In another moment the pair would realize they'd been tricked-but a moment was all Halisstra needed.
The male had shrouded himself in darkness, but Halisstra's eyes penetrated his flimsy concealment. She sprang at him. He whirled and raised both fists, his wristbows thrumming. One of the bolts glanced harmlessly off Halisstra's hardened skin. The second punched into her torso just beneath her left breast. It stung-but the puncture immediately began to heal, pushing the bolt outward. The poison that coated it did nothing to slow her. Grabbing the cleric by his outstretched arms, she yanked him close and sank her fangs into his neck. Pain stiffened his body. His eyes rolled back in his head. Then he gave a soft grunt and sagged in her arms.
Halisstra, visible for the time being, examined his body. Her single bite had only rendered the cleric unconscious. She spun him, laying on a thin coating of web. Then, clutching the sticky body to her chest with her spider legs, she sprang into a nearby tree. Swift as a spider, she swarmed up its trunk and deposited the cleric in the crook of a branch.
A moment later, Eilistraee's priestess reappeared below. "Glorst?" she whispered. She glanced around, then squatted and touched something on the ground. Web glinted on her fingers as she rose. She touched the holy symbol that hung against her chest and glanced up.
Halisstra waved down at her, releasing a spray of hair-thin web.
The priestess sang a shrill note and grabbed a beam of moonlight that appeared over her head. She hurled it like a lance at Halisstra. The moonbeam plunged into Halisstra's stomach, droning through her vitals and leaving them feeling loose and watery. Bloody bile rose in her throat. Even as she choked it down she felt her damaged organs mending.
"Why do you attack me, priestess?" she gasped. "I've done nothing to you."
The priestess yanked a hunting horn from her belt and blew a strident plea for help. Halisstra knew no one would arrive in time. She'd deliberately chosen an ambush point on the outskirts of the shrine's territory.
The crossbow bolt had nearly worked its way free of Halisstra's ribs. She yanked it out and tossed it down. "Your companion tried to kill me," she told the priestess. "And yet…" She lifted the cleric's body and tossed it down. "I showed mercy."
The unconscious cleric tumbled through the branches, the sticky webbing that coated him slowing his descent. He landed with barely a thud on the forest floor.
The priestess frantically sang a protective hymn.
"Don't you know who I am?" Halisstra cried. "Why do you fear me?"
"Your tricks won't work on me, demon," the priestess shouted back. Though her sword was steady enough in her hand, her voice quavered. She bent to touch fingers lightly to her companion's throat.
The gesture told Halisstra everything she needed to know: the pair were more than fellow clerics. No one but a lust-addled fool would pause to check if her consort was alive. Halisstra had made the right decision in not killing the male outright.
"I came to beg your help," she told the priestess. "And instead of showing Eilistraee's mercy, you and your male try to kill me." She leaped to the ground, clutched herself as she landed, and pretended to stagger. She forced herself to vomit, filling the air with the tang of bilious blood.
To her credit, the priestess didn't flinch. Even though Halisstra loomed over her, she stepped between Halisstra and the paralyzed male.
"I mean you no harm," Halisstra continued. "I'm looking for Lady Cavatina. She promised to help me." She looked down at her misshapen hands. "I wasn't always a monster. I was a priestess, like yourself, until I was transformed by Lolth's foul magic."
Doubt showed for the first time in the priestess's eyes. "Who are you?"
"Halisstra Melarn."
"No," the priestess whispered-but the word held no conviction. She lowered her sword slightly. "By Eilistraee's silver tresses, is it true?"
Halisstra lifted a hand, hesitated, then held out fingers that were dark with blood from her wounds. "It's true," she sang.
Into those two brief words, she spun powerful magic. The priestess's expression softened. She sheathed her sword. "I'm so sorry," she said. "Had I known-"
Halisstra waved the apology away, spiderwebs drifting from her hand. "How could you have known? I was captured by yochlols and subjected to…" She lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper, "… unthinkable torments. For nearly two years, I languished in the Demonweb Pits before at last escaping."
The priestess frowned. "Two years? Lady Halisstra, it has been nearly five years since you set out for the Demonweb Pits with the Crescent Blade."
"And nearly two years ago that I escaped-and returned to the Demonweb Pits with Lady Cavatina, to slay Selvetarm."
"But…" The priestess's frown deepened. "It was Lady Cavatina who killed Selvetarm… wasn't it?"
"With my help."
"Then why do the odes say nothing of-"
"Aside from Lady Qilue, only Cavatina knew that I still lived. And Cavatina has a Darksong Knight's pride. She would hardly have admitted to letting Lolth's minions capture me a second time, would she? Better not to mention my involvement at all. To pretend that I had died years before, during Lolth's Silence."
At the word "died," the priestess glanced down at the male. The cleric didn't look good; his eyes had fully rolled back in his head and his skin was turning gray. Halisstra reached out and lifted the priestess's chin, forcing her to look away. "It's only a weak venom," she lied. "You have plenty of time to heal him. Plenty of time, still."
"Yes," the priestess repeated softly. "Plenty of time."
Her eyes reminded Halisstra of another priestess who'd succumbed to Halisstra's bae'qeshel magic, years ago. Seyll had stared just as trustingly into Halisstra's eyes a heartbeat before Halisstra plunged a sword into her. And yet Seyll had told Halisstra, as she lay dying, that no one was beyond redemption-not even Halisstra.
She'd been wrong.
This priestess had a wide mouth and creases at the sides of her eyes that could only have come from frequent laughter. The frown of confusion looked out of place on her forehead. The slight bulge of her stomach hinted she might be carrying a child.
Halisstra hated her.
"What's your name, priestess?"
"Shoshara."
"I need to find Cavatina, Shoshara. She's the only one who can lift the Spider Queen's curse. The priestesses at the Lake Sember shrine told me she came here for the High Hunt. Is she still in the Shilmista Forest?"
The priestess shook her head. "Lady Cavatina left a few days ago. Lady Qilue summoned her to the Promenade."
Halisstra's jaw clenched. "Which road is she traveling?"
"She isn't going by road. She used the portal. She'll be at the Promenade already."
Halisstra hissed angrily. This was an obstacle she hadn't counted on. Portal or no, she'd never get inside the Promenade-not with a demon's mark on her palm. Her fingers inadvertently tightened on the priestess's chin, and her claws pricked flesh. When Shoshara gasped, Halisstra released her and feigned contrition, curling her body into a submissive ball. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to. Please don't hurt me again, Mistress."
The priestess rubbed her chin, then glanced at the faint smudge of blood on her fingers. "No real harm done," she said with a vague laugh. "Eilistraee's mercy is infinite." Her eyes strayed to the cleric. His mask lay flat against his mouth and nose; he no longer breathed.
Halisstra rose and caught the priestess's hands in hers. She turned Shoshara slightly, preventing her from looking at the corpse. "Shoshara, please. I can't enter the Promenade. Not looking like… this. You have to call Cavatina back to the Shilmista Forest."