Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [2]
Anger swirled in Eilistraee’s blue eyes. “Our betrayal?” she spat. “It was your dark magic that twisted my arrow in mid-flight.”
Lolth arched an eyebrow. “Yet you accepted exile without protest. Why?”
“I knew there would be some among the drow, despite your corruption, who could be drawn into my dance.”
Lolth sank back into her throne, still holding the Warrior piece. She waved a disdainful hand, and strands of web fluttered in its wake.
“Pretty words,” she said with infinite scorn, “but it’s time for the dance to end. Make your throw.”
Eilistraee held her cupped hands before her like a supplicant, gently rattling the dice inside them. She closed her eyes, extended her hands over the sava board, and let the dice fall.
CHAPTER ONE
The Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR)
Qilué leaned over the scrying font, waiting for images to coalesce in its depths. The font was of polished alabaster, its yellow-orange stone the color of a harvest moon. An inscription ran around the rim, carved in ancient Elvish characters reminiscent of the slashes left by swords. The water inside the font was pure, made holy through dance and song by the six drow priestesses who stood in a loose circle around Qilué, waiting. At the moment, however, all the water held was Qilué’s own reflection, haloed by the full moon above.
Her face was beautiful still, its ebon-black skin unwrinkled, though her world-weary eyes betrayed her age. Six centuries of life weighed heavily upon her shoulders, as did the responsibilities of attending to the goddess’s many shrines. Qilué’s hair had been silver since birth and glowed with the same sparkling radiance as her robe. A strand of it fell across her face, and she tucked it behind one delicately pointed ear.
The other priestesses knew better than to interrupt her, despite their tense anticipation. They stood, still breathing heavily from their dance, naked bodies glistening with sweat. Waiting. Silent as the snow-dappled trees that hemmed this glade in the Ardeep Forest. It was winter, and late at night, yet the women were still too warm to shiver. The footprints left by their dance were a dark ring in the snow.
Something stirred in the water within the font, something that broke the moon’s reflection into swirling ripples.
“It comes,” Qilué breathed. “The vision rises.”
The priestesses tensed. One touched a hand to the holy symbol that hung at her throat while another whispered a prayer. Still another raised on tiptoe in an attempt to see into the font. This vision would be a rare thing. Only the combined powers of Eilistraee and Mystra could draw aside the dark veil that had shrouded the Demonweb Pits for the last few months.
Within the font, an image formed: the face of a drow female, not beautiful, but of noble bearing. Her nose was slightly snubbed, her eyes a burning-coal red. She was dressed for battle in a chain mail tunic and a silver breastplate embossed with the sword-and-moon symbol of Eilistraee. A shield hung from one arm and she held a curved sword in her other hand: the Crescent Blade. With it, she hoped to kill a goddess.
Halisstra hacked at something with the sword—something that didn’t show up in the scrying. For a moment, Qilué thought that the font’s water had been stirred by the breeze that sighed through the treetops. Then she realized that those were not ripples that obscured Halisstra’s face, but shimmers of light on frozen water.
Halisstra Melarn, Eilistraee’s champion, was trapped under a bowl-shaped wall of ice.
The tip of the Crescent Blade poked through the ice. Halisstra stared with horrified eyes at something just beyond the range of the scrying.
“No!” she shouted.
Five streaks of magical energy shot through the hole, slamming into her. She staggered back, gasping. After a moment, she recovered. With a look of resolve on her face, she began chopping at the ice, trying to free herself.
Tension stiffened Qilué’s body. If she did not find a way to intervene, all would be lost. Scrying magic was normally passive. It would channel simple