The Adversary

Chapter Fifteen

The Palace of Osseia Malbolge, the Nine Hells

If Lorcan’s erinyes half sisters had little idea of what to do with Sairché as their commander, they had even less idea of what to do with him. The last few days, each one he passed watched him as if she were trying to decide just how severe the punishment would be if she opted to swat him with the flat of her sword, like in the old days. Lorcan had made a point of avoiding their haunts and posts-he needed a better plan than “look like you belong” before he tempted the elite erinyes of the pradixikai.

But when he returned from Rhand’s fortress, full of words he hadn’t said and retorts he hadn’t made, keeping his guard up was the last thing on Lorcan’s mind.

If possible the wizard was worse than he’d imagined: unbearably smug, not the least bit concerned that a representative of the Hells themselves was standing in his chambers. Lorcan still wished he’d broken that smug grin, wished he’d given Farideh something to look at.

What did she tell you? Enough, he thought, blood boiling. He wasn’t an idiot. He hadn’t lapped up Sairché’s lies-and how dare she suggest it. He’d been at this long enough to spot the truth among the deceptions.

I cannot tell you how glad I am you’re safe. What else would she say, faced with her betrayal come undone? She promised. Oh, Lorcan thought, I’ll bet she did. He could just hear Sairché, “Not to worry. He’ll be taken care of.” I was trying-However she meant to finish, it only made him more angry. He’d told her not to trust Sairché, and she had. He’d told her not to talk to Temerity, and she had. He’d told her she was just another warlock and lied, baldly, for the first time he could recall.

He wished he’d prodded at Farideh, made her confess. Made her tell him every secret about that shitting wizard. Made her admit that she was in well over her head. Raged and threatened and made her remember he wasn’t some accessory she could discard-

“Lost, little brother?” Lorcan looked up-a trio of erinyes, one of the pradixikai and two lesser. Noreia with her wooly black dreadlocks, and the twins, Faventia and Fidentia.

Lorcan looked around. “Oh I don’t think so,” he said savagely. If ever in his life there were a time he would gladly go toe-to-toe with his terrible half sisters, it was that moment. “These are still my quarters. Do I need to find something for you to do?” Faventia and Fidentia traded glances.

“Baby sister might have something to say about that,” Noreia said. Did she say how I know him? Farideh had demanded. Why I didn’t tell you?

Lorcan bit his tongue. “She’d find it difficult.”

“Would she?” Faventia asked, lazily shifting her scabbard. “Where’ve you put her?”

“Why? Do you want to keep her company?”

Faventia smiled around her fearsome fangs. “Try it.”

“Go sort out those godsbedamned cultists,” Lorcan snarled. “Earn your bloody keep.”

All three erinyes collapsed into laughter.

“Lorcan,” Faventia drawled, “telling us to earn our keep?” Wordlessly, he slipped a ring over one finger, and flames swallowed his arm. The erinyes shifted-more aware, more prepared. Not willing to back down though.

“Aw, little brother,” Noreia crooned. “We were just starting to have fun.” Lorcan scowled. “ ‘We’ have nothing. .” His retort trailed away as pieces he didn’t even know were missing locked into place.

I was trying-Farideh had said, and in his memories Havilar’s voice finished the phrase she’d left hanging-to protect us.

Lorcan froze. Oh, Lords of the Nine.

“Maybe you don’t,” Noreia said. “But the three of us-”

“Shut up, Noreia,” Lorcan spat. He’d put everything together wrong.

He yanked the ring off as he turned on his heel. There was one way to be sure.

“What’s wrong, little brother?” Noreia called, while the others hooted and cackled. “Did you just remember who you’re talking to?” He made no response, but forced the portal open once more, slipping the ruby ring on his off-hand and concentrating on the necklace it was linked to.

He stepped out into the dim of twilight. Havilar was sitting as if at watch, her back against a huge oak. But her eyes were on the ground in front of her, lost in unhappy thoughts. Brin was nowhere to be seen.

Havilar startled when Lorcan called her name, a dagger in her hand as if it had leaped there. She glowered at him.

“Four breaths,” she said. “And you’re gone, or I kill you.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lorcan admonished. “If you could do that, I wouldn’t have come.” He looked around at the forest. “You’re a lot farther on than I expected. Brin didn’t make you turn back?”

“Two breaths,” she warned.

“Oh, calm down,” he said. “I want to ask you something.” Havilar narrowed her eyes and didn’t lower the weapon. But two breaths passed and she didn’t lunge. “Ask,” she said. “And go.”

Lorcan wet his mouth, half-hoping he was wrong. “You said Farideh was trying to protect us-”

“She was.”

Lorcan took a step back, just to calm her down. “I believe you. But who,”

he asked, “is ‘us’?”

Havilar lowered her dagger, staring at him as if he’d gone more than a little mad in the last two days. “What?”

“Is ‘us’ you and her?” he said. “Or is ‘us’. . you and me?”

“Are you joking?” Havilar demanded. “You stormed off and left Farideh to die because you thought she’d suddenly turned into a sensible person and let your sister have you? Of course I meant me and you!”

That Farideh would throw herself into a deal with Sairché to protect Havilar, he had never doubted. But to protect him. . “You didn’t hear her talk that night,” he said. “She was ready to dissolve the pact.” Havilar shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “She was angry at you-you don’t kill people just because you’re angry, you henish.” Her gaze flicked over him. “Maybe you do.”

“But it’s fine and good to give them up to their enemies? You can’t wish away that part of-”

“Why did you think your sister just laid there and let you pummel her?”

Havilar cried. “She’s not allowed to hurt us-that’s the whole karshoji reason Farideh even said yes. Gods, you don’t listen to anything. It’s like double-Farideh.” Lorcan fell quiet, weighing his words, remembering Sairché’s capture.

She’d fought back a little, hadn’t she? He’d been clever-caught her unawares, gotten her where she couldn’t do anything to him.

“If I recall correctly,” he said, “I was already protecting you just fine back in Proskur.”

“And if I ‘recall correctly,’ you were frozen like a statue when I came in, and your godsbedamned sister was stalking around with a wand. Really, astounding job of protecting us.” She glanced off to her right. “Brin, don’t!” Flames poured into his hands as Lorcan turned to where the Cormyrean stood, not three feet from him with his sword out. Behind, near the edge of the brush, was a brace of rabbits. He hadn’t heard a thing.

“Back away,” Brin said to Lorcan, and the cambion wondered if there were a godsbedamned thing that had gotten simpler in the intervening years. “Put your sword down,” Havilar said irritably. “I don’t need to be saved from Lorcan.”

Lorcan narrowed his eyes. “Oh really?” he said. “I’m fairly sure I could burn you before your dear darling’s sword hit me. Send you off to the cavern, plenty quick.”

“You could,” Havilar said. “But you won’t. If you hurt me and then go save Farideh, she’s not going to be happy with you.” She folded her arms. “Besides, we’re. . What’s less than friends? But not enemies, either?”

“Associates?” Brin said. “Collaborators?”

Lorcan shook the flames out. “Allies,” he said.

“Good enough,” Havilar said. Brin lowered his sword.

“She’s near here,” Lorcan said. “Maybe two days walking. Up on the mountain’s peak. There’s a fortress, a camp around it. She’s in there.”

“With the Netherese?” Brin asked.

“A wizard called Adolican Rhand.”

Neither of them spoke to him for a long moment. “That’s not funny,”

Brin finally said.

“It’s not meant to be,” Lorcan replied.

“You left her there?” Havilar cried. “With him? I told you he was-”

“You told me he wasn’t your type,” Lorcan snapped. He nodded at Brin.

“And I can see that-they’re not exactly a matched set, are they?” Havilar’s cheeks turned bright red.

“Adolican Rhand,” Brin said calmly, “is wanted for several murders in Waterdeep-grotesque murders. The watch would be after him for the rapes as well, only the victims are all dead and in pieces.”

Lorcan shut his eyes, the fine edge of guilt threatening his certainty. Not one of Rhand’s dark jests had bothered him in the slightest, aside from being not, in fact, amusing. Mortals said they’d do a lot of things, after all. They seldom followed through.

And if this one did. . He wondered if what Asmodeus would do to him would be the worst of it, after all.

“Farideh can handle herself,” he said, not sure of who he was trying to convince. “Besides, she has to stay. If she reneges on her deal with Sairché, she loses her soul.” If she hasn’t already, Lorcan thought. You still don’t know what’s happening.

“What are his forces like?” Brin asked.

“Well, it’s overrun with guards. And he is a wizard.”

Brin shook his head. “He’s not that powerful. He makes as if he is, but we’re pretty sure he’s been trading on scrolls he recovered from the library’s destruction.”

“You don’t have to be too powerful to hit a small force from a high point.” Brin shook his head. “The distance-”

“Stop talking!” Havilar shouted. “Lorcan, you go back and you save her.

Brin, we have to-”

“Eat,” Brin interrupted. “And rest. We can’t walk for two days on fear and anger.”

Havilar drew back as if he’d called her a filthy name. “How am I supposed to sleep knowing how much trouble my sister’s in?”

“It’s no more trouble than she’s been in since we left,” Brin reminded her.

“And we’re not going to get to her any faster if we collapse a hundred feet from the fortress. We’re still doing what we can.” Havilar turned from him, and Brin pursed his mouth.

“Also, I have some of Tam’s sleeping tea,” Brin added. “So, we’ll try that.” Havilar glared at Lorcan. “What are you going to do?”

Lorcan held up the portal ring, glad at least for a plan even if he didn’t particularly enjoy it. “To begin with,” he said, “add to our list of allies.”

Sairché wasn’t sure at first that she’d woken. The world around her was little better than her nightmares: the bars of the cage, the dark shadows of the cave, the meaty gape of its mouth revealing Malbolge’s virulent landscape beyond. And between her and escape, Lorcan, scowling at her. Holding a red ring.

The cage’s control ring.

“Was I always meant to be a part of the deal?” he asked curtly. Sairché fumbled for words, finding splinters of glass instead. She gagged and spat the remains of the portal bead. “What. . deal?”

“The deal you made with Farideh,” he said. “Did you intend to include me? Was that in the offer?”

Deal. . Sairché shut her eyes and leaned against the cage’s bars. Asmodeus.

Dangerous. .

A crackle of electricity jolted through Sairché’s frame, throwing her off the bars, her muscles all contracting painfully. She fell backward, against the cage, too penned in to drop to her knees.

Lorcan released his grip on the ring. “Was I always meant to be part of the deal?” he repeated.

“No,” Sairché said, panting. “It was a possibility. But I’d hoped to avoid it. I’d hoped she’d take the chance to rid herself of you.”

“What did you give her?”

“Protection until her twenty-seventh birthday,” Sairché said. “For her, for the sister, and for you. In exchange for two favors.”

Lorcan goggled. “Two favors?”

“There was a premium for including you,” Sairché said, mustering a bit of venom. She looked around the cave, remembering the fight in the forest and the portal bead. She ran her tongue over her ragged gums. “How long have I been here?”

Lorcan held up the control ring. “It’s still my turn. You have to protect me under her deal? That’s why you didn’t fight back.”

“She wouldn’t budge without it,” Sairché said. “Besides, I was half hoping you’d come out mad enough to kill her or make her kill you, solve all my problems in one blow.”

Lorcan stared at her for so long that Sairché wondered what she’d stirred up in his thoughts. “You know something,” she said. She took in her necklace of magical rings, hanging around his neck like a badge of office. “Her Highness made you take over.”

Lorcan smiled. “Indeed.”

“So that’s why you woke me? Can’t handle the hierarchy alone?”

“You and I both know this is bigger than the hierarchy,” Lorcan said. “I want to make a truce. I’ll let you out. We’ll help each other get out of this. You can’t kill me, and you can’t set me up to be snared by another devil-not till her twenty-seventh birthday. But you do what I say and I’ll return the favor.” Sairché smiled. “Or what?”

“Or Glasya makes you suffer for your failure.”

“She’ll kill you too.”

“ ‘Too,’ ” Lorcan said, “being the operative word.”

Sairché considered him, considered the gaps that existed in the deal. Her thoughts were still slow and syrupy. But the alternative was unavoidable: stay in the cage until someone came to kill her.

“Fine,” she said, slipping a hand between the thorny bars. “Until next Marpenoth.”

Lorcan clasped it as though he’d rather crush it. “Not a heartbeat later.”

He took a step back. “Which of these unlocks it?”

Sairché would have dearly liked to point to the diamond circle nestled in the right-side stack. But even thinking of suggesting her brother slip on the cursed ring made her prior agreement prickle at her brain. She was devil enough to be bound by her agreements-at least he would be too. “The control ring will do it. Flip it over so the dark side is closest to you, and put it on your other hand.”

The door sprang open, and Sairché stumbled from the cage. It could only have been a few days since she was trapped, and even still her muscles were confused and sapped. Lorcan made no move to assist her.

“Start with the wizard,” he said.

“What about him?” Sairché said. “He’s a nuisance and I can’t wait to see him dead.”

“What in the Hells is he doing?”

Sairché frowned. “Glasya told you nothing?”

“Little enough that I can guess she wants me to fail.”

Sairché hissed. She glanced around the cave out of habit, but any watcher would be subtler than that. “Not here,” she said. She took a few, tentative steps-the stasis cage’s effects still clung to her nerves. “Do you have control of the portal still? Is it working?”

“That thing in your chambers? Yes, it’s working.”

Sairché stretched her wings. They’d hold her weight-she hoped. “The forest,” she said. “The one you’ve almost surely met Magros in? It will be easier to talk. The magic makes scrying hard.”

“No,” Lorcan said, heading for the palace. “Straight to the fortress.” Sairché scowled at him. “Who are you to give orders?”

“The one holding all your magic rings, to begin with.”

“Those weren’t a part of our agreement.”

“No,” he agreed. “They weren’t.”

Sairché fumed. “I would have thought of that if I’d had a moment.” Lorcan gave her a nasty smile. “I suspect we are about to come across all sorts of situations that will make you reconsider having made such a quick agreement.”

From Osseia, the portal dropped them this time on the sharp, black glass battlements of the tower’s highest level and into the middle of a heavy snowfall. Sairché cursed. “That shitting wizard.”

Lorcan looked around. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing, that’s what,” Sairché said. “I’ve told him a hundred times if I’ve told him once to fix that stupid barrier so it stops throwing off my portals.”

The clouds hung low enough, Sairché imagined she might be able to drag her fingers through their icy coats if she stood on tiptoe. The snow they dropped collected in the dips and grooves of the obsidian tower, in between the irregular battlements. Sairché shook her wings off and curled them over her head. “You shouldn’t start with Rhand,” Sairché said irritably. “He’s incidental.

Disposable. You ought to start with Farideh.” She glared at Lorcan. “She can’t leave. Not yet.”

“Not until you declare her favor complete.”

“I am not trying to trick you-you try and spirit her out of here, and we’ll all suffer for it. This is dangerous terrain.”

Lorcan gave her a significant look. “These are the plans,” he said, “of Asmodeus.”

Sairché blew out a breath-so he knew that much. “All the archdevils’ actions are within the plans of Asmodeus,” she said carefully. “Of course,” Lorcan said after a moment’s pause. “It would be suicide to do something to upset His Majesty’s plans. Especially plans that seem to be as complicated and delicate as these.” He looked over the jagged battlements, as if considering the swirling snow. “But you must admit, these are particularly complex plans. One might say unnecessarily complex. From the outside, it seems as if you are aiding the Netherese in something. Something involving a great deal of divine power. And you have Stygia at your side-of all the layers-secretly recruiting Red Wizards and assassins.”

“Red Wizards?” Sairché said.

Lorcan smiled. “Oh, was I not supposed to mention them? Give my apologies to Magros when you see him next. And tell him I am not such an idiot as to kill his Chosen for him.” He pulled a strange, long blade out of his scabbard and held it up to Sairché. His eyes darkened. “He is such

an asset.”

“Half right,” Sairché said dryly. She considered the blade. “Is it just a sword?”

“So far as I can see. He doesn’t think much of us, does he? He suggested I kill the agent and the wizard, and leave Farideh to take the blame. Presumably so he could then act surprised I was driven so mad with rage.” Lorcan rubbed his arms. “Apparently he’s through with his agent. Shall we go in?”

“Not yet,” Sairché said, though the cold bothered her too. “Too many ears down there. Magros’s end was to put an agent in the camp-someone for the prisoners to rally around, someone to keep them from doing anything too drastic until arrangements could be made. And then to perform the harvesting.”

“But?”

Sairché smiled despite herself. “But he decided to use the Chosen he was allotted to build up His Highness Prince Levistus’s interests in the North.

Around the time that Many-Arrows decided to give up on being civilized. A pity Asmodeus didn’t grant the fellow an ability to deflect war clubs to the head. He had to find a new agent, and get that one into the camp. I have no idea what he told them or who they are. But if we were dealing with a Red Wizard, I would know.”

“He seems intrigued by them outside the camp. Is he doing anything else?”

“He’s not supposed to be.”

“Then I don’t see other possibilities here,” Lorcan said. “What is it Glasya is having us do?”

“Follow the edicts of Asmodeus,” Sairché said quickly.

“To what end?”

In the Nine Hells, there were none who didn’t know exactly where they stood in the hierarchy of the devils, from the lowest soul to the archlords ruling the layers to Asmodeus, the god of evil standing over all of them.

To fall required only the displeasure of one’s betters. To rise required their pleasure. . which came chiefly from their own advancement. There was an art to pleasing one’s betters, while not angering their betters.

And when one answered to an archlord. . that art was very rare indeed. “This world has been in turmoil for the last hundred and fifty years,”

Sairché said carefully. “The strain of chaos makes people hunger for answers, and the coffers of the Hells have swelled. We are powerful, more powerful by the day, because mortals ache for simple answers. Asmodeus is more powerful by the day,” she added.

“Powerful and mad,” Lorcan spat.

“For the moment,” Sairché said, still careful. “The end of that chaos is coming. The crescendo. Asmodeus might have claimed the spark of Azuth, may have armored himself with impressive powers by claiming the succubi, the tieflings, uncountable souls, and more. But what comes next. . even the gods are afraid of what it might mean. That something more powerful may take their divinity from them, or even wipe away the world. Everything will change soon, and who is as vulnerable, in the eyes of the gods, as the last to gain the spark of the divine?”

Lorcan watched the clouds. “If anyone could cling to the spark, it is His Majesty. But I fail to see how you’re helping him do that.”

“I am doing what is asked of me,” Sairché said significantly. In each of these Chosen is a fragment of the gods’ divine power, infusing their souls. “The wizard thinks he’s gathering Chosen for his goddess’s use, but he will soon find out we have other plans. When it’s done, Asmodeus will have found a way to steal those sparks and thereby the powers of the gods themselves, and leave the blame on the goddess who thought she was gaining all the power. If it should fail. .” She let the pause hang, filling with all the words she wasn’t saying. “. . then Asmodeus would not claim that power, our plans would be revealed, and the goddess in question might be very upset with him. Do you see what I mean?”

Lorcan’s brows rose. “That is,” he said, just as carefully, “a lot of pressure on such a delicate point. And we shouldn’t pretend Prince Levistus has no argument with Asmodeus. He might have it in mind to sabotage these efforts and usurp the throne.”

“ ‘Might’?” Sairché said sarcastically, before schooling her tone once more.

“But that would be foolish-Asmodeus is a god. So long as he is a god, there is no chance another archlord might succeed him. So long as he remains a god. “So long as he remains a god,” Sairché repeated, “the archlords are all his grateful vassals, every one.”

Lorcan blew out a breath. “And so your plan hinges on Farideh. She can’t leave because then everything will come apart.”

“That, and I would not repeat Magros’s mistakes.”

Lorcan turned to face her with such fury and horror in his expression that for a moment, Sairché feared he would break their agreement and throw her off the chipped obsidian battlements. “Magros’s mistakes?” he said. “That’s why Asmodeus wants her alive? Shit and ashes!” He rubbed a hand over his face. Sairché frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Lorcan didn’t answer at first, and once more, her brother’s expression became a mask. “Nothing,” he said. “A minor complication. I didn’t mention it.”

“You had better mention it. Are we allies or not?” Sairché demanded.

“What’s happened?”

He wet his mouth as if the words were threatening to choke him. “His Majesty paid me a brief call.”

A chill that had nothing to do with the plane or the winter threaded through Sairché’s core. “He gave you new orders?”

“No.” Lorcan shuddered violently. “He wasn’t interested in telling me any of this plan, or any of your adjustments to it. All he said was that I had to keep Farideh alive. .”

“And?”

Lorcan hesitated. “And then. . he told a joke.”

Sairché’s brother had always had a way with the truth-a calculating stillness that made it impossible to discern how much he had twisted facts to make one hear a different story, how much irony was left to float gently into one’s thoughts masquerading as verity. She studied him a moment-there was no mistaking his agitation.

There was also no mistaking how insane his last comment had been. “He told a joke?” Sairché repeated. “Asmodeus?”

“Yes,” Lorcan said, quieter. “He said he would trust me to do this because he knew I had no ambition in me, that I should keep it to myself and my trusted allies, and that he would reward me handsomely.” He wet his mouth again, as if the very mention of the god of evil dried it out. “And then. . then he said, ‘Handsomely? Of course, for Asmodeus can do nothing in an ugly fashion.’ And then he laughed.” He shook his head. “I think.”

“You think?” Sairché said.

“Have you ever heard His Majesty laugh?”

Now it was Sairché’s turn to shiver. “Once. At a distance. My bones tried to jelly themselves, as I recall.”

“Exactly,” Lorcan said. He dropped his voice. “That didn’t happen.” Sairché frowned. “Perhaps it was someone else. Perhaps it was a ruse.”

“Who in all the planes has the unholy pluck to stand in the palace of Osseia and pretend to be Asmodeus?” Lorcan hissed. “Every other word he spoke, every heartbeat I lay there, was inarguably in the presence of Asmodeus.”

“And then he told a joke.” Sairché shook her head, wishing she didn’t know that, wishing she were still trapped in the stasis cage. “Even the gods should be afraid of what that might mean.” She sucked her teeth. “What do you think it does mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care,” Lorcan said, as flustered as she’d ever seen him. “This falls squarely into the category of things we should not consider.”

“I would say ‘things we should hold onto for later,’ ” Sairché said. “But for now, he wants her alive. He never said that before-not that I assumed he’d be pleased. But he didn’t exactly throw Magros to Malbolge when he lost that Chosen. And he never mentioned that stricture in the orders.” Which meant he didn’t want devils to know it mattered. He didn’t want people looking for answers as to why. But it also meant it was critically important if he’d told Lorcan as much.

Sairché wondered if Lorcan realized that.

Lorcan was staring at the clouds again. “You didn’t tell Farideh.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Sairché said. “Do I look like Magros? She would have lost her mind at that sort of revelation.”

“You don’t give her enough credit.” He sighed. “Ashes, we’re playing a dangerous game here.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Sairché said.

He laughed. “You are a little mad these days, aren’t you? You can’t please everyone, and displeasing the wrong person-”

“Have you forgotten the story of His Highness, Prince Levistus?” Sairché asked. “You can seduce the king of the Hells’ own wife, kill her when she refuses you, corrupt his only daughter, thunder around stirring up discontent, and in the end-so long as Asmodeus sees a use for you in the future-come out alive.”

“And frozen in a glacier for all time,” Lorcan said.

“Frozen and alive is still alive,” Sairché said. “Still possible to come back.”

“And what do you have to offer His Majesty that would rival an archduke?”

Lorcan said. “If we fail-”

“We shall simply have to fail less spectacularly than someone else,” Sairché said. “Asmodeus cannot afford to destroy perfectly good pieces in this game and he knows it. Better to keep us in play.”

“But which is worse? Alive and under his notice,” Lorcan asked, “or dead?”

“A very good question,” Sairché conceded, and she headed down the stairs, trusting that her brother was, if nothing else, too curious to stab her in the back just yet.

The snow had started falling again, great fluffy clumps that melted away as soon as they landed on the blood-slicked courtyard. There was no covering the carnage. There was no washing away the deaths of the prisoners.

They are dead, Farideh’s thoughts repeated, over and over like a terrible chant, they are all dead. This is what your bad decisions have wrought.

The shadar-kai had to shove the prisoners in, like cattle into a slaughterhouse. They passed by in a blur-angry, afraid, staring up at Farideh as if she were a monster. She could not tell them that this was safer.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the young man staring up at her, the old woman clutching her throat, the little genasi girl screaming and screaming.

I cannot save them, Farideh thought. I cannot save anyone. Not even myself.

She stared down at this-the last group for the day, Rhand had promised-the excuse hollow and dusty in her own thoughts. She ought to be planning. She ought to be counterattacking, she ought to be figuring out how to outmaneuver Rhand, she ought to be clever-if there were one thing Farideh could do in a fight, it was think ahead, so why didn’t she? It sounded so much like Mehen’s voice, her heart ached to ignore it. She could be as clever as a general out of one of Mehen’s bedtime stories, and Rhand would still win, because he held too many lives in his hands.

Every time she tried to outthink him, to pull herself out of the shock and grief for the sake of the prisoners who still lived, that truth lay as plain and ugly as the sticky gloss of blood the snow couldn’t wash away. Every time she hesitated, the guards reached for their weapons, their excitement shimmering off of them like the heat off the cobblestones in the city of Proskur seven summers ago.

I should have cast, she thought as she named the Chosen. I should have leaped down into the pit, put myself between the swords and them. I should have attacked Rhand, pushed him into the pit. I should have run, she thought, and still she named the Chosen.

As each of those acts played out in her thoughts, the result was the same: The guards would react. Rhand would react. And with so many against her, she would fail, she would suffer. More people would die. She would die and Sairché would win. Havilar would be lost. It was as if she had already taken the wrong path seven and a half years earlier and there was no turning off it now.

Action was wrong. Inaction was wrong. She could not win without losing. She pointed to the last Chosen in the group-a human woman with her brown hair in long plaits. She glared at Farideh, a condemnation Farideh let soak through her. She deserved every bit of it.

“There now,” Rhand said. “That wasn’t so bad.”

True, Farideh thought bitterly. There were more uncomfortable ways to damn your soul. If she could have hoped to find lenience for the Chosen she’d sorted before she knew what was going on-despite the fact she’d known well enough that Rhand was a villain-there was nothing, no justification, no appealing artifice, to lessen the deaths of the third group of prisoners, nor the Chosen she’d doomed afterward.

The tiefling woman’s ghost appeared, hovering just behind Rhand, faint as Farideh’s breath on the cold air. The ghost stared at her successor as she always did-cool and stern-before gesturing at her swirling locks. Farideh slipped the ruby comb from her pocket, jamming it heedlessly into the smoothed hair of her crown.

Now you see what he’s capable of, the ghost said. Now you see you must fight fire with fire.

Farideh shook her head, knowing better than to answer. There were too many complications, too many ramifications. Rhand might not win, but she would always lose. And more importantly, innocent people would lose as well.

Do you know who you are? the ghost said. What you can master? You have let a weakling-a robber, cloaked in magician’s robes-outwit you by playing on soft feelings. He cannot afford to lose these people-you know that and so does he. Steel yourself-a few more dead, a score of dead, it is nothing compared to what he’ll do. He cannot afford to lose you.

Farideh turned from her, to look at Rhand where he stood giving arcane directions to his apprentices. He looked up at Farideh and smiled unpleasantly.

You have no choice, the ghost said. You fight or you die.

“Come,” Rhand said. “My guest wishes to speak to you.”

Even terror at facing the Nameless One again could not break through Farideh’s numbness. She stared down at the snow landing on the blood-dark cobbles. It cannot be worse, she thought. You are trapped. They are trapped. You cannot save them.

And no one, she thought, remembering Lorcan’s cold fury, remembering Havilar’s refusal to meet her eye, is going to save you.

Maybe it was better that way.

Rhand took her by the arm, and there her gloom found its limits, and a spark of rage and revulsion seared through the fog. But she didn’t fight as he led her up the stairs, trailed by Nirka and her unsheathed knives.

“She won’t be happy,” Rhand warned. “She’ll want punishment.” He lingered on the word in a way that fanned that spark of rage. She owed the dead Chosen-but she did not owe Rhand or Shar.

At the top of the stairs, the shadar-kai woman stopped and went no farther. Farideh stepped out of the threat of her knives and into the grasp of the Chosen of Shar’s powers-worse than the prior night. It wrapped her like a cloak of lead and threatened to stop her feet. Images of the massacre rose up with every step-the woman with the cut throat, the elf a shadar-kai had beaten with his spiked fists, the sound of the little genasi girl screaming. The Chosen whose ties to his god had been snapped with one sword stroke.

You fight or you die, the ghost’s words murmured in her thoughts. Had the ghost not fought? Had she died fighting? The Nameless One’s power smothered her curiosity. It might matter, but Farideh couldn’t recall why. Only that she would like very much to stop, to sit, to curl into a ball.

Rhand stopped beside the door opposite his study, his breath growing unsteady, his eyes wild. The room beyond was far larger than her own, with a long table covered in maps and scrolls in addition to the bed and chests and chairs. A similar closet stood in the corner, its open doors displaying a similar variety of fashions-though far more were puddled on the floor, tried-on and cast-off.

The Nameless One sat beside the wide, open windows, and a cold breeze cooled Farideh’s burning face. The strange glyph of power that marked the girl was not drawn in light but deepest shadow, glittering with traces of violet and blue. She looked Farideh over with colorless eyes, and numbness gripped the warlock, snuffing out fear and rage and every other thought.

Except one: she looks like Havi.

There was a ghost of Havilar in the way the girl held her pointed chin up, the way she tossed the long silky strands of her hair over her shoulder as her eyes fell on Farideh. There was the faint memory of the last young woman in the courtyard, the one she’d just sent to Rhand’s tender ministrations, in the silver gleam of the Nameless One’s eyes. The little genasi girl whose screams echoed and echoed in Farideh’s memories in the way that dark cloud of Shar’s blessing seemed too large for her to contain, in the delicacy of her features, in the way Farideh’s heart suddenly ached for the Nameless One.

“Well met,” the Nameless One said. “I see you’re not as reliable as Saer Rhand insisted.” She gave Rhand a cool look, and Farideh’s heart threatened to break.

“Well met,” she murmured. The ache in her chest reminded her of Mehen, of the grief in his gaze and the misery she knew she was putting him through. “Where are your parents?” she asked, her mind too tangled in the Chosen’s powers to stop her tongue.

The girl flushed, but whatever dark magic imbued her and turned her flesh into shadows made the stain purplish and bruiselike. Her powers surged, and the force of Shar’s emptiness made Farideh’s throat tighten, her heart sink. “Dead,” she said sweetly. “Buried under fallen Sakkors. I represent the Church of Shar now. We’re the ones who determine Saer Rhand’s success or failure. Your success or failure,” she added menacingly.

I have failed already, a part of her sighed. But just as much of her noted that the Nameless One’s superiority only made her seem younger, only sound like Havilar back in Arush Vayem, flush with success at some complicated attack she’d created.

“How old are you?”

The Nameless One lifted her chin. “Thirteen. And already more powerful than any other Chosen in this camp.” Her gaze flicked over Farideh as if she were daring her to argue. “I saw your little stunt, and Saer Rhand’s remedy.” She turned to Rhand. “Was that truly necessary?”

Rhand cleared his throat. “I thought it so, my lady. A point needed to be made.”

“You are very adept at wasting resources,” the girl said scathingly. “You drain the Lady’s coffers and destroy the powers she craves.”

“Your pardon, my lady. There was a point to be made.”

The Nameless One turned back to Farideh, and her terrible powers surged around the warlock, eager to wear her away like rough waves against a sandbar. She looks like Havilar, Farideh thought. She should be trying to lie to her father and learning to flirt and practicing at adulthood. Tears welled in Farideh’s eyes. The Chosen of Shar smiled and her powers deepened, threatening to drive Farideh to her knees.

“Don’t you wish your ‘patron’ could manage a gift like this?” she said. “Something useful. Something powerful.” Farideh shook her head slowly, trying to cling to the parts of her mind that still made sense, even if they played neatly into the Nameless One’s trap: I cannot save them. I cannot win. I cannot. I cannot. She looked into the girl’s luminous eyes.

“I can’t save you,” Farideh said, tears breaking down her cheeks.

The Nameless One drew back, surprised, and her powers ebbed. “Save me?” She laughed, a short, shocked sound. “From what? I am the Handmaiden of Shar, powerful beyond my age and station.”

“You’re alone,” Farideh said. “You’re a child.”

“A child and I command the blessings of Shar,” the Nameless One said, smiling cruelly. “Who says I need saving?” She leaned forward, her powers washing into the room like a tide. “You’re the one in need of saving, devil-born.”

And no one is going to save me, Farideh thought, drowning in the emptiness of Shar. Not Lorcan, who abandoned her. Not Havilar, who had washed her hands of Farideh. Not Mehen, who loved Havilar best. Not the Harpers, not Sairché, and not Dahl. .

And you can’t save them either, she thought. It’s hopeless. Give up.

She drew a long, shuddering breath, and made herself look away from the Nameless One, but the powers had already dragged her down like anchors chained to her ankles. It was hopeless. She could not stand alone. She had no one to stand beside her-

Farideh’s eyes fell on the table, on the maps of Faerûn laid over it. On the scattered points marked in scarlet over the northern half of the continent. On the mark that lay on the mountains where Dahl had guessed the camp stood-the Lost Peaks. On the five other identical marks. Five other camps. Five other walls. Five other chances that someone had escaped.

Farideh’s pulse sped. She forgot, for a moment, the Nameless One and Rhand standing beside her. She forgot the numbness and the weight of the Nameless One’s powers. There were six camps hiding potential Chosen. And she had only asked about this one.

She had been right. Someone had breached one of the walls. There was a way out. She just had to ask the waters the right question to find out how.

“I don’t think Saer Rhand’s punishment is enough,” the Nameless One said loftily. “You clearly don’t know your place. And we value obedience above all else.”

Stall, Farideh thought. Focus. She had to get out of there, and quickly. “If you think,” she said softly, “that my patron will not be upset at the loss of so many souls, you are mistaken. I will pay for it.”

“Is that why he’s interested?”

Farideh shrugged. She couldn’t guess what Lorcan wanted, what Sairché intended. Or why the Nameless One would care. But what did people expect of devils but a greed for souls?

“You will have a goodly number of. . castoffs,” she said. “Assuming you aren’t just killing them all. Plenty of people looking for easy answers. My patron specializes in such things.”

The Chosen of Shar considered her for another interminable moment, Shar’s powers picking at Farideh’s soul.

Six camps, Farideh thought. Six walls, and one of them had certainly been breached-concentrate on that, she told herself. There’s a way out, and you’re the only one who knows. You need to tell Dahl. You need to tell the prisoners.

Why would she think she could do that? Rhand was clearly cleverer than her, the Nameless One clearly more powerful. Farideh could hardly even stand in her presence. .

Farideh curled her nails into her palm and thought about the dead prisoners.

“Perhaps that is the way of the king of the Hells,” the Chosen of Shar said, and the pain in Farideh’s hands, the anger in her heart was no longer enough as the girl’s god-given powers swallowed her up. “But the Lady of Loss demands we uphold the order of things. And you are too smug for my liking. Saer Rhand?” Her colorless eyes pinned Farideh, and when she spoke, once more she sounded ages older than she appeared. “You may not think yourself a tool, but you are. We all are.”

Rhand was suddenly so close behind Farideh she could feel the rasp of his uneven breath against her hair. His hand clamped down on her left wrist, and swimming against the tide of the Chosen of Shar’s powers, Farideh was too slow to pull away as he spread her hand flat on the table, pulled the knife from his belt, and sliced her ring finger off.

She heard the snap of the bone, saw the spread of blood across the parchment before she realized what had happened. There was no pain, her whole hand had gone as numb as her thoughts. But when Rhand released her wrist and she drew her hand back, the finger remained behind, curled in a pool of dark blood.

Her breath stopped in her lungs. Her mind seemed to scream and scream and scream, but not a sound came out of her. She was dying on her feet.

Rhand pressed a cloth to the wound and himself to her. She stared at the finger until the Chosen of Shar stood, plucked it from where it lay, and tossed it into the brazier.

“Not to worry,” she said sweetly, the words echoing in Farideh’s ears, “we’ll not keep it as insurance. This time.”

Farideh hardly understood the words, still reeling. Still realizing that Rhand was pressed against her, and that the unevenness of his breathing had a very different quality. Still trying to scream.

“Should you be driven to act out again. . well, you’ll have your reminder.” The Nameless One smiled at Farideh and the pain burned up her arm, sudden and hot and enough to drive her held breath out in a single sharp cry. It pulled with it the swirling powers of the Hells and her arm became a sink of ruinous energy and agony.

Cast, the voice of the Hells hissed. Show them what they’ve miscounted.

But she had no air to speak the trigger word. Rhand and the Chosen of Shar exchanged words she couldn’t pick up through the buzz of her thoughts, and the wizard steered her from the room, out into the hallway.

“It hurts doesn’t it?” Rhand’s whispered voice slid through the buzz of shock like a sharp blade between her ribs. He stood, still too close to her, his breath on her hair. “But it drives away the shadows. Puts the Lady at her ease. For the moment.”

A knife does it fastest, the ghost had said. But which end? Farideh thought, turning to face him. The pain would do it, or the rush of adrenalin as you turned the blade on someone else-

“Her power over you won’t fade,” Rhand went on, taking her ruined hand in his. “Not completely. Not without careful. . maintenance.”

“Don’t touch me,” Farideh said, holding the bloody cloth tight against the wound. Holding onto her hand as if he could take it from her. He smiled.

“Oh, but you have so many more,” he said. “Shar favors obedience, and the ‘obliteration of the self’-what better approach than to whittle it away? And what remains. . more lovely for the lack.” His laugh sent a shudder up Farideh’s spine, and the fear that traveled with it pushed more of the Chosen of Shar’s effect away.

“She’s a little demon, isn’t she?” Rhand said. “Nearly as stubborn as you, but so haughty about it. She seeks to drag your fate out, but you’ve already set yourself against me. Against Shar. It’s a waste of time trying to rein you in when you’ve decided not to be useful anymore.” He ran a finger over the curve of her left horn. “More worthwhile to find a better use for you.”

The Hells pulsed up her bones, hungry and fierce, ready to pour out, to fill the air with brimstone missiles, to pull lava up through the floor, to devour Rhand in a torrent of flames. Her face flushed, and a veil of sweat beaded up on her skin. A better use, she thought, feeling a sneer curl her lip. I will show you a better use.

The lights began to flash again, the muted purple and green of Rhand’s tainted soul oozing into her vision. The shimmering blue of the tiefling ghost coming into being again.

What you’re thinking, the ghost said, is only going to make things worse. She drifted down to hang in the air beside Rhand, her profile inches from his cheek. You missed your chance to fight. Now he wants you to fight. He wants you to be something he can break, something he can overpower. That makes it sweeter. Trust me.

Which left her with what? Farideh thought. Go along with him? Let him slice away parts of her until she bled out on the floor?

Be gentle, the ghost said. Be cordial. Pretend this is nothing at all. He will be easier to distract that way. Remind him of your allies-the allies he believes you have.

“As tempting as that sounds, I have to decline,” Farideh said. “My head aches and. . my patron will want to know what’s happening. I need to speak to him.”

The ghost smiled. Perfect.

Rhand drew back. “You speak with him?”

“Of course,” Farideh said. She drew herself as straight as she could manage. “And he’ll be very displeased with you if I let you keep me from him.” She wondered how bald that lie was-how much Rhand knew Lorcan didn’t care what happened to her-and that grief threatened her again. She held Rhand’s gaze instead.

“Do you think he’ll be pleased with your little rebellion?” Rhand said, sounding angry. Sounding afraid. “If you lay the blame for that on me, I assure you it won’t go well for you. We had an agreement, and I always read my agreements carefully.”

“I think I need to bring it up. Lorcan will want to know, after all.”

Relief lit Rhand’s face. “His emissary? The cambion, you mean.” He blew out a breath and chuckled nervously. “Of course. Tell him what you want. He and I are clear.” He chuckled again. “Of course, of course. What did I imagine? You were calling down the god himself in my guest rooms?” He chuckled again.

Farideh kept her expression carefully blank, even as a new dread curled around her heart. He means Asmodeus, she thought. “No,” she said slowly. “Of course not.” But he was afraid of Asmodeus, not of her, not of Lorcan. “Lorcan is the one who calls him down,” she said.

Rhand hesitated, as if trying to sift out her bluff. Farideh kept her face carefully blank, until he steered her toward her rooms once more.

My patron will want to know what’s happening, her own words came back to her. I need to speak to him. And Rhand had assumed she meant Asmodeus. .

Don’t you wish your “patron” could manage a gift like this? Farideh’s heart started pounding, the pain in her arm building as it did. Patron, the Nameless One had said in the study Why not say “god”?

“You keep saying ‘patron,’ ” Farideh heard herself murmur. “And it means too many things.”

“You too?” Rhand said. “By being vague we cast a wider net. And then?” He shrugged. “It becomes habit. I doubt they care.”

“Some call Lorcan my patron,” she said, the pieces falling together. He’d asked the Fountains of Memory to show the moment her patron had taken notice. The waters had shown Lorcan, Rhand hadn’t asked to see her patron. Only the moment he’d taken notice.

Asmodeus had been watching, too-

Her breath stopped, sticky in her lungs. There was a moment where all Farideh knew was that things weren’t making sense. And then the truth was just there, solid as a wall dropped around her. Rhand’s horrible words come back to her in that moment-more lovely for the lack-and she was struck, perversely, how true that was of that moment she’d just lost. She might have been grieving and angry and lost, but that was the last moment she didn’t know. The last moment she could claim innocence of any sort.

— and she was as trapped as the Nameless One.

“Perhaps,” Rhand said, bringing her to the door of her room, “but we all answer to someone greater. Even him. Especially you.” He gave her an evil smile. “Don’t think it protects you. Your god is not as powerful as he believes.” Get in the room, Farideh told herself, above the frenetic buzz of her panicking thoughts. Get in the room. Lie down. You’re going to faint. He can’t see you faint. She grabbed at the door handle with her injured hand, the cloth slipping, more blood spattering on the shiny black floor.

Rhand’s smile grew. “Remember,” he said, as the edges of her vision started crumbling, “there is no god that could have chosen you who could protect you from the reach of Shar.”

Dimly she heard the latch click, and someone grabbed ahold of her and pulled her into the room, and despite her resolve not to, Farideh’s knees buckled in a faint.

“Your pardon, Saer Rhand,” she heard Lorcan say in his silky way, “I need to speak to my warlock alone.”