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

suddenly went dark and fierce. “I will give you actionable information,” she said, lowering her voice in volume but not intensity. “Tal is alive, for now. Our spy in the palace says he is to appear at a trial tomorrow morning for the illegal act of having silver blood. The Destroyer will personally preside over this mockery of justice, and will execute him immediately once he’s found guilty.”

Nyx’s blood seemed to freeze, to crystallize, until her heart labored to beat at all. “There must be a way to stop her.”

Saasha exhaled then and lowered one of her hands to the seat of the empty chair beside her. “There is,” she said, and lifted up a small contraption that looked like a miniature crossbow. “With this.”

Nyx leaned forward to examine it eagerly, but shook her head with a frown after she’d had a moment to take a closer look. It was small enough to sneak past guards and unfolded to shoot a bolt that was about the length of her forearm, but there was no way it could hold enough tension or fire a large enough bolt to be fatal. “What good will this do?” she demanded.

That was when Saasha lifted a vial of purple liquid to the table. “Our spy provided me with the ingredients to make this. If we can get someone—an assassin with a keen eye—into the trial in the morning, they can coat the arrowhead with this poison and use it to kill the Destroyer before she can kill Tal, or use her magic in retribution. The trial is the perfect opportunity; the spy was able to ensure it would be public, so the assassin should have no trouble getting in.”

“I will do it,” Nyx said instantly.

Saasha looked away. “I knew you would volunteer, my daughter,” she said softly, and shame flickered across her face again, “and I am proud. But know that this…this will not be an easy mission. You see—the Saints’ spy in the palace is Albinus. The royal physician.”

Nyx was surprised, but only for a moment. “I don’t care if he’s the Unforged God himself, as long as he can get me near enough to end the Destroyer.”

“The thing is, it turns out the Iron Empress sustained wounds from the explosion that turned out to be fatal after all. She died a few hours ago. The Destroyer is the empress now, but if she were to be killed, then the Iron Crown would pass to Albinus.” Saasha leaned forward, an almost fanatically eager light illuminating her features from within. “He would be on our side, Nyx. He was the one who provided the poison you drank for the last two years, the poison that should rightfully have ended the Destroyer.”

Anger flashed briefly through Nyx again at the mention of the poison, but she shoved it away. There was no time for such emotions right now. This was the time for logic, for planning. There would be time to figure out the way she felt about her mother later. “Have the other Saints agreed to this plan?” she asked.

“We have no ranks. There is no need for anyone else’s approval,” Saasha scoffed. “God himself gives our commands, and whoever is meant to lead any given mission is entitled to do so.”

Nyx rolled her eyes. Saasha made it sound like their system worked flawlessly, when she knew for a fact it more often lent itself to chaos.

“If Albinus were crowned,” Saasha went on, “he would make a treaty with the Saints. He’s promised to do so. Peasants would have more protections, and silver Smiths would be legal again. He even said he would try to talk the high courts into making worship of the Unforged God compulsory and demolishing the heathen temples in the outlander settlements.”

Nyx raised her brow. “You would destroy the temples of other religions? That can’t be wise.”

“It is righteous,” Saasha insisted, and quoted one of the scriptures she’d raised Nyx on: “‘When God’s people are crushed, he will send his saints to avenge them. Great will be his fury; at his order, his saints will neither cease nor be merciful until all who are left worship him alone.’”

It used to be one of Nyx’s favorite passages. Saasha had brought her up to embrace a philosophy of martyrdom and vengeance, and Nyx had been a child who appreciated violence, so she had accepted her mother’s interpretation of God’s character without much thought. Now, though, a different voice rose in her mind—that of Helenia, quoting her own favorite scripture.

For he is the great Smith and we are the tools of his forge, and the purpose to which he bends us is to mend that which is broken. He repairs all, forgives all, is all-loving and ever-merciful.

It portrayed a god who was the exact opposite of the god from Saasha’s scripture, and yet the two verses were found only a few pages apart.

Nyx looked away, her lips tightening to a thin line as she grappled with the growing discomfort within her. She had listened to her brother and girlfriend and mother enough to know that the holy texts could be wielded as weapons on any side of any argument, because they were full of contradictions. Every scripture could be answered by another, and theological interpretations both wild and wise could find a myriad of supporting verses. Nyx wondered now if the way a person interpreted the holy texts might reflect more about who they themselves were than who God was; Helenia had found a deity of love and mercy and redemption, and Saasha held fast to one of retribution and violence.

“I’m not sure I can support that anymore,” Nyx said slowly to her mother.

Saasha’s eyes lit even more brightly with righteous zeal. She leaned across the table as if she could hypnotize her daughter with it. “Nyx, this is the chance we’ve fought so hard for. We can return our nation to God together.”

Together, she said. Again, as if she were planning on taking any