“She won’t be happy,” Rhand warned. “She’ll want punishment.” He lingered on the word in a way that fanned that spark of rage. She owed the dead Chosen—but she did not owe Rhand or Shar.
At the top of the stairs, the shadar-kai woman stopped and went no farther. Farideh stepped out of the threat of her knives and into the grasp of the Chosen of Shar’s powers—worse than the prior night. It wrapped her like a cloak of lead and threatened to stop her feet. Images of the massacre rose up with every step—the woman with the cut throat, the elf a shadar-kai had beaten with his spiked fists, the sound of the little genasi girl screaming. The Chosen whose ties to his god had been snapped with one sword stroke.
You fight or you die, the ghost’s words murmured in her thoughts. Had the ghost not fought? Had she died fighting? The Nameless One’s power smothered her curiosity. It might matter, but Farideh couldn’t recall why. Only that she would like very much to stop, to sit, to curl into a ball.
Rhand stopped beside the door opposite his study, his breath growing unsteady, his eyes wild. The room beyond was far larger than her own, with a long table covered in maps and scrolls in addition to the bed and chests and chairs. A similar closet stood in the corner, its open doors displaying a similar variety of fashions—though far more were puddled on the floor, tried-on and cast-off.
The Nameless One sat beside the wide, open windows, and a cold breeze cooled Farideh’s burning face. The strange glyph of power that marked the girl was not drawn in light but deepest shadow, glittering with traces of violet and blue. She looked Farideh over with colorless eyes, and numbness gripped the warlock, snuffing out fear and rage and every other thought.
Except one: she looks like Havi.
There was a ghost of Havilar in the way the girl held her pointed chin up, the way she tossed the long silky strands of her hair over her shoulder as her eyes fell on Farideh. There was the faint memory of the last young woman in the courtyard, the one she’d just sent to Rhand’s tender ministrations, in the silver gleam of the Nameless One’s eyes. The little genasi girl whose screams echoed and echoed in Farideh’s memories in the way that dark cloud of Shar’s blessing seemed too large for her to contain, in the delicacy of her features, in the way Farideh’s heart suddenly ached for the Nameless One.
“Well met,” the Nameless One said. “I see you’re not as reliable as Saer Rhand insisted.” She gave Rhand a cool look, and Farideh’s heart threatened to break.
“Well met,” she murmured. The ache in her chest reminded her of Mehen, of the grief in his gaze and the misery she knew she was putting him through. “Where are your parents?” she asked, her mind too tangled in the Chosen’s powers to stop her tongue.
The girl flushed, but whatever dark magic imbued her and turned her flesh into shadows made the stain purplish and bruiselike. Her powers surged, and the force of Shar’s emptiness made Farideh’s throat tighten, her heart sink. “Dead,” she said sweetly. “Buried under fallen Sakkors. I represent the Church of Shar now. We’re the ones who determine Saer Rhand’s success or failure. Your success or failure,” she added menacingly.
I have failed already, a part of her sighed. But just as much of her noted that the Nameless One’s superiority only made her seem younger, only sound like Havilar back in Arush Vayem, flush with success at some complicated attack she’d created.
“How old are you?”
The Nameless One lifted her chin. “Thirteen. And already more powerful than any other Chosen in this camp.” Her gaze flicked over Farideh as if she were daring her to argue. “I saw your little stunt, and Saer Rhand’s remedy.” She turned to Rhand. “Was that truly necessary?”
Rhand cleared his throat. “I thought it so, my lady. A point needed to be made.”
“You are very adept at wasting resources,” the girl said scathingly. “You drain the Lady’s coffers and destroy the powers she craves.”
“Your pardon, my lady. There was a point to be made.”
The Nameless One turned back to Farideh, and her terrible powers surged around the warlock, eager to wear her away like rough waves against a sandbar. She looks like Havilar, Farideh thought. She should be trying to lie to her father and learning to flirt and practicing at adulthood. Tears welled in Farideh’s eyes. The Chosen of Shar smiled and her powers deepened, threatening to drive Farideh to her knees.
“Don’t you wish your ‘patron’ could manage a gift like this?” she said. “Something useful. Something powerful.” Farideh shook her head slowly, trying to cling to the parts of her mind that still made sense, even if they played neatly into the Nameless One’s trap: I cannot save them. I cannot win. I cannot. I cannot. She looked into the girl’s luminous eyes.
“I can’t save you,” Farideh said, tears breaking down her cheeks.
The Nameless One drew back, surprised, and her powers ebbed. “Save me?” She laughed, a short, shocked sound. “From what? I am the Handmaiden of Shar, powerful beyond my age and station.”
“You’re alone,” Farideh said. “You’re a child.”
“A child and I command the blessings of Shar,” the Nameless One said, smiling cruelly. “Who says I need saving?” She leaned forward, her powers washing into the room like a tide. “You’re the one in need of saving, devil-born.”
And no one is going to save me, Farideh thought, drowning in the emptiness of Shar. Not Lorcan, who abandoned her. Not Havilar, who had washed her hands of Farideh. Not Mehen, who loved Havilar best. Not the Harpers, not Sairché, and not Dahl . . .
And you can’t save them either, she thought. It’s hopeless. Give up.
She drew a long, shuddering breath, and made herself look away from the Nameless One, but the powers had already dragged her down like anchors chained to her ankles. It was hopeless. She could not stand alone. She had no one to stand beside her—
Farideh’s eyes fell on the table, on the maps of Faerûn laid over it. On the scattered points marked in scarlet over the northern half of the continent. On the mark that lay on the mountains where Dahl had guessed the camp stood—the Lost Peaks. On the five other identical marks. Five other camps. Five other walls. Five other chances that someone had escaped.
Farideh’s pulse sped. She forgot, for a moment, the Nameless One and Rhand standing beside her. She forgot the numbness and the weight of the Nameless One’s powers. There were six camps hiding potential Chosen. And she had only asked about this one.
She had been right. Someone had breached one of the walls. There was a way out. She just had to ask the waters the right question to find out how.
“I don’t think Saer Rhand’s punishment is enough,” the Nameless One said loftily. “You clearly don’t know your place. And we value obedience above all else.”
Stall, Farideh thought. Focus. She had to get out of there, and quickly. “If you think,” she said softly, “that my patron will not be upset at the loss of so many souls, you are mistaken. I will pay for it.”
“Is that why he’s interested?”
Farideh shrugged. She couldn’t guess what Lorcan wanted, what Sairché intended. Or why the Nameless One would care. But what did people expect of devils but a greed for souls?
“You will have a goodly number of . . . castoffs,” she said. “Assuming you aren’t just killing them all. Plenty of people looking for easy answers. My patron specializes in such things.”
The Chosen of Shar considered her for another interminable moment, Shar’s powers picking at Farideh’s soul.
Six camps, Farideh thought. Six walls, and one of them had certainly been breached—concentrate on that, she told herself. There’s a way out, and you’re the only one who knows. You need to tell Dahl. You need to tell the prisoners.
Why would she think she could do that? Rhand was clearly cleverer than her, the Nameless One clearly more powerful. Farideh could hardly even stand in her presence . . .
Farideh curled her nails into her palm and thought about the dead prisoners.
“Perhaps that is t
he way of the king of the Hells,” the Chosen of Shar said, and the pain in Farideh’s hands, the anger in her heart was no longer enough as the girl’s god-given powers swallowed her up. “But the Lady of Loss demands we uphold the order of things. And you are too smug for my liking. Saer Rhand?” Her colorless eyes pinned Farideh, and when she spoke, once more she sounded ages older than she appeared. “You may not think yourself a tool, but you are. We all are.”
Rhand was suddenly so close behind Farideh she could feel the rasp of his uneven breath against her hair. His hand clamped down on her left wrist, and swimming against the tide of the Chosen of Shar’s powers, Farideh was too slow to pull away as he spread her hand flat on the table, pulled the knife from his belt, and sliced her ring finger off.
She heard the snap of the bone, saw the spread of blood across the parchment before she realized what had happened. There was no pain, her whole hand had gone as numb as her thoughts. But when Rhand released her wrist and she drew her hand back, the finger remained behind, curled in a pool of dark blood.
Her breath stopped in her lungs. Her mind seemed to scream and scream and scream, but not a sound came out of her. She was dying on her feet.
Rhand pressed a cloth to the wound and himself to her. She stared at the finger until the Chosen of Shar stood, plucked it from where it lay, and tossed it into the brazier.
“Not to worry,” she said sweetly, the words echoing in Farideh’s ears, “we’ll not keep it as insurance. This time.”
Farideh hardly understood the words, still reeling. Still realizing that Rhand was pressed against her, and that the unevenness of his breathing had a very different quality. Still trying to scream.
“Should you be driven to act out again . . . well, you’ll have your reminder.” The Nameless One smiled at Farideh and the pain burned up her arm, sudden and hot and enough to drive her held breath out in a single sharp cry. It pulled with it the swirling powers of the Hells and her arm became a sink of ruinous energy and agony.
Cast, the voice of the Hells hissed. Show them what they’ve miscounted.
But she had no air to speak the trigger word. Rhand and the Chosen of Shar exchanged words she couldn’t pick up through the buzz of her thoughts, and the wizard steered her from the room, out into the hallway.
“It hurts doesn’t it?” Rhand’s whispered voice slid through the buzz of shock like a sharp blade between her ribs. He stood, still too close to her, his breath on her hair. “But it drives away the shadows. Puts the Lady at her ease. For the moment.”
A knife does it fastest, the ghost had said. But which end? Farideh thought, turning to face him. The pain would do it, or the rush of adrenalin as you turned the blade on someone else—
“Her power over you won’t fade,” Rhand went on, taking her ruined hand in his. “Not completely. Not without careful . . . maintenance.”
“Don’t touch me,” Farideh said, holding the bloody cloth tight against the wound. Holding onto her hand as if he could take it from her. He smiled.
“Oh, but you have so many more,” he said. “Shar favors obedience, and the ‘obliteration of the self’—what better approach than to whittle it away? And what remains . . . more lovely for the lack.” His laugh sent a shudder up Farideh’s spine, and the fear that traveled with it pushed more of the Chosen of Shar’s effect away.
“She’s a little demon, isn’t she?” Rhand said. “Nearly as stubborn as you, but so haughty about it. She seeks to drag your fate out, but you’ve already set yourself against me. Against Shar. It’s a waste of time trying to rein you in when you’ve decided not to be useful anymore.” He ran a finger over the curve of her left horn. “More worthwhile to find a better use for you.”
The Hells pulsed up her bones, hungry and fierce, ready to pour out, to fill the air with brimstone missiles, to pull lava up through the floor, to devour Rhand in a torrent of flames. Her face flushed, and a veil of sweat beaded up on her skin. A better use, she thought, feeling a sneer curl her lip. I will show you a better use.
The lights began to flash again, the muted purple and green of Rhand’s tainted soul oozing into her vision. The shimmering blue of the tiefling ghost coming into being again.
What you’re thinking, the ghost said, is only going to make things worse. She drifted down to hang in the air beside Rhand, her profile inches from his cheek. You missed your chance to fight. Now he wants you to fight. He wants you to be something he can break, something he can overpower. That makes it sweeter. Trust me.
Which left her with what? Farideh thought. Go along with him? Let him slice away parts of her until she bled out on the floor?
Be gentle, the ghost said. Be cordial. Pretend this is nothing at all. He will be easier to distract that way. Remind him of your allies—the allies he believes you have.
“As tempting as that sounds, I have to decline,” Farideh said. “My head aches and . . . my patron will want to know what’s happening. I need to speak to him.”
The ghost smiled. Perfect.
Rhand drew back. “You speak with him?”
“Of course,” Farideh said. She drew herself as straight as she could manage. “And he’ll be very displeased with you if I let you keep me from him.” She wondered how bald that lie was—how much Rhand knew Lorcan didn’t care what happened to her—and that grief threatened her again. She held Rhand’s gaze instead.
“Do you think he’ll be pleased with your little rebellion?” Rhand said, sounding angry. Sounding afraid. “If you lay the blame for that on me, I assure you it won’t go well for you. We had an agreement, and I always read my agreements carefully.”
“I think I need to bring it up. Lorcan will want to know, after all.”
Relief lit Rhand’s face. “His emissary? The cambion, you mean.” He blew out a breath and chuckled nervously. “Of course. Tell him what you want. He and I are clear.” He chuckled again. “Of course, of course. What did I imagine? You were calling down the god himself in my guest rooms?” He chuckled again.
Farideh kept her expression carefully blank, even as a new dread curled around her heart. He means Asmodeus, she thought. “No,” she said slowly. “Of course not.” But he was afraid of Asmodeus, not of her, not of Lorcan. “Lorcan is the one who calls him down,” she said.
Rhand hesitated, as if trying to sift out her bluff. Farideh kept her face carefully blank, until he steered her toward her rooms once more.
My patron will want to know what’s happening, her own words came back to her. I need to speak to him. And Rhand had assumed she meant Asmodeus . . .
Don’t you wish your “patron” could manage a gift like this? Farideh’s heart started pounding, the pain in her arm building as it did. Patron, the Nameless One had said in the study Why not say “god”?
“You keep saying ‘patron,’ ” Farideh heard herself murmur. “And it means too many things.”
“You too?” Rhand said. “By being vague we cast a wider net. And then?” He shrugged. “It becomes habit. I doubt they care.”
“Some call Lorcan my patron,” she said, the pieces falling together. He’d asked the Fountains of Memory to show the moment her patron had taken notice. The waters had shown Lorcan, Rhand hadn’t asked to see her patron. Only the moment he’d taken notice.
Asmodeus had been watching, too—
Her breath stopped, sticky in her lungs. There was a moment where all Farideh knew was that things weren’t making sense. And then the truth was just there, solid as a wall dropped around her. Rhand’s horrible words come back to her in that moment—more lovely for the lack—and she was struck, perversely, how true that was of that moment she’d just lost. She might have been grieving and angry and lost, but that was the last moment she didn’t know. The last moment she could claim innocence of any sort.
—and she was as trapped as the Nameless One.
“Perhaps,” Rhand said, bringing her to the door of her room, “but we all answer to someone greater. Even him. Especially you.” He gave he
r an evil smile. “Don’t think it protects you. Your god is not as powerful as he believes.” Get in the room, Farideh told herself, above the frenetic buzz of her panicking thoughts. Get in the room. Lie down. You’re going to faint. He can’t see you faint. She grabbed at the door handle with her injured hand, the cloth slipping, more blood spattering on the shiny black floor.
Rhand’s smile grew. “Remember,” he said, as the edges of her vision started crumbling, “there is no god that could have chosen you who could protect you from the reach of Shar.”
Dimly she heard the latch click, and someone grabbed ahold of her and pulled her into the room, and despite her resolve not to, Farideh’s knees buckled in a faint.
“Your pardon, Saer Rhand,” she heard Lorcan say in his silky way, “I need to speak to my warlock alone.”
Chapter Sixteen
24 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks
The wizard—Lords of the Nine never take your eyes from him, Lorcan thought—looked up, surprised at Lorcan’s sudden appearance. Farideh had fallen backward into Lorcan, her skin pale and grayish with shock. Blood—her blood—stained the front of her tunic, and Rhand’s. A jagged stump remained of her finger, stark white bone and a fringe of torn flesh.
Don’t kill him, Lorcan told himself, dimly aware of how tightly he was holding onto Farideh. Not yet. Not here.
If Farideh noticed at all as he hauled her into the room and slammed the door shut, she gave no sign. “Which of these opens your dimensional pocket?” Lorcan said to Sairché as she threw the bolt, locking Rhand and his curses on the other side. “She needs a healing.”
Sairché considered the array of rings around his neck. “If I tell you, I get the ring.”
Lorcan laid Farideh on the bed. “Lords damn you. Just tell me!”
Sairché shrugged. “Nothing in our deal about following all orders. She’s not going to die of a missing finger.”
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