Storm of the Dead - Lisa Smedman [35]
Halisstra had disappeared after Selvetarm fell, and even Qiluй had been unable to scry her. Cavatina had returned to the Demonweb Pits to search for Halisstra but had found no trace of the former priestess. Cavatina had battled her way past yochlols and questioned lesser demons at the point of her singing sword, but the paths they sent her on led only to the creeping horrors that thrived in Lolth's domain. Halisstra was just… gone. At last acknowledging that, Cavatina had allowed the Darkwatch portal to be sealed.
She sang a soft prayer, imploring Eilistraee to embrace Halisstra's dark soul, should it ever find its way to the goddess's side. Then she joined the others in the sacred hymn.
As always happened when Cavatina visited the Promenade, priestesses found an excuse to join whatever activity she was participating in. Moonrise-the time when most performed the Evensong devotion-was still some time away. Yet novices and higher-ranking priestesses alike were already slipping into the Cavern of Song in ones and twos. Cavatina nodded at each as she entered-but when a Nightshadow slid into the room, furtive as an assassin on the prowl, the hymn she sang died on her lips.
Though the Nightshadow was naked-he'd observed that doctrine, at least-his face was hidden behind his mask. The blade he carried wasn't a sword but an assassin's hollow-bladed dagger. He took up a place near the entrance-his back against the wall-and pointed his dagger at the spot where Eilistraee's moonfire bloomed. Then he began to sing.
As he did, streaks of darkfire threaded their way into Eilistraee's sacred light.
Throughout the cavern, eyes widened and voices faltered. Not once in the twenty-two years since the temple's founding had a male participated in the sacred hymn within the Cavern of Song. Despite the admission of Vhaeraun's clerics to Eilistraee's faith, this tradition still held. Males could pass through the cavern-they had to in order to get from one wing of the Promenade to the next-but the Cavern of Song was the one place in all of Eilistraee's many shrines that the old observances were retained.
But that long tradition had been broken.
Cavatina was appalled by the impudence of the male. The Nightshadows had been given another cavern elsewhere in the Promenade as a place where they might worship according to their traditions. The male should have gone there and honored the goddess in his own peculiar way, shrouded in darkness and silence.
Cavatina realized that the only voice in the cavern was the Nightshadow's. The females had fallen silent. He alone sustained the hymn that had continued, unbroken, since the temple's founding.
Cavatina swallowed-her mouth was suddenly very dry-and immediately began to sing. Her voice battled the Nightshadow's as each attempted to drag the other into a range more suited to the singer's gender. All at once, the other priestesses resumed the hymn, forcing the male to either find the harmony or falter.
Satisfied the song would be sustained without her assistance, Cavatina sheathed her sword and made her way across the cavern to the place where the Nightshadow stood. Aware that all eyes were upon her, she spoke with her hands as she approached him, so that all could "hear" her.
Males do not sing here, she signed with blunt, forceful movements of her fingers. The Cavern of Song is for priestesses only.
The Nightshadow continued to sing. His eyes slid toward her. They crinkled in a smile, puckering the scar next to his left eye.
Suddenly, Cavatina recognized him: the Nightshadow who had helped her battle the revenant in the Shilmista Forest. "Kвras!" she said aloud. "What-?"
His free hand answered the question she'd yet to complete. Lady Qiluй summoned me to the Promenade. I'll be joining your expedition.
"Then you're under my command," Cavatina said aloud. "And my first order is this: leave the Cavern of Song. At once."
Kвras stopped singing in mid-stanza and lowered his dagger. He stared up at her, toying with the weapon as if testing its