“Watch your tone, my daughter,” Malice growled as an angry reminder. “You are addressing a matron mother.”

Briza turned away again. “We should have attacked House Hun’ett immediately, on the night Zaknafein was sacrificed,” she dared to grumble.

“You forget the actions of your youngest brother on that night,” Malice replied evenly.

But the matron mother was wrong. If she lived a thousand more years, Briza would not forget Drizzt’s actions on the night he had forsaken his family. Trained by Zaknafein, Malice’s favorite lover and reputably the finest weapon master in all of Menzoberranzan, Drizzt had achieved a level of fighting ability far beyond the drow norm. But Zak had also given Drizzt the troublesome and blasphemous attitudes that Lloth, the Spider Queen deity of the dark elves, would not tolerate. Finally, Drizzt’s sacrilegious ways had invoked Lloth’s wrath, and the Spider Queen, in turn, had demanded his death.

Matron Malice, impressed by Drizzt’s potential as a warrior, had acted boldly on Drizzt’s behalf and had given Zaknafein’s heart to Lloth to compensate for Drizzt’s sins. She forgave Drizzt in the hope that without Zaknafein’s influences he would amend his ways and replace the deposed weapon master.

In return, though, the ungrateful Drizzt had betrayed them all, had run off into the Underdark―an act that had not only robbed House Do’Urden of its only potential remaining weapon master, but also had placed Matron Malice and the rest of the Do’Urden family out of Lloth’s favor. In the disastrous end of all their efforts, House Do’Urden had lost its premier weapon master, the favor of Lloth, and its would-be weapon master. It had not been a good day.