“You mean, were they halflings?” Mattie shrugged. “Some of them had to be, no doubt. Most of them were not. That’s the nature of prophecies, isn’t it? They rarely tell you everything you need to know and almost always leave out the most important bits. L’zar Verdys left a trail of mini L’zar’s on both sides of the Border. If he thinks you’re the one to take up his mantle, kid, I’m damn inclined to agree with him.”
“That’s why the Crown wants to find me, isn’t it? Why they cut down all the Nimlothar trees and only kept the one. So the Crown has to oversee all the drow trials if anyone wants to complete them. Because she’s looking for L’zar’s kid.”
Mattie’s eyes blazed in their intensity as she stared at Cheyenne, all traces of her humor gone. “Only one Nimlothar?”
“That’s what Corian told me.”
“Ha! And Corian crosses back and forth to check in on the status of things, does he?”
“I don’t think so.” Cheyenne shook her head. “He said something about getting messages from the other side. However that works.”
“I see.” The Nightstalker woman’s gaze darted about the inside of the car. “Well, yes. I’d say the soulless hag wearing the Crown has ordered all that just to find you.”
“Because L’zar wants me to take up his mantle.”
“I see the wheels turning again, kid.” Mattie’s soft, knowing smile returned. “Keep going.”
“With what? I don’t even know the guy. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a nutjob who broke out of prison to knock up my mom before turning himself in again to serve the rest of his meaningless sentence playing mind games.”
Mattie barked out a sharp laugh. “That’s an excellent assessment.”
“Well, thanks, but I still don’t know why the Crown gives a shit about one crazy drow’s kid.”
“Oh, I think you do. Just give it a shot, huh?”
The halfling stared at her former professor with a deadpan expression.
“Come on, Cheyenne. L’zar’s best friends are a Nightstalker expat doing who knows what beyond guiding you through the trials, and a discolored troll who built a system to track magical activity on this side as he shoves a foot-long sub in his mouth. And somehow, the way this crazy world works, they all know me.”
Cheyenne squinted at the former General Maleshi Hi’et and knew she would have felt the heat rising at the base of her spine if she weren’t wearing the damn pendant. “L’zar’s part of the rebellion.”
A Nightstalker’s slow, predatory grin bloomed across Mattie’s face, her green eyes flashing with pride and excitement and a terrible power even through her illusion charm. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
“Well, it’s either that, or he’s leading it.” Cheyenne folded her arms. “Or L’zar Verdys did something irreversibly stupid just to piss off the Crown, and now she’s coming for his first kid who doesn’t drop dead the moment he meets them.”
“Hmm.” Mattie tapped a finger on her lips. “The fourth option is that it’s all three of those put together. I’d go with that one.”
“This crazy drow running the entire magical world is hunting me down because she hates L’zar and wants to make this personal.” The halfling snorted. “That sounds like a lot to squeeze into one explanation.”
“Well, drow are notorious for their ability to complicate things. And it’s always personal when someone’s trying to overthrow the monarchy, isn’t it? At least for the monarch.”
“This is insane.”
“Yes. This is the world you were born into, Cheyenne. Not logistically, of course, but L’zar’s Verdys’ blood runs through your veins, and there’s no way to get it out. You said it yourself. He’s a nutjob.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, come on.” Mattie’s teasing had picked back up again to its usual degree of barely tolerable. “There’s a little crazy in you. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not immune to a bout of insanity from time to time. We are who we are, kid. And you are L’zar’s kid, who defied some Oracle’s omniscient prophecy. Honestly, that might have more to do with you than anything your father’s done so far.”
Cheyenne clenched her fists at her sides and glared at the Nightstalker woman. Cool it, Cheyenne. She’s telling you the truth. That’s what you wanted. “He hasn’t done anything.”
“That’s precisely the point.” Mattie laughed and shook her head, her long, wavy black hair rustling between her shirt and the back of the seat. “Once you complete the drow trials, which I have no doubt you will, a whole new world will open up in front of you.”
“I’ve heard that one before too. This is what Corian couldn’t tell me, isn’t it? That L’zar’s leading a rebellion against the Crown, and I’m supposed to be the one who helps him take over.”
“I can’t say what Corian hasn’t told you.” Mattie shrugged. “But it seems you’ve already got that figured out. Though I do have to ask, why wouldn’t that walking furball tell you any of this? It’s not exactly a secret, on either side of the Border.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much.” Cheyenne shook her head with a wry chuckle. “He told me he’d made a promise not to tell me who L’zar was—or is, I guess—in Ambar’ogúl before I completed the trials. And a promise not to go into politics or talk about the Crown, either.”
Mattie squinted. “Are those two promises, or just one?”
“Does it matter?”
They smirked at each other. “Not in the slightest.”
“It drove me nuts at first.” The halfling ran a hand through her black hair and shrugged. “But I know about making promises and what it means to keep them. Or break them. I’ve been putting together the pieces on my own.”
“And let me say, you’re doing a damn fine job of it so far.”
“Well, I’ll be doing a lot better when I pass the trials and figure out how to keep those idiot bull’s-head loyalists from popping out at me everywhere I go and blowing up my stuff.”
The Nightstalker woman cleared her throat. “I heard ‘blowing
