and staggering to her feet. The priestess walked with uncertain steps into the chamber. She shied around the time-frozen Halisstra, but never once looked in her direction. Her eyes, wide and horror-filled, were locked on Qilué’s headŹless corpse.
“Eilistraee!” she keened.
“Pray for her,” Laeral urged. “Bring her back.”
“I can’t!”
Anger made Laeral’s silver fire flare brighter. “Pull yourself together, priestess, and pray!”
Leliana fumbled with the holy symbol hanging around her neck. She wrenched its chain over her head, and hurled the miniature sword down at Laeral’s feet. “I can’t!” she screamed.
The holy symbol was deeply tarnished, black and brittle looking. And Leliana herself had changed. Her skin was brown; her hair, black.
Laeral realized the priestess was crying. From the distancesomewhere outside the moundshe heard the sobs and wails of the other faithful.
Laeral rose. “One of the others will have a holy symbol. You can”
“Don’t you understand?” Leliana shouted. “Eilistraee’s gone! She was inside Qilué when she was killed with the Crescent Blade. I saw Eilistraee die!”
A shiver of horror coursed through Laeral. She understoodsuddenly, and with frightening claritythe omen she’d witnessed outside. A missing moon, a vanished goddess. That was terrible enough. But there was something that stuck even closer to home. She half-turned to her fallen sister. “You … can’t restore her to life.”
“No.”
Laeral clutched at straws. “Someone else then. A cleric of some other faith.”
“No,” Leliana croaked. “No one can revive her. The Crescent Blade killed her. Halisstra hacked out her souland Eilistraee’s with it.”
Laeral choked back a sob. Her beloved sister, gone. Laeral had always known that Qilué might die one day, but had been comforted by the knowledge that Qilué would dance at her goddess’s side. But now that goddess was gone, and Qilué’s soul destroyed.
All this while, Leliana had been staring at the frozen Halisstra. Now she spat out the name of the fallen priestess like a curse. Slowly, as if it weighed as much as a boulder, she lifted her singing sword. It was utterly silent, its song forever stilled. She touched the point to Halisstra’s chest. “Your magic holds her?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Dispel it.”
Eyes locked. Sorrow met grief. Laeral nodded, gestured, and spoke a word.
Halisstra blinked.
Leliana thrust her sword into Halisstra’s chest. Blood, stinking of the Abyss, flowed hot over her hand. A faint tremble coursed through the blade: Halisstra’s heart, beating one last time. The fallen priestess’s spider jaws twitched, and her mouth opened.
“Eilistraee,” she gasped. “Forgive …”
“She can’t forgive you,” Laeral said. “She’s dead.”
Halisstra’s eyes clouded over, and she died.
T’lar drifted toward the spot where the mages stood arguŹing with one another, her body a breath of wind. Now was her moment. The wizards were agitated by their inexplicable transformation, and were intent upon their argument. By the sound of it, only the one seated on the driftdisc still had his darkvision. Careful to keep out of his line of sight, T’lar reformed her body behind one of the stacks of boxes. She’d waited here a long time for her target to show, and had been forced to delay further when he’d returned with his apprenŹtices and three of Sshamath’s masters. But T’lar was as patient as a spider in its web, and her target was at long last presenting an opportunity for her to strike.
Softly, she hummed the tune the Lady Penitent had taught herthe one that would allow her dagger to strike true. Then she readied herself. She hadn’t bothered to merely poison her blade, this time. Instead, she’d had the weapon cursed. The next person it killed would remain dead, despite any resurŹrections a cleric might attempt.
T’lar adjusted her grip on the blade and focused on her breathing. A lesser assassin would have been forced to rise from her crouch to throw, but T’lar was one of the Velkyn Velve, and had dro’zress within her. She called upon it now, and felt it charge her body. In one smooth motion she stepped sideways through space and hurled her dagger. It whispered through the air, swift as an arrow, and buried itself in her target’s neck, right next to his hairclip.
Her target collapsed. The other mages reacted with alarm. Even as they spun to search out the threat, T’lar sidesteppedonly to find her target alive and well and standing directly in front of herand holding her dagger in his hand.
“Looking for this?” he asked.
“How?” T’lar grunted in pain. She looked down. The dagger was in her heart. She felt herself fall to the side, and heard the wizard’s voice