“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “I didn’t know. I should have kept my tongue about him.”
Khochen waved him off. “Oh, why? You’re not sleeping with him. Come on, out with it. Or I’ll start telling you more personal things.”
“Gods.” Dahl rolled his eyes. “Shortly after I joined the Harpers,” he said. “They assigned me to Tam, and. . I don’t think I ever got the full story, but he was watching out for the twins. Only I convinced Farideh to go to this revel. And the host-do you remember Adolican Rhand?”
Khochen frowned. “The mission that-” She bit off what she’d been about to say, a skip so quick and subtle anyone else might have missed it. But Dahl knew what she meant: the mission that broke you.
“-you were on before you were pulled into the house?” she finished. “What was the twist? Something unpleasant.”
“Four bodies,” Dahl said quietly. “Mutilated coin lasses. And an apprentice.” He’d found the apprentice, the freshest victim, himself, and he never had shaken the memory. She’d been one of the sources Rhand was playing him through. If he’d been quicker, if he’d found out Rhand had been feeding him false information sooner, she, at least, might have survived.
“Right.” Khochen shuddered. “You ever catch him?”
“No. He’s still in Shade for all we know. Untouchable. Seven years ago, he held a revel,” he said, “and he’d invited Farideh. He’d marked her, I suppose. She was afraid, and I needed to get into that revel. Tam was going to do something dangerous, and we were going to lose the artifacts we needed to get ahold of-I thought.” He rubbed his forehead, the tension that rose there. “I convinced her it was safe, and then as soon as I walked away, Rhand drugged her. If I hadn’t dragged her off. .”
Khochen was quiet a moment. “He liked to take pieces unevenly, as I recall. A hand. A foot. Some fingers. Let them bleed out eventually.”
It wasn’t until they’d found those bodies years later, that he’d realized what a terrible set of cards he’d dealt her. And then there were the scraps of rumors about what had happened to the twins-and no one could say, only that they’d disappeared on the road to Suzail-well within reach of Adolican Rhand.
“I wasn’t nice to her,” he said, “even after, although she was just as bitter with me. I just sort of decided she was exactly what you’d expect a tiefling to be-wicked and sharp-tongued and not half as clever as they seem. She embarrassed me once, in front of Tam, and not on purpose and that was it, I-”
“You don’t have to describe it,” Khochen said mildly. “I’ve seen you with Vescaras.”
But it was not the same as Vescaras. If Vescaras pointed out Dahl’s shortcomings, it was to put him in his place. But when Farideh had called him out-told him he thought he was so smart but that every other word out of his mouth was another assumption that wasn’t fair-she’d been right.
And it had made Dahl wonder if that was why he had fallen from Oghma’s grace, if perhaps he hadn’t failed at one of the many strictures of paladinhood but done something more fundamentally opposed to Oghma’s doctrine. For the first time in the years since he’d lost his place as one of the God of Knowledge’s paladins, Dahl had an idea of what he could remedy.
But it hadn’t been enough, and the world had yanked Dahl around like an errant hound as he tried to find the answer. He’d started to curse Farideh for even putting the thought in his head-wasn’t it just like her to get under his skin like that?
He’d nearly given up, nearly decided that he’d wasted time and energy on utter nonsense that some tiefling girl out of the mountains had poured in his ear.
And then Oghma spoke to him.
But after that, it had been the Church of Oghma’s turn to speak, and Dahl had lost his hope, his future, his father’s respect, all in one awful year. And part of him still traced the thread of heartbreaks back to a mission in the Nether Mountains and to a tiefling girl whom he couldn’t stop fighting with.
Who is she? Khochen had asked. A devil, an angel, an ally, an antagonist, a symbol, a nightmare? I don’t know, Dahl thought. I don’t know.
“So your secret shame,” Khochen said, “is that you were a smug, reckless hardjack to someone and you feel bad about it?”
“More or less,” Dahl said.
“Hmmph. That’s less interesting than I expected. I don’t think it’s worth my secret.”
She said it light and teasing, as if she meant to lighten his burden. But it wasn’t so minor-through Farideh, Dahl had lost his last hope at returning to the Church of Oghma and his faith in his skills as a Harper. The urge to prove the Oghmanytes wrong, to find the answers and regain his standing, still rose up in him from time to time-but that was what ale was for, after all. His old mentor, Jedik, sent letters, now and again, and Dahl relegated them all to a box beneath his dresser, not sure enough to burn them, hurt enough to never read them.
If Khochen said a single, witty word about any of that, he would never speak to her again.
So Dahl only smiled. “You’ll just embellish it to be more interesting, anyway.” He stood and headed toward the taproom.
“You don’t think,” Khochen called, starting another little tune on her lute, “that there’s something odd here?”
Dahl turned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s awfully convenient that this girl-these girls-that you and Tam cared about and grieved for have suddenly turned up, in the taproom of the Harper Hall, hale and whole but in need of care and comfort?”
“You think she’s someone’s agent?”
Khochen shrugged. “I think if she’d turned up looking for anyone else, you’d be the first to suggest it.” She frowned and tweaked one of the tuning pins. “At least, you would’ve a few years ago.”
Dahl hesitated. The thought had crossed his mind-he’d pushed it aside when he’d seen how sure Tam had been, when no one who’d examined the twins had noticed anything amiss. “It’d be a clever plan,” he said. “But all you have is that.”
“All I’m saying is you ought to keep an eye on them. Especially the warlock.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” Khochen looked up at him, as serious as he’d ever seen her. “Because truly, I would have guessed that little gesture-if she’s not some sweetheart you’re trying to win back-was that of a man trying to absolve himself. Trying to walk away. Which does sound like you, right now.”
Dahl gritted his teeth. Every urge to run from the overwhelming embarrassment that wrapped him like an invisible cloak at the sight of Farideh seemed to turn solid and unavoidable in his thoughts. “I know what I’m doing,” he said tensely.
“Good,” Khochen said, cheerful once more. “Did I hear you say ‘Mehen’ was coming? As in Lord Crownsilver’s bodyguard?”
“They’re his daughters,” Dahl said, still smarting.
“Interesting,” Khochen said. She strummed the lute. “You’ll have to introduce me.”
“Of course,” Dahl said. “ ‘Meet Khochen, she’s the one who started a rumor about your daughter, the Shadovar spy.’ ”
“ ‘And her torrid affair with the Shepherd’s secretary,’ ” Khochen finished cheekily. “If you’re going to tell tales, tell good ones.”
Dahl scowled at her. “Give my regards to Lord Ammakyl. And never tell me about his smallclothes again.” He turned and went down to the taproom, trying hard to ignore Khochen’s laughter.
Farideh had no sense of how long it took for the swell of grief to pass, only that it had wrung her dry. She sat up and wiped her eyes-hoping dearly no one had heard-and found Sairché standing on the other side of the small room.
“I see you discovered my little ruse,” she said.
Farideh lunged at the cambion, all fury and instinct. She felt the surge of Sairché’s shield go up, but it provided no more resistance than a stinging across her knuckles as she slammed a fist into the other woman’s jaw. Sairché’s head snapped back and Farideh’s hand exploded with pain. She didn’t care. She aimed another, more thoughtful strike at Sairché’s throat, but before it connected the shield flared again. The magic pushed back, yanking her arm against the socket and throwing her off balance. Farideh fell backward to the floor.