"What if I don't return to the Underdark?"

Ryld glanced at the forest that hemmed them in on every side. Unlike the solid, silent tunnels he was used to, the wall of trees and underbrush was porous, filled with rustling and creaking, and the quick, tiny movements of animals flitting from branch to branch. Ryld couldn't decide which was worse: the shrinking feeling he'd experienced under the empty expanse of the sky; or the feeling he had then?as though the woods were watching them.

"You're mad," he told Halisstra. "You'd never survive out here alone. Especially without spells to?"

As anger blazed in Halisstra's eyes, Ryld suddenly regretted his rash words. With all Halisstra's talk of surface gods, he'd forgotten, for a moment, that she was also a priestess of Lolth and a female of a noble House, He started to bow deeply and beg her pardon, but she surprised him by laying a hand on his arm.

Then she said something, in a low murmur he had to strain to hear: "Together we'd survive."

He stared at her, wondering if his ears were playing tricks on him. All the while, he was overwhelmingly aware of her hand upon his arm. The touch of her fingers was light, but it seemed to burn his skin, flushing him with warmth.

"We might survive up here," he admitted, then wished he hadn't spoken when he saw the gleam in Halisstra's eyes.

The alliance he'd just unintentionally committed to would probably be no more solid than his friendship with Pharaun. Halisstra would maintain it as long as it furthered her goals, then would drop it the instant it became inconvenient. Just as Pharaun had abandoned Ryld, leaving him to face impossible odds, when the pair of them were trying to escape from Syrzan's stalactite fortress.

Ryld's meditative skills had saved his life then and allowed him to fight his way free. Later, when he'd met up with Pharaun again, the mage had clapped him on the back and pretended that he'd fully anticipated, all along, that Ryld would survive. Why else would he have abandoned his "dearest friend?"