Cheyenne rolled her shoulders and grimaced at the ache in her neck. “I think I fell asleep at some point already.”
“It happens. The beds are better, I promise. Even all the way down here.” Chuckling, he stepped around a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the table and waved the halfling toward one of the archways in the wall.
“Hey, Em.”
“Yeah.” Ember looked up from her conversation with the magical made of swarming black specks and smiled tiredly.
“I guess we get beds.”
“That’s all you needed to say.” Ember excused herself from the conversation and floated across the chamber as Cheyenne pushed to her feet.
“We’re following His Royal Highness.” The halfling gestured toward L’zar and let out a huge yawn as she went to collect her backpack. Somehow, it had lasted all night without being disturbed.
The drow chuckled as he passed a hand over the door. It slid aside to reveal a passageway beyond. “Not as satisfying to crack jokes about my lineage now that you know how far it extends, is it?”
“Oh, no, it’s still perfectly satisfying. We all know I’m not talking about myself.”
He entered the dark passage and walked slowly enough for the tired halfling and the floating fae to keep up. “The best thing to do now is sleep it off. Which I’m hoping those other idiots can manage relatively well.”
“I’m not drunk, L’zar.”
His golden eyes flashed in the semi-darkness when he looked over his shoulder at her. “Not on fellwine and Bloodshine, maybe. Victory is just as intoxicating, in my experience.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne and Ember exchanged dubious glances, then the fae girl snorted and choked back a laugh.
“Tomorrow’s a big day too. Different but big. We’ll take a walk around the city, huh?” L’zar pointed at each door they passed in the hall, counting them silently in his head. “You’ll get the grand tour of the grandest dump this world has to offer. What you and Persh’al saw the last time was like pulling up a picture of Greece on Google Images and trying to convince yourself you’ve been there.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Not the comparison I would’ve picked, but okay.”
“If my comparisons annoy you, I promise that’s at the bottom of my list of things to work on in the future. I want to show you the real Hangivol, Cheyenne. Give you a taste of what the capital and the O’gúleesh here are like when everyone’s not too chickenshit to be themselves, scared of being sucked up by the walls and spat out into a bowl of the Crown’s magic-sludge soup.”
Cheyenne grinned at L’zar’s back and stuck her hands deep in the pockets of her black trenchcoat. Wasted L’zar sounds slightly more lucid than sober L’zar, and then he pulls out something like that.
“And by ‘be themselves,’ I mean taking this city into their own hands again.”
Ember’s eyes widened. “You mean, like riots?”
“Of course. That’s expected of every coup, isn’t it?” He stopped at a door on the left, his finger frozen and pointing at it. “Let me tell you, there’s nothing like an O’gúl riot. Beauty in one of its purest forms. Here we are.”
The door crackled with blue light before sliding aside into the stone wall. A soft glow illuminated the room beyond, mostly hidden by L’zar standing in the doorway and grinning at the two young magicals, his golden eyes half-concealed by heavy lids. “I hope neither of you has a problem with sharing quarters for the night.”
“We already share an apartment.” Ember floated past Cheyenne into the room when L’zar stepped aside, her curiosity too great to ignore.
“Then that’s settled.” L’zar nodded firmly and turned toward his daughter. “Enjoy the rest of your night. Oh. And just so I don’t spring it on you tomorrow, when we find the right time, I want to take you somewhere special. Just the two of us.”
Cheyenne folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “If you say ‘father-daughter date,’ I’ll punch you again.”
“You only tried to punch me last time.” He clasped his hands behind his back and scanned the walls of the hall before chuckling. “Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you managed it on a second attempt. I want you to go into tomorrow with an open mind. We’ll go cheer and fight the power with the citizens for a while, and then you and I will take a little detour. If I’m never coming back after this, I plan to make the most of my final hurrah in this world.”
She stepped toward the open door and squinted at him. “Why do you need me for that?”
“Because you’ll love it. Goodnight, Cheyenne.” With a small bow that looked oddly genuine, L’zar spun on his heel and marched farther down the hallway. His lilting whistle echoed behind him until the halfling advanced into the chamber and the door slid closed behind her.
“Because I’ll love it.” She laughed and shook her head. “Probably not.”
“Okay, maybe you can help me with this one.” Ember floated in the middle of the room, pointing at the massive bed along the far wall. It was draped in satin and finely embroidered velvet, and a mound of shimmering pillows covered half the bed from the center to the headboard. “What the hell size bed is that?”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. It’s like two California Kings smooshed together, but it’s not. It’s all one fucking mattress.” Ember drifted across the stone floor toward the bed and launched herself onto the pile of pillows. “Oh, my God.”
Cheyenne laughed and slipped off her backpack before shrugging out of her trenchcoat. “You know what? I bet they call this an O’gúl Prince.”
The fae girl snorted and sat up. “You’re stuck on this whole royalty thing, aren’t you?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m handling it fairly well.”
“True.” Ember shrugged and flopped back onto the pillows, propping herself up with
