Erin Evans - The Adversary

“You know I haven’t,” Farideh said. “And I want none of your courtesy. Just tell me what I have to do and leave me alone.”

Sairché’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t respond in kind. She held up a golden ring and looked through it at the tiefling. “A portal,” she said, and pressed the ring into Farideh’s palm. “I would accompany you, but since you have no need of my courtesy I shall let you figure things out on your own. Gather your belongings, make your excuses, and go. We’ll see how well you manage things alone .”

Farideh turned the ring over in her hand. It was warm to the touch. “You like rings for portals,” she said. “You and Lorcan both.”

Sairché narrowed her eyes. “Your new master isn’t expecting you immediately, but get moving. If you aren’t there by deepnight, I’ll have to come find you.” She smiled wickedly at Farideh and brushed the tiefling’s hair off her face. “And you wouldn’t want that.”

Farideh ignored the threat. “No killing,” she said. “You promised. No stealing souls.”

Sairché shook her head, as if Farideh were an incorrigible child, and Farideh was suddenly aware of the thousands of things she hadn’t marked out. But it was too late, too late for any of that. “No killing. No soulstealing. But,” Sairché added, “if you don’t fulfill your promised services your soul is forfeit.”

“As if I care,” Farideh said.

Sairché leaned in to hiss in Farideh’s ear, “You should. You should care very much. Because if I have to, I will kill you and put your sister in your place.”

Farideh shut her eyes, but there was no stopping the fat line of tears that welled up at that. She rubbed her thumb over the ring-the link to whomever Sairché had promised her to, the only way to protect Havilar from Farideh’s bad decisions.

“There, now,” Sairché crooned, a perfect mockery of sympathy. “It will all be over in a trice. And then you can go back to dodging collectors and disappointing your family. Until I can redeem that second favor.”

Farideh said nothing. As much as she would have liked to turn the storm of Hellish energies that thundered along her pulse against the cambion, she knew too well the sort of magic Sairché would have access to. If she couldn’t kill her outright, it would be suicide to strike.

And worse, she thought: Havilar would bear the brunt of her failure. She closed her hand over the ring.

“A word of advice,” Sairché drawled. “When you arrive, try to pretend you’re not such an innocent. You’ll get eaten alive otherwise.” When Farideh looked back over her shoulder, the cambion was gone.

It was still three hours to deepnight, but with her nerves threatening to overtake her and ruin what resolve she’d managed, Farideh headed straight to her room and packed what little belongings she had into a haversack. Sairché hadn’t said where the ring would take her, and Farideh hoped a rod, a sword, the ritual book, a whetstone, and a comb would be enough.

Dahl’s deck of cards sat between the candles on the little table where she’d dropped it. She considered it a moment, then added it to the pack as well. She pulled her cloak closed, went down to the kitchens, and took the end of a loaf of bread and a few apples.

From the library, she’d snatched a bit of foolscap and a stylus, a little bit of ink.

I am so sorry, she wrote. I hope this makes things easier. She finished the letter and folded it up quickly, so that she wouldn’t have to see the words.

Havilar was sleeping, curled tight on her cot, her lips stained purple from the mostly empty bottle of wine on the floor beside her. Farideh stood in the door a moment, her grief and guilt trapping her feet like a heavy mud. She thought of all the times they’d fought before, all the fights that had seemed vicious, world-ending, but always, eventually, settled out, eased off. They always came back to where they’d started, or near enough to it. They would always be sisters.

Until this, Farideh thought.

She left the note on the bedside table, and piled Lorcan’s necklace atop it. As a peace offering, it lacked. But there was nothing Farideh could leave Havilar that would make much of a difference, and if Sairché wanted the thing, at least she knew Havilar would be stubborn about letting go of it. She kissed her sister’s head, just above her horns, fighting the urge to shake Havilar awake, to tell her once more that she was sorry.

She left before she lost her composure or her nerve. Havilar would find the note after she woke and take it to Mehen. By then Farideh would be gone, and Sairché would leave the both of them alone. She hoped.

Heart pounding-head pounding-Farideh pulled her cloak closer around her and hurried through the Harpers’ stronghold. There were still at least two hours before her deepnight deadline. She could make it out of the city, well away from anyone else who might track her.

Farideh made it as far as the middle of the crowded taproom before the sudden sensation of walking into a wire fence stopped her. Lines of power pulled her back toward the stairs. The protective spell, she realized, reminding her of its limits. Reminding her she was too far from Lorcan-who was gone.

Farideh took a step back, searching the faces of the taproom’s customers. A broad-shouldered half-orc nudged her out of the way, back into the sharp edges of the spell. When she tried to go back the way she came, she found it blocked by bodies pressed close to the bar. She edged her way around the tables and chairs, the searing pain of the protection’s limits enough to make her hold her breath, enough to make her head pound. The edges of her vision started to crackle, stars flashing bright as she inched around the last of the tables.

It should have pulled Lorcan toward her. It should have eased for her, if not for him. But if he’s not in the protection, she thought frantically, as the stars popped across her field of vision, a thousand swirling colors and shadows, if someone else has hold of it. .

Farideh turned and stepped away from the edge of the protection, square into a person. Ale sloshed over her cloak, and she heard a man curse.

“I’m sorry,” she said automatically. The lights bloomed over her vision and she couldn’t make out how annoyed he was. “I didn’t see-”

“Farideh?” Dahl said. She took a step back, and the lights dimmed a little. He didn’t look annoyed so much as surprised, even with an empty flagon and ale down his shirt. “What are you doing down here?”

She shook her head-not now, not now. The lights were still popping in and out of her vision, so abrupt and bright that her ears imagined sounds for them. She glimpsed Dahl’s face between flashes of blue and teal and silvery gray. Between the pops his expression hardened.

“Were you going somewhere?”

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “I don’t know. .”

“All right. You need to talk to Tam. Now.” Dahl took her by the arm and guided her back through the crowd, but also toward where Lorcan must be.

Or toward whoever’s captured an edge of your protection spell, she thought, weaving alongside Dahl, back through the bodies and the furniture and the exploding lights. There were more devils in the Hells than a person could count, and any one of them might be aligned against Sairché’s success. Her and Lorcan’s monstrous mother, any one of their half sisters, their terrible liege-lady, another collector devil-

“Is this. . fit you’re having to do with the devil?” Dahl asked as they ascended the stairs.

“I’m not having a fit,” Farideh said. But was she? Maybe it wasn’t Lorcan. Maybe this was some illness she’d caught in the Hells. Maybe this was some curse Sairché laid on her. “I just need to lie down, all right?”