The Adversary

by Erin M. Evans

  “I do think they’ll care what happened,” Farideh said. “And maybe they’ll care for you too—if you’re right, if you didn’t betray the Harpers, why not say so? If you’re innocent—”

  “Innocent and guilty all depend on the judge,” Tharra said. “And I’m a lot better for the world if I keep running free. You would be too.”

  Farideh considered that. There remained the fear that she was wrong about Tam, that she was wrong about everyone. That whatever she told them, the truth would be too much.

  But beside her, Mehen stirred in his sleep, and her heart squeezed. “I won’t leave them.”

  “Suit yourself,” Tharra said. “They’ll stop trusting you eventually.”

  “And they’ll hunt you down.”

  Tharra smiled. “Then I’ll have to lead them on a merry chase in the meantime.”

  Farideh shut her eyes and laid her head against the tree once more. She heard Tharra stand and pick her way through the sleeping guards. She heard the alarm called out, and people running through the underbrush. Mehen woke at their shouts, and Farideh opened her eyes again to see him, blade in hand, eyes on Dahl coming to stand beside her. Dahl took in the unlocked shackles beside Farideh.

  “Good,” he said, sounding relieved. “Good. You’re still here.”

  Mehen reached over and took her hand. Farideh squeezed his back. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  The night after the explosion, when the prisoners had finally cleared out enough to make it safe to approach and the Shadovar carriers had long since circled the battered mountain and fled back to Netheril, Zahnya moved across the charred field of rubble that had once been Adolican Rhand’s internment camp. The spell had leveled the fortress and burned the hundreds of huts into ash. Not a living soul remained—only Zahnya, moving like a ghost in the moonlight toward the wisp of colored light hanging over the middle of the field.

  The boneclaw and the zombies that had been her apprentices followed after, but there was no need. Nothing on the surface had survived the ritual—not a mortal, not a mouse. Only the lake, shimmering under the stern light of Selûne, remained the same, somehow untouched. Zahnya eyed it in the distance. A curiosity—but not one she could worry about now.

  No, the spark dancing just higher than her head took all of her concern. It looked like nothing so much as a half-soaked firework, a sputtering pinwheel losing intensity by the second as it weaved over the ground. Magros had promised her a divine spark great enough to raise a mortal to the heights of demigodhood. He hadn’t counted on the Harpers, true, but who could have known better than a devil that a handful of meddling spies would throw their plans into disarray?

  His Omnipotence would not be pleased.

  Zahnya took a box made of enameled bone from her sleeve and held it open. The spark flew into it, as if it were coming home to roost. Not enough, she thought. Not nearly enough.

  “Do we return now?” the boneclaw rasped.

  “In a moment,” Zahnya said. She climbed up onto a chunk of sharp black stone and faced the field. “We cannot return empty-handed,” she said. “We cannot leave anything for Netheril.”

  Selûne watched over her dark rituals, impassive as Zahnya had always seen the moon goddess. Perhaps she knew, much as her Harpers had, that there were darker enemies on the field. It may take all who would stand against Shar to thwart her.

  Zahnya smiled to herself as one by one, corpses recombined and rose from the destruction. Perhaps Selûne doesn’t know yet, Zahnya thought, what Thay is capable of.

  At her feet the rubble stirred and rained off first a pair of shadar-kai—still missing pieces from their faces, but unmistakable in their studded armor—and then a bearded human man whose eyes glowed eerie blue.

  “Mistress,” the wight growled.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  8 Tarsakh, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) Waterdeep

  Dahl scratched the last line of runes across the parchment, completing Farideh’s account of the internment camps, Adolican Rhand, and the Nine Hells acting out on Toril.

  “I’m assuming,” Tam said to Farideh, “that you’re leaving things out.” Farideh colored a little. “Nothing that matters.”

  Tam sighed heavily. “You remember I have artifacts in hand that can make you share.”

  “I remember.” She rubbed her still-shackled hands together. “Although I wish you wouldn’t. It’s just private things.”

  Tam regarded her for a long moment. Dahl wondered what she was talking about. Lorcan, he decided, dropping his eyes to the page. Probably Lorcan.

  He caught Tam’s eye and shook his head surreptitiously. It wasn’t worth heavier methods to make her admit she’d kissed the devil.

  “Since this is a great deal of information we had no knowledge of,” Tam said, “since there are coordinating accounts, and since you will have at least two sets of eyes I trust on you—”

  “And since I’m not a Shadovar spy?” Farideh interrupted.

  “Even if you were, at this point you’re more useful to us than to them.”

  Tam smiled. “I won’t keep you. But should anything further come to light, we may ask you to return. And I hope if those private matters turn out to matter to the rest of us—”

  “They won’t.”

  “Six internment camps filled with god-blessed prisoners,” Tam said, “and not a soul noticed.” He cursed and propped his hands behind his head. “This is going to be a nightmare of an undertaking.”

  “You’re going to have to contact the other networks,” Dahl pointed out. Tam shot him a dark look. “Later.” Farideh was not, after all, a Harper, even if she was exonerated. He stood. “Get those chains off her and get her back to Mehen. I want a list of available agents. Be back here in two bells.”

  “Where are you headed?” Dahl asked.

  “Barber,” Tam said, as he passed out the door.

  Dahl kneeled and unlocked Farideh’s shackles. “That was painless.”

  “Relatively,” Farideh said, a small smile tugging at her mouth. She spread her fingers, the pale third finger standing out like a ghost among the darker ones. An unwelcome reminder of Adolican Rhand. Dahl took her hand in his. “There’s probably a way to change it,” Dahl said, examining her finger. “I don’t know it off the top of my head, but people do it all the time for cosmetic reasons. Fancy revels and things.” He smiled at her. “I am completely certain someone can turn it dryad-green.”

  “Better than this.” Farideh looked away.

  Dahl squeezed her hand. “Worst comes to worst, we’ll find you some nice gloves.”

  Farideh took her hand back, and Dahl stood and found something else to look at. “I suppose,” she said, standing, “there are plenty of places that sell gloves in Suzail.”

  “Probably,” Dahl said. “Probably Lord Crownsilver can find a merchant who’d be delighted to fit his dear friend with gloves.”

  “So long as no one knows that dear friend is me.”

  Dahl didn’t argue. He didn’t have the faintest idea how Brin and Mehen thought returning to Suzail with tieflings in tow would work. He half hoped it didn’t and he wouldn’t have to trek to Cormyr when Tam decided he needed more information from Farideh. “What did you leave out?” Dahl asked. “Is it just—” She met his gaze. “Please don’t ask me. I won’t lie to you, but . . . please, if you and I are friends at all, don’t ask. I promise it’s not anything the Harpers need to know.”

  “All right,” Dahl said. “But you’ll tell me if you’re in trouble?”

  “I’ll tell you if there’s anything you can do about it.” She pulled her sleeve down over her ruined hand. “Dahl . . . I know you don’t want to know about your soul and . . . things.”

  “I don’t,” Dahl said firmly. If she was going to bring this up again, there were a hundred other things he could slip away to do. “I won’t keep you from Mehen,” he started.

  Farideh wet her lips. “It’s only . . . You should know, Dah
l. I don’t think Oghma’s finished with you yet.”

  Dahl felt his chest squeeze tight. “What makes you say that?” he asked, as nonchalantly as he could.

  “The others,” she said, “the Chosen, they all have runes—symbols—that I can’t read, as if the gods have marked their souls.”

  “And I have one?” Dahl said. “I doubt that.”

  “You don’t,” Farideh agreed, and Dahl was embarrassed at how suddenly his heart seemed to collapse at that—even though he knew better. He struggled to think of some glib thing to say, but then she went on, “Yours are . . . in other tongues.”

  Dahl went still. “What . . . what do they say?”

  Farideh still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You asked me not to look again. I haven’t . . . I only managed to read one line of it—in Draconic. It might be that it’s the same all through—it’s a lot of writing, as if someone made the light into ink—”

  “Fari,” he said sharply. He felt dizzy, as if none of the blood were reaching his head. “Please. What does it say?”

  And finally she looked up and met his eyes. “Vur ghent vethsunathear renthisj.” “ ‘And after,’ ” Dahl translated, “ ‘my priest speaks.’ ”

  “You’re all right?” Mehen asked Havilar again. “You don’t need anything?”

  “I’m fine,” Havilar said, grinning. All Mehen’s worrying—everything that had made her feel smothered and annoyed before—just felt like home. “And I will be here in the morning, I promise.”

  Mehen studied her for a long moment, as if he thought she might be lying, as if he knew she was hiding something. “All right,” he said finally.

  He stroked her hair once with his great hand and smiled halfheartedly. “If you change your mind, you can wake me.”

  Havilar rolled her eyes, but still she smiled. Everything was falling back to the way it should be. Everything was almost normal again. She dawdled with the hand mirror she’d been left, trying to decide if she ought to take her braids out or pin them up or something altogether different.

  The face that stared back was strange, but happy—and Havilar was less and less surprised each time she saw herself.

  The knock at the door half a bell later made Havilar leap from her seat, all but throwing the mirror down. She yanked the door open to reveal Brin. “Havi,” he started.

  “Well met,” she said, pulling him into the room. They’d hardly had a decent moment alone on the way back, always crowded by strangers and Harpers and Mehen—and even though Havilar was pretty sure Mehen knew by now what was going on, she’d rather keep things quiet until they sat down and told him properly.

  Brin went a little stiff as she drew him in, and Havilar frowned. She shut the door behind him, but he didn’t relax. “What’s wrong?”

  “Havi,” he said again, “I have to tell you something and . . .” He swallowed.

  “It’s not an easy thing—to hear or to say—but I need you to listen to the whole of it before you make up your mind, all right? Can you promise me that?” All the blood seemed to drop out of Havilar’s head. “Brin, you’re scaring me.”

  He looked as if he were scaring himself as well. He guided her back to sit on the edge of the bed. “Just promise me? Please?”

  “All right,” she said, too afraid to say otherwise. She watched his mouth as he wet his lips again, the moment stretching out, taut and sharp and horrible before he spoke: “I’m engaged.”

  “En . . . engaged with what?”

  “Engaged to be married,” he said hesitantly. “Come summer.” Havilar pulled her hand back, the blood somehow sinking farther away from her head. She felt as if she were going to faint. She felt as if she were someone else, somewhere else, watching this happen. “But . . . you said you loved me.”

  “I do,” he said. He reached for her face, but she slipped away. “I do,” he said again. “I love you—”

  “But you love her too,” Havilar finished.

  “No,” Brin said. “It’s not a love match. It’s a political marriage. Raedra and I are . . .” He seemed to hunt for the right word. “Allies.”

  “She’s a princess, isn’t she?” Havilar realized. Tears welled in her eyes, and she looked away. “How can you not love a princess?”

  “Because she’s not you,” Brin said fiercely. He pulled her nearer, as near as she could get. There were tears in his eyes too. “I will fix this,” he promised.

  “I will find a way out, because this is all I want. Not a princess. Not a throne. Just you. Here.” He fell silent a moment. “But it’s going to take a little caution, a little time. Please—give me a chance. I . . . I have to unravel some things that won’t take well to being unraveled.”

  Havilar nodded mutely. He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t even hinted.

  “You said you never gave up,” she finally managed.

  Brin looked at her sadly. “I didn’t. But I tried to.”

  It was all more than she could manage. Havilar pushed him back.

  “You . . . You can’t stay here tonight,” she said. “I want to be alone. I have to be alone.” Brin stood, folded his hands, and for a brief terrible moment, Havilar wasn’t sure if she was glad or not that he wasn’t arguing. “That’s fair,” he said. “I hope it’s not always true. I mean it: I love you, and I will fix this if it destroys me.” He bent to kiss her on the cheek, and she let him, even though she didn’t know what it meant anymore. Even though when he shut the door behind him, Havilar curled her knees up tight, feeling lonelier than she could ever remember.

  The little room in the Harper hall seemed even quieter the second time around. Farideh stood, waiting for the faint creaks and pops of the building, the soft vibrations of the warding magic, to break the silence.

  As much as she ached for company, she wasn’t sure she was ready for it. Evenfeast with Mehen and Havilar, with all the many guests of the Harpers watching her surreptitiously, had grated against her nerves. She’d hardly spoken— glad for the too-many things Mehen had to tell them about Cormyr and Suzail.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, long after Farideh had stopped counting the number of times he had said it. “It’s a lovely city. And we have a home there. And people will get used to you—just as they’ve gotten used to me.”

  “And if they don’t?” Farideh asked.

  “If they don’t,” Mehen said mildly, “I will remind them what the Crownsilvers employ me for.”

  “You can’t thrash an entire city,” Farideh said.

  “Don’t tempt him,” Havilar had said. And despite the fact that she had no doubt Cormyr had no place for twin tieflings with unfortunate ties to the Nine Hells, Farideh had to chuckle at that.

  She still had not explained to Mehen what had happened in the tower room, what it was he had pulled her back from the brink of, and he had not pressed. Not yet. She wondered if Tharra would prove to be right—if this would be the fault that Mehen could not forgive.

  She looked down at her bleached white finger. For so long she’d thought Mehen had a hard time loving her—she was stubborn and clumsy and strange beside Havilar. She wanted things Mehen couldn’t fathom the reasons for. They argued and she felt as if she’d never be enough to make him proud. And then she stole Havi—his peerless heir—from him for seven and a half years.

  But he had come to the black glass tower and faced the Nameless One, and helped her back from the edge of losing herself. And she realized maybe she’d been a little blind all that time. She thought of the vision of Mehen, braiding her hair. Maybe she’d been lost in her own guilt and grief.

  She was sure she would tell Mehen. But not before she told Havilar—not before she was sure she knew how bad things were—and that would have to wait for tomorrow. Farideh took off her boots and her leathers. She braided her hair and fished through her haversack for a thong to tie it off. Her hand brushed the ruby comb, tucked into the bottom of the bag, and she pulled it out.

  The wind of the portal opening was hot against her neck. She sh
oved the comb back into the bag before turning to face Lorcan, standing in the middle of her room, not saying a word.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Only to check in on you. Make certain you’re happy with how things fell out.”

  “I wasn’t executed,” she said dryly. “Fortunately.”

  “I saw.”

  She rubbed her brand. “I know. Does it have to hurt like that?”

  “What do you want it to feel like?” he asked with a smirk.

  Farideh turned back to the dressing table, hoping she wasn’t blushing as hard as it felt. “If you’re just here to tease me, you can go, many thanks. I don’t like you spying on me.”

  “Watching out for you,” he corrected. “I would have stepped in.”

  Farideh watched her hands as she tied the haversack shut. “Are you settled, then?”

  Lorcan heaved a sigh—sounding so tired, so human that she looked up at his reflection in the mirror. “Hardly,” he said. “Sairché is not recovered—or at least, she’s insisting she is not recovered. Her Highness is unhappy without saying she is unhappy. His Majesty is . . .” Farideh dropped her eyes at the mention of Asmodeus, and Lorcan didn’t finish the thought, but slipped his arms around her.

  “I was thinking,” he said, “you might let me borrow your protection once more. Until things do settle.”

  Farideh turned, as surprised as she would have been to hear him ask if she might consider handing her soul over for a moment. She pushed him off. “I cannot believe you’d ask me that.”

  “Why not?” Lorcan smiled wolfishly. “I could make it worth your while.”

  Farideh blushed hard enough her cheeks ached. “Shall I go get Dahl, then? Or will any jack do?”

  Lorcan’s dark, dark eyes fixed her for a moment, his mouth shifting into his familiar smirk. “Is that what you think? How interesting.”