“He has new scars,” Nyx countered. Anger lashed through her at the memory of the white lines creeping over Tal’s shoulder and curling around his collar bone. Had she had him beaten? Did she torture him too, in her free time?
The Destroyer’s shoulders drew back and she lifted her chin. “I do not torture people without a purpose, and I have never put him to the question. I don’t have to. He is loyal. He is mine. His scars are from my would-be assassins and from accidents, nothing more.”
“Accidents that wouldn’t happen if he guarded anyone but you,” Nyx said, but she relaxed incrementally. This was something she’d had nightmares about, what the Destroyer might do to Tal when he was under her power. But if she was telling the truth—and the Destroyer seemed raw enough right now that Nyx believed her, at least on this—then Tal suffered only because he killed for her, and not because she actively tormented him. Not that that was truly better. Tal’s soul had always been so much more fragile than his body, and Nyx feared what his work must be doing to him.
“You’ve not answered my question yet,” the Destroyer said, her tone darkening. “I will ask it once more, and not again—”
“Do you promise?” Nyx interrupted.
The Destroyer ignored her. “How do you know Tal? You will answer me, or regret the consequences.”
From a few cells away, a strangled cry broke out. “Just—just do it,” a woman’s voice sobbed hoarsely. “You must do it. Make her stop.”
Up until now, the townsfolk in the car had kept silent, nothing but clumps of huddled, horror-tense bodies in the shadows of their cells, hiding like mice from a serpent. But apparently they couldn’t bear their fear any longer; the woman’s words whipped through the prisoners like an icy wind, leaving them shuddering and moaning.
Nyx took them in—the whites of their eyes gleaming, the stench of burnt clothing and skin, the bitter, flaky taste of ash that lingered even here. The hatred at her core grew a few more layers, and she used them to strengthen herself for what was to come.
She turned back to the Destroyer. “Torture me all you want,” she said, and the words within her burned like the fire before her. “I have said all I care to say.”
The Destroyer’s expression grew cruel. She stepped forward, and the flame in her palm coiled into itself like a spring, tension winding through every spark and flicker as the color changed from dull orange to white-hot.
The Destroyer held out her hand. And then the pain began.
he day before, Nyx had been drinking her daily dose of poison when her mother burst into the Saints outpost.
“We have the location,” the older woman announced. Her voice was triumphant. Cold. So were her eyes, and they only warmed a little when they landed on the vial in Nyx’s hand.
Nyx swallowed, licking the last traces of bitter liquid from her lips. The concoction always tasted like blood. Which was fitting, she supposed. “Where?” she demanded. “Will we have enough time to reach it?”
Time was always their enemy, almost as much as the metallurgy class was. Twice before in the last six months had the Saints been tipped off to the location of a town the Destroyer was set to punish, only to fail because it was too far from any of their hidden outposts. Both times, they’d arrived too late. Both times, they’d failed to either save any villagers, or to kill the Destroyer.
Or to rescue Tal. To everyone else, he was no more than a potentially valuable source of intelligence; he’d lived in the Alloyed Palace for years, and once freed, he could assist the rebellion in a way no one else could. But to her, he was the sole reason for the mission. For him, she drank poison every day.
For him, she would doom herself.
“The spies were right. It’s in the Copperreach, praise be to the Unforged God,” her mother said, icy ferocity coating her words and burning in her eyes. “We will make it if we leave now. Are you ready?” She paused for a moment, her gaze darting from the flask to Nyx’s face. Nyx wondered what expression she wore, to put that concerned look on her mother’s face. “It has to be you, you know,” her mother said, putting an end to Nyx’s speculation. Of course. She was worried Nyx might second-guess the mission.
Nyx lifted the flask to her lips and drank deeply, far more than her usual daily sip. The liquid swirled sourly in her stomach and stung her lips. She set the flask on the table before her, and it made a hollow thunk: the sound of emptiness.
“I know.”
When the worst of the pain was over, Nyx returned to herself. The Destroyer was withdrawing her hand. Nyx didn’t know if her expression was still cruel, because she couldn’t see anything but the afterimages of fire, couldn’t smell anything but char, couldn’t feel anything but anguish. Her cheek was pressed to the floor. One of her hands was spasming weakly, scrabbling against the sheet metal like a dying spider. Her skin looked uninjured but she could still feel the burning in her bones.
She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
For Tal, she thought fiercely, and forced her head up.
The Destroyer’s back was to her. The graceful arch of her spine, the gentle angles of her shoulders, the aristocratic tilt of her chin—all of it said that this business affected her not one bit. Nyx wondered if that was all torture was to her: business.
Then a shudder, light but unmistakable, quivered over the Destroyer’s shoulders. Her cloak of sparks flickered out for barely a second and then flared to life more strongly.
One of the prisoners—the woman who had cried out a moment ago—inhaled sharply. The sound was quiet but unmistakable.
Nyx squeezed
