I love you, dolt. And I would do it again.” Then her mind caught up with his words. “Wait, you had another vision?”

  He nodded, looking miserable. “The only one for the last two years. I wanted the Unforged God to show me how to save you. Instead he showed me how to save her.”

  Now Nyx did spit on the floor—right in time for the door to creak open and admit Helenia, who immediately slanted an arch look at her girlfriend.

  Nyx put up her hands. “We were discussing the bitch. I can’t be blamed.”

  “You can and will be blamed,” Helenia said with a smile, “and also, why are you holding a razor?”

  From behind Helenia, one of the other rebels leaned past the doorway, probably hoping to get a glimpse of Tal. This outpost was tiny, only big enough to house the dozen rebels stationed here if they all piled together like a heap of kittens on the floor of the common room, and every one of them had either been fascinated with or repulsed by her silver Smith, oath-bound brother. “Off with you,” Nyx snapped at this one, and the man glared at her but turned away.

  Nyx allowed herself a moment to worry about how the rest of the Saints would react when they learned of Tal’s magic. Only a handful of people had known his secret before, but there had been no way to hide it today, not with him leaking silver blood everywhere. Now that the Saints knew what he was, they would surely want to use his foresight to help leverage the rebellion in their favor. They didn’t understand, or care about, the complicated relationship he seemed to have with his abilities now. Nyx wasn’t sure if it would make the situation better or worse that the Saints had no formal ranks or leadership, no single person who could wield the power of the rebellion as a whole to enforce their will on Tal. It might just mean more factions would develop amongst them, which could only lead to further complications.

  She pushed the thoughts away. One worry at a time, she told herself.

  Tal was smiling at Helenia. A fleeting joy lightened his features. “Hel,” he greeted her, using her nickname. The two of them were old friends, having been raised in the same township, both holding aspirations of being priests until they grew out of it. Though Helenia, Nyx supposed, had never truly grown away from her devotion to the holy texts. Lately she had taken to debating various translations of scripture with Saasha, conversations that sometimes went too long and grew too charged for Nyx’s comfort. The two women tended to have wildly different interpretations of what the Unforged God asked of his followers.

  “Tal,” Helenia responded. “It is very, very good to see you. How are you feeling?”

  “Not poorly, all things considered. Thank you for the timely rescue.”

  “Ah. You have your sister to thank for that. I must admit I tried to dissuade her, though I’m grateful now that I failed in that respect.” Her tone was light enough, but something complicated and unhappy flickered beneath it. Nyx winced. She had a lot to make up to her girlfriend, but she was grateful that Helenia was apparently willing to save that difficult conversation for later, when they didn’t have an audience.

  Helenia closed the door behind her and swept across the floor, carefully stepping over the wet spot. Wanting to distract her from her worries, Nyx held out the razor. “Tal thinks it’s a bad idea for me to shave my own head,” she explained. “Would you care to do the honors?”

  Helenia grinned, looking delighted. Nyx immediately felt warmer and somehow softer, a better version of herself, as she often did when Helenia was near. “I’ve always thought you would look gorgeous bald. Yes, of course. Come sit at this end of the bed and I’ll get started.”

  Neither of them mentioned that Tal would also be capable of shaving her head. They had talked, in low and careful voices while he was asleep, about what measures would be best to ensure that his oath could not force him to free the Destroyer or hurt anyone who might threaten her. Keeping potential weapons out of his reach was one of the measures they’d agreed on. Although, judging from how easily he’d handed the razor back to her a moment ago, it might be an unnecessary one. Odd, that—she’d thought his oath, which he’d had to fight tooth and nail in the aqueducts in order to keep from killing his own sister, would have now forced him to be more active to protect the Destroyer. She wasn’t about to bring it up, though, in case the mention of his vow might somehow jar it back into effect. She had little experience with metal oaths, and having a newly-formed one herself didn’t make her any more knowledgeable of their vagaries.

  Helenia bent down to drop a kiss on the top of Nyx’s head
, and then placed the razor at the bottom of her scalp. Slow and smooth, she stroked it upward. Nyx’s curls scattered to the floor.

  “I’ve just been to see the Destroyer,” Helenia said then.

  Nyx went rigid. Only the sensation of the sharp razor skating above her ear kept her from whirling around and yelling at Helenia—which was probably the very reason Helenia had waited until this moment to tell them. The thought of the girl she loved alone with that monster…it made her want to yank the razor back from Helenia, march down the length of the short hallway, and use the tool to open the Destroyer’s throat as she should have on the lake.

  Tal stood in a sharp, jerky movement, all of his attention suddenly fixed on Helenia. “What? She’s awake? You should not have spoken to her alone, she could have—”

  Helenia pursed her lips. “Could have what? Slain me with merely the force of her glare? Destroyer or not, the girl is harmless as she is now.”

  “She is not,” Tal bit out, “harmless.”

  The razor went still on Nyx’s scalp. “Forgive me, Tal,” Helenia said quietly. “Of course not.”

  The razor began to move again. Helenia continued, “She did some posturing about how her sister would bring the empire’s hounds down on our heads if we executed her, which is fairly valid as far as threats go. In fact, the Saints who are stationed here informed me that they intercepted a messenger hawk just a few hours ago who carried a warning that the Iron Empress is throwing her armies and spies at every suspected safehouse in the country already.”

  A muscle in Tal’s jaw tightened. “So Elodie—the Destroyer—she remembers who she is, to have made such a threat against you.”

  “I can’t be certain exactly how much she remembers, but yes, she knows who she is.”

  Tal took a breath. His expression was carefully neutral, giving away none of his thoughts. “The Iron Empress is hunting us, you said. Sarai survived the explosion as well, then?”

  Mentally, Nyx added the empress’s name back to her list of people who needed murdering.

  “Yes, I’m afraid she did,” Helenia replied. “And she’s mobilizing her troops with frightening speed, committing vast resources to avenging the Destroyer. Her sister must be very dear to her.”

  “Dear, yes,” Tal said tightly. “And useful.”

  Helenia made a thoughtful humming sound. “Not so useful in her current condition, though. Even if they find out she’s alive and manage to retrieve her, she will not be able to turn her fire on us. Speaking of which, do we have any idea of how she came to be in that condition?”

  Nyx frowned. “I have no idea. It should be impossible to strip a Smith of their powers. Right? The poison was meant to weaken her, to make her magic unstable and drain it away so she could be killed, but her powers still should have recharged before long and her blood certainly shouldn’t have turned red. It can’t have been the poison that did that.” But even as she spoke, she hoped she was wrong. The idea of having such an effective weapon to use against the noble class, one that could level the field between the metallurgists and Saints, was a heady thing.

  “But that poison had never before been tested,” Helenia interjected. “We can’t properly know for certain how it would typically act, and whether the way it affected the Destroyer is different from that.”

  Tal frowned. “Her treatments,” he said slowly. “She goes to Albinus every month for them, and she was overdue for her appointment on the train. She and Sarai try to pass the treatments off as a mere beauty regimen, but I believe it might be something more vital. Perhaps that process, or the fact that it was delayed too long, may have exacerbated the poison from Nyx or interacted with it somehow to strip her of her powers.”

  “Unfortunately, we lack the information to make more than a guess,” Helenia replied.

  Tal sighed and leaned back against the bedpost. “I fear you’re right. Did the Destroyer say anything else when you spoke to her?”

  Helenia glanced at him. “She asked to see you. She was quite keen on it, actually.”

  At this, Nyx couldn’t hold in a snarl. “Of course she wants to see him. He’s her human shield. I hope you told her the next time she sees him will be right before her head rolls, and that’s if she’s lucky.”

  Tal stiffened. “The jury will decide her fate.”

  “As if they’ll show her any mercy,” Nyx scoffed. “Half the Saints at the main base have lost a loved one to her. I hope she dies slowly. I hope it hurts.”

  Tal’s gaze went distant. “She said that too,” he murmured, a strange look passing over his expression.

  Nyx brushed his comment off, not certain who he meant and too focused on her own anger to care. “I hope they let me do it myself,” she went on.

  Tal’s gaze went to her then. He reached out, gently, and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding helpless.

  She blinked, startled out of her tirade. “For what?”

  But he only turned away and let his hand fall.

  She remembered what he had said earlier, that he had done something foolish. She realized now that he never had told her what it was. She didn’t want to push him, though, not now that she’d just gotten him back. He probably only needed time to adjust; once the Destroyer was dead, it would be easier for him to heal, and easier for him to make whatever confession was weighing on his soul. Changing the subject, she asked Helenia, “Did you speak to the physician yet about Tal’s prognosis?”

  The razor paused in its movements across Nyx’s scalp. Helenia sighed. “There’s no physician stationed here, only an assistant with some medical training, but I’m afraid he didn’t have good news. The potion we had on hand was enough to heal the broken bones and most of Tal’s other injuries, but to cure the rust phage will require a more concentrated tincture than we can make.”

  Nyx and Tal looked at each other for a long moment. He didn’t seem to react beyond that, but something inside Nyx coiled in fear at the pronouncement, cinching tight around her ribs. “More concentrated than we can make here, you mean, right?” she asked, hating how high-pitched her voice sounded. “We can get some at the base when we arrive?”

  Helenia’s answer was soft, nearly too kind to be borne. “No. None of our copper Smiths are powerful enough to make what we need. Only the palace Smiths are—it might even be that only Albinus himself could cure him, if that. The rust phage has been absorbed into his blood already, and it seems to be a virulent strain.”

  When Helenia drew the razor back for another pass, Nyx slammed the side of her palm into the nearly bedpost, making the bed shake. “Then the physician’s assistant has to be wrong. He only has a little medical training, you said. He’s unlikely to have ever even seen rust phage before, much less treated it enough to gain any real knowledge of it. The copper Smiths at the main Saints facility will be able to do better. I’m sure of it.” But her voice cracked, betraying her fear.

  Helenia only squeezed Nyx’s shoulder, turning a sympathetic look on Tal, who still hadn’t reacted other than looking a bit grimmer than before. “I’m sorry.”

  Nyx swallowed. “We’ll… we’ll stage a theft at the palace, then, to get more potions. We need to plan a rescue anyway, if Mother and the other Saints who were imprisoned on the train are being held there.”

  “You know the Saints will have to vote on that. They may not want to commit so many resources to a rescue.”

  Helenia made one final sweep of the razor. A cascade of short black curls rained down across Nyx’s forehead and into her lap and she swept them onto the floor in one violent motion. “I don’t care what they say. I’ll go alone if I have to.”

  Tal’s hand was suddenly tight around her wrist. “No, you won’t,” he said, his gaze intense. “Not for me. Never again for me.”

  She wrenched her arm away. “You do not get to decide who can and can’t risk their life for the people they love. I swear I will see you alive and well and free of your oath if it’s the last thing I do.” He had nothing to s
ay to that, but only stared at her, his eyes pleading. She crossed her arms. “Put away that sad, stoic look,” she told him. “It doesn’t work on me.”

  Helenia set the razor down atop the dresser and pulled a broom from the corner. “If you two are ready, we really should get going. That is, if you’re feeling well enough to travel, Tal?”

  He was still looking at Nyx. “Just promise me you won’t do anything until after the trial, at least,” he said. “Please.”

  She thawed, but only slightly. That sad, stoic look might have worked on her a little. “Very well. As long as you promise not to die in the meantime.”

  His smile was a small, rare thing, and it filled her up like light after a long winter’s evening. “I do so swear,” he pledged, nudging her with a shoulder.

  Nyx rolled her eyes and looked to Helenia. “How are we planning to transport the Destroyer without her discovering the location of the base? She ought to be drugged before we bundle her into a sled.”

  “Already taken care of,” Helenia said serenely as she swept the hair into a pile. “I dosed her bread with laudanum powder.”

  Both Tal and Nyx turned fully to stare at her. “You did what?” Tal said.

  “Not to worry, it was a safe dose. She’ll fall asleep within a few minutes and then we’ll be able to keep her dosed and unconscious as we travel, until we get to the base. Although Maluk will have to ride on a sled for the first leg of the run. I’m afraid I had to feed him a bit of the bread to ease the Destroyer’s suspicions. He’s likely snoring away next to her as we speak.”

  Nyx laughed out loud and stood up to sling her arms around her beautiful, devious girlfriend’s neck, planting a kiss on her cheek. “Hel, I admire you more every day.” Then she frowned and stepped back. “Wait, why was Maluk in the room with you?”

  Tal stirred, looking uneasy. “I…I told him to stay with her. When you were putting us on the sled to bring us here, before I passed out.”

  Helenia swept the hair into an empty night pot and set the broom aside. “She had a ferocious grip on his fur and wouldn’t let go, even when she was unconscious herself. I didn’t want to pull out Maluk’s fur in getting him away, and he seemed happy enough to stay with her anyway, so I left him.”