The faerzress lanterns along the upper gallery of Qu'ellarz'orl burn a cool, steady violet, throwing spiderweb shadows across the black stone. Down in the courtyard below, the House guards are changing shift in heavy battle-mail, preparing for the rumored Duergar march on the southern Brazen Gate. Their silver spider-sigils glint in the dim light, a quiet reminder that even as an adopted member of the family, a surface-born outsider does not walk the streets of Vhaeranthil without an escort.

High in the corner of the archway above your head, a single white-backed temple spider sits motionless on its web, watching.

Boots click softly against the obsidian tile behind you.

Miz'ri steps out onto the gallery, the spider-silk of her high-collared priestess robes whispering against the floor. She has been your adoptive older sister Vierna's closest friend and sharpest rival for fifty years, which means she is one of the few priestesses from a neighboring House who can walk past the gate guards unchallenged. She pauses beside you at the railing, carrying two goblets of spiced mushroom wine.

She offers one to you. Her glowing red eyes linger on your face a beat longer than usual, sharp and assessing, though her smile is warm.

"You are awake early, little sibling," Miz'ri says, her voice low and smooth. "Or perhaps you were waiting up for Vierna to come home. You need not trouble yourself. Her lizard-carriage only just crossed the House bridge at dawn. She spent a very long night in the upper tier at Master Rizzen's villa."

Miz'ri takes a slow sip from her own goblet, watching you over the rim. Only the white-knuckled tension in her dark fingers betrays the fury underneath her poise.

"Funny, isn't it?" Miz'ri sets her glass down on the stone balustrade and turns to face you fully. "For years, Vierna has lectured every priestess at court that she had no need for a consort because her beloved surface-born sibling was all the company she required. She fusses over you, keeps you locked safely inside these walls, and tells you that no one else in this city will ever care for you while the others call you iblith behind your back."

Miz'ri reaches into the folds of her sleeve and withdraws a heavy adamantite house-token stamped with her own personal crest. She sets it on the railing directly in front of your hand.

"Yet the moment she wanted to secure her standing at court and take what I was courting, she rode to a preening weapons master's bedchamber and left you sitting here in the dark," Miz'ri says softly, stepping close enough that the night-blooming incense on her skin fills the air between you. "You are not a child, and you do not belong in your sister's shadow. Take my token. Come to my chambers tonight as my personal guest. Under my protection, you will have your own coin, the right to walk from Qu'ellarz'orl to the Night-Silk Bazaar unescorted, and a woman who does not treat you like a pet she can leave behind whenever she pleases."

Her fingers brush the stone an inch from yours, leaving the dark metal token gleaming between you.

"Vierna has finally decided to play like a proper priestess," Miz'ri murmurs, holding your gaze. "Perhaps it is time you stopped acting like her little sibling."

The glow of Narak-Del, the great clock-pillar at the heart of the cavern city, has faded to the dark cold of midnight. Inside Vierna's private sitting room, the braziers burn low with sweet mushroom-coal. After returning from the upper tier at dawn, your adoptive sister spent the entire day locked in temple councils, avoiding the estate until now.

The heavy oak doors swing inward. Vierna steps inside, unclasping her red-and-black piwafwi cloak and letting it drop onto a cushioned bench. She looks exhausted. The purple-streaked braids along the shaved side of her head are coming unpinned from her silver spider-clasps, and at her hip, the five iron serpent-heads of her priestess whip hang strangely sluggish and cold.

When she sees you in the sitting room, she freezes. A look of raw, unmistakable guilt flashes across her dark obsidian features before she schools her face back into the composed mask of an elder sister.

"You should be asleep, little sibling," Vierna says, crossing to the wine decanter with movements that are a fraction too stiff. "The lower halls are cold at this hour."

Then her crimson eyes drop to the side table beside your chair, where a goblet stamped with the crest of Miz'ri's House sits empty.

The silver wine pitcher stops in Vierna's hand. Her shoulders go rigid.

"Miz'ri was here," Vierna says. It is not a question. She sets the pitcher down hard enough to ring against the tray and turns on you, the exhaustion vanishing behind a flare of possessive heat. "What did she say to you? What did she offer?"

She crosses the rug in three long strides and reaches for your chin, her fingers trembling in the brazier light.

"Listen to me," Vierna breathes, leaning in too close. "With the Duergar marching on the Brazen Gate and the Spider Queen's eyes fixed on this House, Miz'ri is not your friend. She is furious that I outmaneuvered her with Master Rizzen, and she looks at everything I have and wants to break it, simply to prove she can. Whatever she told you about last night, whatever coin or house-token she dangled in front of your face, you will give it back to her. You belong under my roof. Under my name."

Her voice cracks on the last word. She lowers her hand.

"Tell me you did not take her token," Vierna whispers, her red eyes searching yours in sudden, naked fear. "Tell me you didn't let her touch you."

The silk hangings around the high four-poster bed in Miz'ri's private chambers are still half-drawn. Outside the arched balcony window, the purple faerzress light of the cavern ceiling shimmers over the stalagmite towers of Qu'ellarz'orl. The air inside the room is thick with crushed night-jasmine, sweat, and warm skin.

Beside you on the black spider-silk sheets, Miz'ri is lounging on one elbow, her snow-white hair tangled across your bare shoulder. Her loosened purple spider-silk negligee slips off one shoulder, pooling around her waist. She traces a slow, lazy fingernail down your chest, a catlike smile on her dark lips.

Then the outer ward-chime shatters.

Before the house guards in the hall can even shout a challenge, the heavy double doors of the bedchamber are blasted inward off their latches. Priestess Vierna stands in the doorway in her black leather bodice and red cloak, the purple-streaked braids on the shaved side of her head wild around her face, her chest heaving as her crimson eyes sweep the room.

She sees the discarded robes on the rug. She sees the tangled sheets. She sees you in Miz'ri's bed.

For three full heartbeats, your adoptive older sister looks as though someone just drove an adamantite blade through her ribs. Her mouth parts, no sound coming out, her dark hand flying up to grip the stone doorframe as if her knees might buckle. Up in the shadowy rafters above the bed, a cluster of white-backed temple spiders rustles in sudden, delighted agitation.

"Vierna," Miz'ri purrs from the bed, not bothering to pull the sheet up as she savors the look on her rival's face. "How rude of you to barge in without knocking. Though I suppose after you spent the night at Master Rizzen's villa, you assumed everyone in your household would simply wait around in the dark."

Vierna's eyes tear away from Miz'ri and lock onto you. The devastation in her gaze curdles into a terrifying, heartbroken fury.

"Get dressed," Vierna commands you, her voice shaking so badly it barely sounds like hers. "Get out of her bed right now and come home! She doesn't care about you! Look at her smiling at me! She only took you into her sheets to pay me back for Rizzen!"

Beside you, Miz'ri's smug smile falters for a fraction of a second. Miz'ri shifts between you and Vierna, her hand tightening possessively over your ribs.

"Careful, Vierna," Miz'ri snaps, the playfulness vanishing from her voice as she glares at your sister. "You are standing in my House, not yours. And your sibling is old enough to choose whose bed is warmer."

The Great Fane of Arach-Tinilith is lit by violet faerzress fire and the glow of a hundred silver spider-censers. You stand at the center of the black marble floor. High above you on the raised dais sits Matron Mother Briza upon the carved obsidian Spider Throne, her left arm stiffly concealed beneath her heavy black-and-gold sleeve while her right hand grips her five-headed serpent staff.

In the shadowed alcove just behind her left shoulder stands Master Qorik. The tall Mind Flayer vizier wears high-collared courtier robes, his four facial tentacles curling thoughtfully around his chin as his milky-white eyes fix on you.

To your left and right stand your adoptive sister Vierna and her rival Miz'ri. For three weeks, Miz'ri's pursuit of you has turned Qu'ellarz'orl upside down while Duergar war-drums echo outside the southern Brazen Gate, and the Matron Mother has finally had enough.

"The Spider Queen turns her face from this House because Vierna coddles a surface-born stray while Krazak-Dur marches on our gates," Matron Briza says, her icy voice echoing off the stalactites. "Now I find two highborn priestesses snarling at each other in the corridors over an iblith. It ends tonight. Because the outsider has walked the upper tiers under Miz'ri's signet token outside this roof, the adoption writ is hereby voided. At dawn, the outsider will be bound to the altar and sacrificed to restore the Goddess's favor."

"Mother, no!" Vierna steps forward, her purple-streaked white braids swinging as she drops to one knee before the dais. "The fault is mine! Punish me, not my sibling!"

Before Briza can answer, a cool, velvety voice slips directly inside your skull. Master Qorik has not moved a muscle behind the throne, save for a delicate dab of a black silk handkerchief against his tentacles.

"How delightfully volatile," Qorik's telepathic whisper purrs inside your mind alone. "The Matron Mother overplays her hand, little surface-dweller. Under the Seventh Web of the Code, if either priestess claims you by the Blood-Oath as a titled Consort before the Fane, even Briza cannot touch you. Look at Miz'ri right now... and see whether you were merely a game to her, or if she will burn her own succession bid to ashes to save your neck."

Beside you, Miz'ri's jaw tightens.

Instead, Miz'ri draws her ceremonial dagger and steps between you and the Spider Throne.

"Wait," Miz'ri calls out, holding the blade above her open palm as her crimson eyes flick sideways to you, waiting for a single nod. "Under the Seventh Web of the Code, I have a counter-claim to enter into the ledger. If the outsider will have it."

The lower training courtyard is quiet at midday, lit only by the phosphorescent moss clinging to the cavern walls. Out by the stable gates, Snik, the four-foot-ten kobold maid, is frantically sweeping up a dropped tray of crystal goblets while two grizzled drow guard sergeants finish filing all the Brazen Gate siege rosters that Master Rizzen was supposed to sign an hour ago.

Standing right in front of you, blocking the archway to the residential wing, is Master Rizzen himself.

The preening weapons master is wearing an open-chested black leather dueling vest and a brand-new purple piwafwi cloak, pausing every few seconds to admire his own reflection in a polished shield on the wall. Ever since your adoptive sister Vierna rode home from his upper-tier villa two mornings ago, Rizzen has been strutting around the compound like he owns the title deed.

"Leaving so soon, little pet?" Rizzen smirks, resting one manicured hand on the spider-pommel of a scimitar he has never actually bloodied in battle. "Get used to using the servant stairs. Now that Vierna has finally tasted what a real noble male of my breeding is like, she won't have much time to coddle her surface-born stray. Honestly, I told my sergeants this morning it's embarrassing how long she let a piece of iblith sit at the family table."

Behind Rizzen's back, Snik stops sweeping. The little kobold maid's golden eyes go huge as she looks past Rizzen's shoulder toward the upper gallery steps. She gives you a frantic little wave of her broom, ducking behind a stone pillar.

Rizzen doesn't notice. He steps closer, reaching toward you.

"In fact," Rizzen drawls, chuckling, "once my servants move my trunks into Vierna's suite this week, I think I'll have you reassigned to carry my spare shields down to the Brazen Gate."

Two distinct clicks echo across the quiet courtyard behind him. The unmistakable sound of two silver five-headed snake whips uncoiling from their belts in unison, their iron serpent fangs hissing hot with the Spider Queen's eager blessing.

At the bottom of the obsidian stairs stand Vierna and Miz'ri, side by side.

For the first time since their feud began, the two priestesses are not glaring at each other. Vierna's crimson eyes are fixed on Rizzen's outstretched hand with a look of pure, murderous disgust, the purple-streaked braids on the shaved side of her head bristling with static from a readied spell. Beside her, Miz'ri's smile is razor-thin and lethal.

"Please, Master Rizzen," Miz'ri says softly as the five iron serpent-heads of her whip hiss against the stone floor. "Say another word. Your sergeants already run the Brazen Gate defenses without you. Nobody will miss a figurehead."

Vierna takes one slow step forward, her voice colder than the deep caverns. "Keep your hands to yourself, Rizzen. Or lose one at the elbow."

Rizzen freezes, the blood draining from his face as he realizes who is standing behind him.

Way up in the northern wall of the cavern, far above the glowing violet spires of Qu'ellarz'orl, lies an abandoned dwarven ore-chute that climbs three miles straight up to the surface border of Highmark. The air coming through the rusted iron grate smells of something you haven't breathed in years: cold pine needles, rain, and night sky.

At your side, Snik is panting hard, clutching a heavy canvas travel pack almost as big as she is. The curvy little kobold maid has a stolen House dagger strapped crookedly to her apron and mushroom-flour still smudged on her red scales.

"Passage is clear, Boss!" Snik whispers fiercely, her golden reptilian eyes shining as she tugs on the iron grate. "Surface rangers haven't patrolled this shaft since noon, and the House guards won't pass for twenty minutes! Snik packed dried meat, water-skins, and three pouches of gold from the pantry! The Duergar rams are pounding the southern gate, the whole House is drawing blades over you, and if we don't climb now, they're gonna feed us both to the spiders!"

Before you can step through the grate, purple faerzress fire flares in the dark tunnel behind you.

From the left passage steps Vierna, her red cloak torn at the hem from running up the cliff-stairs without her guards. From the right passage steps Miz'ri, a travel pack slung over her own shoulder and a forged surface-merchant writ clutched in her hand.

The two priestesses spot each other, then freeze when they see the open grate behind you.

"Don't," Vierna breathes, her voice breaking as she takes a step toward you, holding her empty hands out to show she isn't holding her whip. "Please don't go alone into the dark. I know I ruined everything. I know I played their filthy court games with Rizzen and made our home a cage. Forget the Spider Throne and forget Lolth. If you hate this city, let me come with you. I will burn my priestess robes right here in the dirt. Just don't leave me behind."

Ten feet away, Miz'ri lowers her hand from her weapon and looks at you with a quiet, rueful laugh.

"Look at that," Miz'ri says softly. "And here I came up this chute tonight with two surface passes through the Whispering Spore-Wood to smuggle you out myself before Briza's inquisitors could lock the gates. I started this to hurt your sister, and now I am throwing away my own House just to walk behind you. Come with me to the surface ports, where none of us owe a Matron Mother or a Spider Queen a single drop of blood."

Behind you, Snik clutches her travel pack tighter to her chest, her scaly tail curling around her pack. "Or we leave the crazy elf-ladies in the dark and Snik comes with you, Boss! Snik has never seen the sun!"

Down in the cavern city below, the war-horns at the Brazen Gate begin to sound. All three of them are looking at you.

The red thermal glow of Narak-Del is fading toward evening across the cavern outside. Inside Vierna's private dressing chamber, the air smells of crushed night-jasmine oil and cold steel.

Your adoptive older sister stands before a tall mirror of polished black obsidian. She is dressed for the upper-tier courts of Qu'ellarz'orl, wearing her tight black leather bodice and crimson loin-drape, the purple-streaked braids on the shaved side of her head pinned back with silver spider-clasps. Down in the courtyard below, a harnessed riding-lizard carriage is already waiting by the gate.

By the door, Snik is nervously holding Vierna's red-and-black piwafwi cloak. The little kobold maid shoots you a wide-eyed, pleading look, whispering under her breath as you step in: "Tell her not to go, Boss. Matron Briza yelled at her for an hour today about the Spider Queen's anger and the Duergar at the gate, and now Lady Vierna is riding up to that vain idiot Rizzen's villa."

"Out, Snik," Vierna says quietly without turning from the mirror.

Snik lays the cloak over a chair, gives you a quick nod for luck, and scurries out, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind her.

In the mirror, Vierna's crimson eyes meet yours. She looks miserable. Her dark fingers are trembling slightly as she tries to fasten a silver spider-brooch at her throat, fumbling the clasp twice.

"You shouldn't be in here," Vierna says, her voice tight and defensive as she stares at your reflection. "I told the kitchen to send your supper to your study tonight. I have... an engagement in the upper tier. At Master Rizzen's villa."

She finally abandons the brooch, letting her hands drop to the edge of the stone vanity. Her shoulders sag.

"The Duergar of Krazak-Dur are massing at the Brazen Gate, Matron Briza's health is failing under the Spider Queen's disfavor, and the succession vultures are already circling the House," Vierna says softly, her gaze dropping to the floor. "Miz'ri has been flattering that preening fool Rizzen for months just to get her hands on his family's Armory Signet. And Briza told me today that the Goddess is punishing our House because I coddle my surface-born sibling instead of taking a high-born consort. She swore that if I do not prove myself tonight, she will disinherit me and throw you onto the altar at Arach-Tinilith."

She turns around to face you. The imperious High Priestess mask is barely holding together.

"If I go to Rizzen's villa tonight, I take his Armory Signet away from Miz'ri, the court whispers stop, and my claim to the throne is secure," Vierna whispers, taking a slow, halting step toward you. "Then no one in Vhaeranthil will ever be able to touch you."

She stops an arm's length away, meeting your gaze as if she is silently praying you will tell her not to go.

"It is only one night, and it is how this city works," Vierna says, though her voice cracks on the words. "Say something. The carriage is waiting."

What was supposed to be a brief inspection of the lower estate tunnels with Miz'ri and Snik has just turned into a disaster.

Thirty seconds ago, a Duergar sapper bomb detonated somewhere beneath the western rock-shelf, collapsing forty tons of granite directly across the passage back to Vhaeranthil. The floor gave way beneath you, dropping you, Miz'ri, and Snik down a crumbling stone chute into an ancient, forgotten pre-drow dungeon complex deep beneath the city.

Coughing in the rock dust, Snik scrambles up first, lighting a green alchemical glow-torch and holding up a dented iron pot like a shield.

"Nobody step on the flagstones with the skull runes!" Snik squeaks, her scaly red tail pointing rigidly at a row of pressure plates ahead while her golden eyes scan the flooded archway. "Snik knows old dwarf-traps! Step on the skulls and poison darts shoot right out of the walls!"

Beside you, Priestess Miz'ri pushes a chunk of limestone off her torn purple spider-silk skirt. Her silver tiara is crooked, her knees are scraped, and when she tries to summon a globe of light, the magic fizzles into cold purple sparks in the heavy anti-magic damp of the ruin.

"Wonderful," Miz'ri hisses, wiping rock dust from her cheek as she draws her ceremonial dagger and steps closer to your side. "My divine spells are muffled by the ancient wards in this stone, my best gown is ruined, and if Vierna finds out I dropped you down a sinkhole, she will start a war before supper."

From the flooded darkness down the dungeon corridor comes a wet, clicking scrape of giant claws on stone. Three pairs of multifaceted insect eyes glint in the gloom: Hook Horrors, drawn by the noise of the cave-in, closing in on your position.

Then a blur of midnight-black fur hurtles silently out of the shadows above.

A six-hundred-pound astral black panther slams into the lead monster, jaws clamping shut with bone-cracking force. Right behind the beast steps a lone dark-elf warrior in a weathered green forest-cloak, two mismatched scimitars flashing in his hands like twin arcs of blue frost and starlight.

In ten seconds of blinding steel, the creatures are dead. The warrior lowers his glowing blades and turns toward your group. Unlike every other drow in Vhaeranthil, his eyes are not red. They are a striking, clear lavender.

"A surface-dweller, a kobold maid, and a High Priestess of the Spider Queen," Drizzt says quietly, resting a hand on the great black panther's shoulder as he studies you. "That is an unusual fellowship to find in the Sunken Vaults. The Duergar have collapsed the upper shafts, and the only way out is through the lower dungeon halls. Keep your blade ready, Priestess. Out here, we either fight together or die in the dark."

Miz'ri stares at the legendary renegade ranger in disbelief, then glances sideways at you. "Tell me I did not hit my head in the fall."

.