Mercurial Naomi Hughes (suggested reading txt) 📖

if it had never existed. He and the guard stood stock-still, staring at each other from opposite ends of the blade. The guard cupped his hands around his wound. Red spilled between his fingers, across his knuckles. The boy pulled the sword out and it glistened with blood and river mist. When the guard staggered backwards and crumbled to the polished wooden boards of the great porch, the boy began to realize, with dawning horror, what had just happened.

The Destroyer had been threatened. And his oath had compelled him to defend her.

The Destroyer stepped forward. Something was bright in her eyes, and the boy couldn’t tell if it was madness or hope. “What’s your name?” she asked, ignoring the wet, rattling breathing of the dying guard.

The boy’s swords hung now at his sides, dead weight. He wanted to drop them. He couldn’t. “Tal,” he managed after a moment. “Tal Melaine.”

The Destroyer nodded, accepting his name as if she were taking possession of it. Then she turned, glancing at the downed guard and the other one, who was still standing frozen at his post. “Take him to the physicians,” she ordered the unhurt guard. “He may survive. Far be it from me to waste my sister’s resources when they may yet be of use.”

The standing guard’s gaze was emotionless. “I cannot leave you unguarded, my lady,” he replied.

She smiled. Predatory. Tired. Hopeful. “I am not unguarded,” she said.

And finally, with the moon bright above, with the Alloyed Palace gleaming like a monster, and with his god utterly silent, the boy began to understand exactly what his belief would require of him.

2 years later

THE DESTROYER WAS HAVING A NIGHTMARE.

Her suite—which took up an entire train car—was lit only by a thin slice of ashy moonlight that had managed to slip around the heavy velvet curtains. It was just enough to illuminate the sudden tension in the Destroyer’s frame, the way her mouth curved silently around a cry, the way her fingers curled in the sheets. She sucked in a hoarse rasp of a breath and held it.

Tal, standing impassively beside the bed, looked down at her. He’d been sleeping in his cot by the door a moment ago, having his own, quieter nightmares. He’d have liked to let the Destroyer stay in hers, but he couldn’t risk her wrath if he let her suffer through the dream without waking her. Carefully, he lay a light hand on her shoulder.

She came instantly awake. He stood still, knowing from past experience that she was likely to lash out in the seconds before she came to full alertness. After a moment, those gray eyes sharpened and focused on him. “Tal,” she said, her voice rough.

He didn’t respond. She was identifying him, not speaking to him.

She swept the covers aside with a single graceful movement and climbed out of her bed. She was wearing an elegant nightdress. She opened the small closet, withdrew an even more elegant robe embroidered in blue and rusty reds, and shrugged it on. Then she slid the door of her bedroom compartment open and stepped into the train’s cramped main corridor.

Tal lifted his sword belt from the end of his cot and followed. When the Destroyer stopped in front of the doors that led to the raised platform outside, a servant appeared, bowing obsequiously over a cup of steaming tea. “My lady,” he said, “your sister the empress, long may she live, sends her deepest regrets, but asks you to stay inside. The imperial guard has reported that the risk of assassins is high today. After…the events of yesterday.”

The Destroyer snorted indelicately as she pushed the door open. Chilly night air and the claustrophobic tang of smoke crept in, along with the watered-down light of pre-dawn. “When is the risk of assassins ever low?”

“If my lady will please just stay inside and perhaps enjoy a cup of soothing tea—” the servant begged, but she gave him a sharp look and he fell silent, bowing his way backwards, nearly tripping over his feet as he went. The cup spilled scalding tea over his fingers and made dark spots on the luxurious cream-colored rug. The servant froze, going rigid with fear.

The Destroyer ignored him and exited the train. She paced to the corner of the cobblestone platform outside, brushing away the ash that had settled on the railing so she could rest her hands there. Tal followed, a silent shadow, pulling the door closed behind him. The latch was gilded with gold and veined in spiderwebs of frost that made the metal stick to his fingers where he touched it. He pulled his hand free and paced after his charge.

Halfway between the exit and the Destroyer, he stopped to scan the landscape for potential enemies. He doubted he would find any. His oath would have compelled him by now if she was in immediate danger. But still, he could avoid a great deal of pain if he was proactive about stopping any assassination attempts before they got that close.

There was nowhere he could see where an enemy might be able to hide. Most of the buildings in this small, once-prosperous mining town were now no more than ash and rubble. A few walls still stood, and here and there a blackened chimney jutted out from the remnants of a house, but almost everything else had been leveled.

The building before them was still burning, though. Its orange light flickered over the Destroyer, casting her expression anew with every passing second, making her seem by turns malevolent or tired or grave. When she turned to glance over her shoulder, her face fell into shadow and her expression was hidden. “You should be sleeping,” she called to someone behind her.

Tal twisted around to look. The train was a hulking bronze monstrosity behind him, the magic in its metal humming quietly as it waited to be activated for its return journey. A woman was descending its steps onto the platform. Her dress shimmered