Brimstone Angels

“And you don’t see why that might make people upset?” he said. “You don’t see why they might not want you around? Loyal Torm, I thought you had a little sense.”

She had sense enough to know that this had been bound to happen from the start. She closed her eyes a moment, to quell the fury that felt as if it might burst out of her.

“Brin,” she said, “do you know the most mischievous, troublesome thing I’d ever done before that day?”

Brin hesitated. “No.”

“I taught Havilar all the Draconic swear words I’d picked up from listening in on Mehen and his friends. The most careless thing I’d ever done? I didn’t tell Mehen for a day when Havilar broke her wrist, because she begged me not to.” She opened her eyes and met Brin’s. “And I told him anyway when I saw how it had swollen.”

“So?”

“So, I wasn’t trouble,” she said. “I was as good as I could be. I made a mistake. I didn’t take the pact because I wanted to misbehave or hurt anyone. It didn’t happen because I was troublesome and out of hand. It was a mistake, and no matter how bad a mistake, that is not a flaw in me! The only person I hurt was myself.”

Brin shook his head slowly. “But you made a pact with a devil. Loyal Fury. How could you? How could you?”

“What do you want from me, Brin?” she said hotly. “I’m not like you. I can’t just decide to go off into the world and make my way without help.”

“There are a lot more ways to get help than offering up your soul.”

“He doesn’t have my soul,” she said. “And even if he did, so what? I’m a tiefling. A soul was never a surety.”

“Don’t start with that,” he said. “This has nothing to do with what you are. It’s what you’ve done.”

She laughed bitterly. “Oh? Is that so? Then you think a human girl, an elf girl, Hells, even a dragonborn girl would have gotten the same? That she would have spent her whole life doing everything they said, taking every snide comment in stride, and made one mistake-one very bad mistake-and had only her sister and her guardian and a devil on her side?” Tears blurred her sight and she turned from Brin to wipe them away. “Not one other person tried to help. Not one other person took my side. Not one pointed out that it might be possible to free me of the pact. You would have thought I’d been wicked right from the cradle the way they responded. He was right,” she said half to herself. “He’s always right.” Farideh looked back at Brin. “You’re the one with no sense if you think being a tiefling had nothing to do with that.”

Brin couldn’t quite meet her eye. “You still said yes,” he said, more softly. “And … I cannot understand that. Why would you tie yourself to something so evil?”

“He’s … He’s not so bad.” Farideh looked off toward the road, her heart leaden in her chest. “Haven’t you ever just … you want something, anything, to make things different than they are? You’d give anything to just have a little bit of control over your life.”

“So you give someone else control?” Brin stopped himself. The tightness around his eyes relaxed. “Maybe,” he said after a moment.

“Perhaps there are other ways,” she said. “And I would consider them if they came along. But that day, my choices were to be crushed under the weight of the world’s expectations or … to take a little bit of control from a devil.”

“You’re playing with very dangerous powers-”

“I know what I’m ‘playing with,’ ” she said. “And you’ve seen me use those powers. I saved you. I stopped those orcs. I’m not … I don’t hurt people unless I have to. Does it count for anything that I use the powers he gives me for good things?”

“Yes,” Brin said after a moment, “for you. But you’re taking the powers of the Hells. You’re not going to convince me those aren’t purely evil.” He looked back at the spot where Lorcan had stood. “And him …”

“Lorcan,” she said. “His name’s Lorcan.”

“Loyal Fury,” Brin said. “You can’t tell me he’s safe.”

“He’s safe enough. Mehen doesn’t like him. But he’s never brought me to harm.”

“Yet,” Brin said.

“It’s a tool,” she said. “I can use the pact to protect people. To help people. It’s better than my damned sword.”

“Even if it is like a sword,” Brin said. “It can still hurt you. He can still hurt you.”

As if she hadn’t heard that before. As if she hadn’t thought it herself. Farideh shook her head. “I know what I’m doing.”

Brin didn’t have a response to that. He shook his head again, as if he didn’t like the way their conversation had gone.

“Does he always … overreact like that? Push you around?”

“No,” Farideh said. She thought again of the symbol and the way it pulled at her. “Something frightened him.”

“That’s a funny way to be frightened,” Brin said. “Do Havilar and Mehen know he treats you that way?”

“Let’s just go back to the camp,” Farideh said. She started toward the other side of the meadow, then turned to Brin. “Don’t tell anyone. Please. Especially not Tam.”

“Why would you think I’d do something like that? I don’t like your pact, but I’m not going to get you in trouble.”

“I … don’t,” she said. “Not specifically. I’m just worried he’ll find out.” She rolled the rod between her hands. “There’s something strange about him.”

Brin stopped. “Strange how?”

She shrugged. “He’s always watching, as if he’s trying to figure something out. Mehen trusts him-which is pretty strange too.” She sighed. “I am really sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t … I don’t ever know how to bring it up.”

Brin sighed too. “I know better than you think. I mean,” he added quickly, “not that all the running away is as dangerous as it is to admit you’re a warlock with an infernal pact.” He wet his lips. “Do you hate all priests?”

“The woman who led the call to kick me out of the village was a priestess of Chauntea,” she said. “A tiefling too.”

“She’s not every priest.”

“I’ve yet to meet one who thought much at all of me. I don’t trust them. I can’t trust them when I don’t know what to expect from them.” She kicked the deadfall. “When common knowledge is that you haven’t got a soul worth saving, it tends to make them do things I’d rather they not.”

“I think you have a soul,” Brin offered.

“You also think we’ll believe your hair is really that color,” Farideh pointed out. “Even when you’re sweating brown. Let’s get back to camp.”

Lorcan released the charm and with it, the invisibility that had cloaked him fell away. He watched as Farideh and Brin disappeared into the forest on the other side of the meadow, holding firm against the rage that threatened to overtake him and drive him out across the field where he could rip that little shit’s head right off. He supposed, with a certain studied calm, that was his mother’s blood coming through.

And Farideh …

She hadn’t listened to the boy. Not then. But if Brin stayed around much longer, he would keep talking and cajoling and arguing. He’d wear her down the way Lorcan couldn’t seem to.

It probably wouldn’t take much, Lorcan thought, considering how she’d threatened to go to Sairche. She was pulling away, stepping out of her proper place. Listening to Mehen. Treating Lorcan like something she could set aside.

Like a tool. Like her sword.

She’s not as lamb-brained as you think she is either, he mused. The most difficult warlock in his retinue by far.

If only Lorcan could have snatched Farideh up and left Brin standing dumbstruck in the forest, so close to one