Details about Mercurial by Naomi Hughes
Mercurial by Naomi Hughes – In the visions, his hands hadn’t been trembling. In the visions, he hadn’t seen the look on the girl’s face: gracefully curious brows, starlight-silver eyes, a predatory curve of lips. It was the face of a murderer. But he believed in his visions, believed what his god had promised through them, so he kept walking.
The gleaming Alloyed Palace rose before him in the moonlight. Made of plated scales, it looked like the skin of some monstrous, colorful snake perched above the tumbling river. The boy could feel the shimmer of the palace’s magic from here. He could pick out the scales that hummed in sync with the forbidden silver that ran through his own blood. Though he couldn’t sense any of the other metals, his keen eye picked out plates of copper, iron, nickel, tin, gold. All of them were enchanted, their natural magics Smithed by the metallurgists of the high courts to protect against invaders.