by Erin Evans
“He wants what’s keeping Nanna-Sin here,” Dumuzi said. “He wants the last spark of his divinity for himself.”
• • •
THE FIRST ARROW flew out of the woods when they came into sight of Arush Vayem’s high wooden wall, burying itself harmlessly in the calf-deep snow, two steps in front of Farideh.
“Ambush!” Dahl shouted. All around Farideh, swords left their scabbards, bodies shifted to safer positions.
“Patrol!” Farideh corrected. The shadow-smoke that had been curling, thicker and thicker off her arms, pulled in, filling her hands with fire—not what she needed. Another handful of arrows struck the ground around them, the trees beyond.
“Ilstan?” she said, her lungs struggling with the thin air. “I need the shield.”
The wizard set his hand on her shoulder. Fighting all her instincts, Farideh shut her eyes as the surge of magic went through her, the sudden connection to the Weave alongside the Nine Hells. She found the vein of power that triggered the spell she wanted.
“Yuettviexcudot,” Ilstan said.
“Don’t move,” she said to Dahl and the others. “Yuettviexcudot.”
The strange syllables wove the magic streaming out of her together, knitting a wall of invisible power that briefly glinted in the crisp light before snapping tight across the edge of the path nearest the patrol. Another volley of arrows struck the shield, splintering apart against the barrier.
Ilstan’s hand left her shoulder, and he studied the shield spell. “Apt,” he pronounced. “One assumes you will become faster with practice.”
Farideh shook her arms out, feeling as if they were suddenly made of dry wood, stiff and too light. The spell was one of a handful that Ilstan and she had discovered she suddenly could access. They’d practiced along the way, giving Ilstan more and more release from Azuth’s madness.
“I would remark on the fairness of your gaining such magic without the attendant study,” Ilstan had said, rather dryly and quite sanely, “but under the circumstances, I suspect you have sacrificed the equivalent.”
On the path to Arush Vayem, cheeks aching with the cold, Farideh approached the edge of her shield. “Who’s out there?” she shouted. “Which of you is leading the patrol?”
The dark shape of a bundled body peered around the trunk of a fir tree. “Turn around. There’s nothing for you here.”
Farideh hesitated. Eight years on, there was no telling if the story of her exile would have faded or become embellished. “I used to live here,” she called back. “We don’t mean any harm.”
“Just keep walking,” Lorcan said, pulling his heavy cloak closer. “You don’t need to make friends.”
“No,” she said. “I need someone to open the gate.” Another two people peered out, bows ready, arrows nocked. Farideh squinted at the dragonborn-shaped one. “Zevar? Is that you?”
“Who wants to know?” yelled a voice that was unmistakably the shy and surly dragonborn smith’s.
Farideh hesitated, trying to calculate how the years might have diminished or embellished the story of the burned-down barn. Trying to decide if he’d remember her nearly taking his foot off when she’d been sent on patrol like this.
If Mehen were here, she thought, he would know what to say. He wouldn’t worry about whether Zevar remembered him fondly.
She didn’t relish returning to Arush Vayem without him.
“It’s Farideh,” she called back. “Clanless Mehen’s daughter. I need to get into the village.”
“Farideh?” Zevar stepped out from behind the fir, but he didn’t lower his bow. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I know. But there’s—”
“Why’re you bringing a little army?”
“No, they’re friends,” she called back. More or less, she added to herself. “Zevar, I need to get into the village.”
“Seem to recall you and your sister were plenty good at knocking down walls. Turn around.”
She didn’t expect the chill in his voice to hurt—she’d expected it, after all. But her chest squeezed tight around the knowledge that these people, this world that had been everything she’d known, had cast her aside completely and never looked back. Arush Vayem truly had no love at all for her.
“How many in a patrol?” Adastreia asked, loud enough that Zevar and the others surely heard.
“Four to eight.”
Adastreia spread her fingers, filling up her hands with shimmering violet lights. “Against seven? I’ll take those odds.”
“Put it out,” Farideh said. Whatever grief she felt, she wasn’t going to let it be turned against innocent people.
“You want me to talk to him?” Bodhar asked quietly.
Farideh turned, surprised, but he only shrugged affably. “I’m pretty good at talking to folks. I could help.”
“Hold off,” Dahl said to him. This is … It’s not like Harrowdale.” He hesitated, his gray eyes finding hers. “They don’t want to trust us. They don’t have a reason to trust us.”
“We call that ‘being enemies,’ ” Adastreia said acidly. “I can hit the dragonborn from here.”
“The shield is going to fail in another few songs,” Ilstan noted. “We should come to an agreement.”
“Darling,” Lorcan said. “You don’t owe them.”
She turned back to Zevar, to the unknown guards still covered by the trees. It wasn’t about owing someone—if anything, it was what she owed herself. Killing them would be faster, but she’d have to live with that forever.
“Maybe we can bargain,” she said. “Maybe … Maybe they’ll take a bribe? Or a hostage?”
A dark shadow swooped through the crisp light. Farideh ducked, twisting to get the rod pointing up toward the winged shape. She heard Zevar and the others hit the snow, tracking the creature. It crashed through the coldbrittled branches, catching on a low bough and swinging like a hanging sack from it. As it dropped, a rider leaped from it, pulling out a massive sword as they landed. Three of the patrol shifted out of their cover, aiming their arrows at this intruder.
“Halt!” Zevar shouted.
“Karshoj, Zevar,” Clanless Mehen bellowed, and Farideh’s heart leaped. “Half your guards have their backs bare now, and I’m not the one casting godsdamned ranged spells. Stand down before you pothachis shoot your own karshoji backsides.”
Zevar went stiff as a post. “Mehen?” He seemed to look up, to register the giant bat hanging from the tree. “You … Did you steal that?”
“The new Vanquisher granted it to me,” Mehen said. “I hope you’re not giving my daughter trouble.”
Zevar shook his head. “She can’t come in. You know she can’t.” His whispered voice carried across the still, snowy forest. Mehen glanced over at Farideh, and for a moment, she expected him to agree, to insist she was coming back to Djerad Thymar.
But then he turned to Zevar. “Fair sure she can. She’s gotten a lot more powerful than when you saw her last, and besides, we’ve got important business in the village. So you may not like us visiting, but we certainly can.” He smiled, showing all his teeth. “Ask them to open the gates.”
“Criella won’t like it.”
“Then we’ll take it up with Criella. Go get her.”
Zevar hesitated a moment more before taking three of the guards—two more dragonborn Farideh didn’t recognize, and a human girl who looked a good deal like she was related to the dairyman, Oster. The sliver of familiarity stirred up more worry in her.
Mehen came crunching through the unbroken snow and half-dead undergrowth. Farideh didn’t realize she was braced for another argument until her father caught her up in a fierce embrace. Didn’t realize how afraid and alone she’d felt until she hugged him back.
“You have a plan,” he said. “We’re going to make it work. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “We’ll … we’ll figure it out. I promise I’m not forgetting Havi.”
“Of course
you’re not.” He released her, and though he looked drawn and worried, she knew he was on her side. “We need to do this part quickly, though,” he said. “Kallan needs that damned bat back. Come on.”
Arush Vayem. The village on no one’s maps. A refuge. A place of exile. A hiding place for folks who wanted a moment of peace, who could guarantee peace for their neighbors. Every step toward it felt more and more familiar. Every step made panic race a little nearer around her heart.
Farideh had asked Mehen once why he had settled in the mountain village, before she knew anything about why he’d left Djerad Thymar—anything apart from that he had left Djerad Thymar. He’d hesitated, the truth filling up his thoughts. “Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found you girls,” he’d said.
The palisade gates parted, revealing the little snow-swept village tucked against the rocky mountainside. Because you can hide from things here, she thought. Because you can hide from life itself. Because no one will ask questions, so long as you keep to yourself.
Dahl’s hand found hers. “Gods’ books,” he said to no one in particular. “It’s like the wizard’s finest come to life.” He squeezed her hand tight. “I have to imagine … someone coming back here, after all that, I have to imagine it would be difficult.”
She squeezed his hand back, trying to press down the fear, the grief, the odd longing for what she’d lost that winter day eight years before. The gladness that she didn’t have to stay here. She glanced over at Lorcan, carefully staying to the back of the group. Carefully not watching her and Dahl.
A group of villagers came hurrying toward them, chasing after Zevar. Farideh came to stand beside Mehen, ignoring the curl of dread in her stomach. One of these people knows something, she reminded herself. One of these people has the key to saving Havilar.
She recognized Criella first, the broad bumps of her polled horns giving her a familiar shape. Farideh drew a breath to steady herself. She very pointedly didn’t look at Lorcan. His wings were pressed down beneath a heavy cloak, but there was no being certain that no one would remember him.
Criella stopped, so far from Farideh that their outstretched fingers couldn’t have touched. Three more villagers stopped beside her—Pyador the dwarf, a dragonborn she didn’t recognize with empty piercings along her brow ridges, and—to her surprise—Iannis, the dairyman’s son, grown thicker and starting to gray. She couldn’t look at him.
“What are you doing here?” Criella demanded. “I think we made things quite clear before—you’re not welcome back.” She searched the crowd behind Farideh and Mehen, as if she were unimpressed. Farideh wondered if Zevar had told her there was an army.
“Mistress Criella,” Farideh said, “you look well.”
“Don’t be smart,” Criella snapped. “Why are you here?”
“We’re looking for something,” Mehen said.
“Anything that was yours was destroyed when she took on that unspeakable magic.” Criella searched the lot of them again, lingering on Lorcan, as if she could see through his cloak, and Adastreia, as if she might too be a devil in disguise.
“It’s not ours,” Farideh said. “But I don’t think you want it. Someone hid something here in the village, a long time ago. Something … well, let’s say the sort of people who want it aren’t the sort of people you want in Arush Vayem.”
Criella hesitated. “We’d know if there were something like that here.”
“Maybe,” Farideh said. “Did you ever know a man called Caisys?”
A strangely blank expression crossed Criella’s face—quick as a gasp, but there was no denying it, any more than Farideh could deny the suspicious look that replaced it. “I most certainly don’t.”
Ilstan stepped up behind Farideh and cleared his throat. “Your pardon,” he said. “But I took the liberty of attempting to detect some hint of the magic that would be required to hide such a portal or the item itself.”
“What did you find?” Farideh asked.
He shook his head. “The magic here is … very tangled. The spell bounces around like a voice in a canyon. It would not surprise me if that is exactly what we’re searching for, but, too, it suggests it won’t be easy to pin down.” He looked up at Criella. “Goodwoman, I suggest you give us leave to search. You have already been living too long in danger’s shadow.”
“Don’t see how that’s the case,” Pyador said. “Garago would have said something.”
Iannis scoffed. Criella glared at him. “Come now, Mistress Criella,” he said. “You know Garago isn’t in his right mind. Might be a little wisdom in letting them look around.”
“He’s come from Djerad Thymar,” Zevar pointed out, nodding at Mehen. “Says he’s cozy with the new Vanquisher.”
“Zevar, I’ve got a thousand better things to do than spy on clanless wanderers for their elders. Do what you’re doing, I don’t care.” He leveled a glare at Criella. “I haven’t heard a complaint that holds water yet.”
She scowled at him. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“A portal,” Ilstan said.
“And … some sort of observation spell,” Farideh said. If Caisys had left them there, if he didn’t know anyone in the village, then he would surely have had some way to check up on them. “Or someone who remembers the person that would have used them.”
But she thought of the moment of blankness in Criella’s features—what if Caisys had come and gone and made sure no one remembered when or why or where he’d gone next?
Criella kept her eyes on Mehen. “Fine. But you pester folks, and we’ll turn you right out again.” She left as swiftly as she came, the others trailing away after her, no more eager to speak to strangers than Criella had been.
“There are spells to make them speak,” Ilstan noted. “Should we need them.”
“No,” Farideh said. “We just look for now.”
“We’d have to break down every one of these hovels just to find out if any cranny might contain a spell,” Lorcan said. “You should listen to the war wizard.”
“Look,” Farideh said again. “And please don’t draw attention to yourself.”
“Divide up,” Mehen said. “Three casters, three groups.”
“I have to take Lorcan,” Farideh said. The spell wouldn’t stretch the length of the village. Dahl’s hand closed more tightly around hers and the guilt of her dream flooded her. “And Dahl.”
Mehen’s nostrils flared as if he were trying hard not to say what he thought about that. “I’ll take Ilstan. You two”—he pointed at Thost and Bodhar—“keep her out of trouble.”
“I have no interest in trouble, thank you,” Adastreia said.
“Then enjoy the tour of your daughters’ first home,” Mehen said. “Come on, War Wizard.” He and Ilstan headed up the center of the village.
“I’m fairly sure I can guess what’s here,” Adastreia said. “Which way should we start?”
Farideh sighed. “The staff in Abeir is in a cave, so maybe head toward the mountain slope?”
“And where shall we begin?” Lorcan asked as Adastreia, Thost, and Bodhar headed off.
“If you think this Caisys fellow hid the staff,” Dahl said to Lorcan, “and he’s the one who brought Fari and Havilar here, maybe the key came with them. We should look where the house was.”
It was as good a place to start as any, even if the thought made Farideh’s heart drop like a stone. They made their way through the village, under the dark stares of Arush Vayem’s inhabitants.
The old stone house hadn’t been cleared. Where Farideh had taken the pact, the ground was leveled, surrounded by a ring of stone rubble. At its edge, the building remained almost intact. The walls of Mehen’s bedroom stood, crumbling from the lack of care or a roof, and you could see how high the outside walls had reached. One side of the door frame remained and some of the timbers. The hearthstone, but no chimney.
Who could blame you? Lorcan had said. Who wants to be held responsible for something they can’t contr
ol? Turned away because of something their foremothers and forefathers did to gain a little power?
Farideh let go of Dahl’s hand, picked her way through what had been the door. Walked over the bare snowy floor, around the charred remains of the heavy wooden post that had held up the roof near there. A twisted branch of iron hung at eye level, the hook she’d hung her cloak on.
What do you know about my foremothers and forefathers? she’d said stupidly, so stupidly. Maybe it was power that made them cross with devils, or maybe they didn’t have much choice. Maybe it was for some … greater good. Maybe it was love. He’d laughed at that. He’d known better.
She found her way to the spot she’d stood on that day, beside the memory of a bookshelf, the hollow of a missing hearth. She looked at the spot where Havilar had bound Lorcan beneath their lofted bedroom, now just rubble blanketed by snow.
She remembered how he’d smiled. How she’d blushed. How he’d said: Of course. All those mortal women swooning over gallant pit fiends. All those golden-hearted succubi blushing as men kiss their burning hands. My darling, let me tell you a secret: devils don’t love.
It’s not why I said yes, she told herself, because there was no one else to say it to. Not because she blushed when he smiled or because she knew somehow she’d love him, that he’d break her heart, that he’d say he loved her back. She imagined a life where she hadn’t taken the pact, where the stone barn still stood, where Havilar chafed and tried to be happy hunting dire rats, where all Mehen had were surly patrols to correct. Where she looked into the gray emptiness of her future and tried to believe that something good would come of it. She shut her eyes.
A moment later someone put their arms around her, pulled her close. She rested her head against the hollow of Dahl’s neck.
