Fire in the Blood, page 33
“Stay alive,” he murmurs. “Stay alive.”
Farideh pulls away, studies Dahl’s face. But when she looks over his shoulder, the archdevil is there, watching, waiting. Smiling in a way that turns her blood as cold and fast as the watercourse.
Farideh woke, sucking in air as if she were drowning again, hands clutching at the swamp of sheets. The gray light of early morning made the room seem as if it should feel colder. The bed certainly felt bigger. Emptier. Farideh sat up, pulling her knees to her chest, and pressed a hand to her eyes. She sighed, and counted off on her fingers.
“Havi, I’ve done either the most foolish thing ever or maybe the wisest option I had. But either way, you were right: it’s tremendous fun.”
Mostly, she amended, stretching and slipping into her dressing robe.
It wasn’t the nightmare Criella had threatened it would be—in fact, at points last night, Farideh had wondered if the old midwife had any idea what she was talking about, or if maybe it came down to who you went to bed with. Whether because of what Lorcan was, who he was, or the menace of the amulet, it had been pretty karshoji good. But then he’d left.
In the cold light of day, she could hardly believe she thought he’d do anything different. Even if he’d made her feel amazing, even if he’d been almost gentle, even if he’d seemed for a moment like he was as lost in her as she was in him, he was still Lorcan.
“I don’t sleep,” he’d pointed out when she’d held tight to his arm, asked him to stay. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I just … I don’t want to be alone.”
Farideh poured cold water in the basin and washed her face, trying not to cringe at the memory of her own plaintive voice, at Lorcan’s absolute befuddlement. They were done after all—unless that’s what she was asking for?
It was what she settled for.
Clean and dressed in the blue gown, she went down to the kitchen and found Dumuzi still there. “Well met,” she said. “I suppose it’s earlier than I thought.”
Dumuzi gestured at the kettle on the fire. “Tea. But I did not make you anything to eat.”
Farideh poured herself a cup of tea, and added a spoon of honey.
Dumuzi cleared his throat. “That was not the Peredur last night, was it?”
Farideh stirred a vortex in her tea and felt a blush creep up her neck. “No.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
Gods, no, Farideh nearly said. But the thought stopped her—she’d see Lorcan again, that was certain. And while she wanted to insist that last night was an oddity, she also knew if Lorcan suggested it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be. And she wasn’t ashamed of it. So why wouldn’t she tell Dahl?
Because you wouldn’t, she thought.
“If it comes up,” she said to Dumuzi. The dragonborn’s nostrils flared in a skeptical way. Farideh found herself studying him, looking for traces of Mehen. Dumuzi stared back, his tongue fluttering behind the gap of his teeth.
“Are you my brother?” When he didn’t answer, she reluctantly amended, “Are you Mehen’s son?”
“No.” Dumuzi poked the eggs on his plate. “He and my father were clan-mates. I’m kosjmyrni.”
Farideh shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
“My mother is Kepeshkmolik. It’s her clan I belong to.”
“So, you’re cousins? On your father’s side?”
Dumuzi wrinkled his brow ridges, making the moons shift and threaten to crash into one another. “Perhaps. Many, many, many times removed.”
And is it Kepeshkmolik or Verthisathurgiesh that’s sent you after Mehen? Farideh wondered. She sipped her tea. “Mehen doesn’t talk much about his life before,” she said. “Does your father talk about Mehen?”
Dumuzi laughed once to himself. “No. No, not really. But other people do.”
“Why is that funny?” Farideh asked.
Dumuzi’s tongue fluttered again. “Does Mehen really never talk about Djered Thymar? About … the Lance Defenders? About why he left?”
Farideh stopped. “About Arjhani?” she asked flatly.
Dumuzi gave a shrug, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “About all of it. About any of it. There are … there are people who think Pandjed made the wrong decision. I just wondered.”
Farideh didn’t move, the memory of a long-ago summer—a slim bronze dragonborn, Havilar with a dummy glaive in hand—so present she thought she might smother in it. “Do you know Arjhani?”
A sharp rapping came at the door. For a moment, Farideh and Dumuzi sat, each watching the other, unmoving.
“War wizards again?” Dumuzi asked.
Farideh cursed to herself. It was—it would have to be. She stood, and thought about promising Dumuzi the conversation wasn’t over. But she found she had no room at all in her heart for Arjhani.
The air outside was warm and thick with the falling rain. Ilstan stood on the doorstep, the red-haired war wizard Devora beside him.
“Good morning,” Farideh said. Ilstan nodded at her with a tight smile as he entered. The muscles at the small of Farideh’s back tightened.
“I heard you had quite the evening out, ‘Lady Crownsilver,’ ” Devora said in a knowing way. “Though I hear it’s Lord Ammakyl and I hear it’s the equerry.”
“How …” Farideh started. Devora merely shrugged, looking like a cat full of cream.
“My coin’s on the equerry,” she said. “He’s a bit rough around the edges, but there’s a spark there—”
“We are not here to gossip, Wizard of War Abielard,” Ilstan snapped, mercifully releasing Farideh from the expectation of a reply. He pulled his wand out. “If I have your permission, goodwoman?”
“Ye gods, Nyaril,” Devora said. “Who pissed in your porridge?”
“If you don’t mind,” Farideh said, “could you make it last through the evening again?”
Ilstan lowered the wand. “To what aim?”
“I have errands,” Farideh said. “It’s much easier to get to the market and such if I don’t have to worry about what people think of how I look.”
“What sort of errands?”
“Oh for the gods’ sake, Ilstan!” the other war wizard said. “She wants to meet her lover. Just cast the bloody spell.”
Ilstan never stopped scowling through the spell, nor the ride to the palace. Farideh called up the soul sight, and looked Ilstan over. The rune remained, sharper and brighter than before, but no more understandable.
“Do you read Supernal?” Farideh had asked Lorcan as he dressed the night before.
“Not if I can help it,” he said. “Why?”
She leaned over the edge of the bed and hooked the skirt she’d worn. She fished the foolscap with the glyphs on it from her pocket, and held it out to him. “What does it say?”
Lorcan buckled his belt, frowning at the paper. “Where did you get Supernal glyphs?”
“What does it say?”
Lorcan eyed her warily, but sat at the foot of the bed, leaning over the sheet. He tapped each down the line. “Chauntea”—the one she’d marked on Samayan, the boy from the camp. “Shar”—on the Nameless One. “Asmodeus”—on the ghost who’d enchanted the comb. His finger stopped on the last one, and he frowned. “I don’t know that one.”
It was the glyph she’d seen on Ilstan, the one she’d seen on Asmodeus in her vision.
“That doesn’t say Asmodeus?”
“As I said”—Lorcan pointed to the sigil to the left, a latticework of sharp strokes—“that says Asmodeus.” He studied the last glyph more closely. “Where did you see it?”
Farideh hesitated. “It’s on a fellow in Suzail.”
Lorcan raised an eyebrow. “A fellow?”
“One of the princess’s war wizards,” Farideh said. “I’m trying to decide whether I ought to tell her about it. They’re the marks,” she added, “that I see on Chosen.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Why did you think it was Asmodeus’s?”
Farideh hesitated. “I saw it on him,” she said. “I had a vision, in the internment camps, and I saw Asmodeus. Then I saw the glyph. I assumed that meant the fellow was a Chosen of Asmodeus, but I suppose it means something else.”
Lorcan didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink, but something about him seemed to shift, as if he’d suddenly turned to stone. He considered the scrap of paper again, then very deliberately tore the right half of the paper away, and the symbol with it. He crumpled the torn section into a ball and handed back the rest of the page. “You ought to stop worrying about this.”
“Why is that?”
“Because nothing good comes of delving too deeply into Asmodeus’s interests.”
Nothing good comes of hiding from them either, Farideh had thought. But she’d only nodded. If Lorcan didn’t know what the sigil said, there was no point in cajoling him anyway.
Which still left her without an answer to the question of what to do with Ilstan. As they descended the carriage near one of the palace’s smaller entrances, Farideh asked him if he was feeling all right.
“A headache,” he said tersely.
Not a normal headache, Farideh thought. She had to tell him. “I know of people,” she said carefully, “who’ve become taken by strange feelings recently, and—”
Suddenly the light flared. Ilstan’s hand shot out and grabbed Farideh by the shoulder as he gasped. She turned to steady the taller man, and noticed how his eyes had glazed over.
… be a fool … she heard a man’s voice whisper … a weapon, a tool …
“Ilstan!” Devora shouted. Ilstan straightened, eyes wild. He wet his mouth, blinking hard as his compatriot came to stand beside him.
“He just stumbled,” Farideh said. “I don’t know what happened.”
The redhead shook her head. “That’s three times—one with me, one with Drannon, one with Pelia. Go to Ganrahast, right now.”
Ilstan stared at Farideh for a long terrible moment, and she felt certain that he knew she’d heard the voice too. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right. Give my apologies to Princess Raedra.” He turned, heading off toward the other end of the palace, his already ungainly gait shaken.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Devora said. “It’s only protocol that two escort you.”
She led Farideh through the winding passages of the palace, back to the windowless room with the painting no one liked. This time, Raedra was already there, waiting, with a decanter of chilled wine and a plate of sweetmeats. Nell stood beside the screen, brushing the lint from a dark blue gown.
“Well met,” Raedra said. She gave Farideh an impish smile. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Of course. I promised.” Nell sat her down and started yanking a comb through her hair.
“But you were out late,” Raedra sang. “Tell me you enjoyed yourself.”
Farideh froze—Erzoured’s threats coming back to her once more. She looked back at Devora, who shrugged. “At least tell me how much you know?” Farideh said.
Raedra drew back. “Well that makes it sound dire. All I know is that you went to the Dragon’s Last Drink with a man who was not very convincing about being there for his lord’s benefit.” Her eyes flicked up to Devora and back. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing,” Farideh said. Nell yanked her hair up into a knot and slid a pin through it. “It’s just … It’s personal.”
“Not in Cormyr it isn’t,” Raedra said dryly. She poured a little of the wine for them both. “Tell me.” Farideh took the glass warily—it wasn’t an order, though it could have been. Raedra raised her eyebrows. “There is no chance you’re going to top Varauna’s tale of the two brothers she was juggling for sheer depravity, nor Florelle’s dalliance with a certain Huntsilver heir for blind passion she would rather we forget. Maranth will always surpass you for missing the obvious opportunity, and I will hold the crown forever and ever on willful idiocy in matters of the heart. You cannot shock me. Out with it.”
Farideh took a very deliberate sip of wine. It was sweet and mild, with a faint herbal scent. This wasn’t a conversation she could imagine having with anyone except Havilar. But Havilar was on the other end of the kingdom, dealing with her own problems.
A spike of worry went through her thoughts—she’s fine, Farideh told herself. Lorcan said she was fine. He’s making sure of her.
Maybe he wasn’t such a bad fellow after all.
“I suppose,” she said, eyes on the wine, “I have a lover now.”
Raedra clapped her hands. “Well done! The equerry?”
“No. Someone else.”
“His lord?”
Farideh searched for a safe way to put it. “An old friend.”
“My, you were holding out. So you went out for evenfeast with one man, while pretending to go out with another, and then slept with your secret brightbird—is that it?”
“He’s not …” Farideh glanced back at Devora. “He’s not someone who’s anybody’s brightbird. I don’t think.” She gulped more of the wine. “I’ve known him a long while. I should know better.”
“But he’s devastating, isn’t he?” Raedra said, plucking a sweetmeat from the tray and popping it in her mouth. “And charming—they’re always charming, those fellows. Never fails.”
“Up, please,” Nell said, plucking the wine from her hand and herding Farideh behind the screen. Farideh blew out a breath, as Nell unbuttoned the gown.
“They’re positively traumatic in your youth, those fellows,” Raedra called. “Before you know better.”
Even after everything else, Farideh felt her cheeks burn. “I didn’t exactly have the chance,” she said weakly. An awkward silence descended.
“My apologies,” Raedra said. “I forgot.”
Farideh swallowed. “It’s fine.” Nell came around and cinched her bodice tighter, tight enough to make her gasp. “Is that what you meant?” she called back to Raedra. “About ‘willful idiocy’?” The dark blue gown slid over her head with disconcerting ease. “Was it … someone devastating?”
Nell’s hands stilled on the buttons. Beyond the screen, no one spoke. No one so much as breathed. Farideh shifted so that she could peer between the panels of the screen.
Raedra sat staring at her wineglass. “Yes,” she said. “And no.”
Nell’s hands flew up the buttons again, giving Farideh a little time to wonder what she’d prodded and how to make amends. When she stepped out, Raedra was still looking at her glass.
“Truly,” she said, without looking up at Farideh, “has no one told you about my first husband?”
She said the word in the same sort of way she said mistress—like it was something fearful as the ghosts she said wandered the palace. Farideh glanced at Nell, but the maid was folding the discarded dress with elaborate care. Devora only had eyes for the painting of the two princesses.
“No,” Farideh said. “Only you, the other day.”
Raedra sighed and looked up at the ceiling, as if it held a window to another time, another place. “Lindon was devastating,” she said finally.
“Handsome as the Sunlord. Kind and witty and everything you could ask for. A graceful dancer, a spirited conversationalist, an excellent horseman. He never treated me like a prize or a stepping-stone or a foolish girl. He surprised me when no one else could. And I loved him, every inch of him, inside and out.” She pursed her lips, closing off a tide of old sorrows, and Farideh’s heart ached.
“What happened to him?”
“I killed him,” Raedra said simply.
“Was there an accident?”
“No.” The princess gave a bitter little laugh. “Not one moment of it. I knew what I was doing. That’s why it worked.”
“Highness,” Nell started. “Please don’t—”
Raedra held up a hand. “Nell, I don’t need you to smooth it out for me.” She looked to Farideh. “I was … choosy in my youth, you see. I broke a lot of lords’ hearts, because … well, frankly, I knew I could do better and everyone around me reminded me of that fact continually. My parents hadn’t figured out yet that Baerovus would never get the throne an heir, so they let me follow my heart. Lindon was the only one who captured it.
“We were married for two tendays. Two blissful, lightning-storm-electric, thrilling tendays of utter, utter goblin-shit.” She smiled at Farideh, a brittleness that she’d hidden suddenly bare. “Because he was never mine. Not for one moment.”
Farideh’s stomach dropped. “Another woman?”
“I wish,” Raedra said. “I got up to use the chamber pot one night. Only the maid had left it on the other side of the room.” She looked away, up at the painting of the princesses. “I think of that. Often. What would have happened if she’d put it back beside the bed instead? I might be dead now. Cormyr might be fallen. Or I might still think I was happy. Who knows?
“So I found it, used it, and headed back to bed, back to my husband’s side.
“Only I tripped in the dark, on the clothes we’d left strewn about as we made our way to bed. I tripped, and I fell, and I landed against his writing desk. And I knocked out a piece of moulding, a part of the trim along the floor. There was a little—a little pocket there”—her voice hitched—“and inside there were the letters.
“He wasn’t … he wasn’t anything he’d seemed. I read them all.” Her voice hitched again, but she mastered it. “He was always supposed to catch my eye, always supposed to win my heart, always supposed to marry me. They planned every bit of it,” she spat.
“Who?”
“The Church of Shar. He belonged to the Lady of Loss.”
Farideh couldn’t imagine how deeply that must have cut—her closest companion an agent of her country’s worst enemies. She found herself thinking of Lorcan and Asmodeus, and stopped herself. “What did you do?”
Raedra’s lovely face twisted in a mocking smile. “I sat there, and cried my heart out, as quietly as I could. I wept and wept and he never woke. He never even stirred. It was like I wasn’t there. Then I washed my face and dried my eyes. I went to the door and I told the guards there that I needed as many war wizards as they could muster in a hurry, because there was a traitor in my bed. Two went off, two came in along with Ilstan and stood over him—that woke him quick. So they held him—naked as a newborn, mind—and while we waited for the war wizards, I read the letters to him. I watched his face and I wished he would have looked confused or surprised. Even scared. But he only looked angry. He told me it was a scheme, a trick to destroy us and how could I believe in it?” She stared ahead, as if she were staring into the past. “I told him I didn’t have to believe in things like this. That was what war wizards were for.
