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Nastasia closed her eyes. Her frown deepened. She started to shake her head, but then her eyes sprang open in alarm.

“He plans to open a gate.” She looked up at Qilué, her face gray with worry. “A gate to Eilistraee’s domain, so that Vhaeraun can attack her. He’s going to use our souls to fuel it.”

“No!” one of the lesser priestesses gasped. She turned to Qilué. “Is it possible, Lady?”

“The Nightshadows are adept at conjuring,” Qilué said, “but they would have to send one of their members into Eilistraee’s domain in order to open a gate there, and no follower of the Masked Lord can enter Eilistraee’s realm without her knowing it.”

Nastasia shook her head, eyes wide. “They don’t need to enter her domain. The assassin told them they could cast the spell from Toril, from a cavern in the Underdark that lies inside a powerful earth node. He told the other clerics he knew a ritual of high magic that would accomplish this.”

“Drow males?” Qilué’s lips quirked into a smile. “Casting high magic?”

Even as the others chuckled, reassured, Qilué wondered. If it was possible, what then?

Iljrene’s spy had turned in a report—something about Vhaeraun’s clerics and plans to “open” something. That report had cut off in mid-sentence and Iljrene had been unable to contact her spy since, but he had provided one detail: a name. Malvag. Qilué suspected that Malvag and the assassin who had stolen Nastasia’s soul were one and the same.

“Did you overhear any names?” she asked Nastasia.

The priestess closed her eyes, thinking. Then she nodded. “House names,” she answered. “Jaelre and Auzkovyn, and another name … Jezz. The assassin was angry with him. I think Jezz accused him of worshiping Lolth.”

Qilué nodded, then turned to the others. “Whether Vhaeraun’s faithful are capable of high magic or not,” she continued, “this bodes ill for us.”

“But the assassin’s dead, isn’t he?” one of the priestesses asked. “Isn’t that what Eilistraee said?”

“That was her answer,” Qilué said.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about. That puts an end to the scheme right there.”

Qilué gave the priestess a brief nod. She remained troubled, however. Malvag might indeed be dead, but the other clerics were obviously still carrying out his plan. Two nights before, one of Vhaeraun’s faithful had been spotted trying to sneak into Eilistraee’s temple in the Yuirwood. He had been driven off, but just the past night another attack had come, this time against the shrine in the Gray Forest. It had only been discovered that morning, when the murdered body of a priestess had been found.

As the four priestesses helped their revived companion to her feet, Qilué contacted the high priestess in the Gray Forest with a sending. The answer came a short time later in a whisper only Qilué could hear. It wasn’t good news.

The priestess in the Gray Forest also had a square of darkness shrouding her lower face. Her soul, too, had been stolen.

Q’arlynd hurried through the woods, Flinderspeld jogging obediently behind. As they drew closer to the blare of horns, Q’arlynd could hear women shouting as well as the thrum of arrows in flight and the wet, chopping sound of weapons hitting flesh. Above and ahead, he could see dozens of figures hurtling through the treetops. One passed close enough for Q’arlynd to recognize it as a combination of spider and drow.

A drider? On the surface?

The creature spotted Q’arlynd. It hurled a dagger, but the weapon was deflected by Q’arlynd’s protective spell and thunked into a nearby tree. The drider shrouded itself in a sphere of darkness as wide as the spreading branches of the tree. Before it could escape, however, Q’arlynd cast a spell, sending a pea-sized gout of fire streaking toward it. Heat bathed his face as it exploded, creating a fireball that filled the magical darkness. A heartbeat later, the blackened corpse of the drider tumbled from the tree, followed by burning branches.

Q’arlynd turned and plucked the drider’s dagger from the tree. He