The Drow Hath Sent Thee

by Martha Carr

  Venga snorted. “No, fae. You still will not be able to heal the human from her affliction. When it becomes an option, I’ll let you know.”

  “Well, then I seriously hope you have an explanation for this.”

  Cheyenne, Venga, and both nightstalkers turned to look at the fae. Ember pointed at the ground and swallowed thickly.

  Bianca Summerlin rose slowly off the floor of the lab, not on her own two feet but pulled by some invisible force connected to the center of her chest. Her arms and legs dangled below her, and her head hung limply. Orange light surrounded her, and a wind that didn’t exist whipped her hair away from her head. Hovering five feet in the air, Bianca tilted forward until she hung upright, suspended by the magic flowing through her. Her eyes flew open, and a darker orange light blazed behind them with blinding intensity.

  Corian bared his teeth and growled. “Shit.”

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  “That’s seriously all you have to say right now?” Cheyenne clenched her fists, then hissed at the pain of the raw burns and opened them again. “What’s going on?”

  “Hmm.” Venga tapped the Nimlothar leaf on his scaly lips, realized what he was doing, and quickly lowered it. “It would seem we’ve breached the next level in the vessel’s purpose.”

  “Dumb it down, necromancer,” Maleshi growled.

  “The vessel has been activated.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Cheyenne glared at him. “You know what? Put the leaf down and don’t touch it again, okay?”

  Corian thrust an open hand under the scaleback’s nose but didn’t take his eyes off Bianca. Venga hissed and slapped the Nimlothar leaf into the nightstalker’s hand. “I think I understand what must be done.”

  “Just a guess this time too, or do you finally know what you’re doing?”

  “We shall see.” Grinning, the necromancer turned back to his workbench, his four arms flying into action again as he searched through the mess for whatever he thought he needed. “Keep an eye on her, yes?”

  “What the hell else would we do?” Cheyenne stared at her mom, who didn’t look like Bianca anymore as she floated in the air, the runes on her flesh blazing brightly through her clothes and her eyes open in an unblinking orange stare.

  “Just do what you can to avoid any distractions.”

  “Like what?” Ember asked, her mouth falling open.

  Bianca’s arms lifted from where they’d hung limply at her sides, and her palms flashed with more orange light. The ground trembled.

  “Ah.” Venga pointed at her before snatching a small tin box off the shelf beside him. “Like that.”

  “What’s she doing?” Cheyenne asked.

  Maleshi leaned backward and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Bianca screamed.

  The fortress at the center of Hangivol rocked on its foundations. What little real stone existed crumbled under the magical force, and the metal made to look like stone groaned. Sparks flew where the ceiling met the walls, and the floor bucked beneath them, sending fractured metal segments flying away from Bianca in all directions.

  “Fuck.” Cheyenne stumbled sideways, then shoved herself away from the workbench and headed to Bianca. “Mom?”

  “She can’t hear you, drow,” Venga shouted. In the courtyard on the other side of the lab, a huge slab of stone broke away from the wall and crashed to the ground. “Don’t let her tear the place apart, or we’ll have to start all over.”

  “Then that’s what we have to do.” Maleshi marched toward Bianca, and Cheyenne spun to head her off.

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what, Cheyenne?”

  The next ripple pulsing away from Bianca along the metal floor sent all the magicals staggering backward.

  “She hasn’t done anything.”

  “But she will.” The general gestured at the floating human in the center of the room. “Look at her!”

  “Not until we have to.” Cheyenne dodged a flying shard of metal ripped from the floor. “And I do it.”

  “Fine. You can’t hesitate.”

  “You don’t know what she’ll do!”

  “If you can hold her off long enough,” Venga shouted over the trembling roar of the fortress slowly coming apart at the seams, “I should be able to prepare what we need.”

  A huge section of the metal wall ripped apart with a screech and sailed across the room. Corian’s claws were out in half a second, slicing the projectile in half before it had a chance to crash into him. “Is that a guarantee?” he shouted.

  “It’s good enough!”

  The orange light around Bianca burst outward, ripping metal infused with O’gúl magi-tech out of the floor and walls and ceiling. Shrapnel and thick chunks of metal spun around the room, with Cheyenne’s cursed human vessel at its center.

  The halfling blasted a flying shard aside with a telekinetic wave and ducked another hurtling toward her head from the other direction. “Why is she doing this?”

  “Built-up pressure,” Venga shouted, then sniggered. “She needs to let off some steam.”

  Ember dodged more shrapnel and raised a shield of purple light in front of herself. “Not funny.”

  A wind kicked up beneath the spinning, hurtling pieces of metal and picked up the tools and supplies from Venga’s workbench. The necromancer snarled in frustration as he tried to block his work from the growing vortex behind him.

  “Cheyenne, if this gets too far out of hand,” Maleshi called above the roaring tremble beneath them and the howling gale building in the lab, “you know we can’t hold back.”

  “That won’t happen.” Cheyenne stared at Bianca, who was harder to see by the second with all the flying objects spinning around her.

  Bianca threw her head back and jerked in the air before every floating thing in the lab closed in on her.

  “Mom!” Cheyenne darted toward the compressing wall of junk.

  “Cheyenne, wait!” Corian leaped after her, then the room exploded with orange light.

  Shrapnel and tools, books, and sheets of the metal wall were flung away in a massive shockwave. Cheyenne and Corian were blown backward by it. The halfling managed to raise a shield in front of them both before the sharpened pieces hit it. Ember floated across the floor, her fae shield protecting her even as she bumped into the wall and was pinned there by the blast. Maleshi darted into enhanced speed and knocked aside the worst of the explosion, slamming huge chunks of metal to the ground between bursts of crackling silver light. Venga gripped the workbench with two hands to steady himself and kept working with the other two.

  With a low growl, Cheyenne glanced down at the curved end of what looked like a pair of scissors sticking out of her thigh. She jerked it out and tossed it to the floor, then headed for Bianca again. “Mom. Can you hear me? You can fight this.”

  “You don’t know that,” Maleshi spat.

  “Hey, I’m the only other one directly affected by this curse.” Cheyenne flashed her burned palms at the general. “So unless you have any better ideas, I’m gonna go with—”

  A streak of orange light slammed into her chest and knocked her to the floor. Cheyenne sucked in a gasping breath against the pressure in her lungs and blinked. More streams of orange light burst from Bianca’s palms and feet, crashing into the walls and shelves of Venga’s supplies without any real purpose. The chaise exploded under another attack, sending a spray of turquoise feathers into the air.

  Cheyenne pushed to her feet and took a deep breath. I can’t believe I’m about to fight my mom right now. With magic. What the fuck?

  “Venga, hurry up!” She dodged another blast of orange light as Bianca spun slowly in the air, glowing brighter with each passing second. Another magical explosion cracked the wall and sent a spray of metal shards raining down on the workbench.

  Ember floated over to Bianca and hesitantly turned to look at Cheyenne. “Anything I can do?”

  More vessel than Bianca Summerlin now, the floating woman spun i
n the air and launched an orange attack at Ember. Cheyenne threw a shield up in front of her friend, and the orange blast ricocheted off the dark wall of her magic before crashing into the sparsely filled shelves above Venga’s workbench.

  “Yeah, Em.” Cheyenne nodded at her friend. “Maybe don’t draw any more attention to yourself.”

  Venga swiped the scattered bits of broken glass and metal fragments out of his way and kept working.

  “Got it.” Ember raised a shield again and didn’t move.

  Corian and Maleshi prowled back and forth across the lab behind Venga, watching Bianca becoming more and more unhinged as they ducked the messier bursts of warded curse magic and darted into enhanced speed to avoid the others.

  The ground trembled again, more particles of dust and finely ground metal sifted down from the ceiling, and Cheyenne saw cracks growing from one side of the lab to the other. She’s gonna bring this whole place down on top of us.

  “Mom!”

  Bianca spun in the air, shooting orange attacks in all directions.

  “Mom, look. Come on. I’m right here.”

  “What are you doing, kid?” Maleshi growled.

  “Trying to get through.” Cheyenne stepped over to her mother, whose eyes were unfocused orbs of uncontrollable magic. How the hell does she have all that inside her? “It’s me. You have to focus.”

  A small whimper came from the woman’s lips.

  Corian cocked his head. “Huh. Didn’t expect that to work.”

  The flashing orange lights slowed, though the walls of Hangivol’s fortress still trembled around them in a pulsing rhythm.

  “You’re here for a reason, remember? And it’s not this, Mom. We’re not ready yet.”

  Bianca slowly lowered from her hovering vantage point in the center of the room, orange eyes maybe focused on her daughter, maybe seeing something else.

  Cheyenne thought, I have no idea what she’s thinking in there, if she’s even thinking anything. But I guess being vague enough has its uses.

  When her mom’s feet came within a foot of the trembling ground, Venga slammed a fist on his workbench and whirled, thrusting a black circlet into the air that looked like it was made of dark light and nothing else. “Got it!”

  Bianca spun toward the necromancer and roared, reaching out with both hands to pelt Venga with streams of orange attack magic.

  “Mom, stop!”

  Venga raised the black circlet, and the vessel’s searing magic bounced off it in waves, redirecting it at the walls and the ceiling.

  Maleshi looked at the growing cracks and hissed. “Get her to stop, kid.”

  “I don’t know how!”

  “If you don’t, I will.”

  Cheyenne looked between her mom and Venga, who laughed as the circlet protected him but quickly destroyed what remained of his lab. I can’t. I can’t just take her out. I almost had her back.

  The cracks in the ceiling widened, and one end dropped before stopping, barely hanging on by secured metal panels.

  “Time’s up.” Maleshi darted to Bianca, her silver claws flashing in the glow of the orange light and magic and sparks flying around.

  “No!” Cheyenne darted into enhanced speed and raced after the general. Lashing black tendrils shot from her fingertips and wrapped around Maleshi’s wrists before she pulled. The general slipped into enhanced speed with her as she was jerked backward and sliced Cheyenne’s magic with her claws.

  The drow cried out, and Maleshi crouched with a hiss. “You said you could do it.”

  “We’re not there yet!”

  “We’ll find some other way, kid, but if your mom can’t pull it together, we’re all going down with her.”

  Cheyenne gestured at Venga in suspended animation, the black circlet he’d created raised in front of him to block Bianca’s slowed attack. “He said he has it. Whatever it is, it works against this vessel magic. I’ll get her to stop, and Venga gets the chance to use it. We still have time.”

  Maleshi stared at the cracked ceiling and half the room slowly caving in on itself as time moved much slower everywhere but within their conversation.

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I get it.”

  The flash of blinding white light bursting from the circlet in Venga’s hands overwhelmed them. It knocked them both out of enhanced speed, and Cheyenne watched everything else happen as if the rest of the world were still frozen.

  She saw Venga’s newest invention spew a stream of crackling white magic at her mom. She saw the cracked ceiling cave in the rest of the way. She saw Maleshi running toward Bianca, not to hurt the woman but to get her out of the way.

  Cheyenne’s drow magic took over in an instant. Black flames burst to life on her flesh and raced over every part of her as she darted between Venga’s attack and her mom. The white stream of fiery light struck close enough to one of her wounded shoulders to make her roar in pain. It knocked her against Maleshi, who barreled into Bianca and was thrown aside by whatever wards surrounded the vessel.

  Bianca and Cheyenne fell to the ground as Maleshi crashed against the far wall of the lab. The drow had just enough time to see the ceiling drop toward her and her mom.

  “Cheyenne!” Ember raced toward her friend as the fortress’ ceiling crashed down on the drow and her human mother. Dust and sparks and screeching strips of metal pelted the rest of the lab, but Ember raced forward behind her violet-tinted fae shield.

  “No, no, no. Get…hey!” She spun toward a stunned Corian. “Help me!”

  He blinked quickly, looking confused as he stared at the massive pile of rubble where Cheyenne and Bianca had been.

  “Corian!”

  “Yeah.” He shook off his bafflement and ran to the ruins to haul a massive chunk of metal and crumbling stone off the top of the pile.

  Ember’s hands spewed purple light as her magic tossed one broken bit of ceiling after another across the lab.

  Venga still held the wavering black circlet tightly with two hands, his all-black eyes shimmering as he searched the wreckage for movement. “This was not part of the design,” he muttered. “If the vessel is destroyed, we’re all fucked.”

  “Shut up and do something useful, will you?” Maleshi peeled herself off the floor with a grunt and staggered over to the caved-in mess. She joined the others in trying to unbury Cheyenne and Bianca, baring her teeth and growling with every toss of metal rubble.

  They got halfway through the huge mound before the rest of it shifted and trembled. Corian and Maleshi saw the movement at the same time, and he reached tentatively to Ember. “Stop.”

  “No! She could still be okay!” Ember’s purple magic flickered as she tossed more rubble aside.

  “Ember.” Maleshi walked quickly to her and grabbed the fae’s wrist. “Just stop!”

  Ember’s elbow swung into the general’s nose with a sharp crack. Maleshi shouted and staggered back. The fae spun to see what she’d done but didn’t apologize. “I’m not giving up.”

  Maleshi wiped the trickle of blood out from under her nose and sniffed. “You don’t have to. Just look.”

  The pile of rubble trembled and groaned, metal screeching and clanging as hundreds of pounds of Hangivol’s fortress’ ceiling bucked and lifted bit by bit. Ember stared and slowly backed across the rubble-strewn floor. “What?”

  The debris rose into the air and slowly started spinning like it had around the vessel. Corian grimaced. “What if the human starts shooting warded blasts again?”

  “It’s not Bianca,” Ember muttered.

  “Are you seeing something I’m not, fae?”

  “Yeah.” Ember pointed at the center of the swirling metal pieces.

  The only thing visible in the center of the clanking, spinning storm was a thick ball of black flame—no Cheyenne, no Bianca, just the drow black fire. Then the shards and crumpled bits and dented plates of metal sparked with blue light racing across them like an electrical charge. Every destroyed piece returned to its p
lace in the ceiling, walls, and floors, the metal tech and magic working together to shift and reform into flat surfaces. Small segments unfolded and reattached themselves in seconds, sealing all the cracks and whisking every metal speck back into place.

  Venga hissed and staggered sideways when a broken piece beneath his clawed foot jerked out from under him and slammed into the wall above his workbench.

  The ground finally stopped trembling. They all stared at the massive ball of black flame roiling in the center of the lab.

  “Is she in there?” Maleshi asked.

  Ember shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  The ball of fire grew, filling the air with a frigid burst of air. Then the flames sucked back into the center and shrank until they were flickering across Cheyenne’s flesh.

  The drow was on her hands and knees, one leg on either side of Bianca’s body and her hands pressed to the floor on either side of her mom’s head. The runes all over Bianca’s skin still burned with furious orange light, but her eyes had lost the fierce glow of the ward magic held by the vessel. Instead, black flames burst from the woman’s eyes, echoing the black fire in her daughter’s as Cheyenne stared at her mom and held her gaze. Both of them were breathing heavily.

  “Venga!” Cheyenne growled.

  “By Yelv’iyt’s fell-damn foreskin,” the necromancer muttered.

  “If you still have whatever the fuck that thing is, use it now. I’m running on empty.”

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  “Oh, my God.” Ember stared at her best friend who wasn’t crushed by the cave-in and most of the now-restored fortress and slowly sank to her knees.

  Venga sucked in a sharp breath and hurried to the drow, who was holding her vessel mother at bay with a fiery gaze. His clawed feet scraped the ground and his thick tail whipped out behind him as he crouched beside Bianca’s head. The shimmering circlet of black light in his hands opened with a click. “Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?”

  “Just fucking do it!”

  “Agreed.” He hastily slipped the open device around Bianca’s neck, and the thing sealed on its own.