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Lolth smiled. “Then let us begin.” Her hands gave darkness and malice shape, creating a midnight-black spider—another of her eight aspects. She placed it on the board at the center of her House.

Eilistraee shaped moonlight into a glowing likeness of herself and placed it at the center of her House. That done, she looked up—and saw something that startled her. Lolth was no longer alone. A familiar figure crouched to the right of her throne: an enormous spider with the head of a drow male—Lolth’s champion, the demigod Selvetarm. He laid his sword and mace down and spun a likeness of himself. He placed it on the board beside Lolth’s Mother piece.

“Unfair!” Eilistraee cried.

“Scared?” Lolth taunted. “Do you wish to capitulate?” She leaned forward, as if to gather up the pieces on the board.

“Never,” Eilistraee said. “I should have expected this of you. Play.”

Lolth reclined on her throne. She glanced at the board then casually moved a piece forward. A Slave, the hood of his piwafwi shadowing his face, a dagger held behind his back. Strands of webbing from Lolth’s hand clung to the piece then tore free as she set it down, causing it to rock gently.

Lolth sat lazily back on her throne, and said, “Your move.”

A furtive movement behind Lolth drew Eilistraee’s eye. A figure lurked in the shadow of her throne. An exquisitely beautiful drow male, the lower half of his face hidden by a soft black mask: Eilistraee’s brother Vhaeraun. Had he slipped a piece onto the board as well—and if so, on which side? He was as much Lolth’s enemy as Eilistraee’s.

Perhaps he was just trying to distract her.

Ignoring him, Eilistraee studied the sava board. She could see now why her brother might have wanted to pull her attention away from the game. Lolth had just made a foolish a move, one that left her Slave piece completely exposed. It could easily be taken by one of Eilistraee’s Wizard pieces—a piece that had entered the game only recently. She lifted the Wizard from the board, weighing its strength and will in her hand. Then she moved it forward. She set it down, nudging Lolth’s piece aside.

“Wizard takes Slave,” Eilistraee announced. With slender fingers, she removed Lolth’s piece from the board. Her eyes widened as she took its measure and realized what it was. Not a Slave piece at all.

Lolth sat forward, her eyes blazing. “What?” Her fists gripped the knobbed legs of her throne. “That’s not where I placed …”

She glanced behind her throne, but Vhaeraun was no longer there.

Eilistraee hid her smile as Lolth turned back to the board, a deep frown creasing her forehead. Then, abruptly, the frown vanished. The Spider Queen laughed, a fresh gout of spiders cascading from her lips.

“Poorly done, daughter,” she said. “Your impulsive counter move has opened a path straight to the heart of your House.”

Lolth leaned forward, reaching for the Warrior piece Selvetarm had placed on the board. She moved it along the line that led to Eilistraee’s Mother. Beside her, Selvetarm watched intently, eyes gloating above the weapons he held crossed against his spider body.

“You lose,” Lolth gloated. “Your life is forfeit and the drow are mine.” Eyes blazing with triumph, she lowered the piece to the board. “Warrior takes—”

“Wait!” Eilistraee cried.

She scooped up a pair of dice that sat at one edge of the sava board. Two perfect octahedrons of blackest obsidian, each with a glint of moonlight trapped within: a spark of Eilistraee’s light within Lolth’s dark heart. The dice were marked with a different number on each side. The one was the round dot of a spider, legs splayed.

The dice rattled in Eilistraee’s cupped hands like bones clattering together in a chilling wind. “One throw per game,” she said. “I claim it now.”

Lolth paused, the drider-shaped Warrior piece nearly hidden by the webbing that laced her fingers. A look of unease flickered in her red eyes then disappeared.

“An impossible throw,” she smirked. “The odds against double spiders are as long as the Abyss is deep. Corellon is as likely to forgive our betrayal and call us home to Arvandor