Erin Evans - The Adversary

She looked past him at the tavernkeeper, who was eyeing them both. Or maybe, Farideh thought, she was just watching Lorcan. Out walking through Faerûn, Lorcan took precautions and made his appearance shift, taking on the skin of a human man. Gone were the horns, the red skin, the wings that would have stretched halfway across the taproom. His eyes were still black as nightmares, but they were ringed in white. His dark curls lightened several shades, and his skin was a shade brighter than Farideh’s. But he was still hard not to look at.

Farideh took a deep breath. “I presume she’ll pay you back your half of the room fee. What did you pay for it again?”

Lorcan smirked. “Where am I to sleep?”

“You don’t sleep.”

“I sleep a little. This plane is wearisome . And why not, if I have nothing else to do?” His eyes didn’t leave her face, but still Farideh had the sense he was appraising every inch of her in his head.

What would you do if he asked to sleep with you? she wondered to herself. If he didn’t try to make you say it first? She quashed that thought as well-it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because Lorcan wouldn’t ask, Lorcan had no interest in sharing a bed with her and every interest in keeping her off-balance. After a month, the sureness of it had been hammered down into her bones. All she had to do was keep herself focused and sensible and not get pulled into Lorcan’s manipulations.

“But,” he went on, “more importantly, I need a chance to let this disguise drop. You don’t want me to tire of holding it up.”

Farideh let out a breath. She’d forgotten about his spell’s limits. “Well, Havilar will have to think of something.” She stood. “Shouldn’t we go?” Without waiting for him, she crossed the taproom-pointedly not looking at the staring tavernkeeper-and out the door. The protection spell that had hidden Farideh from the Hells now hid Lorcan as well, and meant he had to follow wherever she went.

That didn’t help matters between them either.

The sun was setting as they made their way through the winding streets of Proskur. Lorcan threaded his arm through hers. As they passed graying clapboard houses and windowless shops, he held her close and it was strange how right and normal that had begun to seem. Even though too many people were watching her walk past-even though they were headed to meet another of Lorcan’s warlocks-she relaxed and held him too. Just a little.

A tiefling wasn’t an everyday occurrence, and most people were circumspect about the descendants of humans and fiends-even if that past transgression was too many generations back to count. Despite the heat of the day, Farideh wished she’d worn her cloak and hood.

Lorcan hung on her arm, distracting them. A real fiend, Farideh thought bitterly. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It had been eight months since she’d accepted the infernal pact of a warlock, since she first learned to channel the dark and blistering energies of the Nine Hells. Eight months since she’d been banished from the mountain village she’d grown up in, eight months of hunting bounties for coin-all the way east to the Sword Coast, and far north as Neverwinter, down into the heart of the Nether Mountains, and everywhere in between. Eight months of little comfort, little sense of the future. Eight months of Lorcan, for better or worse.

“What’s she like,” Farideh asked, “this warlock?”

Lorcan’s hold on her arm eased. “You won’t like her. But then, you don’t need to talk to her.”

“Is she wicked?”

“She won’t do anything to you.”

They walked a little farther down a narrow, dirty street. Lorcan’s grip on her loosened as he searched the doors on either side.

“But she can get you back home?” Farideh knew it was the reason for this errand. Lorcan had only escaped his sister’s clutches a month or so prior. Bound under the same protection spell as Farideh, Sairché couldn’t scry him, but Lorcan couldn’t return to the Hells either. Farideh wasn’t sure he should. “Is she a very powerful warlock?”

“Powerful enough to call someone who can answer some questions for me.” He eyed a man passing them by, all bundled up and hidden. “Find out if it’s safe. Temerity’s clever that way.”

Temerity. He hadn’t said her name before.

Farideh had always known Lorcan had pacts with other warlocks, other descendants of the Toril Thirteen. She’d been certain most of them were more talented than her, better suited to the pact. But hearing it-Farideh’s stomach twisted. She pressed the feeling down. He moved ahead of her, letting her go completely. She folded her hands together instead of trying to catch his.

“Who was her ancestor?” she asked.

Lorcan frowned at her over his shoulder. “What?”

“Like Bryseis Kakistos,” she explained. “What was the name of the warlock Temerity descends from?”

“Why do you care?”

“It’s only a name,” Farideh said, falling into step beside him.

Lorcan turned back to scanning the shops they passed. “You of all people should know better than to be indiscriminately curious. Ah,” he said, eyes falling on a dark green door. A sign with a picture of a mortar and pestle hung over the entrance. As they drew nearer, the thick scent of spices and perfumes curled around them, beckoning them in. Lorcan considered the door for a moment. The street had widened, edging back into something bordering on respectable.

“Wait out here,” he said finally. “I won’t be long.” With that, he swept into the shop without so much as a glance at Farideh.

She sighed. There was a bench in front of the shop beside Temerity’s and she settled herself there to wait, trying not to wonder too hard about Temerity and the warlocks of the Toril Thirteen.

Almost a hundred years ago, thirteen tiefling warlocks had come together to work magic that helped the king of the Hells, Asmodeus, rise up and claim the mantle of a god-transforming all the tieflings on the plane of Toril into the descendants of Asmodeus, cursed to wear that blood plain on their skin, no matter what they seemed before. At the coven’s head had been Bryseis Kakistos, the Brimstone Angel. Farideh and Havilar’s ancestor. By those lines of descent, devils like Lorcan sought out sets of warlocks to reflect the Toril Thirteen.

So like Farideh, Temerity had been chosen for some long ago ancestor’s sin. Perhaps she’d been pursued by many devils-some of the heirs, she had come to understand, were rare, though none so rare as those of the Brimstone Angel.

Perhaps Temerity had known her blood’s story from the cradle and sought the devils out. Perhaps she, too, had merely been in the right place at the right time for Lorcan to say all the right words and snare her in a pact that changed everything.

Farideh picked at the fraying edge of her sleeve and thought of Lorcan standing in the little stone house she’d grown up in, summoned accidentally by her sister. She thought of his hot breath on her cheek still cold from the snowy wind outside. She thought of him whispering, “Say you’re mine.”

A shiver ran up Farideh’s spine. She might not be able to return to a normal life, but she could surely find her way out of the tangle of emotion Lorcan had trapped her in and into something simpler. More sensible.

A woman stood in the doorway opposite the bench, watching Farideh with a wary eye, no subtlety in her distaste. Farideh shifted uncomfortably.

“You waiting for someone?” the woman said after an interminable time.

“My friend,” Farideh said. “He won’t be long.”

“Buying spices from another devilborn.” She sniffed. “Your kind do like to stick together.”

Farideh’s tail flicked nervously. She pulled it closer to lie along her thigh. “My friend’s human, many thanks.”