Lisa Smedman - Ascendancy of the Last

"Beautiful," Halisstra said. She closed her eyes to savor the way the note-chill as a draft from the grave-made the hair on her arms rise. Then she leaned down and curled her fingers in the priestess's long white tresses. She yanked the smaller female into the air and whispered in her ear. "I am pleased with its song. You will be rewarded."

The priestess, clad in a bodice-hugging black robe that would have vanished against her skin in the darkened room but for its hair-thin tracery of white lines, winced at the pain of being held aloft by her hair. "Your pleasure is my reward, Lady Penitent."

Halisstra leaned closer, until the jaws protruding from her cheeks brushed the priestess's neck. "And your pain is my pleasure." She bit, just deep enough to puncture the skin. Then she opened her fingers and let the priestess drop. The priestess fell to her hands and knees, and grunted as the poison took hold, rendering her body rigid.

Halisstra settled herself on the throne. The marble felt cool against her bare skin. She sang a breeze into existence and used it to set the webs vibrating. A thousand shrill notes encircled the throne, like the hum of fast-spinning blades.

"Send in the first petitioner," she ordered.

Unseen hands pushed a female out of the magical darkness that clouded the arched doorway: a priestess of Eilistraee.

She staggered into the room. Her eyes had been seared blind, and her fingers broken. Her dark skin was welted from the beating administered by Halisstra's worshipers, and her lips were swollen and bloody. Yet even as she faltered to a halt, she drew herself erect with a remarkable inner strength.

Halisstra despised her.

"Kneel," she shouted. She wove magic into the word, turning it into a compulsion the priestess could not help but obey. The priestess fell to her knees as if smashed with a hammer. One broken hand lifted to her chest-to the spot where her holy symbol used to hang-then jerked away as it brushed against the obsidian spider that now hung from the silver chain. Her head, however, remained erect. "Eilish… tray… hee…"

"Blasphemy!" Halisstra shrieked. "Do not utter that foul name in the presence of the Lady Penitent, or it will go harshly for you!"

The priestess made a gurgling noise. She laughed! Halisstra sprang from her throne. "You… dare!" she hissed. She towered over the priestess, her spider jaws clacking in fury. The eight legs protruding from her chest arched open, ready to grab. Her jaws fairly ached with the desire to bite and rend.

The priestess spat.

Halisstra snarled and swept the priestess up to her mouth-then realized this was what Eilistraee's bitch wanted. A quick, clean death: to be delivered into the arms of her goddess. "I'm not going to give it to you," Halisstra muttered. She tossed the priestess aside, spun on her heel, and settled herself on the throne. She idly stroked the head of the female who still kneeled, paralyzed, beside the throne, properly subservient. The webs continued to shrill.

She had an idea. "You will be redeemed," she told Eilistraee's priestess with a smile. "I give you a choice: the song or the spider."

The priestess shook her head. "Nuh."

Halisstra shrugged. "Very well then. I'll choose for you." She tapped her claw-tipped fingers against the arm of her throne, pretending to consider. In fact, she'd been lying when she'd offered the priestess a choice: the spider's venom was reserved for those truly worthy of it. "I think you'll choose… the song." She turned to the webs beside her and began to play.

Magic jerked the priestess to her feet. Tugged by the compulsion Halisstra's bae'qeshel music wove, she staggered in a circle around the throne. Halisstra plucked faster, and the dancer's tempo increased. The priestess spun in a ragged pirouette, her arms flailing and broken fingers raised above her head as she circled the throne. Halisstra gave a gleeful peal of laughter and played on. And on. The priestess staggered and fell, but immediately rose to her knees and continued her dance. Her knees left bloody smears on the flagstones.

Halisstra watched, gloating. In a moment or two, it would be over. The priestess would crack and repent. She would shed Eilistraee's faith and cast the tattered skin aside. Embrace the pain, the sorrow, the self-loathing. Sacrifice herself to a force greater than herself. She would become a penitent, redeemed through sweat, blood, and suffering.

Halisstra would break her.

The priestess suddenly lunged at the throne. Halisstra reared back in alarm, but it wasn't an attack. The priestess flopped forward, bringing her neck down atop the web. Steel threads sliced into her neck. Hot, sticky blood sprayed as she fell limp across the arm of the throne like a loose heavy cloak, her head lolling on a near-severed neck

The web strings fell silent.

Halisstra hissed her fury. She yanked the priestess off the web, snapping a strand of it, and stared into the slack-jawed face. "You smile?" she screamed. "You fool! You will never, never be redeemed!" She hurled the body across the room.

The kneeling priestess twitched; her paralysis was starting to wear off. Halisstra leaped off the throne and grabbed her minion, intending to tear her apart for her insolence-she hadn't been given permission to move, Abyss take her-but a whisper of song distracted her. It was coming from the webs on the throne. Halisstra cocked her head, listening. The voice belonged to T'lar, the assassin who'd been the first to accept penitence and redemption.

Lady Penitent, the webs sang. News from Sshamath.

Halisstra dropped the priestess and climbed back onto her throne. Sing on, she ordered. It had better be good news, she thought. She wasn't in the mood for more insolence.

Streea'Valsharess Zauviir is dead. The temple is ours.

Halisstra barked out a delighted laugh.

There is something else you should know. There is a wizard in Sshamath who opposes us.

"Hardly news," Halisstra laughed. "All of Sshamath's wizards are hostile."

This one will bear watching. His name is Q'arlynd Melarn.

Halisstra's breath caught. Her brother Q'arlynd, alive? "Impossible! He died in the collapse of Ched Nasad!"

The webs fell silent for a moment. Halisstra frowned. "T'lar? Are you still there?"

I do not believe the one who calls himself Q'arlynd Melarn to be an imposter, Lady Penitent, T'lar sang back. He told the Conclave he had a sister who was a bae'qeshel bard-a sister who died. He said her name was Halisstra Melarn.

"Halisstra!" Halisstra howled. She broke into shrill laughter. "She's Halisstra no more. She's-" Suddenly realizing what she was saying, she snapped her mouth shut. Her spider legs drummed against her chest; She forced them still with an effort. "Describe this wizard," she ordered.

T'lar did.

The description fit. It was Q'arlynd. Halisstra shook her head, wondering how he'd managed to escape the golem. Not to mention getting crushed by the stones of a falling city.

There is one thing more, Lady Penitent. Q'arlynd Melarn has taken Eilistraee as his patron.

Halisstra's eyebrows rose. "He has? How dare he!"

He refuses to repent.

Halisstra's lips curled in a sneer.

Lady? T'lar's voice asked. What is your will?

Halisstra clenched her fists; her claws dug into flesh. "If he is Eilistraee's," she said slowly, "he must die. Kill him."

It will be my pleasure.

And his pain, Halisstra thought grimly. She laughed at her own joke.

The webs in her throne vibrated, shaking off the last drops of the dead priestess's blood.

Cavatina startled at Qilue's message. "A new high priestess?"

Leliana's head lifted sharply. She'd been in Reverie, her sword across her knees and her head bowed. "What's happened? Has Eilistraee spoken to you?"