Killian
White-hot agony flooded my body as consciousness returned.
The throbbing in my skull pounded like a death drum.
Each pulse sent flares of pain up my legs, into my back, through my arms until my fingers tingled.
I kept my eyes closed, drawing shallow breaths to manage the assault while memory pieced itself together.
I’d been fighting Maren, Lady Justice. Her words enraged me, and, worse, she refused to release me. Even fire against her vines would not persuade her. Meanwhile, I’d heard Ilaris chanting, saw her awaken Theron and speak to him.
And there lay my confusion.
Instead of coming to my aid, Theron climbed back into his mountain and flooded the Verdant Maw. The volume of water he’d released meant the place would be buried forever, impossible to visit again unless the waters receded. Unlikely in such a lush land.
When the pain dulled to something bearable, I opened my eyes. Blue sky above me, no trees in sight. To my right, green hills swelled against the horizon. To my left. Ilaris.
She sat upright, arms curled around her knees, her cheek resting against one leg as she watched me with those soft brown eyes. When our gazes met, she lifted her head. Something like relief flickered across her features, then vanished beneath something else. Wariness.
It struck me harder than the fall had. Those eyes that had watched me undress in the silver-lit water now studied me like a problem she had not yet solved.
What had Theron told her?
I studied her. She’d been wearing armor and didn’t look hurt at all. A fragile mortal versus me, a giant prince, yet I was the one lying broken in the grass while she sat there, watching. The pieces of her armor rested beside her.
“You’re hurt,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
Despite the reassurance of her words, the wariness remained, a shadow between us. “Nothing. Just time. It will fade.” I kept my voice steady, unwilling to let it waver when uncertainty already hung so thick. I waited a beat. “What happened?”
Ilaris made a low sound in her throat. “That’s a complicated question. I was going to ask you the same.”
The pulsing in my head threatened to drown her out, yet I felt more attuned to what she wasn’t saying.
My fingers dug into the earth, anchoring me.
The pain faded ever so slightly, as though it were being pushed down into the ground, channeled through my fingers.
I remained that way for a while, embracing the silence, wondering if she would let the words spill free.
She didn’t.
“Why did Theron kick us out?” I asked finally.
“I asked him about the Unmaking, the sealed doors. He claimed they were your concern, not his.”
Bitterness hardened in my chest. Would my brethren turn their backs on me? “Did he explain why?”
“He told me to ask you, but that’s not all.” She paused, her fingers tightening across her knees. “He also told me to read the scroll. All of it. For an explanation. Are you familiar with the words? Do you know what was written?”
Alarm rushed through me. I pushed myself upright, gritting my teeth against fresh flares of pain.
Ilaris’s eyes widened, and she looked like she might stand and back away, but she didn’t.
“I don’t know what’s written on the scroll,” I explained. “Where is it? Did anything survive our exile?”
Her gaze dropped to the grass. “I lost my bag when we went over the cliff. And I don’t know where Jasper is. We lost the food too.”
Disaster. Without the scroll, we had nothing. No way to wake the other giants. “We need that scroll.”
“I know.” Her voice carried an edge. “I was afraid to read it before, but now I’m just confused.
I thought our quest was to wake the giants in each kingdom, to give us a chance to fight the Unmaking.
To prevent them from gaining enough strength to breach the doors and flood this world.
But the stone giant, he did not seem inclined to help.
He told me . . . ” She paused and took a breath, as though the words were difficult to shape. “He gave me the Heart.”
Slow awareness came over me. He’d given her one of the divine gifts when I specifically told her we were not to touch them. This was an omen. My first instinct was to argue, to claim she was wrong. I might have, if it had been her word alone. But Maren’s cryptic words came back to me.
“What do you know, Killian?” Ilaris asked, her voice soft. Sad.
This was the wariness in her gaze.
The pounding in my head increased, the reminder like the sound of the Unmaking battering against the door.
Determined to find a way through. Thud. Thud.
Thud. Memories rippled as I closed my eyes.
There was more, wasn’t there? Whispers. Fingers pointing.
Tense conversations as I was chained. There were no answers, only punishment, knowledge of the other giants, and what must be done.
Or what I thought had to be done.
I’d inferred my understanding from fragments, my limited knowledge of how the world worked. But I’d been young then. Protected. Shielded from truth. And even though I’d been taught the histories, I hadn’t truly applied myself.
So I’d missed something Theron knew. Something Maren understood too.
Instead of fighting her, I should have listened, asked questions. I needed to find her again.
I faced Ilaris, the truth bitter on my tongue.
It stung to humble myself, to admit I was wrong.
Mortals deserved nothing from my kind. We scorned them.
We mocked them. But Ilaris was different.
We were bound by a blood oath, yes, but it was more than that.
I felt a kinship, a yearning I found difficult to ignore.
I wanted her conversation, her companionship.
Her trust.
“This journey, this awakening, did not go the way I expected. It’s clear there is more happening than I fully understand.” I met her eyes. “We need the scroll.”
“Who was that woman?”
“Maren, Lady Justice. She’s the woman in blue who’s been following us.”
Ilaris drew a sharp breath. “She didn’t look like the woman I saw in the village. How do you know her? Is she a Guardian?”
“She can shift her shape, blending in where needed. The vines obey her, and she always wears blue. She’s not a giant, nor is she a Guardian. She moves outside of those confinements, and if she survived the flood, she might explain. Or she might try to stop us.”
“We need help,” Ilaris said, pressing her cheek against her folded hands, her shoulders curving inward. “This is too much for two of us to carry. We are lost, you’re hurt, and we have nothing.”
She was losing courage, losing hope. The sight of it, her certainty crumbling, her faith in me eroding, sent a cold blade through my ribs.
“I will escort you home,” I conceded. “If the blood oath will release you, I shall release you.”
She straightened, her gaze snapping to mine. “You would do that? What about the Unmaking?”
“It is my responsibility, my journey.”
She studied me through narrowed eyes. “Let’s not make any premature decisions.”
Let’s.
She wasn’t giving up on this yet. Relief moved through me. She still carried that scholarly hunger for knowledge, that relentless need to understand.
A dark shape shifted in the sky, and I tilted my head, letting out a hiss as pain shot through me at the sudden movement. The shape landed and trotted toward us.
Jasper. With Ilaris’s satchel in his mouth.
She cried out and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck.
Your wings came in. I said. Timely.
Jasper dropped the satchel, tail wagging as he leaned into her caress. She’s much happier to see me than she is to see you.
A jab.
I chuckled and regretted it as my ribs protested.
There’s a cave. Jasper continued. With fresh water and an old chest. Might be useful.
I lay back in the grass, letting the earth cradle my broken body.
A cave.
An opportunity to rest and heal. To decide what to do next.