Erin Evans - The Adversary

But every scale of it, this time, seemed completely still-the indifference of a dragon, even to Farideh.

Farideh’s breath stopped. In her mind’s eye she replayed the last time they stood in the hall: Mehen putting his arm around her, hugging her close, the edge of his chin ridge rubbing against her hair. The sound of his heart where she had laid her head against his chest.

“When we get the bounty settled,” Mehen had said, releasing her and mussing her dark hair with one massive hand, “first thing, we get you a new cloak.” He’d reached over and tugged on Havilar’s long braid, teasing. “And you need a haircut. Getting to be a damned axe man’s handle.”

Mehen’s jaws parted, showing yellowed teeth. She saw the flutter of his tongue tapping the roof of his mouth, tasting the air for trouble. As if he suspected a trick. Far more likely, wasn’t it, than his foster daughters returned from a grave seven and a half years cold?

She shook her head as if she could will it not to be so, maybe pass through the portal and come out again seven and a half years back, no matter what Sairché said. Her knees seemed miles away, and her lungs were useless, unable to draw air past the sob that exploded from her before she could clap a hand to her mouth.

“I’m sorry!” she managed around the gasps. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry-I thought it would be all right.” Every eye in the hall was on her, and she pressed both hands to her mouth as if she could smother the thoughtless, stumbling words; the sobs that made her breath buck and hiccup. She couldn’t. This was her fault. Even Mehen couldn’t forgive-

Then he was there, his great arms around her and around Havilar, crushing her close enough to drive the uneven air right out of her. For a moment, Mehen, too, was wordless, and there was only the dragonborn’s soft, shuddering sobs as he held his daughters close again.

“My girls,” he whispered. Farideh buried her face in his shoulder. “My girls.” And for the first time since they’d returned to Toril, Farideh thought there might be some things that weren’t completely ruined. She wept and wept and wept.

Over Mehen’s shoulder, Farideh saw a young blond man with a reddish beard, standing at the foot of the platform watching them, his expression guarded. For a moment, his intrusiveness embarrassed Farideh-was there nowhere else to look?

And then that closed expression slipped, just a bit, as Havilar lifted her head, noticed him. And Farideh realized it wasn’t a stranger standing there. It was Brin.

His clothes fit much better-a suit made for a lord of Cormyr all in pale wools with a dark emerald cloak-and with the beard, he finally looked his age. But it was Brin all the same.

Havilar stood poised on the edge of motion. But Brin didn’t move, didn’t speak. Mehen held both his daughters tight, but he was watching the floor behind Havilar, tense with worry. As if, perhaps, he knew what was happening over his shoulder. As if he were doing his part to stand in the middle of it. To keep Havilar safe and apart.

For so long, none of them moved, none of them spoke, and the sick feeling in Farideh’s stomach rose up like a maelstrom, threatening to overtake her again. She held Mehen tighter, wanting back that fragile moment of peace, unable to look away from the sad expression fighting through Brin’s studied calm.

Sairché stood in front of the scrying mirror, watching Farideh hanging off the dragonborn, weeping her little heart out. Though rage boiled through Sairché at the mere sight of the tiefling, she smiled. Her revenge wasn’t complete, but already it was going so well.

It had been Farideh-and Lorcan too-who had gotten Sairché trapped in this unenviable mess. While Glasya, the Archduchess of the Sixth Layer, had seemed to favor Sairché by raising her up in the hierarchy and making her a powerful agent in executing Asmodeus’s sprawling plans, it was an illusion. Sairché’s life hung on a balance so finely weighted that the merest mistake would drop her into immeasurable torments.

If Lorcan had not flouted Sairché, if Farideh had not stolen him away from Sairché’s clutches, Glasya would not have decided to make an example of Sairché. She would not have handed her the king of the Hells’ orders and all but told her to fail at them, trapping Sairché between the two most dangerous powers she knew: the Risen God of Evil and his scheming daughter.

Eight years of careful planning, and still Sairché was not certain she could manage. To fail without seeming to fail. To undo the work while letting someone else shoulder the blame. The other devils in the hierarchy were just as determined, just as slippery. She couldn’t give in to inconvenient emotions and let them win.

Sairché let the mirror relapse into darkness, still seething. She liked to imagine it was a gift of her mother’s blood, the blessing and curse of being the cambion daughter of Glasya’s most infamous erinyes. It certainly felt so-a nearly uncontrollable tide on her otherwise calculating nature. She wondered if Lorcan-Invadiah’s other half-devil child-felt the same pull.

When the little bitch had struck her, it had taken all of Sairché’s wherewithal not to return the favor. Not to make her gape and gasp over a dagger like Temerity had. She drew a slow breath, focused on the faint moan of the skull-palace of Osseia that filled the air around her. The fleshy walls twitched, and a thin line of bloody mucus dripped down a panel. Sairché clung to the calm.

Not for the first time, Sairché wondered what would have happened if-seven and a half years earlier-Farideh had taken the pact Sairché had offered her in Neverwinter. Would Sairché have come so quickly under the archduchess’s wing? Would she have been able to broker the pact with the Brimstone Angel, selling her off to another devil quickly enough to make none of this her problem?

Would she have found out about the twin sooner?

Sairché thought of Havilar, of the familiar rage that flowed off the woman, the grief and sadness that seemed to choke her. Promising, Sairché thought, and mine . No collector devil would snatch up either Brimstone Angel, not while Asmodeus’s edicts were in play. She would have time to wrap the other twin up in pacts and promises, to shape her into something useful.

And Farideh, as much as she needed her now, would make an excellent tool to do the shaping. Sairché smiled to herself as she left the scrying mirror’s room and crossed her apartments. By the end of the tenday, Farideh wouldn’t have a single ally left. By the end of this mission, there would be more than enough people determined to kill the warlock and end her treachery. And Sairché’s hands would be clean enough for the archdevils.

The portal Glasya gave Sairché use of took the form of a gaping wound in the wall of Sairché’s apartments. Seven and a half years of it and Sairché still loathed the gift.

“Albaenoch ,” she said, and the wound widened, the wall emitting a slow, pained screech.

Sairché wrinkled her nose-all of Malbolge was formed of Glasya’s predecessor’s body, the palace her unfortunate skull. Day in and out the very presence of the devils of Malbolge tortured the lost leader, and Glasya made special efforts to ensure it kept going. The archduchess might have claimed the layer well over a century ago, but what was time to an immortal? What was mercy to an archdevil?

Where is her pity for the rest of us who have to listen to it? Sairché thought, stepping into the portal. The wound and world seemed to close in on her, collapsing Sairché into the space of a fist, and then scattering her in pieces on a burning wind.

When she opened her eyes, she stood in a hallway made of glossy black stone, and Sairché cursed. The fortress had several powerful spells sheltering it, hiding it away. She had told the owner a thousand times to make specific allowances for her so that she went where she intended, but if he had, they didn’t work. Not for the first time she wondered if the wizard was intractable or merely not as clever as he presented himself to be. Likely both. She took another deep breath-now wasn’t the time to punish him.