And what good had it done him? Mehen had lost them all over again.
No more sitting still, he thought. No more waiting.
“And Dahl is with her,” Khochen added. “He’ll see that she’s safe.”
“Once he sees she’s not a traitor?” Mehen said.
“It’s only caution,” Khochen said. “If she’s honorable as you say, that will prove out.”
It had been caution that kept Tam talking and planning and thinking instead of striking while there was still time. When Brin’s message had come, when he’d heard that Havilar was not coming back, Mehen had nearly broken down the door to Tam’s offices, demanding the Harpers make up their karshoji minds and go after his daughters.
“I’m not raising an army here,” Tam told him in private. “These people are skilled infiltrators, not infantry ready to march at a moment’s notice.”
“Every moment we wait puts them farther out of reach and closer to danger.”
“Enough,” Tam had said. “You will give me the time to make arrangements so my people can do what they do best. I can promise it won’t be more than a day. In the meantime, collect yourself—we may be old friends, but I won’t hesitate to leave you behind if it’s in this mission’s best interests.”
“And I won’t hesitate to go without you,” Mehen said. “And damn your missions.”
Which was when Mehen had stormed out, cursing Tam, cursing devils, cursing Brin who had not managed to keep his word. Snapping at every Harper who had crossed his path. He’d spent the day as far from Tam as possible, knowing there was nothing left in him to keep quiet and polite while his girls were in danger, and he needed the Harpers’ resources to do anything about that.
Tam at least was true to his word, and a brief and bone-jangling portal trip later, they were in Everlund, far to the North. Closer, they hoped, to the spot Dahl indicated in his second message. Mehen shuddered—if he never traveled by portal again, it would be too soon.
The Lost Peaks, the Harpers said, would take at best eight days to reach from Everlund. Mehen tried to imagine eight more days of this uncertainty, this stillness, and fought the urge to take off into the ancient wood himself, alone. Somehow, even after seven and a half long, awful years, this was worse.
“May I ask, goodman,” Khochen said, interrupting his thoughts, “how you came to adopt tieflings?”
Mehen kept his eyes on the treeline, the path vanishing into the emerald shade. The air was turning warmer every step they neared the ancient wood. “Someone abandoned them at the village gates,” Mehen said. “It was winter. No one wanted them. I’m not heartless.”
“Fortunate,” Vescaras said. Mehen gave the half-elf a glare that did not wilt the good Lord Ammakyl. “There aren’t many villages out there that would take kindly to a delivery of tieflings in cloths.”
“Arush Vayem is different.”
“Not that different if they were going to leave them in the snow,” Khochen said. “Though I suppose there are blackguards everywhere.”
“Not just Westgate,” Vescaras murmured. Khochen snickered.
Mehen sighed and shook his head. The villagers had been cowards, not blackguards—even the tieflings among them. If you came to Arush Vayem, you’d already heard every bad thing about yourself and believed half of it. Tieflings might well be little demons, even in the cradle. Twins might easily be a dark portent. “It was the eye,” he said out loud, and regretted it immediately. “Farideh’s silver eye,” he explained. “That mark is an ill-luck sign to some of us, and the tieflings didn’t want trouble.”
“Dragonborn and tieflings no one wants,” Khochen mused, as they crossed into the wood. “Interesting village. Did you grow up there?”
“No.”
“Where is home, then?”
“Where my girls are,” Mehen said tersely.
Khochen began to reply, when the rustle of a fern brought them all up short. No one moved for a moment, their hands hovering near their weapons. Vescaras made a face.
“Daranna, if you please,” he said, “I’m not going to hoot like a bloody owl when you’ve given yourself up that way.”
“That’s not me,” a woman’s voice spoke from behind them. An elf woman with hollow eyes and loose dark hair dropped down from the spreading limbs of an elm tree. “Ebros,” she said sternly. A young half-elf man with mussy blond hair rose out of the patch of ferns, looking abashed. Daranna sighed. “Next time not the ferns.”
“If we hadn’t been allies, you’d be dead, lad,” Vescaras said.
“No,” Daranna said. She nodded to their right, where two more rangers in dyed leather had appeared out of the wood, both holding bows trained on the intruding trio. “You make a great deal of noise,” Daranna noted, her voice soft as the moss underfoot.
“It’s a fair concealment technique in the city,” Khochen said. Vescaras gave her another sour look, as Daranna’s green eyes flicked over the other Harper.
“Don’t do it anymore,” she said. “Get yourself killed.” She looked up at Mehen and sighed. “You, do your best.” And with no further introduction or warning, Daranna started into the High Forest, her scouts falling in behind her, and Clanless Mehen close on their heels.
Chapter Ten
21 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) North of Waterdeep
Havilar brushed the loose winter hair from Alusair’s coat as if there were nothing more interesting in the world, and hoped in equal measure that it would be enough to keep Brin away and that he would come and take the brush from her hand and make her have the conversation she was hiding from.
Fortunately—or maybe not—Lorcan did a pretty fair job of keeping Brin away himself. “Build it up, will you?” Lorcan snapped as Brin fed twigs to the meager flames of a small campfire. He’d shed the human visage he wore during the day, and his leathery wings were pulled close as a cloak. “Shitting winter.”
Brin glowered up at him. “We don’t have enough firewood, and I’m not interested in fighting off the sort of things a great bonfire will lure out of the hills. Cover up. Or better yet, go home.”
“Oh, come now,” Lorcan said, dripping venom. “How will you find your way without me to scout for you? How will you find this mysterious camp if you have no one to search from above?”
Havilar peered over her horse’s back and wondered if she ought to worry about one or the other starting a fight. If she could stop it. She brushed Alusair’s withers. If she wanted to stop it. They could both probably stand to get some sense knocked into them.
I’m not an idiot, she wanted to say, ever since Brin had shown up on the road north. I’m not weak.
“How could you think that?” she murmured to herself.
Lorcan turned his attention to her, as if he’d heard, and she dropped her eyes to her task. Too late—the cambion strode over to stand beside her. “I see why you’re fond of him,” Lorcan said, too quiet for Brin to hear, thank the gods. “You’re both stubborn.”
“Farideh’s the stubborn one,” Havilar said. “What do you want?”
He smiled. “To offer you a pact,” he said. “I think you could handle it.”
Havilar blinked at him, surprised. “No,” she said. She watched Brin, gathering more sticks to feed the fire from the grove they’d stopped near to. “Why would you think I’d want a pact?”
“For safety. She told you, I assume, about the Toril Thirteen. About Bryseis Kakistos. About the collectors. If Sairché doesn’t try to claim your pact, someone else will.”
“Someone like you,” Havilar said.
“That’s what I’m saying. Make a pact with me, don’t use it—I don’t care. But it will slow down everyone else. You have to be deliberate about breaking a pact. You can be terribly careless about making one.”
Havilar watched the comb dragging faint lines in the bay’s coat. “How’d you get Farideh?”
Lorcan didn’t answer right away. “You,” he finally said, as if he’d decided to tell her th
e truth. “She is so afraid of something happening to you that she will do a lot of very foolish things to make certain you’re safe.”
Havilar bit her tongue. He was right and it made her heart ache—she loved her sister, and she didn’t want to scare her—and it made her temper flare. She wasn’t Farideh’s problem to worry about.
“I guess we’re more alike in a lot of ways, you and I,” Havilar said bitterly. “She thinks she has to save us. I don’t need her saving me, you know? I don’t need her help. That’s a stupid reason to bind yourself to a devil.”
“I didn’t say she was right,” Lorcan said.
Havilar was quiet a long moment. “I always figured it was something indelicate,” she admitted.
Lorcan gave her a wicked smile. “I didn’t say it wasn’t both.”
Havilar rolled her eyes and took the comb to the horse’s mane. “She wouldn’t like it if I made a pact with you.”
“When did you start caring what Farideh would like?”
Havilar gave a single mirthless laugh. He really did think she was an idiot. Just like Brin.
She fixed him with as hard a stare as she could muster. “So you’ll give me the pact and nothing else,” she finally said. “But those others, those collectors . . . they’ll offer me more.”
“Whatever they offer you,” he said, “it will only make your life worse in the end.”
Brin was still sorting branches beside the fire. He looked up at the pair of them, glowering at Lorcan again. “It can’t get worse than this,” Havilar said.
“We’ve established you have very little imagination.”
Gods, he was awful. “Henish,” she grumbled. She turned from the horse, dropping the last clumps of hair from the comb into the damp grass. She was still smarting from what he’d said the other day, from what she knew he was thinking every time he looked at her and Brin. “I know what I’m not imagining.”
Lorcan didn’t rise to the bait. “What is it you want?” he said quietly. “Hmm? You want him to love you again? Let’s say you ask my sister for that—she’ll tell you it’s a simple matter. She’ll give you some charm or potion. You’ll use it. He’ll love you, oh yes. But let’s say he has got that princess back home—you forgot about her. You didn’t say he loves only you, and now his heart is split between the two of you. Is that what you wanted?” Havilar looked away, but he kept going. “And she certainly knows something’s wrong. That isn’t like him, is it? You might be the most innocent, sweetest thing that ever walked this plane, but look in the mirror—her first guess is that you’ve worked dark magic on her sweetheart. And in a sense, you have. You’ll catch all the blame, so then my sister will come to you and offer you a way out—for another deal. Or for your soul. Or for that princess’s soul. Or something worse. You’re trapped, and if you try to wriggle your way out, you’ll only sink deeper.”
Havilar fidgeted. “I can be careful.”
“Not careful enough,” he said. “How do you think your sister got caught?”
“By you,” Havilar pointed out.
“I am making you a special, once-only offer,” he said, “based entirely on a desire to thwart Sairché and get out from under her thumb.”
“And make Farideh happy?”
Lorcan gritted his teeth a moment, and she was pleased she’d gotten to him, finally. “That’s a very dull barb,” he said with a forced smile. “You jab much harder with it, it’s liable to break right off. Might hurt yourself.” He straightened. “Besides, you’re right. She won’t like it.”
“That you’ve saved me from all those wicked devils?” Havilar said. “I think she’ll be so happy she won’t know what to do with you first.”
Brin came back, dropping a load of branches beside the fire. “That should be enough. What have you two been talking about?”
“Farideh,” Havilar said, without missing a beat.
Lorcan smiled. “All sorts of things. It’s a new world, after all. Havilar has . . . all manner of prospects she hasn’t explored.” He stood. “Enjoy your meal.” He leaped skyward before either of them could say another word.
Havilar watched Lorcan disappear into the fading light, acutely aware of the silence he left behind. The fire crackled and popped and still she and Brin said nothing, and she didn’t feel as if she was strong enough to push aside the weighty silence and change that, awkward and awful as it felt. The nights before they’d stopped too late for chatting, or they’d stayed in shabby inns where she’d had her own room, or Havilar had gone off to catch rabbits. Or Lorcan had stayed there, between them. But they didn’t need more rabbits, there was no room to hide in, and she’d chased Lorcan off, sniping at him. She was stuck.
She took out the leather pouch of clean bandages and unwound the ones from her hands. The broken blisters were still raw and red, even though the blood had stopped. Havilar sighed. Ten years to get the good, strong calluses she’d had. Would it take another ten to get them back? As a girl she’d begged off practicing when her hands were too chapped—maybe if she kept on, she’d get used to the pain and her hands would thicken up faster. Beside the fire, she tested the bubble of an unbroken blister with her nail and winced.
“Will you let me heal your hands?” Brin asked.
That would have been nice. No more pain and he’d be holding her hands too. Havilar flexed her fingers against the burning skin. “No.”
“Havi, don’t be proud,” he said wearily. So weary of me, she thought, and she nearly agreed to make that feeling go away.
“If I don’t let them heal on their own,” she said, still studying her palms, “I won’t get my calluses back. Your magic will just put me back where I started.” Weak, she added to herself. Useless. She wrapped fresh bandages loosely over the blisters.
“I didn’t think of that,” Brin admitted.
“Does Torm like you better, then?” she asked. “Are you a priest now?”
He chuckled once. “Hardly. Still the holy champions’ curious problem.” With the firelight dappling his face, Brin looked so sad, so much older, and it wasn’t just the beard. He looked up from the fire and gave her a sheepish smile. “I don’t even use the powers most of the time,” he admitted. “I always feel like a fraud when I do.”
“You know that’s stupid,” Havilar said after a moment.
Brin blinked at her. “Beg pardon?”
“It’s stupid,” she said again. “You’re not a fraud. If Torm didn’t think those powers were yours he’d take them back, wouldn’t he?” She shrugged—what was she doing giving Brin lessons on the gods, anyway? “I mean, maybe you know better than Torm, but I doubt that.”
A smile crept across his mouth, and Brin laughed—really laughed. It made Havilar’s heart ache. “I missed you,” he said after a moment.
I still miss you, she thought, but didn’t dare say. Everything was still a mess, still had to be sorted out right, before she tried anything as rash as telling Brin she loved him. Might as well try to leap the Underchasm with a cat tied to your tail, she thought.
She didn’t mean to let the prickling silence grow—she hardly noticed until Brin cleared his throat.
“We can’t really avoid it, can we?” he said. “Can’t go on, because who even knows where to start?”
Havilar looked at the fire. “I suppose I don’t really even know you. Not anymore.”
“You do,” he protested. “Not everything changes.” From the corner of her eye, she saw him shift closer to her, the better to knock the ashes from the fire and stir it up. “Do you remember,” he asked quietly, “what happened in those seven and a half years?”
Havilar shook her head. “First I was there, with you, and then I was pushing open the door. And then we were waking up in the forest and everything was wrong.” She nudged one of the stones deeper into the fire, and heard Brin’s sharp intake of breath as her foot breached the fire. She smiled at his surprise. Then she added, “I dreamed the other night. A nightmare. It was so hot and close and dark. Like b
eing trapped in a stove, maybe, only the stove is alive.” She looked over at him. “And I dreamed of being shocked and being pricked with needles and being talked about in some other tongue. But I couldn’t see any of it, you know?” She turned away from his sad face. “Maybe that’s what happened, or maybe I just invented it. Mostly it all just vanished.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Havilar kept watching the flames, remembering the smell of something burning, something alive. She shut her eyes and shook her head. “If you could have changed it, I’m sure you would have.” Or maybe not, she thought, sunk in her sadness. Maybe he was glad to be done with her. Maybe the Hells just made things easier—
“I tried,” he said, so much emotion in his voice she was almost afraid not to look at him, and all those self-pitying thoughts scattered. “I tried,” he said again. “I waited three days there, until I was almost out of coin and food. I was so afraid to leave, but what else could I do? I rode hard the whole way to Suzail. I nearly killed the horse.” He cleared his throat. “I went home. I had to. I needed their help. I got Mehen free—Helindra let me go, I think she knew she couldn’t keep me and that I’d keep my word and come back. We went back to the inn. But you weren’t there.”
He rested his head on his hands. “I thought it might be a cycle, you know? I came back in a tenday, in a month, in a season, in a year and then two and then three and then four. But you were gone. Every time you were gone.”
“Four years is a lot of trying,” Havilar said. “I don’t blame you for giving up.” Would she have given up on him? No, never, she thought.
“I never gave up,” he said fiercely. “I went back every year, and every time I took the road past Proskur. You were never there, but I didn’t stop looking—I let all sorts of unsavory people take my coin to find some hint of how to get you back and I didn’t care. One of them might have managed, after all.” A bitter smile crooked his mouth. “Even Helindra couldn’t make me stop. I’m afraid my family has invented some pretty unfair things about us. About what we were. I suppose it’s been good practice, though,” he added with a chuckle. “If I wouldn’t promise Helindra that I’d stop going to that inn, I suspect I’ll keep from buckling on more than that.”
The Adversary Page 20
