Ilaris
The vines dragged me away from Killian, swallowing me like a giant green mouth closing over prey, sucking in all the air and leaving me with nothing.
I must have passed out, for I woke to slow, shallow breaths.
The vines had retreated, coiled now on a distant, carved platform, where Killian argued with a figure in green and blue.
His hands moved aggressively, and fire licked at the edges of the pavilion.
I pushed myself upright, searching for a path that would lead me back to him.
A clearing opened around me, hemmed by cliffs that surged skyward, their faces carved into giant visages—mouths agape, hands raised in supplication or warning.
Moss clung to the stone like draped jewelry, emerald and thick.
The sky was clear, fluffy white clouds within reach.
It reminded me of those clear, sunny days when Mother would take me walking in the vegetable fields.
We’d lie out on the warm dirt, and she’d point out the shapes of the clouds, a fluffy lamb, a three-legged cow, or a mysterious tower.
Perhaps that was when I first started falling in love with legends, with stories of the past.
Now, I stood in one.
Water poured from one of those open giant mouths, a waterfall crashing into a pool far below.
The Verdant Maw.
I still had my satchel, but Jasper was gone, unless just this once he preferred Killian’s company to mine. Or the vines were still holding him.
Drumming my fingers against my thigh, I turned in a slow circle.
The carved faces stared down, patient as mountains, reminding me of my quest. I was here to wake another sleeping giant.
The scroll in my bag pulled at my attention, a weight I’d tried to ignore since I’d awakened Killian.
It had demanded a blood oath, and been responsible for my knowledge about the Unmaking.
I did not want to know what relentless evil might lie here as well.
Regardless, I forced myself to draw it out, my hands trembling.
The parchment unrolled stiffly, its surface just as I remembered. That strange sensation washed over me again, the sense of stepping outside my own skin, watching from a distance. My mouth opened, and words poured out.
When I finished, sharp wind whipped across the clearing. Mist from the waterfall struck my face, tasting of mineral-rich stone and furry moss. I spat, grimacing, as the ground shuddered beneath me. Not the bone-jarring quake of Killian’s awakening, but a subtler shift. A resettling.
Stone groaned. Not the scrape of rock on rock but a sound with timbre.
With throat. One of the cliff faces detached itself, rising with slow inevitability.
I tilted my head back, watching as the giant unfolded.
He was twice my height and covered in moss and vines that clung like living skin.
His stone never shattered. No transformation into flesh, yet he breathed and moved.
He blinked down at me with gray eyes hidden beneath thick brows, his face ancient, lined as old oak bark.
A mossy beard trailed to his chest. His rounded shoulders hunched forward, arms hanging low, and when he yawned, the sound rumbled through the clearing like distant thunder. “Who dares wake me?”
His voice vibrated in my chest, rough as gravel dragged over slate.
“I’m Ilaris, the Scholar,” I announced.
“The Scholar.” He repeated the title slowly, tasting it. “Welcome to the Verdant Maw. The domain of. . .” His eyes drifted closed.
I waited, using the silence to peek over my shoulder.
Killian and the woman in blue still fought on the platform, fire spreading like a ring around them.
The flames felt wrong here, disrespectful to the lush wetness of this place.
My chest tightened. I wanted to preserve it while Killian was quick to unleash destruction when the opportunity presented itself.
“It’s happened, hasn’t it?” the giant said.
I turned back. His eyes were open again, fixed on me, but because of his stone expression, impossible to decipher.
“The Great Sundering?” I asked.
He nodded, his entire body bowing under the weight of his stone head. “The end of my people. The end of an age.”
He leaned forward, and I stumbled back, certain he would topple onto me.
Instead, he lowered himself onto a nearby boulder, his body creaking and groaning like the old library stairs under winter frost, protesting but holding.
He rested his hands on his knees, bent forward as though he might curl into a ball. “I didn’t get the chance to grieve.”
There was a heaviness to him that had nothing to do with stone. It was grief, thick and suffocating, expanding outward like a cloud. It settled over me, pressing down on my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I came here with Prince Killian to wake you. The Unmaking are at the doors. He said you could help.”
“Prince Killian.” A heavy sigh. “I see him now, fighting Lady Justice.” His gaze drifted past me toward the platform. “But he’s not my concern.”
The phrasing snagged my attention. Fighting Lady Justice? And why wasn’t Killian a concern? He was the entire reason we’d come.
The giant’s gaze returned to me, slow and deliberate. “Your coming was foretold. The Scholar. The Scroll.” His voice dropped, reverent. “You’re here for the Rod, the Heart, and the Stone.”
The breath left my body. “I’m not here for those treasures. I’ve been warned against seeking the gifts of the gods.”
“The fact that you don’t want them means it is true.” He shifted on the boulder, stone grating against stone. “It is your destiny.”
“I don’t understand.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “How will this help guard against the Unmaking?”
“You hold the scroll. Surely you’ve read it?”
I looked down at the parchment still gripped in my hand.
The words I’d spoken vibrated through me, clinging to my ribs, my throat, as though they wanted to be spoken again.
But there was more. I’d tucked the scroll away too quickly, hadn’t unfurled it fully to see if more verses waited.
My first instructor would have rapped my knuckles for such carelessness: Read to the end, Ilaris, or don’t read at all.
I called myself a scholar, yet I’d been too afraid to look. I rolled it back up. “I haven’t finished it.”
“The answers you seek are there.” He rose, joints groaning, and turned toward the waterfall. “I have the Heart to give you. Guard it above all else. Do not let others use it against you.” He paused, his back to me. “Do not use it until it is time.”
I stepped forward, pulse hammering. “What about the Unmaking, the doors that need guarding?”
“That was the sin of Prince Killian. His burden to bear.”
The words struck like a blow. “Then there’s no door here? No seal against them?”
“You must ask him.” The giant’s voice softened. “The only truth I hold is that I must give the Heart to the Scholar when she wakes me. But sleep is much preferable.”
He reached into the waterfall with one long arm, water streaming off the stone, and lifted out a glob of mud. He dropped it at my feet with a wet smack. Through the muck, amber glinted, a promise of something hidden beneath.
My heart leaped into my throat, my pulse so hard it blurred my vision. An ancient relic was being handed to me like river clay. It felt like a mistake, but it also felt like an opportunity that would vanish the moment I hesitated.
I fell to my knees, but lifted my face to the giant. “I still don’t understand.”
“It is time for you to go back the way you came.” His voice deepened, resonant with finality. “It is time for the fire to go out and for access to these lands to be no more. I go to my final resting place.”
He turned and bellowed—a single word command that echoed across the Verdant Maw, shaking loose dust that tasted of ancient earth.
At first, nothing happened. Then the waterfall’s roar swelled, the air thickening with humidity. Clouds rolled in, heavy and wet. The giant climbed back into his alcove, folding himself into the cliff face until he was indistinguishable from the stone.
I had a moment. Only a moment.
I snatched up the muddy rock—supposedly the Heart—and ran.
Water chased, the ground turning slick, then boggy. The roar of it cascaded around me, deafening as I fled toward the platform. It rose higher than I’d thought.
I wasn’t going to make it.
Waves surged, and I was caught in the foaming fury. It rushed toward the platform where Killian and the woman turned toward me. The fire was already weakening, the vines shrinking away. The woman took one look and dived off the other side of the platform, into the waters.
The look on Killian’s face was a mix of relief and panic as he reached for me.
I thought of the scroll, how it might be soaking wet and the words ruined.
I thought of the Heart, how I held it with one hand and a rushing current would knock it away.
And I thought of Killian, of what he’d told me, and, most importantly, what he hadn’t shared.
He strained for me, his lips forming words, but I couldn’t hear them in the roar of the waters.
Waves swirled, rising higher than the platform, yanking Killian into the vortex. I thought of Jasper as we were sucked in, and the truth of the situation struck me. We were going to die.
I wrapped my hands around the Heart and squeezed. Would it save us? I didn’t know how to use it, how to invoke the magic within the relic, and the giant had warned me against using it until it was time. Was this the time?
The vortex spun tighter, drawing me closer to Killian. Miraculously, our heads remained above water, but then came a terrible sucking sound. The water vomited us up into the air and over the other side of a cliff.
The sensation of flying, then falling, made my stomach flip.
I lost all sanity and dropped my satchel.
The Heart’s warmth pressed against my ribs as I tucked it into my breastplate.
Panic filled me as I kicked, clawing the air for something, anything, solid.
Greenery rushed around me far too fast, and once again, blackness took me.