All of this he considered with a remote sort of calm. He felt far away from himself, disconnected from the world as he had understood it. Too many impossible things had happened in too short a time. He could not maintain his shock any longer. He needed to move forward. He needed a plan. But, of course, there was a massive complication to any plan he might come up with, and she was sleeping directly across the fire from him.
The Destroyer. Elodie.
An eddy of wind slithered into the cavern, making the fire leap momentarily higher. Sparks hissed into the frosty air. They wreathed Elodie’s features, dancing in the space between him and her, framing the tension in her petite jawline and the way her lips twisted in a quiet cry. Hearing the soft, familiar sound made him remember how different she had sounded a few hours ago, when she’d laughed wildly as they careened down the slope. And before that, the unrepentant triumph in her voice when she held that headless hare aloft. I got in a tug-war with a stoat, she’d proclaimed. I won. Mostly.
His hands curled into fists against the cold stone ground. How dare she be funny? How dare she expect his gratitude? How dare she smile, and banter, and laugh, as if she hadn’t murdered hundreds of people only the night before and listened without remorse to their screams?
He hadn’t thought anything could be worse than protecting the Destroyer, but this was so much worse. Elodie was everything he despised hidden away inside the shell of a girl he might otherwise have admired.
He wanted to be sick as soon as the thought came into his mind. Earlier, once or twice, he’d caught himself talking to her unguardedly as if she really were someone else. He had told himself at the time that it was to keep her from suspecting him and remembering her past, but the truth was, she was treacherously easy to talk to. Her cruel air had been replaced with an oddly innocent ferocity. She spoke differently too—less formal, less measured, unweighted by her own past. He wondered if this was who she might have become, had she not been born the Lady of Mercury.
He shook himself. Her blood might be red now and her eyes brown, but she was yet who she had always been. The fact that his oath still compelled him to protect her proved as much. The question now was, how could she possibly have been so changed?
It had to be a side effect of the poison. Or perhaps this was what the poison had been intended to do—make her forget, render her powerless and weak. He wondered how long it would last. He wanted to hope that it would last as long as possible, but couldn’t deny there was a part of him that would rather the Destroyer return soon. If things were far more difficult with her at his side, at least she was easier to hate.
But in the meantime…maybe this situation could prove beneficial.
The idea came together slowly. His oath required that he deliver the Destroyer to safety, which in this case could only mean the Alloyed Palace. But between them and it lay the mountain ward—the Skyteeth, the peaks and alpine valleys he’d once called home. The Saints had an outpost near his old township there. If Tal could tweak his route back to the palace so that he and the Destroyer travelled through his home…then perhaps the Saints would find them, and be enabled to finish their assassination attempt after all.
The Destroyer would be too wary to be led into such a trap and her powers would make springing it too dangerous. Elodie, though, was a different story. She seemed to have no access to her magic. And more, she seemed to have a drive to help him, some sort of warped sense of care for him. He could use that. He could win her trust—and then lead her straight to the Saints. She wouldn’t be able to fight back. He would still be bound to try to protect her, but this time the assassins would have an advantage. It might just be enough.
Across the fire, Elodie curled in on herself and shivered violently. The crown she’d tied to her waist rattled on the rocks. Her dark hair slid over her shoulders and splayed in long curls over the stone, exposing her neck to the night air and to him. His hand tightened on the sword at his side. He looked away.
Was it righteous, what he was planning to do? It would be a betrayal akin to murder. He had killed before, so very many times, but this was different. This wasn’t something he was being compelled to do; he’d be earning Elodie’s trust and then leading her into a trap, and doing everything he could to give the Saints the chance to spring it.
But Elodie—the Destroyer—deserved death. Her soul was crusted black with the blood of good men and women. The count of her victims might even include Nyx by now. Tal flinched from the thought but forced himself to think it anyway, because it
