Cheyenne dropped her hands against her thighs, panting, and stared at the destruction her newest drow ability had caused. The rumbling chaos below the surface faded away, trees rustled against each other with the occasional snap, and then everything fell still again.
Surprise magic. Holy shit.
Corian cleared his throat and pushed himself to his knees, brushing the dirt and grass off his clothes. He took one more quick assessment of what she’d just done and scowled. “We have a lot of work to do.”
She gestured at the upturned earth. “Looks like an improvement to me.”
“Not when you were supposed to be summoning a shield.”
Behind him, the copper puzzle box lifted slowly into the air, the golden light shining through all the etched runes. Then the different pieces spun wildly in every direction, letting out a low whir and hum. Corian turned to eye the legacy box.
Cheyenne stuck her hands on her hips. “Yeah, that’s been happening a lot.”
With a sigh, the Nightstalker turned away from her and stormed across the grass toward the floating copper box. “You should’ve started training for this when you could use any of your magic.”
The halfling started after him. “When I was eight?”
“Gotta start sometime, right?” Corian stopped beside the floating box and cocked his head. “You’re not focusing enough on why you want to master your magic, Cheyenne.”
“Right, like you have any idea what I want.”
“I don’t need to know what you want. Just that you haven’t figured out what it is yet, and that’s why your magic is still all over the place this late in the game.” He raised an eyebrow at her and pointed at the box. “That’s what this means.”
The half-drow rubbed her aching, lightning-struck shoulder and stopped on the other side of her floating legacy, the golden glow lighting up her dark elf features. “I know what I want.”
“Oh, sure. The halfling who didn’t have a clue about what this was and who’d never heard of a Nimlothar suddenly knows more than the ancient magic running through her veins and the trials every drow has mastered for more centuries than you can imagine.” The Nightstalker shot her a sarcastic grimace. “That makes perfect—”
A sharp crack echoed across the darkened meadow behind them, halfway between the closest line of trees and where they stood beside the floating box. Both magicals turned to see a dark, shimmering circle of black light open in mid-air.
“You open another portal?”
Corian licked his lips. “That’s not mine.”
“If you know whose it is, now’s a good time to share.”
“Get the box.” The Nightstalker pointed at her floating legacy and stepped back across the grass, away from the new portal, which was growing larger by the second. “We’re calling it a night, kid. And I need time to put up better wards.”
“Okay, see, this is the part where I know you’re not telling me something important.”
“Grab the damn box, Cheyenne!” More trees snapped and groaned behind the new portal, bending toward the darkness spreading in mid-air.
She had to push herself up on her tiptoes before she could snatch the spinning box from the air. The glow went out, and the different sections stopped spinning. “What’s going on?”
“Quiet. I need to focus.” Closing his eyes, Corian took a deep breath and lifted his hands as if he held a basketball between them.
A harsh, hissing whisper floated out of the opening portal, chanting in a language Cheyenne didn’t understand. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and her entire body erupted with a sharp, buzzing tingle. Someone else is watching me this time.
She glanced at the Nightstalker, who hadn’t done anything but stand there with his hands raised. “Can’t you center your chi some other time?”
“Shut up,” he hissed through his teeth, then his fingers moved quickly in a long series of gestures with sharp, short pauses between.
An angry gust of wind picked up, blasting at them out of the portal as the whispered chanting grew louder. Purple light crackled and danced at the dark edges of the air, which was now half the size of a regular door. “You might wanna—ah!”
The halfling’s head erupted with agonizing, stabbing pain. A face flashed before her and drowned out everything else—endlessly wrinkled, sallow skin studded with dots and lines of fading black ink; white, all-seeing eyes; a mouth with its few teeth and everything else inside it stained a dark, blood-red.
“The endless search for an heir will bring each one of them to death’s door.”
The crone’s face disappeared, replaced by the image of L’zar Verdys kneeling in the cold black room surrounded by more than a dozen drow bodies.
“Now it’s your turn.”
The portal flashed black light again. Cheyenne didn’t know she’d fallen to her knees until Corian grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to her feet. Somehow, she held onto the legacy box.
“Time to move!” The Nightstalker jerked her away from the flashing portal and the chanting whispers, which had now become a constant roar.
The halfling stumbled behind him toward the new portal he’d opened. My head’s gonna split open.
She recognized the cement floor of the basement in apartment D just before Corian yanked her through. Behind them, the ground trembled, half the trees behind the freaky black portal snapped in half or were ripped from the ground by the roots, and a low, demonic laugh echoed through the meadow.
Chapter Sixteen
The cement floor was a lot harder than grass when Cheyenne fell to her knees again. Corian’s portal disappeared with a little pop, cutting off the insane laughter pounding through her head. The puzzle box bounced and skittered across the floor with
