“I hate that,” she said, still trembling as she unwound her tail from his calf. “Gods, I hate that.”
Lorcan shook a spatter of melting snow from one wing, then the other. “Didn’t you leap from the window to get here before? You’ll fall but not fly?”
“It’s not the same,” she said, crossing to the basin nearest the window. “You’re meant to fall down, not up.” The Chosen of Shar’s effects slipped in through her thoughts and curled up like a dog at a fire. It was nowhere near as bad as it had been standing in front of the Nameless One, but still it made her thoughts sluggish, her heart heavy. She concentrated on slowing down her rattled breath, on the task at hand. Get in, get what you need, get out.
Lorcan came to stand behind her as she reached for a pinch of the blue petals in the bowl beside the vessel-close, too close.
“What about this Chosen of Shar?” he murmured close to her ear. “What am I meant to do if it takes you again?” She went still, her hand resting half in the pile of dried petals. He set a hand on her hip, and drew her ever so slightly closer, and she forgot the powers of Shar altogether.
“You could remind me,” she said, eyes on the waters, “of all the things you said when you came here last. I think that would do it.”
Lorcan straightened. “I apologized for that.”
“You did,” Farideh said, looking back over her shoulder. “Which is why we’re still talking. But it isn’t as if ‘sorry’ is a magic word that means none of that ever happened.” She looked down at her reflection in the water, the gloominess of the Nameless One’s presence across the hall unfolding in her thoughts. “It doesn’t wipe the slate.”
“Well, what does?” Lorcan demanded.
Farideh laughed once. If she knew the answer to that, she would do it herself and resolve her own sins once and for all. “I don’t know. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
Before he could respond, she cast a pinch of the flowers over the surface of the water.
“Show me the last time someone escaped from one of Rhand’s camps.”
The waters swirled and shivered, reflecting back another camp, with the same squat huts, the same obsidian tower, the same faint shimmer of a magical wall. Beyond, a desert stretched, red and frosted, the sun just creeping over a distant horizon. The guards on the wall were fewer-and human, yawning at the early hour, their eyes focusing on some half-remembered dream no one else could see. They certainly weren’t expecting the prisoners who poured out of the graying shadows.
There hadn’t been as many-perhaps a hundred, a hundred and fifty-but there weren’t many among the people who rushed the stone wall who didn’t scintillate with the blessings of the gods. A bolt of lightning struck the first guard who tried to sound an alarm, followed by an explosion of rubble as a stout dwarf woman planted her hands against the stone wall and brought it down beneath the guards’ feet. The prisoners killed them swiftly, took their weapons, opened the gates, and filled the narrow courtyard. The guards regained their wits and struck back-cutting down anyone who came near. Blood soaked the sandy floor of the courtyard.
But the guards didn’t seem to matter to the prisoners. Their efforts were turned against the tower.
There were Chosen who set flames against the building’s base, hot enough to crack the crystal. There were Chosen, like the dwarf woman, who made the stone shatter into chips or stole the ground from beneath it. There were others who took a warlord’s mantle, flush with the blessings of a martial god, who made their comrades into an army to bring the guards to their knees and to keep those destroying the tower from being attacked. Spells sizzled down from the tower’s heights-balls of flame that clung to guard and prisoner alike, spheres of energy that seized whole groups of fighters. The commanders ordered the prisoners to break, to spread out, as another spell locked a dozen of them in place. It made the wizards’ work harder, but it didn’t stop the spells that rained down on the Chosen below.
But then the tower fell.
Some ran as the stone cracked. Some scattered to the edges of the courtyard, seeking shelter where they could. The Chosen who had stood right up on the tower’s base didn’t even try to flee-there was no fleeing as the structure fractured and split and fell apart in great, sharp pieces. The screaming blended together, a roar to match the pitch of the tower’s constant vibrations.
The core of the tower split, and the shimmer of the wall ceased. The prisoners who were left fled into the red desert and vanished as the Fountains of Memory returned to their placid swirling.
“Shit and ashes,” Lorcan said.
Farideh stared at the basin, shocked into silence. They had to bring the tower down to dispel the wall.
“The stone,” she said, as much for herself as for Lorcan. “It looks like it breaks easily. If you attack it right, maybe. .” She fell silent. That tower had been smaller. It hadn’t been so well guarded-and still, half the prisoners had been killed bringing it down.
It’s no use, that unwelcome voice in her thoughts seemed to say. You can’t save all of them. You can’t save any of them without asking for a sacrifice.
Farideh squeezed her eyes shut. “What do you think Magros intends to do?” she said. “What. . what do we play off of?”
“Does it matter?” Lorcan said. “You can’t seriously be considering bringing down-”
“What are our options?”
“He has a Red Wizard. Some undead. They’re headed here with some magic in mind. I doubt,” he added acidly, “that it has to do with freeing your prisoners. Maybe she wants an army of corpses? Maybe she wants to capture the camp for her own master?” He shuddered and pulled her nearer. “Darling, we don’t need to be here. Please.”
“I’m not coming back,” Farideh said. “I don’t want to find I missed something later on. Do you think the Red Wizard will be able to get through the wall?”
Lorcan shook his head. “Rhand has to make allowances from the sound of it. Even Sairché and I can’t come through easily. Out though. . It might be easier. I could get you away. Get us away. Let Magros and Sairché bungle things on their own.”
“You know you can’t,” Farideh said. “You know I won’t go.” She ought to push him off. She ought to keep out of his reach. She ought to make sure she was absolutely clear about where they stood right now-and he was not in her good graces. But with the Nameless One’s presence on the other side of the floor pressing on her like wave after wave of invisible soldiers. . his arms around her made for pleasant enough armor. Regardless of why he offered it.
“Is she getting to you?” Farideh asked.
Lorcan cursed under his breath. “Yes.”
“Keep fighting it,” Farideh said. She tried to speak as carefully as he had earlier. “If the prisoners escaped-like in the vision-that wouldn’t go well. You’d be at fault. You and Sairché and Glasya. It would be exactly the sort of thing this Magros might try to make happen.” She dipped her hand into the water to feel the sharp jolt of pain the cold sent up her nerves. “It would be a good idea to see if that agent you mentioned knows about it. So you could be sure not to catch the blame.” She pushed him gently away and turned to face him. “Or maybe they know about the Red Wizard.”
“You’d have to find the agent,” Lorcan said. “One soul in an ever-moving sea.”
“I have connections. This completely ridiculous power.” She shut her eyes and calmed herself. She had been doing a fine job of not thinking about being a Chosen of Asmodeus, of not considering what came next. If she could keep it out of mind, it was as good as not true-or as close as it could be.
But even brushing the edge of that knowledge stirred a panic in her heart.