Page 61 of Greed of Giants
Stone shapes. Dozens of them. Figures carved in postures of motion, so still that for a terrible moment I thought I’d found a city of giants, frozen in pain. Then I stepped closer and understood, they were statues, arranged in a sequence along the walls. The history of the ice giants, rendered in stone. Birth. Domination. Greed. I moved from figure to figure, reading the progression the way I’d read a text, beginning to end.
It was the last statue the three Guardians went to stand in front of, heads bowed.
I already knew, before I looked, that I didn’t want to see it.
Still, I approached, gaping up at the statue.
Two figures, carved face to face, palms pressed together, gazes locked, seeing nothing but each other. The smaller one was a woman, clad in armor, a long braid over her shoulder. The larger was a man, a giant, broad-shouldered, bare to the waist. At the woman’s side leaned a rod, in one hand rested an object shaped unmistakably like the Heart. And at their feet was a stone.
My pulse skipped a beat.
A mortal. A giant. The gifts of the gods.
We were carved in stone. Set into rock hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. As though our coming had not been a possibility but a certainty. As though the world had been waiting for us to catch up to what it already knew.
I staggered back, a hand going to my mouth to keep the cry inside. “How? What does it mean?”
“Sacrifice. Redemption. Hope,” braided beard said. “Even among prophecies, there is a choice.”
I stared at the statue. At the woman who was, impossibly, already me, and the giant who had Killian’s face. It didn’t feel like a choice at all. It felt like fate.
30
Killian
We spent the rest of the night with three Guardians, and in the morning, pressed on into the snow. The storm had vanished, leaving only a thick carpet of white for us to slog through. Ilaris rode on Jasper’s back, quiet after what we’d witnessed the day before.
The hall of statues lingered in my memory, the progression of life from creation all the way to the end. If, indeed, my actions would bring about the end. It left me questioning the certainty of what I’d known. Were my steps my own, or were they guided by the invisible?
Ilaris did not speak about it, so I did not bring it up.
I led us up the mountainside to where I hoped the frost giant would be, pulling his name from my memory. Nero. A prince of his people.
I’d hoped he might guard the seals with me, but after Theron, I wasn’t sure what to expect. So far there was no sign of Lady Justice, but I kept my eye out for her. If shesuspected one of the gifts of the gods was here, she’d turn up somewhere. Or perhaps lie in ambush, waiting until we were done.
I snapped my fingers, waiting for that feeling to come: the heat, the fire. Nothing. As though my well of magic were empty. Without my fire, we were vulnerable.
Ilaris drew a deep breath.
We’d come to an overpass, a frozen bridge arching over an open expanse of crystal-blue sky, stretching across the mountains. Snow glistened in the hard sunlight, a sheen that made it difficult to look too far in one direction without the light making my eyes hurt.
On the far side towered a sculpture of ice, rainbow hues catching the light, weaving into a blend of blues, pinks, and yellows. The sculpture was Nero himself, wearing a crown, holding a staff, and guarding the expanse.
Guarding. When I dared to look down, the view was dizzying. It was once where dragons roamed, making their homes on the staggered cliff sides. It was incredible to see how far we’d come, how high the air balloon had brought us. The drop was so severe I couldn’t see where the ground began, just an endless nothingness. A pit. A seal. Was that another rift? Another way for the Unmaking to invade the land of the living?
I eyed Nero’s staff, momentarily wondering if it was the Rod.
Jasper came to a stop beside me. Ilaris fumbled for the scroll and unrolled it, the parchment crackling in the cold. Her hair was loose, flowing down her back to her waist, crowning her shoulders. She caught my eye, and I thought she’d never looked so beautiful, out in the wild, unbound.Her expression was raw, open, allowing me to read every insecure thought that lay there. She also had reservations about reading the scroll, awakening Nero, and our journey as a whole.
I wanted to take her into my arms, comfort her. When this was over, and if my fire still hadn’t sparked, I would. I was tired of that wall between us, exhausted with restraining myself for fear of hurting her. I wanted to love her freely, without restraint, without worrying about damaging the one I loved.
There was the truth of it. Through this journey, the bond flinging us together, the days and nights of travel, the stories we swapped, the meals we’d shared, the awareness came boldly. I hadn’t considered it before, but I had come to care for her in a way that surprised me.
I had to tell her. And I thought, finally, that I understood why she had gone so quiet when opening my wedding gift in the Verdant Maw. How unfair it must have seemed, to glimpse what might have belonged to another woman. A bride who might never have held my affections, and there was never the opportunity to learn before all the world was broken asunder.
Ilaris began to read, the incantation of her voice weaving around me like a spell. I felt the lurch and pull, the tug toward her, the desire to awake, to act.
A crack split the silence. The ground on the other side of the expanse trembled, and a roar came like the sound of a great beast. Shards of ice tumbled off the mountain slope, making an odd whistling sound as they dropped into the gorge.
