Mercurial by Naomi Hughes (ebook reader with built in dictionary .txt) 📕

to you in exchange for…” She groped for what exactly it was she wanted to bargain with him for. Her safety, yes, but in what way? What was it that she imagined for herself? Not returning to the palace. Not now that she knew what had been done to her there. She wanted to deny it again as she had when she’d first heard it, wanted to believe that Sarai would never command Albinus to do such a thing to her own sister, but it sounded too much like Sarai’s unique brand of love. In the empress’s mind, she had given Elodie a way to protect herself, given her a tonic to make her forget the worst night of her life, and created a new weapon to safeguard her own rule all in one neat stroke. Elodie felt sick just thinking of it. No, she could not go back to her sister, no matter how tenuous the safety she might find elsewhere. “In exchange for my safety,” she finished, deciding she could clarify her side of the bargain later, after she’d had time to think on it properly.

“I’ve spent the last two years ensuring your safety, and I believe I have had quite enough of it,” Tal said, and turned to stride back to where the Saints were lying on the ground.

The panic from a few moments ago began to flutter beneath her breastbone again. “You said you wouldn’t let Nyx kill me,” she said, standing up to hurry after him.

“It was you who said that.” He slid his arms gently under his sister’s back and legs and carried her closer to the fire, where she would be warm. When he set her down, her limp hand brushed over his leg—the spot where he’d been injured in the explosion—and he hissed a breath through his teeth as if he were in pain.

Elodie’s eyes narrowed and she paused. The Saints had healed Tal, or at least, she had assumed they had when she’d seen him walking around rather than bleeding to death from the many injuries he’d sustained in the past few days. But perhaps she had been wrong. “Are you still hurt?” she demanded.

“It is none of your concern.” He didn’t look at her, busy scooping up Helenia to move her to the other side of the log near Nyx. When he stepped past the fire’s light, this time she paid closer attention, and saw the faint trace of a glassy sheen in his eyes and the way he was sweating a little even though the night was cool.

“You’re still feverish,” she realized. “Did you get wound fever?”

But wound fever should have been cured by a basic healing potion, if they’d given him a large enough dose—and if the Saints had been able to cure the rest of his significant injuries, the dose surely would have been substantial enough to flush out a wound fever as well. But if it wasn’t a wound fever, then what else…

Her breath caught as a possibility she wouldn’t have considered before arose in her mind, throwing its long and terrible shadow over all the facts she had previously failed to connect. Tal’s blood was silver. He had visions. He was a Smith. He’d been injured badly in the explosion, and he’d been sweating in the middle of a snowstorm afterwards, and he was still lightly feverish now even after a heavy dose of healing tincture.

“You have rust phage,” she whispered.

His jaw tightened but he didn’t respond, only continued carrying the Saints closer to the fire and making certain they were laid in comfortable positions.

“How long?” she demanded, her mind working busily to try to determine how he could be cured, how much more tincture they needed. Her fingers twitched, and it was only through great effort that she kept herself from marching across the small clearing and yanking up his trouser leg so she could see the phage spot for herself. “How long was I unconscious? How long have you been sick?”

“A few days,” he said tightly.

She did the math. They had spent the night after the explosion in the cave. The day after that had been the mooncat attack. Then the Saints had found them and drugged her. It was evening now, which meant it had been three days total at the very least, and likely a day or two longer than that. That was right on the border of how long a person could go without the right treatment before they passed the point of no return. “There must be more healing tincture,” she said, though she knew if there was, Nyx would have already used it on him. She thought quickly; she had no idea where they were but surely there was a town nearby, somewhere with a priest, a physician. “We can get some—”

“Regular potions, or at least the kind non-Smith townships can get, are not enough,” he cut in. He picked up the bowls of soup and began rinsing them out over the fire, probably so that the food remnants wouldn’t attract predators while the Saints were helpless.

She wanted to shake him. Why was he just ignoring the fact of his own looming demise, as if it meant nothing? “The Saints headquarters. They have to have a stronger potion.” Her voice was getting louder now but she couldn’t seem to control it.

“They don’t. Even if the base wasn’t about to be attacked, there are no copper Smiths powerful enough to make concentrated tinctures outside of the palace.”

A realization struck her like lightning then, scorching and illuminating all at once. “Then we must go to the palace,” she said, hearing the tremor in her voice but unable to do anything about it.

Finally, finally, Tal stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “There is nothing,” he said, enunciating each word clearly, “nothing, that would make me take you back there.”

She matched him glare for glare. “I know a few things that could make you.”

He dropped the bowl he’d been