Erin Evans: The Adversary

Frost crusted the leaf curled a handspan from Farideh’s face. But it shouldn’t have.

She shut her eyes, a thousand half-formed thoughts buzzing in her skull. But only one took hold: it had been hot enough the day before that there was no way frost-

The hyah, hyah, hyah of a crow scattered her thoughts. She winced and turned her face to the ground. Hot the day before. . or maybe it was the same day, or maybe it was a lifetime ago. She couldn’t be sure of anything but the cold air, the hard ground, and the bare forest around her, vanishing into thick patches of fog.

Farideh pushed herself up. She brushed away bits of leaf and dirt, and hissed as the motion sent a tremor through her arm. Every muscle felt stiff and overdrawn. And her head-the tiefling blinked heavily as the throb behind her eyes surged to a state that couldn’t be ignored. She pressed one hand to her eye, cupping the curve of her horn ridge as she did, trying to remember what had happened. Maybe she’d fallen ill. Maybe she’d drunk too much whiskey. Maybe Havilar. .

Farideh looked around the clearing for her twin. The light through the tree branches was bleached as white as old bone and just as lifeless. She eyed the ragged edge of fog creeping over the clearing, a season’s worth of dead leaves, the bare sentinels of trees staring down at her. Their low creak of protest broke the silence as a sagging earthmote settled into the trees to her left.

Farideh jumped to her feet and scuttled back, away from the leaning trees. The floating island of earth was caught by the trunks like a rock clutched in a giant hand. It hung so low that she could make out the strange blue flowers flocking the meadows beneath its rocky spires. And it was slowly sinking lower.

Earthmotes don’t do that, she thought, her panicked breath a cloud of vapor on the cold air. A taproot snapped and a tree crashed to the ground.

The faint and unmistakable smell of brimstone drifted on the air.

Hyah, the crow screamed. Hyah.

Farideh wet her mouth, not daring to look away from the earthmote. There was a nauseous feeling building in her stomach and the small of her back. Her tail started to lash the deadfall. Brimstone meant Hells-magic. Portals. Hands shaking, she checked her sleeve for the rod she carried, the rod that helped her channel the same dangerous, boiling magic. It was gone. Worse, the shirt was not hers.

Her heart squeezed. Something’s wrong, she thought, looking for the devils between the trees. Something worse than Havi’s whiskey. .

Havilar . The cold sunk down to the core of her. Oh gods-where was her sister?

“Havilar!” she cried, though her voice was hoarse, as stiff and unwilling as her muscles. “Havi! Havi!” The fog smothered her shouts. “Havilar!”

Someone groaned behind Farideh, and her heart tripped over itself. She ran at the noise, stumbling as if her legs were relearning how to move. She crashed into the patch of ferns her twin sister rose weaving out of.

“Fari?” she said, in a voice just as broken as Farideh’s. “What. .?” Farideh threw her arms around her sister and held her tight, watching the grove over her shoulder. The smell of brimstone pricked at her nose again.

“What happened?” Havilar said. She pushed Farideh back far enough to look around. “Where are we?” She frowned. “What happened to your face?”

Farideh shook her head, as the same question died on her lips. For all her young life, Havilar’s face had been a mirror of her own-same horns, same cheekbones, same softly curved nose. The only difference was Farideh’s silver left eye against Havilar’s gold ones. If that was still so, then the same subtle but undeniable changes had been wrought on Farideh’s own features.

Thinner, she thought studying Havilar. Maybe harder. The chin was firmer and the cheekbones sharper. Hollows under the eyes that hadn’t been there before. Paler.

“Your hair,” Farideh said. Havilar reached for her braid, grabbing instead a hank of purplish-black hair, smooth as silk.

Havilar looked around at the deadfall. “Where’s my glaive?” she asked muzzily. She pressed a hand to her head and winced.

The earthmote crept nearer to earth, and another tree moaned and cracked. Havilar jumped. “ Karshoj .” She looked around the clearing. “What happened? It’s all. . different. Isn’t it?”

It’s different- Lorcan’s words echoed in her memory. You’re different. I chose you over her back there. I was ready to let her attack me so you could get away. Doesn’t that mean anything?

Lorcan.

Farideh’s pulse sped. It stirred up her pact magic and sent a surge of shadowy smoke wafting off her skin, through the strange shirt: Lorcan, the cambion she drew her powers through, should have been there.

But all of their things were missing, and so were their traveling companions. And while the half-devil might have vanished without saying a word if he found the means-

In the same moment, Havilar’s thoughts seemed to clear. “Brin.” She lurched out of Farideh’s arms and out of the ferns, shouting for the young man she fancied who would never have left her behind. “Brin! Brin !”

No one answered but the crow, hopping from tree to tree like a loose shadow, flapping noisily.

“We must have. .,” Farideh started, but she had no answer. “He must be. .” No weapons, no gear, no armor, no Brin. No Lorcan. Brimstone on the air. Cold. She wet her mouth again. Something was wrong. She had to remember what. The crow stopped, bobbing on the branch directly ahead of her.

Here, the crow was shouting. Here, here, here.

Only it wasn’t a crow. A tiny devil with black wings and a cruel, clever face hopped down to a lower branch, and grinned at the twins with red, jagged teeth. Farideh heard Havilar gasp.

Rod or not, Farideh drew on the Hellish powers her warlock pact granted her, pulling Havilar behind her as they poured into her veins. The devil bobbed and smirked at her. “Bad idea,” it said. “Very bad. Here, here, here!”

“Oh do shut up,” a new voice called. “I heard you the first hundred times.” Farideh spun, flames surging into her hands. Opposite the earthmote, a woman-a half-devil, a cambion-strode toward them. Small-boned and red-skinned, Lorcan’s sister, Sairché, rustled through the dead leaves in no apparent hurry, her wings held back like those of a hawk about to take flight. Her armor gleamed as silver as the needle-sharp eyelashes framing her gold eyes and the tattoos tracing her clean-shaven scalp.