“You don’t have time for that,” L’zar countered, standing stock-still two yards away. “Corian will make sure she knows what’s happening. Right now, you should leave.”
“What? How much time do I have?” Cheyenne frowned at her stoic drow father, but he didn’t answer.
Persh’al joined them again in the center of the warehouse with a grunt, hiking up the stuffed-full trekking pack over his shoulders. “None. Time to go.”
“Right now?”
“Come on, kid. I’m not carrying this thing just for fun. My car’s out front.”
Cheyenne swallowed and looked at Corian, still hoping he’d crack a smile and tell her to relax. He raised an eyebrow instead and flicked one finger toward the front door as Persh’al opened it.
“Shit.” A small, dry laugh of disbelief escaped her, and she spread her arms. “I’m going to Ambar’ogúl.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cheyenne Summerlin closed the door of Persh’al’s SUV on the frontage road and tightened her grip on the straps of her backpack.
“Don’t just stand there, kid.” The blue troll nodded across the dirt road toward the tree line. A strong breeze sent the first fallen leaves of autumn skittering across the ground. His neon-orange mohawk fluttered slightly, and he gazed up and down the road with a grimace of distaste. “We’ve already been waiting long enough.”
“Please.” Cheyenne followed him into the thick woods, her black Vans crunching over sticks and underbrush. “You guys whipped this plan up after I told you about the war machine in Peridosh.”
Persh’al threw his hands in the air, and his stuffed trekking pack swung against low-hanging branches when he turned to look at her. “Now you have something to say, huh? Two-hour drive, and the first thing you say to me is that I’m wrong.”
“I didn’t say that.” Cheyenne kept her voice low, glancing around the forest. Apparently, we don’t need to be quiet this time. I’d be able to hear us from five miles away.
“Not in so many words. But that’s what I’ll tell you, Cheyenne. You’re wrong.”
“About the half-cocked planning method you guys rely on so much?”
“No, not that.” He stepped over a fallen tree and sniffed, taking a moment to scan the trees. “Fine. This wasn’t the original outline, sure, but there’s been a Border crossing in your future since the minute you passed the drow trials.”
She squinted at the back of his bulging pack. “Which happened less than forty-eight hours ago. You’re not building a strong argument.”
“You know what?” Irritation built in the troll’s voice, then he chuckled. “You’re good at that—picking apart all the details until the other person talks themselves into a corner.”
“I’ve been doing it for a while.” And I have a master of manipulative negotiation for a mom.
“Yeah, I bet. Reminds me of someone else I know.”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes.
“I’m gonna try again because I don’t like not finishing a thought.” Persh’al ducked when a raven swooped down from the treetops on their right, then snorted when the bird hopped off into the bushes. “You haven’t been waiting that long for this next big step in claiming who you are. And yeah, technically, the rest of us have only been waiting twenty years to see if the kid L’zar was so sure about would make it through the trials without—well, you know. That kid’s you, all right?”
“That part’s been covered already.”
“Thing is, though, kid, before you came along—and I mean before you were conceived, not only before you were aware of all this shit going on now—the rest of us have been walking a tightrope of waiting and trying to live something like a normal life for centuries.”
Cheyenne frowned and walked a little faster through the underbrush to catch up with him. “Why would some other kid of L’zar’s have to make the crossing? I thought they were all drow.”
The troll let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “They were all at least half-drow, I can tell you that much. L’zar’s half of the DNA.”
“What?”
He turned again to shoot her a confused glance, and his eyebrows twitched. “Sorry, kid. If you thought you were the only halfling who sprang forth from L’zar Verdys’ overactive loins, you’re wrong.”
“Dude. I don’t wanna hear about his loins.”
“Oh, you don’t wanna hear about ‘em? Try spending centuries with Ambar’ogúl’s most wanted while he tries to break through his damn prophecy over and over with those loins. In the beginning, I tell you what, man, that drow was fellfire-bent on proving that old crone wrong, and talking about his plans and his deeds and his seeds was pretty much all he did. I almost slit his throat myself once, just to get him to shut up about it.”
Cheyenne stopped when the troll pushed through the scraping branches of a thorny bush without bothering to hold them aside for her. They swung back into place, then she lifted them again so she could follow without being smacked in the face. “No, you didn’t.”
“Ha. True. But I thought about it more than once. But believe me, kid, that drow father of yours has made this crossing more times than even he can count. Fathered plenty of full-blooded O’gúleesh drow who would’ve grown into fine dark elves on their own. You know, if they’d made it. And I know of at least three others who were Earthside halflings like you.”
She grimaced at the thought. So Bianca Summerlin wasn’t the first woman to get her pants charmed off by a mystery drow in a human mask. Not sure that’d change her opinion of it.
“And none of them made it either,” she muttered.
“Nope. Not a one.” Persh’al shrugged and tightened the straps of his pack. “Of course, I think some of the earlier casualties were a product of the times. One of these kids made it right up to the Great Depression.”
“All right. Stop.” Cheyenne opened her clenched fists to let some blood into her fingers. “I don’t wanna hear about his other kids.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Persh’al cleared his throat and kept trudging through the woods.
