Page 66 of Greed of Giants
We walked into the mist, which drew back as we moved, as though frightened of Killian’s fire. When we drew level with the altar, it parted entirely, and the Sky Kingdom revealed itself in full—the monolithblazing like a second sun, the runes glowing like a warning carved into the face of the world.
At its base sat a throne, and on it sat Lady Justice.
Satwas too generous. She had collapsed against it, as though gravity had finally won an argument it had been making for some time. Her vines spread around her like a spider’s web, roping her in place, veiny and pulsing with a dull red light. Cracks ran across her green face, and her chest rose and fell with a rasping, wet sound as she breathed, twitched, shuddered.
“What happened to you?” Killian demanded.
There was no kindness in his tone, and I did not judge him for his lack of empathy. I myself felt very little beyond the unpleasant memory she evoked. My fingers grazed the base of my throat, all the while aware that something terrible must have happened to her.
“Took you long enough,” she croaked. Her watery gaze shifted to me. “Take back your gift.” She pointed at the altar. “Little good it did me.”
“What happened?” Killian repeated sternly.
“The Unmaking. I fought them in Caranhal while you snuck away like thieves. Night after night I held them back, but the Heart was made for sacrifice and love, not war. It was the wrong weapon to use against them, and slowly I emptied myself of everything. The Guardians there are thankless, they did not appreciate my help, so I left them to their deaths. I headed here, a more direct route than the one you took. I guess the Sky Kingdom held more secrets than the Frost Giants’ land, and I was right. But they found me.” She closed her eyes. “They will come for you too.”
They? Something we had not yet seen? That slow,creeping cold moved through me again, and I looked around the sacred, ruined area. The crackling grass, the hollow trees, the mist curling at the hem of the monolith.
“Who do you speak of? The Unmaking?” Killian’s voice was sharp.
Lady Justice’s head lolled back. “Once there was a tale of the end of days. When the creatures beneath the world escaped, and ran like ants across the surface of the world. The Four will rise and destroy everything in their path. All life. Unmaking. Mortal. Giant. One of them gave me a mortal wound on my way here.” She breathed, a sound like tearing cloth. “I’m not sure if they fly, but you must hurry if you wish to evade them.”
“They are killing everything?” I asked in horror.
“They will come for you because you interfere with their plans. They will hunt you down and slay you. They aren’t far.”
I remembered the words of the Guardians in the mountains, their veiled fears, the things they had not plainly said. Each time we entered one of the giant kingdoms, we learned another layer of truth, each one heavier than the last.
I closed my eyes.
Just last night I’d been lying against Killian in the dark, blissfully happy and unaware. And now the truth was coming to capture us, too fast, too much, and no time to brace for it. This tale wasn’t in the scroll, and I wondered whether, had I known, whether I would have heard echoes of it from the beginning. Whispers of world enders, of destruction moving up through the dark like roots.
When I’d first met Killian, I’d thought he was one ofthem. One of those who would burn the world because his kind was no more. Much like the Frost Giant who had loosened his wolves. Even the Stone Giant had thrown his own fit of rage by flooding the Verdant Maw. What calamity would we face here?
“Have you come to sow seeds of fear, of panic and pain?” Killian asked. “Clearly, you are not dead. Why would we heed your words when all of your actions have been against us?”
“The Heart protected me, but only for so long.” Lady Justice’s voice had gone thin, the rasp more pronounced. “My time is over now. I thought I would bring justice, as my name demands. I thought it was my duty, but it is clear the scholar was chosen to receive the Heart. The fate of the world doesn’t lie in my hands, nor your hands anymore. It belongs in the hands of the mortals.” Her eyes found mine. “You have a chance: keep the Four fixated on you, use the Heart to protect yourself. And hurry. Time is short.”
Her breath rattled in her chest, and then she was still. I wasn’t certain she was dead, and I didn’t want to check. The dread threatened to overwhelm me. Instead, I looked at Killian. “Where is the giant we need to wake?”
“I’m not certain I want to wake him,” Killian replied, brow furrowed.
“We need to find the Rod,” I said. “We can’t finish this without the three gifts.” Turning back to the altar, I picked up the Heart. Warmth flooded my palms, cutting through my panic like a candle lit in a dark room, providing a pool of light, relief.
Killian tilted his head back and pointed at the blackmonolith. “Something within me thinks he’ll be inside there. If you speak, I believe he’ll hear.”
Tucking the Heart away, I unrolled the scroll. The words were familiar now, the shapes of them settling on my memory like a well-worn path. My voice, when I read them aloud, carried something I did not recognize, a resonance beneath the sound of it, humming in the bones of my chest, as though the words had been waiting to be spoken here, in this exact place.
The ground trembled. Killian placed his hand against the small of my back as the monolith blazed brighter, as though it were becoming the sun itself. The light was gold, then white. Smoke billowed from it, and then came a crack like the world splitting, and the monolith shattered, detonating outward, sending stone raining down.
Out of the debris stepped a winged giant. He shook the rubble from his wings with a single great beat, the air rushing past me with enough force to push me back a step.
Despite the impossible height the tower had been, the giant was no taller than Killian, lean and well-muscled, wearing only a cloth at his waist, curly black hair with a golden crown perched above it, brown skin catching the light the way my own did. In both hands he held a scepter, the same object I had seen again and again in the line of statues.
The Rod.
Killian claimed he knew little about the Sky Kingdom and the giants that lived there. Would he have known that they used the Rod to rule?
The Sky Giant approached us, giving barely a glance toLady Justice, who slumped on his throne, now covered in rubble.
