“I’m not a fool,” Lorcan said. “She didn’t call you down. You used Temerity.”
“To find you,” Sairché said, standing a careful twenty-five steps from Farideh’s unconscious body. “But I didn’t need Temerity to convince Farideh to come around. You tricked her, after all—did you really think you were the only one who could manage that?”
“Of course not,” Lorcan said, a heartbeat too slow. He’d tricked her, true, but then he’d let himself get pulled into an argument that he hadn’t shut down as quickly as possible. He’d left Farideh ready to jump into another devil’s pact. He’d practically handed her to Sairché.
No, he told himself. She wouldn’t leave.
Sairché chuckled. “Oh. You thought she was different. How funny.”
“They’re all the same,” Lorcan said off-handedly, furious that his heart was racing. “That said, they’re all a fair bit cleverer than you give them credit for, little eavesdropper. Why should I believe anything you tell me?”
Sairché had shrugged. “Well, what you believe or don’t believe is immaterial. She turned on you—that much is plain. She didn’t trust you. She hasn’t trusted you for a long time. The magic circles, the dealings with priests, going to the wizard. Does that suggest a long-term plan for the pact in your mind?”
“Lords, Sairché, you can surely spin something together without making up players. Point out the paladin. Point out all the books of lore and legend. Hells, tell me her sister was the key. But there’s never been a wizard.”
Sairché’s grin was a terrifying thing, brimming with glee and giddy surprise, and Lorcan knew in that instant he’d miscounted. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my dear brother. She never mentioned an Adolican Rhand?” Sairché giggled. “Oh, Lords of the Nine—truly? Where did you think she got her ritual book?”
Lorcan scrambled—from Dahl, that scowly fallen paladin, though clearly that wasn’t the answer. “A ritual book she needed to rescue me,” he scoffed. “Terribly clever of her to do that instead of taking the opportunity you presented her with and running off to learn spells.”
Sairché had shrugged. “Mortals are complicated. Maybe you’re right. But it makes me wonder”—and she’d smiled at Lorcan, as if she’d already won—”why she decided not to buy a book from any of the myriad sellers in the City of Splendors, and instead accept the gift of a wealthy, fine-looking wizard who was very clearly taken with her? And why she never spoke a word of him to you?”
“There’s no telling,” Lorcan said, finally answering Havilar’s question, “until we find her. She might be at the mercy of untold enemies. She might be curled up with that wizard.” He spat the word as if he could rid himself of the notion entirely. Godsdamned Sairché. The wizard didn’t matter.
“What wizard?” Havilar asked. After a moment without an answer, she asked, “That creepy Netherese fellow? The one from Waterdeep?”
“As I said, there’s no telling, is there?” Lorcan asked.
“He was shady,” Havilar said. “Even if his revel was nice. Until the poison and the assassins and things.” She paused. “I suppose the fight was sort of a thrill, too, although I wouldn’t call it nice. Anyway, she’s not curled up with him, whatever that means. I mean she might put up with you, but there’s shady and then there’s shady.”
Lorcan gritted his teeth. “We’ll have to see.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Havilar asked. “You have no idea where we’re going. I could have gone off on my own and found her quicker than this.”
Lorcan had left the ruby necklace in Havilar’s care, certain even without examining it that his prison was only one element of Sairché’s gift. The other gems wouldn’t be ordinary. One would surely be a beacon for Sairché to trace Farideh by. A few days, a tenday, a month—however long it took, eventually Sairché would check in on Farideh. Eventually she’d have to. And then Lorcan would strike.
In the meantime, he had a replacement heir to pact.
An heir that a part of him was rapidly reconsidering how dearly he wanted. He tried to ignore it, but every time Havilar piped up with some new nonsense, with some new insult that had no spark to it, with some new sigh or whine or sadness, Lorcan missed Farideh. He missed arguing with her. He missed the nuances of steering her. He missed the furtive way she looked at him and perhaps the less furtive way he looked at her. He even missed the constant pull of that damned protection spell. Farideh might have always been a difficult warlock, but Lorcan had to admit that she was interesting.
“If you’d gone off on your own,” Lorcan said, biting back his irritation, “you’d find yourself walking straight into Sairché’s hands.”
“Why should she care about me? I’m not a warlock.”
Lorcan smirked to himself. Not yet. “To begin with, you decided to push yourself far beyond your limits and then pour a bottle of wine down your throat.”
“Half a bottle,” Havilar protested.
“Does that change anything? Don’t tell me you don’t know better,” he said. “If those aren’t the actions of someone ready for easy answers, I don’t know what are.”
“I think I deserve some easy answers at this point.”
He clucked his tongue. “Easy answers lead to a perilous road. Though,” Lorcan added, “if you’re as eager to divest yourself of a troublesome sister as I am, no one would blame you.”
Havilar made a face at him. “First, everyone would blame me. Second, I don’t want her to die.” She rubbed her arm, a strange, subconscious mockery of her twin’s familiar gesture. “And anyway, it’s your stupid sister who messed things up, isn’t it?”
That wasn’t what Lorcan had been expecting her to say, and he cursed his clumsy maneuvering. She should be turning on her sister, eager for Lorcan’s approval. He reined his horse in and turned to consider her. “Your sister’s the one who made the deal. You don’t need to defend her. Not to me.”
“Right, but . . . she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Not that I think she should have gotten into that position in the first place. You don’t have to be a master strategist to see making a karshoji pact means eventually a devil’s going to make you do something dumb because you have to.”
Lorcan weighed this, shifted his tack. “There are always possibilities. If you’re clever enough. If you’re determined enough.”
Havilar snorted. “What should she have done then?”
Lorcan didn’t have an answer for that that he wanted to give. Not started that ridiculous argument about Temerity. Not doubted his protection. Not tossed him aside. “What would you have done?” he said.
“Chopped your sister with my glaive,” Havilar answered. “But I’m not Farideh. She would have been more careful—I don’t care if I hit you too.”
Lorcan kept his thoughts to himself.
“Why are you doing this?” Havilar asked. “Going after her. I mean . . . I have a guess, but . . . well, devils shouldn’t care.”
“She’s my warlock,” Lorcan said simply.
“And?”
“And it’s part of having a pact,” Lorcan said. “Besides I need to pay Sairché back for her little stunt. As you said—it’s her fault.” Hers and Farideh’s, he reminded himself.
“So you’re dragging me across the world to make Sairché mad?” Havilar said skeptically. Lorcan didn’t answer, he just kept staring ahead at the road—let her learn that foolish questions got no answers.
But Havilar wasn’t silenced. “Are you in love with my sister?”
Lorcan yanked the reins and pulled the horse around to block Havilar’s path, studying the tiefling for long, painful moments—long enough she should have time to consider for herself what a foolish question it was. She stared right back, unblinking.
“You shouldn’t assume,” Lorcan said, “that I think anything like you do. That any of us do. Devils aren’t mortals. That’s another way Sairché can claim you.”
“But we think the same when it comes to sisters?” Havilar demand
ed. “You can’t have it both ways.”
Lorcan laughed. “My sisters have spent my entire life tormenting me, trying to end my life or use me against some other devil. They have beaten me until I could see the swirling mists of oblivion closing in on me. They have thrown me to the mercy of archdevils. To them, I am only half a proper being, hardly worthy of concern.” He gave her a nasty smile. “So to say we would both be better without siblings, I’ll admit, takes some liberties with the details.”
“You’re a devil, you’re not a devil. We’re alike, we’re nothing alike. It can’t be all of those things.”
Lorcan kept smiling at her. “Then you have a very poor imagination.”
Havilar glared at him. “You never answer questions, do you?” she said.
“Not the foolish ones.”
“She doesn’t love you,” she blurted.
Pathetic, Lorcan thought, his patience with Havilar evaporating. She doesn’t listen and she doesn’t learn. “Would she tell you?” he said nastily. “Last I recall you were too busy finding the edges of the lordling’s mouth to have much of a conversation.”
Havilar flushed deeply. “She thought you were dead,” she shot back. “That you were gone and never coming back. And she was glad. We were all glad.”
Did she think that? Had she been glad? It doesn’t matter, Lorcan reminded himself. She betrayed you as soon as she listened to Sairché. “That’s interesting,” Lorcan said. “Since I’m the only one who apparently gives two coppers that she’s in trouble. Go back and sulk over your broken heart if you can’t think past it. I’m sure the lordling will find that more interesting than whatever princess he’s gotten up the skirts of.”
She startled as if he’d punched her, right in the base of the lungs. Lorcan gave her a wicked grin in return and urged his horse down the road once more. He’d pay for that—he’d have to be careful with her and redirect her attention to other matters, which were clearly more important than how much she hated Lorcan or why he was doing what he did. What he thought about her sister.
Havilar’s horse gave a sharp whinny, and suddenly she was pounding past. Lorcan’s horse shied and laid its ears flat as her bay blocked its path, too close for comfort.
“Don’t youever say a word about me and Brin again,” she shouted, her voice shaking. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just being cruel.”
Lorcan held her furious gaze. “And what are you doing?”
Havilar looked away, off at the forest encroaching on the landscape to the west. Leave her, a part of him said. This is never going to suit. He ignored it.
“Shall we stop trying to wound each other?” he asked. “I think even in your sorry state you can see what a poor course of action it will be. Whether you hate me or not, I am your best option at the moment for finding your sister. Truce?”
Havilar watched him as if she’d rather put that battered glaive right through his skull. “You promise,” she said, still raw and angry-sounding. “You promise, right now, you will never say another word about Brin and me. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care how much you hate him or you hate me. I don’t care if you think I’m an idiot or hopeless or what. You don’t say a word about it.”
Lorcan regarded her a long moment. “Fair enough.” He urged the horse forward again.
“You’re not going to ask me the same about you and Farideh?”
“Why would I do that?” he asked, without turning. Let her wonder. Let her be stuck on that nonsense notion. Better than trying to unravel his motives. Better than questioning his dedication. Better than realizing he’d not answered any of her questions.
Lorcan eased his horse to the side of the road as the hoofbeats of a distant rider coming up behind them became distinct. He hoped—for both of their sakes—that it was an overeager highwayman, set on overtaking them. They’d both be more inclined to civility if they could vent their anger on some unfortunate villain.
As the hoofbeats neared, they slowed, as if some wicked god had heard Lorcan’s prayers. And then a voice shouted out, reminding Lorcan why he never prayed.
“Havilar!”
Lorcan looked back, at Havilar, at the rider on a sleek dun mare, prancing to a stop: Brin. “Havi,” he said. “Thank the gods, there you are.”
Havilar had frozen, like a rabbit trying to hide from a hawk. “Yes,” she said after a moment. Lorcan cursed to himself—this would not help things.
“What in the Hells are you doing?” Brin demanded, ignoring Lorcan. “Mehen’s in pieces. You have to come back.”
She’ll agree, Lorcan thought. She’ll do anything he asks. She’s too angry. He scrambled to form a new plan, some way to make her side with him once more, to forgive Farideh a little and get back to following him.
But then Havilar shook her head. “I have to save Farideh.”
Brin stared at her, as if she were a little mad. Lorcan reconsidered. He might be able to use this.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” Brin asked. “Leave the Harpers to it. They know what they’re doing. You’ve been through a lot. Rest for this one—the world won’t end.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Do you think I’m going to sit on my hands while bad things happen to Farideh?”
She would have, Lorcan thought, smiling to himself, if he hadn’t been there to prod her into action. And she knew that.
Havilar looked over and glared at him, as if she knew his thoughts.
Brin followed her gaze. “This is your idea, isn’t it? You convinced her.”
“Well met to you, too. And there was little to convince her of.” He looked at Havilar, who was watching Brin uncertainly. “She’s loyal even when others are . . . less so.”
Brin bristled. “The Harpers are leaving the moment they get better direction. They’re better equipped than you two. Or did you tell her you have some magic tool to help you get lost faster?”
Lorcan nearly laughed—for once, things seemed to be turning his way. The little lordling had no idea what damage he was doing. If Lorcan was out of practice, Brin had gone to seed.
“Havilar?” Lorcan said. She looked up at him. “What would you like to do? I’m hardly going to ‘drag you across the countryside’ if you’d rather go back to the Harpers’ hospitality. But I hope,” he added more seriously, “that I don’t end up needing a quick blade at my side if you do. As I said before, there’s no telling what we’re dealing with.”
“Shade,” Brin said hotly, “isn’t going to be brought down by a blade and a stlarning half-devil.”
Lorcan held Brin’s gaze and wondered if perhaps someone was listening to his prayers after all—Havilar was more of a certainty than ever. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll leave Shade to the Harpers and worry about our own plans.”
“We’re not going back,” Havilar adjusted her haversack. “Be angry if you have to. But I’m doing this.”
“And what about Mehen?” Brin asked.
“Mehen . . .” She looked at Lorcan again. “Will keep. And he should know I’m not going to wait when I can do something.”
Brin sighed and threw his head back to stare at the cloudy sky. “Fine,” he said after a moment. He wrapped the horse’s reins once around his wrist. “Then I’m coming with you.”
Havilar’s eyes widened. “Oh. Are you?”
Lorcan cursed to himself. Bad, bad, bad. “Don’t your Harpers need you? Doesn’t Mehen? You are the best equipped to ferry a message back, after all.”
Brin scowled at him. “I’ll send a message from the caravansary. There’s a waystation outside the Goldenfields, a few hours down the road. Then we’ll get a reply—maybe they’ve worked out more details by now.”
Lorcan calculated, considered, and cursed to himself again. This could be fixed. “Wonderful,” he said. “Lead on, then.”
Brin turned to Havilar once more. “You’re right,” he said, and he smiled. “I should know you’d never sit on your hands.”
Havilar gave a nervous laugh as Brin nudged his horse into motion and rode to the head of the group. Havilar watched him go, then gave Lorcan a dark look as if daring him to say something.
But Lorcan only turned his horse to follow Brin. After all, he kept his promises.
The waters of the Fountains of Memory well up from the center and pour down the sides as if a spring beneath refreshes them, although not a drop enters or leaves the basin. Farideh has stood here for over an hour, watching scene after scene after scene. Meanwhile the apprentices come and go—never leaving her alone, never speaking above a whisper—trading scrolls and worried expressions. She gets the impression that somewhere in the fortress, Rhand is unhappy, and the implications clench around her stomach. She wonders if he’s discovered the Harper in his camp.
“Show me where Dahl was . . .” Farideh catches herself. The wizards aren’t watching her, but they’re not as dedicated to their tasks as they’ d be if they weren’t listening at all. She lets the rest of her question—“an hour ago”—disappear. She isn’t such a fool as to think they won’t report every single thing she tells the waters to show. If Dahl’s still trapped behind the wall, it might mean his doom. The waters turn, waiting for the rest, waiting for something they can use.
“Three midwinters ago,” she blurts—long enough that it shouldn’t matter one bit what Dahl was doing. She shouldn’t watch, but if she doesn’t, the wizards will notice that too.
The waters spit back a street scene—Proskur, Farideh realizes, surprised—and Dahl coming out of a dark doorway into an alley. A fine snow falls, trimming the dirty ice of the streets like lace. Dahl wraps his cloak close and hurries down the road toward the market.
Farideh’s fingers itch to touch the surface of the waters—the frustration and anger that seem to vibrate Dahl’s frame might make the waters shiver too. He is turned inward, scowling, his mouth twitching as if he were trying not to argue aloud with someone who wasn’t there. She sighs despite herself—that was more Dahl than a doppelganger could make.
He winds through the crowded market of stalls and carts and other bundledup people. The light is fading and lamplighters thread through the crowd. Past an unlit corner, Dahl eases around a pair of arguing merchants, cutting into a bookseller’s shop to do so. He is watching the fight when he crashes into the third man, hidden in the shadows. Farideh watches as Dahl is thrown off, as if pushed away, and falls into a stack of books. They tumble, some falling open, their pages rapidly speckled with melting snowflakes.
The Adversary Page 17
