Page 62 of Greed of Giants
Nero moved.
He shook the last of the ice from his shoulders and leaned on his staff, his shadow stretching long and cold toward us. Ten feet of brawn and muscle wrapped in fur, white hair falling from his head to his shoulders, his beard reaching almost to his waist. The white wasn’t because he was old. On the contrary, he was close to my age. The Frost Giants all had white hair, for it kept their bodies warm and was so thick they could weave it into blankets.
Nero scowled across the expanse, his fierce gaze locked on me. “What are you doing here, Prince Killian? Isn’t the world supposed to be destroyed?”
His gaze shifted to Jasper and Ilaris, and the scowl diminished a bit, shifting from contempt to curiosity.
“I have come on behalf of the mortal,” I answered. “The Unmaking are breaking the seals, escaping into the world. I ask for your help to guard the rifts.”
“Since when did we care about mortals?” Nero demanded. “Killian, have you lost your mind? Our world was destroyed, and we were superior to them in every way. Just because you walk with some magician who can read from a scroll and awaken the last Guardians means nothing. If the Unmaking are breaking through the rift, it is time for the world to end. The gods have seen fit to destroy the mortals, and should they wish to survive, they must fight their own battles. Our time is up. The age of giants is over. We would do better to fall in line with the will of the gods than to resist them. For what they seek is to destroy this world through famine and plagues, storms and signs. And now, the demons from the underworld, the Unmaking. Leave the mortals to their fate, or join me and help me burn the world down.”
Anger moved through me, slow and hot, and I waited for the familiar response: smoke at my shoulders, fire bleeding through the cracks in my skin. A tiny lick of heat stirred and died. The cold smothered it.
“Woe to you and the words you speak,” I shouted across the rift. “That you would turn your back on the living. The Unmaking are here because of us. It’s our fault. We dug too deep. We sought too much. In our greed, our lust, we weren’t satisfied with what we had. We wanted more and more, and more was not enough, not even the gifts the gods gave us. Where is the Stone, Nero? Where is the Rod?”
“You speak to me of greed, yet you led us, Prince of all Princes. It was your kingdom that led us into folly. Dare you speak of the gifts of the gods? Oh, the irony of it, coming here with your greed, seeking the last treasures.”
“Don’t you see what I’m doing? I’m trying to stop them.”
“Are you? By chasing after endless power? Only to rule again, over a kingdom of mortals this time.”
“The gifts aren’t for me, they are for her.”
Nero blinked. His gaze shifted to Ilaris, then back to me. Then his shoulders sagged with disappointment. “You care about the mortal. I see. You’ve come to a reckless ruin. You should not have woken me, you shouldn’t have come here. I have nothing for you but words of woe. The gifts of the gods were never here. There was one in the Verdant Maw, one in the Sky Kingdom, and one under the waters. Here in the ice and cold, we were damned from the start. Leave me to my slumber and leave in haste, before I send the wolves after you.”
“Wait.” Ilaris’s voice broke through Nero’s rant. “There’s more.”
She held up the scroll and read the rest of it. The words I’d read out loud to her, not so long ago. Listening to them fall from her lips stirred something within, the truth of it plain to see. When I could tear my gaze from Ilaris, reading, I studied Nero to see the effect the words had on him.
He listened, his expression unreadable, although his fingers twitched on his staff.
When she finished, his eyes narrowed.
“Prince Killian, I was going to give you a dragon. I convinced my father it would be an apt wedding gift for a fire prince. It was a young one. We’d captured them, tamed them, bred them. It all started with an egg, with a wild bargain with one of the great dragon lords. It was wrong of us to conquer such a wild beast, and here you do the same. I am weary, not from life, but from death. My heart mourns our people and the great loss. Do not ask me to assist with your fool’s quest. Do not ask me to come to the aid of those who can aid themselves. All I see is death and devastation, and that is all I wish on any. I will call forth the Four. They will choose whom to destroy. The Unmaking or mortal, I do not know. This is not my world anymore.”
He lifted his arms and chanted, eyes closed, his body shaking as he bellowed forth into the chasm. A coldness came over me as I watched him, like an icy shard to the heart. I was here, alive and well, and it was not enough. If Theron had answered the call and come with me, would Nero’s reaction have been different? Would two giants have been enough to stay his hand?
No. Because, like all of us, he’d lost everything he cared about, and there was no replacement for it, no purpose, no drive to carry on. He’d lost his love for life, buried it deep within the ice. Some called the Frost Giants cold and cruel. I understood why, even though I’d never seen it for myself. Had it been true all along? Were the giants hell-bent on wickedness? And I’d never seen it until now?
A clattering came from the chasm, like many claws striking against ice and stone. My skin crawled at the sound, and I turned to Jasper.Can you bear both of us? We need to run.
Jasper snorted as though insulted by my question.
I leaped astride, bringing my arms around Ilaris and drawing her warmth toward me. She startled, then leaned back into me as she tucked the scroll away. “I suppose he’s not going to help us, is he?”
“No. But we know the location of the gifts. We go to the Sky Kingdom.”
And Jasper spun away from the expanse, from Nero chanting, and bounded away into the white.
31
Ilaris
The Frost Giant’s wolves were unlike anything catalogued in any bestiary I’d ever studied. They were creatures of pure edge, clicking claws and glistening haunches, each joint and ridge catching the pale light as though they’d been hewn from the ice shelf itself, sharp and geometric. They chased us off the slope and to the very boundaries of the frozen lands.
It was a tense few days. Cold. Miserable. Always listening for the distant click of claws on ice, for the low resonance before a howl split the dark. We could only rest in snatches before running again, folding ourselves into the shallow hiding places the terrain offered. Unfortunately, the tunnels the Guardians dwelled in proved impossible to find, as though the entrances had been deliberately sealed from us.
Again and again I gathered my thoughts in frustration. Why did they hope for our failure when we sought only to help, to pull the world back from the edge of damnation?Was saving a life so thankless a cause? Those with the means and the ancient charge to help, the giants and Guardians, refused to lift a single finger.
