Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER SIX

Neverwinter 11 Kythorn, the Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

The bells over the shop door tinkled as a blonde elf woman swept in. The shopkeeper, a man called Yvon Claven, nodded to her cheerfully. “A moment,” he called. Knowing Sekata, she wouldn’t care about the wait, but manners were manners.

“Now,” he said, turning back to his original customer, a young man with a scruffy beard, “I can have the straps mended in about four days, but I do think you’d be better served with a new brigandine. This one”-he gestured sadly at the rents in the heavy cloth where the metal plates were wearing through-“isn’t going to last much longer.”

The young man, one of many vying for a place among the city’s Mintarn defenders, sighed. “Much as I’d prefer it, I haven’t the coin. Just the straps, please.” He set down a small stack of silver coins, half the cost of the repair.

Poor lad, Yvon thought. Too many of them lately, lads and lasses come to Neverwinter to seek their fortunes, looking for adventure in the ancient city on the Sword Coast. Yvon-who had lived in Neverwinter all of his days and whose ancestors had lived there since well before the cataclysm that shook the City of Jewels to its very foundations-suspected they were largely overwhelmed with what they found in Neverwinter.

“You know, I’ve been thinking of hiring an assistant,” he said. “A guard for the door, and an extra body to stand at the counter when I have things to attend to in the back. Why don’t you come by in the morning and we’ll see if it suits you … what did you say your name was?”

The young man looked at him, surprised. “Kalam. And I will. Thank you.”

The door bells jingled again as the young man left. When the lad came back, Yvon thought, he’d have to pour him a cup of tea and discuss the lad’s options. Desperate straits made one ripe for a different path.

“All right, Sekata?” Yvon asked, as the elf woman set her basket of potions on the counter and started unloading them. The magical traces of her alliance made the air bristle even without Yvon looking for them. “Are you staying cool enough?”

The elf snorted. “In this heat? I’m lucky my potions haven’t all taken to boiling and popped their seals.”

Yvon chuckled and lifted one of the greenish vials up to the light streaming in through the window. “Well, they look well enough.” He’d been selling Sekata’s potions for years now-he trusted no one else.

Sekata took the last of them from her handbasket. “Have you heard,” she drawled, “who was thrown out of the Moonstone Mask last night?”

“I didn’t know anyone got thrown out of the Moonstone Mask,” Yvon said. “Do tell.”

Sekata leaned in. “Creed.”

Yvon shook his head. “I ought to have guessed. What did the young idiot do?” He frowned. “It wasn’t-”

“No, no,” Sekata said. “Nothing like that. Only got a few cups past drunk and started a brawl.”

“That sounds average-”

“With the serving girls.”

“Oh dear.”

“Poor Creed,” Sekata agreed. “They look delicate, but Liset’s girls know what they’re doing. Got him begging for mercy before the bouncers hauled him out of there. He’s lucky they didn’t just throw him off the earthmote and let him land as he pleased on the rooftops.”

Yvon clucked his tongue. “Does Lector know, do you think?”

“By now? I can’t imagine he hasn’t figured it out and spent half the morning playing wise older brother.” Sekata paused. “Oh no, wait. He’s been in chambers with Mordai Vell all morning. It’s possible Creed’s slipped him by entirely.”

Yvon winced. “Ah. Do you suppose Vell’s still angry about the Glasyan incident?”

“Well, the defenders did find all those bodies. I don’t know what you and Lector were thinking-messy, messy business all of it. If you’re going to stage a godsbedamned massacre, you should at least burn the bodies.”

“Methinks you’re just jealous you weren’t invited.”

“Yes,” Sekata said dryly, “I don’t get enough blood handling the sacrifices.”

Yvon smiled. “It’s not the same, and you know it.”

Sekata planted her hands on her hips. “The difference is a sacrifice very seldom has friends who are ready to start a street war over their deaths. At least Mordai Vell has the ounce of sense necessary to see antagonizing other cults is bound to come out badly.”

“Ah, not when you wipe them out completely. There’s something very pleasing about striking down Glasyans in particular. It’s the smugness they have that makes the difference. Goes right out of them with a sharp blade.” He patted his bald pate with a handkerchief. “Blasted heat. Anyhow, since when do you care about the Glasyans?”

“I don’t,” Sekata said. “I care about not being hauled out into the open by a bunch of overeager lads. I like my privacy, and I like not having to launder blood out of my everyday things. You two keep this up, and I’ll find another cell.”

Yvon chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry. If Lector’s still in chambers, we’re definitely being told to quiet down.” He waved at the potions arrayed on the counter. “How much for the lot?”

“Thirty each for the healings, eight hundred for the two vitalities-if you want them-and for the cordials … let’s say fifty for the lot.”

“That’s a bit steeper than normal.”

Sekata shook her head. “The Lord Protector’s new tax collectors came to call. And unlike you, I don’t just kill people who irritate me.”

“I think most of Neverwinter would call that murder justified. Even Mordai Vell.” Yvon chuckled again and took the coin box out from under the counter. “I’ll take one potion of vitality, the healings and the cordials. Some of them are elderberry, yes? The elderberries always go first. You could probably make a living just distilling cordials.”

“I could,” Sekata agreed as he counted out the coins. “But I’d be bored. Will you be at the congregation tonight? The sacrifice is one of those orcs from the ruined district, and I don’t want to worry about keeping him down.”

“Who got you an orc?”

Sekata swept the coins into her purse. “Creed. It’s how I found out about the whole Moonstone Mask debacle. Hail Asmodeus,” she said, as she pulled open the door and set the bells tinkling again, “and I’ll see you tonight. Bring the staples and some extra rope. He’s a big brute.”

“Only if you bring some cordial,” Yvon replied. “Hail Asmodeus.”

Farideh woke to the bright light of full morning, Havilar still dead to the world beside her, and Mehen snoring noisily on the floor. She clambered over her sister and went, unsteadily, to the window, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

The courtyard below was nearly empty of carts and horses. Most of the travelers must have gotten underway before the sun was up and baking. Farideh glanced back at Mehen, still sleeping hard. He would have wanted them up early too-before he had the whiskey. He might have been big, but Mehen didn’t hold his drink very well.

For her part Farideh only felt a little muzzy, but that had more to do with how she’d slept-or rather not slept. She opened the window to get a breeze going and leaned out a little ways. She needed to find Brin before Mehen was up-to make sure he would indeed travel with them and work out some story to keep Mehen from overreacting. Ask him some more about warlocks before the priest turned up. If Brin was passing as a refugee, she might need him once they got to Neverwinter so she could find those warlocks.

She poured some water in the basin and rubbed herself a little cleaner with the rag provided, before pulling on her jacks and the hooded robe. Over the basin, a cheap bronze mirror hung, and Farideh stood before it a moment, considering her reflection, considering a face she had looked at in one form or another nearly every moment of her life. The nose was too proud, she thought, the chin too weak for the heavy ridge of horn across her forehead. Why didn’t it look that way on Havilar? With one hand she carefully covered her silver eye, and watched herself for a moment.

“What are you doing?” Havilar said. Farideh whipped around. Havilar was squinting at her from the bed.

“Nothing,” she said. “Washing up. It’s getting late. We should go.” She turned and shook Mehen awake, careful to avoid his belch of lightning breath and Havilar’s scrutinizing gaze. She didn’t want to talk to her sister just then, or be in the crowded little room.

One’s a curiosity, she thought, closing the door behind her and pulling up her hood. A little attention, but not a lot. She could go and find Brin and explain things and no one would get riled. She crept down the stairs.

Brin wasn’t in the taproom. She hurried through and out the door. The courtyard was far quieter than it had been the night before-only a man in a blue cloak sleeping on a broken wagon near the inn’s stables, a few dozen people milling around the well at the end of the street, and a handful of travelers sitting on the inn’s portico, enjoying the sun.

Farideh hesitated, peering at the people around the well and the remaining few wagons. Brin was not there either. If he’d left already … she’d just have to find a way into the city herself. Maybe they wouldn’t care. Maybe they wouldn’t stop her. Gods, it would be so much easier with someone who looked like they belonged.

Especially since she knew she might be going alone.

Mehen had agreed to take their new patron as far as Neverwinter, but not to go into the city. Knowing Mehen, he wouldn’t want to linger, particularly not for Farideh to stop and find other warlocks. She might have to part ways with him then, and Havi, too, if she didn’t decide to stay with Farideh. It made her stomach flip. Surely Mehen wouldn’t be so angry as to abandon her?

She thought of the way he’d dressed her down the night before, and the day before that. You’re not as lamb-brained as he thinks you are, Lorcan had said. He was right. Mehen treated her as if she couldn’t make a single decision without-

“Well met, my lovely,” a rough voice called.

Farideh started and turned just enough that she could see the man, a wiry fellow sitting among a group of similarly well-dressed men and women under the edge of her hood. Daggers and drinks on all of them.

“Coins bright, girl? Give us your name and you and your glim little figure come join us.”

She turned and started walking toward the stables. His friends sniggered.

“I’m speaking to you,” the man called. She heard him stand and start across the dry grass. The stables were still half the road away, when he caught up to her. “You might well give me a ‘well met’ or a fair glance.” He grabbed her arm.

Farideh jumped and twisted away from him. She pulled her arm up and brought her elbow down hard on his hand, breaking his grip. Hardly thinking of anything but Mehen’s training, she thrust her hand out against his chest and shoved him back with the base of her palm.

It clearly startled him. He slapped her hand aside more in instinct than anything else, there was so little intent behind the strike. But she stepped away from it … and into the rut of a wagon wheel. Her ankle turned and she tumbled to the ground, her hood flying back as she landed. His friends were roaring now.

If the fact that she’d rebuffed him had startled the man, the sight of her horns shocked him. He took a step back, then glanced back at his laughing friends. “Watching gods. You’re one of those Ashmadai,” the man said.

What that meant, Farideh had no notion. But the disgust in his voice was unmistakable. She didn’t have to worry about him harassing her into his company anymore. She wasn’t even a person anymore.

The fount of power that was the Hells swelled, and she felt the connection to her prime. She didn’t seize it. Not yet. But the threat of the man standing over her riled her nerves and the shadow miasma started to float off her. It took too much of her concentration to keep it from showing.

“No,” she said. “You have me mistaken.”

“Mistaken?” he snorted. “Much mistaken, just as you had Patrice Roaringhorn mistaken when your kind got him murdered.” His friends were closing on them now. “Wasn’t very wise to leave the mark of your dark god on everything.”

“Watching gods, Roglarr,” the bearded man hissed as he reached the young man. “You’re acting like an idiot. Tavern tales don’t make a murder. Patrice ran off with the wrong sort.”

“Her sort,” Roglarr growled.

“Well,” the dark-haired woman said, “you were perfectly willing to get up her skirts a minute ago. You can’t blame Patrice.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Roglarr pulled his dagger. Farideh started to speak the word that made the screaming blast of energy.

A hand caught Roglarr’s wrist, and a calm voice said, “Put the dagger down.”

Farideh stopped mid-curse. The power flowed back, waiting, swirling.

Roglarr looked up, puzzled, at the man who had been dozing in the broken cart only moments before. The sun caught the silver of the pin he wore on his blue cloak-an elaborate design of stars and eyes-and the metal of the chain he wore wrapped around his waist. Farideh’s attention lingered on the pin. As lovely as it was, it spelled trouble: in his shabby dress, a piece that fine could only be a holy symbol, the mark of a priest.

The man raised his eyebrows, like a tutor waiting for an errant pupil to answer. Roglarr sneered and fought the older man’s grip, but couldn’t free himself.

“Put the dagger down.”

“She’s a cultist,” he said. “A worshiper of devils.”

The priest looked down at her, his dark eyes amused. “Ah. Yes. I see what you mean now. Alone, unarmed, emblems of not a single god-good or evil-on her person-”

“They hide them, of course,” the younger man said. “Now take your hand off of me, and help me find someone to bring her to justice.”

“It sounded,” the priest said, “as if you’ve had some tragedy of late. That can make a man foolish. If I don’t miss my guess, your friend fell in with a bad crowd while you were having yourselves a little adventure in Neverwinter, hm?” He looked down at Farideh. “My dear, have you ever been to Neverwinter?”

“No,” Farideh said. She stood, carefully, testing her weight on her ankle.

“Waterdeep?”

“Just the edge. Not past the wall.”

“So,” he said turning back to Roglarr, “it seems very unlikely that you have found yourself a secret member of the cult your friend joined, and much more likely you merely find yourself a bit embarrassed about calling down this lass and finding something you weren’t expecting. Put the dagger away, Roglarr. Go back to your drinking and stop hunting for trouble.”

The young man looked as if he’d rather snap the priest’s head off, but instead he jerked his hand away and sheathed the dagger, before stomping back into the inn, his friends trailing.

“Many thanks,” Farideh said once he’d gone. The man gave her a little bow.

“Not at all,” he said. “Of course,” he added, “if you are a member of a dark god’s cult, I shall be terribly embarrassed myself.”

Farideh blushed, and set her mouth in a hard line. “You needn’t worry.”

“Oh, my apologies,” the priest said, with a chuckle. “I’m merely teasing, and doing a rotten job of it. You’re one of the dragonborn’s girls, aren’t you? Did he tell you we’d be traveling together?”

“Oh,” Farideh said. That was where she’d seen him. The priest from the caravan. “Yes, he mentioned.”

He held out a hand. “I’m Tam.”

“Farideh,” she said, taking his proffered hand gingerly. The man grinned, and Farideh was surprised at how bright his teeth were.

“Well met, Farideh.” He looked back over her shoulder. “Where is Mehen? We were supposed to meet this morning.”

“He’s coming,” she said. “He wasn’t feeling well.” She smiled nervously, careful to keep her own pointed teeth covered.

“He seems trustworthy,” Mehen had said the night before, after telling them of the priest’s offer. “But, Fari, he’s still a priest. Sword only from here on out, and don’t test that. You’ll need to keep Lorcan’s spells a secret.”

My spells, she thought, standing before the priest. She wondered if he had spells of his own, or his goddess’s, that might tease out her connection to Lorcan whether she kept it hidden or not.

But all that worry was making the shadow-smoke start to leak out around her, trying to protect her. She held very still to keep it undisturbed, and tried to slow her breath. The priest kept looking at her.

“You come from Tymanther?” he asked. She nodded-it was close enough.

He grinned. “Whatever they say, I promise I don’t bite.”

At best, the dragonborn had little interest in the gods. At worst, they disdained them, saw them as little better than the dragon overlords and cruel titans their ancestors had escaped when their world had collided with Toril. She knew the only reason Mehen hadn’t dragged her to a priest to see about having the pact stripped away was that he hadn’t run out of options that didn’t involve making him beholden to some god or other.

But the sands in that hourglass were running low-sooner or later, he’d insist they try.

“Oh, well … we didn’t live in the city. We … came from a village on the frontier,” Farideh said. “There were … the midwife was a priestess of Chauntea.”

“Well, I promise you, priests of Selune are just as harmless and mostly just as pleasant.”

Farideh smiled so she would not tell Tam what a horror dealing with Criella had really been. “I’m sure,” she said after a moment.

Brin came out of the stables then, picking straws from his hair. Farideh started to excuse herself, but Tam caught sight of Brin.

“Ah!” he said. “Farideh, I’d like you to meet my apprentice. Brin. He’ll be accompanying us to Neverwinter as well. Brin, you might remember Farideh?”

A look of surprise passed over Brin’s face, and Farideh pursed her lips. An apprentice priest? He’d left that out. Gods, what had she admitted to the night before?

“We’ve met,” she said.

“Yes,” Brin said. “I … we talked last night.”

“Oh good,” Tam said, with a hard look at Brin. “You took my advice.”

“There you are!” Havilar said, bounding up to them. “Why didn’t you wait for me? Good morning, Brin.”

Farideh flushed. “You were still sleeping,” she said to Havilar, even though she didn’t take her eyes off Tam. “And I just wanted to talk to Brin alone.”

“About what?” Havilar said, turning to Brin.

“About Neverwinter,” Farideh said. “This is … Tam,” she said, ignoring the daggers her sister was staring at her. “He’s the one Mehen said we’d escort. He’s Brin’s … master. This is my sister Havilar.”

“Oh,” Havilar said, though Farideh noticed she had the decency to look chagrined at ignoring him. “You were the one with the chain. It’s a very nice weapon. Well met.”

“Well met,” Tam said, “and I return the compliment. It’s not often you find such a spry glaivemaster. And Mehen?” he asked Farideh. “Will he be ready to leave soon?”

“Yes,” Havilar said. “Definitely.” She traded a glance with Farideh. “Before midday at the very latest.”

Traveling that day was faster and quieter than the day before had been. Farideh stayed as far from Tam as she could, lest her nerves overtake her and she do something stupid. It meant she was usually lagging behind everyone but Mehen, who was still nursing a headache.

But it meant she had time to think.

Lorcan had let her be all morning. If she were lucky, he was busy with other things and she could get to Neverwinter without having to worry about how to hide her pact from Tam or Brin. As long as she kept her sleeves down and she used her sword, they wouldn’t have a reason to think about whether or not she was really a sorcerer.

She wished she knew something about sorcerers. All she was sure of was they didn’t need a spellbook the way wizards did. She chewed her lip. In Neverwinter, it might do to buy a large book and a staff, so that she might pass as a wizard.

But with Brin, she would have to broach the subject eventually. She needed help-as little as she knew about sorcerers, she knew less about other warlocks. If Mehen and Havilar left-if, she reminded herself-she needed another ally. She’d have to tell him. She’d never actually told anyone she was a warlock before. No one but Mehen and Havilar. And the village.

He might be afraid. He might run off. If he was learning from a priest, he might do worse.

She watched the back of the Selunite priest, walking along ahead of her. She remembered enough of him from the attack on the caravan to be worried. Not the sort to pray and wait. If he found out about her pact, what were the chances he would run off? Slim, it seemed, remembering the way his chain had lashed out and struck down an orc with an explosion of silver light.

And Brin was his apprentice. What were the chances he was only learning the chain? Or the casting of rituals? Or … whatever else Selunites did? Charting the moon?

Farideh almost wished that Lorcan were there. That she could ask him what to do. As much as he made her stomach twist, he did tend to be right. If she could piece off the parts of his advice that didn’t aid her and keep the parts that did …

If she could do that, she wouldn’t need to find another warlock.

She thought of the way Lorcan had grabbed her arm when Sairche appeared-as if he wasn’t going to let go of her, as if he expected someone was going to physically take her away. And he didn’t want that. He wanted to keep her close. Close as that night in the winter, his fingertips tracing her brand …

The thought sent a little thrill through her, and she shook her head as if she could fling it from her mind. Havilar was right: they needed to meet more people.

With a little distance, Farideh was certain that everything Lorcan had said and done was for Sairche’s sake. Because Sairche was clearly not supposed to know Farideh was Lorcan’s warlock.

Just as Farideh was not supposed to know that Sairche might care whether or not she was. All that teasing was just Lorcan leading Farideh astray. Trying to keep her from worrying. But why would he worry about Sairche knowing she was his warlock? Why would it be better for her to think she was his lover?

The sun hung down to the treetops before they reached the edge of Neverwinter Wood. There the trees were thicker-evergreens and birches interspersed with broad-crowned oaks. They were close to the city, but not close enough. They’d have to camp one more night and arrive in the morning.

“We’re short on food,” Mehen said, shaking out his haversack. “We’ve waybread enough to get us to the city. But I think you’d all do better with something more substantial. Go bring down some rabbits.”

“Karshoj to rabbits,” Havilar said ripely, once they’d gone a ways into the thick woods. She kneeled beside a break in the brush and pointed at a small pile of droppings. “Let’s get a deer.”

“A deer?” Brin said. “There are only five of us.”

Havilar looked back over her shoulder and grinned. “You haven’t seen Mehen eat yet.”

Brin stopped walking to stare at Havilar, and Farideh had to laugh. “No, stop, Havi. Mehen doesn’t eat much at all. He says he uses his food better than us. We don’t need a deer.”

Havi smiled at her. “But it sure would be fun to take one down.”

“All right,” Farideh said. “But only once. If we miss we go back to pheasants and rabbits. We don’t have time to track a herd through the whole damned forest.”

“I only need one try,” Havilar said.

The deer left spoor enough to follow through the evergreens and spry birch saplings. They wound through the trees and around thickets of brambles, until the flora cleared. In a glade nearly a hundred feet across, a herd of half-a-dozen deer grazed on the thick patches of grass, their graceful heads lifting now and again to listen for danger.

Havilar gestured: Go around. Flush them out. Farideh nodded once and tugged on Brin’s sleeve, gesturing down the side track. She pressed a finger to her lips, and they started down the trail.

Farideh kept an eye on the deer through the brush and branches. They kept grazing, unaware of the hunters’ approach. They crept around them nearly a quarter mile.

The snap of a branch made Farideh freeze and the deer lift their heads in alarm. Behind her, she heard Brin come to a stop. The deer stared, one-eyed, in their direction.

Damn, Farideh thought. The deer did not return to grazing. Another sound-any sound-and they would flee.

Which was fine, provided they fled in the right direction.

“Brin?” she said, soft as she could. “When I reappear, run at them and keep them headed toward Havi.”

Without waiting for his reply, Farideh pulled Lorcan’s powers into her and she slipped through the folds of the world, bursting free along the herd’s left side. The deer scattered-but because she’d come along the herd’s left flank, at least one veered toward Havilar crouched in the brush. Brin ran at them, keeping the deer from breaking toward the rear. Two harts zigzagged toward Havilar’s hiding place.

“Havi!” Farideh shouted.

She heard the crash of Havilar’s glaive …

And then Havilar cursing, and the continuing crash of the tiefling and the hart tearing into the woods.

“Maybe she wounded it?” Brin said, catching up to Farideh.

“Maybe we’re eating waybread for supper,” she replied. “Come on.” They started across the meadow, when a strange growling howl confronted them from the far side. Both froze and Brin’s hand went to his sword.

Lumbering out of the woods from the direction they were heading, a beast, heavy with muscle and bristling with brassy feathers, had spotted them. It swung its head, glaring at them with one bright yellow eye, then another, and clacking its beak. It drew back onto its hind legs and screeched again.

“Oh, karshoj,” Farideh swore. The owlbear screamed again and her knees buckled, but Brin grabbed her arm and started pulling her away across the glade, away from that spine-chilling scream. The owlbear galloped after them. At the edge of the woods, Farideh turned.

“Adaestuo.” The blast screamed across the field and struck the owlbear. It shrieked again but did not slow.

They darted through the birches that grew close together. The owlbear waded in after them, shoving the trees aside. As they rounded a small grove, Farideh turned again and pointed at a sapling.

“Assulam!” The tree shattered into chips and pieces. The owlbear kept coming, barreling over the snags of tree and into the cloud of splinters. It pulled up short and screeched, pawing at its eyes and snapping its beak.

Farideh and Brin ran, dodging through the trees, Farideh turning back again and again to cast blasts of energy. The owlbear howled and crashed after them, shouldering aside the saplings that blocked it. If she could set one on fire-

Brin threw up his arm and caught her. Farideh whipped her head around and saw, ahead of them, the ground dropped away into a steep ravine. The floor was a good forty feet below them, the opposite side a crumbling ledge at least as far away. If she’d kept on, she’d be lucky to have broken her legs.

The owlbear broke free of the tangle of birch saplings.

Brin started to pull his sword, but Farideh grabbed his arm. The Hells seeped into her blood with whispering promises and boiling shadows. The layers between the worlds split neatly as flesh beneath a scalpel, and she pulled Brin through. Where they went in those moments, Farideh didn’t know, didn’t want to know. She kept her eyes shut and focused on landing at the bottom of the ravine.

A gust of biting, hot smoke and they tumbled out of the passage, falling the last ten feet to the ravine floor. The wind went out of Farideh, and she lay on her back trying to catch her breath.

Brin rolled onto his feet and pulled his sword out, glancing around for a moment as if he couldn’t tell how he got where he was.

“It’s … all right,” Farideh panted. She pointed up the cliff. The owlbear was still up there pacing back and forth, stirring up the deadfall, whuffling and hooting.

Brin stared at the cliff a moment, as if waiting for the owlbear to tumble after them and resume the chase. When it continued its frantic pacing and did not, he turned and helped Farideh to her feet.

“That spell comes in useful,” he said, catching his breath. “Only I wish it didn’t smell so bitter. That and I wish I knew how you managed it.”

Farideh looked up the cliff. “I don’t think we should climb back up there.”

“There should be a way past it,” Brin said. “They’re territorial, owlbears-we must have crossed into its range. If we walk a little ways along the ravine, it will be safer to climb up.” He shook his head and started walking. “Nothing makes you realize the world is a mad place like owlbears. You think they’re so silly-looking, and then they’re eating your face in strips.”

Farideh followed after him. “How do you know all of these things? Owlbears and types of magic and such?”

“Well-rounded education,” Brin said.

“I didn’t know Selunites studied such things.”

“Who? Oh … right.” He looked at her sidelong. “Listen, please don’t tell Mehen, but … I’m not really Tam’s apprentice. I mean, I agreed to be until we get to Neverwinter, but not for any reason other than I needed blades to travel with. I’m not a Selunite any more than I’m still Tormish.”

Farideh felt a weight come off her shoulders. “Good! Oh, good.” He gave her another look and she blushed. “I don’t know how to talk to priests.”

“Same as anyone else,” he said with a chuckle. “ ‘Fine afternoon. Do you come to this ravine often?’ ”

She smiled. “ ‘What is your opinion on owlbears?’ ”

Brin chuckled. “Precisely.”

Farideh glanced up at the ravine’s edge again. “Do you think it will go after Havilar?”

“Not if it knows what’s good for it.”

They continued along the ravine for a good quarter hour or more, before the calls of the owlbear faded into the distance, and then they walked farther to make certain it was behind them, before they came upon a scraggly tree clinging to the side of the ravine. Brin, then Farideh, clambered up the tree, then used the rocky outcrops of the ravine wall to pull themselves to the top.

Farideh took a moment to dust her robes off and rub her aching palms where the sharp rocks had scraped the skin. She glanced up at the sun: they’d lost Havilar almost an hour ago. Hopefully, she had the presence of mind to go back to Mehen and Tam instead of coming after Farideh and Brin. Havilar could make an owlbear plenty angry, but Farideh wouldn’t place odds on who would prevail between the two.

“That’s odd,” Brin said. “What do you suppose it is?”

Farideh looked where he was pointing. A tall, silvery-barked oak tree stood in a sparse patch of the forest, away from the firs and birches. The trunk of the tree had been burned with three triangles, their points nearly touching. The outline of a larger triangle surrounded them, as did a nine-sided shape.

“It’s branded on,” she said. Her head was getting muzzy. “Do you think it’s a message? A sort of warning?”

“No,” Brin said. “I mean, they aren’t runes of any sort. Not any sort I know.” He tilted his head. “Why would someone burn it into a tree? Way out here too.”

Farideh didn’t know. But something about it tugged at her. The way her brand tugged. As if the tree had sent out an invisible vine and wrapped it around her sternum, pulling her nearer. She wanted to touch it, to run her fingers over the charred bark. It would feel alive, she thought.

She also wanted to run, fast and far.

No matter where you run, her thoughts whispered, it will be here. It will remember you.

“Farideh?” Brin’s voice sounded thin and distant. “Farideh?”

Why would it remember? she thought. It’s only a picture burned on a tree.

“Farideh!”

She reached out a hand toward it, noting-not surprised, merely noting-that the symbol had somehow grown.

No. She was closer. She’d walked toward the tree. The brand lay mere inches beneath her palm and-

The portal cracked as it opened. Brin cried out as strong hands seized Farideh from behind, wrenched her away from the tree, and broke the spell. Lorcan spun her around, lifting her off her feet. He all but threw her down and she tumbled to the ground, Lorcan standing between her and the strange tree.

“What in the Hells are you doing?” he roared. Embers swirled and popped around him.

Farideh opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. It was as if her mind were spinning-the thoughts wouldn’t come together. Her scar screamed with pain, and she stood unevenly.

“You little fool!” Lorcan snarled. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her backward. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

Brin’s sword scraped against his scabbard.

Farideh found her voice. “Brin, don’t!” Brin bellowed as he threw himself at Lorcan. The cambion turned on Brin.

A gust of fire cast Brin backward into the deadfall, scorching his clothes. He threw up his hands to ward off the devil’s attack. Flames built in Lorcan’s hands to cast again.

“Stop it!” Farideh stepped between them, the burning smoke burgeoning in her own palms. Lorcan’s eyes widened, and for a moment, he looked surprised. Then rage came down over his features again.

“Get out of the way.”

“And then what? Let you burn him alive and leave me to take the blame?”

“Get out of the way or I’ll burn you both!”

“No you won’t!” Farideh snapped. Her arms were shaking, her whole frame was shaking, but of that much she was certain; he wouldn’t dare.

Lorcan bared his teeth in a cruel smile. “I can hurt you without killing you, my darling. I’ll kill him and bring you-”

“No,” she said, “you won’t.” She took a step toward him. “You kill him? I’ll break the pact.”

Lorcan went very still. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

She wet her lips. She thought of naming Tam-surely the priest could do it if she asked. But Lorcan might only swoop in and kill Tam then. Her heart rattled. He could. He probably would. He wasn’t afraid of the priest-

“Sairche,” she blurted.

Lorcan started. “Don’t.”

“I’ll find her.” Farideh felt her cheeks burning, but she dared not back down now. “I’ll find a way. I think your sister might be willing to help me. That’s why you lied, isn’t it? So she wouldn’t know I was your warlock?” The words spilled out, much as she meant to stop them. “It was nothing about … about …”

“Hush,” Lorcan said.

Farideh stepped back, watching for his inevitable temper. It didn’t come. Something she’d said had eased his rage. Lorcan stood, glaring at Brin for a long moment.

“Get up,” he spat. He tried to take Farideh by the hand, but she pulled away. What had taken him down so quickly? she wondered. She had been ready for a fight, and Lorcan’s sudden calm frightened her more.

Lorcan scowled, but beckoned to them both to follow. He led them through the briars and back to the edge of the meadow where they’d lost the hart.

“There,” he said. “That’s your way back. Get back on the road and far from here.”

“Thank you,” Farideh said. She looked back the way they’d come, toward the strange tree. “Lorcan? Those triangles? I didn’t know-”

“Listen to me, darling.” His eyes burned as he looked down at Farideh. “That symbol is dangerous. More dangerous than you have ever … You can’t imagine it. That symbol is your village the day we met a hundred times over, and a hundred times over again, all right?”

Farideh nodded. He spoke quickly. Sternly. But underneath it … his voice shook like a leaf. Whatever it was, he was terrified of the three triangles.

“You see that symbol-on a person, on a tree, on a bloody side of bacon-you run. You can’t run, you hide. You don’t call me. You don’t call on my powers.” He pursed his lips a moment. “Be careful. You’re right. I don’t want you hurt.”

Farideh flushed again, annoyed. “So you suddenly care about me?”

The fear and the rage fled Lorcan’s features and they settled into his familiar smirk. “I take care of all my belongings. I brought you something. Timely, it seems.” As if from nowhere, he withdrew a rod as long as her forearm. Etched all over with the same swirls that made up her scar and tipped with a cloudy gray piece of quartz. As he placed it in her hands, it was as if the connection that brought her spells into being cleared and straightened, the power flowing more easily from its source.

Her scar prickled.

“What is it?”

“A little gift,” Lorcan said. “To keep you safe.”

“Unless the three triangles are around,” she said.

“Unless that.”

She turned the rod over in her hands. “Thank you.”

“I’m sure you’ll return the favor soon enough,” he said. “You’re still heading to Luskan, aren’t you?”

“That direction.”

“Promise me this, Farideh,” he said, tipping her chin up. She stiffened at his touch. “Don’t stop along the way. The cities aren’t safe.”

With that, he vanished.

Brin cleared his throat, and Farideh was surprised to realize she’d forgotten he was there. She flushed to her temples.

“It isn’t what you think.”

“Oh?” Brin said. “Tell me what I think again?”

“Please,” she said, a lump in her throat, “just please, listen. It’s not … I’m not evil. I’m not a devil. I’m not anything like this looks.”

“It looks like you have a pact with a fiend. It looks like you’re not so much a sorcerer as … as a warlock.”

Farideh bit her lip. “Yes, all right, that’s true.”

“So that’s the truth, then?” Brin said. “Why you were cast out of your village?”

“It’s the rest of the truth,” she said. “Taking the pact made the house explode.”

“And you don’t see why that might make people upset?” he said. “You don’t see why they might not want you around? Loyal Torm, I thought you had a little sense.”

She had sense enough to know that this had been bound to happen from the start. She closed her eyes a moment, to quell the fury that felt as if it might burst out of her.

“Brin,” she said, “do you know the most mischievous, troublesome thing I’d ever done before that day?”

Brin hesitated. “No.”

“I taught Havilar all the Draconic swear words I’d picked up from listening in on Mehen and his friends. The most careless thing I’d ever done? I didn’t tell Mehen for a day when Havilar broke her wrist, because she begged me not to.” She opened her eyes and met Brin’s. “And I told him anyway when I saw how it had swollen.”

“So?”

“So, I wasn’t trouble,” she said. “I was as good as I could be. I made a mistake. I didn’t take the pact because I wanted to misbehave or hurt anyone. It didn’t happen because I was troublesome and out of hand. It was a mistake, and no matter how bad a mistake, that is not a flaw in me! The only person I hurt was myself.”

Brin shook his head slowly. “But you made a pact with a devil. Loyal Fury. How could you? How could you?”

“What do you want from me, Brin?” she said hotly. “I’m not like you. I can’t just decide to go off into the world and make my way without help.”

“There are a lot more ways to get help than offering up your soul.”

“He doesn’t have my soul,” she said. “And even if he did, so what? I’m a tiefling. A soul was never a surety.”

“Don’t start with that,” he said. “This has nothing to do with what you are. It’s what you’ve done.”

She laughed bitterly. “Oh? Is that so? Then you think a human girl, an elf girl, Hells, even a dragonborn girl would have gotten the same? That she would have spent her whole life doing everything they said, taking every snide comment in stride, and made one mistake-one very bad mistake-and had only her sister and her guardian and a devil on her side?” Tears blurred her sight and she turned from Brin to wipe them away. “Not one other person tried to help. Not one other person took my side. Not one pointed out that it might be possible to free me of the pact. You would have thought I’d been wicked right from the cradle the way they responded. He was right,” she said half to herself. “He’s always right.” Farideh looked back at Brin. “You’re the one with no sense if you think being a tiefling had nothing to do with that.”

Brin couldn’t quite meet her eye. “You still said yes,” he said, more softly. “And … I cannot understand that. Why would you tie yourself to something so evil?”

“He’s … He’s not so bad.” Farideh looked off toward the road, her heart leaden in her chest. “Haven’t you ever just … you want something, anything, to make things different than they are? You’d give anything to just have a little bit of control over your life.”

“So you give someone else control?” Brin stopped himself. The tightness around his eyes relaxed. “Maybe,” he said after a moment.

“Perhaps there are other ways,” she said. “And I would consider them if they came along. But that day, my choices were to be crushed under the weight of the world’s expectations or … to take a little bit of control from a devil.”

“You’re playing with very dangerous powers-”

“I know what I’m ‘playing with,’ ” she said. “And you’ve seen me use those powers. I saved you. I stopped those orcs. I’m not … I don’t hurt people unless I have to. Does it count for anything that I use the powers he gives me for good things?”

“Yes,” Brin said after a moment, “for you. But you’re taking the powers of the Hells. You’re not going to convince me those aren’t purely evil.” He looked back at the spot where Lorcan had stood. “And him …”

“Lorcan,” she said. “His name’s Lorcan.”

“Loyal Fury,” Brin said. “You can’t tell me he’s safe.”

“He’s safe enough. Mehen doesn’t like him. But he’s never brought me to harm.”

“Yet,” Brin said.

“It’s a tool,” she said. “I can use the pact to protect people. To help people. It’s better than my damned sword.”

“Even if it is like a sword,” Brin said. “It can still hurt you. He can still hurt you.”

As if she hadn’t heard that before. As if she hadn’t thought it herself. Farideh shook her head. “I know what I’m doing.”

Brin didn’t have a response to that. He shook his head again, as if he didn’t like the way their conversation had gone.

“Does he always … overreact like that? Push you around?”

“No,” Farideh said. She thought again of the symbol and the way it pulled at her. “Something frightened him.”

“That’s a funny way to be frightened,” Brin said. “Do Havilar and Mehen know he treats you that way?”

“Let’s just go back to the camp,” Farideh said. She started toward the other side of the meadow, then turned to Brin. “Don’t tell anyone. Please. Especially not Tam.”

“Why would you think I’d do something like that? I don’t like your pact, but I’m not going to get you in trouble.”

“I … don’t,” she said. “Not specifically. I’m just worried he’ll find out.” She rolled the rod between her hands. “There’s something strange about him.”

Brin stopped. “Strange how?”

She shrugged. “He’s always watching, as if he’s trying to figure something out. Mehen trusts him-which is pretty strange too.” She sighed. “I am really sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t … I don’t ever know how to bring it up.”

Brin sighed too. “I know better than you think. I mean,” he added quickly, “not that all the running away is as dangerous as it is to admit you’re a warlock with an infernal pact.” He wet his lips. “Do you hate all priests?”

“The woman who led the call to kick me out of the village was a priestess of Chauntea,” she said. “A tiefling too.”

“She’s not every priest.”

“I’ve yet to meet one who thought much at all of me. I don’t trust them. I can’t trust them when I don’t know what to expect from them.” She kicked the deadfall. “When common knowledge is that you haven’t got a soul worth saving, it tends to make them do things I’d rather they not.”

“I think you have a soul,” Brin offered.

“You also think we’ll believe your hair is really that color,” Farideh pointed out. “Even when you’re sweating brown. Let’s get back to camp.”

Lorcan released the charm and with it, the invisibility that had cloaked him fell away. He watched as Farideh and Brin disappeared into the forest on the other side of the meadow, holding firm against the rage that threatened to overtake him and drive him out across the field where he could rip that little shit’s head right off. He supposed, with a certain studied calm, that was his mother’s blood coming through.

And Farideh …

She hadn’t listened to the boy. Not then. But if Brin stayed around much longer, he would keep talking and cajoling and arguing. He’d wear her down the way Lorcan couldn’t seem to.

It probably wouldn’t take much, Lorcan thought, considering how she’d threatened to go to Sairche. She was pulling away, stepping out of her proper place. Listening to Mehen. Treating Lorcan like something she could set aside.

Like a tool. Like her sword.

She’s not as lamb-brained as you think she is either, he mused. The most difficult warlock in his retinue by far.

If only Lorcan could have snatched Farideh up and left Brin standing dumbstruck in the forest, so close to one of the groves of the Ashmadai, the proud and bloodthirsty cultists of Asmodeus.

Lords, how Lorcan had panicked when he’d seen her reaching for the sign of Asmodeus. If he hadn’t been scrying, she might have been lured into the Ashmadai’s hands. Whatever they did next, he’d have lost his Kakistos heir for certain. He ran his fingers through his hair. Lost her in a bloody, bloody fashion. The residual magic of a hundred sacrifices packed those groves. They didn’t play nicely with other archdevils’ pawns either.

Ashmadai in Neverwinter Wood, he thought. The archduchess’s only agent in Neverwinter, his mother had said. And Glasya was doing something her father shouldn’t know about.

Stop thinking about it, he admonished. He didn’t want to puzzle it out. He didn’t want to stumble on the answer. But he needed to know enough to keep Farideh safe.

“She won’t go to Neverwinter,” he said. “She’s going to Luskan.” He smiled. “And the little nit will be dead by morning.”

Vartan, Rohini thought, was no Brother Anthus.

In the midst of one of his interminable lectures, the half-elf poured her a glass of zzar, and Rohini smiled and thanked him. Inwardly, she was twisting with an impatience to rival Invadiah’s, but outwardly she had a face to maintain.

“So the question is obvious,” Vartan said. “Why might a god like Helm’s mantle be taken up by another, while a god like Mystra’s portfolio is left untouched?”

“That is a good question,” Rohini said. He did not want her opinion. He wanted her to listen to his. It left her plenty of time to study Vartan for weak points.

Rohini had come to Neverwinter with a simple task: corrupt Brother Anthus, the Sovereignty’s darling, and turn him into a tool for Glasya’s cause. Don’t ask what the cause is, just make him amenable the way she knew best, and await further orders. She’d remade herself a stern and capable healer-pretty, but the sort who doesn’t notice or worry about her prettiness. The sort a certain kind of man felt clever for noticing.

Anthus had noticed. He’d brought her into his circle, shared his wisdom with her, drawn her into his confidences. Not even Invadiah could have complained of her progress, and none of it had required more magic than the shapeshifting. Rohini was the best, after all.

She picked up the glass of zzar and swirled the pale liquor.

Anthus had been an older man, his hair thin and silver and his face gaunt, but his appetites robust and his eyes sharp. It was not such a lie that her little nurse might find the good brother attractive enough to bed.

Rohini suspected not even the devils knew, but abed with a succubus, one was cracked open, vulnerable as a sacrifice pinned to an altar. In Anthus’s arms she’d seen his thoughts, his fears, the truth of his connection to the Sovereignty. She ran a tongue over her lips. Nothing as exhilarating as digging your hands into someone’s secret heart.

Afterward, Anthus had poured glasses of zzar, sat down in his chair, looked her in the eye, and said, “I know you, succubus.”

Rohini had acted hurt, that he should call her such a name. But he went on. “You’re not the first to come to Neverwinter,” he said. “I’ll wager you knew that one. You wouldn’t go around with that hair otherwise.”

He swirled the zzar in his glass, oblivious to the challenge he was laying on her. Rohini pulled her magic to her, prepared to cast the net of her domination, when Anthus spoke again.

“Arunika,” he said, and her spell shattered into pieces. “That was her name. Herzgo’s redheaded slut.”

Had Glasya known? Rohini had wondered, and still wondered. Had Invadiah? Had they sent her because her sister had fled the Hells and holed up here in Neverwinter? Had Arunika been one of the failed scouts? Had they sent Rohini to find her or did they already know she’d find nothing?

“Where is she?” Rohini had asked.

“Dead of course,” Anthus said, and she realized for the first time how cruel and cold his eyes were, how empty. “Silly bitch hitched her wagon to the wrong man.”

Which, Anthus would later have admitted, had he voice to, was the wrong thing to say.

Rohini stared into the glass of zzar she held, while Vartan expounded on dead gods and dead ways. She had removed Anthus’s body, rearranging things to make it clear one of the dreadful creatures of the Chasm had killed him-after all, what else would dismember a body so? — as he took a walk through the less protected part of town. The Lord Protector ordered more patrols to beat back the Chasm’s horrors. Rohini made herself distraught and clung to Anthus’s colleagues, searching for a likely replacement. She had chosen Vartan because he was eager and a little desperate, but also a little rash.

But it wasn’t enough. Her mission was still in peril. Killing Anthus had been the greatest mistake she had ever made.

No-not a mistake. A flaw. She had killed Anthus because she wasn’t wholly a devil. Not yet. The rage that had seized her when Anthus taunted Rohini-called her sister a silly bitch-had made the erinyes’ cold fury look like a tantrum. It had been imprudent. It had been a passion of the moment. But it had sated something dark and frenzied that curled around the core of Rohini, that mad, demon spark the devils always whispered about.

I will not do so again, Rohini swore to herself. She would not end as Arunika had, a slave to her no-longer-constant nature. She was a devil now. She could become anything she wished if she played their game long enough.

“Have you discovered,” she asked Vartan, “how the … masters of the Chasm fit into this mystery?”

Vartan stopped, stunned that she’d interrupted him. He flushed. “Well. It’s not so simple is it? They are … well, we aren’t sure what they are, are we? Only that Anthus believed they were there, and so do … does the gentleman from before.” He waved a hand. “I’m beginning to believe there are much worthier areas of consideration. The Order of Blue Fire, for example …”

Rohini smiled tightly and let him go on again. Vartan was certainly no Anthus. When she’d killed him, Anthus had already been well-corrupted by the Abolethic Sovereignty. He’d had their secrets and a modicum of their trust, but also a strange power that made him speak in riddling prophecy on occasion. It hadn’t helped him see Rohini’s blades. Vartan had come to her a blank slate.

Whatever mortals liked to believe of themselves, Rohini knew a pretty face and a warm body weren’t the keys to a true seduction. Often enough with other succubi-sloppy, overeager ones like Arunika had been-that might be all the effort they put forth. Simple, satisfying, but not particularly convincing-a pretty face only worked longer than a night on the weakest sorts, and whatever mortals believed about themselves, most of them were not so desperate as that.

No, to truly seduce someone away from the path they’d made themselves took cunning and skill, took attention to detail and to the subtle shades of other people’s hopes and fears. Vartan might have been a lonely scholar of a man, and Arunika could have gotten him in bed and all his secrets out in the span of breaths. But Rohini didn’t need secrets: she needed action. She needed someone who desperately wanted to impress her, to surpass her. Pull the right levers and he’d do everything she needed without being told.

That plan didn’t please Invadiah at all.

“You have three days,” she’d said. “And if you do not have the aboleth for me, I will hand you back to Glasya and take care of matters myself.” And end up, Rohini thought, with a score of dead or spellscarred erinyes and a riled pack of aboleths, the ancient creatures that lurked in the depths of the Chasm.

Why Glasya wanted one of the giant, tentacled monsters from beyond, Rohini didn’t know. It was the sort of secret she knew better than to know. For all Rohini cared, Glasya wanted a new mount and thought a slime-coated tentacle-whale would do nicely.

Lords of the Hells, she hoped that was Glasya’s plan. When she’d been sent into Neverwinter, she’d merely been told to corrupt Anthus. Then to corrupt Vartan and to get him to tell her everything he knew about the Chasm. Then it became find out everything he knew about the aboleths. Then it was to goad him into gathering more information and putting himself into the circle of the Abolethic Sovereignty’s proxies, their mind-controlled servitors.

Now it was to get Invadiah an aboleth.

With every step, Invadiah’s words and actions spelled one thing very clearly: this mission was a gamble. If everything went well, Rohini and Invadiah both might be promoted.

If the wrong person found out, they were all in a great deal of trouble. And since the archduchess herself had set things in motion, the “wrong person” could only be another archdevil.

She drained her wine and dabbed at her mouth, staring down Vartan. He would not become useless to her now. Not with Invadiah breathing down her neck, not with everything breaking down and everyone ready to look for a scapegoat.

“You seem …” She held the pause for long enough that she seemed uncertain and worried. “Preoccupied. I do hope the, ah, gentleman didn’t trouble you yesterday.”

“Oh,” Vartan said. “No … No more than usual.”

“Vartan,” she said, her mouth stern, but her eyes soft-pleading even. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

“What?” he said. “Whyever would you think I’ve been lying to you?”

“I had thought,” she said, “I had hoped. That we were carrying on Anthus’s work together. But that isn’t so. You see me as a hindrance. As a nuisance.” She forced her lower lip forward in a pout so slight he would think it unintentional. The force of her feelings.

“No! No, not at all,” he said. He laid a hand on hers, the guilt in his gray eyes exactly what she was aiming for. “You’re right, I am distracted. Anthus’s … work is more complex than I expected, and points in different directions. But I assure you no one thinks you’re a hindrance.”

“Has the Sovereignty turned you away?” she said.

Vartan startled. That had him, she thought. “How do you know that name?” he demanded.

Rohini made sure her eyes sparkled with admiration as she said, “You ask me how? I learned from the most intelligent man on the Sword Coast and you ask me how?” She clasped her hand over his and held him there. “A bit of information here, a careless word there, a feverish tale told too loudly at a tavern. It’s true then? What they say? That they are creatures of astonishing knowledge?”

Vartan eyed her a moment. “You mustn’t go around speaking of this. It could be dangerous.”

“I’ve spoken to no one but you, I swear it. But that is … that is who Anthus was speaking to.”

Vartan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Rohini knew his part almost as well as her own, and didn’t need any cues to say all the right things.

“You are … brilliant, Vartan,” she said earnestly. “Wiser, I sometimes think, than Anthus ever was. And if their agents have not realized it and taken you into their confidence, then it is their blindness and nothing more.”

“You are kind,” he said. “But courting the Sovereignty is not akin to gaining a lordling’s attention. Even their servants are wiser than most people dream of. They know things … Even the weak-willed servitors they craft know things I cannot. My approaches have not been favored.”

Of course they hadn’t-Vartan had no doubt been coy and subtle as an old maid. Rohini sighed. “Would that there were some way, somehow, that you might channel your knowledge, your theories of the Chasm and the planes, into something grand. Something to astound them and make them take notice. Something to make them realize all they have lost by not hearing you!”

“I very much doubt the Sovereignty has any interest in curing spellplague, or reviving the gods.”

Rohini’s smile was small and sad, but inside, she felt like a wolf with bared teeth, gloating over a kill.

“I suppose they’d rather you infect people to get their attention,” she said offhandedly. A poor jest. A comment without any thought at all behind it. A comment that sparked something in Vartan’s thoughts.

He gave her a considered look. “That … Perhaps. They want servants to walk abroad for them, I believe. Improving them would doubtless please the Old Ones.”

“Stronger,” Rohini said, her voice high with wonder, “cleverer, faster, and imbued with spellscars. They would be well-protected by such, considering the fear of the Chasm.”

“Precisely.” Vartan turned to her, his features troubled still. “I … it would be dangerous. The odds-”

“You could, Vartan,” Rohini said. Passionate here, she thought. A touch overbold. Spread it thick. She laid a hand over his. “If anyone could, it is you. You are the wisest man I have ever known. Or ever will, I suspect.”

“You flatter me. There is so much I don’t know. They have reason to turn me away …”

Rohini nearly snarled-ages of this, and suddenly, Vartan was humble? To the Hells with subtlety. She thrust the domination over him.

“Harness what they have not,” she said, pulling the charm tighter, “and they cannot deny you are worthy of their knowledge. Their minds may be great, but they do not understand what it is that mortals fear-only they come upon it by their nature. Your servitors would show you can supply what they lack. In exchange for their knowledge of the rift. How to harness the rift.”

“You speak of madness,” he said, but there was no reprobation in his voice. He wanted to be convinced.

“I speak of your destiny,” Rohini said, letting the net of her charm close around him completely. “You were not made to play nursemaid to the Lord Pretender’s guards. I have seen your and Anthus’s notes, I have seen your work. You know how to all but guarantee a spellscar, and keep the infected from dying.” She placed her mouth close to his ear. “And I know how to make certain it inspires loyalty.” She kissed him, and like countless others before him, Brother Vartan was lost.

“And I will aid you,” Rohini said, as Brother Vartan nodded to her words like the puppet he was. “I will gather the army that it will take to prove to the Sovereignty you are worthy of their secrets.”

And get Invadiah, she thought, her damnable aboleth.