Sacrifice of the Widow: The Lady Penitent, Book I by Lisa Smedman Page B

and again, driving venom into his body. He did not. He continued fighting her, shouting the words of a prayer of dismissal. It might have worked, had Halisstra been a demon, but she was much more than that. She was the Lady Penitent, higher in stature than any of Lolth’s demonic handmaidens, battle-captive and left hand of the dark elf who had become Lolth.
    The cleric’s struggles weakened. When they ceased, Halisstra yanked off his mask and cast it aside. The malewas handsome, with a dimpled jaw and deep red eyes. In another life, he might have been someone she’d have chosen to seduce, but his jaw hung slack and his eyes were glassy. Dark blood—hers—smeared his black clothes and his long white hair.
    She dropped him on the ground.
    Halisstra waited several moments as the wound in her chest closed. The sting of her scalp eased and was replaced by a prickling sensation: her hair growing back in. When the clench of her flesh knitting itself together at last subsided, she picked up the cooling corpse. Working swiftly, she spun it between her hands, coating it with webbing. Then she stood it upright. The fully grown male was like a child to her, his web-shrouded head barely level with her stomach. She heaved him into the air and hung him from a branch where the others would be sure to find him.
    She eyed her handiwork a moment more. Another of her mistress’s enemies, dead. Cruel triumph filled her then waned, replaced by sick guilt.
    How she hated Lolth.
    If only …
    But that life was gone.
    Springing into the branches above, she scuttled away into the night.

    Q’arlynd followed Leliana and Rowaan across the open, rocky ground, Flinderspeld trudging dutifully in his master’s wake. This was the fourth night they’d spent walking across the High Moor toward the spot where the moon set, but they had yet to reach the shrine. Though the moon was getting slightly thinner each night—waning—and the sparkling points of light that followed it through the sky were dimming, their light still forced Q’arlynd to squint.
    The days had been worse, intolerably bright yellow light from a burning orb in the sky. They had stopped to make camp whenever the sun rose, a concession to his “sun-weak eyes.” The priestesses had chuckled when Q’arlynd, sheltering under his
piwafwi
and fanning himself, had complained of the heat.
    “It’s winter,” Rowaan had said. “If you think the sun’s hot now, just wait until summer.”
    Winter. Summer. Q’arlynd knew the terms, but until that they’d had little meaning for him. Rowaan had patiently explained to him what “seasons” were, but even that didn’t help. She said he would understand, once he’d spent a full year upon the surface.
    A full year up here? He found it hard to imagine.
    “Leliana,” he said, catching her attention. “Forgive my ignorance, but I still don’t see any temple.”
    “You wouldn’t,” she answered dryly, “not unless you were capable of seeing over many leagues, and through stone.”
    “Lady?”
    Rowaan chuckled. “What she means is there’s only one temple: the Promenade. It’s in the Underdark. The lesser places of worship are all called shrines.”
    “I see,” Q’arlynd said. He glanced around. “And the shrine we’re going to is …?”
    Rowaan pointed across the flat ground at a spot up ahead, where the moon was setting against what looked like a row of jagged stalagmites. “There, in the Misty Forest.”
    Q’arlynd nodded. Those jagged bumps must be the “trees” he’d read about. “How much farther?”
    “You asked the same thing last night,” Leliana said. “Tonight, it’s one night less. Count it on your fingers, if you have to.”
    Q’arlynd glanced away, pretending to be stung by her rebuke. He sighed. His feet
ached
. The World Above was just too damn big.
    Rowaan touched his arm in sympathy. “We should reachthe forest by dawn,” she patiently explained. “Two nights more after that.”
    “Couldn’t