..."Araushnee!" they called after her with anger in their voices as she fell deeper and deeper down the forest slopes, tumbling into the darkest parts of the wood. Down and down, where the woods ended and the twisting brambles began. The horrible, twisted plants clawed at her flesh, her skin, pulling at her clothes and the very fabric of her being. She sees fragments of herself, memories, caught on the thorns. But they weren't her memories, she realized. As the sounds of the voices trailed off, she could hear nothing in the silence save for the beating of some ancient, massive, wholly alien heart.
It was a siren song, a lure that drew her deeper and deeper into the darkness. It twisted her vision and spun her around and around until she didn't know up from down let alone right from wrong...
Llolfaen fell out of bed with a muted cry, head feeling like it was going to burst even before she knocked it against the flagstones. Her pursuers had been...faeries. At least, from everything she heard of their descriptions. But the pale drow-like creatures had not seemed weak, not when they took to her heels armed. What was 'araushnee'? A curse, a warning, what? It wasn't an elven word she'd learned from Galen or Cessair. Why had the figures looked so painfully beautiful and so strangely familiar? It was like stepping into someone else's dream.
That particular snippet was only a brief flash of lucidity in the middle of insane nightmares she had been unable to awaken from. Or at least, in reality. Many times she thought she'd woken up only to be in another dream. This seemed somewhat real, but how could she tell? Pain wasn't a real measure, considering how much of it she'd felt in her other dreams and how completely authentic it seemed then. Llolfaen laid her head against the stone floor and willed herself to calm down. If this was another nightmare, she would need to be prepared to fight off whatever was coming next.
She heard the door creak open and the faintest whisper of sound. It was someone almost as good as Cessair at being quiet. The tiefling seemed to have some supernatural ability at it. Llolfaen did her best not to make a sound as she reached up and slid a hand under her pillow to get one of her daggers from its hiding place. It was still there even in this dream, thankfully.
A voice said very softly in Common, "I don't think she's here, Ilamin. The pendant could be wrong." It sounded feminine, but very foreign. The speaker was almost certainly not a drow, which gave her something of an advantage here in Arach-Tinilith. On the downside, they had made it this far which meant something was seriously wrong with the magical defenses. Or maybe someone had let them in. Llolfaen considered the implications that had for a brief moment before sliding her body under her bed and inching towards the side by the door. She wasn't confident in her ability to handle them alone, and her mother had always taught her that if the odds were against you it was better to go around than charge straight in.
She could see feet stepping around to the side where she'd just been laying, and that was the moment she moved. The young drowess slid back out from under the bed on the other side, leaped to her feet, and bolted out the door. She heard curses behind her and the sounds of more than one person giving chase. She headed straight for the library at a sprint, crashing through the doors and disturbing the five students up late studying: Jhalass and some of her minions. They could be very useful at the moment. "There are surface dwellers in the Academy!" Llolfaen barked out.
Immediately all of them were on their feet, books sliding out of laps and off the table as it was almost upended. "Are you certain?" Jhalass said, even as she readied a spell. As soon as she'd spoken, the two aasimar came skidding through the doorway. Without hesitation, Llolfaen's rival let loose a powerful spell, hitting the female with a curse. Llolfaen whipped around and slapped Ilamin. It was more than a blow: it was another spell, one that tore open wounds across his body. The aasimar man screamed before drawing his knife and lunging at the young drowess.
It was like one of her mother's drills all over again. Llolfaen darted to the side, turning a stab to the lower abdomen into a graze across her hip. She flipped her own knife into a reverse grip and stabbed into his arm, twisting viciously in an effort to take out the nerves that kept his off hand moving. She carefully kept her other hand up to guard.
Five drow clerics, even initiates, were more than a match for two aasimar assassins. The female dropped with a cry, blonde hair spilling into the pool of blood rapidly forming on the floor. Ilamin cut and ran. He was unfortunately nimble enough to escape.
"How in the hells did they get in?" Jhalass panted. She and Llolfaen had done the heavy lifting while the others supported and healed. "Why were they here?"
"To kill someone, I assume. Maybe Revered Quenthel?" Llolfaen suggested.
Jhalass looked incredulously at the dead woman. "What, the two of them? If we could dispatch them, Revered Quenthel could do it in a heartbeat."
"I imagine there's more than two," Llolfaen said irritably, because of course Jhalass was in her dream. Wasn't she obnoxious enough in real life? Still, it had proven advantageous at this point. Whether she liked it or not, the other girl was a talented cleric. "They got past all the defenses to get to this point. That seems a little suspicious to me. Not even drow could breach them during the war."
"You think someone let them in. Who and why?" Jhalass mused aloud. She looked over at Llolfaen. "As much as I hate to even suggest it, I think we need to tell the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith."
Llolfaen clenched her jaw. She was pretty sure that even in dreams, Quenthel Baenre was not going to enjoy being bothered in the middle of her rest by students. "Fine," she said. It was hard not to be terse with all the tension she felt at the plan. She honestly would have rather faced down the two assassins alone than taken on this particular task. And then the mention her would-be attackers had made of an amulet rose from her memory to the front of her mind. She crouched down and searched the female's body until she came across a finely made pendant swinging towards her from a golden, thread-like chain. She tucked it in her pocket, hoping she could divine something about its original owner.
Who would want to have her killed? Llolfaen looked at Jhalass speculatively, but knew that was the wrong answer. If, and this was a large if, the defenses had been deactivated, that implied someone with a lot of power and influence was behind it. Maybe it was an enemy of her mother's or the Matron's seeking to strike out at the younger generation to cripple their House's future. Maybe it was even someone within the House, like Zesstra.
She fell in step beside Jhalass, both of them trying to ignore the current of dislike running between them. "Where did you find them, anyway?" the other girl asked to break the tense silence.
"Hallway," Llolfaen lied comfortably. Since she'd come to the Academy, her ability to deceive had truly blossomed. The world was, as the Matron had said, a web of lies. Was anything really true? There were only certain constants like power and weakness. She wasn't certain how to feel about loyalty. Even at her age, she had seen it manipulated almost countless times. But on the other hand there stood her mother, Galen, Cessair, and the Matron. All four were loyal, whether to each other or an ideal or both.
"And you came running into the library because...?"
"I probably would have been able to hold my own against the pair, but not forever. I knew someone would be in the library even at this hour, so I went there. The theory was that either they would be killed by the library's occupants or I would have a meat-shield to distract them while I got away," the favored soul said as they approached the door.
"I should be offended, as your potential meat-shield, but that is a very good plan," Jhalass admitted. "Particularly with a rival as fodder for the enemy."
"That? Happy coincidence," Llolfaen said. This was almost certainly a dream—surface dwellers in the Academy? As if that would ever happen—but there was still a chance that she was out of her nightmares. What a lucky escape that would be. She knocked on Quenthel's door loudly and sharply before taking a deep breath to calm her nerves.
Both girls flinched back visibly when the door was ripped open by the furious Mistress of Arach-Tinilith. The half-dressed, half-asleep woman clearly had a problem with being awoken. "What in the Demonweb do you miserable little creatures want?" she snarled, a spell crackling to life in one hand. It could probably kill them both by itself.
"There are...were?...surface dwellers in the Academy," Llolfaen said, eyes focused on the hand with the spell readied. It was like when her mother made a dagger dance in her hands: hypnotic and deadly.
Quenthel went very still at that, looking much more awake. Her eyes narrowed sharply as she looked at the two students. "Are they alive still?"
"One escaped. He may have made it out," Jhalass reported uneasily. She didn't want to be punished for that particular little failure.
Fortunately, Quenthel's thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. She frowned. "No alarms went off, no defenses reacted. Otherwise I would have known," she said. Storm-clouds seemed to be brewing in the distance of her eyes. "You are to tell no one of this or both of you will no longer be at Arach-Tinilith. I will have the body or bodies of the intruders removed. Have I made myself abundantly clear?"
Llolfaen and Jhalass both bowed their heads. "Yes, Revered Quenthel," they said together with the utmost respect. Even if Llolfaen didn't like or trust Quenthel, she was not about to be rude or impertinent. For one thing, it would have disappointed her mother and the Matron. They believed in manners even regarding enemies.
"Now leave," she said to Jhalass. Quenthel's sharpened eyes came to rest on the youngest noble of House Duskryn. Her lip wasn't curled, but she still didn't look pleased with the child of House Baenre's enemies. "You're Lirayne's daughter, aren't you?" she said coolly.
"Yes, Revered Quenthel." Llolfaen wasn't certain where this line of questioning was going, but she would probably not enjoy it.
"I've heard about you from your instructors. At least pretend to be a better student for the sake of your House's reputation. Siniira may be a common bitch, but she's a demanding one," Quenthel said with a tone that impied she was thoroughly unimpressed. And she was—the girl simply couldn't manage the most basic parts of spell preparation. How she managed to fumble through a casting was a mystery. "Now go."
Llolfaen bit her tongue and turned, striding down the hallway. She caught Jhalass still in earshot. "What now?" the daughter of House Duskryn asked waspishly.
"I told my sister, Chessa, about you. She said you're probably a favored soul. Dangerous and more than that, rare. Why didn't you just tell Quenthel what you are?" Jhalass asked, brow furrowed slightly in thought.
"I try to have as little contact with Quenthel Baenre as possible," Llolfaen said. She jerked her head towards the way they'd come from their little meeting with the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith. "And that's why."
"I can see that," Jhalass admitted. She knew as well as anyone that Quenthel Baenre hated Siniira Duskryn with a passion few could ever hope to match. It had to be more than just the Matron of House Duskryn's low birth status. Something unforgivable had been said or done, perhaps a wound to pride that cut deep and lasting. "Are you ready to compete tomorrow?"
"Would I tell you?" Llolfaen shot back, picking up her pace. This was definitely real, which meant on the bright side, she had escaped the nightmares for now. On the unpleasant side, she was awake and had just been exposed to Quenthel's particular brand of charm. She didn't want to sleep, but what other choice did she have? She needed all the rest she could get.
The next morning, Llolfaen found Solaufein waiting on the edge of the area of caverns used to test the students at the Academy, terrain magically manipulated to be even more perilous and constantly different. One could walk in and by the time they tried to leave, the path might have changed all over again. The male drow ruffled his short white hair, blood red eyes friendly towards her. To his fellow students of Melee-Magthere he was a growling, grim warrior prone to fighting like a wild beast. Most priestesses found him mildly diverting, respectful and good-looking enough to draw attention...not necessarily a positive trait for the poor male. "You look tired," he commented as he buckled his shield on.
"It was a long night," she said without elaborating, Quenthel's warning still clear in her mind. Llolfaen smiled slightly as the warrior picked up his helmet. His spear rested against his shoulder. He could handle a sword quite well, but he preferred the reach of a pole-arm. It made for a lethal combination when that wicked spearhead came darting over or under or around his shield. In his armor, he looked almost like an adamantine statue. "You look as ready for battle as always. How you move in all that I don't know."
"You just don't have the brawn for it. Not that you need it with those spells," he chuckled with something approaching fondness.
Llolfaen fluttered her eyelashes, something she'd learned to do from Cessair. Even a tiefling doing it had a strange effect on male drow. "You like me this way." Solaufein almost choked on his own tongue. He was hardly used to being teased by a priestess, even one in training. He muttered something inaudible and put on his helmet, red eyes still wide. It inspired laughter from the favored soul, the first she'd had in days. "Perhaps I'll see you when this is over."
"If it's allowed. I'll see what I can do about getting us on the same team in one of the tests. Master Lesaonar is usually amenable to persuasion," Solaufein said more normally, regaining his composure. It was hard to be prepared for Llolfaen Duskryn sometimes, even with how often they saw each other and how surprisingly well they got along. He'd expected her to be crueler and more aloof. And sometimes she was, but not to him.
"I'm looking forward to it," Llolfaen said with a smile. She heard her name called. "And I'm off. Good luck, Sol."
The grim, growling warrior gave her the faintest of smiles back. It was more than he normally gave anyone. "Good luck."