by Martha Carr
Shit. The drow prince who doesn’t care about anything is about to take us to the one thing in two worlds that terrifies him. Won’t this be fun?
Ember floated toward the halfling and gave her a weak smile. “Everything okay?”
“I have no idea, Em. After all this is over, I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Anything I can do?”
“Cross your fingers, maybe?”
Ember raised both hands and crossed her fingers. They smiled at each other, but it didn’t make either of them feel better.
L’zar returned to the pile of burning plants in the center of the clearing and knelt to rearrange them in a pattern for his ritual summoning. Foltr grunted and started to lower himself to his knees beside the drow, but L’zar grabbed the ancient raug’s arm to stop him and shook his head. “You’ve done enough, Grandfather. This one’s on me.”
Foltr snorted. “It won’t help you, but I’m relieved to hear you say it. For my sake.”
L’zar chuckled humorlessly and went back to work arranging the burning twigs, branches, and long flowering stems. When he’d finished creating the O’gúleesh symbol with the flames, he stood and cast a summoning spell, his lips moving in a barely audible whisper. Then he spat on the symbol, and every patch of fire, flickering flames, and burning plant flared with renewed strength. The multicolored flames roared to three times their normal height, the burning cave most of all. The fires flickered in and out of different colors, favoring green and black, and a roar like howling wind and crumbling stone came from the mouth of the cave.
A low, rumbling laugh filled the clearing, and the fires settled back to their normal size. The voice coming from within the cave and echoing maddeningly within the bowl-shaped stone clearing was deeper and far more sinister than any voice had a right to be. “Come now, little drow. I told you two thousand years ago you and I would become good friends. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought.”
L’zar grimaced at the mouth of the cave and lifted his chin. “I’ve come back with another proposition for you, Sorren Gán. Will you hear it?”
The Sorren Gán’s growling laughter made Cheyenne’s eyes water, the sound vibrating in her head and chest. “I will always listen to you. I see you’ve brought another of the dark ones with you this time.”
“Yes.”
Cheyenne clenched her fists. It’s talking about me.
“Only the two drow on my doorstep may enter today,” the Sorren Gán rumbled. “I can’t stand the smell of the rest of you.”
The flames around the cave changed to dark light and shrank to reveal the unimpeded entrance. It was pitch-black inside.
Baring his teeth in a silent snarl, L’zar turned to the rest of the group and gestured toward Cheyenne without looking at her. “Let’s go.”
“I thought we were all supposed to go talk to this thing together?”
“Clearly the plan has changed.” L’zar bowed his head, grimacing at the stone. He couldn’t bring himself to look at any of them. “I’ll drag you in there if I have to, but this will be a lot easier if you come willingly.”
Right. Willingly into the private cave of a thing that eats drow. Perfect.
Clenching her jaw, Cheyenne glanced at Ember, nodded, and hopped down into the clearing. Behind her, Byrd swallowed and muttered, “Good luck.”
What do I say to that? “Thanks.”
She walked past Corian, who dipped his head in acknowledgment.
Even the nightstalker doesn’t think we’ll make it out of this one in one piece, and here I am, following L’zar into the fire.
When she reached her father, L’zar lowered his arm to his side again and turned to the cave entrance. The second they reached the mouth of the cave, the flames burst to life again, seemingly blocking their path. L’zar rolled his eyes. “It’s fucking with us. Let’s go.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne stared at the flames licking inches from her face and let her father step through first. When he didn’t scream or shrivel into a drow crisp, she rolled her shoulders and entered behind him.
Chapter Nineteen
The multicolored flames were cool against Cheyenne’s skin, but on the other side, the cold permeating the pitch-black cave made her pause. If the cold’s bothering me in here, it’d probably kill the others—that or the smell.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized the cave was much larger than it looked from the outside. It stretched endlessly in front of them, the stone walls rising into the side of the mountain until she couldn’t see the top. Flames flickered across the walls, black smoke wafting in the frigid darkness. Looks a lot like the in-between if you ask me.
On the far side of the cave was a massive lake, the surface covered in endless purple flames. The crackle and hiss of unnaturally burning stone and the occasional spark tossed into the air punctured the silence. L’zar took three steps forward, Cheyenne at his side, then dropped to one knee without warning.
She frowned down at him. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t lift his bowed head. “We’re not here to fuck around. Kneel.”
“Yes,” the Sorren Gán roared in its overwhelmingly brutal voice. “You learned that lesson the first time we met. Didn’t you, L’zar?”
Cheyenne quickly scanned the dark cave and couldn’t see a thing. Where the hell is it?
L’zar’s cold fingers clamped around her wrist and he jerked her to her knees. She pulled her hand away and scowled at him.
“What’s wrong with you?” she whispered.
His golden gaze burned into the black stone floor of the cave in front of them. “Right now? Everything.”
From the back of the cave, a yellow-orange glow grew within the darkness. Cheyenne looked up and watched the massive creature made of fire and thick black smoke emerge from some hidden recess in the cave’s walls. It was at least thirty feet tall and had tongues of fire dripping from its broad shoulders. Four arms extended at its sides, two of its hands splayed out, the fingers tipped in black claws that trailed thick lines of smoke behind them. The Sorren Gán might have had horns, but then again, they might have been smoke. Clawed feet stomped across the ground, making it tremble beneath them. The lake of fire shuddered, and two massive, fiery wings spread from the Sorren Gán’s back with a fan of more black smoke before settling against its sides again.
L’zar kept his head bowed, clenching his jaw so tightly he thought his head would explode. The first time was for me. This time, it is for Ambar’ogúl. Fuck taking the throne, but I won’t let the place burn before I leave it forever. His balled fists ached, and still he didn’t look up at the Sorren Gán stalking toward them. He sure as hell could feel it.
The fiery beast let out another low, ominous chuckle. “I enjoy this sight very much. Now tell me why you’re here.”
“We need your help.” L’zar swallowed. “I need your help.”
“With the afterbirth of the foulness your sister spawned.” The Sorren Gán stopped yards in front of them, casting burning light over the kneeling drow. The smoke wafting off its body was so thick, Cheyenne expected to choke on it at any minute. “Tell me why you wish to have this threat subdued, L’zar. We both know you do not seek the O’gúl Crown.”
“No.” L’zar bowed his head even lower and pressed his fists against the stone.
Cheyenne shot him a sideways glance and tried looking at the Sorren Gán but couldn’t face the blazing light. L’zar is bending the knee. Why?
“I don’t want to rule,” the drow continued. “But I don’t want to see Ambar’ogúl destroyed, either.”
A flaming tail lashed out from behind the Sorren Gán and struck the stone floor with a burst of sparks. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be remembered as the Weaver thief who brought an entire world to its knees. Not like this.”
“Wrong.” The beast stepped closer and snorted a thick plume of rancid black smoke into both drow’s faces.
Cheyenne turned her he
ad away from the worst of it and caught a glimpse of her father’s fists and arms through the dispersing smoke. Shit. He’s shaking.
“You’ve had time to practice your lies, little drow,” the Sorren Gán rumbled. “But not nearly enough to make them convincing. Tell me why you want to save this world.”
L’zar’s lips trembled when he opened his mouth. He pressed his lips together and glared at the floor in humiliation. “It’s my daughter’s legacy. She deserves all of it. I owe her that much, at least.”
Cheyenne’s eyes widened despite the smoke stinging her eyes. First time I’ve heard him own up to anything, even if it’s under duress.
“Hmm. Yes.” The Sorren Gán chuckled again and stopped looming over the kneeling drow, taking a step back. Its wings shot out again, fanning more smoke through the cave, and its other two fists opened to stretch clawed fingers in anticipation. “Honesty is your weakness, isn’t it, little drow? Your inability to humble yourself makes you weak. That is why you’ve come to me again. Someone has to make you face your trembling terror. We made you strong before, did we not?”
L’zar glared at the floor, his jaw clenching and unclenching.
The flames around and within the Sorren Gán erupted with a roar. “Did we not?”
“Yes!” L’zar breathed heavily now, pressing his fists into the stone floor so hard they bled.
Cheyenne wrinkled her nose at the smell. What the hell happened between these two?
“And now you return for more of the same.” The Sorren Gán extended a hand toward L’zar as if it meant to rest the fiery paw on the drow’s hand, but it didn’t. “Why should I travel such a long way to Hangivol? It means nothing to me if the wealth of magic your sister pilfered destroys one city or a thousand. The magic will find me anyway.”
L’zar’s head lifted an inch, and he managed to settle his gaze on the creature’s clawed, burning feet. “Name your price.”
“You know I require something now.”
“Yes.”
Cheyenne flinched away from an unnaturally long tongue of flame licking toward her face.
“This daughter of yours is different,” the Sorren Gán growled. “You knew I would want her.”
L’zar straightened and turned toward Cheyenne. “That’s not what I had in mind.”
“Nor is it something you would refuse me, hmm?”
Cheyenne stared at her father. He better say something.
L’zar swallowed and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“L’zar.” She raised her eyebrows.
His upper lip twitched as he stared into his daughter’s eyes. “You’ll be fine.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
The Sorren Gán thundered with dark laughter. The sound echoed through the cave and made the floor tremble as much as the creature’s footsteps. “Your loyalty pleases me very much, L’zar.”
“You can’t bring me in here and toss me to this thing as a quick snack!” Cheyenne leaped to her feet, blinking away the tears against the smoke spewing from the Sorren Gán’s body. “I’m not doing this.”
“You have to, Cheyenne.”
“No, I don’t. You have to grow a conscience and a goddamn spine. Look at you. You won’t even get off your knees to give me up. I came in here willingly, but not as a fucking sacrifice.”
“You don’t have to be willing,” the Sorren Gán growled. “He wasn’t the first time.”
“What?”
The fiery beast laughed again, shaking the cave around them.
“I’m done, L’zar. You can follow me out or stay here and die on your knees. I don’t give a shit.” She whirled toward the mouth of the cave and stormed off.
The flames around the entrance flared in blinding brilliance and a wave of smoke barreled toward her, pushing her back across the stone floor even as she dug her feet in. Coughing and gasping for breath, Cheyenne let her rage fuel the drow magic building inside her. Think of the Nimlothar seed. And the dead forest.
Cold pressure coiled around her leg and whipped it out from under her. She crashed to the stone and spun onto her back, glaring up at the Sorren Gán as a coil of black smoke extended to drag her toward it. Purple and black light burst from her body, glowing brighter from behind her golden eyes, and her magic burned through her veins with renewed force. Yeah, that’s more like it.
She fired countless rounds of black energy spheres at the Sorren Gán’s flaming head. It only laughed harder, dragging her with it as it retreated from L’zar. Cheyenne lurched upward and grabbed the coil of black smoke before summoning two more energy spheres, and the smoke burst into black shards that caught fire as they flew through the air.
The Sorren Gán roared in fury, its barbed tail lashing the ground as it stepped toward her and reached out with one of its four hands. Cheyenne raised a shimmering black shield as a roaring column of fire shot toward her. The shield stopped it, but the freezing cold that enveloped her when she expected heat made her pause.
“You will give me what I seek,” the Sorren Gán roared as the column of flames subsided.
Cheyenne lowered the shield, her fingers numb, and reached out with her connection to the earth to find that ledge of resistance. “Fuck you.”
When she pulled with both hands, the stone floor erupted in front of the Sorren Gán. A massive slab of earth broke free and hurtled toward the flaming beast, knocking it back across the cave.
“Cheyenne.”
“And fuck you. Trying to give me up like this.” She stormed toward the cave entrance again, but before she took two steps, black smoke ballooned from every dark crevice of the cave and enveloped her. Cheyenne couldn’t see a thing as she stumbled forward blindly, waving the smoke away and trying to catch a breath as it seared into her lungs and muddled her thoughts.
The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air, sailing out of the black smoke and high above both L’zar and the Sorren Gán, who was staring up at her with blazing eyes of smoke and fire. There was nothing to grab, nothing to wrap her black lashing tendrils around even when she released them and tried to find purchase. The last thing she saw before she plunged into the hissing, raging lake of fire on the other side of the cave was the Sorren Gán’s mouth splitting in a wide grin, spewing flames and smoke. Its laughter echoed through her head as she fell into the lake.
The unbearable cold coursed through her before her drow magic took over. Cheyenne’s body erupted with black fire that rushed across her skin, blocking the cold as she sank into the bright, burning substance. This shit is definitely not water.
Something told her she could take a breath, and when she did, her lungs were free from the burning smoke. Black flames burst from her eyes as she gazed at the terrifying images coalescing around her in the fiery substance. Screaming faces contorted in terror and anguish. Humanoid shapes fighting each other, burning, destroying, wailing.
Cheyenne kicked out at the fire surrounding her, but it didn’t get her anywhere. Finally, her feet touched the bottom of the lake, and she took a tentative step forward. Flames moved around her, propelled by the drow fire racing across her skin. Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, she took step after slow step up the incline of the lakebed back toward the shore.
When I get up there, those bastards are in for it.
Chapter Twenty
“The ultimate test, is it not?” The Sorren Gán loomed over L’zar, who sat cross-legged on the cave floor, his head hanging between his slumped shoulders. “Does L’zar Verdys truly hold within his insignificant hands the ability not to show restraint, but to relinquish everything?” Another thunderous laugh rose from the beast’s chest. “You are a slow learner, little drow. Once I break her as I broke you, perhaps your daughter will be capable of withstanding what you cannot.”
L’zar stared at the ground, clenching and unclenching his jaw. If I’m right, she already does.
He leaned away from a tendril of smoke the Sorren Gán extended to caress his face. “You’
re so emotional, L’zar, not a trait I envy in any of you. With time, I see that withering away with all your other weaknesses. You will see.”
A burst of flame erupted from the lake on the other side of the cave, and the purple fire fell away as Cheyenne, covered in black drow fire, stormed out of the lake and headed for L’zar and his unlikely master. Purple flames fell like water behind her with each step and burned like scattered pools of ignited oil.
L’zar lifted his head and watched her, wide-eyed, with the ghost of a smile.
The Sorren Gán stepped back, stretching its wings wide again and roaring with laughter. “I seem to have been mistaken, L’zar. Between the two of you, her blood flows much stronger.”
L’zar gazed up at the beast’s face, constantly shifting in the flames, and grinned. “You gave me what I was missing, didn’t you?”
“I gave you what you needed,” the Sorren Gán hissed. “You came to me. You begged me for the cleansing, and I poured everything I had into your soft flesh. Surprise or not, little drow, do not be ungrateful.”
“I am.” Snarling, Cheyenne raised her hands toward the Sorren Gán and unleashed a column of her own flames, hissing and black as they crashed into the beast’s chest.
The thing turned to face her and spread its four arms. “Here she is.”
Cheyenne roared and fired again, blasting the Sorren Gán over and over with drow fire as the flames flared around her body and flashed behind her eyes. Every attack was swallowed by the beast’s form, and it laughed again.
L’zar could barely see his daughter beneath the flames, but he leaped to his feet and hurried toward her. “Cheyenne.”
“No!” She kept attacking as she stormed toward the thing that ate drow and had tossed her into the burning lake. “I told you I was done.”