Havilar peered over her horse’s back and wondered if she ought to worry about one or the other starting a fight. If she could stop it. She brushed Alusair’s withers. If she wanted to stop it. They could both probably stand to get some sense knocked into them.
I’m not an idiot, she wanted to say, ever since Brin had shown up on the road north. I’m not weak.
“How could you think that?” she murmured to herself.
Lorcan turned his attention to her, as if he’d heard, and she dropped her eyes to her task. Too late-the cambion strode over to stand beside her. “I see why you’re fond of him,” Lorcan said, too quiet for Brin to hear, thank the gods. “You’re both stubborn.”
“Farideh’s the stubborn one,” Havilar said. “What do you want?”
He smiled. “To offer you a pact,” he said. “I think you could handle it.”
Havilar blinked at him, surprised. “No,” she said. She watched Brin, gathering more sticks to feed the fire from the grove they’d stopped near to. “Why would you think I’d want a pact?”
“For safety. She told you, I assume, about the Toril Thirteen. About Bryseis Kakistos. About the collectors. If Sairché doesn’t try to claim your pact, someone else will.”
“Someone like you,” Havilar said.
“That’s what I’m saying. Make a pact with me, don’t use it-I don’t care. But it will slow down everyone else. You have to be deliberate about breaking a pact. You can be terribly careless about making one.”
Havilar watched the comb dragging faint lines in the bay’s coat. “How’d you get Farideh?”
Lorcan didn’t answer right away. “You,” he finally said, as if he’d decided to tell her the truth. “She is so afraid of something happening to you that she will do a lot of very foolish things to make certain you’re safe.”
Havilar bit her tongue. He was right and it made her heart ache-she loved her sister, and she didn’t want to scare her-and it made her temper flare. She wasn’t Farideh’s problem to worry about.
“I guess we’re more alike in a lot of ways, you and I,” Havilar said bitterly. “She thinks she has to save us. I don’t need her saving me, you know? I don’t need her help. That’s a stupid reason to bind yourself to a devil.”
“I didn’t say she was right,” Lorcan said.
Havilar was quiet a long moment. “I always figured it was something indelicate,” she admitted.
Lorcan gave her a wicked smile. “I didn’t say it wasn’t both.”
Havilar rolled her eyes and took the comb to the horse’s mane. “She wouldn’t like it if I made a pact with you.”
“When did you start caring what Farideh would like?”
Havilar gave a single mirthless laugh. He really did think she was an idiot. Just like Brin.
She fixed him with as hard a stare as she could muster. “So you’ll give me the pact and nothing else,” she finally said. “But those others, those collectors. . they’ll offer me more.”
“Whatever they offer you,” he said, “it will only make your life worse in the end.”
Brin was still sorting branches beside the fire. He looked up at the pair of them, glowering at Lorcan again. “It can’t get worse than this,” Havilar said.
“We’ve established you have very little imagination.”
Gods, he was awful. “Henish,” she grumbled. She turned from the horse, dropping the last clumps of hair from the comb into the damp grass. She was still smarting from what he’d said the other day, from what she knew he was thinking every time he looked at her and Brin. “I know what I’m not imagining.”
Lorcan didn’t rise to the bait. “What is it you want?” he said quietly. “Hmm? You want him to love you again? Let’s say you ask my sister for that-she’ll tell you it’s a simple matter. She’ll give you some charm or potion. You’ll use it. He’ll love you, oh yes. But let’s say he has got that princess back home-you forgot about her. You didn’t say he loves only you, and now his heart is split between the two of you. Is that what you wanted?” Havilar looked away, but he kept going. “And she certainly knows something’s wrong. That isn’t like him, is it? You might be the most innocent, sweetest thing that ever walked this plane, but look in the mirror-her first guess is that you’ve worked dark magic on her sweetheart. And in a sense, you have. You’ll catch all the blame, so then my sister will come to you and offer you a way out-for another deal. Or for your soul. Or for that princess’s soul. Or something worse. You’re trapped, and if you try to wriggle your way out, you’ll only sink deeper.”
Havilar fidgeted. “I can be careful.”
“Not careful enough,” he said. “How do you think your sister got caught?”
“By you,” Havilar pointed out.
“I am making you a special, once-only offer,” he said, “based entirely on a desire to thwart Sairché and get out from under her thumb.”
“And make Farideh happy?”
Lorcan gritted his teeth a moment, and she was pleased she’d gotten to him, finally. “That’s a very dull barb,” he said with a forced smile. “You jab much harder with it, it’s liable to break right off. Might hurt yourself.” He straightened. “Besides, you’re right. She won’t like it.”
“That you’ve saved me from all those wicked devils?” Havilar said. “I think she’ll be so happy she won’t know what to do with you first.”
Brin came back, dropping a load of branches beside the fire. “That should be enough. What have you two been talking about?”
“Farideh,” Havilar said, without missing a beat.
Lorcan smiled. “All sorts of things. It’s a new world, after all. Havilar has. . all manner of prospects she hasn’t explored.” He stood. “Enjoy your meal.” He leaped skyward before either of them could say another word.
Havilar watched Lorcan disappear into the fading light, acutely aware of the silence he left behind. The fire crackled and popped and still she and Brin said nothing, and she didn’t feel as if she was strong enough to push aside the weighty silence and change that, awkward and awful as it felt. The nights before they’d stopped too late for chatting, or they’d stayed in shabby inns where she’d had her own room, or Havilar had gone off to catch rabbits. Or Lorcan had stayed there, between them. But they didn’t need more rabbits, there was no room to hide in, and she’d chased Lorcan off, sniping at him. She was stuck.
She took out the leather pouch of clean bandages and unwound the ones from her hands. The broken blisters were still raw and red, even though the blood had stopped. Havilar sighed. Ten years to get the good, strong calluses she’d had. Would it take another ten to get them back? As a girl she’d begged off practicing when her hands were too chapped-maybe if she kept on, she’d get used to the pain and her hands would thicken up faster. Beside the fire, she tested the bubble of an unbroken blister with her nail and winced.
“Will you let me heal your hands?” Brin asked.
That would have been nice. No more pain and he’d be holding her hands too. Havilar flexed her fingers against the burning skin. “No.”
“Havi, don’t be proud,” he said wearily. So weary of me, she thought, and she nearly agreed to make that feeling go away.
“If I don’t let them heal on their own,” she said, still studying her palms, “I won’t get my calluses back. Your magic will just put me back where I started.” Weak, she added to herself. Useless. She wrapped fresh bandages loosely over the blisters.
“I didn’t think of that,” Brin admitted.
“Does Torm like you better, then?” she asked. “Are you a priest now?”
He chuckled once. “Hardly. Still the holy champions’ curious problem.” With the firelight dappling his face, Brin looked so sad, so much older, and it wasn’t just the beard. He looked up from the fire and gave her a sheepish smile. “I don’t even use the powers most of the time,” he admitted. “I always feel like a fraud when I do.”
“You know that’s stupid,” Havilar said after a moment.
Brin blinked at her. “Beg pardon?”
“It’s stupid,” she said again. “You’re not a fraud. If Torm didn’t think those powers were yours he’d take them back, wouldn’t he?” She shrugged-what was she doing giving Brin lessons on the gods, anyway? “I mean, maybe you know better than Torm, but I doubt that.”