Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

They walked on, quiet a little longer before Brin cleared his throat. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, I shouldn’t have tried to guess. Before. I should have just asked.”

  Havilar’s cheeks burned. “That’s what I said.” But she remembered the emotion in his eyes. I love you. I love you, and there is nowhere I’d rather be than by your side. “Were you serious?” she blurted. “Would you have been happy?”

  He gave the same nervous sort of chuckle as before. “Yes. Honestly, yes. I mean, things aren’t settled between us. I know that. I’m not saying we ought to rush off into things. But …” He shrugged. “Someday? If we get back to where we were?”

  “You do know if we had babies, they’d be tieflings,” Havilar said.

  “Yeah, I get how it works.” He smiled at her. “I’m a little fond of tieflings as it happens.”

  All over again, Havilar felt sick. It was too much to even think about. There were so many things she wanted before even considering the question. How soon was eventually? What happened if she opted for the herbs and the day-count? Would that decide things between them once and for all?

  She wasn’t sure she wanted Brin. But she wasn’t sure she didn’t either.

  The Lance Defenders barracks were thick with the musty scent of dragonborn and the acrid, dusty odor that could only be the bats up above them. The doors opened into a wide hallway, lined with smaller rooms. Dragonborn in scarred armor, each of them wearing a medallion emblazoned with a bat, strode from place to place, none of them bothering with Havilar or Brin.

  Havilar grabbed a young man by the arm as he passed. “Excuse me? I’m looking for a student taking weapons lessons.”

  “The training yard upstairs,” he said, sounding puzzled. “Um, up there, to the left and then take the first right.”

  The training yard was wider than the one in the Verthisathurgiesh enclave, its ceiling much lower. And it was quite full of dragonborn carrying glaives with blunted metal practice blades.

  Her blood felt as if it had turned to molten lead, scalding hot and plummeting through her veins. Arjhani’s class.

  But there was no Arjhani, no matter where she searched.

  Every student considered Havilar with naked curiosity as she walked toward the front of the class, eyeing their piercings. Silver chains, she thought. Zaroshni would have silver chains.

  “Broken Planes,” a young man muttered in Draconic as she passed him. “They’ll let anyone take lessons now.”

  “One hit and she’ll snap like a twig,” another voice said. “They ought to have warned her.”

  Havilar turned very slowly to face the teenaged dragonborn—a tall young man, pierced with jade rings along his jaw, a stocky, pale-scaled fellow with owl-shaped piercings across his cheeks, and a reddish girl with Kepeshkmolik’s waxing and waning moons.

  “Who’s going to do that?” Havilar asked in Draconic. “You? You? Those glaives are so karshoji shiny it looks like your aunties just handed them to you this morning with your highsunfeast.”

  The tall boy’s teeth gapped nervously, but the owl-pierced one just scowled. “This is the advanced lessons,” he said. “I think you’re in the wrong room.”

  Havilar nearly laughed. “Why? Do you think there are more-senior students who could use my help?”

  The girl’s golden eyes flicked over Havilar. “Like we need advice from some clanless’s demonspawn hanger-on.”

  A murmur ran through the classroom. “Chaubask vur kepeshk, Saitha!” the tall boy hissed. A look of discomfort crossed the Kepeshkmolik girl’s features, but she kept her eyes locked on Havilar as she squared her shoulders.

  “Havi …” Brin said in warning tones. “What’s she saying?”

  “Where’s your teacher?” she said, keeping her eyes locked on the Kepeshkmolik girl.

  “Master Arjhani is running late,” the owl-pierced boy said. “He knows we can manage.”

  “Are any of you Shestandeliath Zaroshni?” Havilar shouted. The dragonborn students shook their heads.

  “Zaroshni didn’t come today,” someone said. “She doesn’t sometimes.”

  “Good.” Havilar reached back and unhooked Devilslayer from its harness, hurt and rage and frustration itching at her bones. “I can think of a few things you could stand to learn,” she said to the Kepeshkmolik girl. She backed toward the open center of the room, beckoning to her.

  “Havi,” Brin said. “Go easy.”

  Havilar grinned at him fiercely, maybe a little madly. She didn’t care. “Of course,” she said in Common. “It’s just a lesson.”

  Saitha’s glaive sliced toward her left shoulder, Havilar’s momentary distraction, momentary cockiness, providing a wide opening. She saw just in time the blade carving toward her, the weapon not turned quite enough to glance off, and Havilar leaped back, flush with adrenaline. The Kepeshkmolik girl grinned.

  Don’t get cocky, Havilar told herself. Plant your feet. Watch your lines. The glaive in her hands felt as if she’d reclaimed a missing limb and she was whole and right again. She caught the girl’s next strikes easily, watching Saitha’s grip, her movements. She favored the slice, always tending toward the left. Good-enough technique, but sparring technique—each criticism came in Mehen’s barked tones.

  The next time Saitha went for the slice, Havilar jabbed hard at her left. It threw the dragonborn off balance as she dodged the weapon, and made it easy for Havilar to yank the shaft of the blade back against the girl’s thighs, down into the hinge of her knees. Saitha went down hard on the mats, as Havilar whipped Devilslayer around to point the butt at her throat.

  “Your slice is solid, but you’re entirely too predictable,” Havilar said. “Stop going for the left—”

  She broke off, catching movement from the corner of her eye—the stocky white-scaled boy with the owl piercings. Havilar sprang back—he was quick, quicker than she would have given him credit for, more comfortable with the blade than Saitha had been. She found herself grinning—it was nearly a challenge.

  The boy made a series of quick feints toward her, jabs meant to upset her balance. Havilar shifted around the attacks, the barest movements. Parry hard, push as far as you can—the boy skipped to the side, trying to stay ahead of her, keeping his strikes short.

  Havilar thrust the glaive between his knees as he tried to pull back from another strike. His feet tangled around the weapon. Havilar gripped the shaft of the weapon tight, planted her feet and pulled back as he stumbled, sweeping his feet from under him.

  Devilslayer caught under the edge of his boot. Havilar hardly had a chance to yank it free but the tall boy’s blade chopped toward her, the side of the blade slamming into her thigh, hard enough to bruise. Havliar bashed the shaft of Devilslayer into the boy’s weapon, hard enough to force him back, hard enough to let her get some space.

  She’d no more than planted her feet, but there was Saitha at her back, cutting toward the left again. Havilar jabbed back at her with the butt of the glaive, more irritated than anything. The tall boy attacked again—chop, parry down—and she’d hardly forced him back, but Saitha was harrying her again. She stepped back, trying to force both opponents to the same side, but they’d studied that much at least and moved with her, maintaining the flanking position.

  Havilar had hardly turned her attention to Saitha, but the boy was pressing toward Havi again. Havilar let Saitha hit her—the sloppily turned blade sliced a thin cut along her arm—to slam Devilslayer’s shaft against the boy’s weapon.

  Not hard enough to throw his balance. Hard enough to make him mad. Sloppy enough to make him cocky.

  Sure enough the boy pulled back, just a hair too wide, committing every bit of his bulk to the attack. In the same moment, Saitha moved toward Havilar. Havi dropped Devilslayer, reached back, and yanked the dragonborn girl forward by her weapon. The tall boy had hardly a breath to pull back his strike. Saitha plowed into him. The shaft of his glaive came down on her head. Both crumpled, panting, to the mats.

  “You’re
favoring the left,” Havilar shouted, pointing at Saitha, the pale boy, and the tall jade-ringed one in turn. “Your stance is a mess. And you aren’t paying the least attention to your comrades. You’re going to get worse than knocked on your ass if you don’t start. You have very pretty bladework, but if you can’t think about every part of yourself, and your opponent, then karshoji go home.” She turned to the class of dragonborn. “Do any of you hatchlings still need advice from the daughter of Clanless Mehen?” she shouted, flooded with success and confidence. “ ’Cause the floor is karshoji open!”

  None of them spoke.

  “I suppose that means it’s my turn.”

  The sound of his voice stopped her heart like a glaive had been buried in it. She turned, as if in a dream, as if her blood were falling away from her ears again. Arjhani hardly looked a day different from that long-ago summer, down to the delighted expression on his face. Like she was a girl again, managing to knock a sparring dummy down.

  “My very best pupil.” Arjhani shook his head, smiling at her. “What a wonderful surprise! I see you’ve kept your practice up—I can’t tell you how proud that makes me.”

  Havilar’s ears were screaming and she felt as if she were going to boil over, as if she were going to turn into flames and smoke like Farideh did—in fact, she wished it would happen.

  “How about you and I do a demonstration for them?” he went on, as if nothing had happened, as if he’d never left. He took up his glaive, twirled it in one hand. “I think you’ve probably progressed enough to make a decent partner.”

  Havilar gripped Devilslayer so hard she could picture it crumbling into splinters. She flipped it around, slid it back into its harness, and turned on her heel. A hundred words, a hundred sharp replies crowded in her throat that might have somehow evened the slate, but she didn’t dare speak a one as she left the training yard, tears squeezing her throat shut.

  “Havi!” Brin called, running after her. “Havi, wait!”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Havi—”

  “No,” Havilar said. At the top of the stairs she spun on him. “I don’t ever want to talk about what just happened. Got it? Never.”

  “Got it,” Brin said after a moment. She turned away again, storming down the stairs. “Just tell me you’re all right?”

  She wouldn’t, because she couldn’t. She needed to go, to be anywhere else right now. I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. “Karshoj, to him and his pride,” she muttered.

  Brin ran down the stairs, getting in front of her. He pulled her off the main walkway at the landing, toward an unfamiliar enclave. She swatted at him. “You don’t want to talk, we don’t have to talk. All right? I’ll make that deal. But you have to take a moment and calm down.”

  “Why the burning Hells should I?” Havilar demanded.

  A pair of soft pops, so close together they might have been one sound, punctured the air just behind her. Havilar’s stomach clenched hard.

  “What is it—” Mot’s question turned into a muffled shriek as Havilar shoved him and Olla backward into the shadow of a column.

  “Shush!” she said. “I didn’t ask for you.”

  “Who told you that you have to ask?” Mot said. “You just have to need.”

  “Technically you have to need something we can help with,” Olla supplied. “But you don’t have to ask.”

  Mot looked as if he would have liked to strangle Olla with his own tail. “I said that.”

  “You almost said it,” Olla pointed out. “So what do you need?”

  “I need to be alone,” Havilar snapped. “Go away.”

  Mot peered at her. “Someone got you angry? Is it this one?” He looked Brin up and down. “What are you doing with our Chosen?”

  “Leave him alone,” Havilar said.

  “He doesn’t seem like proper company for a Chosen of Asmodeus,” Olla said. “Perhaps you need a cultist. Or several. Maybe a wizard who’s morally flexible? They can be good for things.”

  Mot muttered something under his breath again. “She’s not that kind of Chosen, idiot! We’ve been over this.” He looked at Havilar again. “If someone—and I’m not saying this guy, I’m saying insulted you or something, we can help with that. We don’t even have to call in favors or anything. People are really fragile when you get down to it.”

  Havilar’s cheeks brightened. “I am never going to ask you to kill someone.”

  “Who said ‘kill’? Killing is overrated anyway.”

  “Also, you shouldn’t try to kill someone,” Olla said to Mot. “You wouldn’t manage it.”

  “Shut up, Olla!”

  “Both of you shut up!” Havilar hissed. “Don’t come again unless I ask. Don’t kill anybody, and don’t find me a cultist to be friends with! Got it?”

  Mot peered at her again. “Lady, you are so strange.” But a moment later, the air popped again, and both imps were gone.

  Havilar sighed, all her anger receding like a tide, leaving her drained and feeling shaky. As if there were nothing she could do but cry, and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t come right again. She rubbed her eyes. Maybe Farideh had been right. Maybe she couldn’t handle Arjhani.

  Brin took her arm. “Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s go sit and have some tea before we head back.”

  “Lorcan will be here soon,” Havilar protested.

  “The priests of Torm always told me I’d have no success in my lessons with an unsteady heart. And while I know they meant for me to just stiffen up and dive in, I think it’s true, too, that there’s no point in diving in when you can’t focus. Come on.”

  They walked in silence back to the Shield of Shasphur, back to the high table in the corner. The dragonborn woman brought them tea and some little cakes, complimented Brin on his improving Draconic.

  “I get the feeling everyone thinks me speaking Draconic is on a level with a dog doing tricks,” he said, pouring tea into the two cups. The scent of woody spices floated up on the steam as he pushed a cup toward her. “I will never talk about it, if that’s what you want,” Brin said. “But you have to promise me in return that you will talk to me about it if you need to.”

  Havilar wrapped her hands around the clay cup. “It’s too embarrassing.”

  “Right. Because we’ve never told each other anything embarrassing. My opinion of you is that flimsy.” He blew on the hot tea. “Don’t tell me, but don’t pretend I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

  Havilar sighed and rubbed her braid. If there was anyone who she could talk to, it was Brin, wasn’t it? But should it be Brin? Maybe this was the right idea, or maybe it was making everything more knotted and complicated.

  But she wanted it all out, she realized.

  “All right, look, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise—promise—that … that you won’t … That you won’t start treating me differently.”

  Brin reached over and squeezed her hand. “Never.”

  Havilar closed her hand around his, and curled the cup of tea nearer. “One summer, Arjhani came looking for Mehen. He was all apologies and … Well, Mehen’s a bit of a mush-heart for him. Or maybe he was. I don’t know.” She let the story stop, not wanting to revisit any of it.

  “I gather he’s the one who taught you to use the glaive,” Brin said.

  “Did Farideh tell you that?”

  “Yes. Although that”—he gestured toward the stairs beyond the teahouse—“pretty well confirmed it.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That it was hard for you when he left. That you were very attached to him.”

  Havilar swallowed hard, eyes on her tea. “Did she tell you I tried to kill myself?”

  Brin’s hand closed tight around hers like a reflex, like she was going to fall away. “No,” he said, his voice as tight as his grip. “Did you?”

  “No,” Havilar said. “Not on purpose, anyway. But … I guess it doesn’t matter because I did almost die and Mehen and Faride
h never really believed … I don’t think they believed …” Tears rose in her eyes and she stubbornly wiped them away. “It’s just embarrassing.”

  Brin let go of her, pulled his chair around the table, closer to her. “You do not have to tell me this story if you don’t want to,” he said quickly. “You don’t, all right?”

  Havilar shook her head—half of it was so much worse than all of it. “I was twelve when he left. I was … maybe a little hysterical. I just … When Arjhani came, I started feeling like I could see my future. I had this knack and he could see it and I thought he loved me for it. He said I was the best pupil he’d ever had. We were going to go adventuring and I would learn everything from him and we would all be so happy. But … he left and it felt like I wasn’t … Like maybe he realized he didn’t love Mehen anymore, but didn’t he love me?” She shook her head. “It’s so karshoji stupid—I was just some kid. He was just like that, you know? Just charming and friendly and … I wasn’t special.” She drew a breath to steady herself. “So Mehen’s heartbroken and not dealing with it very well, and I’m really not keeping my head on my shoulders …”

  “You were twelve,” Brin reminded her, taking her hand again. “That’s a bad time for big surprises.”

  Havilar nodded, remembering the feeling of freefall, the terror that everything was wrong and would always be wrong and it was her fault somehow, but she couldn’t figure it out. If only she could just fix it. “So … Farideh got really angry at me one day for being so sad. Because Mehen was the one who ought to be sad and I was just making it all about myself, when who even cared about Arjhani?”

  “She said that she didn’t get along with him much.”

  Havilar snorted. “Yeah, not at all. When he first came, she told Mehen he ought to leave, since she’d figured out Arjhani had broken his heart. I think she hurt Arjhani’s pride more than anything, and I didn’t realize it then, but … he was unkind to her after that. Not cruel. But you know, unkind.” She rubbed her thumb over Brin’s hand. “So she was a little glad he was gone and mad at me for missing him, but I was missing everything, really. And … Mehen had gotten some rotgut from this dwarf in the village—”