“It touched me when that one got closer,” the fae girl whispered. “I could feel everything.”
“For real?”
Ember’s mouth had gone dry, but she licked her lips anyway. “Everything.”
“Huh.” Cheyenne rubbed the magical tingle growing beneath her nose. This is gonna get old fast. “If this place is a bubble with no openings to the outside, I guess the magic’s been building in here.”
“Like at the capital, do you think?”
Corian leaned toward them. “No. The magic in this place belongs here. I imagine it’s been strengthened by having no access to the rest of the world. No tech, untouched by the blight.”
“So this was what Ambar’ogúl was like before any of that,” Cheyenne muttered. “Before Sylra and all his changes.”
L’zar dipped his head at an olforím woman passing fluidly by him, though she kept a distance of ten feet. “If anyone would know, they would.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll ignore the magical shockwave and ask the closest one if this is what the world was like in the very beginning.” Cheyenne meant to snort at the idea, but it came out of her as a shallow, unsteady sigh. I bet it’s impossible to even think when one of those things gets too close. Her gaze drifted toward the bottom of the sloping hill where Cazerel stood in quiet conversation with Yilas. Or unless someone’s been here before and got used to it. Raugs are full of surprises.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, the raug chief turned back toward the traveling party and gestured at them with a wide sweep of his meaty arm. He looked like a mangled gray tree standing beside the lithe, graceful olforím, who was a head taller than the chief. Yilas nodded, and the pair made their way toward Cheyenne and the others.
“These, Yilas, are the drow’s kin.” Cazerel eyed L’zar intently. “L’zar Verdys and his daughter.”
“We are all kin in this place,” Yilas interrupted, sweeping his unblinking gaze across the entire party of dumbfounded travelers. “The source sweeps away all bonds of blood, does it not?”
“Blood bonds with blood.” Cheyenne wrinkled her nose when the line she’d heard in more prophecies than she’d wanted to hear came into her mind. Not here, though. Not in a place that doesn’t exist on the same freakin’ plane.
L’zar stepped toward Yilas, and while he didn’t grin at the magical, his closed-lipped smile was no less eager. “I would very much like to see him. My sister’s child.”
“Look around you, Weaver.” The olforím gestured toward the valley with a sweep of his thin arm. The sheer sleeves of his light-colored robes shivered with the movement, and Cheyenne noted the thumb and only two fingers on the magical’s hand.
Definitely like aliens.
“Everything you see is everything he is,” Yilas continued. “As are we all.”
“Indeed.” L’zar raised an eyebrow. “All the same, I would very much like to also see a physical body. If it’s not too much to ask.”
“No request is too grand, drow.” Yilas pursed his thin, pale lips. “Nor is the fulfillment of it. Come. We will lead you to this physical body. Do not be surprised if you cannot see it the way you expect.”
The olforím turned and headed toward the opposite side of the valley. Cheyenne and Ember glanced at each other, and the halfling leaned toward her friend to mutter, “I think we hit the jackpot for magicals even kookier than L’zar.”
“Kookier?” Ember snorted.
“It felt right at the moment.”
Corian paused on the other side of Cheyenne and nodded at Yilas and two other olforím walking beside him to lead yet another procession. L’zar had fallen in line behind them even before Cazerel, who rubbed his hairless gray head and nodded at the giant statues of long-dead O’gúleesh as if he approved of the unchanging state of things in Nor’ieth.
“This is it,” the nightstalker muttered.
“What, the end of sanity as we know it?”
Corian met the halfling’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Your chance to meet your cousin, kid. I wouldn’t be surprised if you feel a lot saner after that conversation.”
“I won’t be surprised if I lose my mind.” She’d tried to make it sound like a witty, sarcastic comment, but it didn’t quite work. I might’ve pinned the magical tail on the flying donkey with that one.
Ember’s attempt at a smile only made it to distracted-grimace level, but she steered the crawler down the sloping hillside as Cheyenne and L’zar’s rebels headed after another guide.
Behind them, Byrd kept clearing his throat. “I can’t even.”
“Then shut up, already,” Lumil muttered. “I’m right there with you, man.”
They passed through the center of Nor’ieth, weaving through the short, squat buildings of white stone and the occasional hut erected beside them. The highest concentration of what looked a lot like ancient Grecian temples filled the right side of the valley, interspersed with longer white buildings extending beneath the shadow of the rocky valley walls. Pale, elongated faces peered at the travelers from open doorways and from behind fluttering drapes made of the same material as the olforím’s matching robes. None of them said a word, though they smiled softly at the newcomers with unblinking eyes.
That’s how people smile at newborn babies, only five thousand times creepier.
Cheyenne blinked and forced herself to focus on the back of Corian’s head as they made their way through the densest mass of buildings and curious onlookers.
“They don’t look surprised to see us here,” Ember whispered. “Just amused.”
“That’s on my list of ‘how to know someone’s not right in the head,’” Cheyenne muttered. It’s the same look L’zar gave me from behind bars when I met him.
The thick buzz of concentrated magic in the center of the valley made Cheyenne’s eyes water. Lumil took a sharp breath and sneezed violently, sending a shrieking echo blasting back at them from the valley’s high stone walls.
“Nice one,” Byrd muttered.
“You or me, dae’bruj.” The goblin woman rubbed her forearm under her nose and sniffed. “One of us is gonna shut you up.”
They could have made the trip across
