Ilaris
Iheld onto the rim of the basket as we lifted off the ground, the merchant releasing the ropes that tethered us. The barn ceiling was retractable, and one moment I was down on the ground with Killian, the next we lifted off. A weightlessness came over me, and I was struck into silence.
In my dreams, I’d never imagined this, the ability to fly, to see the world from another angle. A thousand questions lingered on my tongue. Why wasn’t Killian surprised? How did he know how to control it? Were these wonders of the human age an invention common for giants?
The wind whipped up as we rose. Still, I leaned over the edge of the basket, capturing the world in my mind, the maze of the city laid out in front of me, the rise and flow of the buildings. The looming edge of the mountains, and then we were descending, swooping low as though we might land.
Killian tossed down a rope, there was a tug, and he hauled up Jasper, who was the size of a puppy again.
Jasper!
How could I have forgotten about him? I bent and threw my arms around him, then recoiled, for there was a smell about him I didn’t recognize. Something feral and wrong.
“The Unmaking are here,” Killian said, guiding the balloon back up into the air.
“How do you know?” I asked, my sweaty palms shaking, and suddenly I was grateful to be in the air, far above it all.
“Last night, Jasper saw them. There are only a few creeping through the land, and it appears they only come out at night, especially since people still dwell here. But it explains why everyone was indoors when we arrived.”
“The guards at the inn, the hands on weapons, the glances at the windows,” I finished. “If they are here, they could be anywhere. What should we do? What can we do to help them?”
“It means time is of the essence. We must collect the three gifts of the gods and hope that the ice world holds one of them. When we wake the ice giant, he will tell us. I assume Lady Justice will follow us, and there may be an opportunity to take back the Heart. Have courage, Ilaris. It is likely the Unmaking haven’t spread beyond the ruins of my people’s lands.
Besides, Guardians will watch for them. They have the skills to fight, should it come to that.
I shouldn’t wonder if the innkeeper himself was one of the Guardians. ”
“I didn’t think of that. Then the Guardians are on our side?”
“They might not be aware of our existence, too distracted with the Unmaking. It is the role of the Guardians to ensure that no one from ancient times returns, not giants, not the Unmaking, not even Jasper.”
“I understand,” I said.
We fell quiet as he worked. Me because of my throat, it felt stiff and uncomfortable to speak. I sat down on the basket, the seat just high enough to give me a view of the land we traveled over.
Killian took care of the ropes, the fire burning in the balloon, all an odd dance of rope and brawn that I did not understand.
But to ask meant talking, and I could see well enough.
I took out my journal and started sketching.
Killian as he worked, and the land far below me as we traversed the mountains, headed somewhere cold.
Another giant. Another awakening. Another gift.
I wondered if anyone knew they were in danger, if anyone had an inkling of what we were trying to do. To save the world. Did it matter in their eyes, and why give the effort if people would go on about their daily lives, ignorant of what we labored for while they dwelled in blissful ignorance?
But then I thought of my mother, addicted to working in the poppy fields, my childhood friends I used to run the fields with.
The friends I made while studying in the great city, the wisdom I’d gleaned from the House of Scholars.
And the corruption sown by people who came across money in illegal ways, yet paid off their friends in high places so that they could keep living in comfort and luxury.
Someone had to take those people down. To bring their deeds into the light and make them answer for their crimes. That someone might not be me, but if the world ended and came to a close, there wouldn’t be the opportunity. It was a story I wanted to tell, needed to tell.
And so I drew a sketch, and then I wrote, chronicling my time with Killian.
I only left out my growing feelings for him.
How I couldn’t imagine being parted, and the acute pain when I looked at him.
Possibility separated us, yet I wanted. I wanted with a thirst that left me weary and bone dry, and even last night, the very taste of him, his hand pressed against my hips, his lips, warm, devouring, wasn’t enough.
Even now.
I put down my paper and pencil, leaned back, and watched him.
The sun glinted against his bronze skin, the sleeves rolled up to bare his forearms. I admired the muscles there, the telltale signs of strength, the largeness of his body, the way the wind whipped his hair around his neck and shoulders.
That longing deepened, especially when he shifted his amber gaze toward me, one leg propped up on the wicker bench, the other holding onto the ropes.
I held his gaze, letting him see everything plainly written on my face, and he did not flinch, nor did he look away.
We remained that way for some time, and I felt he had read the truth of me without exchanging words.
But I wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable with him because the feeling was mutual.
It was what it was, and what time I could have with him, I would treasure, never giving a thought to what might be a desperate, dire end.
“Ilaris.”
He whispered my name into the breeze, and everything within me tightened, coiled, ready. Unfair, his fire magic, the need to be cautious, careful when we touched. Last night we had turned a corner, but I knew better than to push it.
One blissful day passed after another.
We fell into a routine. When we drifted to the ground to set up camp at the close of each day, Jasper sniffed around the area or disappeared to hunt.
Killian and I left alone, to each other.
He was softer, freer, although he still stiffened when I approached, as if gathering his fire and holding it back.
I felt that deep well within him, the growing restraint, and I learned to read him, to step back when he needed space, to move forward into his warmth.
The danger he posed was intoxicating in a way I had no honest defense against. A reckless tendency within me made me neglect obligations, follow my impulses, and make choices that were far from safe.
It was as though I could see my grandmother’s bones dancing in the breeze.
I knew, with a deep certainty, she would be proud of me for this choice.
She wouldn’t call falling in love with a fire giant unacceptable behavior at all.
She’d think me brave, bold, and, I realized with some deep awareness, so would my mother.
After all, bad behavior ran in the family.
On the fifth day, gray shapes rose on the mountain peaks, carved monuments emerging from the mists like ghosts.
They winked in the daylight, magnificent statues with bodies of male giants, but that was where the likeness faded.
Some had claws instead of hands, a beak instead of a mouth, horns rising out of their heads.
The face of an eagle looked back at me, one of a dragon, another of a wolf, a bear.
I felt something stir within me as I watched them, a long line of stone across the ridge, and even though their eyes were stone, something about their posture and the natural weapons on their hands made me feel as though they watched me back.
“Who made them?” I asked, my fingers already going to my journal.
“Many believe the gods made them,” Killian spoke reverently, a strange note to his tone.
“One of the great wonders of the world, or at least it was during my time. They appear the same, untouched by the slow bend of time, age, or weather, which reinforces what I know, the idea that the gods created stones in their image and likeness as reminders. The world is not our own, it is theirs to do as they please.”
“I had no idea there were . . . are so many gods,” I said, awe overcoming me.
“There are fewer now. Lesser gods and greater gods, and One above all. The lesser gods warred, and many killed each other off, because death is the one great event that unifies us all. All races, all kinds, mortal, giant, god, death comes to us all. In my day, my people called this mountain range a warning, a reminder of what might happen. Word was these gods standing here, hardened into stone, used to be alive. But they were disruptive, malicious in all they did, and so they became stone reminders here, of what folly would become those who give in to the darkness of heart. Ironic that it’s exactly what happened to my own people.
To me. And when you found me I was stone, disgraced, like one of these gods. ”
I held his gaze and felt the truth of what he’d just said. Not a confession, but an acknowledgement of his own wrongdoing.
“It is humbling,” I said. “To look on them, to see their ferocity and strength. It appears that nothing can overcome them, and yet that’s not true. There are no guarantees, no promises, but you’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and I am grateful for that. More than I know how to say.”
“You have a unique way of taking challenges and adversity and spinning it into something positive. I appreciate that about you and your nature. It’s not lost on me how difficult this must be for you, away from all you know on this unwanted adventure with me.”
“Thank you. For noticing.” I turned to watch the stone faces recede behind us.
“I like to think that I have the power to change the world, with my thoughts, my research, my words. It’s what drove me to become a scholar, and it hasn’t gone as planned.
Clearly. But I still have hope, and with you, I have more… ”
“Even despite the odds?”
“Especially because of the odds. I take after the women in my family, appreciating a challenge.”
“I want to kiss you,” Killian said. “Because the words that come from your mouth are sweet and beautiful, but I dare not. Not up here, not in the small confines of this basket where one wrong move might mean death.”
My breath caught. The air between us felt charged. “But you have restraint.”
Killian ripped his gaze from mine, but I felt it too, that heat between us, as though there was a shared fire burning in the center of the air balloon.
“When I first awoke, when I saw you standing there, reading from the scroll, I was confused.” He cleared his throat.
“I didn’t understand what someone like you would be doing in that place.
Amid all my warring feeling there was depth, a hunger that I did not understand.
Now I realize that hunger was for you. In every way that it counts, physically, intellectually .
. . This has been the first time I noticed what a burden my magic is.
I am fire. It is within me. Raw. Molten.
Dangerous. It is the one thing that can destroy everything I’ve come to care for. ”
He looked at me then. The last words dropped from his lips like a stone. “You.”
My heart leaped into my throat. I couldn’t breathe, the admission spreading through me the way floodwater moves through a valley.
I thought of the heat of him, his lips pressed against mine, his broad fingers on my hips, the material in between, the way I’d straddled him without thought, without care for devastation.
A fire giant.
I was falling in love with a fire giant.