Brimstone Angels

Rohini leaned against the wall and gnawed at a thumbnail. Too many coincidences meant something was brewing.

It must be Invadiah. If Invadiah wanted to keep an eye on Rohini, her son’s pretty-faced tiefling would make a fair spy. But Invadiah would surely know Rohini would suspect something the moment the tiefling’s connections came out-and there was no scenario where they wouldn’t come out. Rohini was nothing if not thorough. He has a Toril Thirteen, Invadiah had said, had taunted. She should have seen this coming.

But then there was Lorcan: How did Lorcan fit? Would he try to undermine his mother? Would he have tried to undermine Rohini without Invadiah’s prompting? As far as Rohini knew, not a devil in the Hells who knew of Lorcan thought he was anything but useless, the reason Invadiah had no more offspring-she didn’t want another one like him.

But if he had a Toril Thirteen … well, you had to be a little clever to manage that, Rohini knew. Was he clever enough to play a fool and slip beneath the notice of most of Malbolge too? Was he clever enough to train his warlock to act like a babe in the woods? How clever did Invadiah know he was?

The question of what to do with Farideh was no different, a matter to be most thorough and thoughtful about. To kill her would send a message to Invadiah. Better still, to dominate the warlock and make her act according to Rohini’s will. Make her kill Lorcan. Make her feed Invadiah the sort of lies that would label Lorcan an oathbreaker. Invade her form and take her to the Hells, an assassin with no will and a disposable body.

I will show them what they’ve miscounted in me, Rohini thought. I will punish the erinyes for all they’ve-

Rohini calmed herself. Those were ancient thoughts, suited to another era, another battle. The erinyes were not the succubi’s enemies, however they antagonized one another now, however they’d clashed in the Blood Wars before. It might sting to defer to the erinyes as her betters, but it was far, far better than being the wisest demon in the chaotic Abyss.

And the fact that the same Ascension that granted the erinyes mastery over the succubi also took away the erinyes’ wings-and their beauty-soothed that sting a little.

A little, but not much.

For if someone tore the truth out of the secret center of Rohini’s thoughts, there was nothing she wanted so dearly as the promotion that would transform her into an erinyes. She would take their ugly hooves, their heavy fangs, their monstrous forms for the proper fear and respect they garnered. To be a succubus was to be overlooked. To be thought mad and weak. To be deemed a devil’s whore. Even Rohini, who they rightly feared, who Glasya honored with a mission into Stygia, still sat low on the devils’ precious hierarchy for being only a succubus.

For the moment. She would miss her wings. She suspected all the erinyes did.

Rohini kept watching the girl, who for once was not looking at Rohini, but looking back over her shoulder at her twin twirling the broom like a polearm.

It seemed lately that every time Rohini looked up, there was Lorcan’s tiefling giving her a troubled stare. Though, she admitted, it was possible that it was the other one some of the time. She couldn’t seem to tell them apart. One has a glaive, she thought. One has a rod. One has the gold eyes, one has the silver one.

What either was watching for, Rohini couldn’t fathom. To another eye, the girl would seem perfectly innocent-but Rohini knew better. Who had ever heard of a guileless warlock? There was no point in such a thing.

Rohini chewed her lip. Whatever was happening, it was anything but simple.

Much as it boiled in her brain, Rohini had other, more important things to attend to. She would have to decide what to do about the girl later.

Farideh looked over at Rohini then, held her gaze a moment and nodded in acknowledgment, as if she’d known all along Rohini was watching. As if she knew what the succubus was thinking.

Rohini nodded back, accepting the challenge. Farideh could make things as complicated as she liked; Rohini was anything but simple herself.

Havilar didn’t care for Rohini or her ideas about good uses of time and building character, but she had to appreciate the hospitaler’s punctuality. The very second Rohini headed down the corridor, Havilar knew she wouldn’t be back for ages. She shoved her broom into a corner, blurted an excuse about needing to use the privy to Farideh, and went to the kitchens instead. She snatched a clay pitcher full of water and a couple of mugs and brought them to the courtyard on the other side of the temple.

Brin, covered in sweat and stone dust, looked up as she came out and smiled. “Did you get it?”

“No, I couldn’t find Mehen.” Havilar set the pitcher and glasses on one of the larger blocks and pulled herself up beside them. The courtyard was as large as one of the sick rooms she’d been made to clean and littered with shattered rocks and pieces of glass and molding. A pleasant breeze stirred the air, and the only sound was a robin chirping on the roof. “Rohini probably has him up on the roof, she’s so good at giving people exactly the wrong chore.” She poured water for both of them. “I had to sweep and mop. Meanwhile, Farideh Fumblehands is washing knives and glasses and things for the healers. And you’re hauling stone.”

“Ha ha,” Brin said. “Better than sweeping.”

Havilar smiled. She hadn’t lied when Farideh asked if she were fond of Brin. “Fond” was an awfully strong word, after all. But she was so tired of Farideh’s gloomy attitude. She’d slipped off yesterday to see him, and had fun for a change. She was starting to wonder if Brin might be fond of her. Or at least, more fond of her than he was of Farideh. And when she teased him, he always laughed.

“Are you going to tell me why you wanted the bounty form at least?”

He shrugged. “I just wanted to see it again. It’s funny, I started thinking maybe I imagined it. Maybe it’s not really Constancia.”

“Maybe. It’s a common name, is it?”

Brin shrugged again. “I don’t really know. She’s the only one I’ve met, but I … I haven’t met all that many people.” He stared glumly at the ground between his feet. “How much are you getting for her?”

“A thousand, I think. Pretty good, but then, no one really offers a bounty until they’re desperate enough to offer something worthwhile. It is a bit odd that they don’t specify her crimes. What did she do?”

Brin sighed. “Nothing.”

“Real nothing or you-don’t-want-to-say nothing?”

“She … she was supposed to be keeping an eye on me,” he said. “And we had an agreement-she wouldn’t accompany me everywhere if I’d report in at regular intervals and not avoid my tutors. It was just between us. And … I took advantage of that.”

Havilar wrinkled her nose. “I don’t blame you. Why’s she got a bounty then?”

“Our family’s probably angry. I suppose we both betrayed our oaths.” He paused. “She took care of me. She’s always taken care of me, in her own way. She’s not … Constancia’s not like a mother. She’s rule-bound, obsessively focused, bossy, ill-tempered, and she never listened when I told her.… Well, she might have been difficult, but I never wanted to get her into trouble.”

“She sounds like Farideh,” Havilar said, and then wished she hadn’t. “How come you don’t have a bounty?” Brin turned scarlet, and Havilar giggled. “Don’t worry. I won’t hunt you down.”

“It’s complicated,” he said after a moment. “It’s my family.”

Havilar thought of Farideh, her pact and her snotty attitude and the fight with Mehen. “Say no more.”

Brin chuckled. “You make it sound as if you have things so rough. But you three stick together. Mehen’s never told you … I don’t know, that you had to be a milkmaid. That you’d be a disappointment if you weren’t a milkmaid. That your whole reason to be on this plane was to be a milkmaid and you were flouting the gods themselves if you didn’t want to be a milkmaid.”

Havilar thought of the way Mehen had pressed her to take up the glaive-it had been everything she wanted, and she’d never questioned it. But she’d also never thought about being a milkmaid or a merchant or a traveling bard.