“Perhaps,” Farideh said, suddenly very aware of Mira’s resemblance to the Calishite priest. “I didn’t know Tam had any children. It’s not the sort of thing he talks about-with me, at any rate.”
“And what do you talk about?” Mira asked, turning back to her maps.
She spoke as if she were doing Farideh a favor, as if she were leaving the conversation open for the younger girl to amuse herself. But under it, Farideh suspected, there was an old anger. She thought of Mehen, of the way he favored Havilar and the way he fought Farideh so hard when she wouldn’t break the pact. She and Mira might have more in common than she’d expected.
“About how I’ve done the wrong thing, usually,” Farideh said. “But mostly, we don’t.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Mira said, straightening and eyeing the inked path she’d drawn through the green patches marking the forest. “Really, the only one who is ever truly right with him is Tam Zawad.”
Which was true, Farideh thought, recalling how often Tam’s conversations had been centered on how she ought not do something she ended up perfectly capable of doing, or how she ought to avoid something she’d never ever intended to do. Or how he’d streaked off to reclaim the page and stone without once consulting Dahl or herself.
And yet she wouldn’t have agreed with it, not outright. Enough persuasion and Tam could be convinced. He would see reason. But then, she supposed, much like if someone were to ask Farideh what she thought of Mehen while they were mid-argument, Mira wasn’t interested in that side of things.
The thought of Mehen sent a nervous pang through her stomach, and the patch above her tail tensed. She hoped indeed that Tam was right about that much.
“Has it been long since you’ve seen him?” she asked.
“A few years.”
“That must be hard.”
Mira looked up, her smile even more insistently unconcerned.
“Not in particular. Are you ready to leave soon?”
Farideh frowned. “Now?”
“Well,” Mira said. “My father’s clearly gone to get permission or coin or what have you from his superiors-else he would have said something about where he was going. Once he has that, I suspect we’ll be well underway. All of us, most likely, and I would think by morning. So you ought to get your things together. Your sister, as well.” This time, Farideh thought, Mira’s smile was genuine. Fond, even. “And this time next tenday we’ll be in the cavern of Xammux,” she said. “Amid the treasures of Tarchamus.”
Brin watched as Havilar lunged at the mercenary, the butt of her glaive aimed at her leading knee. Pernika darted out of reach, letting the glaive strike the packed earth. The women slipped around each other, so fast Brin wasn’t sure how they’d both managed to keep their balance, coming back into firm-footed stances before lunging at each other again, graceful and deadly.
“It’s like watching a dance, isn’t it?” Brin said. The man beside him made no reply. “I mean, I know people say that all the time, but … it really is with those two.”
Beside Brin, Maspero only grunted.
Pernika swung the flat of her sword hard at Havilar’s back, but the tiefling was quicker than she’d expected and rolled under, bringing the shaft of the glaive down on the mercenary’s wrist. Pernika hissed and leaped back, shaking her hand.
“Sorry!” Havilar cried, dropping the batting-wrapped glaive and scrambling to her feet. “Ah, karshoj, sorry. I didn’t break it, did I?”
Pernika chuckled under her breath. “I’m a little less fragile than that.” She clutched the wrist all the same.
Panting, Havilar grinned and wiped the sweat off her brow. “Good. Again?”
“Give me a minute, stripling,” Pernika said. She came over to the bench, Havilar trailing. “You’ll get another chance to make up the score.” She pulled at the collar of her shirt to stir the air. “Balls, but it’s hot. Where’d you learn that style of glaivework? You’re quick.”
Havilar’s grin grew wider, and she shot a little glance at Brin. “Around,” she said shyly. “You’re really good. I haven’t sparred with anyone so much better than me in ages.”
Pernika gave Brin an amused look. “Well, you can’t expect to spar with someone in your safekeeping. Might as well challenge a tree.”
“I am not in her safekeeping,” Brin snapped.
Pernika’s black, tapered eyes glittered. “My mistake.”
“I liked that move you did,” Havilar blurted. “The one before the big lunge where you feinted. If I shortened the swing, it might work as a chop.”
“Maybe,” the mercenary said, and Havilar was off and chattering as if she could fill the tense silence with talk of guards and parries and glaives and swords, making complex gestures with her hands to show the angles of blades and strikes.
But Pernika kept staring at Brin, and he turned away-who cared what some mercenary said? He was of the blood of Azoun after all. Constancia was right-that couldn’t change. For all that it meant … probably half the nation of Cormyr could trace their ancestors to the promiscuous king.
Yet Brin had been trained by the holy champions of Loyal Torm, the god of duty. He’d been blessed by the god … and not taken the oaths that would have made him a true priest, all too aware he wasn’t always the god’s best representative.
Brin wiped sweat from his forehead. You’re fooling no one, he thought. He could be anyone’s descendant, any god’s devotee, and it didn’t make him braver or cleverer. He was still himself, no matter what titles he might lay claim to.
No one had doubted his capability in Neverwinter. No one had called him a coward. No one had made him take up a sword and defend his friends against the horrors of the Spellplague Chasm. No one had protected him when he faced the corrupted priest, Brother Vartan.
Even if the half-elf priest had been mad and distracted, he’d been dangerous, seething with the otherworldly powers that infected his mistress, Rohini. And Brin hadn’t had a hope of staying alive without aiming for the good brother’s heart. He still dreamed of killing Vartan, still woke shaking some nights, remembering the hideous slime that poured out of the corrupted priest’s wounds. Vartan had been a kind man, once.
“Are you ready?” Havilar asked Pernika.
Pernika didn’t answer, but started rolling up her sleeves, baring the intricate inkwork of tattoos that swirled from wrist to elbow and perhaps beyond. “Where’d you two hook each other?”
“We’re not …” Havilar’s tail flicked across the dust. “We’re not hooked, or anything.” Brin’s stomach tightened and he watched the edge of the wall along the training ground. He could still hear her embarrassment-fssk, fssk.
Pernika chuckled. “She means,” Maspero said in a surprisingly light voice, “where’d you start traveling from?”
“Neverwinter,” Brin said flatly.
“You’re from Neverwinter?” Maspero asked.
“He’s from Cormyr,” Havilar supplied.
Brin cursed to himself. He turned back to find Pernika giving him an appraising look as she leaned on her practice sword. “Interesting.”
“Is it?” he said blandly. “There’re a great many people from Cormyr in the world. You go to the right places you might think half of Faerun’s Cormyrean.”
“Easy there,” Pernika said. “Just making chit-chat. You want to know, I came out of Erlkazar. Maspero here is Westgate’s dear scion.” She swung the wooden blade up onto her shoulder like a yoke, and Brin stared at her arms. “There-now we’re all interesting.”
Brin’s mind scrambled for something to say. Something to put the mercenary off his birthplace, his identity, or whatever else she might have been digging at.
But the words escaped him, his thoughts far too occupied with the tattoo nestled in the lines of inkwork of a black clawed fist, clutching at the air. Of Pernika’s mad dancing eyes, and the implications of a mercenary who marked herself with the ancient symbols of the god of tyranny.
“I’m from Tymanther,” Havilar said.