Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [50]
Then she spotted his holy symbol. It lay on the ground nearby, slashed in two. Halisstra nodded. Perhaps that was why Eilistraee’s priestess had cut a hole in the cocoon, to retrieve the holy symbol and destroy it. The priestess might not be so merciful, after all.
The thought made Halisstra smile.
She clawed at the cocoon, shredding it. Her claws raked sharp lines across the dead cleric’s scalp, torso, arms, and thighs as she ripped the strands of webbing from his body. Blood seeped sluggishly from these wounds. Eventually, the corpse tumbled out onto the ground. Halisstra bent over it, the fangs in her cheeks at first spreading wide then retracting back into the bulges in her jowls that housed them. She would give the cleric another sort of kiss.
His lips were cold and stiff. She pressed hers to them and whispered Lolth’s name, forcing a prayer-breath into the dead man’s lungs. Then she reared back, watching.
The cleric’s eyes fluttered open and he exhaled a ragged breath, one that stank of spiders. For a moment, he stared blankly up at the cloud-dark sky, his pupils slowly dilating. Then he stared at the creature sitting on his chest.
And screamed.
Halisstra sprang off him, laughing, and vanished into the night.
CHAPTER SIX
Qilué brushed a strand of hair away from Nastasia’s face. The dead priestess’s body showed no signs of putrefaction, despite having lain in a treetop bier, exposed to the elements, for a tenday. The mark of Vhaeraun’s assassin could still be seen, an indentation in the neck, left by a stranglecord. Her dark skin was chafed around this wound, and her open, staring eyes were so bloodshot they were more red than white.
The priestess was definitely dead, yet her body was uncorrupted. Even the smell of death was missing. This might have been construed as a sign from Eilistraee—save for the faint discoloration on the lower half of Nastasia’s face which Qilué’s detection spell had just revealed.
A discoloration in the shape of a mask.
Qilué turned to the four priestesses who had carried Nastasia’s body into the Promenade’s Hall of Healing. The novices from the shrine at Lake Sember shifted uneasily as Qilué examined the body, particularly at the revelation of a square of darkness shrouding Nastasia’s cheeks and chin. Their hands twisted nervously on the leather-wrapped hilts of swords, or fingered the silver holy symbols that hung against their breastplates.
At last, one of them spoke. “Vhaeraun’s mark. What does it signify, Lady?”
Qilué’s voice was grave. “Nastasia is not dancing with Eilistraee in the sacred groves. Her soul has been stolen—it’s trapped inside a Nightshadow’s mask. They call it ‘soultheft.’”
Eyes widened. “But why, Lady? What does he want with her soul?”
“I don’t know.” Qilué lied, loath to elaborate. The novices were rattled enough. She didn’t want them to panic. The Nightshadows typically used soultheft to revitalize the enchantments on a depleted magical item. In the process, the soul was consumed.
From the look of Nastasia’s body, that hadn’t happened yet. Her soul was, apparently, still trapped within the mask, her body not yet truly dead, but at any moment, the assassin who had stolen Nastasia’s soul might annihilate it.
“You were right to bring her here,” Qilué told the priestesses. “We must find the one who did this to her.”
“We tried a scrying, immediately after the attack. It didn’t reveal—”
“This will.”
Lifting her arms, Qilué drew the moon’s chill light down into the Hall of Healing. Pale radiance limned her body as she began her dance. Singing a hymn to the goddess, Qilué spun in place, faster and faster until her body became a blur. The moonlight that enveloped her waxed brighter, filling her with radiance. In another moment, she would know the direction of the assassin she sought. That done, she would teleport to another of the shrines and repeat the dance there. The point where the two lines crossed would