by Martha Carr
Cheyenne sighed. “You threw me into a lake of fire last time, so I’ll stay right here, thanks.”
Thick black smoke belched from the creature, and it rolled farther onto its side in the pool of fire to fix its fiery eyes on her. “You may be smarter than your father as well, which he should have anticipated. Where is L’zar?”
Just when I thought he was out of the picture. Cheyenne stared at the orange and red flames flickering in the Sorren Gán’s eyesockets. “He’s not here, and I don’t think he’s coming back.”
A rolling, grating laugh bellowed from the creature’s throat. “He thinks he’s found his missing piece, has he? This is not the first time I’ve been told L’zar would never return, but he cannot help it. He is bound to me.”
Ember floated forward and stopped beside Cheyenne to mutter, “Think it knows about the curse?”
“I’m not gonna give up that information, Em. Let it think whatever it wants.”
If the Sorren Gán heard their conversation, it didn’t react. One fiery black-ribbed wing fanned out from the massive creature’s back and pointed straight at the sky, trailing smoke. Something like a roaring yawn escaped the gaping black mouth, and the pool of multi-colored fire rippled again. “The new Cycle turned for you today, did it not, little drow?”
“New Cycle, sure. Not for me.”
“Interesting.”
They stared at each other for so long, Cheyenne was about to call it and head back to the tunnel. Then the Sorren Gán puffed a stream of bright-purple flames across the barren, kicked-up earth between them. The fire reached out like tendrils toward the halfling’s face. When she felt the cool, tingling energy of the creature’s magic, she forced herself not to step away from it.
“I have feasted on the Spider’s greed.” Glistening silver smoke belched from the fiery black mouth. “I have more than enough magic to last me a thousand years, so I will give you what you seek in approaching me here.”
Cheyenne frowned at the creature and waited. She wasn’t seeking anything, but okay. This crazy-ass fire-beast wanted to give her something. Not sure she wanted it.
“I don’t want what L’zar wanted,” she said. “And I’m definitely not getting on my knees for you like he did.”
The Sorren Gán roared with laughter. The crater filled with liquid fire and the scattered pools of multi-colored flame rose higher at the sound. The creature rose slowly off its side, spewing drops of liquid fire, and sat upright in the bed it had made itself after gorging on the excess of Ba’rael’s stolen magic. “You are not your sire, little drow. There is nothing I desire that you could give me.”
“We both know you don’t give things away for free.”
“Not free. Are you not the one who released this feast for me beyond the city?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “Yeah, that was me.”
“Then cease your attempts to battle me with ingratitude,” the creature hissed. “And listen.”
After shooting a quick glance at Ember, Cheyenne cocked her head.
“You sure this is a good idea?”
“Nope. But if it doesn’t want anything from me, what’s the worst that could happen?”
The Sorren Gán released another puff of thick, acrid black smoke. The temperature around them rose by at least ten degrees, and shimmering light grew within the black cloud that hovered like a veil between the halfling and the fiery creature who feasted on magic and her father’s race.
“Your work is yet unfinished, daughter of L’zar.” The Sorren Gán’s voice radiated around the fellfire pits. Lights rippled in the cloud with every syllable as if this woven magic here were speaking instead of the creature rendered immobile by its own gluttony. “Ambar’ogúl still burns beneath the Spider’s filth. The streams run as black as the heart, and the blade unwielded grows dull.”
Oh, great. Another fucking prophecy.
“Find the vessel. For what must come next, the vessel is of you but not you, one piece of the whole and still fragmented. Separate. When you mend that fragment, little drow, the sword that cut out the heart will gleam anew, tempered by the flames I have given you.”
The shimmering cloud of black smoke disappeared, leaving a foul stench behind and the still-warming temperatures around the Sorren Gán’s feasting grounds.
“What the hell was that?” Ember muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
Cheyenne shook her head.
The Sorren Gán grunted and fell back into its fiery crater. Puffs of liquid flame spouted around it and rained down on the empty earth beyond the pits. “That is all, little drow.”
“It’s Cheyenne.”
The creature rumbled out a dark, echoing chuckle. “I know. Now leave my sight before my appetite returns.”
“What’s the vessel?”
The Sorren Gán gave no reply as it closed its flaming eyes.
“Come on.” Ember grabbed the halfling’s arm and pulled her back toward the tunnel. “I don’t think it was joking about the appetite thing.”
Another erupting column of fellfire from a pit directly in front of them cut off Cheyenne’s line of sight to the Sorren Gán, and she turned around with a scowl. “I’m sick of everybody giving me vague-ass riddles and calling them gifts. How the hell is any of that supposed to help?”
“No clue, but hey, the other prophecies kinda worked out, right?
“Yeah, but they only made sense after the fact.” They stepped back onto the walkway lining Hangivol’s outer wall. “If that’s the way prophecies are supposed to work, I’m good not hearing any of it. It only pisses me off.”
Ember smirked. “You’re handling it really well for being pissed off.”
“I’m learning.”
Cheyenne stopped at a different section of the wall and slid her finger down the column of activating code in the wall to open the door again. When the square segments peeled away to reveal another short entrance tunnel, Ember sighed. “You can do that anywhere, can’t you?”
“Everywhere with a command written in the wall to make an opening, yeah.” They walked through the tunnel back into the city, and Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “L’zar could do it without an activator.”
“He sees all the magic, though. That’s totally different. And for real, can you picture him using any of this tech?”
That made the halfling chuckle. “He’d break it before he could figure out how to use it.”
“Exactly. You’ve always had that to dangle over his head.”
“Not something I’m trying to keep going, though, Em. I’m over L’zar. He’s done everything useful he can possibly do, and he can’t even come back to this side. The drow thief is finally obsolete.”
“But not the drow halfling.”
“Sometimes I wish I were.”
Ember shook her head. “No, you don’t.”
“Kinda. Once we get the blight back under control over here, I don’t know if I’ll even have a reason to come back.”
“Oh, come on. Not even to visit all your new friends? And what about the parties?”
Cheyenne shot her friend a playful frown. “What about the parties?”
“Nothing Earthside even comes close to an O’gúl rager.”
“Ha. So that’s your favorite part.”
The fae girl shrugged. “Hey, now that I’m not watching from the sidelines in a wheelchair anymore, yeah. I think that’s my favorite part.”
They both laughed and passed through an alley between high metal buildings that was dark beneath the now-black sky. “After we clean up the shitstorm Ba’rael left behind, Em, sure, we can come back for the O’gúl ragers.”
“Nice.”
As soon as they emerged from the alley into the artificial light cast by glowing lamps jutting from the metal walls, a swarm of floating silver orbs swooped toward them. Blue and yellow lights flashed as the orbs’ multiple segments spun.
Ember peered up at the floating pieces of tech and frowned. “Somebody’s trying to get a better look at
the ex-Crown.”
“Well, somebody’s gonna be disappointed.” Cheyenne raised her hand toward the closest bobbing orb and struck it with a telekinetic wave. The orb hurtled backward, and with the activator’s help, she disassembled some high-society magical’s spy drone into a hundred glistening pieces. Then she scattered them across the street.
The other orbs whirred and spun madly, lights flashing as if the tech machines were as surprised as whoever controlled them from their high towers in Upper Tech.
Ember snorted and folded her arms. “Yeah. Really disappointed.”
Cheyenne glared at the other orbs, targeting each of them with her activator and locking on. Nah. Better to send a message than say nothing, right?
“Okay, I might be co-ruling with Persh’al Tenishi, or whatever we wanna call it,” she said, making sure it came out loud enough for the orbs to pick up, “but I’m not a circus act. Mind your own business. Got it?”
One of the orbs slowly dipped away from the others and toward her.
Cheyenne summoned a crackling sphere of black energy in one hand and let it flare a little larger than normal. “Get lost.”
The orbs whirred and bobbed away down the street, their owners clearly having picked up on the message.
“You think someone’s gonna charge you for the damage?” Ember asked.
“They can try.” Cheyenne laughed in surprise and spread her arms. “I might be the poorest magical in Hangivol, though.”
“And one of the richest trust-fund babies in Virginia. What a way to keep the drow co-Crown humble, right?”
Both girls burst out laughing and headed through the lower-level streets toward the unceasing roar of the celebrating O’gúleesh echoing toward them from the fighting pits. They stopped when a larger and darker metal sphere rounded the corner of the next building up ahead. The thing clicked and whirred slowly, with far fewer flashing lights than the others.
“Seriously, with everything running through this giant system, it shouldn’t be that hard to get the damn point across.”
Ember pointed at it. “That one looks old.”
“Older generation.” Cheyenne studied the simplified code swirling around the orb and summoned another black energy sphere. “Easier to take out, I’m guessing.”
The floating dark orb clicked twice. “A message for the Black Flame.”
The voice was tinny and spoke through a thin buzz of static.
Cheyenne snuffed out her attack. “Right.”
Grinning, Ember cocked her head at the orb and nudged her friend’s arm. “I still can’t get over how cool that name is.”
“I mean, it’s better than ‘princess.’” Cheyenne folded her arms and nodded at the messenger orb. “Go ahead, then. What’s the message?”
“Your new quarters are waiting for you in the inner ring. Do you wish to see them?”
“New quarters?” Ember turned slowly to look at her friend and raised her eyebrows. “Fancy.”
“In the drow level, too.” Cheyenne waved at the messenger orb. “Sure. We’ll check ‘em out.”
“Follow.” Two green lights flashed on the orb’s middle segment, then it took off past them and floated down the narrow side street.
“Look at that. Personal tech escort to your new quarters in Hangivol.” Ember laughed. “You’re gonna get real comfy here, aren’t you?”
“We can hang out for a few days, at least.” They turned the corner after the orb, which led them around a knot of magicals dancing and drinking and punching each other in the face when the side street widened into one of the lower level’s main avenues. “Jeeze. Might as well be a mosh pit out here.”
“You ever been to a real one?” Ember asked, staring at an orc woman and an ogre man, thin by ogre standards, crashing their tankards into each other’s shoulders and laughing at the foam spilling all over both of them.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. Seems like your kinda scene.”
“Oh, sure. A bunch of people jumping around in a packed venue, shoving me from behind and elbowing me in the face. The whole world would know I was there after that.”
Ember snorted. “Hey, you’ve gotten a lot better at keeping your drow explosions under control.”
“And when the hell have I had the time to go to a concert since I learned how to do that?”
“Well, here’s your chance.”
“I wanna check out my quarters first. Hey, watch it!” Cheyenne stepped out of the way and raised a shimmering black shield beside her when an empty bottle of dark green glass sailed end over end toward them. It thunked into her shield and shattered when it hit the ground, followed by an explosion of laughter.
“No one touches the Black Flame of Hangivol!”
“Throw it back, drow!”
“She’s gonna rip off your head, Moxley.”
Cheyenne kept walking after the orb. “You know what? If my new apartment or whatever fits our standards, I’m good to hang out there for a while. If not, I might come back here and join the party.”
“You mean, join the street brawl and rip off a few heads?”
“That’s a healthy emotional outlet over here, Em.”
“To the new Crown!” A goblin man stumbled toward them, sloshing his drink as he spread his arms and reached toward Ember to pull her into the party.
She zapped the tankard out of his dripping purple hand and sent it skittering across the ground beneath the stomping feet in the crowd, and he hobbled off after it with a snarl.
“Yeah, I’m down for a night in too.”
Chapter Ten
The orb led them by the quickest route through Upper Tech, which gave Cheyenne and Ember only a moment to look at the raging party in the posh upper level’s glittering silver streets. A group of ridiculously dressed skaxen stared at them before the messenger orb opened a new tunnel and disappeared through it.
“High-society skaxen in bird costumes.” Ember waved enthusiastically at them before darting through the newly opened tunnel, which took them up a flight of stairs. “You can’t make this stuff up here, can you?”
“Upper Tech’s weird.” The tunnel door closed behind them, and up ahead, the messenger orb activated lines of soft white light along either side of the ceiling. “Feathers might be a step up from a sequined cape.”
“On a skaxen?”
“Yeah. And glitter.”
“Ew.”
When they reached the uppermost level of Hangivol surrounding the Crown’s fortress, the echoing celebrations on every other level of the city had died to a low murmur far below.
“Wow.” Ember looked around with raised eyebrows, nodding at the drow in the streets, who stood in small groups and talked in low voices. “This is how drow party, huh? All calm and regal.”
Cheyenne pointed at a group of drow tossing shimmering metal disks in the air and seeing how many blurred, speedy punches they could get in on their opponents before catching the disks again. “Not sure I’d call that regal.”
Blood sprayed from a drow woman’s mouth when her opponent clocked her in the jaw. With a low chuckle, she grinned and burst into enhanced speed. The next second, she was behind the drow man who’d punched her, with an arm around his neck and one of the metal disks held to his throat. The disk clicked and pushed out four serrated blade tips that pressed against his flesh. The drow man laughed and raised his arms, and the others gathered around them laughed.
Ember shrugged. “I mean, royalty were all drow before this, so yeah. Kinda regal.”
“It’s fucking each other up for fun, Em.” Cheyenne caught the glowing silver gazes of three drow women holding small silver cups of fellwine that illuminated their faces in an eerie green glow as they stood in the doorway of a squat metal building. They raised their glasses, and she gave them a half-nod of acknowledgment. “I mean, I get that this is how things work over here, but I’m not that into it.”
“For real? You, the Goth drow who’s always been into this kinda d
ark shit?”
“Okay, can you picture us bashing each other’s brains in for fun?”
“We’d have some ice cream afterward and call it good.” They laughed, and Ember shook her head. “No. I’ll slap you in the face when you need a good reminder of how stupid you get when you’re pissed, but that’s about it. Don’t get me wrong, though—I enjoy it. A little.”
“I probably would too if I were you, but I’m not gonna hit you for fun.”
“You’re scared of the fae magic.”
“Uh-huh.”
The orb stopped at an immensely tall metal building visible from the outer rooms of the Crown’s fortress and flashed another green light. “Twelfth floor.”
“Oh, good. We get to take it from here.”
With another grating click that sounded like old mechanisms sticking on each other, the messenger orb opened a panel on its underbelly and tossed a black metal square at the halfling. She caught it and glanced at the O’gúl rune etched on one side. Her activator translated it into a room number, 1242.
“Coded for your convenience. If the Black Flame desires additional features, she will find the design panel inside the door.” The thing took off for the walls of the fortress and disappeared through an open window. A thin metal panel slid into place behind it with a bang.
“I seriously wish they’d use my name already.”
“I mean, that is your name now, right?”
“Not really.” Cheyenne grabbed the gleaming door handle and opened the door for Ember to float inside. “But if it gets me my own quarters outside the fortress, I guess I can deal with it.”
The hallway inside was lit by soft yellow lights along walls that led back to a round black metal platform on the opposite side. Cheyenne’s activator lit the access pathways when they mounted the platform, and she swiped her hand and the black room chip across the wall.
“Whoa.” Ember spun when the black dais lifted them off the bottom floor and through a circular tube climbing up the back of the building. Lines of soft light flashed up and down as they passed the lower stories and headed to the twelfth floor. “They have elevators here.”