Mercurial Naomi Hughes (suggested reading txt) 📖

“Not yet. But I’m sure you noticed on your way in just how many of our beloved family members hope to take advantage of your new lack of magic. If you choose to remain in your natural state, without any mercury in your veins, I will protect you. But I fear I won’t be able to do it for very long.”

Elodie pulled her hands away. “This isn’t about me.”

“But it is. I told you I have a few hours left, and that’s true. There are, however, some treatments that could extend my life a bit longer—a week, perhaps two. I could be here to settle you. To crown you.” She touched the Iron Crown on her brow, and something about the gesture looked oddly rueful. It made Elodie remember that the crown had been in the explosion too, and that while the fire had been enough to injure her sister terribly, kill dozens of others, and explode several train cars, it had apparently not left even a single scratch on the Iron Crown. While Elodie’s mind caught on this detail like a nail snagging a loose thread, Sarai continued: “But it would be immensely painful for me, and there’s a good chance the treatments would kill me anyway. Still, I would do it for you, even though I know it would do little good—because the moment I die and leave you to take the throne, one or another of our enterprising cousins or aunts or uncles will have you murdered. And they’ll be able to do it easily, because you are defenseless.”

Each word was a hammer wielded against her. Elodie could not yet absorb the blows, and so turned her mind to a different question. “Why is the crown intact?”

One corner of Sarai’s mouth tilted up, and that same ruefulness flickered across her features again. “I knew you would notice. I’m afraid it’s because I used the vast majority of my powers to protect it during the explosion.”

Once the words sank in, Elodie was on her feet, anger and shock humming in her bones. “You protected the crown? If you had enough magic to shield anything, you should have protected yourself!”

“The crown is more important that any one ruler. It’s the source of our strength.”

Like everyone else, Elodie knew that the Iron Crown was enchanted, but no one except the current ruler knew the actual nature of the enchantment. Sarai took the crown off now and set it in her lap, smoothing a finger over it.

“Our nine-times-great grandparents did the Smithing, assisted by their entire court,” the empress said. “It took nearly their entire lifetimes. They enchanted the crown to channel the power of the land’s magic and concentrate it in a tight vicinity around the crown itself. The actual enchantment is quite complicated, but basically, it pulls magic away from the peasant villages and mining towns and such, and concentrates it here in the palace. That is why all the great Smiths are born here, to noble houses, and any magical children that the peasants can manage to sire are too weak to do anything of use. A few slip by here and there, but without the crown’s power, there would be as many strong Smiths among the Saints as in the palace.” She tapped the crown gently. “The enchantment also protects the crown from destruction. I imagine your fire—if you were using all your fire—is probably the only power strong enough to break it. Which is why I had to use so much magic to protect it in this case. And what an irony that is; if it had been destroyed, it would have released all of its pent-up magic at once, magics from every metal, from every corner of the land. The copper magic would have been enough to instantly heal everyone on the train including myself if it were channeled properly.”

“Then why didn’t you let it burn?” Elodie demanded. Her hands bunched in the coarse fabric of her trousers. “We could have Smithed a new one. It is metal. You are irreplaceable.” She hated the thread of desperation in her voice, of pleading. Her sister was already dying and the past could not be rewritten. Still, she couldn’t let it go.

Sarai laid a hand over one of Elodie’s. “It too is irreplaceable. The Smithing methods that created it have since been lost. Not to mention there was no copper Smith close enough who could have channeled the magic to heal me in any case.”

Elodie stared at the crown. It seemed suddenly malevolent, this creation that had stolen life from her sister and Tal’s people both. But just as strongly as she reviled it, she found herself longing for the safe weight of it on her brow, the security of wrapping herself in the power of the whole empire.

She turned away, disgusted with herself, and afraid that the disgust would overpower the desire. The parts of herself—the Destroyer, Elodie, all of their separate facets and edges—were at war within her. They scraped through her like broken glass, and she feared they would shred what was left of her soul to bits before it was over.

The cot creaked. Sarai had sat down on its other side, and reached across now with her good hand to set one of the glass jars full of the mercury concoction on the little table next to the bed. “You must choose,” she said softly.

Elodie closed her eyes.

She had wanted to be Elodie. She had tried and tried to be her. But Elodie hadn’t been good enough. She couldn’t make Tal stay, couldn’t make him love her back, couldn’t win herself free of a past that she hadn’t even been able to remember. She certainly couldn’t defend herself against the tribulations that awaited her within the walls of her own home. Elodie would never, ever be safe, and she would never, ever be free. She was soft. She was vulnerable. She