Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,19

interrupted. “If she was listening, she’ll have stopped by now.” She sheathed her sword and continued to the scrying font. She stared into the alabaster bowl, moved her lips in a silent message, and passed a hand just above the surface of the water.

Cavatina struggled to hold her tongue. Her impulse was to tell Rylla she was being unnecessarily cautious. People spoke Qilué’s name so frequently that it must have sounded like overlapping echoes to the high priestess. Listening in on everything that followed and trying to pick out the imporŹtant nuggets from the endless drone of casual conversation would have been a full-time task. What’s more, Cavatina had never known Qilué to answer by accident when her name was uttered. The high priestess only answered those who intended to call her.

Cavatina edged closer to the font and took a look. The scryŹing was focused on Qilué, who walked through a forest with half a dozen lesser priestesses in tow. Qilué stood head and shoulders above the rest, a majestic figure with her silver robes and ankle-length white hair. The sight of her filled Cavatina with reverential awe. Qilué had founded the Promenade, had lifted the worship of Eilistraee from an obscure sect to a force to be reckoned with. She’d made the faith what it was today. Every drow who had been raised from the Underdark over the past six centuries owed their redemption to her. Even though Cavatina had slain the demigod Selvetarm, she didn’t rank nearly as high in the faith as Qilué.

Qilué was speaking to the lesser priestesses, but her words were too soft for Cavatina to make out. She held the Crescent Blade in her hand, and emphasized a remark by using it to point at something out of range of the scrying font.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the sight of the Crescent Blade in the high priestess’s hands would have filled Cavatina with jealousy. Now it was just another weapon—albeit a powerful one, ensorcelled with magic that had enabled Cavatina to kill a demigod.

“What you have to say must be disconcerting, indeed, if you don’t want… her to hear it.”

Rylla passed a hand over the font, ending the scrying. She sat on one of the benches. “I’ve been speaking with one of the Seven Sisters,” she began. “Laeral Silverhand. She paid me a visit recently, expressing concerns about… her sister.”

Cavatina nodded. “Go on.”

“Lady Silverhand pointed out something I’d noticed myself. A cut on the high priestess’s wrist.”

“Which wrist?”

“The right one.” Rylla touched her own wrist. “Just here.”

Cavatina shivered slightly, as if a chill breeze had just blown through the room. “That happened a year and a half ago. Just before our attack on the Acropolis of…” She faltered as the name that had been on the tip of her tongue an instant ago suddenly escaped her. “Of the death goddess,” she said at last. “I was there when the high priestess cut herself. She was in the middle of an attunement, dancing with the Crescent Blade. She faltered in her dance.”

“Not something she’d ordinarily do.”

“No.”

Rylla shifted the lute so that Cavatina had room to sit down. The fingers with the picks rested briefly on the neck of the instrument, as if yearning to pluck its strings. Then Rylla removed her finger-picks and set them aside. “Lady Silverhand mentioned something else. Something she noticed about the Crescent Blade. More specifically, about her sisŹter’s reluctance to let anyone else touch it. Each time Lady Silverhand asks to examine the sword, the high priestess refuses. She claims her bond with it will be broken if anyone else handles it.”

“That explanation rings hollow,” Cavatina said. “The only time you can’t let go of an attuned weapon—be it magical or mundane—is during the actual attunement itself. The ensorŹcelments on the Crescent Blade are extremely powerful, but the same rules would apply.”

“I suspected as much.”

“You’re overlooking one possible motivation,” Cavatina continued. “Pride. The high priestess has decreed that she will be the one to kill Lolth, when that time comes. If she hands over the Crescent Blade to anyone else, especially long enough for a magical study to be made of it, she might miss her chance at glory.”

There. It was said. Not so long ago, Cavatina might have spoken the words with bitterness, but the boil of anger and jealousy that had festered inside her for years had been lanced by her redemption. Now she spoke calmly and with detachment. Even so, she said a