The Drow There and Nothing More (Goth Drow Book 3)

by Martha Carr

  Maleshi stopped in front of the curtain of threaded beads and spun so quickly, Cheyenne almost tripped over herself to keep from running into her. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Well, I was—”

  “I’ve been around a long time, kid, but I’m not anywhere near senile. Didn’t we talk about this? Today?”

  “Yep.”

  “You put this entire cause at risk by heading out for a little joyride and a visit to the raug Oracle. Are you insane?”

  Cheyenne raised her eyebrows. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  “Of course it’s rhetorical!” Maleshi glanced into the long room full of pillows with a hiss.

  I’m not gonna get in more than five words at a time.

  “Or maybe it’s not,” the general continued in a low, threatening snarl. “At this point, I’m not sure I can tell the difference. Are you insane?”

  Cheyenne widened her eyes and waited.

  “What?” Maleshi looked the halfling up and down. “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know. I seem to be incapable of finishing a—”

  “You know what? You’ve got a lot of nerve… Oh.” The general cleared her throat, stepped back, and nodded. “Go ahead, then. I’m not sure I have anything else to say that hasn’t already slipped out.”

  “Okay.” Cheyenne waited a little longer until Maleshi’s glowing silver eyes finally rose to meet her gaze. And we’re a go. “Look, I know you guys didn’t want me to leave my apartment. I appreciate the wards. They work. Thank you. I left anyway.”

  “Mmhmm.” The nightstalker bit her lip to keep from saying anything else.

  “Ember made me a charm that masks my magic pretty much like the Heart of Midnight, only it broke when I went drow instead of me breaking it myself. So no, I wasn’t driving around Richmond sending up magical smoke signals. I have learned a thing or two in the last few weeks, in case anyone was wondering. And yeah, I broke the charm because I have no idea what the hell just happened back there, and I was about to try blasting the raug out of it too until you showed up and sucker-punched him.”

  “Right. Well, don’t worry too much about whatever you might’ve missed at the end there. Once a prophecy starts repeating itself like that, it’s just running on fumes. Cheyenne, I have to ask what you gave him as an offering.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Because right now, it’s…what? Nothing?”

  Cheyenne shrugged. “He reached out to me on the Borderlands forum and told me he’d ‘deliver a message for free.’ Sure, he was vague about it, but it was pretty clear he had a prophecy about me—for me—and I figured it was something I could use to help us once we head back to Hangivol for this last hurrah. And then, yeah, he said the same thing when I got here.”

  Maleshi’s silver eyes narrowed. “Did it make sense?”

  “It was a prophecy. What do you think?”

  With a snort, the general turned away and cast a new portal between them and the curtain of strung beads. “Then the rest is on you to figure out, and when you do, let’s hope you figured it out right. I knew a golra once who misread his own prophecy and killed his healer brother. Turns out his brother could have saved him from the plague, which killed the golra two days later. And yes, we do get sick over here.”

  Cheyenne fought back a laugh. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Now, please. After you.” Maleshi gestured toward the open portal, and Cheyenne peered through it.

  “Go ahead. I’ll drive.”

  “Nope. Sorry, kid. You, in the portal, now.”

  “No.” Frowning at the nightstalker woman, Cheyenne stepped back and headed for the curtain of beads. “I’m not leaving my car. It’ll take me like fifteen minutes to get— Hey!”

  Maleshi’s hand wrapped around Cheyenne’s bicep before she jerked the halfling back toward her. “I’ll take care of the car, Cheyenne. You cannot leave your apartment while we’re getting the last few things together. Understand? No one’s gonna be able to track you down inside an Oracle’s den, but once you step through that front door, you might as well put up a post on magical Craigslist. Go.”

  “You need to let go of my arm.”

  Rolling her eyes, Maleshi released the halfling’s arm, then lunged toward her and shoved her through the portal.

  “What the hell?” Cheyenne whirled to glare at the general through the portal.

  “Stay home. Keep your phone on you. We’re almost ready.”

  The portal disappeared with a pop, and Cheyenne stared at the kitchen of her apartment. “Fuck.”

  “Lemme guess.” Ember glanced over her shoulder with a grimace of sympathy. “You broke the charm, and your Probation nightstalker tracked you down.”

  “Yep.” Cheyenne swung slowly around and eased toward the closest recliner before slumping down into it. The chair rocked back a few inches. “At least I got most of a prophecy.”

  “Oh, really?” Ember wheeled backward to get a better look at her halfling friend. “Now, this I’ve gotta hear.”

  “It’s a bunch of jumbled crap, honestly. Except for a few things.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ember propped her forearm on the armrest and leaned over it toward Cheyenne. “Such as?”

  “Well, for one thing, this one had L’zar’s name in it. Called him the Dark Smiling Weaver and the Cu’ón.”

  “Okay.” Ember’s violet gaze swept in a thoughtful circle around their apartment. “That supposed to mean something?”

  “Not by itself, but whoever or whatever was talking through the Oracle for this prophecy knew exactly who was listening. Called me ‘daughter of L’zar,’ and then something about the Cu’ón’s daughter being the Aranél. Turning a new Cycle. Claiming rights that were always mine but not L’zar’s to give away and a whole bunch of shit about blood and rot and fire.”

  “Ooh, very doomsday.”

  “Yeah. I think it was a warning.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah.” Smoothing her drow-white hair away from her face, Cheyenne let her anger and her magic cool off and slipped back into human form. “I think L’zar wants to overthrow the Crown. Probably kill her. Maybe not. But all so he can take the throne and start a new Cycle as the new Crown.”

  Ember cleared her throat. “I mean, that was obvious when everyone’s talking about rebellion and taking out the asshole drow on the other side trying to kill you first.”

  “Right. But all this other stuff about cleansing and burning away the rot and my blood being something different?” Cheyenne stared at the vaulted ceiling, turning what she remembered of the prophecy over in her mind. Should’ve put on the activator and recorded it.

  Ember studied the halfling’s profile and raised an eyebrow. “It looks like you already know the rest of what you’re trying to say.”

  “Still obvious, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  With a wry chuckle, Cheyenne propped herself up in the recliner and met her friend’s gaze. “I’m just trying to decide if that’s what I think this means, or if I’m just looking for more things to pin on L’zar so I have more reasons not to like him.”

  “Because you’re starting to?”

  “What? No. I don’t know. Probably not. He’s an ass.”

  Ember cocked her head. “And he’s your dad.”

  “Please. You of all people know that’s not an automatic exemption from being shitty.”

  “Sure. But my dad didn’t lock himself up for three-quarters of a century to make sure I didn’t die before breaking out of prison to keep making sure I didn’t die. He just won’t answer my phone calls.”

  Cheyenne barked a laugh and immediately shook her head. “Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing at that.”

  “No, go ahead. I’ll laugh with you. Ha-ha-ha. My dad’s a selfish bastard who’s given up on his only kid so he can pretend to be normal, and your dad’s a selfish bastard who wants to overthrow an O’gúl regime and take you with him. At least he�
�s trying.”

  Chuckling softly, Cheyenne shook her head. “There’s that, I guess. But that’s the thing about this whole prophecy, Em. I don’t think it was warning me about L’zar taking down the Crown and winning this rebellion or whatever. I think it was warning me about him taking the throne to be the next O’gúl Crown. Obviously, he wants that too, but the death and destruction part? I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you do. Go ahead and say it.”

  With a groan, the halfling glanced at the ceiling again and let her shoulders sag. “I think that prophecy was telling me L’zar’s not supposed to be the next Crown.”

  “Huh.”

  Cheyenne met her friend’s gaze again and shrugged. “Seriously, Em. I think all that fire and rot and blood shit was a warning about what’ll happen if I don’t stop him after we’ve won or whatever. That he’ll screw everything up just as badly if he takes the Crown and sits in her place.”

  “So, you mean what? You’re gonna go help him win, and then you’re supposed to kill him or something?”

  “I don’t know.” Cheyenne shook her head and stared at her. “That’s the thing. Prophecies are mostly bullshit, and the rest is impossible to figure out. I just don’t know.”

  “Or maybe that raug’s just trying to stir up trouble. Make you think you’re supposed to do something, and this is just a way for him to screw things up.”

  “Maybe. But Gúrdu wouldn’t have been at the ceremony yesterday if he was trying to throw a wrench in L’zar’s rebellion.”

  “Well, there’s that.” Ember sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “What if it’s another test? Like, to see if you freak out about this prophecy or if you just let it be and keep moving in the direction you were headed. Honestly, if I were you, I’d much rather believe the magicals who’ve been helping me and fighting with me over some half-assed prophecy mumbo-jumbo.”

  “Not a big fan of prophecies?”

  “Nope. Granted, I’m just a fae who was born without magic but got it back by hanging out with you. I’ve never been the center of a prophecy, so I don’t have anything to go on.”

  “Makes sense.” They both laughed, and Cheyenne closed her eyes. How much of this is real? “Maybe that’s the thing. That all prophecies are crap, and it all boils down to figuring out how to prove it. L’zar did that with his prophecy, ‘cause here I am.”

  “Exactly. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  “I’m not worried.” Smiling, the halfling drummed her fingers on the leather armrests. “It was seriously creepy, though. I think the guy had some kind of seizure or something. Then he started pulling up black fire and throwing pillows all over the place.”

  “Pillows?” Ember pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.

  “Yeah. Instead of carpet.” Both girls sniggered. “Maleshi punched the hell out of him to stop the whole thing. I thought she’d killed him for a second.”

  “From what I hear, raugs are ridiculously tough. And Oracles like to put on a good show.”

  “He succeeded.” Cheyenne sat up straighter in the recliner and shook the entire event and the tangled prophecy out of her mind. Worrying about this isn’t gonna get me anywhere. I’m already skeptical enough about how we’re gonna pull off this whole rebellion takeover. “So, moving on. Did you get any alerts while I was gone?”

  “Ha. Nope. Glen was fortunately silent, so I guess Corian and company are handling things pretty quietly.” Ember frowned at her friend. “You need a distraction.”

  “Yeah, look how well that turned out.”

  “I’m talking about while you’re here. Under house arrest.” The fae pointed at Cheyenne’s knees bouncing up and down rapidly. “You’re fidgety and tense, and it’s weirding me out. Stop it.”

  “Sorry.” Cheyenne stilled her bouncing knees. “You’re gonna suggest watching another movie to distract me, aren’t you?”

  Ember grinned. “Are you suggesting more movies?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Prepare to zone out, then.” Ember played the movie she’d paused, and their apartment filled with the conversation from the characters on screen. Two minutes in, Cheyenne’s fingers drummed in an urgent, jerky rhythm on the recliner’s armrests. Ember shot her friend two warning looks before finally rolling her eyes and wheeling away from the table to head toward the kitchen. “Okay, I know what we need.”

  “Huh?” Cheyenne looked away from the screen she’d been ignoring. “Where are you going?”

  “Grab the popcorn, halfling. Start eating. I had that delivery grocery person pick up enough ice cream to last us a month. I thought. Depends on how many pints you need to go through before you chill out.”

  The halfling burst out laughing. “Force-feeding me ice cream doesn’t sound very relaxing.”

  “It will when you see what kind I got. And we’re watching something fun. Screw the action movies and the creepy stuff. We need something stupidly funny.” The freezer opened under Ember’s violet light, and two pints of ice cream zipped down into her lap, followed by two spoons from the drawer. “You don’t get to argue with me on this one, Cheyenne. Until we get the all-clear to leave the apartment, which is awesome and has everything we need, I’m calling the shots. Got it?”

  “You know, I heard fae are especially skilled at getting what they want. Probably a bad move to argue with you.”

  “You have no idea.”

  A purple-glowing pint of ice cream and a spoon whizzed across the apartment and thumped into Cheyenne’s lap.

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  The next morning, Cheyenne lurched out of sleep, covered in a cold sweat. The echoes of her dream floated around her mind before she threw the covers off and climbed out of bed. “Screw all this ‘blood bonds with blood’ shit. The prophecies can suck it.”

  She burst out of her bedroom and headed for the bathroom beneath the mini-loft.

  “Morning,” Ember called from the kitchen. “I beat you to the coffee-making again, so don’t worry about it. Whoa, you okay?”

  “Not really.” Cheyenne ran her hand through her black hair and stopped in front of the bathroom door. “More nightmares. More screwed-up prophecies about crap that doesn’t make any sense. I’m thinking maybe I can burn it all out with hot water and steam.”

  “Okay.”

  “Coffee smells good.” The halfling stumbled into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her. The sound startled her out of her grumpiness, and she turned on the shower with a grimace. Ember didn’t do anything. Don’t take it out on her.

  Once the shower was running as hot as it would go, which still didn’t feel hot enough, Cheyenne stepped in and let the scalding water pour over her. I don’t need to figure out what that prophecy means. I already know the Crown is tearing the other side apart. No shit, there’ll be blood and fire and devastation. There already is. How am I supposed to stop it?

  An image of the Nimlothar tree from the ceremony two days ago flashed in her mind, overtaking her vision and her thoughts as it pulsed with purple and black light. With the pulsing light came a song in thousands of voices, a wordless tune that was a part of the tree and the lifeforce and the power inside it. Then the massive tree, the source of drow magic, gave a final pulse of light and darkened. The song became a scream, then thousands of screams. The base of the Nimlothar’s trunk erupted in black flames, climbing higher and racing toward the branches and the purple leaves until the entire thing was consumed. The screams grew louder and more urgent, terrified and enraged. Beneath the Nimlothar tree, the earth buckled and shuddered with wide, pitch-black cracks that led down into nothingness.

  “The phér móre is the sword. If it does not sail true, the scion will be their doom.”

  When the vision ended, Cheyenne found herself on her knees in the shower, both hands clamped over her ears, the drow-pointed tips of which peeked out above her fingers. She coughed, her voice hoarse and raw, water pouring down on her head and over her face. Was I just screamin
g?

  “Seriously, Cheyenne, if you don’t say something, I’m coming in,” Ember shouted and pounded again on the bathroom door.

  “I’m fine.” The words left Cheyenne’s mouth in a croak, and she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m good, Em.”

  “Thank God.” Ember closed her eyes. “You sure? I mean, I thought you were just blowing off a little steam until it didn’t stop.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”

  “Okay.” Ember cast the bathroom door a skeptical glance, then wheeled back into the kitchen to finish making breakfast.

  Cheyenne braced herself against the shower wall and stood again. Her legs shook when she straightened, but she forced her body under control and slipped out of drow form. I’m so done with this.

  She quickly finished her shower, then turned off the water and stepped out. The bathroom was so full of steam, she could barely see the towel on the rack right next to her. The mirror was fogged up, and Cheyenne turned on the vent fan to help clear out the room. After drying off as much as she could in the steam, she wrapped the towel around herself and left the bathroom.

  The apartment felt frigid after the bathroom. Cheyenne sucked in a sharp breath and headed quickly to her bedroom to change. When she dropped the towel and reached for her clothes in the dresser, she paused. Crap. I just cooked myself.

  She gently rubbed the bright-red skin of her forearm and took a quick glance at her body. The rest of her was just as red and covered in a splotchy heat rash. Grimacing, Cheyenne tugged on her clothes, squeezed water out of her hair, and tied it all up in a bun she rarely wore. Then she headed back out into the living room and stopped to glance at the pile of the silver wrist chains she’d left in a heap on the bathroom counter. Not today, I guess. The last thing I need is fashion chafing.