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"I have some experience in these matters," Dahlia said "I knohat such wounds look like" Indeed, Drizzt suspected the same vampire, Dor’crae, who had attacked Bruenor in the anteroom to the primordial pit had been Dahlia’s lover

Drizzt tried hard not to focus on the recollection of Dor’crae He tried to wash that thought aith the i into the camp, tried to bury it under the sheer attraction the woman elicited in him

And when that didn’t work, he fell back on that pervading sense of detachment

Drizzt drew out a sci oblin parts, strewn on the ground before hied tears in the clothing and skin These ounds better known to Drizzt, who had traveled beside just such a fighter for so er," he whispered, confused

"No," Dahlia said "I’ve seen these fang marks before …" Her voice trailed off as she walked over to hie at this section of the broken camp

"Vaer," Drizzt replied

"Must you always argue with me?" She asked the question casually, but Drizzt detected an undercurrent of true anger How e crept into Dahlia’s voice of late?

"Only when you’re wrong" Drizzt tossed her a disarhthearted look he’d offered Dahlia since they’d left the bowels of Gauntlgrym, or more accurately, since he had seen Dahlia and Arteht seem like always to you," Drizzt teased, deterativity and jealousy

Dahlia cocked her head "Are you finished with your pouting at long last?" she asked

The question threw Drizzt off balance for a mo her own foulthat her own pouting--or grieving, or shock, or whatever coht be--needed to end

But the question teased Drizzt on a much deeper level, and likely more deeply than Dahlia had intended Drizzt couldn’t deny the truth of her words

To Drizzt, Dahlia re his emotions any which way she desired, it seeed her hairstyle But to Entreri … nay, her tricks would not work for her with Entreri For Arte of her, that went past the hairstyles, the clear skin or woad, her clothing, seductive or sweet Before Drizzt, she had stood naked, physically, perhaps, but before Entreri, Dahlia had been naked emotionally, stripped to the core trouble that so haunted her

Drizzt had only gli tiefling warlock and Dahlia’s reaction to that creature, Effron

"What about you?" Drizzt replied "You have said little in the tendays since we left Gauntlgry to say" Dahlia claht co out should she lose the tiniest bit of discipline "I have the ears," Dahlia said and began to walk away

He followed her out of the ca low, looking for broken ste to rest in a sunny clearing where a single, half-buried stone provided a comfortable seat

Dahlia reclined, re the sunbea," he bade her "We oblins There’s a vaed, showing no interest

"Or a battlerager," Drizzt went on stubbornly "And if it is the latter, then ould do well to find hiht of my vampire lover," Dahlia said, and she seerimaced at the reference

"Will we never speak of what happened in Gauntlgry accused you of lare over him

Dahlia sed hard and did not turn her stare from Drizzt for an instant as he took a seat beside her

"He claini was his father," Drizzt pressed

"Shut up," Dahlia warned

"He called you his h him, and Drizzt expected her to reach out and claw at his face, or to explode into a tirade of shouted curses

But she didn’t, and that, perhaps, wasA cloud passed overhead, blocking the sunlight, sending a shadow across Dahlia’s pretty face

"Implausible, of course, likely i to back away

Dahlia held perfectly still He could almost hear her heartbeat, or was it his own? Many moments slipped past Drizzt lost count of them

"It’s true," she admitted, and noas Drizzt who looked as if he had been slapped

"Cannot be," he finallywoman--"

"I was barely ni fell over my clan," Dahlia said, so very softly that Drizzt could hardly hear the words "Twenty years ago"

Drizzt’s thoughts spun in circles, very easily co words He tried to respond, but found hi helplessly in the face of a horror so far beyond hiraduation at Melee Magthere, when his own sister had advanced upon hi him to run aith revulsion

For a ht to tell that tale to Dahlia, to try to claim some kinship to her pain, but then realized that his own experience surely paled beside her trauma