Mercurial Naomi Hughes (suggested reading txt) 📖

his neck, a thin black line burnt into his skin. He stumbled to his post at the edge of the stage. The light breeze of the day strengthened and became brisk, and the trees shivered harder than ever, flinging their leaves across the stage like offerings.

The Destroyer gazed down at the audience again. They were silent, their eyes wide at the display of her power. Pleasure flared within her. She turned and paced slowly to her small throne a few steps away and sat.

“Let us begin,” she called out.

Nyx thought nothing could shatter her self-made cocoon of determination. She’d been wrong; Tal could.

The sight of her brother stole every thought in her mind. Her seat was close to the front—she’d made menacing gestures at the man who had claimed the spot until he gave it over—and she could easily see from here just how ill Tal looked. He was afraid, too, though he tried to hide it as he always did. Hang on, little brother, she told him mentally. As if he could hear her, his gaze lifted to scan the audience but didn’t find her.

A man strode to the front. Pale skin, watery eyes, floppy hair: Albinus, the royal physician and would-be emperor. He spoke. “As this boy served in the palace at the side of the new empress, long may she live, and her late sister, I thought his case merited someone in a high position to bring the accusations against him,” he said smoothly. The garden tried to swallow up his words, the unnaturally neat rows of bushes and flower plots absorbing much of his volume. The audience rustled as the people further back asked those in front of them what had been said.

Time to move. While those around her were distracted, Nyx bent down as if to scratch an itch and pulled the arrowhead out of her shoe. She twirled the stick in her hand and attached one to the other. Everyone was watching the Destroyer. Everyone was shifting uneasily, wondering if it had truly been wise for them to come here to see the volatile new Mercurial Empress on the first day of her reign. Whatever she did today would set a precedent, would set the tone for the length of her rule. They worried she would be cruel.

They wouldn’t have to worry much longer.

Nyx dropped the arrow on the ground and reached for her flask. She lifted it as if to drink, then fumbled it, splashing its purple contents at her feet. She grumbled for the benefit of anyone who was paying any attention to her and put the flask away again. On the ground beneath her, the metal tip of the arrow shone violet with poison.

The Destroyer smiled at Albinus, making an effort to look sincere when he turned around to beam that smug expression of his in her direction. He saw her face and looked for a moment like a cat who’d been unexpectedly dunked in a bath: startled, affronted, and not quite sure what was happening.

Taking advantage of his disorientation, the Destroyer rose from her throne. “Thank you, dear cousin,” she said, every word a threat. “I will hear the accusations now.”

Albinus skulked across the stage to stand in the traditional spot of the accuser. Power thrilled in the Destroyer’s veins at her minor victory in putting him off-balance. Perhaps she could still find a way to pull this off after all. She could not bear to watch Tal die slowly of the rust phage, but neither would she allow him to be humiliated and slandered before her subjects. And never, never, would she end him with her own fire.

Which meant she had to find some believable reason to proclaim him innocent.

“The accusations are thus,” Albinus said, raising his voice as the breeze strengthened again. “The boy is a silver Smith.”

Gasps rippled through the audience. They had known who was on trial today, but the charges had not been made public. There had not been a silver Smith found for years now. Tal was a novelty in their eyes—a dangerous one, whose kind were known to be treasonous dissidents.

The Destroyer kept a pleasant expression on her face as her mind raced through the possibilities. She had been up all night thinking of them, and attempting to discuss them with Tal, who seemed infuriatingly uninvested in his own survival. The best option, she thought now, would be to claim that Tal would be useful to her regime. That he was indeed a silver Smith, but a loyal one who was sworn to defend her—an oath which, she could postulate, would now extend to the entirety of her empire. He was useful. A seer on a leash. She could make them see that.

Even if the idea of anyone trying to “leash” Tal made her want to call on her fire noose again.

“And not only that,” Albinus was continuing, “but he has committed the crime of treason by hiding this knowledge from the late Iron Empress and the newly-crowned Mercurial Empress, pretending loyalty while using his visions to undermine their rule.”

Tal finally spoke. “I have done no such thing,” he said in a low tone that nonetheless carried through the audience. They murmured and rustled again in response.

Albinus narrowed his eyes. “The accused will be silent, or the accused will be made to be silent.”

“Touch him and you will be the one on your knees,” the Destroyer snarled.

The audience shifted, their wide eyes darting between her and Albinus and Tal. Internally, she cursed herself. She couldn’t let them know how desperate she was to save him. She had to retake control. “The accused has served me loyally for years, and his ‘treason’ has not yet been proven. I will not have any faithful subject harmed without the requisite evidence.” There. The audience would surely be glad that she appreciated loyalty and was not quick to jump to deadly conclusions.

But Albinus strode across the stage, grabbed Tal’s