his sword, before turning her rod toward the remaining devil. But she wasn’t needed.
Nemea collapsed across the broken cobbles with a noisy clatter and Havilar’s glaive planted in her ribs. She groaned once and burst into flames as Aornos before her had done.
Havilar wrenched her glaive free and planted it in the scorched and ruined cobbles.
“Devilslayer,” she said with relish. She looked over at Brin, who still held his bloodied sword in a shaking hand. “Are you going to be sick again?”
“No,” Brin said, looking gray. To his credit, he kept his dinner down. Havilar patted his back.
The square was quiet-alarmingly so after the clamor of the devils and the clash of weapons. There was only the soft patter of the drizzling rain, which served to mute things further and wash away the smells of blood and brimstone. If anyone had heard them, they’d stayed well away. Lorcan crept up beside her.
“What in the Hells were those?” Farideh demanded.
“Erinyes,” Lorcan said, his voice taut and clipped. “The archduchess’s enforcers.”
“Are there more?”
“Not now. They were only supposed to take me.” He shifted. “There will be more if we wait much longer.”
“We need to get out of the street.” She started to walk, but the light, tentative touch of Lorcan’s hand stopped her.
“You could have let her kill me,” he pointed out.
“I could have.”
He waited, agitated, as if he expected her to say more. “You’re not terribly skilled at being a cold-blooded killer, are you? First you can’t blow my head off, then you can’t even let someone else’s sword take me.”
“You’re right,” Farideh said. “We need to get out of the street.”
There had been a building between the square and the temple, not yet demolished and partly swallowed by the last creeping edge of a lava flow that had obliterated the nearby street. Silent as a winter night, and empty. Brin and Havilar followed her as she strode briskly toward it.
There was a gust of flapping wings, and Lorcan landed in front of her. “
“Stop it,” she said.
“Afraid your ‘sword’ would be ruined?” he said.
Farideh paused and looked him in the eye. “I’m not like you.” She pressed past him and farther up the street. The amulet would still hold for a good part of an hour; let him rage at her all he liked.
But she heard nothing but footsteps as she reached the broken building.
They climbed over the vein of rock and in through a window. The stairs had long since rotted or burned away. Lorcan flew to the upper story and disappeared, while the other three helped one another climb the crumbling stones of the walls. The floor above was mostly intact, although it, like the whole building, leaned.
Brin led Havi over to the lowest corner of the floor where she finally admitted her ankle was hurting and the bloody patch growing on her sleeve was a deep cut on her arm.
Lorcan stood by the window, scanning the streets below. For all that had happened in the street, it gave her a kick of terror to see him standing there, where Havi and Brin could see him-these two parts of her life weren’t meant to interact.
“You knew them,” she said.
“My sisters,” he said. “My half-sisters. Nemea and Aornos.”
“Oh.” And she couldn’t help but imagine their positions exchanged-Havilar dead by his sword. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why?”
“… They’re dead. We killed them.”
He shrugged. “They would have killed us. Me, in particular, with a great deal of glee. Besides, they’re not dead like you’d hope-you kill a devil on Toril, they reform in the Hells.” He looked over at her. “It’s complicated. Don’t …” He trailed off though, and didn’t tell her not to worry about it. “They can’t come here. Not for now.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
“I have fifty-eight half-sisters,” he said.
“We took care of those other ones. Those erinyes,” Havilar said, testing the word, “pretty handily. We’ll do it again. Just stand aside next time.”
“Nemea and Aornos are easily the stupidest, laziest, and least dangerous of all my half-sisters. They still could have killed you in a heartbeat if you weren’t lucky and they weren’t cocky.” He turned back to the window and gripped the sill. “When the next wave comes, Invadiah will send better soldiers. And more of them. If she doesn’t come herself. You can think yourself whatever sort of hero you like, but Invadiah will cut you down all the same.”
Farideh swallowed, imagining an army of the fearsome devil-women, their swift and shining swords, their nigh-unbreakable armor. “Why are they here?”
He scowled. “Because someone has thrown me over to the wolves. They think I’ve betrayed my mother. Or worse, Glasya.” His dark eyes met Farideh’s. “They won’t stop-not until I’m dead or I convince Invadiah I’m no traitor. They knew you too.”
“I heard that. You were right about Rohini then. That was supposed to be me.”
“She’ll be looking for you.”
“But why? Who is she?”
He looked down at her, still puzzled, still angry. “Rohini is a devil,” he said after a breath. “A succubus. She is the main agent-maybe the only agent-of Glasya, Lord of the Sixth Layer, in Neverwinter.”
“What about you?” Brin asked.
Lorcan scowled at him. “I live at Glasya’s pleasure, but I don’t act on her orders.”
“What is Rohini doing here?” Farideh asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” He sighed. “You won’t understand, but I have worked very hard not to have the faintest idea.”
“She’s spellscarring orcs,” Havilar said matter-of-factly. “Even I know that.”
Lorcan shrugged. “That could be her goal. That could be a step to something bigger. That could be an act so far ahead of her eventual goal that no one but Glasya could uncover what it is. I don’t know if Invadiah even knows, and she’s commanding Rohini. Devils don’t do things they way you do.”
“Think,” Farideh said. “You must have heard something, if you know that much.”
He shook his head resolutely, as if he didn’t want to remember. “Old ones,” he finally said. “She said she couldn’t risk the old ones.”
Old ones? Farideh thought. Gods, could they be any more vague? “Old whats? Risk them what?” But Lorcan only shook his head.
“They
“Havi, that’s not even a word,” Farideh said.
“I’m only saying what I-” Havilar started, but a horrified gasp cut her off.
“Aboleths?” Brin said, staring at her.
“Oh,” Havilar said. “Maybe. That makes more sense than giving orcs to an arbalest. Aren’t aboleths sea monsters though?”
When they’d crossed the Sea of Fallen Stars to take the northern passage, the sailors had scanned the skies constantly for any sign of the aboleths. Hulking monsters, they’d told her, large as whales. Swam through water and air alike. They might pass a ship by, might render another into nothing but blood and splinters floating on the water, might coat all aboard a third with a layer of slime that sank into your head and warped your mind, making you into a servant with hardly a will of your own. Mehen had snorted and called them ridiculous tales, but he made Farideh and Havilar stay below deck.
“They’re going to be disappointed those orcs can’t swim,” Havilar said.
Farideh bit her tongue and did not ask where Havilar had gotten the idea that orcs couldn’t swim. “What would Rohini want to treat with an aboleth for?” she asked Brin.
But Brin still sat, wide-eyed with horror. “Not
