Erin Evans: Lesser Evils

“It’s not about Havilar,” Brin said firmly.

“Don’t let it be,” Constancia said. “You can’t marry some feral tiefling.”

“Who said anything about marriage?” He’d known Havilar all of a few tendays, and maybe … maybe he was fond of her. He thought she might be fond of him. Fond enough he started to suspect she was teasing him. But even if she were serious, he wouldn’t think of marrying her. He didn’t think of marrying anyone, if he could help it.

Constancia added, “You get a bastard on her, and it might well be worse.”

“Oh holy gods!” Brin cried, certain his face would burst if he blushed any harder. “That’s enough. Don’t talk about her like that, and don’t give me any more advice I don’t need.”

Constancia chuckled. “It wouldn’t be embarrassing if it weren’t a little true, now would it? I’m only saying what you need to hear.”

“No,” Brin said. “You’re saying what you think will make me come home. I had good reasons for leaving, and good reasons for not going back. Right now, no one outside the Citadel knows I exist, and everything’s fine. Everyone’s as safe as they can be. As soon as Aunt Helindra tells the whole world she’s reordering the line of succession, that’s going to change.”

Constancia heaved a great sigh. “You’re not going to die .”

“No, but you might!” Brin said, his voice rising. “Did you think of that? Did you think that you might be the first person someone who wanted control of me would assassinate?”

He was suddenly aware of many eyes watching the pair of them. Mehen cleared his throat, and Brin colored. “I’ll give you a moment more,” the dragonborn said, turning back to his things. “Only do it quietly .”

Constancia chuckled in a good-natured way, and Brin recalled they hadn’t always fought, she hadn’t always pressed him to please Aunt Helindra. Once upon a time, Constancia had held him while he cried for his father. She’d even taken the flute his father had carved and carried from out of the midden pile, so Brin could carry it as well.

“I’ll be fine, you know,” she said. “And so will you. You’ve painted yourself this horrible scenario where you have to save us from ourselves, but you forget the Crownsilvers have been lords of Cormyr for twelve hundred years. They will survive, and so will you and I because of that. But only if we do our duty.”

“I’m more than just a Crownsilver,” he said. “And so are you.”

Constancia shook her head sadly. “You’ll come around to it one day, Aubrin. It’s fine to spend your youth pretending you’re beholden to no one but yourself, a lone rider on the road of life. But one day you’ll realize that you’re never really alone. You’re a part of something greater. You’re a Crownsilver, and you shall always be so.”

“All right,” Mehen said. “It’s best we were on our way.” Brin took a step back from Constancia, whose gray eyes narrowed.

“I …,” he started. He swallowed. “Mehen, it was good to have met you.”

The dragonborn nodded stiffly. “So you’re staying behind?” he said. “Probably best.” The hard stare made Brin wonder if he’d given Mehen just as bad an impression about Havilar as he had Constancia. Mehen took hold of Constancia’s shackles. Constancia pulled away, bent forward so she was close to Brin’s ear.

“There’s a coinlender in the city, Tannannath and Frynch,” she said quickly. “You ask for the Broken Marble safehold. Write the runes A C O atop each other when they ask, and the answer is ‘He made the right choice’-although if you need me to tell you that when it comes to it, I’ll box your ears. There’s plenty to keep you fed and sheltered until you change your mind.”

“Constancia-” he started.

“And take some of that coin and buy Squall back,” Constancia ordered. “You can ride him home. He’ll carry you.”

“I’m not coming home.”

“Let’s go,” Mehen said, muscling her toward the doors that led to the hall of the portal.

Brin thought of chasing after him, but the thought of saying good-bye to any of them was more than he could bear. Especially Havilar.

You’ll see them again, he told himself. It’s not such a big world. He watched Mehen’s back as he disappeared into the crowded hallway. You don’t have to say good-bye.

Coward, Brin thought.

WATERDEEP

28 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)

These are the stories, Tam thought as he stared up at the sooty ceiling, that no one bothers telling.

Down in the market square of Waterdeep, he knew, at least a dozen vendors sold chapbooks filled with the stories of ancient warriors and clever rogues. Of wily adventurers who outsmarted greater evils and freed their true loves, as well as a great deal of treasure. Of the glory and greatness that awaited the hero when the deed was done.

None of those heroes, he was sure, was ever described as having been made to sit for an hour in a windowless hallway, waiting to turn in a report to his superiors who had hurried him back as if the city were on fire.

“Every stlarning time,” he muttered.

The Harpers of Waterdeep were certainly not unique in their formalities-a spymaster with no sense of what happened in his or her organization was no one Tam wanted to work for. But they stood out for the sheer inefficiency of all their rules and regulations. It was clearer by the day that they’d once been little more than loosely allied adventurers.

Written reports-which would be read and then destroyed-face-to-face meetings with his handler-who was running late again -and to top it off, no system for the dull realities of spies needing to have coin to run around the continent on and safe places to hole up in.

A far cry, he thought, from chapbooks.

Not that he blamed them, not entirely. A hundred years ago, the Harpers had spanned the continent. From the highest houses of Waterdeep to the docksides of fallen Halruaa to the ranks of the gods’ own Chosen, they said, the organization had power enough to run itself and keep in check such threats as Shade, the nefarious Red Wizards, and the Black Network, the Zhentarim.

But a hundred years was a long time, and since then the Harpers had fractured, crumbled, collapsed under the weight of a world recovering from the catastrophes of the Spellplague, the return of Abeir, and the loss of whole nations. The Harpers had scattered and the organization had retreated and retreated and what was left curled itself away in the city of Everlund, forgotten by most everyone, except a few chapbook purveyors, who embellished the legendary Harpers into something more akin to mythical heroes.

Those who were left had banded against Netheril’s advancement-the worst of the threats facing Faerun these days. There hadn’t been enough of them to do more.

Until recently. The Harpers of Everlund weren’t the only ones set against the Empire of Shade, and recent years had brought greater numbers of agents to their cause. That had been what convinced Tam. He’d seen firsthand what the Shadovar were capable of in the name of Shar, the goddess of loss.

But with more agents, it seemed the Harpers were getting overeager. It couldn’t just be about Shade and Netheril anymore. And how could any of them refuse to stand against the Hells or the Abolethic Sovereignty, or worse things?

Tam skimmed the carefully inked report he’d laid on the bench beside him without really reading it.

… Shadovar scouts …

The blank-faced man all in black buying supplies, eyeing Tam and-no doubt-the blessings of Selune that marked him, just as Tam eyed the sliver of shadow that marked Shar’s own. Both aware of what they stood for-a battle more ancient than the gods-and both aware that neither was ready to take that field, not there, not yet. A promise of something worse, he thought. Something he would have liked to chase down. If he’d had the chance.