Erin Evans - The Adversary

Like Osseia, the fortress seemed less built than grown. The wizard had done that-acquiring potent scrolls, coaxing the rock out of the ground and shaping it to his liking. A waste of magic, Sairché thought, not the least because it had thrown her timeline into disarray-the time it had taken to raise the tower meant delays in mastering the spells she’d gathered for him, meant delays in finding the best methods to collect specimens, meant that she now had to pull out a piece she’d hoped to save. At least it would be unpleasant for Farideh.

She threw open the door to his study, still simmering. The wizard, a darkhaired man with pale skin and piercing blue eyes looked up, unruffled. If anything, it made Sairché madder.

“Well met, Lady Sairché,” he said. He did not stand. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’ve got your tool,” Sairché said. “I will need a few days to secure her transport. Make the most of them.” He sat, considering her, waiting-no doubt-for an apology. Sairché narrowed her eyes. Seven and a half years of this, and Sairché would be damned if she uttered anything like an apology to the man.

“Better late than never,” the man finally replied. “Though better never late.”

Sairché’s mother would have torn a hand right off the human’s arm, plucked it free like a spring onion from the mud, for that insolence. Sairché ran her tongue deliberately over the sharp edges of her teeth to keep that erinyes blood from replying.

“Charming maxim,” she said a moment later. “In the Hells, we prefer, ‘Don’t forget where you stand.’ Don’t forget, goodsir , that you’re the one who advanced our timeline. You’re the one who went ahead with the experiments I schooled you in. And without my assistance, you’re the one whose superiors will overlook his good works for their lack of progress. So I suggest you reconsider your tone.”

The Netherese wizard looked back at her. Seven and a half years of these visits and still the mortal’s gaze made Sairché’s temper flare-if he thought to cow her with that leer, that skin-piercing stare, she would gladly show him otherwise.

At least, she thought, Lorcan’s blasted warlock will have to suffer it too.

“Your pardon,” Adolican Rhand said. “I will be most happy to receive her.” There were words in Tymantheran Draconic that didn’t exist in the common tongue. Omin’ iejirsjighen meant the things you owed your clan because you were taught their importance, while omin’ iejirkkessh meant the things you owed your clan that you shouldn’t need to be taught. There was nothing in Common like throtominarr , the honor you showed your ancestors by improving on what they created, and Common had no use for the many words that described the nuanced markers of a dragonborn’s mood- asaurifyth, yuthom-turil, othrirenthish .

But in neither tongue were the words Clanless Mehen needed: A feeling of relief so strong it overwhelmed any other feeling, including the anger Farideh seemed to fear. The sense of disorder, of upheaval in knowing that the horror that had defined his life for so long was only a nightmare, something that he had woken up from but found he couldn’t quite shake. The knowledge of what could be lost and the hole it could leave in you.

If he could have bundled his daughters close and held them, like he had when he’d carried the foundling babies out of the snow and into the village of Arush Vayem, by every god he would have, and never let go. But the girls were not babes in swaddling. Not even girls anymore, Mehen thought.

For all he felt like drawing his blade against time itself, beating the years into submission like a vicious beast, Clanless Mehen had learned a little better. He would master this. He would savor what he had. He would give his daughters what they needed first.

“Up!” he barked, as if they’d never left. “Keep the line straight!”

The sun dropped low, setting the sky between Waterdeep’s crowded buildings afire and casting long shadows over the Harper inn’s open yard. He had certainly not wanted to set them practicing in the yard-not now-but while he could keep them near and quiet the first day, this afternoon Havilar had taken up her returned glaive with a single-mindedness that brooked no compromise. Mehen was so grateful Farideh had followed when he beckoned so they could all be together.

Even though Havilar clearly didn’t want her there. Maybe didn’t even want him there.

Seven and a half broken-hearted years had passed for Mehen, but his girls had lost only days. The relief that buoyed him up smothered any sort of anger he might have been able to muster at them-at Farideh-wasn’t there for Havilar. Farideh kept herself tucked in the shadows of unneeded equipment, knowing better than to offer to spar with Havi.

Havilar’s blade came up hard, the point striking the dummy and tearing through the batting, lodging in the grain of the wood beneath. She yanked at it. It wouldn’t budge.

“Here,” Mehen said gently, laying a hand on Havilar’s back. This, too, he thought: there was no word for the pure, wordless joy of feeling her solid and live beside him. He jerked the weapon free of the dummy and handed it back to her. “Maybe we should-”

Havilar didn’t wait for him. She sprang back and threw herself at the dummy again, striking out with the butt of the glaive, the shaft, the blade.

“Havi, you’re going to hurt your-”

She screeched and the glaive struck the side of the dummy. The weapon jolted right out of her hands, the strike too hard for her weakened grip. She glowered at it, panting.

“You need to go slow,” Mehen said.

“I don’t need help!” she shouted. She glowered at Farideh. “And I don’t need an audience.” Her sister seemed to collapse further into herself.

“Enough!” Mehen roared. He held up a hand, but Havilar turned from him and his heart ached. “All right. How about you take some time for yourself? We’ll go in, you vent some old breath. Just promise me,” he said, setting a hand on her back once more, “you’ll be careful. You’ll get your skills back, I promise. But not today. No matter how hard you hit that dummy.”

Havilar nodded, not looking up at him, and he fought the urge to hug her tight. She would be inflexible as steel and rage against every moment of it, and neither of them would be soothed. “Come in, in an hour or so,” he said instead.

Mehen left then, though every part of him fought it. But he knew Havilar-and while seven and a half years ago her problems might have been minor enough for him to insist she listen, to roar at her until she obeyed, to send her to bed straightaway, now. .

Havilar needed to be alone. He was sure of that, even if he was sure it would kill him to walk away from her.

Farideh stood as he approached and fell into step beside him, staring at her boots as she walked. His stubborn, challenging, resourceful Farideh, and all the steel had gone out of her as if someone had drawn it like a sword from a sheath.

Mehen wrapped an arm around her and held her close. “It will be all right. She’s grieving.”

Farideh leaned against him, but said nothing. Mehen walked with her, leading them to the little library the Harpers kept here. They sat together on a bench.

“Will you tell me what happened?” he asked quietly.

Farideh shut her eyes and pressed her mouth shut. “I told you to go to Cormyr,” she said after a moment. “And then everything went wrong.”

“Fari,” he said, almost a sigh. “Please. There aren’t words for how glad I am that you are alive.” He pulled her close again, rubbed his chin ridge over the top of her head, before he choked up too. “There isn’t room for anything else. Whatever came before doesn’t matter,” he said firmly.