Arvin heard a wet thud—a sound like a blade striking flesh. For the space of a heartbeat, everyone in the room was silent, their minds blank with suspense. Even the demon was still. Arvin searched desperately for its mind, hope bubbling through him.
He found only silence. He closed his eyes in relief.
Stupid mortal, the demon suddenly roared. You thought you could kill me? Its mind erupted with laughter: a sound like thick, hot, bubbling blood.
Arvin opened his eyes. Davinu, Marasa, and Foesmasher were staring at him expectantly, their faces filled with cautious hope.
“It’s… not dead,” he croaked.
Their faces crumpled into despair.
I hear you, the demon growled into Arvin’s mind. I will remember your voice. It gave a mental shove… and the manifestation ended.
Arvin sagged.
Marasa caught his arm, steadying him. “Did you overhear anything?” she asked. “Anything that might help?”
“The demon is bound,” Arvin said. “But the bindings that hold it are fading. It thinks it will be free. ‘Soon’ was the word it used.”
Marasa looked grim. She stared at Glisena’s distended stomach. “Does that mean it will be born?” she asked softly. “Or….”
Foesmasher dropped his daughter’s hand and rose to his feet. “Abyss take you!” he gritted at Davinu, his fists balled. “And you,” he said, pointing at Marasa. “You assured me the prayer would work.”
“I don’t understand why it didn’t, my lord,” Davinu protested, backing away. “Something so small… yet so powerful? We expected a minor demon—a quasit, given the size—but it appears we were wrong. Naneth seems to have reduced a larger demon—many times over—without diminishing its vital energies in the slightest.”
Marasa stood her ground before the baron’s verbal onslaught. “Thuragar,” she said, her voice dangerously low. “If Helm has forsaken your daughter, you have only yourself to blame.”
Foesmasher glared. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.
Marasa glared back.
The other clerics glanced warily between baron and cleric, waiting for the storm to break.
When it did, it came as a flood of tears. They spilled down Foesmasher’s cheeks as he stared at his daughter. His hand fell away from his sword. He turned away, his shoulders trembling with silent sobs.
Davinu turned to Marasa. “What now?” he asked in a weary voice.
Marasa sighed. She looked ready to collapse herself. One hand touched Glisena’s forehead. “We wait,” she announced at last, “until it is born. And banish it then.”
“The birth will be… difficult,” Davinu said, his voice a mere whisper.
Marasa’s eyes glistened with anguish. “Yes.”
Arvin shuffled his feet nervously.
Marasa turned to him. “Go,” she said in a flat voice. “Rest and meditate—but do not leave the palace. We may have need of your mind magic later.”
Arvin nodded. He wanted to wish Marasa and the other clerics luck, but if Helm had forsaken Glisena, so too might Tymora. His heart was heavy—could he do nothing to stop Sibyl’s foul machinations? Giving Glisena one last sorrowful glance, he left the bed chamber and walked wearily down the corridor, back to the reception hall where he’d left Karrell.
She wasn’t there.
Arvin turned to the soldiers. “The woman I came here with,” he said. “Where did she go?”
The soldiers exchanged uncomfortable looks. “What?” Arvin snapped.
“She left a message for you,” one of them answered at last. “She said she had to talk to someone, and for you to stay here, at the palace. She’ll return when she was done.”
Arvin felt his face grow pale. “Did she mention a name?”
The second soldier chuckled. “Looks like he’s been stood up,” he whispered to his companion.
The first soldier nodded then answered. “It was Zeliar… or Zelias. Something like that.”
Arvin barely heard him. A chasm seemed to have opened at his feet. Nodding his thanks for the message, he stumbled from the room.
Zelia.
Arvin sat in Karrell’s room at the Fairwinds Inn, staring at the cold ashes in the fireplace, exhausted in mind and body. His limbs were heavy with fatigue and his wounds ached; even thinking was as difficult as wading through deep water.
What was Karrell doing, speaking to Zelia? She was putting not only Arvin’s life in danger by doing so, but her own life, as well. The two women might share the same goal—finding Sibyl—but Zelia was utterly ruthless in that pursuit. She’d allowed Arvin and Naulg to fall into the hands of The Pox then subjected Arvin to one of the cruelest psionic powers of all in order to achieve her goal. Why would Karrell ever want to ally herself with such a person?
Because, Arvin thought heavily, Karrell was also a yuan-ti. She didn’t fear that race, the way a human would.
And because—and with this thought, Arvin sighed heavily—Zelia was a far more powerful psion than he was, far more capable.
Had Karrell decided to abandon him?
The drawing Karrell had done of him was still lying on the table. He picked it up. She’d drawn him as he lay sleeping; in the portrait, his face looked relaxed, at peace, which was hardly how he felt right now.
