Cheyenne leaned toward him and, in a much softer voice than she expected, said, “You know I won’t go anywhere until you tell me who she is.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. I just didn’t think this would come up as a topic of conversation before you passed the trials. Or ever, to be perfectly honest.”
“Okay. Well, it is.” She gestured for him to continue. “So, keep being honest.”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat again and took a deep breath. “Maleshi Hi’et was a decorated, high-ranking general and war veteran. A brilliant strategist. An unstoppable force on the battlefield. Maybe even the Crown’s most valuable asset, at one point.”
The halfling blinked. “She told me she trained orcs.”
“Ha. Yeah, that too,” Corian said. “Maleshi was, ah…she was…”
“Don’t worry, you painted a clear enough picture.” I’m still struggling to stick Mattie’s face on it, though.
“Well, at any rate, I assume she got fed up with what her position had become under the Crown’s command. One day, she was with us. One of us. And the next, she just up and left without a word to anyone. People still say Maleshi was the spark that ignited the O’gúl rebellion.”
The halfling swallowed and shook her head. “I just heard you say ‘rebellion.’”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, kid.” The Nightstalker shot her a condescending frown, then caught himself and looked away.
“What rebellion?”
“Now’s not the right time.”
She scoffed and slapped her knees. “This bullshit again, huh? I’m pretty sure the right time to explain the rebellion is at the end of a conversation about the Nightstalker who started that rebellion.”
“What happened after she left her post has nothing to do with her.”
“I really did punch you too hard.”
“Cheyenne.”
The gentle, firm command in his voice sounded so much like Bianca Summerlin, it sent a jolt of disbelief through the halfling. She couldn’t move.
“If I could predict with one-hundred-percent certainty what’s going to happen once you complete the drow trials and inherit what’s rightfully yours, I would tell you everything I know in an instant. Trust me. The pieces will fall into place. You will get your answers and the bigger picture, but it can’t happen all at once. You have to be ready for it, yes. And so many other things have to be ready for it too.”
Just another fucked-up scavenger hunt, isn’t it? The halfling stared at him, her glowing golden eyes unblinking. “I can keep a secret.”
“I know you can. You’ve proven that over and over. But secrets have a way of turning in on themselves over time.” Corian laced his fingers together, palms still spread apart like he couldn’t stand to press them together. “I’ve been keeping certain secrets for centuries. In Ambar’ogúl and here on this side. Letting them out now would be like pulling the pin from a grenade glued to my hand. I need you to understand that.”
“I don’t.” Cheyenne shook her head and shrugged. “I still don’t know enough to understand much of anything.”
“Then please, at the very least, respect a genuine request from a friend. I know I keep asking it of you, but that’s as much as I can do. Please just trust me.”
Gritting her teeth, the half-drow pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. I need to pass these trials. “Yeah, I will respect the request, and I trust you. Just don’t drag me around past the due date, okay? I’ve had way too much of that over the last few weeks.”
“I will promise you that much, kid. The old laws have a lot more integrity than a twenty-one-year-old secret Earthside organization pretending they know everything about us.”
She laughed. “No. You’re not FRoE, that’s for sure.”
“So glad we’re on the same page.”
Narrowing her eyes, the halfling looked her mentor up and down and shook her head. “They’ve got you on the biting sarcasm, though.”
“Well, they can have it. Sarcasm’s not my priority.”
“No argument, there.”
“So. I’ve got a few more minutes of intense concentration left in me.” Corian picked up Mattie “Maleshi” Bergmann’s spell for a personal illusion charm and flicked it with his other hand. “What about you?”
“Let’s give it a shot.”
An hour later, Cheyenne moved slowly and deliberately through the hand gestures Corian had helped her decipher from Mattie’s drawings. Focus. This is where you screwed up last time. She paused, itching to hook her index finger next. Instead, she flicked her right pinky finger out, then hooked her finger toward her left palm.
The copper ring Corian had pulled from the equivalent of his junk drawer flashed with white light.
“Holy shit. Did I just…”
Corian tilted his head. One eye drooped mostly closed before he blinked quickly. “That one looked successful.”
“Ha! I did it! This drow halfling just bonded an illusion charm. Fuck, yeah!”
The Nightstalker rubbed between his eyebrows with two fingers. “Cheyenne, if you don’t quit squealing from two feet away, I will throw you out that door. Or through it.”
“All right, party pooper.” She took it down a notch and flicked her gaze toward the aggravated magical. “And I don’t squeal.”
“From where I’m sitting, you might as well be a room full of screaming children wrapped in a drow bow.”
“You can try all you want, but nothing’s gonna make me feel like crap right now.” The halfling grinned at the copper ring. “I just opened a whole new world.”
“We won’t know for sure until you try the damn thing.”
“Oh. Right.” She snatched the ring off the floor while Corian massaged his temples. The ring slid onto her right ring finger but stopped at the second knuckle. “Damn. I know I have small hands, but this is kinda ridiculous. Where’d you get this anyway?”
“Some fae jeweler just outside the capital.”
“Fae, huh?”
“Small hands.”
She chuckled. “Whatever.” The ring slipped perfectly
