The Adversary

Chapter Twenty-one

26 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks

Dahl fought the urge to bury Cereon and Oota in details that made it clear this was the only viable option. But the longer the two of them watched Dahl, waiting for the other to speak first, the harder it was.

“You were willing before,” Farideh pointed out quietly, “when Dahl was the one casting the scroll.”

“ ‘Willing’s not the word I’d use,” Oota said. “ ‘Back against the cave wall,’ on the other hand-”

“You are quite a madman, Harper,” Cereon interrupted. “We shall die.”

“You said yourself the spell is destructive, that it gathers,” Dahl said. “If that’s not a replacement for the ritual scroll Tharra thought she was given, what else is it?”

Cereon raised a slim, pale eyebrow. “There is no way to know.”

“Just as there’s no way to know who’s casting it,” Oota said. “Or what they want from us.”

“Their motives don’t matter,” Dahl said. “They want you all dead so that they can claim the Chosen’s powers-whether that’s to raise up a new god or armor an old one or just sacrifice us in the name of stopping Shar is irrelevant. The spell is already happening and our best bet is to ride it out.”

“What do you intend to do instead?” Farideh asked them. “Can you disrupt that thing? Can you stop the casting?” Oota’s eye slid to Cereon. The sun elf’s impassive expression tightened ever so slightly.

“No,” Cereon said. “We may be able to deflect some of it. A shield, perhaps. I can make such a casting. I suspect some of the others can assist me, make it stronger.” He shook his head. “It will not be enough to protect all the tel’Quessir.”

Oota gave Dahl a knowing look. “Thank you, Harper, for bringing me such valued allies.”

Dahl scowled. “Look, there are three basic possibilities. First, I’m right. That spell does exactly what I’ve said and we need to be ready. Second, it’s not what I’ve said and it’s not going to kill us. In that case, we end up exactly where we are now: convincing people to attack the tower and try to bring it down. Third, it’s not what I’ve said, it’s far more powerful, and it’s going to harm us all no matter where we hide.” He spread his hands. “And if that’s the case, so far as I can see, there is nothing we can do about it.”

“Except a shield for the favored of the elves,” Oota said.

“Rhand must have taken notice,” Farideh went on. “We should be prepared for him to try and stall things.”

“A force near the shelters,” Oota agreed. “Spread out to catch the guards coming at us if need be. And a second,” she added significantly, “to free the prisoners in the fortress.”

“Now,” Dahl said. “We don’t have the time to spare waiting for nightfall. Though Phalar-”

“Can hide beneath a cloak,” Oota said. “I’ll deal with Phalar. We’ll take Hamdir, him, and you as well, Harper. Get everyone armed and back here as quick as you can.” She strode from the court, leaving Dahl and Farideh.

“She declines my spells,” Cereon said, “as well as my followers.”

“We’ll take Armas,” Dahl said. “She trusts him.” Cereon sniffed, as if to say that wasn’t enough, and left without another word. Farideh watched him go.

“You want to come with us, don’t you?” Dahl said as soon as Cereon was out of earshot. Farideh sighed.

“Wouldn’t you? But I’m not a fool-I owe them, but none of the Chosen is going to be cheered to see me. And then there’s Rhand.” She rubbed her left arm. “I’m a liability.”

“Don’t fish,” Dahl said lightly. “You’ve already been a help.”

“And a hindrance.” She sighed again and shook her head. “Don’t mind me. I’m not feeling well.”

“Fight some shadar-kai,” Dahl said. “That seems to perk you up.”

And at least that coaxed a smile from her. “Be careful,” she told him.

“You too,” Dahl said. He looked at the thinning crowd of prisoners, feeling sure he ought to say something more, but not knowing what it was. “Do you expect Lorcan to come back?”

“Gods only know,” she said. “I almost hope he stays away.” She considered Dahl a moment. “He could go in for that scroll. The one to make the cavern.”

“Better him than you,” Dahl said. “Promise me you won’t try and get back in.”

She nodded, in an absent sort of way. “How will we decide who has to. .”

“Not now,” Dahl said. It wasn’t a question Dahl wanted to answer, especially when he knew he’d be the last one into the shelter rooms. “Maybe they’ll manage it.”

“Maybe,” she said. Then, “Did you tell Tharra about the ritual?”

“No,” Dahl said. “Why would I?”

Farideh rubbed her arm again. “Because she ought to know. Maybe she’d be back on our side if she knew the other devil had tricked her. Maybe her deal’s undone if he didn’t follow through.”

Dahl regarded her a long moment. “Tharra’s not you, you know.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means she’s not coming back over to our side. She broke her oath.”

“She made a bad decision. She did the same thing I did.”

Dahl’s temper rose. “Yes, well, you’re not a Harper. So it’s different. You. .” He struggled for the right words. Because he knew she was right. Even if he was also sure she was wrong. “You’ve never betrayed anyone. You’re very. . dependable.”

She stared at him, unblinking, and Dahl fought the urge to guess what she was thinking-that was a compliment.

“I can think of more than a few people who would disagree with you,” Farideh finally said. “Starting with the Chosen in the wizard’s workshop.”

The woman guarding Tharra looked as if she would have liked to stop Farideh from entering, but she only fixed a suspicious scowl on the bowl of thin gruel the tiefling carried with her and let her pass.

Tharra watched Farideh stonily as she shut the door. “I’m not hungry.”

Farideh sat down on the mat that lined the floor and set the bowl beside her. “Did you know that the ritual wouldn’t work?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dahl studied it. He’s pretty knowledgeable about these things. The components are all wrong. The spell’s not constructed right. So,” she said, “did you know?”

Tharra searched Farideh’s face. “It has to work,” she said. “If it doesn’t work, what’s the point of my deal?”

“I think you’re a decoy,” Farideh said. “When the spell collected nothing, he could blame it on me, and you’d be too dead to argue. But now someone else is casting a similar spell.”

“And you can’t stop it,” Tharra finished. She looked away. “We have to get them down into the shelter rooms. As many as will fit.”

“We’re only up to a thousand,” Farideh said. “And we only have a few hours.”

Tharra pursed her mouth. “I’m not the one who brought them here. I’m not the one who’ll kill them. If Magros hadn’t caught me, he would have caught some other. If you want to lock me in here and recite my crimes-”

“No,” Farideh said. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”

Tharra stopped. “What sort of help?”

“In the wizard’s study, there’s a scroll,” Farideh said. “A very old, very rare scroll. It will open a chamber in the ground-big enough to make the difference.”

Tharra raised an eyebrow. “Why does he have that?”

“Windfall. He found it and he hasn’t come up with a use for it yet.”

“But you didn’t take it?”

Farideh’s chest squeezed. “I didn’t know we needed it. And now if I go into the fortress, Rhand will know he’s being played.”

“So you expect me to traipse into the Abyss in your place.”

“You know the fortress,” Farideh said, “and the guards know you. If someone spots you, they’re not going to assume right off something’s wrong. You know how to slip in and out-I don’t know much about Harpers, but I know that. You’re our best chance for saving them all.”

Tharra’s expression grew serious. “It’s in his study. The one at the top of the tower.”

“On the rack against the right-hand wall,” Farideh said. “Second shelf down. There’s scorch marks along the end, and a chip missing from the roller. If you open it, you’ll see the drawing of the cavern it makes.”

“If I can get to it,” Tharra murmured. “I can’t go in the gates. Not without a guard.”

“Dahl and Oota are planning to free the Chosen in the wizard’s workshop very soon.”

Tharra laughed once. “I think I’ll stand a better chance charming the grays.” She paused. “You have to get my pin back. I won’t survive without it.”

“How long will it work for?”

“Half a bell. Long enough, if I don’t trigger it until I have to.” She chewed her lip. “This is a little mad, you know?”

“Mad times call for mad plans,” Farideh said. “I’ll get the pin. But you don’t use it on me, or anyone else on our side. And after, you have to answer to the Harpers all the same.”

“If I’m alive,” Tharra said. Farideh kneeled and untied her bindings. “Doesn’t work well on you anyway. People tell you you’re stubborn?”

“Constantly,” Farideh said. She grasped the other woman’s hand and stood. “Come on.”

“What are you planning to tell Antama out there?” Tharra asked.

“Nothing. We’re in a hurry,” Farideh said, and she pulled enough Hells magic through her brand to make a slit in the fabric of the planes, and stepped through the slat-board wall to reappear in the alley beyond.

“Did you choose the least concealable weapon available on purpose?” Khochen teased Havilar as they crept through the alleys between huts. “No,” Havilar said irritably. “I chose it because I’m good at it.”

“You were good at it before you chose it?” Khochen asked cheekily. “There’s a tale I long to hear.” Beside her, the scout, Ebros, chuckled softly.

Havilar scowled. “Do you have any idea of where we’re headed?”

“The same way everyone else is headed,” Khochen said. “Where there are people, there are answers.”

“Where there are people,” Havilar said, “there’s usually someone who wants to start a fight.”

Khochen looked back and smiled. “Don’t worry, little tiefling. You have me.”

Havilar gripped Devilslayer and started to retort that she did not need some puny thief with her blades in her boots to rescue her, and anyway Havilar had a solid half foot on Khochen. But her reply was cut off by sudden shouting from behind them.

“Well, well-not in the Hells after all.” Havilar turned and caught the chain of a shadar-kai guard on the haft of her glaive, the bladed end slicing inches from her face.

The guard’s companions-a woman with enormous arms and a heavy broadsword strapped to her back and a wiry fellow with a pair of curved knives-shouted after the chainmaster. “He doesn’t want you ruined,” the man said to Havilar. “Even though he won’t be happy to find you again. Come quietly, and we’ll kill your companions quick.”

The woman grinned. “No watching for you this time.”

Havilar didn’t stop to wonder what that meant-whoever he was, he could go to the Abyss before she’d follow karshoji shadar-kai anywhere. As the chainmaster yanked the chain free of her weapon, she followed the pull, swinging the weight of the glaive toward his face. As he pulled back, she shifted and pulled the butt of the glaive up and into his right wrist. He pulled back farther, eyes dancing, favoring his injury. The chain snaked along the ground, catching in the sticky mud. Havilar stomped onto the weapon, grinding the blades down into the muck, before leaping back off. The chainmaster hauled hard on the lodged chain and caught the point of Havilar’s glaive in his gut for the hesitation.

Ebros’s arrow hit the swordswoman in the chest and pierced her leather armor. She grinned horribly and pulled the arrow free, barbs and all. A second arrow hit the smaller man as he tried to maneuver around his allies in the narrow passage. Khochen darted past in the corner of Havilar’s eye and with a flash of steel blocked the swordswoman’s dagger on her own blade, then jabbed her dagger up under the woman’s arm.

The chainmaster gave Havilar a terrible grin as he straightened. Havilar matched it-daughter of Clanless Mehen, wielder of Devilslayer. The glaive as good as her right hand.

The chain flashed up and encircled her right forearm, biting into her bracer. She let go of half her grip and moved with the tug to punch the shadar-kai in the base of the throat. That stunned him and she yanked hard on the chain, pulling it from his grip.

Step, shift, turn the blade-she sliced the glaive deeply across the shadarkai’s belly, ripping under the leather jack. His eyes widened and he lunged at her. Havilar moved with him, turning to hook the glaive behind him as he passed, and pulling him forward hard enough to trip him. She planted the blade of her weapon in his back and the air went out of the shadar-kai in a horrible, wet gasp.

Khochen scrambled back from the shadar-kai with the broadsword on her back, the alley still too narrow to draw such a weapon. But Khochen was keen enough with her daggers that it hardly mattered. Bleeding from many cuts, the shadar-kai advanced, taking her own blood from the Harper as she did.

Havilar narrowed her eyes and brought the butt of the glaive up into the guard’s bare wrist, smacking it hard enough to make her grip loose. Slide the haft up and nick the blade-the dagger flew from the shadar-kai’s grasp. The startled guard looked to Havilar, then froze.

Ebros’s arrow protruded from the shadar-kai’s left eye. She dropped to her knees and tripped over on the fallen chain. “Well shot!” Khochen gasped.

Ebros nodded, shaking, and trained his next arrow on the man between Havilar and Khochen’s blades. But the wiry shadar-kai took quick stock of the situation fell backward, into the shadows, and disappeared.

“Running for reinforcements,” Khochen panted. “Damn.” She rubbed her wounded shoulder and looked back at Havilar. “What was that shadar-kai talking about?”

“He thought I was Fari,” Havilar said, feeling her stomach twist into knots. “We have to go.”

“ Ilharess-iblithin sun,” Phalar cursed for at least the fifth time. A heavy sheen of sweat stood out on his ebony skin, even in the cool air-low as the sun was, it still irritated the drow. Dahl hadn’t discovered what Oota had traded him. When he’d asked, Phalar had chuckled in an unpleasant manner and cleaned his nails with the tip of Dahl’s dagger.

He wasn’t so relaxed now. “Let’s go already.”

“Go ahead,” Hamdir said, standing over the drow with a cloak as a shield against the sun. “Run out into the daylight and knock on the gates.”

“I could hit them from here,” Armas said, with a familiar eagerness. He flexed his hands and blew out a nervous breath. “I could definitely hit them from here.” Phalar chuckled.

“Wait,” Dahl said. The force of Phalar’s god seemed to grip Dahl even more firmly this time, and dressed once more in the stolen uniform, Dahl had a hard time waiting for the guards to pass by before he rushed out to unlock the gate with a ritual. They needed to time it perfectly-there was no speeding the ritual, after all, no matter how sure Dahl felt in that moment that he could make it happen.

If the same effect took hold of Oota, it wasn’t obvious-she rocked on her feet, tense and ready, but she counted the beats of the guards’ footsteps under her breath and kept her hands on her belt and off the stolen sword she wore tied there. She did not look at Tharra, crouched beside her and wearing the black kerchief and apron-but then no one did. Farideh had turned up with Tharra as they were easing Phalar out of the shelters, past the crowds heading in, and even if Dahl had to admit he greatly preferred this plan to Farideh’s last one, he wasn’t going to pretend he liked it.

One more pass, Dahl thought, when the guards reached their farthest stations. . Dahl drummed his fingers against the blue silk cover of Farideh’s ritual book, the pouches of components dangling from his wrist. He was so consumed by the plan, by forcing himself to run through the ritual instead of falling prey to Phalar’s powers, that he completely missed the fact that they were being approached until Oota turned, axe high, and nearly took Lord Vescaras Ammakyl’s head off.

“Hold!” Dahl hissed to Vescaras as much as Oota. He stepped around the half-orc and saw Brin and a red-haired elf behind Vescaras. “Gods’ books, where did you come from?”

Vescaras raised an eyebrow, but lowered his rapier. “Good to see you’re well. Your sendings were clear enough-no need to follow up and waste resources.”

Brin looked around. “What in the Hells is this place?”

“Internment camp,” Dahl said. “He’s collecting people with divine powers, and-” He stopped himself. “And we’re in a bit of a rush.”

Vescaras peered around the corner. “Infiltration?”

“Rescue,” Dahl said. “Forty or fifty. No idea about their state. No idea about guards.”

“No time for reconnaissance,” Vescaras said.

“I’ll get the first door unlocked. After we have. .” He glanced at Phalar. “Resources.”

Brin and Vescaras seemed to notice Phalar for the first time, and for a moment, Dahl was sure they were going to flee.

“Don’t provoke them,” Dahl said to Phalar.

The drow spread his hands. “Haven’t I been good?”

Vescaras recovered and looked very deliberately over at Dahl. “Well, Goodman Peredur, I suppose you have the lead.”

“Oota,” Dahl started, intending to acquaint her with the Harpers. But the guards had reached their farthest stations.

“Now,” Oota ordered, as she shoved Dahl forward along the reaching shadow of the building they’d crouched behind. Without stopping, Dahl sprinted up and pressed himself flat against the great door, where a passing guard would have a difficult time spotting him. He slipped the components into a pile beside him and flipped the book open to the ritual he needed.

He worked quickly, his hands remembering the passes and actions-the streak of powdered silver worked into the grain of the wood, the line of bright blue salts along the base of the door, the charcoal-marked keyhole he added to the center. The stream of words that finished the ritual seemed to collect great fistfuls of the Weave and pull them close like a cloth over a conjurer’s table. When it released, the door swung open a crack, its bar dangling on the ground.

At the next opportunity, the others darted across and into the passageway. Dahl hurried to the fore. The tunnel was unguarded, as was the open courtyard. The smell of blood still tainted the cold air.

“What happened here?” Brin breathed. Dahl didn’t answer. He could imagine Farideh standing on the ledge above, being made to watch the slaughter below and realizing how far Rhand was willing to go.

“Our hand was forced,” Tharra answered after a moment of quiet.

Dahl turned to retort, but the expression of grief on Tharra’s face stopped him. He might not count her as his fellow, but she counted the dead prisoners among hers. The living ones too, he thought.

“Here,” he said, interlacing his fingers. “You don’t have long.”

“Good thing I’m quick,” she said, her voice too light.

“Go out over the wall,” he advised. “Just past the veserab stables.”

Tharra nodded and stepped onto his hands, reaching high to grasp the sharp, polished edge of the black stone above. She peered back down once she’d pulled herself up. “Best of luck, Harper.”

Before Dahl could reply, she was gone, slipping alone into the forbidding fortress.

“Come on.” Oota went to the smaller door and forced the lock-another narrow hallway, empty and lightless. She edged inside, followed by the rest.

At the end was a second door-a portcullis, and this one guarded. Dahl gestured for the others to stop and crept forward, near enough to see what lay beyond.

Two guards waited by the door, distracted by at least three wizards-two younger-looking fellows and Rhand-considering a young elf man in a cage, whose skin radiated soft light. One of the novices prodded at him with a thin, sharp-looking rod. The man made no noise.

Rhand sighed heavily. “We haven’t time for the hot irons,” he said. “Make them ready to depart. If that little witch thinks I’m leaving behind such resources, we will have to disabuse her of such fancies.” He turned to two of the wizards. “Come along. We haven’t much time to prepare before-”

Another guard, a shadar-kai woman with pierced cheeks, came in through the far door and called out to Rhand. “Your devil is a liar, master.”

Rhand spun on her. “What?”

Dahl gripped his sword. The room was larger than the stables outside, and lined with cells and cages-holding more prisoners, fifty at least, many with the glitter of strange magic worked on them. And more guards-another four. As he reached the edge of the light, he nearly stumbled, and leaned heavily against the tunnel wall. His eyes crossed, the lids almost too heavy to lift.

“I’ll return in an hour,” he heard Rhand say as he started to drift off. “I expect everything to be prepared. The same goes for you two-get upstairs and work quickly. I need to deal with something out. .”

Someone grabbed hold of Dahl and pulled him sharply back into the tunnel. “All right?” Vescaras whispered.

“Yes,” Dahl said, extricating himself. “There’s. . There’s something magic happening in there.” He peered back through the portcullis. None of the wizards seemed to feel the strange sleepiness, and all six of the guards he’d spotted stood around the space, lazy and unconcerned.

“Six guards,” he said. “Two wizards. A lot of bystanders.” He shook his head. “The Chosen aren’t affecting the wizards, either, I don’t think. And there’s-”

“They’re sleeping too,” Armas said. “There’s something about halfway across the room giving off a magical field. I’ll wager that’s it.”

“How are the guards awake?” Vescaras asked.

“Amulets,” Armas supplied. “The gold ones are making some sort of dispelling field. Weak, but enough to keep them on their feet.”

“So without those amulets we fall asleep, too,” Brin said.

“Well we shouldn’t wait,” Vescaras said. “Shadar-kai can’t take that kind of thing draining on them long. I would suspect they cycle through the guards regularly. Better we take on someone who’s been on their feet a while than someone fresh.”

“Why are they keeping them sleeping?” the elf asked.

“It probably keeps their powers from affecting everyone else,” Dahl said. “Otherwise, you’d have to worry about. .” He stopped. “Oh. Oh, that is perfect. What’s your name?”

“Sheera,” she said, sounding puzzled.

“Well met, Sheera.” He nodded at her crossbow. “How accurately can you shoot?”

Farideh pulled the dancing eldritch light into her hands and shook it out again as she waited at a crossroads for Tharra and the others to return. It didn’t rid her of the feeling that the Nine Hells themselves were about to boil out of her. She did it again, not daring to cast fully, but needing to expend that power.

Lorcan’s words kept coming back to her: Asmodeus only knows what will trigger it, after all. What if all this worrying just brought on worse powers? What if it made their rescue plan unworkable? What if it made Asmodeus notice what was happening in the prison camp?

She rolled the rod between her fingers, all too aware of the flags of shadow smoke that had started curling around her again, and tried to slow her pulse. If there were anything to make people more nervous about her, leaking shadows like some Shar-blessed creature was probably it. She looked down at her bone-white finger and shivered. She pulled her sleeve down over it again and scanned the crossroads once more. Still no guards, and that worried her-hopefully they weren’t out among the stragglers, keeping people from reaching the shelters. Hopefully they weren’t all defending the wizard’s workshop. Hopefully they wouldn’t stop Tharra from reaching the study and meeting Farideh back here.

Movement-the flames leaped to Farideh’s fingers again. A little boy-the same towheaded boy she’d spared in the courtyard the day before-marched across the crossroads, not seeming to care that Farideh stood guard.

“Well met?” she called, shaking the flames out.

The little boy looked up. “Well met.” And he started off again. Farideh hurried after him. “Wait. You have to go back into the shelters.

It’s not safe.”

“I know,” he said. “They don’t say why, but I know. That’s why I have to get Samayan.” He stopped at the next alleyway, studying the muddy ground. “He got nervous-he doesn’t like being underground. So he ran away.” He gave Farideh a very serious look. “I don’t think he knows how dangerous it is.”

“You need to go back to the shelters,” Farideh told him again, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t afraid of her. “Would you like me to walk you back?”

“No,” he said, continuing to the next crossroads. “I have to find Samayan.”

He peered down the alleyway and froze. Farideh leaped ahead of him, ready to cast flames into-

“Havi?” Farideh said. There in the alley opposite, her twin and two others-the Harper Khochen from Waterdeep and a half-elf fellow-were hurrying toward them. Havilar glanced quickly at the crossroads and darted to her sister’s arms. Farideh nearly wept.

“Oh, you’re safe,” Havilar said. “You’re safe, you’re safe.” She held Farideh tight. “Lorcan said, but he’s such a liar and I wasn’t sure.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” Farideh said. “Gods, Havi, you-”

“Oh shut up,” Havilar said. “What was I going to do? Let you have all the adventure? Besides, you needed saving.” She let Farideh go, but her eyes were worried. “Mehen’s here. Brin too. They’re looking for you in other spots.

But, Fari, there’s guards looking for you too. They thought I was you and-”

“You should go to the shelters,” the little boy said. “It’s dangerous.” He trotted up to the next crossroads and gasped. He darted out of sight, and all four adult sprinted after him. A line of snowstars, tiny white flowers on tiny dark leaves, headed down toward the lake.

“Stop, poppet,” Khochen said, setting a firm hand on the little boy’s shoulder. He looked up at the Harper as if he might scold her. “That’s Samayan’s trail,” he said. “He went this way.”

“If we follow it, we’ll find him?” Farideh asked. The little boy nodded.

“Then you go back,” she told him, “and quickly. We’ll go find Samayan and bring him to you.”

The little boy eyed her skeptically. “All right,” he finally said. “But you have to tell him you won’t make him go past the bottom stair. And that I’ll stay with him.”

“I promise,” Farideh said. “Go.” The little boy ran off, back toward the shelters.

The Harper woman eyed her oddly. Farideh stared right back, not caring what she saw. “Samayan’s only a little older than his friend,” she said.

Khochen’s gaze flicked over her once more.

“Then we ought to find him.”

Farideh ripped the flowers up as they passed, removing any trace the shadar-kai might follow. They went on, twisting through the camp, heading for the lake. When the four of them passed the edge of the buildings and came out onto the broad shores of the icy waters, Farideh saw the trail of flowers, in distant patches as if the boy had bounded over the pebbly beach, ending in the water.

“Gods be damned.” Khochen breathed. They had found Samayan. The boy stood up to his ankles in the water, shivering as half a dozen shadar-kai closed in, another dozen crowding the shore. Samayan backed away, deeper into the water. The shadar-kai’s voices shouting, taunting. “Come out of there, or we come in for you!”

Samayan stood up to his thighs now, struggling against the pull of the water’s strange flow. His lips were turning pale. He kept shaking his head, kept moving backward.

Khochen caught Farideh’s arm as she started forward. “They’ll catch you, and then we’re all done for,” Khochen said. “We just need a distraction.”

“Chase him in,” one of the guards called. There were more of them now, at least a dozen, gathering out of the alleyways to watch the sport of drowning a young boy. Farideh’s temper rose.

“All right,” Khochen said, “Farideh, set one of these huts on fire. Havi and Ebros-”

The nearest guard slashed at Samayan with her blade, scoring a line of blood across his chest. He flinched, curling away from the weapon as she made another slice across his shoulder, cackling as she did. Samayan stumbled backward, as if over an unseen rock, the choppy waters closing over his dark head. And Khochen’s plan didn’t matter anymore.

Khochen cursed and she and the twins raced toward the fight, balls of dark energy peeling off Farideh’s fingertips, Ebros’s arrows sailing over their heads. “Keep them back,” Farideh shouted at her sister. “I’ll get Samayan.”

“What?” Havilar cried, as she stopped a shadar-kai’s sword on her glaive. Ahead of Farideh, Samayan’s face broke the lake’s surface, gasped too little air, and dipped under again.

Farideh ran through the lapping water, toward the bobbing shape of the boy, heedless of the threat of the shadar-kai. The water was cold enough her bones ached-colder than the tarn she’d grown up swimming in, colder than the waters of the Fountains of Memory. She dodged the lash of a spiked chain, and-as Samayan’s head dipped below a wave-she leaped through the fabric of the planes to close the distance. She stepped free, catching hold of the lanky boy in her arms and realizing that the lake bed had dropped off precipitously under her feet.

The icy water closed all around her.

There was no swimming through this-so much cold her every nerve was screaming and fading into numbness already. She could hardly move her arms, locked around Samayan, and each kick of her legs felt as if she were dragging them through concrete. The cold seemed to still her lungs, making it harder to draw breath when she did break the surface. She was turned around, unable to find the shore. Her heart hammered in her chest, and it did no good. She couldn’t warm herself, couldn’t draw her magic, couldn’t keep Samayan above the water. The lake would kill her.

No. .

She tightened her arms around Samayan as they sank into the freezing water.

No. .

Air bubbled out of her mouth, water flooded in.

No. .

. . there are thirteen tieflings arrayed around the grove-hooved and horned and winged and tailed and some who might as well be human for all their blood shows-but they are tieflings all the same. Six men, six woman, and the Brimstone Angel herself who stands facing the symbol of the king of the Hells, painted in blood on the spire of stone that they have dragged out of the bedrock with will and the frayed scraps of the Weave, the engines of the Nine Hells and the tortured howls of souls long-lost. This is how it starts, where it begins. Where Farideh and Havilar and every tiefling walking the plane begin. This is how they damn us all. .

Farideh opened her eyes in the freezing water, the water that once filled the Fountains of Memory-and sees the vision as real as it was in her head, as real as it would have been if she stood there; the blue-black fall of her ancestress’s hair where the surface of the lake should be-before her sight began fading. She blinked once, and suddenly she saw the ghost woman’s face, inches from her own, her teeth bared in a grin that was more animal than human. .

Relax, Farideh heard her say. Let go. . Let me help you. . NO-Farideh’s wordless scream made the ghost woman recoil. The last of her air spilled out.

And fire rolled from the core of her out.

She clung tightly to Samayan as everything around them was suddenly bright as a sun and hissing with the furious sound of boiling water. Her thoughts reeled, wordless and scrambling, but her lungs were screaming for air and her legs knew well enough to answer the need. She broke the surface, flames still filling her sight, and pulled Samayan up with her. A spill of water poured out of his nose and mouth. She could hear people shouting and weapons clashing on the shore. A burst of Hells magic pulled her nearer, near enough to regain all her weight as air replaced the water around her. Through the flames she could see the shadar-kai watching her warily. She could see Havilar and Khochen frozen where they’d stood holding off shadar-kai. Samayan coughed, gagged, and she set him shivering on the shore. Khochen sprinted forward and dragged the boy back, away from the fire. Away from Farideh.

Away from the Chosen of Asmodeus.

Farideh turned to the shadar-kai, and she felt her fury, her certainty that she would not let them take another soul, burst out of her like a wave. The flames burned hotter still. She would do anything, in that moment, to keep them from torturing the boy.

“Leave them to me,” Farideh said to the others. She drew the rod from her sleeve and held it out in front of her, parallel to the ground. “Chaanaris.”