Except one: she looks like Havi.
There was a ghost of Havilar in the way the girl held her pointed chin up, the way she tossed the long silky strands of her hair over her shoulder as her eyes fell on Farideh. There was the faint memory of the last young woman in the courtyard, the one she’d just sent to Rhand’s tender ministrations, in the silver gleam of the Nameless One’s eyes. The little genasi girl whose screams echoed and echoed in Farideh’s memories in the way that dark cloud of Shar’s blessing seemed too large for her to contain, in the delicacy of her features, in the way Farideh’s heart suddenly ached for the Nameless One.
“Well met,” the Nameless One said. “I see you’re not as reliable as Saer Rhand insisted.” She gave Rhand a cool look, and Farideh’s heart threatened to break.
“Well met,” she murmured. The ache in her chest reminded her of Mehen, of the grief in his gaze and the misery she knew she was putting him through. “Where are your parents?” she asked, her mind too tangled in the Chosen’s powers to stop her tongue.
The girl flushed, but whatever dark magic imbued her and turned her flesh into shadows made the stain purplish and bruiselike. Her powers surged, and the force of Shar’s emptiness made Farideh’s throat tighten, her heart sink. “Dead,” she said sweetly. “Buried under fallen Sakkors. I represent the Church of Shar now. We’re the ones who determine Saer Rhand’s success or failure. Your success or failure,” she added menacingly.
I have failed already, a part of her sighed. But just as much of her noted that the Nameless One’s superiority only made her seem younger, only sound like Havilar back in Arush Vayem, flush with success at some complicated attack she’d created.
“How old are you?”
The Nameless One lifted her chin. “Thirteen. And already more powerful than any other Chosen in this camp.” Her gaze flicked over Farideh as if she were daring her to argue. “I saw your little stunt, and Saer Rhand’s remedy.” She turned to Rhand. “Was that truly necessary?”
Rhand cleared his throat. “I thought it so, my lady. A point needed to be made.”
“You are very adept at wasting resources,” the girl said scathingly. “You drain the Lady’s coffers and destroy the powers she craves.”
“Your pardon, my lady. There was a point to be made.”
The Nameless One turned back to Farideh, and her terrible powers surged around the warlock, eager to wear her away like rough waves against a sandbar. She looks like Havilar, Farideh thought. She should be trying to lie to her father and learning to flirt and practicing at adulthood. Tears welled in Farideh’s eyes. The Chosen of Shar smiled and her powers deepened, threatening to drive Farideh to her knees.
“Don’t you wish your ‘patron’ could manage a gift like this?” she said. “Something useful. Something powerful.” Farideh shook her head slowly, trying to cling to the parts of her mind that still made sense, even if they played neatly into the Nameless One’s trap: I cannot save them. I cannot win. I cannot. I cannot. She looked into the girl’s luminous eyes.
“I can’t save you,” Farideh said, tears breaking down her cheeks.
The Nameless One drew back, surprised, and her powers ebbed. “Save me?” She laughed, a short, shocked sound. “From what? I am the Handmaiden of Shar, powerful beyond my age and station.”
“You’re alone,” Farideh said. “You’re a child.”
“A child and I command the blessings of Shar,” the Nameless One said, smiling cruelly. “Who says I need saving?” She leaned forward, her powers washing into the room like a tide. “You’re the one in need of saving, devil-born.”
And no one is going to save me, Farideh thought, drowning in the emptiness of Shar. Not Lorcan, who abandoned her. Not Havilar, who had washed her hands of Farideh. Not Mehen, who loved Havilar best. Not the Harpers, not Sairché, and not Dahl. .
And you can’t save them either, she thought. It’s hopeless. Give up.
She drew a long, shuddering breath, and made herself look away from the Nameless One, but the powers had already dragged her down like anchors chained to her ankles. It was hopeless. She could not stand alone. She had no one to stand beside her-
Farideh’s eyes fell on the table, on the maps of Faerûn laid over it. On the scattered points marked in scarlet over the northern half of the continent. On the mark that lay on the mountains where Dahl had guessed the camp stood-the Lost Peaks. On the five other identical marks. Five other camps. Five other walls. Five other chances that someone had escaped.
Farideh’s pulse sped. She forgot, for a moment, the Nameless One and Rhand standing beside her. She forgot the numbness and the weight of the Nameless One’s powers. There were six camps hiding potential Chosen. And she had only asked about this one.
She had been right. Someone had breached one of the walls. There was a way out. She just had to ask the waters the right question to find out how.
“I don’t think Saer Rhand’s punishment is enough,” the Nameless One said loftily. “You clearly don’t know your place. And we value obedience above all else.”
Stall, Farideh thought. Focus. She had to get out of there, and quickly. “If you think,” she said softly, “that my patron will not be upset at the loss of so many souls, you are mistaken. I will pay for it.”
“Is that why he’s interested?”
Farideh shrugged. She couldn’t guess what Lorcan wanted, what Sairché intended. Or why the Nameless One would care. But what did people expect of devils but a greed for souls?
“You will have a goodly number of. . castoffs,” she said. “Assuming you aren’t just killing them all. Plenty of people looking for easy answers. My patron specializes in such things.”
The Chosen of Shar considered her for another interminable moment, Shar’s powers picking at Farideh’s soul.
Six camps, Farideh thought. Six walls, and one of them had certainly been breached-concentrate on that, she told herself. There’s a way out, and you’re the only one who knows. You need to tell Dahl. You need to tell the prisoners.
Why would she think she could do that? Rhand was clearly cleverer than her, the Nameless One clearly more powerful. Farideh could hardly even stand in her presence. .
Farideh curled her nails into her palm and thought about the dead prisoners.
“Perhaps that is the way of the king of the Hells,” the Chosen of Shar said, and the pain in Farideh’s hands, the anger in her heart was no longer enough as the girl’s god-given powers swallowed her up. “But the Lady of Loss demands we uphold the order of things. And you are too smug for my liking. Saer Rhand?” Her colorless eyes pinned Farideh, and when she spoke, once more she sounded ages older than she appeared. “You may not think yourself a tool, but you are. We all are.”
Rhand was suddenly so close behind Farideh she could feel the rasp of his uneven breath against her hair. His hand clamped down on her left wrist, and swimming against the tide of the Chosen of Shar’s powers, Farideh was too slow to pull away as he spread her hand flat on the table, pulled the knife from his belt, and sliced her ring finger off.
She heard the snap of the bone, saw the spread of blood across the parchment before she realized what had happened. There was no pain, her whole hand had gone as numb as her thoughts. But when Rhand released her wrist and she drew her hand back, the finger remained behind, curled in a pool of dark blood.
Her breath stopped in her lungs. Her mind seemed to scream and scream and scream, but not a sound came out of her. She was dying on her feet.
Rhand pressed a cloth to the wound and himself to her. She stared at the finger until the Chosen of Shar stood, plucked it from where it lay, and tossed it into the brazier.
“Not to worry,” she said sweetly, the words echoing in Farideh’s ears, “we’ll not keep it as insurance. This time.”