“Do you ever get them?” Farideh asked her sister. “Nightmares about … you know?”
Havilar regarded her blearily. “No. But you always have more dreams than me anyway.”
Except Farideh could not shake the suspicion they weren’t dreams at all. So why did they trouble her and not her sister?
“Which of the clans are locked down?” she asked. Keetley looped around the bed twice and landed at the foot. It slithered up the blankets and coiled itself in Farideh’s lap.
“I don’t know,” Havilar said. “I can hardly keep them straight.”
“Shestandeliath. And Ophinshtalajiir. You said six?”
“I don’t know!” Havilar said more forcefully. A faint, rising tune floated in from the sitting room beyond. Keetley lifted its head, swaying. “Brin’s up,” Havilar noted.
Farideh scooped up the winged snake, letting it coil around her shoulders, considering the last few days. “Are you avoiding him?”
“No,” Havilar said. Then, “Sort of.” She threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, dressing quickly.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Farideh asked.
“No. Not now.” Havilar strode from the room, Zoonie trotting after. The hellhound’s shoulders nearly brushed the edges of the doorframe as she passed, and Farideh frowned. Around her shoulders, Keetley tightened at the sound of Brin’s flute.
The message from Dahl had included instructions for the winged snake’s care—in case, the note explained, the creature was stopped in its progress. They were sparse but seemed to satisfy Keetley well enough: a large shallow basin of water, access to rats, a warm stone close to the brazier, and time outside each day. The snake moved through the room on its own schedule, sliding out of the shadows to curl up against her around the same time each day. But Farideh’s shoulders didn’t seem to replace Brume’s voluminous cloak.
The snake’s tongue flicked alongside her jaw. There were no instructions for how to send a message somewhere using Keetley.
“Do you know how to get to the Vast?” she murmured. The snake flicked her jaw again. Farideh rubbed her eyes and sighed. She climbed out of bed, dressing around the settled snake.
The black axe sat on the floor beside the bed where she’d tucked it the night before. She kneeled to retrieve it, still hesitant about the whole business. If this was Selûne’s gift, the moon goddess’s overture to her, Farideh thought, then where was she when Asmodeus made his claim? Where was she when Farideh was left with only monstrous powers to save Dahl? Where was she when Havilar’s safety was so in danger Farideh sacrificed everything to protect her?
Still, she kept it at her side, as if the axe would give up its secrets just by being near. She pressed her palms into the unfamiliar runes, and thought, not for the first time, of how they reminded her of the runes in the failed portal circle that the dead hatchlings had made. She stood and slipped the axe into the loops of the belt Uadjit had given her.
Out in the sitting room, platters of food for morningfeast already waited, beside a pot of tea. Havilar nibbled at a farothai, while Zoonie watched her faithfully.
“Mehen’s already left,” Brin explained.
“Has he gone to see what’s happening in the maurezhi search?” Farideh asked.
Brin shook his head. “He had the piercings in. I think he was going to see Anala. Again.”
“Maybe this time she’ll talk to him,” Havilar said.
Matriarch Anala had not taken it well that Verthisathurgiesh had been told of the maurezhi’s identity and possible motives so late after its rivals and the Vanquisher himself. She would not speak to the twins at all since then, and Mehen had not returned from her summons with anything more than a foul mood.
“Has anyone come back from the Lance Defenders?” Farideh asked. “The Adjudicators?”
“No one,” Brin said. “The only person who’s been here is the boy who brought the food up from the kitchens. Hencin,” he added.
“I wish Mehen hadn’t yelled at him about the food,” Havilar said, taking another farothai from the stack. “It was too much, but now we never get yochit, and it’s not like you can get that just anywhere.”
Brin made a face. He spotted Farideh watching him, and dropped it. “You look exhausted,” he said. “Sleep badly?”
“She had nightmares,” Havilar said. “Eat something.” She shoved a pasty at Farideh.
Keetley flicked its tongue at the pasty. “It’s ridiculous we’re shut up in here like we’re just visiting,” Farideh said. “We took a job. Havi and I can help in ways no one else really can. This is just stupid.”
“The Lance Defenders are searching,” Brin said.
“They’re not finding it, though,” Farideh said. “And we have to stay until they find it, right? So we need to find it.”
“Can you hear yourself?” Havilar asked, curious. “You sound like a lunatic.”
Before Farideh could retort, Havilar went on. “You ought to ask Lorcan where it is. He probably knows if it would hide in an enclave.”
Farideh said nothing. Chalked on the stone floor of her room was a circle of runes she’d made the night before, stopping just short of the ritual’s completion. There were a score of questions she wanted to ask Lorcan: about the maurezhi, about the things Ilstan had said, about her dream, about whether he could scry Dahl for her again. She’d stopped, considering the runes, considering the way her pulse had picked up, the way old urges nearly had her in his arms again. The way just talking to him made her temper run rampant. The way she couldn’t be sure the urges were all that old.
She sat for so long, perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised her when the sensation of someone tracing a fingertip over the lines of her brand came, slow and certain. She closed her eyes.
You will never be free of him, she thought. Not like this. She’d gotten up then and slipped into Havilar’s room. But she hadn’t swept the runes away.
“Well,” Brin said, suddenly, and Farideh realized how silent they’d all become. “I suspect the menagerie needs to take its air. Shall we go out?”
Behind the sofa, the great bulk of Zoonie suddenly rose, eager to leave. Havilar giggled, and even Farideh had to smile.
In addition to the hatchlings standing ceremonial guard, there were now two seasoned warriors standing at Verthisathurgiesh’s gates. Havilar told them where they were going, when they were likely to be back, and that Mehen would surely come looking for them before any of that.
“What sign will you give when you get back?” one asked, a young man with glossy black scales. “How will we be sure it’s you?”
Havilar squinted at him. “That’s not how it works.”
“If you agree on a sign,” Brin said, “then if the maurezhi gets one of us it will automatically know the sign. It won’t make a difference.” The young guard frowned.
“Look,” one of the veterans, an older woman with a Lance Defender badge said. “There are three of them plus the snake-thing and the dog-thing. They come back together, you know they weren’t ambushed. Got it?” To the rest of them, she added, “You shouldn’t be going out.”
“We have to let the dog-thing out,” Brin said. “We won’t be long.”
When they were farther down the stairs, Havilar muttered, “You’ll know we’re us because I’m not falling to that karshoji thing.”
However much it felt as if the Thymari dragonborn weren’t taking the threat of the maurezhi seriously, there was no arguing that the City-Bastion didn’t feel abandoned. The market was subdued, half-shuttered. The gates had twice as many armored guardians as they had when the caravan had first arrived, and the village beyond the pyramid crawled with armored dragonborn bearing the badges of Lance Defenders, the gold piercings of Adjudicators, the marks of clans upon their shields.
Outside the City-Bastion, the rising sun painted the road to the east and the field it cut across in a cool, crisp light. The moon, still high overhead, moved slowly through the sky. Keetley unlooped itself fr
om Farideh’s shoulders, slithering up the side of the pyramid, until it reached a height it could launch from. Farideh took the axe from her belt and sat leaning against the side of the pyramid, as Zoonie raced to the Road of Dust and back again.
Farideh rolled the axe’s shaft against her thighs. Overhead, Keetley slithered, wings wide. You’re just collecting other people’s things, she thought. Brume’s snake, Thymara’s axe, Asmodeus’s blessings.
Havilar sat beside Farideh, stretching her long legs out on the sandy ground as she settled back against the pyramid. “How about you give me the axe, and I’ll give you the creepy scepter?”
“No.”
“Come on! I could do something with an axe. Maybe I’m supposed to have the axe, you don’t know.”
“It’s not for chopping things,” Farideh said. “Or, I guess it could be, but it sounds like it’s the symbol of the thing.”
“I don’t understand that,” Havilar said. “The dragonborn clearly don’t know or care about the axe. You walk around with it on your belt. Raedra had that glittery short sword, and as soon as she drew it the whole karshoji army knew what it meant. The axe’s not a symbol. It’s a secret.” Havilar drummed her hands on her knees. “Do you like living here?”
“In Djerad Thymar?” Farideh watched Zoonie race along the river for a few moments. “No. I don’t. Not on the whole. Some things are better, but I’d trade them all to live somewhere I can see the sky, I don’t have to think about falling, and I don’t worry about running into Ar—”
She broke off, pursed her mouth around the name.
Havilar dragged a finger through the dust between the grass. “You saw him too?”
“I didn’t want to bring it up.” Are you all right? the question begged to be asked. Are you all right? and What did he say to you? and What did you say? and over and over, Are you all right? Her sister tensed beside her, as if Farideh had spoken all of these questions aloud, so she didn’t. She took Havilar’s hand and squeezed it.
“I like it all right,” Havilar said abruptly. “I could live here. Maybe.”
Farideh looked askance at her. “Do you know something I don’t?”
Havilar took her hand back and folded her palms together. “Not exactly.”
“Did Mehen tell you he wants to stay?”
“No.”
Dumuzi’s offhand remark stirred an eddy of dread in Farideh. “Karshoj. Gods. So he knows? About Anala making him Vanquisher? And he told you? Does he mean to—”
“What?” Havilar cried. “She wants to make him Vanquisher?”
“That’s what Dumuzi said.” Farideh frowned. “Wait, if that’s not why you’re asking—”
Havilar waved that away. “Because I got offered a position with the Lance Defenders. Why does Dumuzi think Mehen’s going to be Vanquisher?”
“You took a position?”
Havilar grabbed hold of her hand. “I said I was offered a position,” she hissed. “Don’t change the subject. Why in the karshoji Hells does Dumuzi think Mehen’s going to be Vanquisher?”
“Dumuzi thought that was the clearest reason for Anala to call him back. There’s an election soon and Verthisathurgiesh doesn’t have a very good candidate.”
“Why would she think Mehen’s a good candidate? Everyone is still all gape-faced about how he got exiled, which I still don’t understand. Which part is so stareworthy? The fact he didn’t get married? The fact he smarted off? The fact he doesn’t like women that way?” She shook her head. “I like it all right, but this is a weird karshoji place.”
Farideh shrugged. “I don’t know. And I don’t know if Mehen knows. I assume he’ll just laugh at her. Or I did before he put the piercings back in and went and let her yell at him two days running.” She yanked a blade of grass from the dusty ground. “You got offered a position? Are you taking it?”
Havilar sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, what am I going to do the rest of my life? Sellsword? I would be getting coin to tell people how to fight with a glaive. That actually sounds fun.”
“But you’d have to live here,” Farideh said.
Havilar’s hand curled around hers. “Yeah.”
Farideh swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. There’s nothing decided, she told herself. Don’t worry now. You’re too tired to worry.
“What does Brin think?” she asked.
Havilar winced. “I haven’t told him yet. It feels like I should make up my mind about one thing or the other first.” She bit her lip. “He was with me when I ran into Arjhani. He was really sweet. And I kissed him. Really kissed him. I’m not doing a good job of keeping my space.”
Farideh kept her thoughts to herself, but she found herself wishing for the days when Havilar and Brin had been a couple. She watched Brin throw a bit of wood broken off a cart for Zoonie to chase. She wondered if Havilar had warned him about Asmodeus, if Havilar even thought to worry about that. If it would make things worse to make Brin aware of the god of sin’s potential interest.
It would be wiser, she thought, to leave him out of it. To leave Dahl out of it too. That was safest, wasn’t it? Tell him it’s over, tell him you’re through—he was so close to doing it himself, wasn’t he? Who’s to say it wouldn’t be for the best? Who’s to say you haven’t already doomed him?
She blew out a breath. Dahl is fine, she told herself. Dahl is safe. He is clever enough to get back to you, Zhentarim or no Zhentarim. She pressed her hands into the axe, hard enough to impress the runes into her skin. Dahl is fine. Dahl is—
Farideh started, eyes on the axe head. For a moment, the reflection on the axe head had seemed to be not the flicker of the pyramid’s stone, the dried-out dirt—instead it was Dahl’s reflection, dirty-faced and grim, somewhere dark, somewhere lit by sunrods and nothing else. She turned the axe, back and forth, but there was nothing.
You’re tired, she reminded herself. You’re dreaming on your feet.
“You should probably tell Brin,” she murmured to her sister.
“I’m angry at you, you know,” Havilar said suddenly. “You shouldn’t have told Brin about Arjhani.”
For a moment, Farideh didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t tell him much. He was worried and … and so was I.”
“I know,” Havilar said. “I understand why you did, but it wasn’t yours to tell, not to him.”
“I’m sorry,” Farideh said. The calm way her sister spoke, the direct way she spoke—there was nothing about it that should have unnerved her, but it did. “I was worried,” she added lamely.
“You’re always worried,” Havilar said. She took Farideh’s hand again. “I’m all right. You really don’t have to worry about me.”
Farideh’s eyes welled with tears she was too tired to stop. “I can’t help it.”
“I know that too.” Havilar sighed. “Maybe I worry about you too much too. How bad is this dreaming business?”
Farideh shook her head and laughed nervously. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing, maybe inescapably terrible. I don’t know if it’s better or worse if you know.”
“You weren’t going to keep secrets anymore,” Havilar reminded her. “Tell me anyway.” Farideh told her, in careful bits and pieces, about the possibility the god was really two gods. About the ghost. About the cryptic way Lorcan spoke in her nightmares.
Havilar made a face. “Karshoji gods. Does Mehen know?”
“He knows a little.”
“A very little,” Havilar said. “He worries worse than you do. If he knew all that, we would not be here, we’d be locked up in those rooms forever. Maybe he can get over what might happen with boys, but godsbedamned gods …”
Brin’s flute drowned out her cry, a shrill flickering tone. Zoonie’s barks echoed off the pyramid, sending Havilar to her feet, her glaive to her hand.
Not Brin’s flute, Farideh realized. Brume’s.
She was on her feet before she identified the source of the sound, running before she was aware she’d stood. Silhouetted again
st the purplish sky, two winged snakes spiraled down toward the sound of the flute.
Her hands closed around the new snake as it dropped low, pulling it close. Its scales were cool, its wings pulsing with overexertion. In a little leather harness buckled between its wings and the blunt triangle of its head, a tube of paper peeked out.
She tucked the exhausted serpent into the crook of her arm, yanking the note free.
Was it idiotic to think you might get a moment of quiet? Be safe. I don’t know much about demons. Although by the time this reaches you, I’m sure you’ll have figured everything out. As for your questions, it’s more complicated than it seems & part of getting back to you is finding how to answer them. Don’t trust Lorcan!
He’d underlined it over and over, until the ink bled down into the next line.
Another worry: a devilish woman tracked me down. She knew about us & other things. I would guess she is a cambion, but her head is shaved & silver tattoos cover her scalp. She offered to reunite us. I said no, suspect she’ll return. She heard your sending—wait on those until field clear. A happier note: My brother has been insisting I tell him 3 things I love about you, which was none of his business, but your letter overwhelmed me, & I told him 4, & have thought of at least a score for myself. Love always, Dahl.
Farideh curled the note back into a cylinder. Sairché had found Dahl—and there was no warning him, no sending back a message without someone who knew how to give the snake orders.
“Brin, what’s ‘field clear’ mean?” she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “If he says not to do a sending until field clear?”
“It means wait until he says no one can hear him,” Brin said apologetically. “Silence until then, for safety.”
“He’s in trouble?”
Brin shrugged. “Not necessarily. I never got sendings unless I initiated them, because Suzail’s a city of eavesdroppers. It’s not good, but it’s not a sign of anything terribly dire.”
Farideh unrolled the note again. Don’t trust Lorcan. Because Lorcan had done something? Because Sairché had named him? Because he didn’t trust Farideh to keep her head straight?
Ashes of the Tyrant Page 40
