Fire in the Blood, page 50
She heard Dahl shout, his cry breaking off into coughs. The Sharran cried out as Dahl struck him again across the back with the wine bottle, and sliced the dagger across Dahl’s upper arm. The wine bottle shattered on the stone as Dahl leaped back, clutching the cut.
The Sharran looked from Farideh to Dahl, blood streaming down his face from the cut on his scalp. Farideh edged around to the left, but he tracked her with his dagger, every step. He wasn’t going to let them leave—they might unmask him, to Gaelyse, to the Sharrans. But his breath came labored, his eyes full of blood. He had to know that he wasn’t a match for the two of them at this point.
“Give me the knife,” Farideh said. “We’re not going to kill you.”
The Sharran took a step back, alongside the wooden stairs. He crouched down, laying his remaining dagger on the ground, as if in surrender … but then he yanked a pendant from his neck with one hand and with the other pulled an oilcloth from something hidden beneath the stairs. The scent of something oily, something like pitch, assaulted Farideh’s nose. Dahl started forward, but in the same moment, the Sharran pressed the amulet to whatever lay in the shadows. When he straightened, his face was full of sorrow.
“They can’t find out,” he said. The smell of pitch, the sizzle of magic, built in the little room. Farideh caught Dahl by the back of his robe.
“Gods’ books,” Dahl spat. They were going to die.
The pact’s powers raced up her frame, fast enough to force the trigger word to tear a passage in the planes out of her. She pulled Dahl through the vent, out into the tunnel beyond the iron bars. Her feet no more than touched the stone floor but she cast the spell again, and again. The third time she stepped free beside an intersecting passage and veered hard as she pulled on the powers, her heart pounding hard enough to burst. She was already off balance when she stepped out, back into the stone-lined tunnel, and the explosion went off.
A wave of wind lifted her off her feet and tossed her against the floor. The rough stone ripped through her skirts and skinned her knees and shins, her palms and one forearm, her cheek. It threw Dahl on top of her, the weight of him driving all the air out of her lungs. A high-pitched howl wailed in her ears—that and the pain, she had no other senses.
Then she managed a great heaving breath—there was that. And there was Dahl, struggling up onto his hands and knees. She didn’t dare move, not yet. But he shook her, frantic, rolled her onto her back, and somewhere beyond the howl she could hear him shouting her name. She opened her eyes, saw his mouth shape a curse. His arm was bleeding, and he had a fat bruise on his forehead. He was still shouting something at her.
“Are you skullscorned?” she asked, even though she couldn’t hear herself. “You look skullscorned.”
Whether he could hear her or not, a look of utter relief came over him, and he gathered her, bleeding and battered, into his arms.
Which was how the war wizards found them, not long after.
RAEDRA COULD NOT have been asleep for long when the blast woke her. The windows in their panes rattled, the stones grated on each other in the walls. For a moment, she was sure that Lady Marsheena’s army had come to Suzail, despite the abrupt reports that arrived several days earlier that said she was attacking Marsember.
Raedra was out of bed and to the window, but there were no other blasts. In the distance, people screamed—to the southwest, away from the gates. The Purple Dragons burst into her room.
“Highness, are you all right?”
“What happened?” Raedra demanded. They didn’t know. Only the sound, the rumble of earth. An explosion, surely, but where and why? Raedra threw a dressing gown over her nightdress. She’d have visitors soon.
Sure enough, Ganrahast came to the door. “Safe?” he barked.
“I’m fine,” Raedra said. “Baerovus?”
“I’ve come from there. He slept through it.”
“Lucky thing,” Raedra started for the door, but Ganrahast held up a hand.
“It was an explosion in the tunnels, nothing expected and nothing that can be addressed just yet,” he said. “My people are searching. We’ll find the source. You should stay here—there’s nowhere safer than the palace.”
A retort was on Raedra’s lips, but he vanished. The palace had seen assassinations enough—it was platitudes and nothing more to insist that she’d be safe. She considered asking the Purple Dragons to fetch Nell—she ought to be dressed in case something was afoot, but if the maid had managed to sleep through the noise, she ought to remain. Instead she sat down again at her writing desk, considering the reports from Marsember and Sembia.
Dire, she thought. Just as dire as it had been when she’d finally given in and fallen asleep. Marsember was sieged, and underprotected. The Army of the Purple Dragon held their position at Saerloon, not advancing, not retreating. The Stonelands were still a nightmare of monsters and unattached raiding parties—Arabel was only just getting some semblance of control back, which spoke not at all for the many villages and hamlets and farms that had been razed or abandoned. She set these aside once more, and Erzoured’s notes with it. Marsember was the priority at the moment—Marsember and what Marsheena would do next.
A frantic fist battered her door. War Wizard Devora Abielard stood on the other side, her bow hardly more than a stumble.
“It’s your tiefling, Your Royal Highness,” she said, quite out of breath. “They caught her in the tunnels, near the bomb with a man. Drannon and Pelia are questioning her, and—”
“Where?”
Raedra followed Devora down the corridors, down the stairs, her thoughts a whirlwind. Farideh had been where the explosion had gone off—Farideh whose shoulder she’d wiped her tears on, who’d heard her fears and her hopes and her secrets. Memories of Lindon, of Sulue, of Aubrin even, dragged themselves up the chain of her thoughts—you let them close, they betray you, she thought. Her stomach was in knots by the time Devora opened the door to the windowless little room, her temper ready to explode.
Farideh looked up from a wooden chair. Her wrists and ankles had been cuffed to the chair by leather straps. Her face was a mess of scrapes and bruises, her lower lip split, and her dark hair full of stonedust. Someone had put her in a prisoner’s rags. A candle burned on the table beside her, flickering in the draft from the open door. The two war wizards looked back at Raedra as she stopped in the doorway, and bowed to her.
“Your Royal Highness,” Drannon said. “Can we help you?”
Raedra held Farideh’s gaze. “What in all the broken planes were you doing in the tunnels?”
“As I said,” Farideh said in a weak and scratchy voice, “fleeing an attacker.”
“A Sharran, she says,” Pelia supplied.
“A Sharran?” Raedra said. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“It wasn’t my place,” Farideh said. “I didn’t have enough information.”
“If you had any information,” Drannon said, “you should have brought it to us.”
“It wasn’t my place,” Farideh said again.
“Well whose stlarning place is it?” Raedra demanded.
“Highness, we can manage,” Pelia started. But Raedra didn’t move—if Farideh was going to use Raedra’s acquaintance to an advantage then Raedra was the one she could answer to.
Farideh wet her mouth. “Because there are Harpers involved.”
The war wizards both stiffened. Raedra folded her arms—the jack who no one hired, she thought. He would be the man in the other room. “Did he set off the bomb? Darl? Dahl?”
“Dahl. No.” Farideh said. “They say that they’ll know everything one way or another. Is that true?”
Raedra didn’t waver, even though the memories of what that meant surged up in her thoughts. “Very true.”
“It’s not mine to tell,” Farideh said. “But I’d rather try and tell it than let him get hurt for trying to help you.” She told Raedra of the dead Cormyrean Harper, of the coded list of eighteen locations—festhalls and inns and taverns and noble houses. She told her of visiting the first of these, of spotting a man as corrupted as Sulue had been, of the Harpers’ discovery of letters that proved his connections. Raedra’s stomach knotted further still. Farideh told her of sculleries and cellarers, of guards and wenches, and Pheonard Crownsilver. She told her about the breakskull in Teneth’s who loved Gaelyse Cormaeril so hopelessly that he died trying to keep his secret from her, the broken logic of a soul undone by grief and loss and Shar’s promises. She told Raedra how the bomb smelled of pitch and magic, the smell of a lightning storm. She told her how she’d used the magic of her warlock pact to escape, carrying the Harper with her, how the explosion had lifted her from her feet and deafened her. She hadn’t seen the remains of the storeroom, the collapse of the rooms above it. She didn’t know what it was meant to do. She didn’t know when it was meant to be triggered.
“Please let him go,” Farideh said.
“Everyone leave the room,” Raedra said. The war wizards traded glances.
“Highness—”
“Leave the room,” she said once more. “And kindly tell your fellows what we’ve learned. See if you can speed up the Harper’s questioning.”
Farideh’s eyes were flat and unreadable, her horns an alien crown. Raedra chastised herself for being rattled by it—she’s not Asmura, she thought. Asmura doesn’t exist.
Farideh broke their gaze first, looking shyly away at the floor. “Are you all right?” she asked.
A spike of guilt went through Raedra’s chest. She wasn’t the one who’d been within sprinting distance of an explosion. “No,” Raedra said. “People are dead. More people are in a complete panic over what in the Hells just happened. There are Sharrans planning on blowing my city up from the inside out, and you knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t know all the facts,” Farideh said. “I still don’t. They’re likely to change now, since one of the bombs has gone off. They’ll have to know the war wizards will be suspicious.”
“Here are the facts,” Raedra said. “Marsheena has attacked Marsember. The siege is ongoing and Marsember’s not going to win it, and what did I do but chastise them for being quakeboot hardjacks when they insisted on holding on to all their troops? I can hardly sleep for thinking about what would have happened if they’d obeyed. And now I’m reading accounts of warriors who can pass through the shadows—maybe Oversword Huntcrown’s shadow fiends aren’t such a fancy, and I was wrong about Wheloon. Not that it matters, I have no power anymore, and yet I spend every waking moment trying to keep Cormyr together and my brother from collapsing into panic. Now the entire city is in a panic, I am at my wit’s end, and you didn’t tell me there were Sharran agents in the city!”
Farideh watched her for a breath, solemn and still. “No,” she agreed. “They asked me not to, and I kept my tongue, because it was more dangerous to tell you these people might be agents of Shar and they might be in these places and they might be up to something. If I’d known about the bomb, I would have brought it to you immediately. You have to believe that.” She shifted in the chair. “Is there any way I can convince you to let me out? This wasn’t made for people with tails.”
“How do I know you’re not one of them?” Raedra demanded. Tell me, she thought. Tell me how to be sure.
“After all of this, do you really think I’m in league with Shar?”
“You might be,” Raedra pointed out. “I don’t know anymore.”
Farideh’s mouth tightened. “Well, then you have to face that you won’t know. I can tell you I’m not. I can tell you who I am. I can repeat what really happened for the tenth karshoji time. But I don’t have any damning letters on me.” She shifted again, wincing. “So you’re stuck deciding if I’m too dangerous to live free or just an ally who was in the wrong place.”
The dilemma of Wheloon, Raedra thought. What was safest was not necessarily most just. There were a thousand things she didn’t know about Farideh. Any one of them could be what ended her, ended Cormyr.
Or what saved them.
Raedra kneeled beside the chair, unbuckling the leather restraint at Farideh’s ankles. “In future, I expect to be told about anything related to the presence of Netherese, Sharrans, or—for safety’s sake—any other enemies in Cormyr’s borders. Clear?”
“I’ll do my best,” Farideh said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted to be sure.” She rubbed her freed wrists as she stood. “And … maybe some other things that weren’t so noble, to be fair.” She bit her lip. “Dahl isn’t a danger either.”
“The war wizards don’t much care for Harpers these days,” Raedra said dryly. She sighed. “I’ll pull them back. But he has to tell us everything first.” She pursed her mouth. “Are you all right?”
“Someone healed the worst of it before they started.”
“Good. But that isn’t what I meant—”
Raedra hadn’t been aware of the door hidden in the stones of the wall until it swung open, and Ilstan unfolded himself from its narrow confines. Panic flooded her, all the worse for the recognition that came alongside of it—he was familiar and yet he wasn’t anymore.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she started.
Ilstan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Raedra,” he said, as if he meant it. “It’s for your safety. You have to believe that.” He pointed his wand at Farideh. “I have to kill you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Three darts of vibrant blue shot out of the end of the wand, striking Farideh in the chest, one after the other. She cried out and fell against the far wall. She threw up a hand, slinging a ball of sizzling, hungry energy at the war wizard. It broke against his shield, never touching him, and even as it did, Ilstan was casting another spell, a fireball building around his wand.
“Ilstan!” Raedra screamed. He didn’t look up, his eyes haunted and shining peculiarly blue. As the fireball broke free, rolling across the room, Raedra leaped through its path and tackled the wizard. The flames scorched her, singeing her dressing gown and burning one arm. She heard Farideh shout again. She drove her shoulder into Ilstan’s chest, knocking him back, breaking his concentration. He shoved Raedra off.
“Stay back! You’ll be hurt.”
“Drop your wand,” Raedra ordered. “She’s not an enemy.”
“She is the Knight of the Devil!” he cried. “The Lord of Spells wants her dead. It’s over your head, Highness.”
He’d gone mad—Raedra ran for the door, to call for more war wizards before he killed Farideh. Ilstan released another spell, another bolt of blue flames.
Fear, as deep as the night she’d lost Lindon, as fierce as the cry of a dragon, sank its claws into Raedra’s gut. She looked back at Farideh, and saw a nightmare of flame and shadow, wings of fire reaching from her back.
“I don’t want to kill you either, Ilstan,” the creature said. “So put your wand down and let’s talk this over.”
Don’t do it, Raedra thought, a frantic animal voice she couldn’t speak. Ilstan took a faltering step backward, toward the hidden door. She dared to look back at the terrible angel of doom—
Within the halo of flames, Farideh held one shoulder, as if it pained her. Her shift had burned through where the missiles struck. She was leaning against the stone wall, as if she couldn’t stand.
A flash of light—Ganrahast appeared, and a heartbeat later, Ilstan vanished. In the midst, the flames around Farideh extinguished, and she collapsed to the floor.
“Where are Wizards Rowanmantle and Weirgate?” he demanded.
Raedra found she couldn’t quite speak. Farideh lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Ganrahast had woven a spell over her, wrapping her in the same barrier he’d used in the tallhouse. Yes, Raedra thought. Take it away.
Her burned arm started throbbing, a pain that seemed to tap directly into the middle of her brain, and all the rest of her fear evaporated.
“She didn’t hurt anyone,” she managed to say. “It’s Ilstan. War Wizard Nyaril. He’s gone mad. You have to stop him.”
“We will,” Ganrahast said. “But I’m afraid I can’t ignore a burst of Infernal magic that large.”
“You can.” Raedra eased herself back to her feet. “She was defending herself. And me.” For the first time, Ganrahast seemed to realize that Raedra’s arm was burned. He stormed to the door and threw it wide. “Cleric!” he snapped at the Purple Dragons there. “And find War Wizards Rowanmantle and Weirgate. I would have a word with them.” He waved a hand over Farideh and the tiefling visibly relaxed as the barrier vanished.
“Your Royal Highness, you are to return to your rooms and accept the guards placed on you. Kindly do not dismiss them—I don’t care what they may see or overhear, Shade is making for Suzail and I will not risk another Obarskyr. You, goodwoman,” he said to Farideh as she stood, “will make use of the cleric that arrives and then you will return to your home.”
“Ilstan’s trying to kill her,” Raedra said.
“All the more reason she should not be anywhere near you,” Ganrahast said.
A protest, a counterorder rose to Raedra’s lips … but then the memory of that horrible, gut-wrenching fear stopped it. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Farideh while the fear of that dread threatened her. What had that been? The Knight of the Devil. Farideh met her eyes.
It’s fine, she mouthed.
“Send her two highknights,” Raedra said, as the clerics hurried into the room.
“Highness—”
“Two highknights,” Raedra repeated. “Until you catch your wayward war wizard. And I want as many Purple Dragons as can be mustered to root out these purported Sharrans—every one that the Harper and she can list. We’ll have our work cut out for us tonight.”
FARIDEH WAS AWARE of the highknights only as faint disturbances in the shadows to either side. They were there, certain as coursing hounds, but silent, nearly invisible as they blended into the still-busy streets.
