Fire in the Blood, page 48
The cards slide away from her, making room for another row—Iolaum, the Arcanist; Loskor, the Harvester; the Rising Dragon; the Godborn; the Adversary. The deck in her hands is always full, no matter how many rows she deals.
“Darling,” Lorcan says, “what are you looking for?”
She doesn’t know, but it’s here—it must be. The Companions; the Godborn; the Adversary; the Reaver; the Sentinel; the Herald. The last is a Harper, his instrument in one hand, a blade in the other, looking back over his shoulder. It looks like Dahl.
“Darling,” Lorcan says again, “they’re only cards; they can’t steer the future. What can one mortal manage after all?”
She deals another row, unfamiliar cards coming up: the Traitor—a red-haired succubus hovering over a city that is unmistakably Neverwinter. The Tomb—a library lost in a deep cavern, with a strange mummy holding a book standing in the middle of it. The Fiend in the Shadows—a dark-haired wizard with bright blue eyes, a wicked smile on his painted face, a goblet in one hand. The Handmaiden—a gray-skinned girl with glowing eyes, her hands folded as if in prayer. The Unspeakable—Brother Vartan standing at the Chasm’s edge, a box in his arms, hideous tentacles waving swords all around him.
She turns the last card—the Adversary. Only now it looks, not like an angel chasing a devil, but like a young tiefling woman with one gold eye and one silver, wreathed in flames that form wings that curve around her. She holds the rod out, parallel to the ground, drawing grasping souls out of the Nine Hells. Their spectral hands clutch at the air.
Lorcan plucks this last card up, holds it before Farideh. “What one mortal can manage with the powers of the Hells, “he amends. “How very fortunate you’ve been.”
Farideh blinks, and it’s not Lorcan, but the archdevil watching her. He waves a hand and the Wroth cards scatter. “Stay alive,” he says. “Remember what goals we have in common, and we can all be very happy, Farideh.”
Late that night, the dream still plucked at Farideh’s thoughts, and if she were being honest, she would rather have walked into the internment camp, into the lost library of the arcanist, into the Chasm of Neverwinter, rather than into Teneth’s with Dahl on her arm. The festhall loomed over them, a shining edifice of painted plaster nymphs around a stained-glass window of a red-haired woman. Every thought demanded she dig her heels in, turn and go back out into the rain. She focused instead on nothing at all, letting Dahl’s determined steps lead her into the first of the festhalls.
“Look,” he’d said before they left, “if you don’t want to go—”
“We have to go. That’s four Sharrans we’ll be missing, and we can’t find the pattern.”
“Right,” Dahl said. “But technically I don’t have to be there, if you’d rather. I was thinking, you could turn up early tomorrow, pretend to be applying for a job. Two of these places have tiefling dancers—”
Which would be worse, Farideh couldn’t guess. The idea of strangers looking her over, evaluating how much still more strangers would like to stare at her—it made her want to find a very small room and shut the door. But was that so much harder than sitting next to Dahl, wondering whether he liked looking at the strange women around them—humans or tieflings or anything else? Was it worse than the persistent awareness of him while he pretended to be her not-so-secret lover?
Too late, Farideh told herself, as they crossed into the wide doorway.
An alien sort of peace came over Farideh, a warm security that made all the fear and chaos still roiling through Suzail drop away as if it never existed. She did dig her heels in then. The soul sight overtook her, out of instinct, and she swept the scattering of people around them for Chosen. “What was that?” she breathed.
Dahl laughed. “Gods, you’re jumpy. It’s a temple, too. Well, a sort of lay-temple,” he amended. “Or a lay-shrine—I don’t know how Sune categorizes these things.”
A young woman wearing gossamer-thin golden scarves approached them with a little bow. “Welcome back to Teneth’s,” she said, eyeing Farideh curiously. “Is Lord Crownsilver …” She trailed off and shook her head. “My apologies. I mistook you for someone else.”
Shock burned up Farideh’s neck. “I think you meant my sister,” she heard herself say. Havilar had come here? Havilar and Brin.
The young woman inclined her head once more. “Then welcome to Teneth’s and the blessings of Sune Firehair on you. Before you enter, please make your ablutions.” She gestured Farideh to the left, Dahl to the right. Farideh held tight to his arm.
“You just have to wash,” he murmured.
“I know what ablutions means!” she said. “I don’t want to be here.” Even more than awkward, it felt like an invasion, an intrusion. Not only a place where Farideh had no idea what she was meant to say or do, but a place where Havilar came to keep her secrets. The shadow-smoke started leaking off her arms.
“Hey,” Dahl said, turning her face toward him. “This is the simple part. Splash some scented water around, and I will buy you so much whiskey on the other side that you won’t care where you are.”
The young woman narrowed her eyes at him. “What was that?”
“She’s just nervous,” he explained. He handed over a stack of coins. “That door?” The young woman watched him go, a troubled expression on her face. She dropped the coins into a tall amphora behind her.
“Come with me,” she said, taking Farideh by the hand.
They passed through another pair of doors and into a tiled room. At the center was a deep, steaming pool, where at least a dozen women lounged. Around the outer edge, stone basins caught streams of water—the whole room smelled like cedar and sandalwood and lavender. And bay—it hit her like she’d walked straight into a laurel bush. No one was dressed and everyone looked up as she came in. Farideh’s tail started lashing under her cloak. The young woman led her over to one of the basins and took her cloak, folding it and tucking it into a niche. She washed Farideh’s hands in the scented water, and cupped more of it up to rinse her face, before handing her a towel.
“Do you want to be here?” the young woman asked.
Farideh stared down at the water. What was she supposed to say to that? “Of course.”
“Because you don’t seem comfortable,” she went on, “and I don’t feel comfortable escorting you in with a fellow whose plan is to force whiskey on you until you don’t care where you are. Say the word, and I’ll show you the back way out and him to the no-nonsense.”
“The what?”
The woman gave her a serious look. “Don’t be shy about asking for the guards, now.”
“Oh!” Farideh said. “No, no not like that.” She dried her already dried hands again. “I am nervous. I don’t belong here really. Definitely I don’t belong here with him,” she added, before she could stop herself.
The woman frowned. “Why is that?”
Farideh looked down at the basin. “I’m not his type, let’s say.” Except she was supposed to be, that was the cover—gods, where was her head tonight? “I mean, I don’t think it’s going to last much longer. I’m not the girl you bring home to your mother.”
The young woman gestured for Farideh to sit, and she washed her feet in the stone basin, planting a kiss atop each, and Farideh found herself thinking it would be less strange to be fighting Erzoured’s kidnappers again. She locked her eyes on the fresco on the wall, panel after panel of silver-haired women and their myriad lovers, and tried to ignore how many of the other women were watching her.
The woman finished and pinned Farideh’s hair loosely on top of her head, then helped her out of Havilar’s dress and into the pool. Farideh kept looking at the fresco. She didn’t want to guess what the other women were thinking—whether they were gawking at her still and whether it was because she looked like a monster or because she was just built awkwardly, whether they were remembering Havilar.
No one said anything uncomfortable to her. No one got out of the pool or made a fuss. Farideh started to relax. She sank down in the hot water, nearly to her chin. A shiver of pleasure ran down her back to the tip of her tail. She wondered if public baths were like this. She wondered if Dahl’s side was the same, if he was stewing in the same scented water. If they were going to make him shave.
The young woman came back after a while and helped her out of the water. She dried her wet skin while Farideh fought the urge to snatch the towel back and do it herself. The soft singing that accompanied the act made her suspect this wasn’t just for Farideh’s sake.
When she was dry, the young woman put her in a sleeveless, robelike dress, belted at the waist with a similarly gauzy gold scarf. The young woman frowned and touched the warlock brand on Farideh’s upper arm.
“It’s fine,” Farideh said. “I can cover it up.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not always,” Farideh said.
The young woman looked troubled, but she didn’t give Farideh anything to cover up further with. “Come with me.”
They went out through another door, which led into a wide room and still more doors. More people milled around here, sipping drinks, flirting with more men and women in the golden scarves. Farideh felt her tail start to lash again—she didn’t see Dahl.
The young woman didn’t lead her to Dahl, but over to a woman wearing a full golden dress, trimmed with ruby-colored beads. She was older than Farideh and—surprisingly—taller, her dark hair threaded with silver, but her cheeks smooth. Farideh found herself awash in relief that she was there. Before she could sort through the source of it, the woman had taken Farideh’s hands in hers.
“Be welcome,” she said, “Blessed of Sune.”
“I think you mean someone else,” Farideh said apologetically. The woman smiled, and Farideh’s heart fluttered.
“Renda tells me you have doubts about your worth,” she said. “Sune does not—there may be those she shows obvious favor, but all are worthy of love.”
Farideh started to protest that that wasn’t the problem, that she didn’t need to say that sort of thing. But while in another’s mouth those words would have been humiliating, platitudes that skimmed right past the reality of Farideh’s life, when this woman spoke them, they struck her straight in the heart. Tears flooded her eyes, and she gripped the woman’s hands hard.
“To love someone is a brave act,” the woman said. “It is a bravery that we should all seize, even when the costs seem high. But love is an action, not a reward, not a magic spell. You can love someone who does not value you, and you must remember that it does not change your value. And it cannot change them.”
“It’s not like that,” Farideh said. Was it? Not with Dahl. But Lorcan … she looked up into the woman’s pale eyes and took hold of the soul sight. All around the air erupted with streamers of red and gold and fuschia. A glyph spread across her chest, bright and sharp as a tangle of veins. She was Chosen.
“Fari?” Farideh turned to see Dahl standing there, wearing a similar robe and a worried expression. For a moment, she had the urge to tear her hands out of the Chosen’s and throw her arms around him. She took her hands back and clutched her hands into fists instead. “Is everything all right?” Dahl asked.
The woman stared at Dahl a moment and smiled. “Yes. I think everything’s just fine. Enjoy your visit.”
This is the Chosen’s doing, Farideh told herself, unable to look away from Dahl. She could almost believe it.
“I didn’t know about the robes,” Dahl said before she could say a word. “Although you look nice.”
Farideh’s hand went to the brand on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“What was that about?”
Farideh shook her head. “They were just worried about me. I think the first woman thought you might be coercing me. The one in the gold dress is a Chosen,” she added. “If you got any strange feelings off her.”
Dahl gave a short, strange laugh. “Well that explains some things.” He did not take her by the arm this time, but slipped his arm around her waist and escorted her through the large doors. “She’s Lady Gaelyse Cormaeril—or she was. She bought Teneth’s outright less than a year ago and remade it like this. Got herself disinherited, which frankly seems to have added to the place’s charm—it’s not just for nobles or for commoners.” He looked around the open room. “Everyone gets to look like they’re playing the chorus in a Chessentan melodrama.”
The room beyond the doors looked more like Farideh had expected—a high-ceilinged space with a large stage surrounded on three sides by tables. More lovely women and men in gold scarves roamed the floor or sat with customers. Over the stage, a graceful couple wrapped in impossibly long sheets of tissue-thin silk dangled acrobatically in nothing but clouts. Farideh stared, struck by how impossibly beautiful their bodies were.
A young man led them to a table high on the edge of the room, with steep walls all around it. Their view of the stage and the floor in front of it was unimpeded, but no one could peer in from the corners.
Another man set a pair of goblets on the table, full of something sparkling and citrus-scented. He winked at Farideh. She took a long swallow of the wine.
“This place is so karshoji odd,” she declared.
“Better than the Golden Goblin?”
“Better,” she allowed. “But odder.”
“So would you rather have a stranger give you a bath or try and punch you in the face?”
Farideh finished her wine. “I’d need a minute to decide.”
He laughed. “Was it that bad?”
“I know what to do when someone tries to punch me in the face,” Farideh pointed out. “I have no idea what to do when they dry me off in the name of Sune. What’s our plan here?”
“There’s eight acts to the show. Every other one is dancers. Those plus the strollers should be the bulk of the staff. After that we track down breakskulls and cleaners, and then …” He paused. “We’ll find them before that.”
“If we don’t?”
The couple on the sheets of tissue hung near the ceiling, fabric twined in complex knots around their torsos and hips. Suddenly, in tandem, they dropped, spinning like maple seeds. Mere feet from the floor they stopped and the crowd erupted.
“Then we have to think of a reason for you to plausibly search the private rooms,” Dahl said clapping. “So you’re applying for a job or you’re looking for a companion.”
Farideh pursed her lips, sure as she’d ever been, that it wouldn’t be one of the talent. Dahl took her empty wineglass. “I’ll get you another drink.”
“Not whiskey,” she said, as she let the soul sight slide into her mind once more.
The acrobatic couple took their bows, the shades of their souls blooming with bursts of red and gold. On the crowded floor, it was hard to spot the strollers among the patrons. She searched the riot of souls for Shar’s dark markings for several moments before releasing Asmodeus’s strange blessing. Teneth’s was packed—with lonely people, with friends, with couples. There was an edge to them, an intensity to their merrymaking as if they were trying to keep the end of the world away with ale and wine, laughter and grasping hands.
But then there was Gaelyse Cormaeril, the Chosen of Sune, moving through the crowd. As she passed, Farideh could almost see the wake of peace she left—the patrons loved and were loved, and that meant something. There was still beauty in the world, despite Netheril, and that meant something. Lady Cormaeril passed Farideh and favored her with a small smile, and a nod. Farideh watched her walk along the railing, knowing she ought to fight against the Chosen’s powers—they weren’t real. But they were a comfort.
Dahl returned, passing the Chosen of Sune as he did, and Farideh smiled, knowing it was a problem that her heart stuttered and her stomach tightened, and not wanting to care. If everyone else got to throw themselves into Teneth’s mix of madness and divine grace, why couldn’t she?
You know the answer to that, she thought as he spotted her and smiled back. She tried to make herself think about Lorcan.
“Apparently,” Dahl said, sliding in beside her, closer than before, “we’re supposed to wait for someone to come to us. Any luck?”
“No,” she said. The curtain opened again, this time for a flock of women garbed in bright feathers and masks. “I don’t think it’s someone on the stage.”
The dancers began moving, a sinuous dance to a pounding drumbeat. Farideh considered each, too briefly for the impressions of their vulnerabilities to come through. A scarf here, a crest of feathers there—bit by bit the birds shed their plumage, stripping down to just the masks, but always moving, moving. The young man from before brought another glass of the sparkling wine and a flagon of ale, lingering a bit until Dahl gave him a rather pointed look.
“Why don’t you wear your hair up more?” Dahl asked.
“It’s hard to pin it around the horns. I need someone else to help. And Havi …” Her chest tightened again, and she reached for the wine. “I haven’t heard from them in months,” she said. Lorcan’s periodic assurances did nothing to calm her—he was taking Sairché at her word, little better than guessing, in Farideh’s mind. “I have no idea anymore whether I’ll ever have someone to pin my hair up again.”
“The war wizards have to be keeping tabs on Brin.”
“Maybe,” Farideh said. “But they have to be doing a lot of things. And ultimately, they’re only people and there aren’t a lot of them. If they set Brin aside until they need him, no one’s going to be upset. And Brin’s not Havi.” She sipped her wine. “Gods, you didn’t even buy me whiskey and I’m getting gloomy,” she quipped. “Sorry.”
“You’re all right,” Dahl said.
“Our birthday was two days ago,” she admitted. “And I have no idea where she is.”
“Your birthday? Why in the Hells didn’t you say something?”
Farideh watched the dancers wheel. “Because it’s not blackberry season anymore. What would you have done?”
“Blackberries are for getting drunk and passing out on your stairs,” Dahl said. “Everyone knows that.”
