Brimstone Angels

“That’s a fair thing to say when you’re calling me a henish!” She pushed Havilar’s arm away, the shadow-smoke boiling up around her-

“Knock it off!” Mehen shouted. He seized both by the shoulders and yanked them apart. “You two are acting like a pair of hatchlings.”

“But she-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “Havilar, you need to calm down. You’re upsetting yourself, and saying things you and I both know you don’t mean. Farideh’s fine, you’re fine, everything’s all right.”

“And you,” he said turning to Farideh, “need to snap out of it. You scared your sister, whether you meant to or not, and that deserves a little kindness. And need I remind you,” he added, dropping his voice and switching to Draconic, “that bloody devil is supposed to stay away from you.”

“I know. He just came. I couldn’t do anything.”

“You told me he would stay away-so why does Brin know? Were you showing off? ”

“No! I can’t call him,” she said. “He’s not like a trained dog. He just shows up.” She paused. “He said we shouldn’t go to Neverwinter. There was something-”

“We’re not changing plans now. Especially not because karshoji Lorcan said so.”

“He was trying to warn us. Like with the orcs. He was worried-”

“Worried about causing enough trouble.” Mehen said. “We’re taking Tam and Brin to Neverwinter. That’s it. And if I hear another word about Lorcan, I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Farideh shouted. “Leave me in the woods back where you found me? Maybe you can find some other daughter who isn’t such a disappointment.”

Mehen threw back his head and roared, his sharp teeth bared. Farideh took a step back.

“Enough!” Mehen looked back over his shoulder, to Tam and Brin and Havilar who was watching wide-eyed, and switched back to Common. “This is the watch order-the priest, me, Havi, Farideh, Brin. If you’re not Tam, eat your waybread and go to bed. And you,” he said to Farideh, “I don’t want to hear another word from you until we’ve both calmed down, understand?”

Farideh nodded tightly and brushed past Mehen to find a spot away from all of them. Her cheeks were burning, and she would have liked to curl up and vanish. It was a cruel thing to say to Mehen, but … it was only the truth. It was clear he’d rather have two of Havilar. It was clear she’d be better off if they did part ways once they reached Neverwinter, and so would Mehen.

Mehen lay awake and staring up at the cold stars, biding his time until the priest was ready to change shifts and turning Farideh’s words over and over in his thoughts, as if there were some way to see it that didn’t stick in his throat.

How could she think that? How could she believe he thought she was a disappointment? He wasn’t disappointed in her … just in her decisions, and that was simple enough to fix. She just wouldn’t. Too bad Farideh was as stubborn as a mule in mud.

Mehen could still recall Farideh at the age of six wearing too-small boots long into the sweltering summer, because she’d adored the rabbit fur trim. Mehen had laughed at her willfulness, and she’d been angry then, too.

But Lorcan was no pair of boots, and Mehen couldn’t slip into her room one night and throw him in the midden. He tapped on the roof of his mouth, anxious and irritated. If she’d had a room for him to find that devil in, he’d do worse than throw the bastard in the rubbish heap.

Mehen sat up. He wasn’t going to sleep, so he might as well not pretend. He picked up his sword and strode across the camp to the tree where Tam sat, his chain uncoiled in a sinuous line across the dirt. The priest watched, but only nodded as Mehen sat down and laid the falchion across his lap.

“You can take your turn sleeping, if you like,” Mehen said, staring at the fire.

“In a bit,” Tam said. “I don’t sleep a great deal these days. Might as well sit watch.”

“You don’t have some sort of …” Mehen waved a hand vaguely at the moon. “Rituals to attend to.”

Tam chuckled. “It’s not as formal as all that. She won’t forget me if I don’t make offerings for a night.”

“You gave her offerings enough in orc blood, eh?”

“Well, no. That’s not my lady’s taste.”

Mehen examined the serpentine curve of the chain. A dark patina coated every link, and only the spikes- sharpened not too long ago, he suspected-gleamed in the firelight.

He looked up at Tam. “Thought your sort preferred a staff. Or somesuch.”

Tam shrugged. “A relic,” he said. “From a previous life. I was a blade-for-hire. As it turns out, the chain plays well with the Moonmaiden’s magic.” He nodded at Mehen’s falchion. “Abeiran?”

“The design, not the blade,” Mehen said. “It was made for me in Tymanther.” He turned the blade over. “Meant for a lance defender honor guard, but no one makes things for ornament only in Djerad Thymar. It’s served me well.” He did not offer more, and the priest, to his credit, didn’t ask.

But Tam did say, “It’s not easy living in a world where the rules are all different than what you know. It’s taken me fifteen years to stop thinking everyone’s going to run me through the minute I turn my back.”

Mehen nodded. “Like learning how to walk and talk all over again.”

“Much the same, I suspect.” The silence stretched on before Tam spoke again. “What is it keeping you awake?”

“Unfinished arguments.”

“Ah. Well, you probably did the best you could, ending it there.”

Mehen tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You don’t have children. You don’t know.”

“I do, actually,” Tam said. “A daughter. She’s … let’s see, twenty-four now? Lives in Baldur’s Gate, making ends meet as an antiquary and historian.”

Mehen fought back a sneer. Such a human assertion. “Kosjmyrni. Her mother’s daughter.”

“I suppose,” Tam said with an easy smile, “if you want to look at it like a dragonborn, then yes. But I’ve made it a point to know Mira. And we’ve had our share of arguments.” He nodded at the fire, at Farideh and Havilar’s sleeping forms. “How old are they?”

Mehen shrugged. “Based off the midwife’s guess, seventeen. We’ll say eighteen once Mirtul rolls around.”

“It gets hard around then,” Tam said. “They’re grown women. It doesn’t suit well to send them to bed without supper or dress them down in front of their comrades.”

Mehen growled, low in his throat at the subtle judgment. “You don’t know my girls. Don’t make guesses about what they need.”

Tam shrugged again, seemingly unconcerned with the threat. “It’s how it is. They want your approval still-”

“And they get it,” he said. When they’re not being impossible.

“But they don’t need it anymore.” Tam stood and gathered up his chain. “Again, I don’t mean offense. You’ll do as you will, but make no mistake: they’ll grow up whether you like it or not. You can let them find their own ways, or you can keep them reined in and find out too late you’ve done them a great disservice.”

Didn’t mean offense, bah! Mehen glared at the priest’s back as he retreated to his own bedroll. Every day of the twins’ lives brought someone new telling Clanless Mehen he didn’t know how to raise his own daughters.

When he’d found them, coming back to Arush Vayem from a long hunt, no one in the village had wanted to take them in. Tieflings-twin tieflings-well, that was unlucky. And one with an odd eye, like a feytouched dog? Well, no one needed a priest of Beshaba to interpret those signs. The goddess of ill-fortune might as well have left her thumbprint right between the bumps of their budding horns.

It had broken Mehen’s heart, the way they’d all averted their eyes, claimed to have too many responsibilities, too many mouths to feed, too little knowledge of babies. Mehen couldn’t have his own offspring, outcast as he was,