by Martha Carr
There he sat in the Oracle’s lair in Ambar’ogúl, the dark walls much lighter in his memory. There was a lot less blood on those walls too, but the surroundings weren’t important, just the conversation.
The wizened, shriveled Oracle with black lines all over her wrinkled face opened her eyes. They’d been a dark storm-gray before he’d asked her for the prophecy of his lineage. Now they were a swirling, misty white.
“The Cu’ón is doomed to lose his bloodline time and again.” The voice was a raspy croak, rattling like death from an ancient mouth perpetually stained red. “The endless search for an heir will bring each one of them to death’s door. Only the scion never pursued will rise to their destiny. When the shackles of the old laws crumble, their purpose will be fulfilled.”
In this vision of L’zar’s memory, he heard his own voice—so steady, so sure of itself. So goddamn foolish. “Explain this, Oracle.”
The prophetic whiteness filtered away from the Oracle’s eyes, and a wrinkled, gnarled hand reached into a bowl of blood sitting beside her. Fingers dipped into all that red, and she drew a line of it down her face from forehead to beneath her chin. “Every child you sire is doomed to the same fate, Cu’ón. You will go to them to mold each one into the shape of your heir, but you will fail. Death rides on the heels of your eagerness. Every child will fall beneath your guiding hand, and you will pursue them over and over to the same end.”
The L’zar from centuries ago, wavering in the silver light of the memory spell, folded his arms and lifted his chin. “Will any of them survive?”
“No. Not while you try so hard to bring them to their destiny. And you will keep trying, drow. You will never stop.” The crone snickered and pressed a blood-covered finger against L’zar’s chest. “Your greed and your pride make you unstoppable.” Then she bent over her aged lap and fell into a fit of wheezing, paper-thin cackles.
Sitting in the cell in the Dungeon, L’zar swiped his hand through the glistening light of his memory, and the vision disappeared. His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists. I was such a cocksure idiot then. That prophecy proved itself, all right. Not this time. This time, my pride sits behind bars with me. We’ll wait together for as long as it takes.
Chapter Three
Sir didn’t ask Cheyenne to put the stupid black bag over her head again when they got back into his orange Kia Rio. Maybe he’d forgotten the route to Chateau D’rahl was supposed to be a secret. Maybe he knew if he told her to put it on, she’d send a blast of drow magic into his stupid mustache.
Cheyenne didn’t care what he thought, and she wasn’t paying attention to the roads he drove them down anyway. L’zar can laugh all he wants. He’s the one spending the rest of his life in a damn cage.
After ten minutes of strained silence, Sir cleared his throat. “I’m guessing that didn’t go the way you were hoping.”
“No shit.”
“The guy’s been nothing but a pain in the ass since we put him behind bars.” Sir shrugged and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Don’t take it personally, halfling. It’s not just you.”
She had nothing to say.
“Hey, at least he didn’t try to throw you around the giant cavern or anything. Or try to phase you through the bars to hold you hostage. He’s a real piece of shit. You can count yourself lucky—”
“We’re not having a heart-to-heart right now,” Cheyenne muttered. “Just stick to being an asshole. You’re a lot better at that.”
A choking sound came from Sir’s mouth—he might have tried to hold back a laugh. Instead, he readjusted his aviator sunglasses and cleared his throat again. “Yeah, I know.”
Trees and cars and highway signs whizzed past them as he took her back toward the business park where she’d left her car. Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair and rolled her eyes. “So, what has to happen before I get another escort to Chateau D’rahl?”
Sir did a double-take. “You wanna see him again?”
“Probably not. Just give me my options.”
“All right, halfling. I’d say our deal’s still on the table if you’re willing to keep sitting at it. You keep the phone on you and your schedule open. Stay chummy with Rhynehart for whatever ops we think could benefit from you stickin’ around. That will earn you more points to turn in for another fun get-together with Daddy.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Didn’t think we were working on a point system.”
“Like a goddamn arcade, right? You win the tickets, you get a prize.” He shook his head. “We’ll say, three ride-alongs with my men equals one ride on the Chateau D’rahl Express. The thought of going back there to see the drow’s ugly mug and listen to you two talk over each other doesn’t make me jump for joy, but I’ll take you again after the three more jobs.”
“Don’t call it a job if you’re not paying me anything.” She turned her head just enough to shoot him a sideways glance. “I thought Bianca drilled that into you hard enough.”
Sir grunted but ignored the jibe about how quickly and easily her mom had buried him in legalities on the back veranda of her estate. “I’m paying you in visitations, halfling. You can’t buy your way into Chateau D’rahl. Plenty of people have tried.”
“Plenty of magicals break out of there, too. Or was that just an extra special night for everyone?”
The morning sunlight glinted across Sir’s face as it passed like a strobe light through the trees lining the highway. She caught a glimpse of his eyes darting toward her beneath the dark sunglasses before returning to the road. “That was a first. I’m not surprised it hasn’t happened again.”
“Good to know you have so much faith in your security over there.” The halfling thumped her head back against the headrest.
“Those men know what they’re doing, and the prison’s security has gone through more updates than the iPhone I don’t have. I’ll tell you what, though. If the bastard really wanted out right now, he’d be out. He already did it once.”
She didn’t say anything to that. Sir had heard her entire conversation with L’zar and already knew the answer the drow inmate had given for that one.
“I wanna know why he’s still playing prisoner,” Sir continued. “Find out for me the next time you cash in your FRoE points for another visit, and you’ll have unrestricted access to the guy. Then I can quit spending my Sundays being a goddamn halfling chauffeur.”
Cheyenne turned to look at him full-on. He’s serious. “Game on.”
Sir nodded and gave another little grunt. “Smart move, halfling.”
“Hey, while we’re stuck in your car together, anything you can tell me about those bull’s-head pendants?”
The man’s head rocked back in confusion, and he shot her a quick glance. Whatever she might have been able to see in his eyes was hidden by the tinted lenses. “I don’t have a goddamn clue what you’re spoutin’ off about. Didn’t even understand half the shit you two were talking about in there. If you want answers to useless questions, don’t ask the guy who doesn’t do useless.”
Right, like Sir’s been useful for much of anything.
“Didn’t expect you to have an answer.”
“Oh, sure. Just wanna keep up the small talk, huh? You suck at that, just like I suck at emotions.”
Cheyenne took a deep breath. He sounds a lot more desperate, the longer I’m with him. She glanced at the sign for the next exit coming up—just two more before they’d turn off into the business park. Time to shut down drow mode. Think of the woods.
The heat of her drow magic fizzled out in a second, drawing itself back inside her to wait for the next time she needed it. Her purple-gray skin faded back to its unnatural human paleness, the bone-white hair returning to High Voltage Raven Black. She lifted a hand absently to her ears to feel their rounded tops and dropped her forearm back onto the armrest. I can’t wait to get out of this car.
When Sir turned into the huge, empty parking lot, the buckle of Cheyenne’s seatbelt clicked against the
side of the car before they’d come to a complete stop. She jerked open the passenger-side door as Sir shifted into park, and he snorted as she leaped out. “You and me both, halfling. Keep the phone—”
The door slammed shut, and Cheyenne walked briskly to the driver’s side of her matte-gray Ford Focus with its chipped and peeling paint. “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s still on me.”
Sir sped away in his screaming-orange Kia Rio, and the halfling slipped quickly behind the wheel of her car. She took a deep breath to calm herself even further. As soon as she started the car, her personal phone let out a little chirp from inside her jacket pocket. Another text from Ember.
Hey, if you’re awake and not too busy, can you run by my place and pick up more of my things? Since it looks like I’ll be staying here a little longer after all.
Cheyenne smirked and texted back.
No problem. What do you need?
Clothes. Don’t forget the underwear this time. Bathroom stuff. It’s all pretty much in a bag on the counter. A couple of books. Literally, anything stacked on my desk that isn’t for classes. This place has shitty cable, and I’m not about to buy an issue of Good Housekeeping just to have something to read.
Very specific. I’ll try not to screw it up.
Ember sent crazy-face emojis and a heart, followed by, You’re the best. See you soon.
Cheyenne just sent her a thumbs-up and stuck her phone back into her pocket. Then she strapped herself in and got the hell out of the business park.
* * *
It took her about twenty minutes to get back to the north side of Jackson Ward and Ember’s apartment. There weren’t that many people out and about yet, at least in the apartment complex. She walked through the hallway on the ground floor, which was open to the air, and stopped at the last apartment on the left. After squatting to lift the corner of the doormat, she pulled the spare key out from underneath and unlocked the door. First floor. That’ll make things easier when they let her out.
Ember’s apartment was almost the exact opposite of Cheyenne’s because the fae grad student had furniture in her living room, with brightly colored throw pillows and everything. It smelled like lavender hand soap and the Nag Champa incense beside the small pot of bamboo on a table by the window.
The halfling went straight back to the bedroom and rummaged through her friend’s drawers, tossing everything that might work onto the blue bedspread covered in gray stars. When she found the underwear drawer, she paused. I should bring her some handmade troll lingerie.
She burst out laughing, grabbed a handful of underwear from the drawer, and tossed that on the bed too. A quick search through the closet netted her another tote bag, and Cheyenne stuffed everything into it. Without bothering to look at the titles, she grabbed the top three books stacked on the desk beside the bed, then headed into the bathroom. Damn, she keeps things clean in here.
There wasn’t even a toothbrush on the counter by the sink, and she had to search through the medicine cabinet up top and the one below before she found the toiletries bag. She opened it to make sure it had what Ember needed, then shrugged and tossed the small zipped bag into the tote with everything else. As she slung the bag over her shoulder and stepped into the hall to leave, her drow hearing picked up heavy footsteps from the open hallway outside.
She didn’t think anything of it until the footsteps came all the way down the row of apartments and stopped outside the last door on the left. Ember’s.
Cheyenne slowly lowered the bag off her shoulder. The doorknob turned. She dropped the tote.
By the time the front door to Ember’s apartment burst open, the halfling had already let the heat of her drow magic race up her spine and take over—just in time for a tall, gangly troll to storm inside. There was a disturbingly yellow tint around the edges of his purple eyes and lips, which he licked nervously. A bright-orange skaxen with long, greasy red hair falling over his shoulders stepped in behind the troll.
Now, that looks like a rat.
The door slammed behind them, and it took the intruders a moment to see the drow halfling standing in the hallway to the bedroom. Cheyenne summoned a crackling black orb of energy with bright purple churning at the core and cocked her head. “Bet you were expecting someone else, huh?”
The troll let out a high-pitched giggle. “Just you, mór úcare.”
Chapter Four
A spark of neon-yellow light burst from his fingertips and streaked across the living room. Cheyenne’s enhanced speed kicked in, and she stepped sideways to avoid the attack of sickly electric magic. When time sped up again, she stood two feet from where the troll’s spell cracked against the back of the hallway. A burst of drywall puffed out into the living room. The halfling shrugged. “Your aim sucks.”
Then she launched her black sphere at the troll’s chest. He dove out of the way just before her magic blasted the edge of a cabinet above the stove, splintering the wood and ripping the door off the hinges.
“You think sneaking Earthside is gonna hide you from us?” The skaxen leered at her, his words whistling through the many gaps between his razor-sharp teeth. “The O’gúl Eye searches across more than one world, mór úcare. And the head follows.”
With surprising speed, the skaxen leaped onto the kitchen counter, knocking down a jar of loose change and hissing like a rat. The thick silver chain lurched out from beneath his shirt, another bull’s-head pendant dangling off it.
“Lemme guess, you’re talking about cattle.” Purple sparks flared at the tips of Cheyenne’s fingers, but she waited a little longer. Whatever the hell he just said, he thinks I know what it means.
The skaxen whipped something that looked like an AA battery out of his jacket pocket and raised it like he meant to throw the thing. A dark shimmer erupted from his hand and trembled there before slowly growing. He shrieked in excitement, spit flying from his bright-orange lips.
“Looks like your spells are stalling on you, asshole.” The halfling went to toss sparks at the idiot, just to see what he’d do after his totally unnecessary jump onto the counter, but the troll had pushed himself back to his feet and summoned another piss-yellow bolt of energy. The light it gave off was the same color as the yellowing skin around his mouth.
Cheyenne let him get closer before she whipped her hand out toward him. Black tendrils of magic shot from her fingertips and writhed across the living room. The first one coiled around his wrist and jerked it aside. His spell hurtled into the beige couch, sending orange throw pillows and puffs of feathers in every direction. Then she balled her fist and yanked the troll off his feet, the black tendrils coiled around both his ankles and the other shoulder.
He screamed as she hurled him across the living room toward the wall beside the TV stand. First he crashed into the wall, then he dropped and almost knocked the flat-screen TV to the floor. She thought about trying to save her friend’s furniture, but then the skaxen leaped from the counter and screeched. More spit flew from his mouth.
Mostly to avoid the stench and whatever messed-up diseases the ratlike skaxen carried in his mouth, Cheyenne slipped into her enhanced speed mode again and stepped aside. The slavering orange magical sailed through the air, his beady eyes focused on where she’d just been standing. He still clenched that weird battery in his clawed hand, and the growing circle of black light expanded faster than it should have with its caster suspended. What is that?
Cheyenne shot her black tendrils toward the flying skaxen and coiled them around his middle. The rest of the world sped back up as she jerked him down out of the air and smashed him into the carpeted floor. The skaxen screamed when she launched him back up and maybe broke his back against the apartment’s ceiling. More drywall and plaster came down with him as she bashed the magical one more time into the floor. The battery-thing sailed from his hand toward the window and vanished, drawing the black circle of light into it with a little pop.
After withdrawing her writhing whips of drow magic, the halfling stopped and al
lowed herself a moment to survey the damage. Gotta quit fighting these assholes in other people’s apartments.
The skaxen wheezed and coughed out a spray of spit and what looked a lot like orange blood, but he lay still after that and didn’t look like he’d be getting back up anytime soon. The troll lying in a heap beside the TV stand tried to growl at her, but it came out more like a groan.
Cheyenne stormed across the living room toward him, summoning another sparking black orb to keep his attention. The troll’s red-black eyes—the whites now taking on the same yellow tinge—rolled as he clung to consciousness. When she saw the glint of another thick chain beneath the guy’s t-shirt, she bent and yanked the rest of the chain out so she could see it. She shook the bull pendant and snarled, “Wanna tell me what the hell this is?”
After a quick, surprised blink, the troll burst into more high-pitched cackling with a little rasping at the end. “More of us hear the call every day, mór úcare. Now that she has your scent, the rest will be coming for you. And trust me, there are way more of us now than there were before the crossing.”
She tossed the pendant against his chest and straightened. “Now that who has my scent?”
Another creepy giggle burst from the troll. “You’re as stupid as you look.”
“Yeah, you too.” The halfling closed her fist around the sizzling orb of black energy and smashed it into the troll’s skull. He thumped against the TV stand, causing the flatscreen, which had already come precariously close to falling off, to wobble again. Cheyenne’s hand clamped on the corner of the TV, and she swiveled it back into place. Then she stepped away from her unconscious attacker and shot the skaxen another glance. That was easy.
She stepped back into the hallway to pick up the tote of Ember’s things and slung it across her shoulder. An automatic grimace passed over her face, but when she realized the black-magic holes in her shoulder were as healed as they’d been in the Dungeon, she snorted. That was the only good thing to come out of that little visit. And I can’t waste my time with these idiots.