“Okay.” Cheyenne pushed to her feet and spread her arms as she stepped away from him. “Like, this much. At all times. What is that, four feet?”
The pale drow placed his hands in his lap and stared up at her. “You said two.”
“Yeah, I know. It doubles every time you cross the personal-drow bubble.”
“Hmm.” Rising slowly to his feet in one fluid movement, as if a giant hand pulled him up by invisible strings, Neros tilted his head and frowned. “I can show you things you haven’t dreamed of imagining.”
“And there’s the offer.” The halfling folded her arms. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve already listened to way too many prophecies and had all kinds of crazy dreams. Not looking to add to that list.”
“Prophecies mean nothing.” He stepped toward her. “Dreams are only as good as the mind around them.”
Cheyenne couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Okay. Nothing wrong with my mind.”
“The light, cousin. And the Weave. The threads through us all.” Another step closer.
“Hey, you can stop right there.”
“Even those that run from me to you.” Neros pinched his fingers together against his chest, then spread them toward Cheyenne’s. “From you to me.”
“I’m serious. Stop walking at me.”
“We can find those threads together.” He flicked his fingers toward her face, and she felt his hand brush across her cheek despite the three feet between them.
Cheyenne jerked away from the touch and scowled at him. “Don’t do that again.”
Neros’ pale eyes blazed above a determined smile. He lifted his hand again and took one more step toward her.
“Back off!” She shoved the air between them with both hands and sent her cousin sailing backward across the temple.
He landed on his ass and skidded across the floor until the back of his head cracked against the thick stone pillar. Neros slumped over his lap, breathing slowly, and gingerly touched the back of his head.
Shit. I drew first blood, and now he’s gonna come right back at me.
Neros looked at his fingers as if he’d never seen blood.
“I’m sorry.” Cheyenne took a halting step toward him. “I gave you plenty of warnings. I know it’s not an excuse, but my need for personal space is a very real thing.” So is failing at an apology. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Badly.”
Her cousin tilted his head and studied the blood on his fingers. “You didn’t.”
“Well, maybe you don’t feel it now, but in the morning, you will.”
The blood glowed in a halo of white light and lifted from the drow’s pale fingers. It sparked and floated away like embers from a fire, dissipating into the air.
“Oh. Because you can heal yourself.” Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Probably should’ve seen that coming.”
Without a sound or even a grimace of discomfort, Neros stood and blinked quickly before staring at his cousin with the same intensity again. “You look surprised.”
She took a step back and lifted her hand slightly. If he goes nutso-drow on me after this, I’ll be ready. “I am. First, because I’ve gotten myself into a lot of situations where self-healing like that would’ve come in handy. And mostly because you’re not angry.”
“No, I’m not.”
The halfling lifted her chin and shot him a skeptical glance. “And you’re not attacking me.”
“No.”
“I saw how fast you can move. You didn’t even lift a finger to defend yourself.”
Neros’ open, curious gaze brought another tingling wave of magical attention buzzing across the halfling’s skin. “There is nothing to defend against, Cheyenne. Not here. Certainly not with you.”
“Well, I did bash your head open. And O’gúleesh aren’t famous for being peaceful and letting something like that slide.”
A soft chuckle escaped the pale drow. “O’gúleesh do not dictate the ways of this world, cousin. Rather, it is the other way around.”
“Okay. Either way, I’m sorry I lost it on you.”
“I’m not.” In a burst of white light, Neros darted across the temple and stopped inches in front of Cheyenne.
“Jesus, for real?” She staggered back and almost fell off the edge of the temple floor, then stepped off and backed up across the plateau. “You move fast but pick up new concepts pretty slow, huh?”
“Stay with me.”
“What?”
Neros took a slow step toward her, his washed-out golden eyes flaring with intensity. “Stay with me, Cheyenne. Here, in Nor’ieth. On this mountain. I will show you everything. And you will show me what I cannot see without you.”
“Uh, no.” Cheyenne glanced behind her to gauge how much room she had before she’d end up falling off the mountainside. “I get it. You’re intrigued. Everyone seems to have some kind of realization along those lines when they meet me. And I’m definitely not a stranger to being different. But staying here is not an option.”
“It can be.”
A dry laugh escaped her. “Oh, no. It definitely can’t.”
“We have a purpose, Cheyenne, you and I. We can fulfill it together, without ever ‘lifting a finger to defend ourselves.’ Like you said.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.” She stuck her finger in the air, meaning to point it at him in warning, and paused. Without ever lifting a finger. Maybe I don’t have to find a different race to put on the throne. Maybe I need a different breed of drow, the kind that can knock L’zar Verdys off a mountain and keep him off but won’t fight back. “What about fulfilling your purpose somewhere else, huh?”
“I do not understand.”
“Clearly.” Cheyenne glanced at the sky and took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know how much you’ve seen, but here’s what my purpose is for the foreseeable future. I basically staged a coup against the Crown of Ambar’ogúl, or at least the beginning of one. We all thought I was the only one left to inherit that throne, family ties and all. None of us knew you existed until yesterday.”
“I exist here.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get that. But what if you could exist at the center of Hangivol? The capital. The highest seat of power in this entire
