“Cheyenne, I understand you’re upset.”
She roared and lunged at him. Corian and Maleshi went after her in twin flashes of silver light, and Cheyenne found herself struggling against both nightstalkers holding her back. She tried to slip past them, snarling, but they held her shoulders and yanked her back.
“You need to stop, kid,” Maleshi growled. “This isn’t the right way to handle it.”
“Sure feels right.” The halfling jerked against their hold, and they pulled her back even farther.
“We’ll figure it out,” Corian muttered, “but you have to let this go. Right now.”
Cheyenne sneered and shoved her face up to his. “You weren’t there. You have no idea what I saw!”
“Hey.”
Cheyenne turned at the sound of Ember’s voice and shot a quick glance at her friend before the fae’s hand smacked the halfling’s cheek. Cheyenne’s head barely moved, but the shock of it took the fight out of her for two seconds.
“Oh, shit.” Byrd sucked in a breath and pressed his knuckles against his teeth. Beside him, Lumil ran a hand through her mop of yellow hair and watched silently.
“Ember.”
“Get it the fuck together already. What’s wrong with you?”
“Hey, I’m not the one who tried to feed my daughter to a—”
“Shut up.” Ember pointed at Corian and Maleshi. “Let go of her. She’s not one of your prisoners.”
Corian cleared his throat and slowly slid his hands off Cheyenne. Maleshi released the halfling’s other shoulder and raised her hands, backing away.
The halfling rolled her shoulders and lifted her chin. “What happened back there was—”
“Inexcusable. Horrifying. A massive betrayal. Yeah, I get it.” Ember grabbed her friend’s shoulders and squeezed. “We can talk about it later. Right now, you’re starting to sound a lot like the drow you’re so set on blowing to pieces. Got it?”
Cheyenne blinked. Jesus, I probably do look like a raving lunatic. She glanced at L’zar, who had his hands in his pockets and was staring at the ground.
Ember shook her gently. “Got it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Em. I get it.”
“Okay.” Ember released her and asked, “So what now?”
“If it’s all right with Cheyenne,” L’zar muttered, slowly looking up at his daughter with a small frown, “I would very much like the chance to explain what happened.”
“You can’t leave it alone for five minutes, can you?”
“It’s important.”
Cheyenne spun and stormed past the nightstalkers. “Give me five minutes.”
L’zar looked at Corian and gestured toward his daughter. The nightstalker pointed at him in warning. “Don’t push it.”
“Okay.” The drow raised his hands in submission. “I’ll wait.”
Cheyenne walked across the bowl and slumped against the slope, her back curving with the shape of the smooth stone. Light tapping sounded on her right, and she snorted when she saw Foltr sitting on the lip of the stone bowl, swinging his staff over the edge and hitting the rock.
“Time heals many things, Aranél.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think five minutes is enough to patch up this mess.” Not even five lifetimes. I should never have trusted him.
The old raug nodded slowly. “We shall see.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Can I sit?”
Cheyenne glanced at L’zar’s shoes beside her. “You were timing me, weren’t you?”
“Only with an internal clock. It’s pretty accurate after the first thousand years.”
She snorted and didn’t protest when he lowered himself to the stone beside her. The rest of their party had gathered on the other side of the clearing to give the drow space for a much-needed chat.
L’zar kicked out his legs in front of him and said, “I’m sure you’ve picked up on the fact that I was here once before.”
“Yeah, two thousand years ago. And you found yourself a master. Sounds like some kind of messed-up drow BDSM without any of the benefits.”
He slowly looked at her with a growing smile. “And those would be?”
“I don’t know, it just came out. Say what you need to say.”
“Ba’rael wasn’t the only one looking for more power, Cheyenne.” L’zar wrapped his arms around his bent knees and hooked his fingers together. “We shared the same brand of youthful stupidity back then. Honestly, I wonder sometimes if it’s changed much.”
She scoffed. “How observant of you.”
“Most days, I like to think my stupidity is slightly less prevalent these days.” L’zar shot her a sidelong glance and smiled. “My sister was too much of a coward to leave the safety of her precious city and risk everything she had to get what she wanted. I was too much of an idiot not to consider that coming here the first time would give me everything I wanted in all the worst ways. But I came. The Nimlothar forest was still thriving then. The rest of this place is unchanged.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point.” The drow chuckled. “I came here wanting power from the Sorren Gán, and it showed me how to get what I wanted. I know exactly what it’s like in that fell-damn lake, Cheyenne. I spent more time down there than I care to remember all at once, without coming up for air.”
“You know you can breathe in there, right?”
“No. You could. I could not.” L’zar turned his head toward her, then looked away. “I died in those flames. The part of me that makes me myself died, and when I did, I saw the threads right there in front of me, laid out in perfect order and with such clarity.”
Cheyenne shifted her position and frowned across the clearing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about when you bring up threads and weaving and whatever.”
“Hmm. What you see with that activator, lines of code and data and the various outcomes of a single command, I see with magic. Those are the threads. The bonds tying us to every living thing in this world and Earth. To ourselves.” He shrugged. “As I died, I found the threads to pull myself out of the flames. Maybe it was only a return from the brink of
