“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s not coming back. Not this time.”
“Of course she’ll come back,” Havilar said, throwing back the cover and sitting up. “She always gets out of these things.”
Lorcan shrugged. “I won’t pretend I know her better than you. But I do know that my sister has a way with her deals. Whatever she’s caught Farideh in is no simple task. And if your Harper friends do find her, well, there’s a war happening out there. They’re going to treat her as a traitor from the sound of it. How could they do anything else? So if her captors don’t do her in, her rescuers well might.” He turned away to toy with the window latch. “I’ll admit, I never thought you’d be the sort who could wash your hands of her. But then if it were my sister, I would do the same without thinking. Maybe we’re not that different.”
“You and I are not the same.”
Lorcan smiled. “And yet both of us would be much better off as only children.”
Havilar balled her fists as if she could squeeze all the fury out of her. “I know what you’re doing,” she said, her voice shaking. “You think I’m stupid, but I know what you’re doing. You want me to feel bad for her. To feel like I have to save her. It won’t work. She can save herself.”
Lorcan tilted his head. “Can she? Who killed the plaguetouched succubus before she could kill Farideh? Who stared down a Zhentarim assassin? Who rescued her sister from a green wyrmling at the tender age of twelve? Farideh would be dead a dozen times over without you, Havilar. Make no mistake.”
Havilar’s fists loosened. “Who told you about the dragon?”
“Farideh, of course,” he said.
“She said you didn’t talk about me.” She had said that once, Havilar felt sure, after Havi had been jealous and demanded to know.
“I don’t,” Lorcan admitted. “But she’s always been impressed with you. Always a little envious of your skills.”
“You’re doing it again,” Havilar said. “I’m not stupid.”
“No,” Lorcan said. “You’re not. And you know I’m right. Those Harpers will be too slow in the first place. And then they don’t have all the facts, and even if Mehen would never turn on Farideh, they will outnumber him by a dozen. If you want to save her—and I think you do—we’re her only hope.”
Havilar folded her arms across her chest and glared at her glaive leaning against the wall. “I hate you,” she said after a moment.
“We can work on that,” Lorcan said. “But first we need to get far away from here.”
“You don’t know where to go,” Havilar pointed out. “She could be anywhere.”
“She could be, but she isn’t,” he said. “They had no clues?”
“Cold. Up high. And there was a note in Netherese.”
Lorcan smiled. “Then it sounds as if we start by heading north.” He tensed and magic crackled over his frame, dissolving his wings and horns and turning his red skin pale. He blinked and his dark eyes were human. “Let’s find some horses, shall we?”
Chapter Seven
19 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) Waterdeep
Farideh did not sleep. She sat on the bed with her back against the wall, watching the door. Every time she started to doze off, she thought of waking in the dead of night with Adolican Rhand standing over her, and she jolted into alertness.
She kept her cloak pulled close around her, her rod in her hand, her sword in easy reach. The room was cold—like a cave more than anything, all smooth-planed black glass—same as the halls they passed through to reach it. The rich furniture—a canopied bed, a raised chest with a ewer and bowl beneath a large mirror, and a brazier burning hot and magically smokeless on the thick carpet—couldn’t hide it, nor did it blunt the faint vibration the stone seemed to give off. Not enough to hear. Just enough to make her even more on edge, as she sat and waited for Rhand’s inevitable return.
Coming back into the world from Sairché’s confinement had been so like waking from a nightmare, only to realize she was still trapped within another dream—one where she couldn’t control her powers and monsters she was sure she’d vanquished rose up out of the ground, undeterred.
“I seem to recall we had unfinished business, you and I,” Rhand had said after he’d shown her into the room. “What a fortunate coincidence your mistress’s plans aligned with mine.”
One of the guards stirred up the brazier and a second laid out a pale nightdress on the bed—he’d draft her proper servants tomorrow, he’d said. Farideh didn’t dare look away from her captor even as her nerves sent up plumes of shadow-smoke, as if they could blur her edges and hide her from his sight. “I seem to recall you drugged my wine,” she said. “And then set your guards after me and my friend.”
Adolican Rhand wagged a finger at her. “Ah, but you were the one who destroyed the site I was so close to reclaiming. A score of my men died in the blast, you know,” he said, as if these were impish pranks. He smiled and it was still unpleasant. “Shall we let bygones be bygones?”
The way he’d looked at her while she drank the poisoned zzar, the feeling of his hands on her waist where they didn’t belong, the way he’d smiled like she wasn’t a threat at all and asked if she wanted to lie down while the crowds around her dissolved into laughing devils and her feet stopped obeying her— Farideh suppressed a shudder. Nothing is bygone, she thought.
She wondered what Sairché had promised him.
A common enemy—that was the deal. The favor would bring down a common enemy. But Sairché hadn’t said who that was. Did Rhand know? Was Farideh meant to turn against him? Was there some fourth wicked source in this arrangement?
But Rhand had given her no sign, and merely bid her good night, saying that he’d send up a maidservant in the morning to help her find her way down to morningfeast. As much as she hadn’t expected to see Rhand again, she’d expected even less for him to make conversation with her like a longlost friend and then walk out the door, leaving it unlocked.
She wondered if Rhand would remember Dahl from before if the Harper got caught. She wondered if Dahl had seen Rhand come down the stairs and if he’d come back for her. Dahl had gotten her away from Rhand the first time, when she couldn’t walk straight let alone say what was happening to her. But the middle of a revel where everyone was at least acting innocent and the middle of a fortress crawling with shadar-kai and devil-dealers were very different.
And, Farideh thought, picking at the embroidery of the coverlet, Dahl only came back for you by accident that first time.
She took a deep breath—again. You can handle this, she thought, staring at the closed door. You are the daughter of Clanless Mehen. You are a Brimstone Angel . . .
You are an idiot, a little voice said. You are in well over your head.
As soon as Rhand and his guards left, she’d thrown the nightdress over the mirror. She couldn’t bear to look at her face with all its subtle strangeness, all the minute reminders of what she’d done. In the hardness of her jaw was everything Havilar had lost—including her trust in Farideh. In the slight widening of her cheekbones, Mehen’s broken heart. In the paleness of her skin, there was Brin’s sad expression and the uncertain way he looked at Havilar. In the faint lines around her mouth, there was Lorcan.
Farideh’s throat tightened and she laid her head against her knees, trying to swallow her tears. Do you really think you’re still his warlock now? Sairché had said. Because he was done with her or because Sairché had him locked away? If this was how she protected Farideh, how had she “protected” Lorcan?
It doesn’t matter, Farideh thought as the tears started flowing. There is no reason to think you’ll ever see him again. He wouldn’t forgive you either. She wept and wept for all of them, and without meaning to fell asleep.
The sound of the latch made her leap off the bed, all adrenalin and instinct. The sun had risen, she noted as she caught her breath and tried to slow the hammering of her pulse.
How long had she been asleep? She wiped her face as the door opened—long enough all her tears were gone.
So were the rod and the sword.
It was not Rhand who opened the door but a human woman in a threadbare gray skirt and blouse, a black cloth tied around thick auburn hair shot through with gray. She curtsied before entering, trailed by a guard in spiked armor holding a wooden case.
The guard was shadar-kai, and shorter than Farideh by a head and a half, but by the way she moved every ounce of her seemed to be muscle, encased in black leather and trimmed with chains. Her silvery hair was cropped short and stuck out from her head in a wild halo. Piercings of blackened metal pulled at her face, giving her a strange grimace. There were knives at her hips and crossed on her back. The guard looked Farideh over and smiled, displaying teeth filed into points.
The human made another little curtsy. “Well met, my lady. I’m Tharra,” she said, with a familiarity that didn’t fit. “They’ve asked me to dress you for morningfeast.”
“My lady,” the guard added, dropping the case on the table.
“My lady,” Tharra said, smoothly, as if she’d merely paused a moment too long. As if the guard weren’t terrifying.
“What am I supposed to call you?” Farideh said, Sairché’s warnings echoing in her thoughts.
The guard’s eyes were black as Lorcan’s but colder, much colder. She curled her lip, displaying a row of filed, pointed teeth. “Nirka.” She turned to scowl at the maid. “Be quick about it!” Tharra bobbed her head and went to the wardrobe.
“I’m already dressed,” Farideh said. Tharra considered Farideh’s torn and gore-stained blouse, and raised her eyebrows. She looked to the guard who snorted.
“You’ll change,” Nirka said. “He’ll have things to say if you come down wearing that.”
“I’ll suffer them.”
Tharra straightened her apron. “There are lovely gowns in here,” she said, and whether it was her tone or the worry of what Rhand might do, Farideh found herself curious. It wouldn’t be such a concession to change . . .
Farideh frowned. That wasn’t like her, not at all. She wondered what Rhand—or Sairché?—had done while she slept.
“There are combs and a necklace, as well.” Tharra opened the case to show a wide collar of jet and rubies that would sweep over Farideh’s collarbones. The combs were decorated with little clusters of lacquer poppies spangled with more rubies and weeping drops of pearl milk. “They won’t suit your current clothes. And Nirka tells me the wizard would like you to wear them.”
I’ll bet he would, Farideh thought.
Farideh thought of Sairché’s cool confidence. She thought of Lorcan’s sly sharpness. She thought of Temerity’s stillness in the face of a Brimstone Angel. She could do this.
Farideh steeled herself and sneered the way she had when faced with Rhand and the dead guards to answer for. “Are the gems what’s making me so interested in dresses?”
Tharra stiffened. “What?”
“What do they do?”
Tharra stared at her, and Farideh had the strangest sensation that she was keeping herself from looking to Nirka. “ ‘Do,’ my lady?”
“How are they enchanted?”
Tharra smiled and shook her head. “They aren’t. Do you prefer they were?”
Farideh touched the gems tentatively—no itch or buzz or tingle. No sense there was anything magical at all about them. She frowned.
“Put her in the dress and come along,” Nirka said. “Your morningfeast is getting cold and Master Rhand is growing impatient.”
The maid pulled several items from the wardrobe—a dark green velvet gown; a gauzy silver one, matched with a long corset; a third, glittering black and red with long, carefully placed strips. Tharra’s amused expression showed clearly through the very transparent red sections.
“That one. A fine gown,” Nirka said, though her disgusted expression showed she didn’t agree. “Put it on.”
“I’m not wearing that,” Farideh said, feeling her stomach knot. “Ever.”
“It will suit your figure,” Tharra said. “You could try it on?”
She could. She could just try it. There was no harm in—
Farideh flinched as if she could shy from the embarrassing, intrusive thoughts. “Hold it up again?”
Tharra had no more than lifted the dress, but Farideh pointed a finger and spat a word of Infernal that carried with it a shiver of energy. The middle of the dress exploded into cinders and tatters of thread. Tharra and Nirka jumped back in surprise, the guard catching the hilts of her hip daggers as she did.
“I am not,” Farideh said again, “wearing that.” She considered the open wardrobe. “Haven’t you any armor for me? Anything with breeches?”
Nirka eyed her impassively. “What do you intend to do, little demon? Fight your way out?”
“I intend to wear what I want,” Farideh said sharply. “Or not leave this room. So you can decide—do you want to explain to him where I am? Or do you want to find me something I’ll wear?”
Nirka looked her over slowly, as if thinking of all the ways she could cut Farideh into pieces. “You will wear the jewels and the combs. And you will tell him what you did to the dress.” She stepped closer to Farideh—close enough Farideh thought about which spells she could cast, which tender spots she could strike if the shadar-kai grabbed her around the throat. “But do remember, it won’t make any difference.” She gave Farideh another horrible grin that bared her pointed teeth. “It may even make it worse.”
The powers of the Hells coiled around Farideh, ready to lash out if the guard so much as moved—
A claw of pain gripped the back of Farideh’s skull. The lights began blooming around her vision again and clustered in shadow-black and foul green around the guard’s heart, and a shimmering purple and bruised yellow around the servant’s. Blue sparked around the corner of her silvered eye. Farideh held steady, trying to channel someone cold and dangerous and not at all afraid of what was happening. Trying not to cry out.
“Don’t leave,” Nirka snapped at Tharra as she swept from the room.
Tharra shut the door behind the guard. “Shall I dress your hair while we wait? My lady?”
“Where are my weapons?” Farideh demanded.
Tharra smiled, the purple light in her pulsing. “I wouldn’t know. They brought me into the fortress just this morning. If I had to guess, I’d say someone took them to the armory.” She gestured at the chair before the mirror. “Nirka would be the one to ask. My lady.”
Farideh sat, her nerves ready to shatter. Nothing felt right, and she couldn’t shake the sensation that at any moment, she would be surrounded by all the things she feared. That if she stopped preparing, tensing for them, they would sweep her away as neatly as Sairché had swept her out of the world.
And then there was Tharra, who was so calm and falsely pleasant, it set Farideh’s nerves on edge.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what’s fashionable in Shade,” Tharra said. “Or have the skill to make it happen. But I can plait—”
“Do what you want,” Farideh said. She could tie the whole mess up in a bow, and it wouldn’t make a difference. Instead of watching her unwelcome reflection, Farideh watched Tharra in the mirror, as she deftly separated hanks of Farideh’s purplish-black hair, plaiting them into smaller sections and twisting them up into knots under Farideh’s horns. A pang of heartsickness hit Farideh—Havilar would have cheerfully pinned her hair up. Although she would have spent the time trying to convince Farideh that the combs would look much better on her.
“Do you come from Shade?” she asked Tharra. The woman’s expression turned curious.
“No, my lady,” she said. “I don’t think any of us do.”
“You just serve him for your own reasons?”
For the barest moment, Tharra’s eyes turned hard as flint. “For food. We take the best we can get in hard times,” she said. “My lady. How is it you plan to serve him?�
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Farideh flushed at the unspoken implication and started to retort, but the blue lights that had been flickering in the corner of her silvered eye flashed again in the mirror’s reflection, just over Tharra’s head and behind her. Farideh pursed her lips and tried to quiet them. Sairché would have to come eventually. She’d have to tell her what it was then.
But as she watched, the lights grew and clung to each other. And, for a moment, took the shape of a woman, a tiefling.
Farideh leaped to her feet, jerking her hair out of Tharra’s hands. But the lights had gone out once again, and there was no sign in the little room that anyone but Farideh and the maid had been there.
“Is something wrong, lady?” Tharra asked. She’d taken a good two steps back from Farideh, watching her carefully. The lights around Tharra had vanished too.
Farideh blinked several times, but whatever she thought she’d seen didn’t return. She sat back down. “No. Just finish.”
Nirka returned a moment later with black leather jacks, marked with lines of gold-colored studs. Nirka made a slit in the back seam for her tail, and Farideh mutely pulled them on, still watching the empty air over the bed. The necklace looked preposterous with the high-necked armor, but Tharra draped it around her neck anyway.
“Come on,” Nirka said. She nodded to Tharra. “Clean this up, and I’ll be back for you.” Nirka locked the door behind them, and led Farideh downstairs.
Adolican Rhand waited for Farideh at the end of a long table laden with delicacies she had no stomach for. He stood as she entered, chuckling at her garb.
“I’ll admit,” he said sitting again. “I was hoping you would choose something more flattering. The red one is terribly fashionable in the city, I’m told.”
“Not in any city I’ve been in,” Farideh said, and the wizard laughed.
“Too true.” He gestured at the meal between them. “Please. You’ll have to forgive me, I did not wait.”
Farideh didn’t move. The last time she’d taken food from Adolican Rhand, it had taken tendays to get the poison out of her system. “I ate from my rations.”
The Adversary Page 14
