"Stop playing games with me, Llolfaen! I can feel you holding back!" Lirayne snarled with the same intensity she always brought to training with her daughter. Perhaps it was the way she herself had been trained, but the rationale she always gave was that it taught her daughter what real combat was like. Or it would have been, if the consequences were lethal. But they were painful enough. The priestess knew exactly where to hit to do the minimum amount of damage while inflicting the most pain. Without pausing to even think, she hurled herself forward at her daughter, shield up and dulled training blade hissing in a wicked arc through the air.

Llolfaen was a wiry, slender drowess with a gymnast's muscles thanks to constant training. But even they barely got her out of the way. Here she was, unarmed against an armored, armed, and trained enemy. But as her mother would often say, Life isn't fair. Instinctively, she lashed out with divine power like a sorcerer might with a fireball, hitting her mother's shield and flinging Lirayne halfway across the room. The cleric rolled with it and slammed her arm against the ground in a break-fall.

"Mother?" Llolfaen asked hesitantly, gray eyes wide with concern. She knew the cleric was trained, even strong enough to take on a balor. Galen had told her that particular story, though she knew he was leaving parts out. She thought of him as sort of an uncle-like figure, though there was something strange in the way he and her mother danced around each other.

"Better. I liked the part where you drove the edge of my shield into my shoulder," Lirayne said roughly, unwilling to admit that the force had winded her. She stood up and shook out the arm in question though she still kept hold of the shield. "Do you understand now? Hold back and your foe presses what they think is their advantage. But as you just demonstrated, it can easily be turned against them just as a knife can be."

"And you're not really wounded?" Llolfaen pressed.

Her only answer was an armor-piercing glare and an arched eyebrow. They probably would have begun again if the door hadn't opened to admit Galen. The human had aged greatly as she grew up, his short hair and neatly trimmed beard turning the color of steel mixed with slate and lines forming all over his face. Apparently the lifespan of a human was only a fraction of a drow's. He had a slight limp now from a battle with a deep dragon and more than his fair share of scars from so many adventures. but he was still a solid man, not an ounce of fat on his powerful body. It made him a formidable foe. "Lirayne, Zekatar told me the patrol is moving out."

"Again?" the girl cried out, unable to censor herself. These practices were the only time she really spent with her mother any more without hiding something away. No one within the House but Lirayne and the Matron knew she could cast divine spells, for her own protection. "You just got back from the last one yesterday."

"We all serve the House in our own ways," Lirayne said, shrugging off the shield and laying the sword down. Her mace was waiting by the door. She turned and looked at her daughter. "You're old enough now to understand, Llolfaen."

"Would you stay if I were a proper cleric?" Llolfaen said with an undercurrent of bitterness in her tone, looking at the floor. Her hands had tightened into fists.

Galen almost flinched when he heard Lirayne's jaw click shut. "Who said that to you?" There was danger in that level tone.

"Zesstra, when she was talking about the kinds of casters."

Lirayne sighed and strode over to her daughter. She carefully framed Llolfaen's face with her gauntleted hands, forcing her only child to look at her. "Don't listen to anything that viper says, Faen. You are a favored soul. Do you know what that means? The Spider Queen chose you to be a vessel of the divine, without books and symbols and chants. She didn't choose Zesstra. Remember that."

"Why? I want to be like you, like the Matron," Llolfaen said softly. She was privileged, she knew, with the closeness she had with her mother. Normally drow children never experienced that, but Lirayne was the youngest and had absolutely refused to let Zesstra within twenty feet of her for the first decade of her life.

"No one knows better than the Goddess." Lirayne released her daughter. "Behave yourself as befits a noble while I'm gone. I want to hear the Matron say you were faultless."

That was her farewell as she turned and left her daughter alone in the training room. Lirayne fell in step beside Galen, knowing there would be a gentle reproach for her cold demeanor. She raised her daughter as she'd been raised, with the exception of making certain Llolfaen knew she was the favored child, the apple of her mother's eye as Cess would put it. Lirayne would have died a thousand times over in any unpleasant way to protect her daughter, even if she was hardly accustomed to showing it.

"You could tell her that you love her," Galen said with a slight sigh. They'd had this talk before. "She's your daughter, Lirayne."

"She knows it, as much as drow love," Lirayne said dismissively. She brushed her sleeve as if removing the comment carelessly.

"And what about me?"

"That's different," Lirayne said, opening the door to her quarters and motioning him in. "I have to leave in a few minutes, Galen." She gave him the Duskryn family look, one eyebrow arched. "Honestly, it's as if you enjoy coaxing me to do things that could ruin me."

"Saying something nice is not weakness any more than feeling positive things," the paladin said. Age and Lirayne's abrasiveness had rounded out his rough edges, so he knew how to talk to her. Galen caught her hand and drew her into his embrace.

Lirayne hesitated slightly like she was thinking about resisting, but then she gave in. "If anyone ever catches us, I am going to be in a great deal of trouble."

"You love danger," Galen pointed out, pressing a kiss to her temple. "It's been thirty years and counting. That's thirty more than I ever dared hope for. Now be careful out on that battlefield. Your daughter and I want you coming home safe."

Lirayne smiled ever so faintly. "She might as well be your daughter, the way you train with her. How proud you look, how happy she is." She leaned back and kissed him with a tenderness he had never expected the first time with how hot her passions ran. "I'll do my best, but nothing is certain."

"Then that will have to be good enough."

Llolfaen had hidden in the chapel of Lloth since she was a very small child, so to curl up in the spider legs of the statue and simply listen out of sight was almost second nature. It was her refuge, the place she came when she was in trouble or even troubled. Her thoughts seemed clear beneath the Spider Queen's unblinking eyes in some strange way. But now she was not so comforted, listening to her uncle and the Matron speak while her mother left for campaign. Nothing, not even a child, could convince Lirayne to stay home if a large patrol or even an army was moving out.

"She has no arcane talent, Matron. And you have not seen her ever demonstrate any divine aptitude," Mourndar said in a hushed voice from one of the side alcoves, a place where they would not normally be overheard. "Send her to Melee-Magthere when the time comes. She's almost old enough now. Certainly old enough for Zekatar to train."

Ever since a little before she was born, when her mother became the favorite child, he had switched his allegiance. She could understand that much: Zesstra had been nothing but cruel to her for her whole life. Of course, she supposed there was more too it as well, just as the Patron had begun courting the favor of the House's eldest daughter. Llolfaen tucked herself more securely into her hiding place, still well versed in the lessons she'd been taught by Cessair, who was something of an unofficial aunt. But a good one, which she understood that not everyone had.

She heard the Matron's soft noise of displeasure. "We don't need a warrior. We need another priestess."

"I've left her with religious texts and descriptions of spells by clerics. Nothing," Mourndar reiterated, a hint of a nervous tremor eating away at his words. He never liked giving the Matron news that she didn't want to hear. Not when the consequences could be dire. "It is not possible to force the gift."

There was a long silence, and then finally Siniira sighed. "Very well. Go then. I will handle the arrangements."

Llolfaen waited until he'd left to slip out of her little hiding place. However, she wasn't the only person who moved out of the shadows-Siniira left the dark corner where she'd been speaking to the House Wizard. "You're a nimble little spider," Siniira said with a hint of a smile, still in her armor. She had been out dealing with an illithid enclave too close to the city and too disrespectful of drow limits. An odious task, but a necessary one. It wasn't normally the kind of thing handled by a Matron, but with the particularly strong defenses, Siniira had taken it as a challenge that couldn't be ignored. "That's hardly a Church-sanctioned hiding place however."

It was rare to get a compliment like that, so Llolfaen couldn't help the smile that snuck its way across her normally serious face. "Thank you, Matron," she said, turning and making a reverential genuflection towards the statue she had been hiding with. She felt a brief warmth at the feeling, almost a sort of caress. She had never been able to explain her connection to Lloth, something burning in her blood rather than learned through rigorous training and prayer. Perhaps it was because of her connection to the Abyss, something else the Matron had once said was also in her blood. Lirayne had been tight-lipped on the matter and Cess always said, Ask your mother. "Do we have to keep lying?"

"The world is nothing more than a web of lies, Llolfaen. Nothing should be trusted, not eyes or ears or even others. Besides, this particular lie is for your safety," Siniira explained, her tone instructive but not particularly harsh. "What do you think would happen if Zesstra divined you were a rival?"

There was a moment's pause and finally the girl admitted, "She would have me killed." She paused. "So I am going to Arach-Tinilith?"

"Yes, but the revelation of that will come when you are safely beyond her reach," Siniira said, her answer an indulgence. She was by no means required to share that information with the girl, but felt there was no reason not to.

The door to the chapel swung open almost with a bang and in strode Revered Yvonnel, dressed in her usual robes rather than her armor. There was practically a thundercloud hanging over her head with the way she scowled. "Matron, I want a word with you. Privately."

Llolfaen immediately darted off, but not so far that she couldn't listen in without anyone's knowledge. The key to survival was being always aware, at least in the Underdark. Apparently the surface was easy by comparison, at least if Cess was to be believed.

As soon as they were in private, the act dropped. Yvonnel sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. "I thought I should warn you, Siniira."

"Warn me? About what?"

Yvonnel looked uncomfortable for a moment, but then she steeled herself. "There's a demonic cult springing up in the areas around Niar'hannenlyn. Not Shami-Amourae as far as we can tell. But people are already whispering that your house is connected."

Siniira fanned out a hand, studying the delicate tendons flexing in the back of her hand and her smooth, rounded nails. Her signet ring glimmered slightly even in the relative darkness of the temple, the glow of burning braziers glittering off the intricate mithril ring. "So let them talk. Words are just air without something to prove them."

"Well, there may be something to it," Yvonnel said. She held up both hands when she saw the flash of anger in Siniira's eyes. "Not like you think I'm insinuating. I just mean...the yochlol tolerate the cult. The demon lord in question is allied with Lloth. Valyne disappeared to the other side. How impossible do you think it is that the connection might be there?"

Siniira's silence was all the answer she needed. And not so far away, a hidden Llolfaen asked herself silently who, exactly, Valyne was and what she had to do with anything.