Farideh hardly understood the words, still reeling. Still realizing that Rhand was pressed against her, and that the unevenness of his breathing had a very different quality. Still trying to scream.
“Should you be driven to act out again. . well, you’ll have your reminder.” The Nameless One smiled at Farideh and the pain burned up her arm, sudden and hot and enough to drive her held breath out in a single sharp cry. It pulled with it the swirling powers of the Hells and her arm became a sink of ruinous energy and agony.
Cast, the voice of the Hells hissed. Show them what they’ve miscounted.
But she had no air to speak the trigger word. Rhand and the Chosen of Shar exchanged words she couldn’t pick up through the buzz of her thoughts, and the wizard steered her from the room, out into the hallway.
“It hurts doesn’t it?” Rhand’s whispered voice slid through the buzz of shock like a sharp blade between her ribs. He stood, still too close to her, his breath on her hair. “But it drives away the shadows. Puts the Lady at her ease. For the moment.”
A knife does it fastest, the ghost had said. But which end? Farideh thought, turning to face him. The pain would do it, or the rush of adrenalin as you turned the blade on someone else-
“Her power over you won’t fade,” Rhand went on, taking her ruined hand in his. “Not completely. Not without careful. . maintenance.”
“Don’t touch me,” Farideh said, holding the bloody cloth tight against the wound. Holding onto her hand as if he could take it from her. He smiled.
“Oh, but you have so many more,” he said. “Shar favors obedience, and the ‘obliteration of the self’-what better approach than to whittle it away? And what remains. . more lovely for the lack.” His laugh sent a shudder up Farideh’s spine, and the fear that traveled with it pushed more of the Chosen of Shar’s effect away.
“She’s a little demon, isn’t she?” Rhand said. “Nearly as stubborn as you, but so haughty about it. She seeks to drag your fate out, but you’ve already set yourself against me. Against Shar. It’s a waste of time trying to rein you in when you’ve decided not to be useful anymore.” He ran a finger over the curve of her left horn. “More worthwhile to find a better use for you.”
The Hells pulsed up her bones, hungry and fierce, ready to pour out, to fill the air with brimstone missiles, to pull lava up through the floor, to devour Rhand in a torrent of flames. Her face flushed, and a veil of sweat beaded up on her skin. A better use, she thought, feeling a sneer curl her lip. I will show you a better use.
The lights began to flash again, the muted purple and green of Rhand’s tainted soul oozing into her vision. The shimmering blue of the tiefling ghost coming into being again.
What you’re thinking, the ghost said, is only going to make things worse. She drifted down to hang in the air beside Rhand, her profile inches from his cheek. You missed your chance to fight. Now he wants you to fight. He wants you to be something he can break, something he can overpower. That makes it sweeter. Trust me.
Which left her with what? Farideh thought. Go along with him? Let him slice away parts of her until she bled out on the floor?
Be gentle, the ghost said. Be cordial. Pretend this is nothing at all. He will be easier to distract that way. Remind him of your allies-the allies he believes you have.
“As tempting as that sounds, I have to decline,” Farideh said. “My head aches and. . my patron will want to know what’s happening. I need to speak to him.”
The ghost smiled. Perfect.
Rhand drew back. “You speak with him?”
“Of course,” Farideh said. She drew herself as straight as she could manage. “And he’ll be very displeased with you if I let you keep me from him.” She wondered how bald that lie was-how much Rhand knew Lorcan didn’t care what happened to her-and that grief threatened her again. She held Rhand’s gaze instead.
“Do you think he’ll be pleased with your little rebellion?” Rhand said, sounding angry. Sounding afraid. “If you lay the blame for that on me, I assure you it won’t go well for you. We had an agreement, and I always read my agreements carefully.”
“I think I need to bring it up. Lorcan will want to know, after all.”
Relief lit Rhand’s face. “His emissary? The cambion, you mean.” He blew out a breath and chuckled nervously. “Of course. Tell him what you want. He and I are clear.” He chuckled again. “Of course, of course. What did I imagine? You were calling down the god himself in my guest rooms?” He chuckled again.
Farideh kept her expression carefully blank, even as a new dread curled around her heart. He means Asmodeus, she thought. “No,” she said slowly. “Of course not.” But he was afraid of Asmodeus, not of her, not of Lorcan. “Lorcan is the one who calls him down,” she said.
Rhand hesitated, as if trying to sift out her bluff. Farideh kept her face carefully blank, until he steered her toward her rooms once more.
My patron will want to know what’s happening, her own words came back to her. I need to speak to him. And Rhand had assumed she meant Asmodeus. .
Don’t you wish your “patron” could manage a gift like this? Farideh’s heart started pounding, the pain in her arm building as it did. Patron, the Nameless One had said in the study Why not say “god”?
“You keep saying ‘patron,’ ” Farideh heard herself murmur. “And it means too many things.”
“You too?” Rhand said. “By being vague we cast a wider net. And then?” He shrugged. “It becomes habit. I doubt they care.”
“Some call Lorcan my patron,” she said, the pieces falling together. He’d asked the Fountains of Memory to show the moment her patron had taken notice. The waters had shown Lorcan, Rhand hadn’t asked to see her patron. Only the moment he’d taken notice.
Asmodeus had been watching, too-
Her breath stopped, sticky in her lungs. There was a moment where all Farideh knew was that things weren’t making sense. And then the truth was just there, solid as a wall dropped around her. Rhand’s horrible words come back to her in that moment-more lovely for the lack-and she was struck, perversely, how true that was of that moment she’d just lost. She might have been grieving and angry and lost, but that was the last moment she didn’t know. The last moment she could claim innocence of any sort.
— and she was as trapped as the Nameless One.
“Perhaps,” Rhand said, bringing her to the door of her room, “but we all answer to someone greater. Even him. Especially you.” He gave her an evil smile. “Don’t think it protects you. Your god is not as powerful as he believes.” Get in the room, Farideh told herself, above the frenetic buzz of her panicking thoughts. Get in the room. Lie down. You’re going to faint. He can’t see you faint. She grabbed at the door handle with her injured hand, the cloth slipping, more blood spattering on the shiny black floor.
Rhand’s smile grew. “Remember,” he said, as the edges of her vision started crumbling, “there is no god that could have chosen you who could protect you from the reach of Shar.”
Dimly she heard the latch click, and someone grabbed ahold of her and pulled her into the room, and despite her resolve not to, Farideh’s knees buckled in a faint.
“Your pardon, Saer Rhand,” she heard Lorcan say in his silky way, “I need to speak to my warlock alone.”
Chapter Sixteen
24 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks