Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Havi!” Farideh cried. “Get away!”

Havilar didn’t look at her sister. Her golden eyes were locked on Yvon instead, burning hot and hateful. The shopkeeper for his part seemed to scour Havilar with his gaze, as if searching for the secret at the core of her. She pointed the rod at his head. “Sixth Layer,” he hissed.

Havilar stood perfectly still, rod outstretched. For the merest of moments, no one moved and all eyes were on the quartz tip of the rod. But nothing happened.

Then the smaller tiefling man, the warlock, cast a blast of heat that washed over Havilar as harmless as a gale. She flinched away and he leaped closer, his hand outstretched with some foul spell on his fingertips, ready to end things.

Havilar struck him across the frailest part of his cheekbone with the heavy quartz tip. The strike was perfect. His face erupted in a spray of blood and snapped something deeper in his skull-a dull wheeze accompanied the crunch of bone, and he collapsed, his eyes glazing. Havilar flipped Farideh’s sword into a stabbing grip and shoved it halfway through the elf woman’s chest and back out without so much as looking. The woman gasped and collapsed onto Farideh.

The Ashmadai erupted.

Yvon may have been right-Farideh alone stood little chance against the assembled cultists. Inevitably, Havilar would fall as well. But Havilar would take a great many of them with her, regardless of the madness that seemed to grip her.

And Farideh would keep her from falling.

She cast a stream of flames into the crowd, neatly parting it and keeping Havilar from being overrun. Her sister seemed, again, to try and cast through the rod, again, frustrated when nothing came of it. She dodged one of the Ashmadai warlocks, tripping him into a comrade so his spell discharged in a messy burst of burning smoke that left the Ashmadai screaming in pain.

Farideh cast a similar cloud of miasma around her, catching the four cultists advancing toward her. She stepped through a rent in the planes and reappeared on the other side of the room, where she could more easily-

A sharp pain exploded from the side of her skull, and her head rocked sideways as something caught her horn and wrenched her neck. She fell to her knees, her vision crumbling into stars. Instinct urged her to move, and she rolled onto her back in time to dodge the big tiefling’s bludgeon smashing into the floor beside her. She threw up her arms and he grinned wickedly, pulling back for another strike.

“Adaestuo.” The blast streaked past the tiefling and crashed into the ceiling above him, punching a hole through to the shop above. Chunks of plaster and floorboard hailed down on them both, but the heavy joist swung down into the man’s head, knocking him senseless for a moment. Farideh cast another blast at him, throwing him backward into the fray. He slammed into Havilar, who caught his weight and threw him to the ground before pinning him down with Farideh’s sword.

Yvon lunged at Havilar. Farideh’s blast caught him and he stumbled, enough to give Havilar time to pull the sword free and turn her attention to the shopkeeper. She slammed her palm against his breastbone, arresting him, and gave him a wicked grin. The flash of magic that pulsed over Yvon’s body shimmered like a slick of lamp oil. His face contorted in pain, his eyes rolled back, and he fell to his knees. The pulse came again and he collapsed.

Havilar looked up at Farideh and sneered. She pulled the sword free of the tiefling man’s body. There were only three Ashmadai still standing, and those had sense enough to stay back.

“Havi, come on,” Farideh said, one hand pressed to the lump growing on the back of her head. The bludgeon had half caught on her horn, but it had hit her hard enough to make her head spin as she lurched toward her sister.

Havilar regarded her, cruel and amused, as if she were watching a spider whose legs she’d plucked one by one try to cross the floor. She turned her attention, unhurried, to the remaining Ashmadai-all armed with daggers. She dropped the sword and the rod and gestured with her hands at the nearest one, the one wounded by Farideh’s miasma. His eyes seemed to glaze over and he turned from Havilar to the cultist beside him, a tiefling woman with wild, white curls. Without a word, he plunged his dagger to the hilt in her back.

Farideh froze, watching as Havilar directed the cultist to go after his final fellow. The last man bolted for the stairs, but as he did, he passed Havilar, and again she caught him with that strange pulse of oily magic, and he collapsed. The other Ashamadai was on him in an instant.

Farideh bent and picked up the rod, uncertain of what was happening, of how much she was imagining. She pressed a hand to her skull again and the hand came away sticky with blood.

“Havi,” she said, her voice shaking, “stop.”

Havilar didn’t respond and kicked the final Ashmadai under the chin so that his head snapped back hard. Dazed, he hardly fought as she stabbed his comrade’s dagger into the fleshy part of his throat. Dark blood gushed out and he collapsed.

Havilar scooped the sword off the ground and turned to face her sister. Her face was a mess of cuts and swollen lumps, but Havilar didn’t seem to notice at all. She advanced on Farideh.

“What …” Farideh tried to ask. Her head had started spinning again. “What have you done? Why did you-” She turned aside as Havilar lunged forward with the sword, barely missing the blade. “Havi!”

“You’ll have to kill her,” Havilar said, her voice raspy and her grin maniac. “I won’t let her go.”

“What are you talking about?” Farideh shouted. She ducked under another sword strike. “Havi, it’s me!”

“It should have been you, warlock,” Havilar said, pressing her past the altar. “But no mind. Only you will know my mistake, and you were always meant to die.”

“Assulam!” The altar burst into pieces, making Havilar step back and giving Farideh room to retreat. But the shards of stone had no more clattered to the ground but Havilar was advancing on her again.

Suddenly it felt as if a net had been cast over her, and she found herself dragged toward Havilar and the sword. Her hand convulsed around the rod, and trying to move her own arm became a battle fierce as the one they’d just finished. It wasn’t Havilar casting spells, but it was Havilar’s body standing in front of her.

“Who are you?” Farideh whispered, her jaw stiff against the spell.

“Your sister,” the creature in her twin’s skin replied. “For now.” She placed the tip of the sword against Farideh’s breastbone and tilted her head. “I wonder what she’ll do when she realizes that she’s the one who killed you. Will it break her, or will she be glad she finally managed it?”

The force holding Farideh’s body stiff snapped audibly as she wrenched her arm upward. Havilar’s eyes widened, and Farideh felt the being try to close the force back over her again. But Farideh was already shouting the trigger word that vanished in the roar of a wall of flame.

The fire only singed Havilar’s hair and the edges of her armor, but the force of the spell threw her backward. She crashed against the wall, her head snapping back like a discarded doll, and crumpled at its base.

Farideh started toward her sister’s body, but her legs buckled. The strange magic still clung to her. She wrenched herself up and half-stumbled, half-crawled across the mess of bodies and blood and rubble. Havilar lay slack and senseless on the floor, her breath ragged and her pulse thready. She didn’t stir when Farideh tapped her cheek.

Farideh cursed. She hurried up the stairs. Kalam lay sprawled across the shop floor, cut from throat to belly and leaking blood and gore onto the polished floors. Farideh’s knees buckled before she was messily sick beside him. Her head was still pounding and when she wiped her face, her hand was streaked with blood that dripped from her nose.

Panting, she reached for the healing potions and gathered up an armful before stumbling back downstairs. She fed one to Havilar and watched as her wounds closed and her bruises faded. But she didn’t wake. A ruby drop of syrup pooled in the corner of Havilar’s mouth and ran down her cheek like a stream of blood. Farideh cracked another. And a third, but Havilar didn’t wake. She cursed.

Her hands cold and shaking, she opened the last of them and drank it herself. It tasted like bile and chalk, but it made the pain in her head fade and the shock that kept threatening to overtake her body retreat into a simpler, more focused panic.

There was nothing to be done for the Ashmadai, and if she didn’t hurry, there would be nothing to be done for Havilar either. Farideh could almost hear Mehen bellowing not to move Havilar, especially not when her neck had slammed against the wall like that, to try and wake her before she slipped away.

But whatever was wrong with Havilar, whatever had come over her, no Ashmadai was going to forgive her because she might have been concussed. Farideh shoved the rod into her belt, and the sword as well, maneuvered her arms around her sister’s middle, and hauled her up the back stairs into the little garden. The rain was still coming down in a heavy patter. She laid Havilar on the muddy ground while she unlatched the little shed and led the donkey out.

Havilar needed a priest, and quickly. Farideh couldn’t trust the House of Knowledge, not when Lorcan was probably still looking for her, when the Ashmadai were suspicious of the place, when Rohini was still some sort of threat. She’d take Havilar to the little shrine to Selune, then go back and find Brin. Or maybe whoever guarded the shrine would be there this time. Either way, it was the safest place she could think of. With quite a bit of struggle, she got both herself and Havilar onto the donkey, and got the donkey moving toward the Blacklake District.

The shrine still waited, silvery even under the clouds. Farideh dragged Havilar up the shallow stairs of the entry, easing her over the steps and trying to ignore the fact that the potion hadn’t been enough to heal her hip or completely remove her headache.

“Whoever you are,” Farideh said as she reached the doorway, “I hope this hurts.”

She yanked hard, dragging Havilar across the threshold of the temple. Whatever magic protected the entries resisted ever so slightly, but as Havilar’s body broke the plane of the doorway, the magic burst into a shower of sparks. Gods, Farideh thought as she laid her sister gently on the stone floor, what did that mean?

A noise from the rear of the sanctuary made her jerk her head up. She stood and crept down the aisle of the benches.

“Lycanthropes are the least of your worries. Shar’s children are here.”

“Netherese?”

Farideh followed the sounds of the voices to the room off to the left of the altar. “Aye, and more. Devil-worshipers, a spellplague pocket, and something I can’t pinpoint that’s throwing off an awful lot of necromantic energy. Orcs in every bloody ruin-and not the civilized kind. There’s a building near the castle that’s oozing Far Realm contaminate.” There was a man in there with dark hair speaking into some sort of amulet that scintillated with silver light. He paced as he spoke, but kept his face away from Farideh. The priest? she wondered. The voice sounded familiar. “And a bloody volcano on top of everything. Fisher, cut your losses and clear out. This city is going to fall.”

“We pull out, the Netherese gain another stronghold,” the voice from the amulet said.

“You don’t pull out and you’re going to lose the agents you have here,” the man retorted. “You aren’t equipped to bring down this many threats.”

“We’ll send more agents.”

“And you’ll lose more agents you can’t spare.” The man stopped and ran a hand through his hair, and Farideh nearly cried out in joy: the priest was Tam.

“I’m telling you,” he said, “this isn’t something you can handle. Short of convincing the gods to bless a handful of Chosen, or maybe just come on down themselves, there is nothing the Harpers can do for Neverwinter.”

“We have to try.”

“Something’s wrong with Havilar,” she said.

Tam let loose a string of curses-then he spotted Farideh. “Fisher, I have company.” He looked her over as he tucked the amulet away. “You don’t look so well yourself,” Tam said, following her into the sanctuary. “What happened?”

What happened, she thought, is I have done everything wrong. If I hadn’t made the pact, I would still be safe in Arush Vayem. Lorcan would never have sent the orc after Brin. The Ashmadai would never have killed the orc and traced it to Lorcan. He never would have chased Farideh into the shrine and she never would have fled back to the Ashmadai, who Havilar wouldn’t have killed because they would still be safe in the Smoking Mountains. A flaw, she thought.

She merely shook her head, fighting tears. “Too many things.”

Tam kneeled beside her and coaxed an abbreviated version of the fight from Farideh, the details of how Havilar acted, how she’d knocked her cold and finally, why she’d brought her back to this shrine, where the spells on the door had crackled and sparked.

“Well,” he said after a long moment, “she’s clearly been tampered with by a fiend. Is she a warlock too?”

“No,” Farideh said tightly. “What do you mean tampered with?”

“She’s fighting off the remains of some sort of spell. Possession maybe. A domination, perhaps. We’d have to ask her when she wakes up.”

“But she will wake up?”

“Likely,” Tam said. “She’s not out because she’s concussed, if that’s what you fear. Let her rest in the temple. The blessings should unwork what’s left.” He regarded Farideh stonily. “I take it your … friend is involved.”

“No friend of mine did this.”

“Farideh,” he said gently. “Let’s not pretend to be fools. I know what you are. And I can guess you’re acquainted with the cambion who accosted me in Neverwinter Wood?”

She flushed to her temples. “Did he?” she said quietly.

“He backed off rather quickly. Do you think he might have done this?”

Could he? Certainly. If Lorcan had proved anything in the last few hours it was that he was capable of all sorts of horrible things. Would he?… She was less certain about that. It hadn’t been Lorcan in Havilar’s skin. Farideh knew the sound of his voice too well, the way he moved.

That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have sent someone else, she thought.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Tam watched her, sadly, and she squirmed under his gaze. “I would suggest,” he said, “you think long and hard about whom you are protecting.”

“I’m not protecting him!” she said. “I said I don’t know because I don’t. Do you think I would really protect someone I thought had nearly killed my sister?” She faltered. He had. This would make twice, and if he had done something to Havilar she would make certain he regretted it. But it was Lorcan or Sairche or nothing.

“I don’t want to protect him.” Tam gave her a skeptical look, and she scowled. “It’s complicated … more complicated than anyone seems to realize. He’s cruel and he’s persuasive and he has only his own interests at heart. But sometimes, I think he might be the only friend I have in the world except for Havilar.”

“You could be rid of him, you know?” Tam said. “I could help you undo your pact.”

She shook her head-to lose Lorcan would mean she would once again be vulnerable and outcast in the worst way. “I want …” she started, but trailed off, staring up at the silver eyes over the altar. She pressed the heels of her hands to her own eyes. “I just wish that I could have a chance to breathe. I wish I could set aside the pact-or at least just the pressing parts, like Lorcan shouting at me-for a moment.” She smiled wanly at the statue. “Some space. Like this, only fit for my pocket. But I don’t think your goddess would take kindly to that.”

When she looked back at Tam, she was surprised at the consternation and perhaps even grief that settled on his features.

She swallowed. “I didn’t mean any offense. Just that … I’m not suited and … well, it’s a beggar’s miracle, isn’t it? She has greater things to worry about than me.”

His expression didn’t change, but he turned to look back up at the altar. After a moment he spoke.

“And that’s what I’m here for.”

He left her sitting on the bench and went into the back room of the temple. When he returned he was holding a silver medallion on a thin, twisted chain.

“Here, take this.”

“What is it?”

“A beggar’s miracle,” he said, and the twinkle had returned to his eyes. “Once between moonrises, call on it, and you’ll get your respite. Cast it at him-or any fiend-and they cannot harm you. But, mind, it only lasts an hour. So don’t use it to stir him up.”

“I–I can’t,” she said. The amulet had to be worth purses of gold.

“You can,” he said, pressing it into her hand. “It came in handy when I was in Thay, but I don’t find it that useful anymore.” He smiled crookedly. “Well, aside from the odd moment in the Neverwinter Wood.”

She closed her hands around it, knowing she should demur, she should refuse. “How do I call on it?”

“Aim it at the devil and say vennela,” he said. “The amulet does the rest.” He hesitated a moment. “This temple is only going to last another half-bell or so,” he said. “And I don’t know how much you heard-”

“Most of it,” she admitted. She smiled uneasily. “I knew you weren’t only a priest.”

“You and everyone under the age of twenty, apparently,” Tam said dryly. “When you add those cultists after you, it’s pretty clear to me that as soon as your sister wakes, you need to get out of Neverwinter.”

She shook her head. “Not without Mehen. Or Brin.” She looked out at the ruined city beyond the entry. “The Ashmadai think the House of Knowledge has insulted them in some way. Something about orcs and a house by the water? They plan to attack the temple.”

Tam frowned. “What do orcs have to do with the House of Knowledge?”

Farideh shook her head. “I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “And there was something else, something Lorcan said. The hospitaler that runs things, Rohini, he called her the biggest viper of all. That hospital’s full of wounded guardsmen and acolytes who are just trying to help. You can’t really suggest we just leave them to be torn apart by all of this?”

“Farideh, you can’t save these people,” he said. “That’s why I came: to assess the stability of Neverwinter. We’ve been here two days and already I can tell you it’s as stable as a landslide.”

“Then we should warn them.”

Tam shook his head. “They knew, Farideh. They knew that coming here. The Wall. The Chasm. The orcs on the road. The mountain is still smoking. Even the Lord Protector’s men …” He shook his head. “And there’s so much more beneath the surface. Things as bad as your cultists and their orcs. There are rough times in Neverwinter’s future. They’re prepared, or they were never going to be prepared to begin with.”

“So you’re just going to leave?” she said, shaking her head. “Why is that better?”

“Because,” he said, “if what you’re saying is true, then this is going to happen soon. If you leave, you’ll be safe. What else are you going to do? Run around knocking on doors?”

“Stop the Ashmadai!” Farideh cried.

“And then what?”

“Stop Rohini.”

“And then? There will be more. There will be devils and dangerous people until their battles are resolved.” He stood. “There is being a hero and there is making a sacrifice of yourself because you imagine it will be better. You’re not the first person to mistake the difference.”

And he wasn’t the first person to tell her she couldn’t change the way Neverwinter would fall, she knew, thinking of Lorcan’s litany of horrors. She glanced over at Havilar, lying still on the stone floor. How many times are you going to lead her into danger? she thought. She rubbed her thumb over the amulet, the shape of an eye on one side, and a spiral on the other. She wound her thumb in to the center of the spiral and back out again. What could she do to protect Neverwinter anyway?

“You’re right,” she admitted. “We’ll go. As soon as we get Mehen and Brin.”

Tam shook his head. “We can come back for them later, but if there are cultists chasing you, I want you both out of the city.”

Farideh bit her tongue. “Fine,” she said after a moment, even though it was not fine. “Do me a simple favor at least? Tell the guards about the bodies in the shop. Send them to … at least put them to rest and watch for their comrades.”

Tam regarded her a moment. “That,” he said, “I will do. Stay here with Havilar. When she wakes, the two of you get to the South Gate and wait for me there.”

She nodded. The South Gate … which passed the House of Knowledge directly. She might not be able to save Neverwinter, but at least she’d warn the ones she cared about.

There were moments when Mehen’s thoughts seemed to clear enough for the dragonborn to realize he was in a terrible predicament. No amount of effort would let him move his limbs-not even to take the healing potion clipped to his falchion’s harness and take care of the broken wrist that lay swollen and screaming across his lap. He could not respond to anything except direct questions. When Brin had stumbled into the room Rohini had left Mehen sitting in, he could do nothing but glare at the boy, willing him to notice the fact that Mehen would never have sat still while his daughters were missing and the fact that Mehen would have told him off instead of giving the boy the silent treatment.

Something is wrong, you kosjor, he fought to roar. But his throat didn’t so much as twitch for all the effort, and Brin had wandered off puzzled.

Fari and Havi were missing-broken planes, why didn’t the horror of that shake loose his paralysis? He had the vague memory, like a dream that he couldn’t quite shake, of Farideh watching him with a worried expression, of Havilar hugging him around the neck, but no more would come. Surely … surely … they’d just wandered off?

That didn’t soothe his nerves at all. How could he have let this happen?

The memory of Havilar throwing her arms around his neck thickened, and he heard her say, “… is a devil, and you’re the only one …”

A devil. Lorcan. Shattered realms, he thought, don’t let this be Lorcan’s doing. He knew he ought to have killed the bastard.

But then there was another memory that crackled and popped and seemed to fight against him: A red-haired woman, a group of orcs, Arjhani … Arjhani, all apologies and promises. Had he any control he’d blush at the shame of still wanting Arjhani, after the way he’d left things. That had to be a dream.

The door banged open, and a young man Mehen had never seen before looked in. Whip thin, in dark armor stained with blood, the man looked at Mehen as if he were the last, lame horse left in the hostler’s string. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and stepped into the room.

“Listen,” he said, “I know you don’t like me, but forget that for a moment. Farideh’s in trouble.” When Mehen didn’t answer, he glanced down at himself and cursed. “It’s Lorcan. I’ll explain the look another time. Now, come help me.”

Mehen would have grabbed Lorcan by the throat and shaken him until he told Mehen what had happened, why Farideh was in danger, and what in the Hells Lorcan had done.

“Did you hear what I said?” Lorcan snapped. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting,” Mehen said automatically. He lifted his gaze to Lorcan’s, but did not stand. “Waiting for orders.” He frowned … the red-haired woman was Rohini … Rohini was the one giving orders …

“Orders?” Lorcan peered at Mehen a moment. “Beshaba, shit in my eyes-Rohini’s dominated you, hasn’t she?” Mehen said nothing, only glared at him. Why couldn’t Brin have been the one to figure that out?

Something lit Lorcan’s eyes, and a slow smile crept over face. “You’re allowed to answer questions, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“But nothing else. That’s rather sloppy of her.” He stepped between Mehen and the lantern and stooped down to look the dragonborn in the eye. “Didn’t give you permission to take care of that arm either.” He reached down and plucked the healing potion from Mehen’s harness. “And, look, she forgot to allow you to defend yourself.” Lorcan shuddered as he drank the potion down.

“Why,” he said, drawing his sword, “you’re practically useless.”

The tip of the sword pricked against the softer scales of Mehen’s throat, but Lorcan seemed to be taking his time. If he thought he stirred fear up in Clanless Mehen, he was sorely mistaken: all the devil did was stoke the dragonborn’s rage.

“It’s not as if you wouldn’t do the same,” Lorcan said. “Rid your little girl of what might harm her, hmm?”

“I haven’t yet,” Mehen replied, not the torrent of threats he’d have liked to unleash at Lorcan’s accidental question, but the simple truth. Much as he’d like to unmake the brazen bastard, he hadn’t.

The sword point eased off.

“You hadn’t the chance,” Lorcan corrected. “I know as well as anyone I’m no one to trust.”

Mehen would have agreed heartily with that. But he still hadn’t ever tried to kill Lorcan. And while he’d never come upon Lorcan trapped in his own body in a dark and quiet room, he’d certainly let his soldier’s mind plan how to kill the cambion a hundred different ways.

Lorcan seemed to be thinking the same thing. He lowered the sword and glowered at Mehen. “She thinks you haven’t made her break the pact because you don’t like priests. But I can’t imagine there’s a body out there you hate that much more than me. So why haven’t you?”

Mehen listened for his own voice-it was a good question. How many nights had he made up his mind to march her straight to the nearest cleric, well-rehearsed in the best ways to feel out a church’s stance on tieflings, unbelievers, and accidental warlocks? As many times as he’d thought of beating Lorcan senseless. And yet, every morning, he seemed to push those decisions aside, to wait for another time, another worry.

“Because,” he heard himself say, after a long moment, “if she doesn’t decide for herself, then it means nothing.”

Lorcan’s lip curled. “And I’ll ruin things sooner or later.” He glared off at a spot on the ground, then cursed. “She’s smart. Smarter than you or I give her credit for. If I killed you, she’d figure out what happened, and as much as I’d like to think she’d see the merit in being free of your meddling, it’s far more likely she’d spit in my face.” He sheathed the sword. “I still need her. And I’m fairly certain-with Rohini after her-I’m of a use to her as well.”

Mehen felt sure he would never get so near to respecting Lorcan again.

“Where is Rohini?” Lorcan asked.

“Away from here,” Mehen replied.

“Is she in the Hells?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“I don’t know.”

Lorcan sighed. “I suppose you’ll have to find out what Rohini intends to do with you after all. I don’t doubt Farideh will insist we come back for you. But you can respect that I’ll get her out if I can.”

“And Havilar,” Mehen said.

Lorcan startled. “You … the domination’s wearing, isn’t it? Can you move?”

“Yes, and no.” There, the words came as before-a reply shaped only by the need of the question. He had no control over questions. But the spells binding his tongue were certainly loosening a bit.

Lorcan cursed. “Not fast enough. How long has-” He broke off in a sharp gasp as something struck him across the back, and he hit the floor. Brin stood over the cambion, holding Havilar’s glaive in an awkward grip.

The corner of Mehen’s mouth twitched upward. He might be forced to reconsider his opinion of Brin as well.

Lorcan reached back and cast a bolt of foul magic at the boy. Brin darted aside, but his feet caught on the length of the glaive and he tripped. Well, Mehen amended, not too much.

The energy started to swell in Lorcan’s hands again, but spotting Brin, he seemed to rein himself in. He regarded Brin with the same distaste and uncertainty he’d favored Mehen with, and ultimately sighed and shifted to his feet.

“The not-quite paladin. Good. Get your holy self in here and wipe the domination from Mehen. Then I need you to get Farideh out of a church.”

Brin blinked owlishly at him. “I’m … sorry? Where’s Farideh?”

“What is so hard about this? She’s holed up in a church on the other side of the city,” Lorcan said, his temper rising. “I obviously can’t go in. I need someone to go in and convince her to come out. Mehen, preferably. So hurry up.”

“Who …” Brin squinted at him in the dim light. “Lorcan?”

Lorcan scowled. “Who else? Hurry up, before she does something foolish.”

“Why does she need to leave a church?” Brin said. He came to his feet, a little unsteadily, but managed to scoop up Havilar’s glaive at the same time. “And what did you do to Mehen?” He squinted at Lorcan again. “And why would you think I’d help you?”

“You’re not helping me,” Lorcan said, steering him over to the dragonborn. “You’re helping Mehen. He’s under a domination which I had nothing to do with, I’ll thank you to notice; that is Rohini’s doing. And he’s probably beaten to the Ninth Layer and back. That arm doesn’t look good.”

Brin kneeled in front of Mehen, looking at his injuries and waving a hand in front of Mehen’s eyes. “Why can’t he talk?”

“Part of the spell,” Mehen snapped.

“Just do your magic,” Lorcan said, “and fix it.” He glanced back at the doorway. “Where’s Havilar?”

“I don’t know,” Brin said, pulling a silvery medallion from his pocket. “I was hoping she was with Farideh.” Lorcan said nothing, but Mehen didn’t miss the sudden tightness of the cambion’s expression.

“Afraid?” Mehen managed.

“Never, if I can help it,” Lorcan retorted. “Do the damned prayer.”

Brin took a deep breath. “Loyal Fury, aid this servant of your justice.”

Nothing happened.

Lorcan covered his face with his hands. “Have you actually managed to fall in the last two days?”

“No!” Brin laid his hand again on Mehen’s battered arm. “It just … It doesn’t always work. I’m not a paladin. Loyal Fury,” he intoned, “aid this servant of your justice.”

This time there was a weak ringing sound, and a flash of light from the medallion spread over Mehen’s broken arm. The bones knitted with a crack and a pain that made Mehen wish he could cry out. It was still swollen, still tender, but the worst was fixed.

Lorcan peered down at Mehen. “You’re still dominated, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Mehen said irritably.

“Do it again.”

Brin began to speak the words of the prayer yet again, when Mehen felt the magic of the domination slowly begin to surge. Rohini was returning. He fought to speak, but his tongue wouldn’t move. He fought to stand, to push the young men aside, but his legs refused. He fought to shake his head, to signal them to stop, but only managed to twitch to one side.

A burst of light exploded out of Brin’s hands and over Mehen’s skin, and for a moment, the dragonborn couldn’t breathe, there were so many ghosts and promises choking off his heart. When the light cleared, he saw Brin standing unsteadily, one hand pressed to his forehead.

“That … I shouldn’t …”

The part of the spell that bound Mehen’s voice snapped, weakened by Brin’s magic or perhaps just Mehen’s determination. The power of Rohini’s magic pressed against him like a wave, ready to overtake him.

“Flee, damn it!” Mehen roared. “She’s coming!” The domination swelled again, silencing him and forcing his mind down under Rohini’s.

Coalescing into herself, the disembodied fragments of Rohini’s awareness realized first that she had no sense of how much time had passed; second, that her head ached as if it were ready to split.

The room came next, and the hand she pressed to her temple. The darkness. She sat up from the cot she lay on and made her form flow into the shape of the kind-faced hospitaler once again. The rain spattering the windows.

She remembered the rain starting. She couldn’t have lost too much time.

Rohini rolled her shoulders and stood. Killing the Ashmadai had probably not been exactly what Invadiah had planned-but that was Invadiah’s fault for not being clearer. Along with a hundred other slights. When Glasya had ordered her to serve under Invadiah, Rohini had-of course-not voiced her horror, but there had not been a second that she hadn’t suspected the arrangement was some sort of punishment for one or both of them.

She ought to be rewarded for waiting this long to lash out, she thought. If anyone got angry, she could just point to Lorcan. Simple and clean.

Almost. She was still furious with herself for picking the wrong twin. She’d held the rod, but she should have been certain. She should have been careful. She swept into the disused cell where she’d left the dragonborn, silent and waiting.

“How are you feeling?” she asked Mehen.

“Numb,” he said. She chuckled.

“Tell me, did Lorcan come by yet?”

The dragonborn gave her a jaundiced look. The domination was wearing thin. “I saw a young man,” he said. “A human, wearing black armor. I saw another who-”

“Enough,” Rohini said. “I don’t need to hear about your day.” Lorcan would come looking soon enough, and she’d be very happy to report she’d left his warlock standing outside an Ashmadai safe-house, holding Invadiah’s precious implement, and waiting for the alarm spells to call more Asmodean cultists to the dead Ashmadai’s aid. Delightful.

Mostly. There had been the embarrassing moment where she’d pointed the rod and the body hadn’t reacted. She knew how to cast from another’s body, but nothing worked. Not even the simplest spells were in her grasp at first. Because, she realized when Farideh’s spell had blasted past her and into an Ashmadai cultist, she had taken the wrong damned twin.

The body she’d taken had known how to defend itself, how to turn the rod into a bludgeon, how to twist weapons out of her victims’ hands. Admirable reflexes, she mused, remembering how she’d dodged between a pair of particularly nimble young women with very sharp blades, tripping one into the other and finishing the survivor. While Rohini worked to channel her own magic through the girl, it had been a minor thing to keep the twin’s body fighting.

And the warlock had defended her, thinking she was saving her sister. Up until Rohini turned on Farideh herself, she hadn’t suspected a thing. Of course, she’d still knocked her sister unconscious, driving Rohini out of the girl’s body. But whatever had gone wrong didn’t matter. She was surely dead by now. The Ashmadai were too quick to retaliate, and she would never have left her sister lying on the floor.

Now, she would like nothing better than to return to her normal form, curl her wings around herself, and rest for a good long while. But Invadiah could not wait. Rohini needed to find Vartan and find out whether she needed to possess him too.

“Wait here,” she said to Mehen. “Eat or sleep or whatever you need to do, but wait for me.” The dragonborn glared at her with far more venom than he should have managed. Depths of the Abyss, she was getting sloppy as Arunika. Renew that domination, she thought as she passed from the room and into the greater hall. Yet another task on her ever growing list-

“Good evening, my dear.”

Rohini startled out of her thoughts. Brother Vartan was sitting on one of the empty cots, a cask in his lap made of rough-hewn wood. He stared at her with over-wide eyes, a peculiar smile playing on his mouth.

“I brought you a gift,” he said.

Rohini had to remind herself to smile shyly instead of snapping. She doubted the box contained Invadiah’s precious aboleth-all Rohini ought to want-or an order to eviscerate Invadiah herself-which was all Rohini did want. “That’s very kind. You had time to buy a gift after delivering our offer?”

“It took no time at all,” Vartan said, his voice still strangely flat. “Open it.”

Rohini took the ugly box from him, and set it on an empty cot. “Did you bring the orcs to the proxies?” she asked. “You spoke to them?”

“Open the box first. I want to see your face when you open it.”

Lovestruck ass, she thought, a false smile plastered to her face. She hoped it was a necklace so she could strangle him with it later. She wrenched the rusty clasp open and lifted the lid …

The temple around Rohini melted with a shrill scream. Her vision went white, and the senses of her skin were gone, as if she floated in the void between worlds. There was no temple, no Toril, no Rohini.

All she knew was the song. Like a lullaby from her demon youth, the lyrics of the discordance rose, unbidden to her lips.

“The heir stands divided and the inheritance will crumble,” she heard herself say, the most perfect music she had ever heard. “The dragons scrabble at the dregs.”

She fought against the madness winding itself around her-she was Rohini, she was the corruptor, not the corrupted. Her vision crackled, and the temple returned in fits and spurts. Her feet were solid on the ground, the humid air clung to her skin.

More words, more sounds, more images swirled in her head. Rohini clasped her forehead as her head split open and sickly light poured out.

The glistening light crawled over her skin, eating away her disguise. The plain robes became tight leather armor. Her frizzy curls became a vibrant plume of red. Her ruddy skin became coppery and smooth as silk. Veiny wings ripped from her back. Her eyes, she knew by Vartan’s astonished stare, glowed ruby.

Rohini felt her control over him snap, but she could only worry about the power trying with all its might to remake her. “Spirits surge behind the surface of the world, and they may make the land anew. But a misplaced pebble will cripple the strongest charger.”

“You’re not Rohini,” Vartan said with a mad giggle. “You’re a devil.”

Rohini laughed, and the sound of her laughter blurred into the prophecies seeping up through her baser brain.

“I am Rohini!” she cried. “I am always Rohini.” She bared her teeth in a grin. “And now I am more. Such a gift.”

No, she thought, struggling to maintain herself, struggling to hold her mind together. This is not a gift, this is not Rohini. Not if I can’t control it. She had to control it. Had to think. Had to dominate her own self.

“They will want to know who sent you,” Vartan said. “They will want to know what you’re doing here.”

The words attempted to bubble out of Rohini, much as the prophecy had, but she reined them in, struggling against the force of the alien will perverting her own. She would not be the weak link.

Instead she said, “What benefits us benefits Asmodeus, and what benefits Asmodeus benefits us all.”

A slow, nervous smile curled Vartan’s mouth. “How interesting.”