If the wrong person found out, they were all in a great deal of trouble. And since the archduchess herself had set things in motion, the “wrong person” could only be another archdevil.
She drained her wine and dabbed at her mouth, staring down Vartan. He would not become useless to her now. Not with Invadiah breathing down her neck, not with everything breaking down and everyone ready to look for a scapegoat.
“You seem …” She held the pause for long enough that she seemed uncertain and worried. “Preoccupied. I do hope the, ah, gentleman didn’t trouble you yesterday.”
“Oh,” Vartan said. “No … No more than usual.”
“Vartan,” she said, her mouth stern, but her eyes soft—pleading even. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
“What?” he said. “Whyever would you think I’ve been lying to you?”
“I had thought,” she said, “I had hoped. That we were carrying on Anthus’s work together. But that isn’t so. You see me as a hindrance. As a nuisance.” She forced her lower lip forward in a pout so slight he would think it unintentional. The force of her feelings.
“No! No, not at all,” he said. He laid a hand on hers, the guilt in his gray eyes exactly what she was aiming for. “You’re right, I am distracted. Anthus’s … work is more complex than I expected, and points in different directions. But I assure you no one thinks you’re a hindrance.”
“Has the Sovereignty turned you away?” she said.
Vartan startled. That had him, she thought. “How do you know that name?” he demanded.
Rohini made sure her eyes sparkled with admiration as she said, “You ask me how? I learned from the most intelligent man on the Sword Coast and you ask me how?” She clasped her hand over his and held him there. “A bit of information here, a careless word there, a feverish tale told too loudly at a tavern. It’s true then? What they say? That they are creatures of astonishing knowledge?”
Vartan eyed her a moment. “You mustn’t go around speaking of this. It could be dangerous.”
“I’ve spoken to no one but you, I swear it. But that is … that is who Anthus was speaking to.”
Vartan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Rohini knew his part almost as well as her own, and didn’t need any cues to say all the right things.
“You are … brilliant, Vartan,” she said earnestly. “Wiser, I sometimes think, than Anthus ever was. And if their agents have not realized it and taken you into their confidence, then it is their blindness and nothing more.”
“You are kind,” he said. “But courting the Sovereignty is not akin to gaining a lordling’s attention. Even their servants are wiser than most people dream of. They know things … Even the weak-willed servitors they craft know things I cannot. My approaches have not been favored.”
Of course they hadn’t—Vartan had no doubt been coy and subtle as an old maid. Rohini sighed. “Would that there were some way, somehow, that you might channel your knowledge, your theories of the Chasm and the planes, into something grand. Something to astound them and make them take notice. Something to make them realize all they have lost by not hearing you!”
“I very much doubt the Sovereignty has any interest in curing spellplague, or reviving the gods.”
Rohini’s smile was small and sad, but inside, she felt like a wolf with bared teeth, gloating over a kill.
“I suppose they’d rather you infect people to get their attention,” she said offhandedly. A poor jest. A comment without any thought at all behind it. A comment that sparked something in Vartan’s thoughts.
He gave her a considered look. “That … Perhaps. They want servants to walk abroad for them, I believe. Improving them would doubtless please the Old Ones.”
“Stronger,” Rohini said, her voice high with wonder, “cleverer, faster, and imbued with spellscars. They would be well-protected by such, considering the fear of the Chasm.”
“Precisely.” Vartan turned to her, his features troubled still. “I … it would be dangerous. The odds—”
“You could, Vartan,” Rohini said. Passionate here, she thought. A touch overbold. Spread it thick. She laid a hand over his. “If anyone could, it is you. You are the wisest man I have ever known. Or ever will, I suspect.”
“You flatter me. There is so much I don’t know. They have reason to turn me away …”
Rohini nearly snarled—ages of this, and suddenly, Vartan was humble? To the Hells with subtlety. She thrust the domination over him.
“Harness what they have not,” she said, pulling the charm tighter, “and they cannot deny you are worthy of their knowledge. Their minds may be great, but they do not understand what it is that mortals fear—only they come upon it by their nature. Your servitors would show you can supply what they lack. In exchange for their knowledge of the rift. How to harness the rift.”
“You speak of madness,” he said, but there was no reprobation in his voice. He wanted to be convinced.
“I speak of your destiny,” Rohini said, letting the net of her charm close around him completely. “You were not made to play nursemaid to the Lord Pretender’s guards. I have seen your and Anthus’s notes, I have seen your work. You know how to all but guarantee a spellscar, and keep the infected from dying.” She placed her mouth close to his ear. “And I know how to make certain it inspires loyalty.” She kissed him, and like countless others before him, Brother Vartan was lost.
“And I will aid you,” Rohini said, as Brother Vartan nodded to her words like the puppet he was. “I will gather the army that it will take to prove to the Sovereignty you are worthy of their secrets.”
And get Invadiah, she thought, her damnable aboleth.
SOUTH OF NEVERWINTER
11 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)
FARIDEH AND BRIN DID NOT SPEAK UNTIL THEY REACHED THE CAMP. The sun had set and Mehen and Tam were strapping on their armor by the firelight. Havilar paced—already armed and armored—her face drawn and pale. When she saw her sister and Brin break through into the clearing, she dropped her glaive and rushed at them.
“Gods!” she cried. “There you are! What happened? I lost you!”
“Nothing,” Farideh said. “We just got separated.”
“Right,” Brin said, too quickly. “Just a little turned around.” Havilar stared at both of them.
“You got a little turned around?” Havilar said, her voice slipping into a panicked pitch. “I didn’t know where you were. You might have been lost!”
“We weren’t,” Farideh said, waving her off.
“We were for a little bit,” Brin said. “But we’re fine.”
“And even if we were,” Farideh said, “you couldn’t have done anything about it that we didn’t already do.”
“She might have killed the owlbear,” Brin admitted.
“Owlbear?” Havilar shrieked.
Farideh pursed her lips. “Thank you, Brin. All right, you might have killed the owlbear that chased us, but we got away. Everything’s fine.”
“Everything is not fine, and don’t you dare pretend it is!”
“Calm down,” Farideh said. “You’re getting upset about nothing.”
Havilar’s cheeks turned red. “You think you’re the only one who matters? You think you’re the only one who gets to worry about anyone? First you throw yourself out into the middle of that fight and then—”
“Oh for the Hells’ sake,” Farideh snapped. “Havi, we’re fine!”
“Oh course you’re fine,” Havilar retorted. “Lorcan was watching out for you, wasn’t he?” She turned to Brin. “She lied before. She’s not a sorcerer.”
Brin flushed. “I … I, um …”
“Gods damn it, Havi, he knows, all right? Calm down and stop shouting.” Farideh’s chest tightened and she was all too aware of Tam, standing at the far side of the camp. “You’re embarrassing both of us.”
But Havilar kept her eyes on Brin. “Did she tell you I was the one who called him? That she snatched him
up from me? I’ll bet she didn’t. I’ll bet—”
“Gods, Havi, stop it! You’re being jealous. No one left you behind.”
Havilar shoved her. “You’re being a henish. We’re supposed to be a team.”
“That’s a fair thing to say when you’re calling me a henish!” She pushed Havilar’s arm away, the shadow-smoke boiling up around her—
“Knock it off!” Mehen shouted. He seized both by the shoulders and yanked them apart. “You two are acting like a pair of hatchlings.”
“But she—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “Havilar, you need to calm down. You’re upsetting yourself, and saying things you and I both know you don’t mean. Farideh’s fine, you’re fine, everything’s all right.”
“And you,” he said turning to Farideh, “need to snap out of it. You scared your sister, whether you meant to or not, and that deserves a little kindness. And need I remind you,” he added, dropping his voice and switching to Draconic, “that bloody devil is supposed to stay away from you.”
“I know. He just came. I couldn’t do anything.”
“You told me he would stay away—so why does Brin know? Were you showing off?”
“No! I can’t call him,” she said. “He’s not like a trained dog. He just shows up.” She paused. “He said we shouldn’t go to Neverwinter. There was something—”
“We’re not changing plans now. Especially not because karshoji Lorcan said so.”
“He was trying to warn us. Like with the orcs. He was worried—”
“Worried about causing enough trouble.” Mehen said. “We’re taking Tam and Brin to Neverwinter. That’s it. And if I hear another word about Lorcan, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Farideh shouted. “Leave me in the woods back where you found me? Maybe you can find some other daughter who isn’t such a disappointment.”
Mehen threw back his head and roared, his sharp teeth bared. Farideh took a step back.
“Enough!” Mehen looked back over his shoulder, to Tam and Brin and Havilar who was watching wide-eyed, and switched back to Common. “This is the watch order—the priest, me, Havi, Farideh, Brin. If you’re not Tam, eat your waybread and go to bed. And you,” he said to Farideh, “I don’t want to hear another word from you until we’ve both calmed down, understand?”
Farideh nodded tightly and brushed past Mehen to find a spot away from all of them. Her cheeks were burning, and she would have liked to curl up and vanish. It was a cruel thing to say to Mehen, but … it was only the truth. It was clear he’d rather have two of Havilar. It was clear she’d be better off if they did part ways once they reached Neverwinter, and so would Mehen.
Mehen lay awake and staring up at the cold stars, biding his time until the priest was ready to change shifts and turning Farideh’s words over and over in his thoughts, as if there were some way to see it that didn’t stick in his throat.
How could she think that? How could she believe he thought she was a disappointment? He wasn’t disappointed in her … just in her decisions, and that was simple enough to fix. She just wouldn’t. Too bad Farideh was as stubborn as a mule in mud.
Mehen could still recall Farideh at the age of six wearing too-small boots long into the sweltering summer, because she’d adored the rabbit fur trim. Mehen had laughed at her willfulness, and she’d been angry then, too.
But Lorcan was no pair of boots, and Mehen couldn’t slip into her room one night and throw him in the midden. He tapped on the roof of his mouth, anxious and irritated. If she’d had a room for him to find that devil in, he’d do worse than throw the bastard in the rubbish heap.
Mehen sat up. He wasn’t going to sleep, so he might as well not pretend. He picked up his sword and strode across the camp to the tree where Tam sat, his chain uncoiled in a sinuous line across the dirt. The priest watched, but only nodded as Mehen sat down and laid the falchion across his lap.
“You can take your turn sleeping, if you like,” Mehen said, staring at the fire.
“In a bit,” Tam said. “I don’t sleep a great deal these days. Might as well sit watch.”
“You don’t have some sort of …” Mehen waved a hand vaguely at the moon. “Rituals to attend to.”
Tam chuckled. “It’s not as formal as all that. She won’t forget me if I don’t make offerings for a night.”
“You gave her offerings enough in orc blood, eh?”
“Well, no. That’s not my lady’s taste.”
Mehen examined the serpentine curve of the chain. A dark patina coated every link, and only the spikes—sharpened not too long ago, he suspected—gleamed in the firelight.
He looked up at Tam. “Thought your sort preferred a staff. Or somesuch.”
Tam shrugged. “A relic,” he said. “From a previous life. I was a blade-for-hire. As it turns out, the chain plays well with the Moonmaiden’s magic.” He nodded at Mehen’s falchion. “Abeiran?”
“The design, not the blade,” Mehen said. “It was made for me in Tymanther.” He turned the blade over. “Meant for a lance defender honor guard, but no one makes things for ornament only in Djerad Thymar. It’s served me well.” He did not offer more, and the priest, to his credit, didn’t ask.
But Tam did say, “It’s not easy living in a world where the rules are all different than what you know. It’s taken me fifteen years to stop thinking everyone’s going to run me through the minute I turn my back.”
Mehen nodded. “Like learning how to walk and talk all over again.”
“Much the same, I suspect.” The silence stretched on before Tam spoke again. “What is it keeping you awake?”
“Unfinished arguments.”
“Ah. Well, you probably did the best you could, ending it there.”
Mehen tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You don’t have children. You don’t know.”
“I do, actually,” Tam said. “A daughter. She’s … let’s see, twenty-four now? Lives in Baldur’s Gate, making ends meet as an antiquary and historian.”
Mehen fought back a sneer. Such a human assertion. “Kosjmyrni. Her mother’s daughter.”
“I suppose,” Tam said with an easy smile, “if you want to look at it like a dragonborn, then yes. But I’ve made it a point to know Mira. And we’ve had our share of arguments.” He nodded at the fire, at Farideh and Havilar’s sleeping forms. “How old are they?”
Mehen shrugged. “Based off the midwife’s guess, seventeen. We’ll say eighteen once Mirtul rolls around.”
“It gets hard around then,” Tam said. “They’re grown women. It doesn’t suit well to send them to bed without supper or dress them down in front of their comrades.”
Mehen growled, low in his throat at the subtle judgment. “You don’t know my girls. Don’t make guesses about what they need.”
Tam shrugged again, seemingly unconcerned with the threat. “It’s how it is. They want your approval still—”
“And they get it,” he said. When they’re not being impossible.
“But they don’t need it anymore.” Tam stood and gathered up his chain. “Again, I don’t mean offense. You’ll do as you will, but make no mistake: they’ll grow up whether you like it or not. You can let them find their own ways, or you can keep them reined in and find out too late you’ve done them a great disservice.”
Didn’t mean offense, bah! Mehen glared at the priest’s back as he retreated to his own bedroll. Every day of the twins’ lives brought someone new telling Clanless Mehen he didn’t know how to raise his own daughters.
When he’d found them, coming back to Arush Vayem from a long hunt, no one in the village had wanted to take them in. Tieflings—twin tieflings—well, that was unlucky. And one with an odd eye, like a feytouched dog? Well, no one needed a priest of Beshaba to interpret those signs. The goddess of ill-fortune might as well have left her thumbprint right between the bumps of their budding horns.
It had broken Mehen’s heart, the way they’d all averted
their eyes, claimed to have too many responsibilities, too many mouths to feed, too little knowledge of babies. Mehen couldn’t have his own offspring, outcast as he was, and he hadn’t been afraid.
He looked across the fire at Farideh’s sleeping form.
He wouldn’t trade a hundred eggs for her, even if she tried his patience, even if she pushed him to the brink of his temper, even if she refused to listen and contradicted him and thought she knew better when Mehen knew she didn’t. But if she came to harm because of Lorcan, Mehen would never forgive himself.
After all, he had raised her better than that.
I should tell her so, Mehen thought. Both of those things.
Seventeen. He had only been a year or so older when he’d taken them in. Younger when he’d been renounced by Clan Verthisathurgiesh, and left the capitol of Djerad Thymar to find a new home in Arush Vayem.
But that was different. He was dragonborn. At their age, he’d have been an adult in his clan’s eyes for several years—wedded and with at least one clutch of eggs hatched—and leaving Tymanther, losing the mate and the eggs, didn’t change that.
Tieflings grew more slowly. At three, a dragonborn was half-grown. At three, the twins had still been trying to master Common.
And at seventeen, they weren’t old enough to know what they needed. Mehen still knew what was best for them.
Wyssin, Lorcan knew, wasn’t an easy herb to sample. Especially for mortals. His sisters praised the way it strengthened their senses and sped up their reactions. Lorcan had pilfered a pinch or two before deciding it wasn’t to his tastes. It made every sound flare like a torch, every scrap of light sharp as a needle. The mind raced and the muscles twitched. Lorcan knew better than to get in his sisters’ way before a raid, if they had the stuff—any one of them might run him through before they even realized he was there.
So when the arrow punched through the edge of his left wing as he landed beside the small, smoky campfire, Lorcan wasn’t entirely surprised. Goruc sat huddled in the dark, assaulted, no doubt, by a thousand tiny noises from a thousand different directions. His hands shook as he set another arrow to his bow.
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