Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The creatures towered over Farideh on hooved feet that threatened to crack the cobblestones. Their skin was red as hot irons, and their eyes were black as Lorcan’s. Their armor sucked in what remained of the light and their swords gleamed in the dim. Crowned by rows of cruel horns, one was whip-thin and red-haired, the other black-tressed, with a thick scar running down her throat and across her breastbone, down under the armor plate.

As Farideh stared-the splinters of seconds-they closed.

Lorcan grabbed hold of her arm, and in her terror and rage, Farideh started to draw up the powers to cast a spell-but even before she could, he had pulled her behind him and out of harm’s way. His eyes locked on the creatures.

“Go!” he said. “Run, darling, fast and far.”

Farideh wanted to ask what they were. She wanted to ask what they wanted. She wanted to call him out, to be suspicious of these sudden heroics that didn’t so much as agitate the amulet’s magic. But the only words that left her mouth were those that cast a bolt of fire that turned into a torrent of hellfire. It crashed against the raven-haired monster and splashed flames onto her sister.

Both flinched. Neither cried out as the flames burnt them.

The redhead sneered. “Rohini hasn’t caught your little pet yet?”

“How amusing,” the other said. “Won’t she be livid when we do it for her, Aornos?”

“Let’s bring her the head,” Aornos said.

Her sister’s cold black eyes flicked over Farideh. “No, no: the hands.”

Aornos chuckled. “Oh, Nemea, how clever.”

Lorcan reached back and pushed Farideh away. “Run, damn it.” He cast his own bolt of flames, but the devils closed in on him. And Farideh.

Fear held her reins now, a wild thing urging her to kick and strike and cast with abandon. But the devils were stronger, faster. Wilder. Their swords were graceful and quick, the lightning strikes of their relentless storm.

She saw the trail of blood along her arm before she felt the searing pain of the blade, and as she noticed it, the sword bit again slicing through the robe and the leather of her shirt and into her wounded hip. The nearer one grinned down at her, her black eyes cold and malevolent.

Lorcan was right, Farideh thought. I’m going to die.

She had forgotten, as the devils had in their fervor to kill Lorcan, that there were more than the two of them in this fight.

They hadn’t counted on Havilar, that blanched and shivering girl, to shake loose her shock, take up her glaive, and become a blur of metal and blood, her blade as good as her right hand.

Havilar dived across the courtyard, throwing herself behind the weight of the polearm. With a crack, the blade-aimed just so-split the Hell-forged armor of the black-haired devil standing over Farideh, and buried itself in her back. Nemea’s eyes widened as the blade plunged so deeply Farideh heard a rib bone snap. As swiftly as she’d struck, Havilar twisted, planting her foot on the back of the devil’s thigh, just above her knee. She yanked loose the glaive and buckled Nemea’s knee in one motion. Then she spun the glaive’s spike-capped end upward as Nemea fell and Aornos turned, and smashed it into the redhead’s unprotected nose and cheek. The strike was imperfect-the bone didn’t shatter as it had when she’d hit the Ashmadi cultist-but it startled Aornos and bloodied her nose with viscous, black fluids.

Nemea’s sword sliced toward Havilar’s knees. Havilar moved to block with the haft of the glaive-it will snap, Farideh thought, and then snap Havilar as well.

“Assulam!” The word flowed out of her mouth on a stream of foul magic that engulfed Nemea’s sword and shattered it into a cloud of rust.

Another cry overtook Farideh’s curse, a fierce, wordless war cry chased by the sound of a sword unsheathing. Brin. Brin, but his voice was no half-grown boy’s, but a voice buoyed by the force of a god. Farideh remembered him yelling in the forest as he attacked Lorcan, his pitiful war cry, all the more pitiful next to this towering bellow.

The devils froze-as if they did not know the sound, as if they did not know what was happening. Lorcan’s sword lashed out, slashing Aornos’s sword arm. She stood the pain well enough to parry his following strike, but Brin’s sword drove forward, sliding under her pauldron. Aornos shrieked and kicked backward, catching Brin’s legs and throwing him backward and across the cobbles. Brin rolled and came to his feet-

Nemea’s hoof slammed into Farideh like a charging bull, knocking her to the ground and pinning her by Farideh’s right shoulder. Nemea reached down and pulled Farideh’s short sword from her belt. She tested the weight of it with a sneer. No match, it seemed, for her shattered sword.

Match enough to take Farideh’s hands off.

The butt of Havilar’s glaive cracked across Nemea’s face, rocking her back onto her other foot long enough for Farideh to roll away. Enraged, the devil swung her shield out to knock Havilar back, but the tiefling was too quick. As she clambered to her feet, Farideh caught a glimpse of Havilar’s flushed face, concentration and unbridled eagerness warring in her features, before Farideh cast another of the shimmering bolts of energy into Nemea’s chest.

Swords clashed. Aornos pressed Lorcan back. He parried and blocked, his swordwork nearly as clean as the devil’s, but one glance at Aornos showed she was hardly making an effort. Lorcan, on the other hand, looked as if a gnat across his field of vision would break his concentration, make him slip, and kill him.

It would be easy, she thought. Call out his name, and he’d look over. Long enough for the devil to break his defense.

She could lose him. She could let the pact go.

Her chest squeezed and the powers of the Hells churned her stomach sick.

Aornos swung her sword into Lorcan’s, catching the blade on his guard. One swift, savage thrust and the force of her blade broke his grip. His sword clattered to the ground. Aornos bashed her shield into his chest and he fell, splayed out on the ground like a sacrifice. She raised her sword again.

There was no place for thought. Farideh shouted the words of a spell she’d used only once, when Lorcan had shown it to her some other dark night in some other crumbling town. Screamed them with everything left in her. The ground beneath Aornos turned molten and swallowed her hooves. Then the fire that should have leaped out of the ground like a fountain instead burst forth like a waking volcano.

Aornos’s screams pierced Farideh to her very marrow. Still she readied the next spell, the blast of energy that she’d first learned. When the fires fell away, she cast it, and the crackling light enveloped the devil. Her screams broke off and she collapsed in a heap.

Only for a moment though-the body suddenly burst into greasy flames and within seconds, the fire had devoured Aornos.

Farideh spared the slightest, most secretive glance at Lorcan as he pulled himself to his feet and snatched up his sword, before turning her rod toward the remaining devil. But she wasn’t needed.

Nemea collapsed across the broken cobbles with a noisy clatter and Havilar’s glaive planted in her ribs. She groaned once and burst into flames as Aornos before her had done.

Havilar wrenched her glaive free and planted it in the scorched and ruined cobbles.

“Devilslayer,” she said with relish. She looked over at Brin, who still held his bloodied sword in a shaking hand. “Are you going to be sick again?”

“No,” Brin said, looking gray. To his credit, he kept his dinner down. Havilar patted his back.

The square was quiet-alarmingly so after the clamor of the devils and the clash of weapons. There was only the soft patter of the drizzling rain, which served to mute things further and wash away the smells of blood and brimstone. If anyone had heard them, they’d stayed well away. Lorcan crept up beside her.

“What in the Hells were those?” Farideh demanded.

“Erinyes,” Lorcan said, his voice taut and clipped. “The archduchess’s enforcers.”

“Are there more?”

“Not now. They were only supposed to take me.” He shifted. “There will be more if we wait much longer.”

“We need to get out of the street.” She started to walk, but the light, tentative touch of Lorcan’s hand stopped her.

“You could have let her kill me,” he pointed out.

“I could have.”

He waited, agitated, as if he expected her to say more. “You’re not terribly skilled at being a cold-blooded killer, are you? First you can’t blow my head off, then you can’t even let someone else’s sword take me.”

“You’re right,” Farideh said. “We need to get out of the street.”

There had been a building between the square and the temple, not yet demolished and partly swallowed by the last creeping edge of a lava flow that had obliterated the nearby street. Silent as a winter night, and empty. Brin and Havilar followed her as she strode briskly toward it.

There was a gust of flapping wings, and Lorcan landed in front of her. “Why did you stop her?”

“Stop it,” she said.

“Afraid your ‘sword’ would be ruined?” he said.

Farideh paused and looked him in the eye. “I’m not like you.” She pressed past him and farther up the street. The amulet would still hold for a good part of an hour; let him rage at her all he liked.

But she heard nothing but footsteps as she reached the broken building.

They climbed over the vein of rock and in through a window. The stairs had long since rotted or burned away. Lorcan flew to the upper story and disappeared, while the other three helped one another climb the crumbling stones of the walls. The floor above was mostly intact, although it, like the whole building, leaned.

Brin led Havi over to the lowest corner of the floor where she finally admitted her ankle was hurting and the bloody patch growing on her sleeve was a deep cut on her arm.

Lorcan stood by the window, scanning the streets below. For all that had happened in the street, it gave her a kick of terror to see him standing there, where Havi and Brin could see him-these two parts of her life weren’t meant to interact.

“You knew them,” she said.

“My sisters,” he said. “My half-sisters. Nemea and Aornos.”

“Oh.” And she couldn’t help but imagine their positions exchanged-Havilar dead by his sword. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?”

“… They’re dead. We killed them.”

He shrugged. “They would have killed us. Me, in particular, with a great deal of glee. Besides, they’re not dead like you’d hope-you kill a devil on Toril, they reform in the Hells.” He looked over at her. “It’s complicated. Don’t …” He trailed off though, and didn’t tell her not to worry about it. “They can’t come here. Not for now.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I have fifty-eight half-sisters,” he said.

“We took care of those other ones. Those erinyes,” Havilar said, testing the word, “pretty handily. We’ll do it again. Just stand aside next time.”

“Nemea and Aornos are easily the stupidest, laziest, and least dangerous of all my half-sisters. They still could have killed you in a heartbeat if you weren’t lucky and they weren’t cocky.” He turned back to the window and gripped the sill. “When the next wave comes, Invadiah will send better soldiers. And more of them. If she doesn’t come herself. You can think yourself whatever sort of hero you like, but Invadiah will cut you down all the same.”

Farideh swallowed, imagining an army of the fearsome devil-women, their swift and shining swords, their nigh-unbreakable armor. “Why are they here?”

He scowled. “Because someone has thrown me over to the wolves. They think I’ve betrayed my mother. Or worse, Glasya.” His dark eyes met Farideh’s. “They won’t stop-not until I’m dead or I convince Invadiah I’m no traitor. They knew you too.”

“I heard that. You were right about Rohini then. That was supposed to be me.”

“She’ll be looking for you.”

“But why? Who is she?”

He looked down at her, still puzzled, still angry. “Rohini is a devil,” he said after a breath. “A succubus. She is the main agent-maybe the only agent-of Glasya, Lord of the Sixth Layer, in Neverwinter.”

“What about you?” Brin asked.

Lorcan scowled at him. “I live at Glasya’s pleasure, but I don’t act on her orders.”

“What is Rohini doing here?” Farideh asked.

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” He sighed. “You won’t understand, but I have worked very hard not to have the faintest idea.”

“She’s spellscarring orcs,” Havilar said matter-of-factly. “Even I know that.”

Lorcan shrugged. “That could be her goal. That could be a step to something bigger. That could be an act so far ahead of her eventual goal that no one but Glasya could uncover what it is. I don’t know if Invadiah even knows, and she’s commanding Rohini. Devils don’t do things they way you do.”

“Think,” Farideh said. “You must have heard something, if you know that much.”

He shook his head resolutely, as if he didn’t want to remember. “Old ones,” he finally said. “She said she couldn’t risk the old ones.”

Old ones? Farideh thought. Gods, could they be any more vague? “Old whats? Risk them what?” But Lorcan only shook his head.

“They said arbalests,” Havilar said. “Or habolets. A sovereignty of habolets.”

“Havi, that’s not even a word,” Farideh said.

“I’m only saying what I-” Havilar started, but a horrified gasp cut her off.

“Aboleths?” Brin said, staring at her.

“Oh,” Havilar said. “Maybe. That makes more sense than giving orcs to an arbalest. Aren’t aboleths sea monsters though?”

When they’d crossed the Sea of Fallen Stars to take the northern passage, the sailors had scanned the skies constantly for any sign of the aboleths. Hulking monsters, they’d told her, large as whales. Swam through water and air alike. They might pass a ship by, might render another into nothing but blood and splinters floating on the water, might coat all aboard a third with a layer of slime that sank into your head and warped your mind, making you into a servant with hardly a will of your own. Mehen had snorted and called them ridiculous tales, but he made Farideh and Havilar stay below deck.

“They’re going to be disappointed those orcs can’t swim,” Havilar said.

Farideh bit her tongue and did not ask where Havilar had gotten the idea that orcs couldn’t swim. “What would Rohini want to treat with an aboleth for?” she asked Brin.

But Brin still sat, wide-eyed with horror. “Not an aboleth,” he said. “They’re dealing with the Abolethic Sovereignty.”

“Is that … like a herd of aboleths?” Farideh asked.

“It’s what controls them.” He shook his head. “Or something. Look, aboleths aren’t like regular creatures. They’re … they know things. And what one knows, they all know. Their memories are shared. The Sovereignty is like the mind that steers things. Maybe.” He sighed. “I’m not explaining it well, but I don’t know if anyone can explain it well. People aren’t supposed to know these things.”

“I quite agree,” Lorcan said.

“Why would Rohini be dealing with aboleths of any sort?” Farideh asked.

“Because,” Lorcan replied, “the archduchess of the Sixth Layer said to. That’s all you need to know.”

Farideh twisted the ends of her hair. “Then maybe she’s making a pact of some sort with the Abolethic Sovereignty?”

“No,” Brin said. “I mean, I don’t think so. They don’t make treaties. They don’t make pacts. I don’t even think they talk to other powers. They don’t think like anything else does. It would be like you making an agreement with a tree. Why would you? The tree doesn’t have anything you couldn’t just take, and the tree can’t use anything you could give it.”

“And,” Lorcan added, “making treaties is not Glasya’s style. She does things on her own, and your aboleths couldn’t take what they’d like from her.”

Farideh frowned. Why bother trying to please a monster if the creature wasn’t a threat to you, wasn’t an ally for you, and didn’t have something you wanted? After all, what would an archdevil do with a sea monster’s treasures?

“Would she want their memories?” she asked Brin. “That’s what you said, right? They share their memories? So if you were able to read the memories of one?”

“You’d have a million years of memories,” he said, “starting with the first aboleths. And … I don’t know what’s true about them, but I’ve heard they absorb the memories of those they eat as well. That might be a sailor’s tale, but … even devils can swallow sailor’s tales, right?”

“So if you chose the right aboleth,” Farideh said, “you could know anything.”

“But you’d have to get to their memories,” Brin said. “And they’re too powerful. They look like dumb beasts maybe, but you can’t match their minds.”

“You don’t have to match their minds,” Lorcan said. “You have to possess them.” He ran his hands through his hair. “And then you can also control them. You can make them consume anyone you like. Anyone they could best.”

“No,” Brin said. “They’re too powerful-”

“As powerful as a princess of the Hells?” Lorcan snapped. “There are those who worship Glasya as a god. Regardless of what your Sovereignty can or cannot do to her, she will make them reconsider their supremacy.”

It was plausible, Farideh thought. Though it seemed an awful lot of trouble … an awful lot of risk for something that might come to nothing at all. She shook her head. Maybe Lorcan was right. Maybe it was foolhardy to puzzle out the motives of archdevils. Maybe Glasya was the reckless one.

His eyes met Farideh’s. “Darling, you have to agree this is far over any of our heads. Archdevils and aboleths? What do you think to do against that?”

He was right, of course; she was not a match for an aboleth. Against Glasya’s plans, she would be no more an obstacle than a pebble in the road.

“Nothing,” she said. “But now we know better how to distract Rohini while we rescue Mehen.”

“And even if you get to him, darling, she has him dominated. He won’t come willingly. Better for you to think of him as dead.”

“What your orc couldn’t do?” she said bitterly. His eyes hardened. “We’re going back for Mehen.”

“Fine,” he said. “Break your own heart. Go see Mehen’s not coming back. But don’t try to stop Glasya’s plans. I beg you. You cannot stand against her. None of you can.”

“Can you?” Havilar asked.

“I’m not stupid enough to try,” he said. He scanned the street again. “What about the Ashmadai?” Farideh said.

Lorcan gave another of those hopeless sounding laughs. “Avoid them too.”

“They thought the Glasyans were after them. Is that Rohini’s doing?”

“Why are you trying to puzzle all of this out?” Lorcan cried. “There’s nothing to be gained by knowing what the plans of archdevils are. It’s only going to draw their eyes. We shouldn’t even be guessing at what Rohini is tasked with.”

“I’m trying to figure out what we should be doing before your fifty-eight half-sisters show up along with Rohini and her karshoji-possessed aboleths, and tear this city to the ground.” She fought the urge to threaten him with the rod again. “You’re the one who brought up Ashmadai before. You’re the one who claimed we were in the middle of a Hellish civil war. You’re the one demanding I get out of Neverwinter safely, so help me. Tell me what we’re dealing with.”

But Lorcan merely clamped his mouth shut and shook his head emphatically.

“Fine.” Farideh turned her back to him. “We need to get back to the hall and to Mehen. Without running into any more devils.”

“And we have to undo what Rohini’s done to Mehen,” Havilar added. She looked up at Lorcan. “Does he know how to do that?”

“We try things until they work,” Farideh answered. “Starting with Brin’s magic.”

“No,” Brin said. “I’m not strong enough … you need a more powerful priest than me.”

“Luckily this place is lousy with priests,” Havilar said. “Tam is somewhere here, isn’t he?”

Farideh pursed her lips. “He said to meet him outside the South Gate. We don’t have time to find him.”

“You have to,” Brin said. “Unless you have powerful potions up your sleeves?”

“A present from your lousy priest?” Lorcan muttered.

“What sort of potions?” Farideh asked. “A potion of vitality? Would that do it?”

“Well … yes,” Brin said. He squinted at her. “Where did you get a potion of vitality?”

“I don’t have one,” Farideh said. “But Yvon did. There’s one on the shelf of the shop.”

“The Ashmadai place?” Havilar said.

Lorcan snorted. “How terribly safe.”

Farideh ignored him. “It’ll be fine. They’re all dead, remember?”

“Not by a long shot.”

Farideh glared at Lorcan. “I’m sorry, I thought you didn’t want to puzzle this out. Have you got something to add?”

He regarded her a long moment, as if he did, as if he wanted to spell out what she was missing. But he turned resolutely to the window. “Don’t say you’re sorry when you’re not.”

“What do you mean they aren’t all dead?” Havilar demanded. “Farideh said we killed them all.”

Lorcan paused, as if he didn’t want to say. “The Ashmadai are as numerous as termites in Neverwinter. And now they’re angry. If Rohini left even one alive, scads of them are now looking for the two of you.”

Farideh cursed. Why did Lorcan always have to be right? Aboleths and cultists of Asmodeus, and devils serving Glasya-you’re being stubborn if you stay here, she thought. Nothing but stubborn.

“Fine,” Farideh said. “We need one to go get the potion and one to get Mehen out of the temple. Brin, you’re the one the Ashmadai haven’t seen. You break into the shop.” She looked at Havilar and bit her lip. The worst of her shock had subsided, but she was still looking drawn and nervous. Farideh couldn’t ask Havilar to come anywhere near Rohini, not if the succubus might possess her again.

“Can you go with him?” she asked. “He’ll need someone to guard him.”

Havilar nodded once. “And I’m fast,” she said, half to herself. “I can get there quick and be back to meet you-”

“No,” Farideh said. “We meet by the gate. If something happens, you can’t be caught.” She hesitated a moment and turned to Brin. “Keep up if you can, heal her if the bandage doesn’t hold. I’ll bring Mehen to you.”

Brin glanced up at Lorcan. “Is he going with you?”

“No,” Farideh said, just as Lorcan answered, “Yes.”

“No,” she said again, “you aren’t.”

“Rohini must have a portal to the Hells. She couldn’t travel back and forth without one. Since my … path, is clearly not working, I might as well come with you and find hers.” He smirked. “It’s just convenient.”

“Or we could kill you,” Havilar piped. “That would send you back.”

He glowered. “That doesn’t work on half-devils.”

“Havi, go,” Farideh said. “We don’t have much time. Brin, go with her. Keep your eyes open. If you run into Ashmadai-”

“Yes, Mehen,” Havilar said, sliding into her glaive’s harness. “We’ll be careful.”

Words caught in Farideh’s mouth-she wanted to warn Havilar, to snap at her for being flippant, to tell her she loved her dearly in case something happened. To say she was sorry for everything that had brought them here. There wasn’t time. She hugged her twin tight. “Be careful.”

“I’ll try,” Havilar said, squeezing her back. “You be careful, too. You don’t need me to tell you, worrywart, but do it anyway.” Farideh chuckled.

She made a point of hugging Brin as well, stiff and awkward as it felt. “Don’t let her fight any cultists,” she murmured. “Please.”

“I’ll try,” he said.

Havilar eyed Lorcan a moment before giving Farideh one last, significant look-a reminder that being careful extended to the cambion-and heading down the wall with Brin following.

You will see her again, she told herself. It made the lump in her throat harder to swallow. Farideh looked back over her shoulder at Lorcan, who was still giving her a petulant, puzzled sort of stare.

“What in all the planes were you doing in an Ashmadai safe-house?” he asked quietly.

“Finding a way out of this pact.”

His eyes tightened, and he folded his arms over his chest. “How clever of you. No better way to the peaks of the Hells than clinging to the god of sin’s most brutal followers.”

“Fortunately I have other options,” she said, ignoring the insult. “If you’re going to follow me, you ought to put your disguise back on.”

“You do make a much better tyrant than a killer.”

“Put it on, or don’t follow me,” she said. She turned from him, her anger getting the better of her. “Gods, I can’t believe all this time you could make yourself look human. It was just too much fun popping up and putting me in danger, wasn’t it?”

“You may have noticed earlier,” he said bitterly, “the spell causes a great deal of pain. I save it for emergencies. Like rescuing you.”

“You mean ‘trying to drag me out of where you couldn’t get me’?”

“You ripped me out of my disguise and into my proper skin. I think we’re even on that score.”

She spun on him. “I used the amulet to protect myself from you! You don’t get credit for that.”

“An enormous waste of its powers,” he said tightly. “I’d never hurt you like Rohini will.”

She couldn’t deny Rohini’s danger-but that didn’t mean Lorcan wasn’t dangerous himself. The amulet wouldn’t have done anything if he weren’t. She pulled herself straight and stared him down. “You hurt me enough.”

He stepped closer, and her pulse sped. “And I save you plenty. I could still get you out of here. You know I’m right-you are not a match for archdevils and aboleths.”

“Maybe I’m not,” she said. “But I’m not a coward.” She walked away. “Besides,” she said, reaching for the handholds in the broken wall, “you don’t have your portal.”

He grabbed her arm. “I could fly. Carry you out of here. I could fly you to the House of Knowledge if you’re really set on this mad plan.”

Whipping through the cool rain, dozens of feet above the slick roofs of the city, the cobbled roads, with only Lorcan to keep her from falling-Farideh shuddered. He’d go where he wanted and she’d be stuck, clinging to his neck.

“Take your hand off me before the amulet makes you.” She climbed down the wall to the lower level. If he was going to be difficult, that was not her problem at all. Much as she found herself hoping Lorcan would help, she knew perfectly well it wasn’t in his nature. Changing Lorcan would be as impossible as saving him. Let it go, she told herself as she clambered over the ancient lava flow.

He dropped through the open stairwell and landed in front of her, holding up a hand to ease her down. She didn’t take it.

“You trust me enough to hear your plans when I could easily go over to Rohini,” he said. “I think you don’t really care how it turns out, you just want to be seen to make the effort. And who would blame you? Mehen never appreciated all you were. He shouldn’t be surprised if you leave him to his fate.”

She bore it, only watching the cracks in his facade. Something had changed. It was so much like Havi, upset and not sure why she was upset-only lashing out because it wasn’t coming clear. Waiting for Farideh to puzzle it out.

“I don’t have time to coddle you,” she said after a moment. “So help me, or go to Rohini-whatever your plans are.”

“Fine!” he snapped. “But don’t blame me when you end up dead!”

“You’re afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid you won’t make it home alive.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It doesn’t make you a coward. We’re all-”

“I am not a coward!” he seethed. “And how dare you imply it, after I defended you from my sisters, rescued you from Sairche, without as much as a ‘many thanks’ from you.”

“Many thanks,” she said. But still he had that uncomfortable, frustrated look. He flexed his wings in a fidgety way, but wouldn’t say any more. After a moment, Farideh left the building. Lorcan could fix himself.

But in short order he was beside her again.

“You could have let that sword fall,” he said. “I know you were thinking of letting it.”

“I didn’t want you to die,” she said, growing annoyed. “And besides, you did the same thing as me-pushing me away like that, telling me to run. If saving you is such a slight, then you were just as bad.”

“That’s not the same!”

“It’s exactly the same. You would have died.”

“I would have died anyway-they wanted to kill me, you stupid girl. You could have run and escaped their notice!”

“And you could have flown away and found some other heir!” she shouted. “But you didn’t!”

“I …” Lorcan trailed off, surprised, and Farideh realized he hadn’t been baiting her: it had not occurred to him to flee. The clearest, simplest action-the one thing selfish Lorcan should have found obvious to his very core-and he hadn’t done it. Because he’d been afraid that she would be hurt.

She wasn’t just a piece in his collection, and he didn’t know what to do with that. Suddenly she couldn’t quite look at him.

“Or maybe I wanted you to owe me,” she said, though it was a lie, though it was in no way what she would have done, though it made no sense even if she had done it. It was less complicated than what threatened to be true. “And now you do. So you’ll help me face Rohini?” she asked, turning the topic.

But Lorcan was still agitated. “Darling, she is going to kill you!” he said with sudden earnestness. He took her arms-gently; the amulet didn’t react. Farideh wondered if it could tell at all what was dangerous and what was safe. “What do I have to say to get you to understand that? You will be dead, and there is nothing I can do to fix that. Nothing.” He let her go. “Even your little paladin isn’t going to be able to save you.”

There, that was the Lorcan she knew. That raw moment might never have happened, and they might go back to what they always were: her sword, his treasure. “If you don’t want to lose your set, you should help me.”

For the barest of seconds, she thought he might storm off. She turned to walk away, only to find herself scooped up in Lorcan’s arms, and vaulting into the empty air. His wings flapped heavily, gusting the air around him as he sought the new balance of their combined weight. Farideh glanced down once, at the street below and the buildings growing smaller and smaller. Her stomach turned and she wrapped her arms around Lorcan’s neck tight enough to choke him and shut her eyes.

“Now,” he said firmly, “I don’t owe you anything.”

Sairche sat in a dark corner and listened to the garrulous mortals arguing the same points over and over again. For the most part, the Ashmadai didn’t possess secrets worth hearing. She fought the urge to sigh and listened as a warty little man with watery eyes again ran down the list of cultists who had not come to their impromptu meeting, the interminable planning session that would lead to revenge.

By the look of things, most of the Ashmadai were just as antsy as Sairche.

“An insult this great,” the warty little man said in a smooth, slippery voice, “is an insult to us all, and worse, an insult to Asmodeus himself.”

Sairche rolled her eyes. One tended to live a great deal longer if one didn’t attempt to put motives in the king of the Hells’s mouth.

“Simply listen,” Glasya said. “Make certain they are coming to amenable conclusions. If they do not, feel free to guide them.”

Sairche was prepared to, but once they were past the point of laying blame on their absent comrades, the assembled Ashmadai spat out information and cobbled it together more quickly than Sairche would have ever given mortals credit for:

The shadow devil had blamed “the Sovereignty.” The Sovereignty was spoken of on the Sea of Fallen Stars. It was a sailors’ tale. It was a true and terrible threat. It was the ruler of the creatures of the sea and spellplague. It was the origin of all madness.

They strung rumors together like pearls on a necklace-the nightmares of the Chasm, the hospital that ministered to spellscarred soldiers and the secret experiments everyone knew were carried out there, the smug priest who ran things, the visits he paid to a certain peculiar gentleman who lived on the edge of the river. The Abolethic Sovereignty. The fearsome aboleths. The Chasm’s monsters, and the strange way they all mimicked one another-the lashing tentacles, the poisonous slime, the reminders of the nightmares everyone knew came with proximity to the Chasm-and didn’t, as if a mad sculptor built them one by one, the Ashmadai mused. As if something was crafting and sending them out. It would be easy, and clever too, to send them out in the guise of the Ashmadai’s known enemies, to harry and winnow them while they in turn harried and winnowed the ranks of other cults. They thought they were clever, these aboleths-well they had not yet met the followers of the Raging Fiend.

As Sairche watched the Ashmadai circling up for the sacrifice that would call up Asmodeus’s emissary to pass along the information of this new and eldritch threat, her mouth pulled down in a frown of puzzlement.

Sairche knew, as well as anyone knew, that getting too clever around the schemes of an archdevil could easily lead to an early death. Or worse. But as she watched the Ashmadai pin down a struggling half-elf woman, she couldn’t help but wonder at Glasya’s intentions. She’d gleaned from listening to Invadiah and Rohini that Rohini’s mission was to infiltrate the Sovereignty and get Invadiah access to an aboleth. Sairche had assumed that Glasya wanted to capture one of the interplanar monsters for one reason or another, and didn’t wonder too hard about why.

But the archduchess had sent Sairche not to lure the Sovereignty, not to redirect the Ashmadai away from her agents, but to drive them toward Rohini, thinking they were fighting the Sovereignty.

It was almost as if the aboleths had nothing at all to do with any of Glasya’s Neverwinter plans.

The woman’s screams broke her concentration and she settled back to watch the rest of the sacrifice. Glasya would want to know if they were successful at passing on this new theory.

Yvon stirred close to consciousness several times. He heard the voices of strangers, saw limbs strewn across his field of view, and once heard Lector’s strident tones, diminished by fatigue or something like it. When he finally broke free and woke from his fitful half-sleep, he sat up and found himself covered over with several stiff bodies. Sekata looked down at him, her chest a ruin and a fly walking over the surface of her eye.

Yvon pushed her body off in a sudden panic and hauled himself dizzily to his feet. The room was littered with bodies and splattered with blood and smears of char where spells had broken over the timbers and brick. His own gut was throbbing in pain, and as he touched his abdomen he found it bloodied and feverishly hot. Still disoriented he fished in his pockets for a small pouch and withdrew a potion-a sample of Sekata’s wares-downing it in one gulp. The wound flared for a moment, then subsided, still there, but no longer a death sentence. He tore lengths of cloth from another fellow’s robes to make a bandage.

Then he remembered the twins.

He froze, looking around the room, but all was still and silent. If they were still here, they weren’t ready to attack. He crept carefully over the fallen bodies, noting faces. So many.…

In the middle of the floor lay a chain and a small silver amulet. Lector’s paralysis charm. Yvon’s shaking, bloodstained fingers scooped the valuable necklace up. Valuable, he thought, but it did Lector no favors. It was what came of putting your faith in breakable things. He crept slowly up the stairs, favoring his wound.

Kalam-poor boy-had been laid out beside the entrance and covered over with a sheet. A new man, a tiefling with broad shoulders and heavy horns, sat on a stool beside him, sharpening a short curved blade.

“You,” Yvon said, his voice rasping. The guard jumped, nearly taking off a thumb. “You there.”

“Hells, are you alive?” The guard was on his feet and ushering Yvon toward the door and fresh air. “Your pardon,” he said. “It seemed like no one down there was still breathing.”

The rush of cool, damp air was a welcome change from the bloody stink of the cellar. “They’re all dead?”

“Don’t worry, brother,” the tiefling man said. “The others are gathering-we will have revenge on those that killed your friends.”

Yvon’s eyes swam. “The Glasyans?”

The man gave him a puzzled look. “The Sovereignty.” He lowered his voice. “They think they are clever, but we’ve discovered them after all: the spirits living in the Chasm. They think to overthrow our lord, no doubt.”

“No,” Yvon said. “It was a pair of Glasyans. It was the Sixth Layer.”

The man snorted. “Those dandies? We had it from your leader’s mouth: four spellscarred orcs and a tiefling warlock claiming the blood of Ashmadai for the Sovereignty.”

“Lector?” In his mind’s eye, Yvon recalled the the crunch of bone, the empty wheeze of breath leaving his comrade’s body. The golden-eyed one had broken something in his skull with that strike. His eyes had been dead before he hit the floor … hadn’t they? “Where is he?”

The guard shook his head. “Gave his report and then died, unfortunately. As you will soon if you don’t give those wounds a rest.”

“There were no orcs,” Yvon said. “The orcs … those were earlier. Elsewhere.”

The guard raised an eyebrow. “So you were all struck down by a single warlock?”

Yvon shook his head. “No. A pair of warlocks … or perhaps a warlock and something else.”

“Aye, there’s killing blows enough to mark at least a caster and a blademaster.” He shifted. “Or a warlock leading a pack of orcs.”

“The Raging Fiend take you!” Yvon cried. “I know what I saw.”

“Bring it to someone who cares, brother. Only wait until after the burning.” The guard grinned. “You marked, did you, the warlock wore the robes of the House of Knowledge?” He leaned down close to Yvon and whispered, “It burns tonight.”

Yvon stared at the man a moment, woozy with the loss of blood. None of this was right-the girl who entered had not spoken, she had come alone, but Farideh had aided her and they had killed ten Ashmadai with their own hands and nearly killed Yvon as well. There were no orcs. There was no claim of any “Sovereignty.”

And now his fellow cultists were coming together to punish … who? Yvon had noted the connection between the Sixth Layer cult and the hospitalers of the House of Knowledge. But burning down the entire temple-one of the largest buildings still standing in Neverwinter-to kill two girls … that was too much. It would draw the notice of every eye in Neverwinter, and news would spread far and wide. Much as he was sorry to agree with poor, dead Sekata, it did not benefit the Ashmadai to unmask themselves so abruptly.

Especially without determining if the girls were even within.

The guard peeked out the doorway. “Ah, there we are. That’s the signal. I’m afraid it’s time to go.”

“Go?” Yvon said. “Where?”

“Anyplace but here,” the guard said. “This many bodies, Mordai Vell wants the building burned to the ground. The guard’s been paid off and the streets are cleared. Time to get the bier going.”

Yvon stumbled out into the rain and watched as the guard and his signaler splashed accelerant on the walls of his shop. The fire went up quick and hotter than he would have imagined with the rain coming down. The guard again urged him to leave, but when Yvon wouldn’t move, he cursed and went on his way.

The fire roared higher, consuming Yvon’s life, his friends, his comrades. He listened to the sounds of bottles exploding with the heat and passed Lector’s amulet from palm to palm. This wasn’t how the faithful of the Raging Fiend were meant to fall.

“Give me the strength to strike down Your enemies,” Yvon murmured, though Asmodeus was not known for such charity. “Give me the insight to hunt them to the ground.”

The sign caught with a great whoosh of flames, swallowing up the secret sigil of the Ashmadai. Inauspicious, he thought.

But as Yvon stood, his joints aching from cold and blood loss, the smack of running feet approached. Yvon watched, stunned, as the runner barreled past him, stopping short of the flames: it was the golden-eyed tiefling, Farideh’s sister, the one who’d murdered them all.

“You are most gracious, Lord,” Yvon said, and he swore her sacrifice would be drawn out even longer than the orc’s.

I am going to fix this, Havilar thought as she ran down the street, outpacing Brin by blocks at a time. She slowed and watched him catch her up, bouncing with nervous energy.

She would get the potion for Mehen. She would show Brin she wasn’t a coward and prove to Farideh she wasn’t the delicate one. She’d stop getting the horrible bursts of panic that kept surging up into her chest, and nobody would possess her or tamper with her again. They’d get out of this awful city and things would go back to the way they were. The way they were supposed to be.

Brin caught up to her and she started running again. Everything can go back to the way it was, she told herself again. I am going to fix this. She spotted the turn that led to the shop.

“Havi!” Brin shouted. She’d gotten ahead of him again.

“This way,” she called, and she headed up the street. She’d get the potion and karshoj to those Ashmadai. She wasn’t afraid.

She passed several people running in the opposite direction. The street was getting much brighter, as if a bonfire.… She slowed and stopped.

Where the shop had been, a giant fire blazed.

Havilar stood, staring at the inferno, fighting down her alarm. If she couldn’t get the potion, then she couldn’t save Mehen, and everything was still a mess. She watched the flames. A little wouldn’t hurt her, maybe if she-

A sudden sharp pain caught her across the base of her throat, yanking her off her feet.

She got her fingers around the garrote as she slipped, and she pulled hard. The wire cut her fingers, but the shorter person holding it slammed into her back. She twisted, bringing her elbow hard into his ribs and nearly hitting his throat instead. He coughed and his grip on the wire loosened enough for Havilar to roll free.

The shopkeeper they’d met on their first day in Neverwinter came to his feet a little unsteadily. He had a mad look in his eye and dried blood all down his crimson robes. He shoved the garrote into his pocket and drew a black-handled dagger instead. “Blessings of the Raging Fiend upon you.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling that peculiar panic start to smother her nerves. “You’re one of those cultists.”

“Foremost,” the shopkeeper said. “The one you couldn’t kill.”

“That wasn’t me.” She reached back slowly to unhook her glaive from its harness. “You have the wrong one.”

“I have the blessing of Asmodeus himself,” the shopkeeper said. “I recognize you. I remember now-the eyes.” He tapped the tip of his dagger below one eye. “Let’s see how well your armor suits you now.”

He dived at her blade-first. She gave up on her glaive and stepped toward him hands up to catch his wrist and stop the wicked blade. The sort of clumsy attack she’d learned to block when she still had her milk teeth, for heavens’ sakes. She started to turn his wrist under her, to throw him off his feet and break his grip on the blade, when his other hand ripped something else out of his pocket and something small and cold and metal pressed against her neck.

“Maollis.”

The air went out of her. All the muscles of her arms and legs went loose. Havilar landed flat on her back, staring up at the cloudy sky, her body from tip to toe screaming in pain. She could not even fight the shopkeeper off as he wound cords around her wrists and ankles and bound her with complex loops around the hips and shoulders. As the spell started to fade, he shoved a rag in her mouth and bound that there too.

“That’s more appropriate,” he said, wiping the dagger on his filthy robes. He grabbed hold of the ropes.

“You have them quite fooled,” the shopkeeper panted. “Quite fooled indeed. They’ve gone right after your ‘Sovereignty.’ ” He jerked the rope, dragging Havilar another few feet. “But not me. I don’t know how you did it, but it didn’t work on me, Glasyan. I know it was you. I know it was your mistress’s orders.

“And all the world will know exactly that, once I’ve cut you into pieces and siphoned off your soul for the Raging Fiend himself. In front of everyone as they prepare to march on that hospital-oh yes! We’ve figured your confederates out! They’ll see it is all the Sixth Layer’s plot.” He trailed off in a mad sort of giggle.

Havilar spied Brin, sword drawn, his eyes darting from Havilar to the shopkeeper as if gauging the danger. For once, Havilar nearly blessed his caution-if the bald man had gotten the better of her with that stupid amulet, he’d surely take Brin down too if he wasn’t careful.

He might take Brin regardless, and then no one would know where she was.

She blinked at him, and rolled her head back the way they’d come-he needed to get help. If the shopkeeper wasn’t a complete fool he’d keep her tied up the entire time he.… The thought made her momentarily dizzy.

Brin either caught her meaning or came to the same conclusion. Though he looked reluctant to leave her to the shopkeeper, he faded back into the shadows to make a different route, leaving Havilar to try her best not to panic.