Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,43

tend to that, Lady.” Rylla nodded in the direction of Cavatina and Leliana. “It’s important that I hear what these two have to.”

“Do it,” Qilué said in a terse voice. “Now. A thorough check, this time, or I will hold you personally responsible for whatever follows. As will Eilistraee.”

Exorcism, Cavatina spelled while the high priestess’s back was turned. Prepare.

Rylla stiffened. Hopefully, the high priestess would think this a reaction to the insult she’d just handed her battle-misŹtress. Rylla bowed stiffly and hurried away.

Qilué watched her leave, then pulled the door open and motioned for Cavatina and Leliana to enter. Cavatina tensed. Was the demon taking them somewhere out of the public eye, somewhere it could attack?

Qilué directed them to the room at the very heart of the High House: the chamber that housed her private altar. A holy place, filled with Eilistraee’s blessings. Was the demon trying to prove something? That Eilistraee’s relics were of no consequence?

As Leliana paused before the door, she caught Cavatina’s eye and lifted one eyebrow slightly. Cavatina decided the time was not yet ripe. She would play this move out, and see what followed. “After you, Protector,” she said.

Qilué closed the heavy stone door behind them.

The circular room, shot through with hair-thin threads of moonlight, had walls painted with a mural of a forest. When the stone door was closed, the illusion was complete. Moss, susŹtained by magic, carpeted the floor, filling the shrine with a woodland smell. A pedestal plated in gold, its top even with Cavatina’s eyes, stood at the center of the room. Perched atop it was a rust red, deeply pitted rock the size of a loaf of bread: a fragment of the boulder that had parted from the moon and streaked through the sky on the night Ghaunadaur’s avatar had been defeated.

Qilué raised the Crescent Blade above her head and began to dance around the altar. As the high priestess passed behind the pillar, Cavatina caught Leliana’s eye and nodded before beginning her own dance. Leliana lifted her blackened singing sword and joined in, her lips moving in a whispered song. She spun her blade in a tight circle above her head—a gesture that looked as though it were part of her dance, but was actually part of her spellcasting.

In the same instant that Leliana unleashed her truth-comŹpelling prayer, Qilué quickened her dance and spun behind Cavatina, out of the spell’s path. Cavatina felt the tingle of magic and realized, to her horror, that Qilué had maneuvered her into the path of the magic.

Qilué wheeled on her. “How did you know the Pit has a breach?” she demanded.

“I—” Cavatina tried to lie, but couldn’t. Words tumbled out of her mouth—not the carefully worded “report” she’d been rehearsing, but the truth about what had transpired. Horaldin showing her the portal; Cavatina slipping through it and becoming ethereal; seeing the planar breach, the ooze flowing out of it, the self-sacrifice of the green-eyed drow…

Qilué cut her off at that point with a curt, “That’s enough.”

Cavatina hid her relief. The high priestess hadn’t thought to ask why Horaldin had shown Cavatina the portal. Yet.

Leliana had listened, sword in hand. Now she glanced uncertainly back and forth between Cavatina and the high priestess—as though she’d like to silently ask what to do next, but didn’t dare. Her singing sword let out a low, worŹried hum.

“Sheathe that,” Qilué ordered.

“Why would you have me do that, Lady Qilué?”

“Because it’s annoying.”

Leliana shifted the weapon slightly. “It no longer fits in its scabbard, Lady Qilué.”

“Then find another way to silence it!” Qilué barked. “Lay it down.”

Leliana obediently placed her sword on the floor, ending its song.

Cavatina smiled to herself as she realized why Leliana had asked the question. Qilué’s blunt answer seemed to indiŹcate the truth spell had taken hold of her, as well, despite her attempt to shield herself from it by stepping behind Cavatina. Before Qilué could gather her wits, Cavatina spat out a question of her own. “Why did you open a portal to the Pit, Lady Qilué?”

Qilué scowled—an expression as foreign to her face as a look of mercy would have been on the cruel visage of the Spider Queen. Then, as abruptly as it came, the scowl disappeared. Cavatina could see, how Horaldin had known there was something wrong with the high priestess. Everything about Qilué’s posture, tone, and expression was subtly wrong. Even Qilué’s color was off. Her skin looked clammy, like that of someone who ought to be confined to a