Must find the weaknesses, must find the holes, must make the path or the Dark Prince will be displeased and then death, death, death. Unless unlucky. Then worse. He made the deal, not me—could tear that surly mortal all to pieces I could, king of figments, king of dust. But the Dark Prince says he is ally, he is more than mortal, so turn, turn, down in the shadows, down where it’s darker than the spot a soul leaves behind. Now we have a little fun.
Think like her. Think like the screaming one. Soak it all in, fill out the skin, wear it like my own. Pull the words together, remind the tongue how to speak, the face how to move. Possess it all—the memory of the sword, the memory of a kiss, fears and loathings and wishes—she’s mine. They’ll never see a thing. How lucky that king of dust is to have such a one as the maurezhi on his side!
Until the Dark Prince changes his mind. He won’t even see a thing, that king of figments, king of dust.
2
17 Nightal, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR)
New Velar, Harrowdale
IN THE DOMES OF REASON, WHERE HE’D TAKEN HIS VOWS AS A PALADIN OF THE god of knowledge, Dahl Peredur had made a habit of praying several times a day—to clear his mind, to hone his focus, to still his heart. After he’d fallen, cast from Oghma’s favor for losing sight of what it truly meant to serve the search for knowledge, Dahl had kept the practice in a haphazard way, trying to right a faltering heart, to steer a fractured soul, even if the god didn’t answer aloud anymore. There was a peace that he couldn’t find elsewhere, even if he had sometimes gone days without praying.
Now—with Dahl returned to Oghma’s grace, and knowledge he desperately needed out of reach—it felt like nothing but cruelty that he couldn’t find that same balance.
Lord of All Knowledge, he implored, kneeling in the corner of a rented, overcrowded set of rooms in New Velar. Binder of What Is Known: Make my eye clear, my mind open, my heart true.
“I take you to Harrowdale,” Lorcan’s words snapped across the chant out of Dahl’s memories, “and you never, ever speak to Farideh again. You don’t whisper in her ear, you don’t yell across the room. Not with a spell, not with handsigns. Never.”
Give me the wisdom to separate the lie from the truth, Dahl prayed. My word is my steel, my reason my shield.
When the cambion had offered Dahl the chance to reach Harrowdale ahead of the Shadovar army Lorcan had almost certainly set on Dahl’s family in the first place—the price had nearly stopped him. If he spoke to Farideh again, his soul was Lorcan’s, and he could never tell anyone the deal existed.
In that moment, Dahl could only hope he would find a loophole. His family’s lives outweighed his own heart.
There would be an answer—there had to be. He just had to find someone who knew how to deal with devils. Call Lorcan back to him. Demand to see the deal written out—was it written out? Were there only the words they’d spoken to bind Dahl? If he did speak to Farideh, would his soul truly be forfeit, or was that a threat Lorcan couldn’t follow through on, not without a contract?
And I shall fear no deception, he all but shouted out loud, for the truth remains.
Who was there in New Velar—in all of Harrowdale—that Dahl could ferret out the secrets of dealing with devils? Who wouldn’t gossip if he asked the wrong person, carrying back the taint of evil magic to his family? He could easily imagine other farmers, other tradesmen, whispering unfair rumors about the farmstead and its inhabitants—how fast would that ruin his mother and his brothers’ and their families?
It is my duty to find what is hidden, Dahl prayed, and my gift to know what is unknown.
His soul in the balance—was this why Oghma hung distant as the moon? The presence of the god of knowledge had flooded him in Suzail, in the moment where he realized how pride and arrogance had stolen his paladinhood from him, in the moment where he realized the same need to be right had made him unable to see how deeply in love with Farideh he was. Now Oghma seemed to watch, to wait: Could he solve this?
No, he thought. No, no, no. You can’t. You can’t possibly—
He took a deep breath, stretching his lungs to their very limits. And began again.
But what went through Dahl’s mind wasn’t the prayer he’d practiced for years on end. A memory, a moment—Farideh and he, tangled together still, flushed and sated, close enough to share their panted breath. Dahl had kissed her, and everything had fallen together, too perfect to question, until that moment, spent and clinging to each other. He felt emptied out, washed of shock and worry but also of the faint presence of Oghma.
Farideh had been the one to break the silence. “I don’t want you to leave,” she’d breathed against his ear. So many things caught in those words—a plea, a gasp, a laugh. It felt as if they stood on a tipping point, between grief and hope and happiness.
Dahl already knew which way he would fall. But he held the moment, thinking how so much of life was holy, how so many things were worth knowing. He buried his face against her neck. “Where would I go?” he chided.
My champion, my wayward son, Farideh’s voice murmured in his memories, the words of prophecy etched upon his soul by Oghma himself. The words that only the blessings of Asmodeus, the soul sight the god of sin had given to Farideh, could unlock. The path’s well trod, the hunting’s poor. From heav’ns to Hells, the plane will ring. Reflect, and after, my priest speaks.
Dahl shivered and his breath stopped. The middle of his mind felt warm and glowing as a lantern in the gloom.
There’s an answer, a voice in his thoughts said, whether the god’s or his own better sense. There is always an answer.
“Wass he doo-nee?” a little voice chirped, severing the moment of reverie.
“Dunno,” a boy said. Then, “Maybe he’s sleeping?”
Dahl opened his eyes to the too-bright room and blinked, dizzy at the shift. His nephew, Wilmot, stood a little ways away, hand-in-hand with his cousin, Aggie.
The chubby little girl, her cheeks jammy, grinned. “Unca Dahl is you seepy?”
“Sleeping,” Wilmot said, at five and a half years, his little cousin’s conscientious tutor. “Are you? Because no one’s in the beds. You could nap there. You can have my blanket.”
“Aggie, Wil, leave your uncle be!” Meribelle, Aggie’s mother, swept in behind the children, and scooped Aggie off the ground. “He’s …” She smiled vaguely at Dahl. “Busy.”
“I said he could sleep in the beds upstairs,” Wilmot reported.
Meribelle hitched Aggie up a little higher on her hip. “Apologies, Dahl. They’re just curious.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, you need your space and we’ll give it to you. Children, go play with the others.”
“Oh don’t buy that cow, Meri,” Dahl’s brother Bodhar said, as he came down the stairs. “You know he’s just sleeping.” Meribelle swatted at her husband as he leaned in to kiss her cheek.
“Be good. Your brother’s a holy man.”
“Better to practice napping on his knees.”
“Why in the stlarning Hells would I sleep on my knees?” Dahl asked, straightening. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Uncle Dahl swore,” Wilmot said, eyes like saucers.
“Sorry.” Dahl had been crammed into the three hastily rented rooms with thirteen other people for a tenday already, and every time he found the space to take a breath by himself, one or another of his family would interrupt—one of his nieces and nephews would ask what he was doing, one of his two brothers would prod at him, his mother would ask if he’d eaten, his granny would tell him to stop being a layabout. At least Bodhar hadn’t—
“Or,” Bodhar went on, as if hearing Dahl’s thoughts, “he’s doing that magic talk with his mysterious brightbird. Since apparently, little Dahl’s a wizard too.”
No—Dahl had no components left for sendings. One back to Lord Vescaras Ammakyl, the Harper agent he’d been teamed with in Cormyr, as soon as he’d gotten to Harrowdale—partly to ma
ke contact, partly to pass a message to Farideh. One to Tam Zawad, the High Harper in Waterdeep, to sort out where the agents he handled were.
Lorcan had not left him room for anything else.
I got your message, Farideh had said through her own sending. Mehen wants to go to Djerad Thymar. We leave tomorrow, unless you tell me why I should stay?
And he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak a single sound, without breaking his deal and giving his very soul to the Nine Hells. He’d stood there, waiting for the spell to run out, holding the sound of her voice in his thoughts. That half-hesitant I love you.
“Thost thinks she’s from Hillsfar,” Bodhar said to his wife. “That’s why Dahl’s being so cryptic.”
Meri clucked her tongue. “He wouldn’t take up with a Hillsfar woman.”
“He might. Not as if he’s got throngs of Harran girls fighting for him.”
“Why would they fight for him?” Wilmot asked.
“It’s means something different with adults,” Bodhar said. “Except with Uncle Dahl.”
“Gods’ books, I’m right here,” Dahl snapped.
“He’s wight deer!” Aggie shouted. Bodhar and Meribelle laughed, and even Dahl had to smile.
“It’s not a Hillfarian name.”
Bodhar and Dahl straightened like guilty boys at the sound of Granny Sessaca’s voice. The old woman, her snow-white hair in long braids, stood in the doorway, delicate as a rapier and just as sharp.
“Farideh,” the old woman said, leaning on her wooden cane. “Wasn’t that it?”
“Yes, Granny.” He smiled down at Wilmot who was studying the hilt of Dahl’s dagger in his belt.
“Look at me when you’re talking, boy.”
Dahl made himself look into his grandmother’s steely eyes. “Yes, Granny.”
She muttered something under her breath and shook her head, as though there were no bigger disappointment than her youngest grandson. “You going out again today?”
“Yes, later.”
“Find me some tea. Chessenta black. None of that rubbish with petals in it, mind.” Her eyes flicked over Dahl. “Your brothers can’t manage better than dusty Kara-Turan leavings.”
“Granny,” Bodhar said, “the trade roads are closed and the sea’s half-full of pirates. There just aren’t the goods coming in that there used to be.”
“Oh?” Sessaca said. “What was your excuse before the war?”
“Fair winds now, Mother.” Eurdila, Dahl’s mother, came in from the back door, a basket of laundry on her hip, her graying hair knotted atop her head. She gave her youngest son a fond smile. “I’m sure Dahl will find your tea.”
“I’ll try,” Dahl said.
“And a book,” Sessaca added. “Since mine weren’t worth carrying away, apparently.”
“There’s my good lad,” Eurdila said. She patted Dahl’s cheek. “Can you manage a few other things as well? I’ve a pie in the embers, and the lack of a fire-iron is going to doom it. We’ve also run off without a good whetstone. And the children didn’t grab enough underthings,” she added, dropping her voice, “so a few yards of linen would not be unappreciated.”
“I’ll find what I can,” Dahl said. His mother smiled.
“It’s so good to have you home again.” She turned and hooked her mother-in-law’s arm in hers. “Would you come sit with me while I undo what all those thorns did?”
Meribelle hugged Aggie a little closer. Only Eurdila could make fleeing through the edges of the Cormanthor forest in darkest night sound like a minor nuisance. Eurdila and Sessaca headed into the back room, where the fire burned, and Meribelle took Aggie and Wilmot out to where the other children played.
“My excuse is that tea tastes like the bottom of a rain barrel,” Bodhar muttered to Dahl. “Nobody sells it.” He sniffed and considered the door his wife had gone through. “Why don’t you let me tag along? Getting a little cottage-crazed, and maybe I can help you with your errands.”
Dahl hesitated. “It’s … I’ve got to find some components. Spells and things. It’s going to take a while, maybe involve shops you don’t want to go to.”
Bodhar’s brows went up. “That sounds interesting.”
“It won’t be.”
“Come on.” Bodhar clapped Dahl on the back. “There’s a reason I’m the one they send to market, and t’isn’t because I don’t know which end of the sheep to geld. I know folks. I’ll bet I can help. We can stop by a tavern on the way back, if you like. Catch up.”
Dahl inhaled slowly, trying to calm his pulse. “All right. Let’s go.”
In the road, Dahl’s nieces and nephews played, soaking up the meager winter sun. The little ones made forts of firewood along the house’s side. His eldest brother, Thost, and his sister-in-law, Dellora, shouted corrections and encouragements at lanky Jens and fifteen-year-old Sabrelle, sparring with sticks of wood.
“You’re skirting her,” Dellora called to her son. “You’re going to both tire out that way.” She smiled at Dahl and Bodhar, while Wilmot rebraided her long chestnut hair.
Thost nodded at them, towering over the children. Their own father had loomed like that, a mountain of a man, making even Dahl and Bodhar seem small as they jabbed at each other with their own sticks. “Where you headed?” Thost asked.
“Getting Granny some tea and Ma a whole list of things,” Bodhar called back. “And Dahl’s got secret errands again.”
Thost sniffed and tugged his reddish beard. “Your secret errands giving you any notion of when we can go back? I don’t like to think of how many sheep we’re going to lose to the forest.”
Better sheep than children, Dahl thought. His niece yelled as she lunged at her cousin, jabbing his midsection with the stick. “If I find out,” Dahl said. “I’ll tell you.”
“Knock ’em down, Sabrelle!” Bodhar called. “That’s my girl.”
New Velar had grown since Dahl had last visited. The port city gleamed with fresh plaster and new faces, the prosperity the council of burghers brought to Harrowdale evident at every turn. Still, to Dahl it seemed cramped and false, a village playing at something grander.
Maybe, he thought as they left a blacksmith’s with Eurdila’s whetstone and fire irons, it’s you who’s grown. How many years had he lived in Waterdeep, with its ancient streets and massive population? How many cities had he made a temporary home in, carrying out one Harper mission or another? Westgate. Proskur. Baldur’s Gate. Suzail.
Farideh moved in the edges of his thoughts again, all the many days they’d roamed Suzail looking for connections and secrets and ways to save the city. His arm around her waist. Her head on his shoulder. All their conversations turning back to the Shadovar, to the reason they were pretending to be lovers.
Wasting time, Dahl thought, pretending you didn’t love her in fact.
“You’re worrying her, you know?” Bodhar said suddenly.
Dahl stopped, puzzled, at the crossroads. “Who?”
“Ma. Maybe she doesn’t know about that message in the night”—he tapped the side of his nose—“but you turn up out of nowhere, shouting about Shadovar raiders, and then you’re right?” He shook his head. “Everyone’s figured out you’re not just a secretary out in Waterdeep at this point. Question is, what are you?”
A simple question with a tangled answer. His allegiance to the Harpers was secret, and so then were the sort of skills that would mark him as an agent and a handler. For years, his family had assumed Dahl worked as a secretary for a priest in Waterdeep, a cover that Dahl bore with gritted teeth. Already he’d slipped, sending a message to another agent after his family escaped the Shadovar attack, making sure Vescaras knew where he was and that he could tell Farideh what Dahl couldn’t. He should have waited until Thost and Bodhar were gone, but he couldn’t bear to risk it.
“It’s complicated,” Dahl said, moving again.
“Complicated as your distant dove?” Bodhar squinted at him. “She’s not Hillfarian, is she?”
“No,�
� Dahl said. And if his family was so concerned that Farideh might hail from a nearby kingdom that had always had a little bit too much interest in New Velar’s port for comfort, what would they say about her having horns and a tail and the attention of an undeniably evil god?
If she were here, Dahl told himself, it would be different. They’d see.
Bodhar kept pressing, as Dahl threaded his way down an alley. “So why didn’t you bring her? And why’s Granny giving you the dagger-eyes about her name?”
“It’s Granny,” Dahl said. “Has she ever not given me the dagger-eyes?” He exhaled hard again. “Look, I need … some things that aren’t going to necessarily be easy to come by. I rather expect I’m looking for someone—a caster preferably—who does business with less-savory folks.”
Bodhar sniffed. “All right. I maybe know a fellow. Dark Reyan.”
Dahl frowned. “You know a wizard called Dark Reyan?”
“He drinks at the Drowning Goat sometimes,” Bodhar said. “I’ve diced with him. I’ve diced with just about everybody in this city—mind, you don’t need to be telling Meri about that in much detail. I always keep it even enough.” Bodhar glanced at the crossroads. “Come on.”
He led Dahl down an alleyway behind a bakehouse, the ambient heat enough to melt the ice into muddy slush. Another turn and Dahl found himself looking at a dismal little shop set into an even danker little alley. A sign with a raven perched on a mortar and pestle hung over the door.
Bodhar stopped him. “I’ll make you a deal?”
The word sent a shudder down Dahl’s spine. “What’s that?”
“I’ll help you out, talk Reyan down for you—talk the rest of these people down too. And you tell me three things about your new dove.”
“So you’ll have something new to nip my heels over? No thanks.”
“No,” Bodhar said. “So I know a thing or two about my own brother. Your decision.”
Dahl was silent for a long moment, biting his tongue and debating how badly he needed Bodhar’s help. How merciless his brothers would be.
“She’s adopted. She has a twin sister.” He hesitated. “She puts a ridiculous amount of sugar in her tea.”
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