by Naomi Hughes
What kind of a mother? whispered Helenia in her memory again.
Saasha spotted her then. She set her mug down with a thunk heavy enough to slosh yellow-brown tea over its lip. Her eyes flew wide with her own instinctive emotion—shame, Nyx thought, but there wasn’t enough time to register it fully before her mother was striding across the room and pulling her into a fierce hug. Nyx hugged her back weakly with one arm while she searched for somewhere to put the mug in her other hand down.
“What are you doing here?” Nyx managed at last.
Saasha pulled back with a frown. “What am I doing here? That’s the greeting you give your mother?” She shook her head and waved a hand as if to brush the question away before Nyx could answer it. “Never mind. I’m just so happy to see you well. Praise the Unforged God in all his mercy, he’s delivered you to me whole and well.”
Nyx was neither whole nor well, but chose not to speak of such things because she wasn’t sure yet what she would say about the matter. “Do you know where Tal is?” she asked instead.
Her mother bowed her head and, after a moment, motioned Nyx to sit down at the table. Slowly, Nyx complied. “You look beautiful with your head shaved,” Saasha said with a sad smile as she reclaimed her own chair.
Fear fluttered in Nyx’s chest. Her mother wouldn’t be delaying her answer to Nyx’s question unless it was bad. She dropped her mug on the table and spread her hands flat to brace herself. “Mother,” she said, her voice tight. “Where. Is. Tal?”
Saasha sighed. “I will give you the answer, but you must promise not to leave this room until I’ve had time to tell you everything.”
Nyx gritted her teeth and spat out her answer: “Fine. Be quick.”
Saasha folded her hands in her lap and drew a deep breath. “After the explosion, the train’s emergency magics teleported it to the railyard here. We prisoners were pulled out and placed in the dungeons. The empress—who must have used her ungodly powers to survive, at least temporarily—came to question us not long after. She went through us one by one, tearing us apart body and soul.”
Us, Saasha said, as if she too had been torn apart even though there wasn’t a mark on her.
Saasha’s lips thinned as she seemed to pick up on the direction of Nyx’s thoughts. “I was supposed to be interrogated next,” she said. “But the woman before me gave up the location of the Saints’ base, and said that the Destroyer would likely have been taken there if she’d survived and been captured. That is what the empress wanted: her pet weapon back.”
“And now she has her,” Nyx said bitterly. If only she had slit the Destroyer’s throat when she had the chance instead of giving Tal the opportunity to do it himself.
“She has Tal, too.”
Nyx’s hands tensed on the tabletop and she half raised from her seat, until Saasha reached out her own hand and laid it atop Nyx’s to keep her in place. “Where?” Nyx growled.
“I’m not done explaining everything yet,” Saasha said sternly. With great effort, Nyx forced herself to sit back down. “Tal came for us,” Saasha continued when she was resettled. “God sent him to free us, and he killed a good number of prison guards on his way there. But he was…captured in the process.”
Nyx closed her eyes, pain lancing through her. If he’d been captured then there could be no good end to this story.
“I and six others managed to get away. The rest of them went to ground in safe houses scattered throughout the city until they can leave, while I came to this bar, which is owned by one of our agents.”
“Why?” Nyx snapped, eager to get the story over with so she could plan her brother’s rescue.
“To wait for you. Before Tal was captured, he said that you were likely only a little way behind him. I knew that once you arrived you would search for news of him. You wouldn’t have been able to ask any officials or guards, because of course you’d know there is a good chance the Destroyer would have put a warrant out for you as soon as she returned. So what else would you do at this time of night but go to bars and listen for rumors?”
“I didn’t find any actionable information,” Nyx admitted.
Saasha’s eyes 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 us
ed 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 risk upon herself, instead of asking Nyx to play the assassin and Albinus to make the law and mete out any of its potential punishments.
Nyx tried to shake off her growing unease. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “One way or another, I’m killing the Destroyer. We can argue about the aftermath later.”
Saasha looked as if Nyx had struck her. Then, slowly, she reached across the table and put both her hands on Nyx’s. “That’s the thing, my daughter,” she said, her voice shaking just a little. “That is what I was trying to tell you. If you do this, there will be no later. Not for you.”
“What?”
“If a known Saint assassin is caught killing the new empress, Albinus will not be able to make any treaties with us at all. The high courts will blame the Saints as an organization for her death. They’ll demand reparations that we cannot give at the very least, and wipe us out completely at the worst.”
Nyx tried to follow her mother’s logic. “But if that’s true, then I can’t be the one to kill her, because I’m a known Saint.”
Saasha shook her head. “You are not. The Destroyer has been so caught up with her sister’s death and the preparations for Tal’s trial that she’s not released any details at all about her capturers. No one knows who you are. The only thing they will know is that you are Tal’s sister…and willing to give up your life to save him.”
The logic of it all slid into Nyx like a well-oiled blade. She held herself very still. Of course. Of course, this was how it would have to be.
Saasha kept talking. Her voice took on a pleading note, though Nyx wasn’t sure if she was asking Nyx to go through with the assassination, or to not think badly of Saasha for engineering it. “It can’t be allowed to get out that the Saints have anything to do with the Destroyer’s death. It’s the only way for the empire to move forward.”
Nyx licked her dry lips. “What about you?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “Will you move forward?”
Saasha cringed. “It will be quick. That much I have made Albinus swear. There is no way the royal guards will let any assassin escape but he can ensure that you don’t suffer.”
“Mother.”
Tears gathered in Saasha’s eyes. She squeezed Nyx’s hands. “I will be so proud,” she said, her voice breaking a bit. “So very proud of you and what you have achieved for us all. I will think of you every day. You will be our most honored martyr.”
“That is not a good balm for being dead.”
“But how else will Tal survive?” Saasha asked, and there it was: the crux of the matter. “As long as the Destroyer lives, she will honor her sister’s laws. All silver Smiths must be executed. But if you were to kill her before she can render judgment, Albinus will take the throne, and he will forge a new path for the empire. Tal will be pardoned. And Albinus has sworn that he can save him from the rust phage, too.”
Nyx squeezed her eyes shut. Tal would be saved…and she would be dead. He would despise her for it. It would break his heart, and it would certainly break Helenia’s.
Nyx had imagined that, when all of this was over and both she and Tal were free, she would ask Helenia to marry her. She had dreamed of a winter garden blooming with whimsical snow vines and hardy white roses, all thorns and beauty. Perfect for the match between Nyx and Helenia. Tal would have been there too, dressed in his finery with no swords in sight, smiling for once as he escorted Nyx to her beloved. But there was no way now that such a vision would ever come true. It was only for her to decide which way she would wreck it, and who would be missing from the scene. Herself…or her little brother.
She tried to think it through logically. Tal was free of his oath, and she was not, or at least not entirely. She had yet to see the empire fall and the Destroyer’s rule ended. Even now, the vow itched beneath her skin. If she chose to do nothing and leave Tal’s fate to the girl who had already ruined his life, Nyx would still end up back here one day with an assassin’s weapon in her hand—but Tal would no longer be there to be rescued.
She knew that there was every chance Albinus was lying, that he was using the Saints to gain the throne for himself. But what if he did follow through on his promises, or at least his promise to free and heal Tal?
Nyx was going to have to end the Destroyer’s reign one way or another. Wasn’t it better to do it when there was still a chance of saving Tal in the bargain?
She reached across the table and picked up the miniature crossbow and the vial of poison. Her hand looked like it belonged to someone else; it shook, when her hands never shook. But it was her making this choice. Her deciding her own destiny. Her deciding what—and who—was worth dying for.
“Very well, Mother,” she heard herself say. “I will do it.”
ONCE, THERE WAS A BOY WHO BELIEVED.
His belief was no longer an easy thing. It used to feel infallible; it used to feel as certain as the sun. And then, when it dimmed and vanished, he’d thought his faith had been more like a desert—something created with the sole purpose of evaporating and demolishing any trace of life. It was only lately that he’d come to realize it was nothing so vast or grand as either the sun or a desert. It was more like a weed: small, and vain, and much harder to extract than he’d anticipated.
He was glad of it. At least weeds were honest. And valiant, in a way: to be pulled up and burnt down and kicked through, and grow back again without regard. If he was going to die today, at least he would do it honestly. And at least he wouldn’t be alone.
He’d roused in the morning in the midst of a fevered nightmare only to find Elodie mired deep in her own. He woke her, as he always did. They stared at each other wordlessly, his arm still bracing her chest, one of her feet wedged between his, as their separate dreams seemed to crackle and spark in such close vicinity.
She shut her silver eyes, knowing that hers was the face that had haunted his nightmare. Unable to deny it, but equally unable to see her looking as tormented as she did at this moment, he gently kissed her.
And then Albinus knocked on the door to summon him to his trial.
Once, there was a girl who believed only in her brother. Her belief didn’t grow up within her like a green thing, as Tal’s did, but instead coated her in the same way the violet poison in her pocket would soon coat an arrowhead. She had spent the night hardening her belief unt
il it cleared into an invisible, shatterproof cocoon around her. It did not let fear through. It did not let anything through at all.
The soldiers gave her a cursory weapons check when she arrived at the gate to the great garden courtyard where public trials were held. They found the poison, but she had put it in a flask and then sprinkled sour beer all over the container, so their only reaction was to wrinkle their noses, assume she was a drunk—which was only helped by the fact that her whole self smelled of sour beer after last night—and keep searching her. The miniature crossbow was harder to hide, so she didn’t try. It folded up cleverly to look like some sort of mechanical toy and she let them assume that was what it was.
The arrowhead was hidden in a hollow she’d carved out of the rubber sole of her boot. The arrow was nothing but a small stick, too innocent for the guards to bother with. And then they finished with her and just like that, she was let through, and had the next twenty minutes to scout out the perfect position from which to assassinate the Destroyer.
Once, there was a girl who was afraid.
She was afraid now. She had always been afraid. Her fear and her rage were twin hearts beating within her. Her power was a beast on a chain lunging to get free. She felt small and fragile, and so she made herself terrible and powerful, her skin lustrous with a wreath of white flames as she entered the garden. Her face was set in lines of carelessness, of cruelty. The Iron Crown shone on her brow. The willow trees and river birches seemed to shiver at her passing.
No one would sense her fear. No one could see her weakness.
But Tal did. She could feel his attention on her even as the guards marched him to the high stone stage. They stopped in the spot where the rock was blistered and scored, charred from the many death sentences the Destroyer had carried out here before. When they locked manacles around his wrists and turned him away from her and kicked his knees out from under him, she felt him wince as if his pain resounded through her own body.