Chapter Text
BOOK I: YULAUN’TLAR
Matron Mother,
Four things must be elucidated to your court within a tenday.
One: how a clan of moldered tome-binders could produce an heir worthy of our acknowledgement, given the unsanctioned surface gallivanting and apostasy now inextricably linked to the name Yulaun’tlar.
Two: how your lesser daughter can shame our family through desertion of blood and faith—crimes warranting execution—yet still be afforded that same acknowledgment.
Three: how within a year they raised an army one thousand strong and marched it to the borders of Menzoberranzan to petition its admittance as an accessory to a new Qu’ellar.
And four: how the Ruling Council’s majority interpreted Lolth’s omen-sign as benediction unto that degenerate House, while it presented misty and mercurial to the eyes of Baenre.
You say we must heed Lolth’s omen as others must, but as fellow vessels of her will, we shall take that misty divination as counsel to hold Yulaun’tlar in doubt and contempt until we are granted the leniency to raze its pustule from the black stone of Narbondellyn.
House Yulaun’tlar is an abomination spawned from inferior philosophies, eager to dilute nobility by way of mongrelism, and fatally amnesiac to all the careful devices that uphold this city as a monument to drow splendor.
When the time comes, Matron Mother, do not hesitate. Remove the error of your flesh from this realm, or it will be you who is removed.
— Unsigned letter to Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre, 1494 DR
✥
While House Baenre’s colossal influence on Menzoberranzan’s politics, economy, and institutions was widely marked indomitable, Minthara identified this as the key to her family’s undoing. Enlarged bodies moved slow and were ill-monitored. Hegemonic culture induced stagnation and the oppression of novel ideas. And they devoured themselves once starved of space. According to her warmongering evaluations, House Baenre was on its deathbed the moment Minthara departed its ranks to fly a new banner in the name Tav graciously shared with her.
Yulaun’tlar. This was not a bloodline within Minthara’s reckoning. Wealthy but not noble, old but not ancient. And, importantly, generating no inherent claim to a House. The Yulaun’tlar kin were scholars and archivists; purveyors of historical and arcane tomes who prided themselves on their sagely craftsmanship in the spheres of bookbinding and restoration. Their stock did not produce war generals and elite troops. Museum staff suited their predisposition far better.
But the details mattered not so long as Minthara had new heraldry to fight under. Together she and Tav would make something of Yulaun’tlar. They would make it noble through force of necessity.
Months of substantiating alliances brought a modest army under Yulaun’tlar command. They led it to Menzoberranzan’s doorstep in ostensible peace where Minthara renounced her blood through a mélange of secret duplicities and verifiable truths, citing Baenre’s tyrannical consolidation leading to weakness in the court of Lolth, who vastly preferred Menzoberranzan when it was fertile with surprises. There arose a distinct necessity to put forth equalizing powers—a vanguard House of slayers of false and lesser gods, their crier boomed over the border cliffs—who could more potently serve her will.
It was a tremendous gamble. Menzoberranzan could have easily struck them down in an afternoon upon dispatching the sheer might that House Baenre and its allies could bring to bear. The aspersed Baenre certainly tried to make this outcome so. They denounced Minthara as an agent of the cult-deity known as the Absolute, as gleaned by their surface spies, and sought permission for open war. But the Ruling Council of Eight would not grant their motion a majority, not when House Baenre conveniently omitted the fact that the Absolute had indeed been slain, and Minthara had returned leading an army in tribute to Lolth.
Even the slightest confirmation of Minthara’s apostasy would have earned them all expedient graves or torments worse than death. Life hung by threads in those early days as politics descended into chaos. One night, Minthara dreamt of Lolth’s wicked laughter reverberating throughout the caverns above like terrible thunder.
By the grace of some outer miracle, the Ruling Council of Eight approved the ratification of their new House and ordered cessation of hostility. It was an unprecedented decision that surprised even Minthara, who was braced to either seize admission through violence or perish trying, for victory was a wan shadow on the wall of optimism.
Instead, House Yulaun’tlar rose from cobbled materials and bloomed while Minthara seeded discontent within the halls of her birth home, weakening House Baenre from afar.
At House Baenre, many were drowning in the family’s bloated ranks where cousins-of-cousins were often relegated to unsatisfactory roles and indignities. When exposed to Minthara’s bold new venture, they identified opportunities to achieve rank without having to cleave through a forest of relatives poised to smite them at a whisper of conspiracy.
Nearly two dozen followed her to Yulaun’tlar’s grounds in Narbondellyn where protection and greater purpose awaited. Into these defectors Minthara invested the future of Baenre. Once they exterminated the main bloodline, what would remain of their pedigree save for these fortunate few? To that question, Minthara venomously mused: Hearken to Baenre. We shall be all that remain.
Twenty years into the diligent homemaking of Yulaun’tlar, Minthara was disappointed—but not wholly surprised given the capriciousness that impelled their original betrayal—to discover three defectors secreting enciphered intelligence to House Baenre.
Those three now knelt at her feet, beaten, shaking, noses brushing the damp subterranean stone floor, hands bound behind their backs, and pleading for their lives. Only the male on the far left bit his tongue in acceptance of doom. Green light lay upon them in a sickly membrane, cast by the interrogator’s standing lantern that also cast its glow through shelves of poison vials and murky specimen jars.
“May you be punished!” cried one traitor. “May your soul shriek for mercy in her Abyss! May Lolth never grant you oblivion’s release from torment!”
Minthara spat at her before extending a hand in direction of her headsman. Into her palm the haft of a heavy axe, poorly sharpened, was relinquished. Her blood boiled. The blade’s edge hovered over the traitor’s neck.
“When your feeble soul goes to Lolth’s refuse pits,” raged Minthara, “find our forebears and warn them of a familial reunion of unwitnessed proportion. I will send legions of Baenre to the Abyss. I will fill it to its brink!”
The axe fell, cleaving the woman’s head from her body. At the gruesome pop the other woman shuddered, despaired, and emitted a litany of curses and prayers. Blood pulsed like a stuttering fountain and pooled on the stone beneath the deceased woman’s hells-aimed gaze. Beside her, the male silently wept and said nothing.
Cowards. They were cowards all. For presuming they could achieve power without sullying their pampered hands with the gore of their kinsmen, and for abandoning their new allegiance at the first Baenre threat of pain and death.
“Tell them,” continued Minthara, her voice quavering with scorn, “that I will become their doom.”
She looked down at the next individual awaiting the axe. It was the orchestrator of the spy ring, the primary contact through which messages were received and sent by spiders bearing runes on their abdomens. Minthara kicked her boot’s steel toe into the woman’s temple, concussing her. Soon she too joined her treacherous kin in death. Again the axe fell, but its dulling edge delivered impact trauma that necessitated a second stroke to sever the spine.
Registering its inadequacy, Minthara gave the axe to the headsman and received a longsword as replacement. She approached the last prisoner and stomped her boot onto his upper back.
“Wanre,” she said to him, “dos inbal rath’elgus dosst Ilharess lu’Qu’ellar. Does treason bring you pleasure at the moment of your death?” She touched the blade to his cheek. A tear of blood beaded onto cold steel.
He breathed, “We are traitors all. You and I. Og’elendar ultrinnane. Udos phuul tu’jol nelgetha.”
“You speak truly, but I do not seek forgiveness. Forgiveness is for the meek who crave the lost esteem of those dominating them. No, I am seeking something of substance. I am seeking vengeance and might.”
With brisk finesse, Minthara fit the blade beneath the man’s chin and slit his throat. Gurgling and gasping stained the musty air and faded into silence. Minthara returned the headsman’s blade and approached the guards at the door. She was flecked in blood from head to toe and slathered in it from fingertip to elbow.
“Draw a bath,” she said to a servant. “Swiftly. I’m late for an appointment.”
✥
Nearly an hour later, Minthara waited between two seamsters fussing over her finery. She held her arms out at a stiff angle to grant access to the filigreed armor shell hanging loose about her torso. The adamantine plate reflected a cold and fell light, incongruous with that emitted by warm-hued sconces lining the tailor’s studio. At last the breastplate was laced shut at the indent of her waist by threads of spider silk woven into steel-strong braids.
She wore lightweight gauntlets and Xyanyde on her belt, and her boots were of black rothé calf hide tipped viciously with sharp metal prows. As her attendants dusted fine strands of stray hair from her brow, Minthara came to dually embody ethereal nobility and a brutal implement of war, as she was keen to be known.
The final layer draped onto her shoulders was an open stone-green velvet piwafwi so dexterously seamed and edged with silver it evoked the complexity of Lolth’s abyssal web. It was another exhibit of a ubiquitous culture ever lending its motifs to her wardrobe.
Her entourage stepped down two connecting halls with haste. They were late and aware of it. Enchanted glowglobes bobbed in the air, lighting their path and casting long shadows of menace. At Minthara’s left were tall arched windows, vaguely fae in their antiquated design and fitted with foggy glass panes that radiated the grave violet light of Menzoberranzan into the halls.
Two guards went ahead of their company to grip the handles of a massive double door inscribed with the Yulaun’tlar qu’ilinsar and motto: Zhaunil zhah orthae belaern. Superimposed on an indigo-fielded escutcheon were charges depicting a fabled beast—clawed, fanged, and famine-eyed—pursuing five soft-bodied prey animals. Upon exerting their strength, the guards opened the doors with a roar of heavy stone.
Minthara strode over a long indigo carpet spanning the throne room where visitors and courtiers would congregate before the Matron of the House. She passed the painter hired to limn them, sparing the male drow no regard even as he respectfully bowed at her. His canvas was marked with a preliminary sketch of the present subjects over a gray wash.
On the steps leading to the dais stood Matron Yulaun’tlar and three youths: two females and one male, all clad in exquisite finery, hair combed immaculate, maintaining commendable silence and bodily discipline. They made no offending motion, no fidgeting nor slightest huffing breath. About them was a totality of restraint meticulously inculcated by caretakers and mentors.
Likewise, the Matron held her stance but tracked Minthara with her eyes. Disapproval lurked in the depths of their crimson; the color of blood drawn from a wound so deep and mortal they seemed to blacken. Minthara returned the gaze but conceded no apology.
Ascending the dais brought Minthara to stand abreast with the Matron. The male youth standing one step below and to her left, who neared twenty years of age, had a saintly face steeled by the straight-set, disdainful Baenre hereditary brow. But warmth lived in his wine-red eyes. He was Durafein, elderboy and firstborn of the House at the request of the Baenre defectors Minthara towed to House Yulaun’tlar.
Years ago the defectors inferred the purpose of this House as an affront to Baenre itself. Gruesome war would one day either extinguish the main bloodline or this distal one, and so they deemed that future survivors of such a cataclysmic exchange would do well to invest in matrilineal continuity.
This was the contingency issued to Minthara in exchange for their useful allegiance. To found a new Baenre branch, they reasoned, Baenre royal blood must begin to flow into modern bodies. Thus conceived of her flesh was the boy Durafein—to some dismay upon reveal of his sex—but the contract was fulfilled, and the defectors now lived upon their grounds and heeded their decree.
Until the circle of traitors was arraigned just days ago.
“Were you satisfied?”
Minthara acknowledged the question by tilting her head ever so slightly toward its origin: Matron Tavithra Yulaun’tlar, huddled in regalia so rich it made their misadventures of yore, camping in the uncouth surface wilds wearing peasant garbs and consuming flavorless provisions, feel like a faraway dream unraveling its carousel of strange colors, places, and battles into a fugue. One tumultuous year could resemble several when weighted by impact, but twenty spent sailing away from that unique temporal island rendered history a distant mote on the horizon, ready to wink out of existence at a moment’s notice.
Tav. That was how she introduced herself and was thenceforth known to their companions to obscure her identity from unfriendly notice. A wealthy drow on the surface straying far beyond the limits of her mission—particularly if that mission had failed—was not an outcome one wished to become known, for it meant returning home disgraced or worse. Minthara knew that anxiety well, and might have sympathized if she had not swiftly and totally shirked all attachment to a goddess and a House who demonstrably cared not for her welfare.
The Matron’s hanging question regarded the preoccupation that kept Minthara away overlong from their scheduled sitting. She was meant to oversee the executions and permit the headsman to ply his craft, but her tardiness revealed that the beheadings were not a simple matter. She had involved herself. Indulged herself.
Minthara drew a steady quiet breath before answering, “I was indeed.”
“Did they enlighten you with any new information?”
“No. But one will— unwittingly. We will release their remains to House Baenre, but retain the body of one. House Baenre will arrogantly believe we missed one of their spies and continue corresponding, straight to our waiting desks, laying bare their plans.”
Tav issued a thoughtful hum. “Excellent judgement.”
A conniving smile tugged at the corners of Minthara’s lips. She willed it away, maintaining stoicism for the portrait. “Lu’dosst elgluth?”
“Alus… xal.”
Silence enveloped them. There was only the sound of the artist’s brushes doling out masterful details. Minthara observed the unbroken discipline displayed by their offspring. For Durafein it was not so grand a feat, but for the youngest, Nediira at six years old, it was a testament to the type of adept early rearing that would lead to unassailable temperaments come adulthood.
And there was Ethewae, pride and hope of Yulaun’tlar, fourteen years old. She boasted a sharp wit and a catalog memory, and her nature was judgmental and quick to action without remorse even in reflection of error. These traits befitted leadership, the precise role she was intended to occupy. She looked alike her mother in delicate face and insurmountable presence.
Minthara spied the hand Tav had posed on Ethewae’s shoulder to declare the line of succession. Upon it was the Yulaun’tlar signet ring, wrestled from a diminishing aunt who became despised the moment she contested Tav’s gambit for nobility. Years ago, her proposal ignited much fear of Baenre retaliation. Once House Baenre witnessed their own blood mated to lesser stock with the gall to petition for a proper House, Yulaun’tlar would be imperiled. Fear sundered the family. Some stayed in the home of their foremothers and swore themselves to the protective custody of other families. Traitors all, treated as exiles by the premier noble branch.
For the majority, this gambit was the chance of a lifetime to elevate their station. They followed Tav to the halls of this fortress renovated from the remains of a House ruined during another age, and set to work building new fortune.
And so this mongrel House came to be. Blood of drastic inequality thrummed beneath their roof while exiles, half-breeds, and lesser folk populated their hybrid labor force and standing army. If neighboring Houses declined to welcome the company of House Yulaun’tlar, they would at least fear it.
“Dalharuk,” Minthara said to the male youth in a hushed, level voice. “Lift your chin. You are to be their undoing.”
“Yes, Malla Ilhar.” He obeyed her by raising his chin to haughty effect. Durafein was careful to keep the helmet wedged in the crook of his arm facing forward, accessorizing his martial display.
Tav spoke next, “Shall we keep them for dinner? It’d please me. Let not a formal occasion be wasted.”
“Very well,” decided Minthara, to little joy.
She cared not for the act of knowing one’s children beyond the scope of what they offered their House. Especially at this age, when their nuisance eclipsed any potential for erudite conversation. At times she wondered if Tav had absorbed too much culture from the surface rabble, those soft souls imprisoned by the righteous hope and magnanimity enshrined by many of their weak gods and weaker institutions. It was an intoxicant ideology that kept minds dull and indentured to those who could best exert control. There was nothing joyous about offspring. Noble Matrons only tended to produce many heirs because many tended to be killed or prove disappointing.
Indeed, children were but a vehicle for legitimacy and legacy. That was why Durafein existed. That was why Ethewae and Nediira existed also, but at times Minthara could not help but sense another primitive motivation within Tav’s pleasure to have them.
If motherhood was her vice, then so be it. At least it was a lucrative one. If they did not populate the House, doom was their only future. If their war parties slaughtered every last child of Baenre and then set every temple of Lolth in Menzoberranzan alight under the pretense of erasing Baenre autocracy and watched in the great tongues of fire all their wrathful dreams come true, their alienated allies would study the ashes and find a House erected for the purpose of vengeance and crusade, not for longevity nor economic contribution, nor anything of prevailing value to anyone. Why permit the existence of a volatile entity uninterested in maintaining itself? Yulaun’tlar would be condemned and purged within a fortnight.
A House was only as strong as the scions it produced. This was the way of drow nobility.
Not only was this the path into lasting greatness, but also into survival.
✥
She stared unperceiving at a flame bouncing and flickering at the tip of a candle’s wick as the clatter of dinnerware and sparse conversation hung in the air like a fog. A plate of rothé steak on a bed of spiced mushrooms and deeproots lay before her, hardly touched. Meanwhile her glass of dark Ulaver wine was half-drained. Ire tainted the taste of everything. It was indeed ire, and not poisons— various assayers and tasters were assigned to that end.
Minthara’s mind was fixed upon the traitors. Their three faces kept invading her thoughts, appearing in the liminal paths of light and shadow left by trembling candlelight. She could not dismiss from her conscience the gravity of their trespass, the sheer vulnerability it scored upon her psyche.
Baenre’s decoded messages were obscured by another layer of code resembling poetic mysticism. It was one Minthara could make some sense of, but vital fragments and details were often lost to double entendre or missing context. On the surface, one might only deduce that Baenre wished to amass information about a growing rival and threat. But in Minthara’s very bones quivered a warning that Yulaun’tlar was already under silent siege, and she could do little in countermeasure except sealing them off hermetically from the outside world, which was, in practice, impossible.
Night falls, the most recent intercepted message from Baenre read. They are dreaming.
What did it mean? Did they sense weakness in Minthara’s House? Did they receive Lolth’s blessing to cull them? After all this bided time spent gathering strength and respect, so that on the glorious day of Baenre’s collapse Yulaun’tlar would not create a vacuum for larger Houses to immediately fill, but exert enough influence to seize control for themselves— was it all in vain?
The sound of Tav’s voice evicted Minthara from her thoughts as she addressed Ethewae, “What era are you learning in your historical studies?”
“The banishment of House Nasadra,” answered Ethewae after nary a beat, “and the founding of Ched Nasad to the southeast.” She sat close to Nediira, the little one, to help cut a sliver of meat on her plate.
Precious metal pins gleamed in the elegant silver braids of Tav’s hair as she said, “Allow her to learn independently.”
Ethewae blinked but obeyed. She passed the utensils to her sibling, who gripped them clumsily in balled fists. Seeing this, Ethewae intervened by manipulating her small hands to hold them properly, but helped no more. After prodding ineffectively at her dinner, the youngest resorted to using her hands and began gnawing on a steak in the table-manner of goblinfolk.
“She can’t physically do it,” Durafein said, vexation manifest on his creaking voice, a register trapped in the space between adolescence and adulthood. “She’s not old enough. If we expect her to cut her own food, she’ll either choke or starve. It’s ridiculous.”
Abruptly Minthara rose, her agitation reaching its zenith. “Dalharuk!” she snapped. “Get out of my sight. If you ever speak defiantly to your Matron again, I will cut out your tongue to forever hush your insolence.”
The two daughters froze on behalf of their fear-stricken brother. A servant remaining at hand to tend their whims shrank into the background of furniture and sundry, hoping to be forgotten.
“He will remain,” refuted Tav. “As I will it. Durafein, submit your earnest apology.”
A glassy aspect of shame and indignity glinted in Durafein’s eyes as he left his chair then lowered himself onto his knees. He bowed low before them, so low his forehead touched polished stone. “Nelgetha,” he implored. “I have spoken insolently. Nelgetha, Malla Ilhar lu’Ilharess.”
“You are forgiven,” said Tav. She looked at Minthara, awaiting an echoed response.
But Minthara had no voice yet. She stared at her prostrated son, his ashen locks mussed out of their tidy crop, the word nelgetha—forgiveness—on his lips, exposing the base of his neck to her. In a grim flash he perfectly embodied another Baenre male; the one Minthara slaughtered that very morning.
At length she muttered, “You are forgiven,” and watched as Durafein rose, kept his head bowed, and returned to his seat.
Nearly dazed, Minthara rubbed her fingers into her temples and half-heartedly listened to Tav sternly explain fortification of the soul through tribulation. Once the dust of conflict had settled, Tav resumed questioning them, learning their personhoods.
It was only when they had departed to the custody of their daily caretakers or quarters, and the table had cleared, and the servants retreated, that Tav approached Minthara’s place of brooding. She stood behind the chair and laid hands on her shoulders. Only sparse candles glowed, shedding fuchsia into deep gloom.
“Vel’bol jiv’elgge dosst, ssinjin?” Tav squeezed her gently, kneading stiff muscle. “You’ve had a dark look in your eyes all day.”
Minthara partly evaded, partly addressed the query by uttering, “You coddle them.”
“Do I? If you’re concerned about their resilience, don’t be. They will learn. They will have to.”
“Is Durafein even ready for Melee-Magthere? In five years he will face its gauntlet of butchery. He is defiant and they will punish him for it. By the time I graduated, I had slain two of my peers. Could he take their lives if compelled? I sometimes have my doubts.”
“His swordmaster reports that Durafein has slain many goblins,” said Tav, “two yingilin, and a duergar. He possesses the stomach to spill blood.”
Minthara scoffed. “Those are not drow. To first slay your own people is to slay your own reflection. It is an act of violence against one’s own vanity and identity. It isn’t comparable.”
Tav said, “He has time. And you dishonor him by worrying.” She tucked a lock of stray hair behind Minthara’s ear. “When you next see him, look closely. He has your eyes and your will. From where else does he draw the courage to challenge his superiors?”
A fleeting smile touched Minthara’s lips. In an instant it was gone. Durafein was, in strict technicality, Tav’s nephew. His father was Tav’s brother, Gelonim, eldest of his siblings and almost as clever and strong as she, slain nine years ago in an undocumented skirmish with Baenre scouts on the borders of their territory. Durafein’s parentage was political symbolism, the closest they would ever venture to producing offspring of their dual flesh. Someday Durafein would make a fine consort for a lady of a prominent family and further elevate the status of Yulaun’tlar. Today he was their treasure alone.
“Something has been weighing my mind,” said Minthara. “Do we possess the wherewithal to repel a Baenre assault at a moment’s notice?”
Tav was stilled by the question. Despite her hesitation, she stepped away to fetch a scrap of parchment, an inkwell, and a metal quill. A simple sketch came into being. It was the grounds of their castle from an aerial perspective, delineating its borders, garrisons, and central stronghold.
“We sit upon a foundation of water-smooth stone,” said Tav, “fifty feet risen at hostile incline, doubly impassible should the ramparts dispense tallow and set it alight. To reach our gates, one crosses the casting barrier. Wizards must recite our mutable incantation to exclude themselves from its suppression. The stronghold’s sole access is the stairs, a highly defensible chokepoint contained within the battlements’ range of arrows. Along the battlements vigil fifty per shift. Watching from the vantage of six perimeter towers are that many of my kin, their scryers, and their understudies— adept conjurers of flame and protection. If Baenre comes, they will burn. And they will meet our goring blades should they pile the charred corpses of their kinsmen into a mound, forty deep at minimum, just to summit the foundation.”
Minthara studied the parchment where black ink formed symbols, numbers, and directional arrows indicating possible flows of infantry. She knew the dimensions of their structures and what defenses they built and posted, but witnessing it in orchestra through Tav’s confident voice and penmanship brought some tentative peace to her mind.
“If something troubles you, my dear, let it not be the outer defenses of this House. We will hold. At least for a tenday, we will hold.”
“Yes,” decided Minthara, though her tone was rueful. “If there comes a threat, it will come from within.” She faced Tav, beholding under primeval light all the dignity of her features and a high collar of fine silks brooking her throat. “We are so very close to a campaign. We are very close. And House Baenre may know it.”
“I see,” pondered Tav. She rolled her quill between two fingers in thought. “Then perhaps we can allow House Baenre to know it. And we shall take care to ensure they can do nothing about it. Let them feel true existential fear for the first time in a millennium.”
The suggestion warmed Minthara as though she sat beside a hearth. Passion and bloodthirst intertwined raced through her heart and limbs, beating like a war drum, making her head swim drunkenly with visions of conquest and pangs of undiluted desire for the one poisoning her with such reckless conceptions.
✥
In the darkness of their bedchamber, Minthara saw a delicate sheen on Tav’s skin, her regal braids half undone, eyes and lips respectively darkened by lust and prior abusive attention. She felt Tav’s nails biting into her hips, wrestling for rhythmic control from beneath as she bucked into the slick space between Minthara’s thighs, steady yet forceful.
Minthara raked her fingernails across Tav’s skin and dug her knees, parted wide, into the disarrayed sheets to seek balancing purchase. Every few seconds were punctuated by a pleased sigh, wrenched each time the stiff appendage that was not of Tav’s body, but used as though it were, filled her to the limit of accommodation.
“I want you in the way only I can ask of you,” Tav earlier whispered beside her ear, hands already on her body, hungered. Her words struck something molten and unquenchable within Minthara’s core. “Take my assurance. Take my propitiation.”
Now Tav breathed fond sentiments in their mother tongue, composing an arrestingly pretty sight and sound beneath Minthara whenever she desired to elevate her pleasure by witnessing it. One of Tav’s hands was on her breast, kneading and pinching harshly as the other helped guide her down, roughly, too roughly, not rough enough. Her playful antagonism banished all tension in Minthara’s heart save for that between them.
They had fought over control but tonight Tav convinced her, through no small effort, to accept her gift of admiration manifest as service. No longer trying to override Tav’s sure steadiness with aggression, Minthara permitted herself to be carried by it, ever higher and less distinctly, into blurred realms of want. Each collaborative impact tempted the margin of pain but dissolved into pleasure so deep and full of carnal worship that she felt absolved of body and thought. Unorthodox, to cede control to the role which Tav played. The reversal was unplanned and all the more exhilarating for its taboo.
An overwrought sigh stumbled from her lips as Minthara succumbed to the luxurious bliss forced upon her and eagerly taken. Feeling it unfurl, she gripped at Tav hard enough to make her hiss. Tav was too committed to the moment to relent even for her own sake. When it passed, Minthara breathed slow and deep, stilling herself, and felt hands smoothing up the length of her bare thighs, to her hips.
“Ssin’urn,” Tav whispered reverentially. “Ussta quor’vlosara… You are far too beautiful when you let me take care of you like this. I must ask it constantly of you.”
Biting her lip in humor and receding pleasure, Minthara taunted, “I would not so easily forfeit something for you to work for.”
“Working for the privilege of performing more work for you,” inferred Tav with a sly smile. “Typical.” She took her hand and kissed its knuckles, then released her digits to splay her hands low on Minthara’s abdomen where they remained along with the distracted focus of her gaze. Following a dreamy hum, Tav remarked, “I think you should try conceiving a daughter.”
Minthara eyed her with bleary suspicion. “Why? Does it fill you with some enviable emotion to watch me bear progeny for your House?”
“Our House,” Tav said. “And not for me, but for you. When all is said and done, you will be what remains of Baenre. You, and any who come after. And alas— for me as well. It drove me wild to see you the first time.”
With a playfully flattered roll of her eyes, Minthara asked, “Then you have someone in mind? I certainly do not.”
“Not yet. But we can find one that meets your criteria.”
Producing heirs was a harrowing task. In the past it had involved tense negotiations and treaty-drafting with other Houses interested in substantiating an alliance. Now the blood of Houses Despana and Vandree coursed through Tav’s daughters. By no coincidence, those two Houses had become their closest allies.
It was of little wonder why drow nobility appointed or employed librarians exclusively for genealogical record keeping. There were few family trees to speak of; only ramose webs.
“What if it results in another male?” Minthara warily supposed. She could scarcely abide another disappointment.
“Then it’s another male,” answered Tav. Calm infused her voice. “A great asset for further treaties. And you may always try again until you have what you want.”
Minthara peered into darkness. “Under consideration,” she resolved, catching Tav’s excitable hands as they reached for her, pretending for a moment that she had no lingering want of them.
✥
That night Minthara did not achieve reverie. She fell into an abominable rest where the exhaustion plaguing her mind and body anchored her into the dregs of a waking trance; neither sleep nor dream, but something with the most accursed qualities of both. As she lay beside Tav, paralyzed by the yoke of sleep but lacking the merciful subduing of conscience, a host of thoughts, woes, and fears invaded her delirium until they took form through animation of the shadows draped over their furnishings.
Her blank gaze saw a beam of dark material stretching from floor to ceiling, sweeping its obelisk from east to west, so dread and abyssal no light would venture to measure its dimensions, for such light would not ever return to report. It radiated an evil sensation from its tattered borders. It was the soul-deep absence she felt whenever she raised her weapon and felt nothing and heard nothing except the oblivion she had carved in her heart where the purifying light of a goddess once dwelt. The sculpt of her despair was spherical, planetary, growing, consuming, collapsing inward until its density broke the lathe on which perfect doom was shaped.
An eerie moment of clarity swept away her hallucinations. The malformed shadows dissolved and there was only silence. Initially Minthara thought herself cured of botched rest until the silence was broached by the faintest sound, identically alike the patter of liquid dripping onto stone. Gradually, the dripping morphed into a syllabic cadence, gaining sense on an evolutionary path to vocalized words and then to slowly-whispered language.
Dosst elamshin zhah ulu har’luth. Dosst elamshin zhah jiv’undus.
Ten seconds elapsed. Abruptly Minthara became aware that she could move again, and she did so by jolting upright and swiftly unsheathing a blade stowed beneath her pillow. In a cold sweat she scanned the stillness of the room, watching for a slightest motion that never revealed itself.
There was nothing. No sign of disturbance nor lingering whispers. Tav rested peacefully, her breathing even and noiseless, oblivious to these nocturnal horrors.
Minthara fell back against her pillow and shut her eyes tightly, trying to recall what the voice had said. But her then-addled mind had not been able to retain any of it. Not a single word. It had slipped right through the sieve of memory like water, touching her without abiding before escaping through the fine channels between floor tiles.