Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,60

worn the lorestone millennia ago. She had white hair, yet her skin was a faded brown, rather than black. You tried to help Ilmra, out of compassion. You followed Eilistraee’s dance, even then.

Q’arlynd laughed out loud. “Hardly. I did it because I wanted her to take me. And it worked—just, not the way I’d expected.” He lingered in the memory. He wondered if Ilmra had survived the fall of the city. Probably not.

The kiira cooled slightly—a sign of his ancestors’ disŹpleasure. Q’arlynd gave a mental shrug. They’d asked him to include memories he thought were instructive. The one he’d just placed in the lorestone was doubly so. It taught the magic-detection cantrip, and at the same time, served as a reminder that all reward came at a price.

He heard a crackling sound: the darkfire flames, flickerŹing. A breeze down the chimney must have disturbed them. He was so deep in Reverie that he paid the noise no heed at first. He was reliving a night in the World Above, when he’d used a spell to spy on Eilistraee’s priestesses as they danced with swords in hand around the goddess’s sacred stone in the Misty Forest. It had been windy that night, with snow blowing through the trees. Yet the priestesses had danced naked.

He smiled, savoring the memory. He’d watched, half-hoping they’d catch him in his transgression. It had been a long time since a female had taken him …

The darkfire settled down again as the breeze ended. The flames resumed their steady flickering—not that his body needed warming anymore. Remembering the priestesses’ dance was—

All at once, he remembered he was in Sshamath. No breezes blew here—except magical ones.

“Luth—”

Something stung the back of his neck. It felt like several needles pressing into his skin at once. Whatever had just pricked him fell to the floor with a thud. As his flesh deadened, he realized whatever had just struck him had been poisoned. His jaw locked, his neck stiffened. He couldn’t complete his abjuration. Nor could he turn his head to see his assailant. Then his magical earring drew the venom up his neck, into his left ear, and into itself. All that remained was a bitter taste in his mouth—which told him what the poison was. Made from the excretions of a carrion crawler, it was designed to paralyze, rather than kill.

He sensed movement behind him. His assailant, coming closer. Q’arlynd feigned paralysis. He slowly shifted his left thumb to the fur-wrapped needle of glass that pierced his shirt cuff. As his thumb touched the spell component, he whispered a word under his breath. His finger bones tingled as lightning crackled to life inside his hand. A flick of his fingers would release it.

His assailant stepped into view. He recognized her at once: T’lar Mizz’rynturl, the bae’qeshel bard whose “school” Guldor had tried to nominate. She moved in utter silence; even when she squatted next to him, her clothing didn’t rustle. She held a dagger with a spider pommel. Ready for use, but not threatŹening him with it yet. She stared, pointedly, at his groin. “Thinking of me, were you?” She laughed.

Q’arlynd felt thankful he was already aroused. T’lar was disturbingly close, and the menace she exuded was a powerŹful aphrodisiac. Yet he wasn’t foolish enough to give in to it completely. He held the lightning within his hand, trusting to surprise to give him the edge when the time came to cast his spell. For the moment, he wanted to know what she was up to. Had she come to steal something? He kept utterly still, not even moving his eyes. Soon, however, he’d need to give in to the urge to blink.

You play a dangerous game, Grandson, whispered his ancestors from inside the kiira.

T’lar hummed softly. Q’arlynd felt magic brush his mind, as light as a cobweb. Her spell proved no more durable. It tore to pieces the instant it met the kiira. She didn’t seem to realize this, however. Perhaps under the impression her spell had succeeded, she leaned in close and asked a question that was clearly designed to stir up his thoughts.

It wasn’t the one he’d expected.

“Why was your sister killed?” she whispered, her breath hot against his ear. “What did she do to anger the Lady Penitent?”

His concentration slipped. A spark crackled from his fingertips. T’lar leaped away from him—so quickly Q’arlynd didn’t even see her move. One moment she was squatting next to him; the next, she stood halfway across the room, her dagger