Лиза Смедман - Extinction

Halisstra shook her head, not understanding.

“Then why do you care if he lives or dies?” she asked.

Ryld opened his mouth, trying to find the words.

“Because he...” the weapons master fumbled, confused himself. “He reminds me of myself at that age.”

“How is that possible? You’re a drow, and he’s…” Halisstra paused, uncertain what to call the boy.

“He’s a ‘werewolf’,” Ryld said, supplying her with the word. “And hunted. And frightened. Just like I was, once.”

For a heartbeat or two, Halisstra stared into his eyes, and Ryld thought she had understood. Then she lifted her horn.

“He may look like a boy, but he’s a monster,” she said firmly.

“And you’re a First Daughter,” Ryld replied, grabbing Halisstra’s hand. “Always one of the hunters—never one of the hunted. You never had to survive in the Stenchstreets.”

Halisstra paused, and Ryld realized she might not know exactly what the Stenchstreets was.

“But you’re a noble drow too,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

“I have no House,” Ryld answered. “I never have.”

He sighed, wondering what he was doing. Was he really choosing to stand against Halisstra—the woman he loved—for the sake of a boy he’d only just met. For a werewolf? What kind of drow was he?

The kind who remembered what it was like to be a small boy and frightened.

Ryld let go of Halisstra’s hand.

“Summon the hunt then, if you must,” he told her. “But know that, if you do, I’m leaving.”

Halisstra’s mouth gaped.

“You’re asking me to choose between you,” she said, “and my sacred duty to the goddess.”

“I’m asking you to choose between what is wrong and what is right.”

“Strange words, coming from the mouth of a drow.” She stared off into the moonlit forest, hefting the horn in her hand. Then, slowly, she lowered it.

Relieved, Ryld took Halisstra’s hand and bowed low over it, brushing the back of it with his lips.

“Thank you,” he said.

Halisstra yanked her hand free—and for a terrible moment Ryld thought he was going to be chastised—but instead Halisstra lifted his chin and kissed him fiercely. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

Closing his eyes, Ryld felt her lips brush his ear—and heard a whisper so faint he was certain it hadn’t been meant for him.

“Eilistraee, forgive me. I love him.”

Then, taking him by the hand, she led him to the ancient ruin the priestesses had set aside as their shelter.

As soon as they were inside, she kissed him again. Her lips pressed into his with a fierceness uncharacteristic of her. They had kissed before, it was true, but not like that. All she had permitted him, before that night, were brief, almost chaste brushes of his lips against hers. Obedient male that he was, he had not dared ask for more. Bur that kiss... that was the kind of kiss his fantasies had been filled with. Eagerly, he returned it, barely keeping in check the hard, insistent heat that was threatening to overwhelm him.

“I want you,” Halisstra said, breaking away from the kiss just long enough to gasp out the words. “I want to take you. Here. Now.”

At these words, Ryld felt self-control slide completely from his grasp. Breathing rapidly—where had his warrior’s training fled to?—he slid Splitter from his back and tossed the greatsword aside, then rapidly began shucking his armor.

Halisstra was stripping off her own armor and clothing, then she was kissing him again, one hand pressing against the back of his head, the other snaking tight around his waist, making the process of undressing even more difficult. For one panicked moment, Ryld had a vision of himself as a fly, caught in a spider’s web. Halisstra’s arms were tight around him, pulling him closer, her mouth devouring him. Her teeth bit passionately into his neck, then his chest, then the hard muscle of his stomach, and onward.

For several long, dizzy moments Ryld flung his head back and stared sightlessly at the sagging ceiling of the ruin. Dimly he was aware of the rough floor rushing up to meet his back, of a corner of his vambrace digging with blissful pain into his shoulder.

Halisstra was on top of him. For just a moment, her hair seemed streaked with silver as she tossed it back behind her shoulders, and Ryld was reminded of the woman who had appeared to him in the belladonna-induced fever dream. Sparkles of moonlight rushed down and exploded into his mind, obliterating everything else.

Much later, Halisstra touched his shoulder and whispered, “Ryld? Are you in Reverie? I wanted to speak to you about something.”

Ryld opened his eyes. He could tell by Halisstra’s tone that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was she was about to say. She sounded formal and firm, her tone reminiscent of the way a priestesses would address a male. He braced himself, waiting for the whiplike reprimand that must soon come. She must have spotted him earlier, spying on the sacred song and dance, and she was going to chastise him for it.

“I’m going back to the Underdark,” she told him. “I’m going to find Quenthel Baenre and the others and rejoin their quest.”

Startled—but not showing it, in case it was a test—he stared deep into her eyes. Her face, like his own, was perfectly neutral. No, not completely. Something shone in her eyes—something more than reflected starlight. An echo of the passion they’d shared.

“Why?” he asked.

Halisstra visibly relaxed.

“Uluyara has asked me to go back there. Eilistraee’s priestesses need to know if Lolth truly is dead. The information is vital to their cause—and I’m the only one who can obtain it for them.”

Ryld nodded. The warrior part of his mind acknowledged the wisdom of Uluyara’s command. Halisstra would make an excellent spy. Moreover, she was merely a foot soldier in Eilistraee’s order. If Quenthel killed her, she would barely be missed. The traitor priestesses’ war against Lolth would continue with barely a ripple. Deep inside, however, he boiled with anger at Uluyara’s willingness to sacrifice Halisstra.

“I’m not asking you to come with me,” Halisstra said.

Realizing that he had let his anger show—and that Halisstra had misread it—Ryld said what was on his mind.

“One tiny slip, and Quenthel will kill you, as fast as a striking serpent.”

“That’s something I’m willing to risk.”

“I’m not,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to come with you.”

Halisstra touched his cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Later still, when Ryld had indeed slipped into Reverie, Halisstra stared at him. He sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. His hands were crossed on the scabbarded blade of Splitter, but otherwise he looked like a vanquished warrior, his armor strewn about him and his weapons cast aside.

Sighing, Halisstra leaned back against a wall of the ruin and settled into Reverie herself. Her muscles were already loose and relaxed, and so it took but a moment for the familiar wash of memories to claim her.

She drifted with them, observing with detachment as her mind skipped from one to the next, like a stone skipping on water. Memories of the first day of her service in the temple of House Melarn and her instructors caning her palms until they bled after she mispronounced the words of the daily prayer. And of the satisfaction Halisstra had felt the next day, when she was called to lead the prayer—and did so with a precision that earned a brief smile from the priestess who had beaten her. Memories, too, of the footraces she and her sister Jawil had run, as children, along the roads of Ched Nasad—and the terrifying plunge after Jawil had pushed her over the edge in retaliation when Halisstra at last won a race. Only the fact that Halisstra had “borrowed” an aunt’s House insignia—one that provided levitation magic—had saved her. Later, Jawil had said that she’d known about the insignia all along.