“Count it not as her skill,” Sylora warned. “She coaxed them, every one, into vulnerable positions. Her youth and beauty fooled them, but now I know, now we all know.”
“Even Lady Cahdamine?” said Szass Tam, and Sylora winced. Cahdamine had been her peer, if never really her friend, and they had shared many adventures, including clearing the peasants from the land for the very Dread Ring she stood before-clearing the peasants’ souls, at least, for their rotting flesh had fed the ring. During that pleasurable time, three years before, Cahdamine had spoken often of Lady Dahlia, and of how she had taken the young elf under her wing to properly instruct her in the arts carnal and martial.
Had Cahdamine underestimated Dahlia? Had she been blinded by her arrogance to the dangers of the heartless elf?
Cahdamine had become the middle diamond on Dahlia’s left ear, the fourth of seven, Sylora knew, for Sylora had caught on to the elf’s little symbolism. And Dahlia wore two studs on her right ear. Dor’crae was one of her lovers, of course, and-Sylora glanced toward the distant castle, along the path Themerelis had taken.
“You will not have to suffer her here for some months-years, more likely,” Szass Tam remarked as if reading her mind. “She is off to Luskan and the Sword Coast.”
“May the pirates cut her to pieces.”
“Dahlia serves me well,” the disembodied voice of Szass Tam warned.
“You speak so to keep me from destroying her.”
“You serve me well,” the lich replied. “I have told Dahlia as much.”
Outraged, Sylora spun away and departed. How dare Szass Tam elevate the wayward waif to her level with such an insinuation!
An important night, she knew, and so she had to look the part. It wasn’t vanity that drew Dahlia to the mirror but technique. Her art was a matter of perfection, and anything less would be a death sentence.
Her black leather boots rose up above her knees, touching her matching black leather skirt on the outside of her left thigh. Nowhere else did leather meet leather, though, for the skirt was cut at a sharp angle, climbing up well above the mid-point on the thigh of her other shapely leg. Her belt, a red cord, carried leather pouches on each hip, both black with red stitching. She wore a puff-sleeved white blouse of the finest silk, cinched with diamond cuffs to allow her free movement. A small black leather vest provided some padding, but her real armor came from a magic ring, an enchanted cloak, and small magic bracers hidden under the cuffs of her blouse.
As with all of her outfits, Dahlia left the top of the low-cut vest unbuttoned, and the stiff collar turned up to frame her delicate head. It would not do to be along the road under the sun with no hair to protect her pate, though, so she wore a wide-brimmed black leather hat, pinned up on the right, revealing her black and red braid, banded in red silk and stylishly plumed with a red feather.
When she bent her right leg and turned it out just so, striking an alluring pose, what man could resist her?
But what she saw in the mirror did not quite match the reality of her beauty.
They caught her easily and threw her down, but didn’t pile one after another atop her as they had with the others. Dahlia caught the gaze of one burly barbarian, the Shadovar of huge size and strength who had led the raid. While most of the raiders appeared as dusky-skinned humans, the leader was obviously a convert, a horned half- demon-a tiefling.
The young and delicate captive, barely a woman, was his, he decreed.
They stripped her down and held her for the sacrifice, and for the first time, Dahlia truly understood her foolishness in running back to the village, understood what she, and not just what her People, had to lose.
She heard her mother screaming for her, and from the corner of her eyes, saw the woman running at her, only to be tackled and sat upon.
Then he stood over her, the huge tiefling, leering at her. “Loosen and ease, girl, and your mother will live,” he promised.
He had her. She managed to turn her head to look at her mother as he lay down atop her, and managed to bite back her screams as he tore into her, though she felt as if she was ripping in half. The act itself was over quickly, but her humiliation had only just begun.
Two barbarians grabbed her by the ankles and lifted her up into the air, upside down.
“You will keep the seed of Herzgo Alegni,” they mocked as they pawed and slapped at her.
Eventually they lowered her so that her head twisted painfully on the ground. She turned it enough to keep an inverted, distorted view of her mother-enough to see the tiefling, Herzgo Alegni, cross into her field of vision.
He looked back at her and smiled-could she ever forget that smile?-then he so very casually stomped on the back of her mother’s neck, fine elf bones shattering under the blow.
Dahlia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, fighting to hold her balance. But only briefly did she swoon, for she was not that child of a decade before. That young elf girl was dead, killed by Dahlia, murdered internally and replaced by the exquisite, deadly creature she saw in the mirror.
Her hand went across her hard abdomen, and she recalled, just briefly, when she had been with child-with his child, with the smiling one’s child.
With another deep breath, she adjusted her hat then swung away from the mirror to grab up Kozah’s Needle. The slender metal staff stood fully eight feet, and though it appeared glassy smooth from even a short distance, its grip was solid and sure. Its four joints were all but invisible, but Dahlia knew them as well as she knew her own wrist or elbow.
With the flick of a hand, she cracked the staff at its midpoint, letting it swing down to fold onto itself into a comfortable four-foot walking stick. She noted the slight discharge of energy as it swung, feeding her, and the muscles in her forearm twitched under the soft folds of her sleeve.
She took a last glance around her bedchamber. Dor’crae had taken her larger packs to the wagon already, but she let her eyes linger a few heartbeats, wanting to ensure that she had forgotten nothing.
When she left, she didn’t look back, though she expected that several years, perhaps many years, would pass before she again looked upon that place, which had been her home for more than half a decade.
The roots tasted bitter-she couldn’t help but gag as she stuffed one after another into her mouth. But the Netherese would return, the elders assured her. They knew where she was and knew she carried the child of their leader.
One old elf woman had tried to talk her into killing herself to be done with it.
But that girl who had foolishly run back to her village instead of away was already dead.
She felt the pangs in her abdomen soon after, the terrible convulsions, the tearing agony of childbirth through a body too young to accept it.
But Dahlia didn’t make a sound, other than her heavy breathing as she worked her muscles and pushed with all her strength to get the beast child out of her. Covered in sweat, exhausted, she at last felt the rush of relief, and heard the first cries of her baby, of Herzgo Alegni’s son. The midwife placed the babe upon her chest and a mixture of revulsion and unexpected warmth tore at the woman as surely as the Shadovar had torn at her loins, as surely as his son had ripped her in birth.
She didn’t know what to think, and took a tiny measure of comfort in hearing the women discussing their success, for she had beaten the return of the father and his brutes by several tendays.
Dahlia rested back her head and closed her eyes. She couldn’t let them return. She couldn’t let them determine her life’s path.
“You are not gone yet?” Sylora Salm surprised Dahlia almost as soon as she had exited her room. “I would have thought you halfway to the Sword Coast by now.”
“Seeking to claim what fineries I’ve left behind, Sylora?” Dahlia replied. She paused to strike a pensive pose for just a moment before adding, “Take the mirror, and let it serve you well.”
Sylora laughed at her. “It will prefer my reflection, I am sure.”
“Perhaps true, though I doubt many would agree. But no matter, human, for soon enough, you will be old, gray, and haggard, while I am still young and fresh.”
Sylora’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Dahlia clutched Kozah’s Needle a bit more tightly, though she knew the
