Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [55]
He shook off the feeling. The world was harsh. Leliana had been about to carve Q’arlynd up for the amusement of her goddess. But instead she wouldn’t be able to tell the others about the priestess who had died in Ched Nasad. What was done was done.
Or was it? Q’arlynd heard something that sounded like a ragged breath. He glanced down at his feet and saw the priestess’s eyelashes flutter. Was Leliana still alive?
He readied a spell, one that would finish her off without leaving too much of a mark, but for some reason, he felt a lingering reluctance to do what must be done. Brutally, he shoved this useless sentiment aside and sighted along his finger at Leliana’s chest. A faint haze of magical energy danced at his fingertip.
Behind him, he heard someone shouting Leliana’s name. Rowaan. She was practically upon him—close enough that she’d witness whatever he did next. That changed things. Adopting a protective pose over Leliana, Q’arlynd sent the magical bolt into the body of the drider he’d already killed. Then he turned and prostrated himself on the ground.
“There were four of them, Mistress, attacking Leliana,” he cried. He gestured at the one he’d blasted with his lightning bolt. “I killed one and drove the others off.”
Behind him, Leliana’s breath rattled raggedly in and out. In moments she would be dead.
Rowaan barely acknowledged him. She fell to her knees at Leliana’s side, a stricken expression on her face. Q’arlynd raised his head slightly, watching. His wand was still in his hand, and he shifted position so that it pointed directly at Rowaan. As soon as an opportunity presented itself, he’d blast her with it.
Rowaan ignored him. She lifted her right hand and brushed her lips against the platinum band on her index finger, whispering something. Then she clenched her hand and closed her eyes.
Q’arlynd knew the moment he’d been waiting for had arrived, but curiosity stayed his hand. A moment later, his eyes widened as Rowaan cried out in anguish. He glanced around, expecting to see a drider, but no attackers were visible. By the time he’d returned his attention to Rowaan, she lay on the ground, her face gray and her breathing shallow and ragged. There was a ragged gash in her thigh, a wound identical to the one that had felled the other priestess, and Leliana, amazingly, was sitting up. There wasn’t a mark on her. It was as if the drider attack hadn’t even happened.
Rowaan gave one final gurgle then died.
Leliana’s first action was to glance at Rowaan and cry out. Her second, upon seeing Q’arlynd staring at her, wand in hand, was to raise her sword.
“Mistress, wait!” he shouted. He pointed at the lightning-blasted drider. “I tried to save your life by killing him. Is this the thanks I get?”
She hesitated. She glanced at the dead drider and slowly lowered her sword. She turned to Rowaan and pressed her fingers against the dead priestess’s throat in several places, searching for a life pulse without success. Still ignoring Q’arlynd, she raised her own ring to her lips.
Q’arlynd shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Those weren’t slave rings, they instead seemed to transfer wounds from one person to the next. Rowaan had willingly forfeited her own life to save Leliana, and Leliana was about to attempt the same.
Eilistraee’s followers were insane.
Or perhaps there was some other reason for their actions that Q’arlynd didn’t know about yet. Perhaps priestesses who died in battle received some boon from their goddess after death. Rowaan might have just snatched that honor from Leliana by dying in her place, and the other priestess wanted to take it back again.
Except that the expression on Leliana’s face was not one of anger at having been cheated but of anguish.