Mercurial Naomi Hughes (suggested reading txt) 📖

She lifted her chin. “If it will save your life, yes, I am absolutely threatening you.”

“You have no fire. You can barely grasp a sword.”

“But I know you, I know who you love and what you care about and how stupidly noble you always are, and that’s more than enough to know how I can make you go back to the palace with me.” She was bluffing—she had absolutely no power over him now, and she doubted she could bring herself to hurt Nyx again even if Tal wouldn’t knock her flat on her back before she could so much as touch the other girl—but with any luck, he would take her seriously.

His gaze raked her up and down, taking her measure, and then he picked the bowl back up and turned away again: a clear dismissal. “If you think I’m going to let you use me to get you home, just so you can have me executed for being a Smith the second I walk through the gates of—”

“I won’t let anyone touch you,” she snarled, and for a moment, she felt truly like her old self: invincible in the clear, cold certainty of her mission.

“No,” he said, not even bothering to look at her this time.

Her certainty faded to desperation. “But you’ll die if you don’t go back!”

“I’ll die if I do!” he shouted back, hands clenching on the bowl. He took a deep breath and spoke again, in a lower tone this time. “How exactly do you expect me to be cured without anyone realizing why I have rust phage? Sarai made my blood illegal, remember? Her execution order is what killed my parents after they were caught during the Silver Coup. Do you think I would forget such a detail? Why else would I have taken such pains to hide what I am for the last two years?” He exhaled. “I will not go back to my old life at the palace, not in any measure or for any reason. I will die out here, free, in the company of what family I have left.”

Elodie shook her head, frustrated, but couldn’t think of the right argument to gainsay him. In a way he had a point; she suspected this wouldn’t be a simple matter of slipping into the physicians’ offices and finding the right medicine for him to swallow. By the time they could get to the palace, Tal would likely need an intensive treatment that only Albinus could provide if he was going to have a chance at survival. And Albinus, as Tal’s vision had shown, would not risk disloyalty to Sarai. There was no way for Tal to be treated without the empress finding out what he was.

Maybe she could talk Sarai into letting him live. After all, Elodie had basically been doing that for the last two years. Her sister never had been fond of Tal. Elodie flinched away from the very thought of speaking to her sister again, knowing what she now knew, but if it was necessary to save Tal she’d have to consider it. In any case, what happened after they saved his life was a matter to worry about later. Right now she needed only to convince him not to die nobly out in the wilderness like an idiot.

All at once, it hit her. “The Saints base,” she said.

Tal set the last of the now-clean bowls in a stack next to the fire. “What?”

“In your vision. You said Sarai was going to attack the Saints base to rescue me, because she thinks that’s where I am. They’ll have no warning, and even if they did they wouldn’t have enough time to evacuate. Sarai will utterly crush the rebellion for my sake. There will be no one left, except those few stationed at outposts.”

“I am aware of that,” Tal bit out.

“The rebellion will be ended forever as of tomorrow night. Unless,” Elodie said, dreading the words even as she spoke them, “you return me to her first.”

Tal turned. He watched her through the veil of smoke and sparks drifting up from the campfire between them. “You’re saying if I take you back to the palace,” he said slowly, “you’ll prevent the attack on the base?”

“I doubt I’ll be able to prevent it entirely,” Elodie warned. “If she’s gotten the intelligence on its location, there’s no way she will let it go for long before she strikes. But my return could buy them an extra day or two to evacuate while Sarai debriefs me.” She nodded at the limp form of Nyx. “Once they wake up, they could send a warning to the base and get everyone, or at least almost everyone, out before Sarai attacks. And,” she added, the idea coming to her as she spoke, “maybe this way Sarai would let you live, too—we could tell her that you fought off my kidnappers, brought me through the wilderness on your own, were brave and heroic and so on, and that you deserve healing and a pardon in recognition for delivering me. She’ll think you’re still under your oath, so perhaps she wouldn’t consider you a threat to me even if you do have silver blood.”

Tal shifted his weight to his uninjured leg, an unconscious movement as he considered her proposal. “And after that?” he asked at last. “Once the rebellion is saved and I’m healed? Do you expect me to go back to being your bodyguard?”

She didn’t know what she expected, but she wasn’t naïve enough to hope for that. She swallowed. “No. You can—you can leave then. If you want. I will not stop you.”

The future yawned open before her, a crevasse as unyielding as her nightmare.

Tal sighed, sounding defeated. “I told you, I don’t know what I want. But very well. I don’t suppose there are any better options, and if I have to return you to your sister to save the