Lolth sat forward, her eyes blazing. "What?" Her fists gripped the knobbed legs of her throne. "That's not where I placed…"

She glanced behind her throne, but Vhaeraun was no longer there.

Eilistraee hid her smile as Lolth turned back to the board, a deep frown creasing her forehead. Then, abruptly, the frown vanished. The Spider Queen laughed, a fresh gout of spiders cascading from her lips.

"Poorly done, daughter," she said. "Your impulsive counter move has opened a path straight to the heart of your House."

Lolth leaned forward, reaching for the Warrior piece Selvetarm had placed on the board. She moved it along the line that led to Eilistraee's Mother. Beside her, Selvetarm watched intently, eyes gloating above the weapons he held crossed against his spider body.

"You lose," Lolth gloated. "Your life is forfeit and the drow are mine." Eyes blazing with triumph, she lowered the piece to. the board. "Warrior takes-"

"Wait!" Eilistraee cried.

She scooped up a pair of dice that sat at one edge of the sava board. Two perfect octahedrons of blackest obsidian, each with a glint of moonlight trapped within: a spark of Eilistraee's light within Lolth's dark heart. The dice were marked with a different number on each side. The one was the round dot of a spider, legs splayed.

The dice rattled in Eilistraee's cupped hands like bones clattering together in a chilling wind. "One throw per game," she said. "I claim it now."

Lolth paused, the drider-shaped Warrior piece nearly hidden by the webbing that laced her fingers. A look of unease flickered in her red eyes then disappeared.

"An impossible throw," she smirked. "The odds against double spiders are as long as the Abyss is deep. Corellon is as likely to forgive our betrayal and call us home to Arvandor as you are to make that throw."

Anger swirled in Eilistraee's blue eyes. "Our betrayal?" she spat. "It was your dark magic that twisted my arrow in mid-flight."