by Martha Carr
“Shit.” Ember stared ahead blankly. “Right when I thought I could get over the weirdness of being friends with a raug.”
“It’s all weird, Em. We have to be careful.”
* * *
Two hours later, with the sun still high above them and the last stretch of blight-stricken forest miles behind them, Cazerel raised a meaty gray fist in the air and stopped. “Here.”
“Here what?” Lumil spun, her yellow hair fluttering away from her head before flopping back down over one eye. She blew it out of her face and frowned. “There’s nothing here.”
“So it would seem, hmm?” The chief turned and raised his eyebrows at the travelers. “And yet, here we are.”
For the first time since they’d stopped to eat their tense meal, Foltr stirred on the top of the cart and cleared his throat. “Would you accept an extra pair of hands, Zokrí?”
“If you wish, old one.” Cazerel nodded at the hunched, wizened raug, then turned toward his warriors and spread his arms. “We open the doorway here, Lugah’wo.”
The raug warriors gathered silently around their chief. When Foltr struggled to lower himself from the top of the cart, Corian stepped toward him and offered a hand. The old raug slapped it away and grunted. “I’m not as useless as I look, vae shra’ni. If I need your help, I’ll ask for it.”
Fighting back an amused smile, Corian clasped his hands behind his back and nodded before stepping away again.
Foltr jammed his staff into the dirt and clung to it as he slid unceremoniously from the top of the cart. To drive his point home, he smacked the end of his staff against the nightstalker’s shin and rolled his eyes. Then he moved toward Cazerel and his warriors, muttering through clenched teeth. When the old raug’s back was turned, Corian grimaced and bent over to rub his shin.
“So, what kind of doorway is this?” Ember gazed at the raugs, who were situating themselves in a semi-circle facing the trees.
Byrd shrugged. “Raug doorway, raug spells, right?”
“Oh. Better stay outta this one, Cheyenne.”
The goblins burst into snorting laughter.
“Oh, yeah, thanks.” Cheyenne playfully rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”
“Definitely don’t want the spell-dud drow gettin’ her sparking hands on this one, do we?” Lumil grinned and nodded at the halfling. “I still can’t believe it. L’zar’s daughter and all that drow magic doesn’t mean shit when it comes down to the technical stuff, huh?”
“Hey, at least I don’t have to physically hit something to make a dent.”
The goblin woman raised both fists and summoned her spinning red runes. Her yellow eyes reflected the bursts in orange-tinted light. “But what a dent, huh? Wanna know how I got these babies to work so well?”
“Not really.” Cheyenne shot Ember a sidelong glance. The fae girl stifled a laugh. “But I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me anyway.”
“Just one big badass spell, kid.”
Byrd guffawed and doubled over. Lumil stared at him, and when he looked up and saw her fists inches from his face, he choked back the rest of his laughter and leaped away.
Cazerel turned away from his warriors with a curious grin. “Is this true, Aranél?”
“Is what true?” Cheyenne tried to look clueless. I don’t need the raug who thinks his gates are all-powerful to start making fun of me too.
“That you cannot cast spells?”
Lumil folded her arms and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“No,” Cheyenne said, shooting the goblin woman a warning glance. “I can cast spells, no problem. They just don’t always work the way I want.”
Corian chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“All right. Don’t you raugs have a door to open or something?”
Ember grinned at the chief, momentarily brushing aside Cheyenne’s warning about him. “Even if she had better luck with spellcasting, she doesn’t need it. When she’s got an activator, Cheyenne Summerlin’s unstoppable. On both sides of the Border.”
“Ah.” Cazerel stroked his square, hairless chin, then chuckled and pointed at Cheyenne. “Perhaps there are exceptions to my personal rules for the appropriate use of tech, eh? I believe it would be best for the Aranél to wear hers at all times.”
The goblins cracked up again and quickly got into another shoving match.
“Thanks for the advice.” Cheyenne folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at the raug chief. “But I’ve been doing fine with nothing but drow magic. So far, that’s all I need.”
Cazerel shrugged and stuck out his huge bottom lip. “Until it isn’t.”
As he turned away to rejoin his warriors and Foltr in setting up for their spell, Ember met Cheyenne’s gaze and burst out laughing. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m just…”
“You’re enjoying this as much as everyone else, aren’t you?”
Ember tried to hold back her laughter, and a squeak of effort escaped her.
Maleshi stepped up beside the halfling and leaned toward Cheyenne’s ear. “If you’re going to take the Crown’s place when you turn the new Cycle, kid, spellwork is kinda one of the prerequisites.”
“Well, good thing I’m not planning on taking anyone’s place.”
“Haven’t changed your mind about that after everything we’ve seen, huh?”
Cheyenne folded her arms. “I’m not the only one capable of sitting on some dumb throne and keeping things running.”
“True.” Maleshi shrugged. “But so far, the only name drawn from the proverbial hat is yours.”
“I’ll find someone.”
“Sure. Finding someone else and offering the job is the easy part. It’s finding someone who gives a shit and won’t run away screaming that’s gonna be a little tricky.”
Cheyenne shot the general a sidelong glance and scoffed. “Thanks. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It took Cazerel, his warriors, and Foltr nearly half an hour to set up for their spell, complete with finding a perfectly sized stick for drawing runes in the dirt and weighing out the required amount of crumbled bits of stone they’d packed in one of the carts.
After gnawing impatiently on the inside of his cheek, Corian stepped forward and nodded at the chief. “Is there anything we can do to help, Zokrí? Merely in the interests of time, of course.”
“No, vae shra’ni.” Cazerel straightened from where he’d bent over to toss a handful of the glittering black rock pieces onto a rune in the dirt. “I prefer to keep the casting of this one fueled by raug magic. You understand?”
Cheyenne cocked her head at the runes and squinted. “Only those who created the doorway and hid the Crown’s secret kid can open it again?”
“We did not create this doorway, Aranél.”
She looked quickly up at him and found him smirking at her. “Oh.”
“But we are the only ones on this side of it who know the Spider’s heir lies beyond.” The chief slowly tilted his head, his smile disappearing as he held Cheyenne’s gaze. “I prefer not to hand my clan’s secrets over to every curious magical. Especially her.” He nodded at Maleshi and narrowed his eyes.
The general glanced at the sky in exasperation and turned her back to the raugs gathered to create the spell. She spread her arms and stared back in the direction they’d come. “I’ll wait.”
With a low growl of approval, Cazerel rejoined his warriors, speaking French to them in low tones.
“Great.” Cheyenne approached Corian. The nightstalker folded his arms and watched the raugs, slowly shaking his head. “I thought he said the general’s debts had been wiped clean?”
“Debts, sure.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they have to be best friends.”
“We’re all working toward the bigger picture though, right? Not that hard to let go of a grudge if it helps get the job done.”
Corian turned slowly to look at her and raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit hypocritical of you, don’t you think?
”
“Hey, what Maleshi did thousands of years ago and whatever daddy issues I have with L’zar are not the same thing.”
“Of course not. But we’ve all had thousands of years to do things we regret, make mistakes, and condemn ourselves with the reputations we built serving under the Crown’s ever-watchful gaze.”
She snorted. “Speak for yourself.”
“I am, kid. And for everyone else, minus you and Ember. Obviously.” Corian shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, watching the group of raugs finally get down to the spellcasting. “It’s hard to let go of that much history in one day, especially when raug memory stretches almost as long as drow memory and extends way before drow rule.”
“That’s not an excuse to…wait. Before drow rule?”
“That was what I said.”
“Well, let’s stay on that topic for a second, huh? ‘Cause I’m hearing you say the drow didn’t always rule Ambar’ogúl.”
Corian’s gaze flicked toward her before settling on the raugs again. “Correct.”
Cheyenne stepped in front of him to block his view and waved a hand in his face. “Let them do their raug thing, man. I’m sure they can handle it without you watching them. I wanna hear about all this ‘before the drow took the throne’ stuff.”
Wrinkling his nose, Corian met her gaze. “I take it a spark of inspiration is waiting to catch fire.”
“Hey, if you’re better at teaching me O’gúl history than spellcasting, then yeah. Probably.”
He chuckled through his nose and nodded. “All right. Drow haven’t always ruled Ambar’ogúl, and it wasn’t always one Crown on the throne over all of it.”
Behind the nightstalker, L’zar picked dirt from under his fingernails and snorted. “Whoever thought that was a good idea couldn’t see any farther than their own lifetime. Or didn’t care.”
Corian rolled his eyes. “You can’t blame everyone else for not being able to see the future.”
“Of course I can. And I can see the future.” L’zar widened his eyes and flipped his fingers back and forth for a different view of his nails.
Cheyenne frowned at the drow thief and shook her head. “We can ignore him.”
The corners of Corian’s mouth twitched in amusement. “We can try. It depends on how much detail you want me to go into.”
“The CliffsNotes version is cool.”
“Mm-hmm.” Corian briefly closed his eyes to gather his thoughts. “As far as any of us know, this world started with a handful of different kingdoms, each ruled by a different race, and their capital cities inhabited mostly by the same race as their sovereign. If we’re basing any of this on what the records say—”
L’zar snorted. “Whatever records still exist and haven’t been tampered with.”
Corian ignored him and continued in a flat, unamused tone. “These kingdoms enjoyed a lot more peace and prosperity than any of us have experienced, especially in the last few thousand years.”
“I wonder why?”
Cheyenne peered around the nightstalker to shoot her father a deadpan stare, but L’zar was busy with a last-minute self-manicure on his other hand. “Peace, huh?”
“Regulated by the fighting pits, yeah. As I’m sure you noticed, that’s another of Ba’rael’s glaring mistakes during this Cycle. This is an inherently violent world, kid. We take our outlets where we can find ‘em.”
“Sure. So, peace and prosperity. Lots of different rulers. No one’s singing Kumbaya, but they’re all playing nice enough. I get it.” The halfling looked back up at the nightstalker and nodded. “What happened?”
“The drow weren’t satisfied.”
“Hey, big surprise.”
Corian smiled. “The records name him as Sylra Nightflame. Obviously not his real name, but I guess that doesn’t matter this long after the fact. He started rounding up others of his race, pulling them out of hiding and bringing as many drow together as he could to build their own little kingdom.”
“Hiding,” L’zar hissed with a humorless laugh, “Those drow didn’t hide, Corian. They were relegated.”
“They made decisions and stuck with those decisions until they found someone who would make a different choice for them.” The nightstalker folded his arms and gave Cheyenne a wide-eyed look.
Surely that was meant for L’zar, not me. The halfling tried to ignore her father’s comments, but it was impossible not to pick up on Corian’s last words. “What decisions?”
“The decision to rise up and claim their fate.”
L’zar finally stopped pretending he was far more interested in his fingernails. “That’s the mildest version in existence, vae shra’ni. Don’t sugarcoat it. By the deathflame, she’s my daughter. If anyone can handle the truth, it’s the drow standing in front of you.”
Seriously? He’s suddenly fighting to give me all the pieces of the puzzle?
As Cheyenne blinked dumbly in surprise, Corian lost his tense composure and whirled to face the drow thief. “Would you care to explain to your daughter the origins of your race’s authority in this fell-damn world?”
L’zar spread his arms, kicked one heel out to bow low over his extended leg, and grinned. “If my Nós Aní permits.”
Corian rolled his eyes and stepped aside, gesturing for L’zar to join them. The drow thief’s golden eyes flickered toward Cheyenne as he stepped into their circle of three now. She leaned away and scanned him. Same crazy grin. I think that’s his lucid face.
Behind her, a low, guttural chant rose from Cazerel, his warriors, and Foltr. Soft yellow and orange light flashed slowly, reflected in L’zar’s golden eyes. At this point, both drow had abandoned any interest in the raugs’ spell.
“Our kind rose from the darkness, Cheyenne.” L’zar tilted his head, studying her reaction. “You know our other name, don’t you? Mór edhil.”
“Dark elf.” The halfling narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t mean we are the darkness.”
“No. We were merely born from it.” His mad grin widened. “You of all people should understand we are not the source of our existence. We are not those who came before us, yet we can’t untie ourselves from the threads that birthed us, hm?”
Cheyenne leaned slowly toward her father. Jesus, this feels like talking to a toddler. If I even knew what that was like. “If you’re gonna keep talking to me in riddles, Weaver, I’d rather listen to Corian’s version.”
The nightstalker laughed and looked at the drow thief.
L’zar raised an eyebrow, his opposite eye twitching into a squint.
Okay, that’s either annoyance or approval. Here we go.
He leaned toward her until their faces were inches apart, chuckled, and withdrew. “It’s easy to forget you are exactly the age you look. So young.”
“And so not interested in being talked down to because of it.”
Corian dropped his gaze to the ground between them with a smirk.
L’zar took a sharp breath through his nose and smoothed his hair back with both hands. “Then let me spell it out for you, Cheyenne. We drow were created to live in shadow, you understand? Mór edhil. All the dark corners of this world were ours. All the darkened threads of the Weave. All the magic no one else had the balls to touch. We thrived in the darkness and the fear; it was our birthright. For the rest of Ambar’ogúl, the spaces drow inhabited, physically and with the magic running through our blood, were reserved only for the mad.”
Cheyenne tilted her head. “Sounds like you would’ve fit right in back then.”
“Indeed.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
The flashing lights of the raugs’ spell grew brighter as the gray-skinned magicals’ voices increased in volume and strength.
“We’re all a bit mad, aren’t we?” L’zar dipped his head. “I suggest you embrace it.”
“Maybe, after you get back on track and finish this illuminating history lesson.”
He chuckled. “It might make you feel sane. Sylra wanted to
bring the darkness and the light together. Not in harmony, but to lift our race higher than we were ever meant to be. His wish was well-timed. The drow were pulled toward his idea like moths to the flame, only these moths did not burn. They consumed the fire.”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes before her gaze landed on Corian. “Is he even capable of giving me a straight answer?”
The nightstalker shrugged. “Ask him.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly capable. What you should ask is if I’m interested.”
“Okay, forget it.” Cheyenne tossed her hands into the air and let them drop against her sides. “I’ll ask someone whose brain cells haven’t been fried by their own magic.”
She started to turn around.
“Cheyenne.”
The sharpness in her father’s harsh whisper made her pause.
“Hangivol is the drow city, the capital Sylra and his followers created from within the darkness. The metropolis they worked together to raise from the crumbling shadows of a world that always had and always would prefer not to see us. It’s our legacy. Ba’rael’s. Mine. Yours.”
She glanced at Corian, but the nightstalker didn’t look up from the particularly interesting patch of thin, drying grass at their feet. “So, they built the city.”
“They built the city. And their forces grew. Drow surged from the underbellies of every other O’gúl kingdom, from their eternal existence in madness and unseen power.” L’zar’s grin widened even more as a dark, longing chuckle escaped him. “Then Sylra led our people across this world and razed every other kingdom to the ground.”
“What?”
“We are conquerors, Cheyenne. One by one, the other thriving cities of every race in Ambar’ogúl fell to Sylra’s forces and his mad dream. When he was finished, Hangivol remained, the bastion of drow power, ruled by one mór edhil at a time with their Nós Aní by their side.” Giving his daughter a moment to let the information sink in, L’zar took a deep breath and spread his arms. His dark grin faded slightly, and the crazed glory burning in his golden eyes snuffed out. The raugs’ combined spell flashed brighter still, and the pace of the chanting picked up. “It’s the ultimate underdog story if you ask me.”
