Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER FOUR

The High Road, two days south of Neverwinter 10 Kythorn, the Year of the dark Circle (1478 DR)

Farideh listened to her breath, too fast and too shallow. There was only a moment to consider leaping out after Havilar-to consider if she even wanted to leap out after Havilar-before Lorcan appeared. The portal made no noise, but the air stirred as he took up space that was once empty, and it brushed hot against the back of her neck.

Whatever else was true of Farideh, she knew Mehen was right: Lorcan was dangerous. She should have rejected his advances. She should have told him where to go when he showed up at their camp in the middle of winter. She should have turned him away every time he came after that. Lorcan was a bastard and a devil, and devils were nothing but trouble. She knew that.

But even though she knew enough to dread Lorcan’s arrival, at the same time an unmistakable gladness went through her when the portal opened-a gladness she knew better than to tell a soul about. Especially Lorcan.

“Come now, my darling,” Lorcan said from behind her. “Am I so much more frightening than the night and a caravansary full of strangers?”

Farideh kept staring out the window at the torchlights along the courtyard. “Who said I was frightened?”

“Then you just want your sister to join us?” She turned and saw him smirking down at her. “Sorry, darling, you’ll have to break it to her gently; you’re the only one for me.”

Farideh felt her cheeks burn. “You shouldn’t be here. What if Mehen comes back?”

“Well,” Lorcan said, still entirely too close, “at some point you’re going to have to stop worrying about what your lizard thinks.” She didn’t move as he paced around her. “Maybe tonight’s the night. We can all agree I was right about your little scuffle before.” His voice was suddenly much closer to her ear. “You were magnificent … despite Mehen’s best efforts.”

“Would you have said the same if that priest had caught me?”

“I won’t let anyone catch you, darling. Be as bold as you like.”

She watched the door as if her gaze was the only thing keeping it shut. “Mehen thinks you sent the orcs.”

Lorcan chuckled. “And what on all the planes would I be doing with orcs? He does know you’re only a tenday’s ride from their kingdom of Many-Arrows?”

“Why are you here?”

“I thought,” he said, reaching an arm around her, “you might like a new spell.” He opened his right hand, and she felt the rush of Hellish powers through him, through her. His palm flickered with a dull yellow light. “You certainly proved you can handle what you have against those orcs.”

Farideh stared at the dancing light. It was dangerous. Too dangerous. Every one of these spells was a step farther down the path that surely doomed her.

“What does it do?”

In answer, Lorcan took her left hand in his and the dull light coalesced in her own palm. A thread of power wound its way through her arm. He aimed her fingers toward a piece of firewood sitting beside the hearth. “Assulam.”

“Assulam,” Farideh repeated.

The light flashed and in the same moment, the wood exploded. Lorcan’s wing cut across her vision to shield her, and when he drew it away, she saw a fine scattering of splinters littered the floor. There was nothing else left of the firewood.

“Don’t try it on anything too large,” Lorcan said. “Or living. It’s not that sort of spell.”

Farideh watched the last fleeting motes of the spell crackling across her palm. “What do I use it for?”

“You’ll think of something,” he said, drawing a finger down her wrist. “You’re clever.” He slipped around her and she stepped back.

Farideh glanced at the door again. Havilar had to be back any moment. Mehen wouldn’t be long. Anyone who heard the crash of the spell.

Lorcan’s eyes flicked in the same direction, following her glance no doubt, and he raised an eyebrow. “Expecting someone?” He shifted toward her and this time, she held her ground and tried not to notice the way he smirked as she did. Sometimes it felt as if he were herding her, driving her this way and that like she were a frightened sheep.

“No. Only Havilar. And Mehen. And I do care,” she added, “what he thinks.” Lorcan’s eyes narrowed. “You promised,” she said.

“ ‘Never in front of Mehen,’ ” he said. “And I keep my word.” He moved away from her so swiftly she was momentarily afraid he was going to walk out the door and through the taproom.

But instead he threw the bolt.

“There. Problem solved.”

She swallowed, her tail flicking nervously back and forth. “Mehen will be back-”

“And you’ll tell him you locked it for safety: the night, the strangers, and such.” He closed on her, and Farideh was all too aware of the feeling of seams coming loose inside her. “You’re not as lamb-brained as he likes to pretend you are.”

“Mehen doesn’t think I’m stupid,” she said.

“Just that you can’t make your own decisions.” Lorcan didn’t stop, and she took a step back. She came up against the windowsill. “You know I’m right.”

“You’re always right,” Farideh said, a little sharply.

You want him to notice you, Havilar had said, and looking into those black eyes again, Farideh had a hard time insisting she was wrong. She knew better-she did-than to trust him. But she kept on trusting him anyway, and he kept giving her reasons to.

Watching her, he seemed to be enjoying the fact that she couldn’t move with him standing so close. The fact that she was staring at his mouth again.

You want him to notice you. You don’t even know him.

Farideh wet her lips. “How … how old are you?”

Lorcan drew back, startled. “What?”

“How old are you?” Farideh asked. “Havilar and I were talking and … I realized I don’t know. You never told me.”

He stared at her a moment more. “Of course I didn’t. It’s irrelevant. I don’t keep track of that sort of thing.”

“You don’t know how old you are?”

“No,” he said tetchily. “And I don’t see why you care.”

“It was just a question. How is it you-”

The sound of the portal reopening startled Lorcan far more than Farideh. He stepped between her and the portal, one wing half-curled around her. Farideh peered over his shoulder.

A second cambion-a woman with her head shaved bald and silvery lines tattooed over her scalp and around the delicately pointed horns protruding from her forehead-stood in the fading light of the portal, her hands on her hips. Her eyes were golden, like Havilar’s, but they glowed with an otherworldly light, and the lashes that fringed them were silver and sharp as needles. The twist of her pretty mouth and the arch of her eyebrows were decidedly mocking.

“Sairche?” Lorcan said, sounding more surprised than Farideh had ever heard him. Unbidden, jealousy twisted Farideh’s stomach, and her tail started to flick back and forth.

“So, this is where you’ve been running off to,” the cambion said.

“What are you doing here?” Lorcan asked.

She smiled. “Finding out why Mother’s artifact is activated. Does she know you’re playing with the Needle of the Crossroads to conduct your little trysts?” She glanced around the room. “You’re going to get mites in a place like this.”

Farideh blushed to her temples. “No, it’s not-”

Lorcan grabbed her wrist hard and she shut her mouth.

“It’s not your business,” he said slowly. “And it’s not Mother’s either.”

A mother. He’d mentioned her before: Invadiah, the fiercest erinyes, he’d said. But for some reason putting the word “mother” to Lorcan seemed absurd and wrong. Farideh held perfectly still, not wanting to pull against Lorcan’s crushing grip and make things worse.

Sairche shook her head, as if poor Lorcan really had no idea what trouble he was in. “That’s between you and her. Of course.” Her golden eyes lit on Farideh. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little paramour?”

Lorcan squeezed Farideh’s wrist harder. “Not now.”

“Right,” the cambion drawled. “Come find me when you’re finished.” To Farideh she added, “He’s nobody, you know? Don’t let him sell you some line about ‘inciting fiendish passions.’ ” When Farideh blushed harder, Sairche chuckled. She lifted the chain she wore around her neck-one strung with a dozen rings-and slipped the small green one on her finger. Soft as an eye blink, she vanished.

Lorcan had gone as tense as a man holding a hornet’s nest. He watched the spot where Sairche had stood for taut moments, still gripping Farideh’s wrist tightly enough to make her hand throb.

“Lorcan,” Farideh said. “Who was that?”

He spun on her, jerking her a step closer. His eyes blazed and the air between them grew scorching hot, as if Lorcan were about to burst into flame and burn her to ashes with him.

No, she thought, narrowing her eyes. It would take a lot more for either of us to burn up.

Lorcan sneered and released her, all but throwing her arm aside, and the threat of fire dampened. He turned back to glare at the spot where the other cambion-his lover? His rival? His other warlock? — had stood.

She’d said mother, Farideh thought Not your mother.

“She’s your sister,” Farideh said, and it was as odd a word as mother to put to Lorcan.

“One of far too many,” Lorcan said.

“You weren’t expecting her.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” he snapped, still staring at the spot. “She shouldn’t have followed me.” He turned back to Farideh, still agitated. “Has anyone else bothered you? Has anyone been asking about me?”

“Not a soul.”

“Or a devil?”

“No one. What’s going on?”

Lorcan ignored her. “Has anyone asked you about your powers?”

“No,” Farideh said. If anyone had, she wouldn’t have explained them. Lorcan might not care who knew-or he hadn’t, she thought, until Sairche appeared-but aside from Havilar and Mehen, she’d never wanted to tell anyone. It was too risky.

He frowned at the missing portal. “She shouldn’t bother you again,” he said after a moment. He sounded more like he was convincing himself.

“Why did you let her think we were …?” Farideh trailed off, too embarrassed to finish.

Lorcan’s smirk returned, and whatever was troubling him was gone, hidden away again. “Everyone needs a hobby. Sairche’s is secrets.” Lorcan brushed her hair back and whispered in her ear, “She especially likes knowing things before other people do.”

Quick as an adder, Lorcan twisted the green ring he always wore. Another faint rush of air and he slid between the planes and out of Farideh’s reach. She kept her fists balled anyway, until the portal shut.

Farideh would never once, not in a million years, admit to Lorcan the effect he had on her-though it probably didn’t matter. He undoubtedly knew. He didn’t say what he said or do what he did because he wanted her affection.

She especially likes knowing things before other people do-he didn’t mean a thing by that. He didn’t mean he meant to.… She blushed again. Havilar was right; she thought too much.

She wondered if she’d enjoy it …

Gods, she thought. She sat back down, and pressed her hands to her face as if she could hide from that thought. She knew better than to fall into Lorcan’s pretty words. Some other tiefling might be foolish enough to think that because he touched her face and called her darling it meant anything at all. Lorcan was a bastard and a devil, and devils didn’t love.

And yet, she’d been jealous of Sairche. Only for a moment, but still. Jealous that she knew Lorcan as intimately as she did, jealous that Lorcan didn’t want her to know about Farideh and didn’t care if Farideh knew about her, jealous that Sairche looked so confident and powerful-there was no changing that she’d felt it. But gods, Farideh could slap herself, she was so annoyed that she’d been jealous. She was being silly to think for even a moment about Lorcan as if he were any other boy, any other man-but the idea that she could stop him in his tracks the way Sairche had … that was harder to feel silly about.

A grunt and the frenzied sound of hands scrabbling at roof tiles made her look up. One pale hand clutched at the sill.

“Fari!” Havilar hissed from beyond. “Come help before someone hears!”

“Gods,” Farideh muttered, but she went to the window.

The boy from the caravan clung to the window frame, looking up at her as if seriously reconsidering whatever her sister had said to convince him to scramble halfway up the slippery shakes of the roof, braced only by Havilar, who in turn braced herself against the gutter by one heel.

“What happened to ‘no one will see me’?” Farideh hissed, taking hold of the boy’s arm and hauling him in. Havilar scrambled up after him and grabbed ahold of her sister’s hand.

“Nobody did see,” she said. She clambered over the sill and glanced back into the darkness. “But maybe he should leave by the door. I nearly broke my neck on the way out.” She grinned at Farideh. “Did you see my landing? It … was …”

She trailed off, sniffing. The hot and bitter scent of the portal opening still laced the air, faint but unavoidable. Havilar’s expression grew concerned. Farideh glared at her. After all of Havilar’s complaints, Lorcan had come because she had left.

Havilar rolled her eyes, as if to say to the Hells with Lorcan anyway. Farideh glanced over at the boy. If he smelled the traces of Lorcan’s portal …

He was looking around the room, as if he didn’t want to let his eyes settle. He looked at the walls, the locked door, the bed, the floor, the cold fireplace, and finally, to Farideh.

“Is everything all right?” he said. “You … Did you not want me to come? Havilar said-”

“No,” Farideh said, “it’s not that. I just didn’t want Havilar to go out.”

“Well now we’re in!” Havilar said.

“And Mehen is going to come back eventually. What do you think he’s going to say when he finds out you snuck a boy in here?”

“Brin,” the boy said. “And Mehen didn’t see.” He looked at Havilar. “Should I call him Mehen? Or is it Goodman Something?”

Havilar giggled. “Just Mehen. He doesn’t have a clan name.”

“It’s not funny,” Farideh said, more sternly than she meant to. “It’s better if no one knows there’s a pair of tieflings rooming here.”

“Just everyone who saw us in the taproom,” Havilar said sarcastically. She sat down on the floor and pulled Farideh down beside her. “Brin, give her some whiskey before she has a fit.”

Brin sat down beside them, drawing a half-empty bottle of brown liquor out of his pack. Farideh frowned.

“Where did you get that?”

“Downstairs.”

“The tavernmaster sold you a half-bottle of whiskey?”

“No,” Brin said. “He tried to charge me an arm and a leg for space on the tavern floor. I thought it was fair to even things out a bit.”

“You stole it?”

“It was mutual stealing,” Havilar explained. “Like how you can kill someone if they’re trying to kill you.”

“All right, it sounds stupid,” Brin said hotly. “But it was the only thing I could reach.” He looked at Farideh, puzzled. “Are you feeling all right? Your cheeks are all red.”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically. She pressed a hand to her face. “Just … harder to pull you in than I thought.”

At least having some refugee boy in the room was better than Mehen finding her with Lorcan. If he came in now, it would be Havilar’s fault too.

Havilar grinned madly at Brin, as if she’d caught a particularly tricky beast in one of her traps. “You didn’t think I’d manage, did you?” she said to Farideh.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

Havilar looked past her and frowned. “Why did you bolt the door?”

To herself, Farideh cursed. “Safety.” She hurried to the door and undid the bolt, without meeting Havilar’s eyes.

You’re still just frustrated at Lorcan, she thought. You can’t take that out on Havi. Or Brin.

Brin yanked the cork free and paused, staring at the open bottle. “I never said thank you.” He looked up at Farideh. “For saving me. And … I should apologize too. To both of you. I wasn’t in my right mind, I suppose. But it still was terribly rude to assume you were devils. Even if you had been … you did me a good turn.”

Farideh relaxed a little. Maybe Havilar was right. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be normal.

“I don’t have any glasses,” Brin said apologetically. “I hope that’s all right.”

“Brin, we live on the road,” Havilar said. “We’re used to not drinking out of glasses.”

“Oh. Right,” he said, taking out a handkerchief to wipe the mouth of the bottle. “And I suppose Mehen doesn’t stand on etiquette.”

Havilar snorted. “Gods, can you imagine Mehen teaching us how to curtsey and take tea? ‘Put your damn back straight,’ ” she bellowed. “ ‘You curtsey from the hip not the knee! You’re leaving yourself wide open for a snub from the queen of Tethyr.’ ”

Farideh giggled. “ ‘No, no, no!’ ” she growled back. “ ‘M’henish, how many times do I have to tell you, pass the biscuits with your off-hand so you can parry the zzar with your stronger arm!’ ” Havilar laughed so hard she pounded the floor.

Brin took a sip from the whiskey bottle. “How long have you been traveling with him?”

“Forever,” Havilar took the whiskey bottle from him. “He adopted us. He’s our father.”

That took Brin a moment to absorb. “But,” he finally said, “you call him ‘Mehen.’ Not ‘Father’?”

“Dragonborn call their parents by name,” Farideh said.

“What happened to your real parents?” Brin said, and Farideh felt a surge of irritation. Mehen was a real parent, more so than whoever had left them behind, but she bit her tongue. She knew what he meant even if she didn’t like the way he said it.

Havilar shrugged. “Someone left us at the village gates.”

“And there wasn’t … a note? Or a clue in the blankets?”

Farideh and Havilar glanced at each other. Arush Vayem was the sort of place people went to hide from their pasts, to start over right when that wasn’t possible in other lands. They both knew if someone had left a pair of babies at the gates of Arush Vayem, there was no need of a message to say that they didn’t want the twins back.

“It’s not a story, Brin,” Farideh said. She sipped the whiskey. It tasted sharp and woody and the burn of the alcohol tickled her throat. “We’re not the secret princesses of Abeir or something.”

“Where are your parents?” Havilar asked.

“Oh,” Brin said vaguely. “Off somewhere. They’re … adventurers, you know?” He glanced up at them a moment, as if he were weighing something against their expressions, and Farideh wondered what it was. “They go away for years and so I ended up in a strict Tormish school.” He took a careful sip of whiskey. “I … I left. I’m not cut out to be Tormish.”

Havilar snorted. “I’ll say. Tormites don’t steal whiskey.”

“They do buy it,” Brin said. “A look of discomfort passed over his features and was gone. “Where’s your village?”

“Near Tymanther,” Farideh said. “In the Smoking Mountains.”

“You won’t have heard of it,” Havilar said. “It’s a secret village.”

Farideh sighed. “Havi.”

“What?” Havilar said. She took a sip of the whiskey. “Who is he going to tell?” She turned back to Brin. “It’s just a village of people who don’t want to be found.” Farideh stopped herself from sighing again.

“You mean criminals?” Brin asked, excitement creeping into his voice.

“She means outcasts,” Farideh said, passing the bottle back to him. “It’s just a village of people who … didn’t belong somewhere else.”

“Lots of dragonborn,” Havilar said. “It seems like it’s rather easy to get cast out of a clan, if you ask me. And humans who didn’t fit in somewhere.”

“And tieflings,” Farideh said.

“Who don’t fit in anywhere,” Havilar said with a giggle. “Also two half-orcs and a dwarf that raises yaks.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Inheritance dispute,” Farideh said, giggling herself. “He says he wanted to quit his clan right.”

“Don’t ask him about it,” Havilar said, taking the whiskey. “Or you’ll know far too much about his brother-in-law. Far. Too. Much.”

“If I ever find your secret village,” Brin said, “I’ll make certain I avoid it. Why did you leave? To find your parents?”

Farideh dropped her eyes and shut her mouth. Havilar took an extra-long swig of whiskey that ended with a gasp and a cough. “Whew!” she cried. “This is strong.”

Brin was watching them carefully, his eyes skipping from one to the other. The longer they didn’t answer, Farideh thought, the more he’d think of his own reasons, and the more he thought of his own reasons, the more awful those reasons might become. Robbery. Murder. Devil worship.

Were they worse than binding yourself to a devil you couldn’t say no to?

“Even outcasts have outcasts,” Farideh said lightly. “We … were involved in some mischief that upset the wrong people. It wasn’t on purpose, but … people were upset.”

Brin’s eyes lit, as if he knew exactly what she meant, and he nodded. She could sense Havilar beside her, relaxing into the safe blandness of that explanation. They might keep him still. “I have certainly been acquainted with those circumstances,” Brin said.

“Is that why you had to leave?” Havilar asked, passing Farideh the bottle. “From wherever you’re from?”

“I didn’t have to leave.” Again, that look of discomfort. It was starting to rattle on Farideh’s nerves, and the whiskey did nothing for it. She wrapped her hands around the top of the bottle, pressing her palms into the glass, and willed the shadows not to gather around her.

“Truth is, I’m from Cormyr,” he finally said. “I guess … I don’t really fit there. With my family and such. It seemed better that I get out of their way.”

“ ‘Out of their way’?” Havilar said. “What are they? Rampaging tarrasques?”

Brin chuckled. “Not quite that bad. More like … rampaging dire bears. But with more rules. They don’t appreciate mischief any more than secret villages do.”

“I don’t think anyone appreciates having a building blown up,” Havilar said.

Farideh’s every muscle stiffened. “Havi!”

Brin’s mouth fell open. “Is … is that what you did?”

“Sort of,” Havilar said.

“Why? How?” He was positively goggling.

“On accident,” Farideh said. It’s not going to make a difference, she thought. He’s already made up his mind. They would have to run. “It was magic gone awry.”

“It was my fault,” Havilar said quickly, her face as red as Farideh was sure her own was. “I was doing spells that were too powerful. Nobody died. Nobody … really got hurt.” Her hand closed on Farideh’s. “It was our own house.”

Brin glanced from one to the next and finally shook his head. “Well, you have me beat. The worst thing I’d ever done was run away. Granted,” he added, “I did make a point of doing so regularly enough.”

Farideh took a swig of whiskey and passed it on, grateful that Havilar had defused the situation, but angry that Havilar again took responsibility. Farideh had taken the pact, she’d made the decision, she hadn’t stumbled into it. It was her doing alone. If anyone was to blame it was Farideh. If anyone got hurt, it was Farideh too.

Brin frowned. “But why were you doing spells? You’re not a spellcaster.”

“I can cast a little bit of magic,” Havilar said. “Just not very well. Apparently. I’m better with blades and Fari’s better at magic, that’s all.”

He turned to Farideh. “You’re a sorcerer, aren’t you? Is the explosion what happened to your eye?”

Farideh’s cheeks were still burning. “No.”

“It’s always been like that,” Havilar said quickly. “Mehen says it happens sometimes. It happens a lot more in dogs. It just surprises some people because, well, silver and gold look strange to humans-”

“Havi,” Farideh said, and her sister stopped. She looked at Brin hard. “It’s just an eye.”

“All right,” he said. “I really didn’t mean any offense. I suppose you hear that a lot?”

“I do hear that a lot,” she said after a moment. “It doesn’t take much for some people to be superstitious.”

“They don’t know any better,” Brin said, with a wave of his hand that Farideh had to remind herself wasn’t supposed to be dismissive. Even if it felt like it. Even if it made her anger squeeze tight around her chest.

“I thought you might be a wizard at first, but you don’t have a spellbook.”

“Or,” she said lightly, “a lot of patience. Sorry I snapped.”

He grinned. “Here”-he handed her back the bottle of whiskey-“friends?”

For now, Farideh thought gloomily, but she took the whiskey from him. “Friends,” she said, and she raised the bottle before taking a sip and passing it on to Havilar.

“To winning!” she said, before taking her own turn. She giggled. “I don’t care what Mehen says, I think all seven orcs count.”

“To Neverwinter,” Brin said, “and new beginnings.”

“What will you do in Neverwinter?” Farideh asked. Though it had been a little cruel of Havilar to point it out, he wasn’t cut out to build houses and haul rock.

Brin shrugged. “Whatever someone will pay me for. I’ll save it up and …” He trailed off and took another, bolder sip of the whiskey. “And do something I want to do.”

“Why Neverwinter?” Havilar asked. “It’s up at the edge of the world. And it’s fallen down. I heard anyway. D’you have a lady friend up there?”

Brin chuckled. “No. I don’t know anyone in Neverwinter, truth be told. It …” He hesitated a moment. “Look … I’m not a refugee really. No one in my family’s from Neverwinter. But I think I could pass. Start a life of some sort. New beginnings, as I said.”

“So long as your house hasn’t already fallen down,” Havilar said with mock solemnity. “I hear, too, that it’s teeming-teeming-with monsters. And volcanoes.”

“And orcs,” Brin said. “And warlocks.”

Farideh froze. “Warlocks?”

“Right. The … Hellish sort. That’s what they say, anyway.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I read … somewhere … some devil tried to take Neverwinter over once. Maybe even an archdevil. Ages ago though. Before the Spellplague. So maybe that’s why they all go there. But it’s probably nonsense. People say all sorts of things. I mean, do you know how many stories people tell about how the city got its name?”

Farideh nodded, not really hearing Brin. If Neverwinter were full of warlocks, there had to be at least one among them who knew how to keep a devil in hand. It stood to reason-didn’t it? — that Farideh could not be the only warlock in Toril who didn’t start down the path with the intention of being wicked. And she couldn’t be the only one with a devil who wouldn’t leave her alone.

If she went to Neverwinter, she might find someone who could show her a way to at least give Lorcan pause. Perhaps someone to show her how to leash him. If she could keep him from turning up so often, if she could keep him from needling at her brand, if she could keep him at armslength …

Then what? He might strip away her powers, just to show he could. He might do something to punish her. He might hurt Mehen or Havilar.

He might leave her entirely.

“Here,” Havilar said, pressing the whiskey bottle into her hand. “Catch up, worrywart.”

Mehen didn’t bother with his own dinner. The food he’d eaten that morning still sat heavy in his belly. No need to add to it. Better to stay sharp than to keep a human’s eating habits for the sake of plenty.

The caravans had been a waste of time. Nobody knew anything or anybody. Nobody had seen the woman from the leaflet, or a woman who looked like her, or any human woman ever for that matter.

“M’henish,” he grunted to himself. Three days would get them back to Waterdeep and maybe that was best. Maybe there was some other caravan in need of guards, or some other bounty he could catch and leave the girls out of it. Maybe they should just get lost in the City of Splendors and hope no one ever noticed.

The priest’s offer still weighed on his mind. The coins he’d handed over for a room and food for his girls had lightened their purse significantly. A few more and they could head north enough to catch up with this blasted bounty.

To the Hells and back, he thought. What was he doing considering the offer of a silverstar with a chain that might as well be a third arm, he used it with such casualness? He’d tapped his tongue to the roof of his mouth repeatedly, but there was no taste in the air to suggest the priest was a threat beyond what he’d seen with his own eyes. He’d kept tapping out of nerves.

He imagined Farideh, stiff and swaddled in her cloak as long as the priest was around, and sighed. What was he going to do with her? He’d been so sure she’d been keeping that devil away, and all the while they were creeping around behind briars. At least she wouldn’t dare let the bastard come around while Havilar was with her-he was sure of that. Havilar kept a secret like a sieve kept water.

Not for the first time, he cursed the path that had led him here, mucking around in the wilds of Faerun, chasing down petty criminals and trying to find two coins to rub together while keeping the twins alive. But it was a path he had made on his own, and given a second chance, he couldn’t say he wouldn’t have made every choice exactly the same way a second time. He scratched the piercing holes again as he came into the taproom.

And if he hadn’t made those decisions, where would Farideh and Havilar be? They were smart, resourceful girls-but were they such because he had raised them up that way, or because it beat in their blood? And resourceful, smart, or utter fools, they would never have made it out of the village that day after the snow had fallen so heavy. He might have been denied his own offspring, but the twins were his legacy.

The taproom had filled up with merchants and mercenaries, refugees to and from the North. He stood in the entryway a moment, sizing up the room with an old soldier’s eye. For the better part of Clanless Mehen’s life-when he had been Verthisathurgiesh Mehen, son of Pandjed, and even after-he’d trained himself to be ready for a fight, just in case.

Three men playing cards on his right. Them first-they were mercenaries. That armor was too nice, and yet mismatched-as if they’d bought a pauldron here, a chain shirt there, as the coin came in. They’d be the most dangerous, if only because they were the most unpredictable.

Dagger in the close one’s back, crack the bottle on the second, the third would be up and drawing his own weapon, but that one was drunk enough, Mehen would have time to flip the dagger into him, and pull his falchion from his back.

The woman standing on his left, waiting for her partner or employer, would be on him quick then with her double swords. Drop to the floor-she’d expect him to use his size like a brute-cut her with a swing from behind. Finish with the dagger.

He walked to the bar, straight and steady-but his mind was full of quick, dancing slashes and dodges. The barkeep raised an eyebrow at him as he approached.

The barkeep would be a quick thing-not a real threat. The worst that could happen was for him to be a caster with a wand back there, and Mehen doubted that.

Still: aggressive attack, up over the bar, falchion across the front of him.

“Well met,” Mehen said. “I’m looking for someone.”

The barkeep looked him up and down, as he wiped down bottles of wine. “This isn’t Waterdeep,” he said. “Don’t have your sort.”

Mehen growled. He doubted even Waterdeep could boast that variety. He pulled the leaflet free and smoothed it out on the table. “This one,” he said. “Have you seen her?”

The barkeep gave the posting a cursory glance. “Nah. What are you drinking?”

“I’m not. You get a lot of caravans through here?”

“You’re in my tavern, you’re drinking.” The barkeep set a glass down in front of Mehen and started to pour something golden from a bottle beading with moisture. Mehen’s hand shot out and grasped the bottle, halting its tilt.

“You pour that, you’ll be wasting your coin and both of our times. I don’t drink in anybody’s tavern.” He let go of the bottle. “Do you get a lot of caravans through here?”

The man set the bottle down and gave Mehen a stony glare. “Some.”

“One a tenday? Two?”

“Two or three every few days. Sometimes more. Never seen your bounty though.”

“Anybody here come in off one of those caravans?”

“Fair well everybody. Ask who you like, but don’t you start a fight you can’t clean up.”

Mehen drummed his thick nails against the counter. They needed to find this wretched bounty or get themselves another, easier one. Or both, he thought.

“What about orcs?” he said.

The barkeep looked at him as if he were mad. “Don’t get too many in here. The sorts of things Many-Arrows brews either go foul too fast or burn right through a cask before I can sell it all.”

“No. What about bounties on orcs? We took a troop out that attacked a caravan south of here. Anyone paying bounties for them?”

The barkeep shook his head. “I’m certainly not. Swarms of the buggers. Nothing to be done.”

Mehen fought the urge to remind the barkeep he ought to be more deferential. You have no clan to back you, he reminded that angry young voice that told him to pull his daggers out and make his point with steel.

“Anybody paying any bounties along here?” Mehen asked. “Or you just live in an easy little world where no one’s any trouble.”

“Try Neverwinter,” the barkeep said. “Full of all the criminals too lazy to make it to Luskan, too weak to survive Luskan, and too scared to try Luskan. And the Lord Protector is wealthy enough and foolish enough to pay people to remedy something as unfixable as that.”

The words, Mehen thought, of a man who had never been to a place. He left the bar and tried his luck with a smattering of patrons: the bored woman, the mercenaries in the corner, a merchant here and there. No one knew the woman from the bounty poster.

“M’henish,” he grunted to himself as he tromped back upstairs. The priest’s offer was looking better and better. He pushed open the door.

The twins were sitting on the floor with that boy, that Brin from the caravan. Havilar giggled wildly. Farideh had a bottle of whiskey to her mouth, her head tilted back.

“Farideh!” Mehen barked. She pulled the bottle away, spitting liquor down her shirt and coughing.

He couldn’t stop the thoughts that time: If the devil overwhelmed her, he’d have to bring Havilar down first-fast, subdued. Press the vessel on her neck until she fainted and couldn’t attack him. That would give Farideh time to prepare, but he couldn’t believe she’d strike, even poisoned by that fiend, if he held her sister before him. He could still subdue her. But if she did attack, then he’d have to use the breath-

Stop it, he said to himself. Farideh was looking up at him, her cheeks scarlet, her knuckles white around the whiskey bottle, and that awful smoky darkness curling its way around her frame. She was nearly a woman, but crumpled on the floor like that it was hard not to think of her as small and awkward and caught up late with Havilar. Probably trying to convince Havi to go to bed, he thought.

Ah, Fari, he thought. I never thought it would be you.

“Give me that,” he snapped, snatching the bottle from her. He sniffed it-backwater still-shit, harder than it needed to be-and took a swig, despite the fact he knew he’d be flat out and snoring within a half hour because of it. Better than up and thinking about the fact he’d considered how to take out his child. “Where in the Hells did you get this?”

“Downstairs,” Brin said. “It was part of my … room fee.”

Mehen was too tired to reprimand someone else’s orphan-even when clearly he was the one starting all this trouble. He heaved a great sigh and sat in one of the chairs. It creaked under his weight.

“Did you find her?” Havilar asked. “Are we going to get her?”

“What would you have done if I had?” he said. “You two are in no shape now to take down anyone.” Havilar squinted at Mehen.

“I think I could.”

“Of course you do,” Mehen said. “That’s the whiskey talking.”

“But you didn’t find her,” Farideh said.

“No,” Mehen said. “Which doesn’t mean we’ve passed her by. I do know what I’m doing.” Farideh folded her arms over her chest, but didn’t say anything.

He set the whiskey bottle on the table and considered his girls for a moment. His clever, strong, dangerous girls. “But I did find another job for us.”