Chapter 68
SIXTY-EIGHT
When Aeduan awoke from his nightmare, it was to find a sword had pierced his belly. There was an uncanny stillness draped over Poznin. A brutal cold, too. It didn’t bother him, so much as fold into him. One more dimension to add to the many dimensions that filled him after the dream.
He inhaled, savoring the scent of a sky singing with snow. Of meadows drenched in moonlight, and of sun and sand and auburn leaves falling.
That was the scent of the Sleeping Giant. Aeduan recognized that now.
With a wince, he crunched upward onto his elbows. It hurt—the sword was all the way through him. But he gripped the hilt with one hand, and in a single, easy move, he wrenched it out.
A groan unwound from his throat. Blood spurted. Then the wound crusted over with ice he was beginning to … not understand, but at least recognize. He set the sword beside him. It was the Truthwitch’s blade—he’d already found it once, and now here it was, delivered right to him.
Its sheath was gone. Burned away like so much of this city around him.
Aeduan patted at a pocket on his thigh, where the necklace waited. Despite many rips and tears that had shredded his clothing, this little gift from the Truthwitch still remained. And like the sword beside him, the bits of quartz and glass hummed with a purity of purpose.
“This necklace,” Moon Mother explained, “will remind you of who you are and how all your adventures have shaped you. And this…” She offered him the second gift: a small knife sharp as starlight.
“This will help you build the world anew, Little Monster. Your world, for the choice has always been yours.”
“Thank you, Moon Mother,” Aeduan said to the snow falling around him. “For everything.”
A breeze stroked across him, tender like his mother’s kisses had once been—and filled with more love than any little monster really deserved. Run, my child, she whispered again, just as she had in the nightmare. Just as she’d always told him, whenever he’d needed it most. Run.
The Bloodwitch named Aeduan stood up, and he ran.