Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [51]
The sudden, jerking halt of the spell’s culmination, however, did not come. Eventually, the glow that surrounded Qilué waned then disappeared. She slowed, lowering her hand.
Her dance had revealed nothing. The assassin had either shielded himself with potent magic, fled to another plane, or died.
Eilistraee might know the answer.
Qilué began a second prayer. Invoking Eilistraee’s name, she sent her awareness up into a shaft of moonlight to commune with her goddess. It would be a fleeting link, but it would serve. Radiance filled Qilué’s mind as the link was forged.
She asked her first question of the goddess: “Does the person who killed Nastasia live?”
Eilistraee’s face—a thing of unearthly beauty that Qilué was unable to look upon without tears—turned slightly, from side to side. The answer, just as Qilué had anticipated, was no.
“Is his mask still with his body?”
The face nodded.
“Is Nastasia’s soul still—?”
Wait.
The word startled Qilué. The goddess ordinarily answered a question asked in communion with a simple yes or no. On top of that, Eilistraee’s voice sounded strange. The word had been layered with a deeper, rougher tone, one whose reverberations left an ache in Qilué’s mind. She could still see Eilistraee’s face, but it was more distant than it had been, dimmer than before. It unnerved her, but she did as instructed. She waited.
Another word came: No.
The communion ended.
Qilué shivered. What had just happened? Had it been Eilistraee who had answered, or … some other goddess? If another deity, why had Eilistraee permitted the intrusion? And what question had just been answered? Had the other deity—if indeed, it had been another deity who had spoken—been saying that the assassin did indeed still have his mask, or had the answer been for the question that Qilué had not quite completed?
The four priestesses were staring at her, waiting for answers. Qilué, badly rattled, took a breath to steady herself—and was surprised to smell the odor of decay. She looked down just in time to see the dark shadow that lay across the bottom half of Nastasia’s face split down the middle, as if it had been sliced in two. Then it faded.
Hope shone into Qilué, bright as moonlight. She shoved aside the worries about whose voice had answered her.
“Eilistraee be praised!” she said. Something—perhaps the goddess herself—had just broken the soultheft’s hold. Qilué immediately laid her hands on the corpse. “Join me!” she cried to the lesser priestesses. “A song to raise the dead.”
The other four were startled but swiftly joined Qilué in prayer. Together, their voices washed over the dead woman, calling her soul back to her body. The song ended on Qilué’s sustained note, layered by the harmonies of the other four priestesses—and Nastasia’s eyes sprang open. She immediately flailed with one arm, as if shoving an attacker away. Her other hand groped for her sword. Then she recognized where she was. She stared up at Qilué, eyes wide.
“Lady,” she gasped. She sat up and rubbed her throat, then stared at her own hand, a wondering expression on her face. Her joy at finding herself alive again was obvious, but so too was a hint of sorrow—understandable, in a priestess who for the briefest moment had been dancing at Eilistraee’s side. She looked up at Qilué. “You called me back.”
Qilué spoke in a gentle voice. “Your soul was stolen, but something caused it to be set free again. All is well now.” She paused. “I called you back because we need to know what happened. Tell me what you remember. Everything that followed the assassin’s attack.”
Nastasia swallowed. Winced. “I was dead.”
“And then? Between that time and just now, when you found yourself dancing in Eilistraee’s grove?”
Nastasia glanced off into an unseen distance. “Darkness. Nothing.”
Inwardly, Qilué sighed. She’d hoped for more.
“And …” Nastasia frowned, thinking hard. “There was a voice, the voice of the man who killed me.”
The four novices whispered anxiously to each other.
Qilué held up a hand. “Silence.” She gently