“Endaru’s balls, L’zar. Don’t hurt yourself.” Maleshi shook her head and shot the drow’s feral, predatory look right back at him. “This conversation isn’t about you, anyway. Give it a rest.”
“I’ve suddenly lost interest, then. Should I excuse myself?” L’zar scooted back in his chair like he meant to get up.
Maleshi leaned sideways against the edge of the table, barely sitting in her own chair anymore. “Ask the raug. I don’t give a shit.”
L’zar eyed Foltr and gave the old magical a mocking half-bow from his chair. “By your leave, Aged One.”
“If you need my permission to remove yourself from that chair, you’ll be sitting here all night,” Foltr grumbled. “I’m not giving you a fell-damn thing.”
With a low chuckle, L’zar ran a hand through his hair and sat comfortably back in the chair again. “Lovely to be surrounded by such loyal friends again.”
The magicals around the table chuckled and raised a silent toast. Once everyone had set their cups back down on the table, expectant glances passed between L’zar’s core group of rebel leaders.
“Don’t look at me.” Foltr set both hands on the knob of his cane again and shook his head. “I’m just here to correct the embellished carako waste bound to spill out of one of your mouths.”
“You’ve made your point, Grandfather.” Maleshi turned in her chair and thrust her silver skull in the air. “Dahal’s thirsty again. Don’t make my predecessor come after you. Where’s the fellwine?”
Lumil turned from the group of magicals swapping battle stories and raised another cheer when she hoisted a sloshing green bottle in her fist. She trudged toward Maleshi’s outstretched empty skull and poured the fellwine from so high, it spilled over the edge of the skull and splattered to the floor in a glowing green fizz. “For the general. And the general.” The goblin woman gave Maleshi a mocking bow, then thumped the bottle onto the table and spun. “Where were we? Oh, yeah. Blood and glory!”
The magicals cheered as Lumil returned to the small group, one of many around the chamber.
With a self-important smirk, Maleshi took a sip from her skull, smacked her lips, and turned toward Cheyenne again. “It’s our lucky night, kid. While they talk about blood and glory, we get patricide and shitty life skills.”
The halfling sputtered into her goblet, then forced herself to swallow the small bit of Bloodshine left in her mouth. “Sounds like fun.”
L’zar grinned and lifted his tankard. “You have no idea.”
Chapter Six
“As the oldest, Ba’rael was next in line for the Crown’s new Cycle,” Maleshi continued. “If your Weaver father ever had plans of ruling, those plans were screwed from the moment he entered this world.”
L’zar thumped a fist against his chest. “With a full head of hair and an already honed sense of how to take what’s mine.”
“You mean, how to take what’s everyone else’s,” Corian corrected, raising an eyebrow.
The drow shrugged. “Same thing.”
Maleshi snorted. “Knowing he was born with that sense of entitlement, kid, I’m sure you can imagine your father as the little shit he was in his formative years so very long ago.”
“Yes, General. Because you spent so much time studying me in my formative years.”
“I did,” Foltr grumbled. “She’s not far off the mark.”
Another round of laughter rose at that, and L’zar dipped his head toward the raug. “Well-played.”
“K’laht Verdys served as the O’gúl Crown for centuries,” Corian added. “As far as drow go, he had a good head on his shoulders. To this day, I still can’t fathom how he sired two of drowkind’s most disappointing specimens.”
“I blame our mother.” L’zar raised his tankard. “To Ulahel and her final journey through the deathflame.”
The magicals around the table ignored the drow’s spiteful comment. Corian’s smile faded somewhat, but he looked at Cheyenne with his silver nightstalker eyes and nodded. “Ba’rael always knew she would turn the new Cycle as the next Crown. It was her right from the beginning, and there is little that can stand in the way of a rightful heir claiming what’s theirs. Or at least there was, back when Ambar’ogúl was a world I recognized.”
“Save the self-pity for after the real party.” L’zar stared at his Nós Aní, and Corian’s upper lip twitched in irritation.
“So.” Maleshi thumped a hand on the table and raised her skull, fellwine spilling over her hand in streams. “While L’zar was off screwing over every poor bastard who crossed his path, Ba’rael grew impatient. It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? To have absolutely everything at your fingertips, nothing withheld, and still want more.”
“The bitch will stay true to her nature ‘til the very end.” L’zar shook his head. “I remember it like yesterday. The day my rotting sister told me she didn’t intend to wait for the Cycle to turn on its own. As many times as I’ve tried to drink myself into oblivion, hoping that memory would be the one siphoned out of my head by morning, I’ve apparently been cursed into never forgetting that excellent gem.”
Cheyenne glanced quickly around the table. “You think you should be joking about curses right now?”
L’zar fixed her with his golden eyes, which were narrowed in warning. “It was a figure of speech in this instance, Cheyenne.”
Corian leaned away from the drow at the head of the table and eyed L’zar. “But in another instance?”
“We can talk about that later.”
The nightstalker looked at Cheyenne next, who gave him a small shrug and barely shook her head. She didn’t miss it when Corian and Maleshi shared concerned gazes as well. Right. It’s all fun and games in the rebel bunker until somebody brings up the literal curse L’zar failed to mention. That’ll be a fun conversation.
L’zar took a long drink of his fellwine and sucked in a hissing breath, cocking his head as the strong liquor burned down his throat and swam up into his head at the same time. “We were talking about me. Briefly.
