Ilaris
My lungs were twin brands, each breath a rasp of salt-stung air scraping through my body.
I couldn’t tell if the heat came from within or from whatever I lay upon.
Something warm and breathing, fur soft beneath torn clothes.
Cold air touched my face, but my limbs felt heavy, my eyes unable to fully open, my body burning with the memory of drowning, of water forcing its way in where only air should be.
The thing beneath me stopped, and I rolled off with a groan, catching myself against earth that smelled of moss and decay, so different from the sea.
My fingers dug into loam, into the small stones hidden in soil, anchoring myself to solid ground.
Not water, not drowning, not the dark pulling me under.
Rolling onto my back, I forced my eyes open. Green was everywhere. Oak trees towered above me, their leaves a canopy against pale sky. Birds called to each other, wind stirred the branches. I blinked, trying to reconcile the forest with the last thing I remembered.
Something wet and warm nuzzled my neck.
Blurred vision cleared, revealing Jasper.
He’d grown. Impossible yet undeniable. What had been a small creature I could carry was now the size of a hunting hound, his fur still midnight black but his body bigger, stronger, his horns longer, dangerous enough to skewer a small beast. Had I been riding him?
The thought was absurd, he wasn’t big enough, or strong enough, yet. . .
“You’re bigger,” I whispered, testing out my raw voice. My throat hurt as though it had been squeezed.
Jasper huffed, then settled beside me, the warmth of him comforting.
Then I saw Killian.
He stood a few feet away, arms crossed over his bare chest, bronzed skin catching the dappled light that filtered through the leaves.
Still half-dressed, all that carved muscle and ancient power on display.
The bags lay at his feet, somehow salvaged from the wreck.
But it was his sculpted face that caught and held me.
The careful blankness of it, even though his jaw was set as though he’d been standing there a long time, watching me breathe.
When his eyes met mine, something in them shifted. Was it relief? Some other tension he’d been holding.
Memories crashed over me in fragments. Harlan shouting in another language, Killian’s fire turning the world to flame in a blaze of gold. I’d been trying to escape, but I’d ended up in the water.
“You nearly drowned,” Killian said. The words were matter-of-fact, obvious, but it was the tone that carried to my ears. A haunting pause. A new roughness, as though the words had cost him something to speak. As though—
As though he’d been afraid.
But no. He only needed me for the blood oath, to awaken the other giants. That was the extent of his concern. That was all it could be. Yet I couldn’t stop the yearning that swept through me, the hunger for connection, concern, and care.
I sat up slowly, and pain laced through my left leg.
A cry escaped my lips and I looked down to find my shin bloodied, the skin broken, blood clotted. The thing in the water had wrapped around my ankle and yanked. I remembered now, the grip of it, squeezing my leg as it dragged me down.
“I have bandages,” I managed, pointing to my bag with a shaking hand. “I need to wrap this.”
Killian moved, and for a moment I thought he would come to me and tend the wound himself.
Then he stopped, his whole body going rigid.
He picked up my bag and carried it over, his expression so carefully controlled it almost looked like a mask.
He set it down in front of me, opened it, then stepped back.
“I couldn’t touch you without harming you.
In the water it’s. . . It’s different but here. . . it’s not worth the cost.”
Understanding dawned on me. He hadn’t attempted to wrap my leg because he was afraid of burning me.
Was his magic uncontrollable then? I hadn’t noticed it before, how he never touched me, at least not skin to skin.
My fingers went to my lips. Was that why he hadn’t returned the kiss?
The strong jolt I felt when I got too close.
His warning of how dangerous he was made sense.
I’d pretended to understand but now comprehension swept through me and the cruelty of it stole my breath away.
Bound to him with blood, close enough to feel the heat of him and yet untouchable. Forever untouchable.
I yanked bandages from my bag, pausing when Killian handed me a water skin, his fingers careful not to brush mine. I took a long drink, letting the cool water soothe my ruined throat, then splashed the rest across my leg.
The pain was immediate and so sharp I bit down on a gasp. Salt from the sea clung to the wound, and everything stung. I cleaned it as best I could while Killian watched, his gaze like a physical thing on my skin, heavy, warm, too attentive.
“You have other wounds,” he said carefully.
I frowned up at him. My tone sharp. “What do you mean?”
He touched his side. “Bruises across your torso. Here. And here.” His hand moved, mapping injuries he couldn’t have seen. “Why?”
Shame swept through me. I wrestled with the question as I wrapped my shin, pulling the bandage tight.
Finally, I looked up, holding his gaze. I would not walk away from this.
I would not be ashamed. “I told you about the poppy fields, the passing of my mother, the article I wrote that shamed the House of Scholars. It also humiliated a wealthy family and exposed their corruption. I’m not sorry I wrote the article.
I’m not sorry I researched and investigated.
But truth has consequences. It’s legal to pay someone to deal out punishment.
Rules are, only women can hit women, only men can hit men.
Bones cannot be broken, and no hitting or bruising where it can be seen in public.
My face is safe, but not my ribs, or anywhere clothes can hide the evidence. ”
Killian’s eyes turned molten. Fire crackled across his skin, small flames dancing along his forearms, his shoulders.
The temperature around us spiked as smoke rose from the dry leaves near his feet.
Every muscle was taut, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“That is not legal,” he said, his voice a low growl, almost inhuman.
“Beating someone for having an opinion, for daring to speak truth is never legal. What they did to you was wrong. It shouldn’t be allowed, should be punishable—”
“Killian,” I said his name sharply, watching the flames spread. He looked like he was going to explode, but we were in a forest, surrounded by brush, trees, leaves—everything would light up with flames if he got angry, if he let his fire flare again. I couldn’t stomach another inferno. “The fire.”
He looked down at his hands and held them up, studying the flames that licked up his arms. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t be able to stop it, that his rage would consume him. Then, slowly, the fire dimmed, leaving only the faint smell of smoke and scorched earth.
He started collecting wood. Stacking up fallen branches and creating a fire pit.
It was an excuse, a reason to do something with his hands, to channel his fury into something productive.
I used the reprieve to study our surroundings, to orient myself.
We were deep in an old forest, the kind that might have been growing for centuries.
It was as if we’d sprung up in the middle of it, for there was no path, no signs of human passage, just lush, beautiful greenery stretching in all directions.
“Where’s Harlan?” I asked, determined to change the trajectory of the conversation.
Killian’s hands stilled on the wood. “Harlan is a Guardian.”
I frowned. “What’s a Guardian?”
“An unexpected complication in our plans.”
His plans. Not mine. I didn’t want to be part of this.
Killian continued. “In the boat, did you understand the language he spoke?”
“No, it sounded garbled.”
“It was an old tongue, a chant. A language even my people rarely spoke. Only the magicians and sorcerers used it to call armies to their sides. The Guardians were put into place after my people fell. Their purpose was singular. Should we ever wake, if we dared to return, the Guardians would stop us.”
The words sank in slowly, their implications spreading like ripples. “How would you know about the Guardians if. . .if you were stone?”
“We all heard the verdict, the voice in the sky condemning us. My people may have imprisoned me for what I did, but the punishment was greater than my own sins.”
I puzzled over what he was explaining. “But that was a lifetime ago. How would Harlan know?”
“It’s likely his family line, passed from father to son, the weight of guarding, of taking an interest in anyone who showed an interest in the ruins.”
Oh. It all sank in. Harlan had already paid the ultimate price. He’d lost his daughter, his wife, his son. I felt guilty all over again.
“What about the creatures in the water? Were they sent by the Unmaking?”
Killian snapped his fingers, and a flame appeared in his hand.
Ever so gently he lowered it to the wood, watching it catch fire.
It was a warm night, we didn’t need the fire, but he opened the bag of food and started pulling up supplies.
He was going to cook again. Despite the seriousness of our situation, my stomach growled.
I hadn’t eaten anything since the fish this morning.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It spoke in riddles, said a choice would have to be made before we woke Numen, the water giant.” He looked at me through a screen of rising smoke. “It might be friend or foe, a servant of the Guardians or the Unmaking. Or something else entirely.”
The fire crackled between us and I found myself staring into the flames, thinking about everything that had led me there.
The ruins. The sealed chamber. The words I’d spoken without understanding their weight.
I’d wanted to prove myself, to vindicate my research, to show the House of Scholars they’d been wrong to dismiss me.
Now I was bound to an ancient prince, hunted by things that shouldn’t exist and walking toward a destination I barely understood. And I couldn’t even touch Killian without being burned.
“Where are we going now?” I asked.
“To the Verdant Maw to free Theron, my earthen brother. He will guard the gates there against the Unmaking.”
“And what of the Guardians there?” I asked. If there were Guardians, they’d be everywhere, ready to stop us.
“I am fire,” Killian said, voice low, dangerous. Smoke curled from his shoulders like wings. “Their wards will burn.”
The casual certainty of it should have frightened me. Instead, I felt something else, a dark thrill at the power in his voice, the promise of destruction. My grandmother’s bad behavior coming back to haunt me.
“Wards?” I asked.
“That’s why I lit the fires. Harlan had wards that prevented me from accessing the shore.”
I stared at him. “Why would Harlan offer us a ride if. . .if he didn’t want you to leave?”
Killian tilted his head. “I don’t think he figured it out until it was too late.”
I stood, testing the weight against my leg. It hurt, but I still limped over to the fire, sitting on a nearby log. “I assume he doesn’t know about the Unmaking.”
Killian straightened. “No one should know. It was a secret held close. To avoid fear. Panic.”
“But if the world knew, they could prepare.”
Killian shook his head. “Prepare to fight against the unfightable? My people had magic, and you say that magic isn’t used, or known in this time.”
“No one has magic.”
“Then it will be pointless.”
“But if trouble is coming, if there is danger, we have to let people know.”
“I don’t disagree, but who will believe you?”
I went quiet. No one believed me. My words meant nothing. Even if I went to the House of Scholars now, what would they say to me? Hope fizzled and died.