The Titan of Twilight

11

Avner dropped through the demolished damper throat into the second-story fireplace, his body at once numb and anguished from the untold hours he had spent wedged in the sooty flue. His legs felt dead and cold, his back ached, and every heartbeat filled his head with such a throbbing he feared his skull would split. His hair was matted into a helmet of frozen blood, and he could feel a deep gash running along his crown-presumably put there by the small boulder around which he had found himself folded upon awakening.

The tower reeled with the titan’s lurching stride. The sway pitched Avner out of the fireplace and sent him tumbling across the listing chamber. By the time he smashed into the far wall, his head was swimming so fast he half-expected his throbbing brains to slither from his ears like eels. The young scout rolled onto his back and barely braced his feet against the floor before Lanaxis took his next step.

The ashen blush of first light seeped through the ragged remains of an arrow loop, filling the chamber with a drab, pale glow. Such an eerie stillness hung in the air that Avner thought Brianna had moved to some other part of the tower. The impression was reinforced when he saw her fur cloak lying abandoned next to him, along with several discarded capes. He snatched up the clothes and began to rummage through them, searching for any clue as to why they had been tossed aside.

After pulling a striking flint, a candle stub, and a handful of coins from the cloak’s pocket, the young scout felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. With his heart rising into his throat, he put the clothes aside and peered into the chamber’s dark recesses.

Brianna sat halfway up the adjacent wall, braced in the shadowy, cockeyed ledge where the entry foyer protruded into the room. She wore nothing but a light shift more appropriate to her well-heated bedchambers than the battered tower’s drafty confines. Her son lay naked and still between her feet. Though the queen’s gaze remained fixed on Avner, her eyes were as glassy and vacant as a dead woman’s.

“In the name of Hiatea, no!” He could think of only one thing that would plunge the queen into such a state. “Don’t let him be dead!”

Avner snatched the clothes and scuttled to the foyer, then climbed up beside Brianna. She was shivering violently, and her flesh had the pale, blotchy appearance of someone profoundly chilled. Though her gaze followed his movements, she did not speak or otherwise react.

The young scout steadied himself on her shoulder, then leaned over her leg to look at the child.

Avner did not know whether to be relieved or repulsed. Kaedlaw’s chest pulsed with rapid, shallow breaths, but his skin had turned pale blue, and his pupils were dilated. His face was that of the ugly child: fat and round, with a double chin, pug nose, and brown eyes sparkling with dark ire.

Avner braced himself with his head next to the queen’s feet, then reached around her legs and pulled Kaedlaw into his arms. He slipped the frigid baby under his own cloak and held the child for a long time, hardly able to believe Brianna would let her own son freeze. Something had snapped inside her mind. If he had crawled out of the chimney later than he did, the infant would have frozen to death, and perhaps the queen, as well. As it was, Kaedlaw showed no sign of warming. His skin remained as clammy and cold as it had when the scout found him.

Avner pressed the baby into Brianna’s arms. “You must feed Kaedlaw, Majesty. Your milk will warm him and give him strength to fight the cold.”

Brianna’s eyes remained blank, but she accepted the child and cradled him in her arms. Avner draped her fur cloak around her shivering shoulders.

The queen shrugged it off, then placed her son between her feet and pulled his swaddling away. She did not look at Avner or acknowledge that he was by her side.

“Brianna, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Avner protested. “You can’t let your own son freeze!”

When the young scout reached for the child again, Brianna’s hand grabbed him by the collar. Her vacant eyes drifted to his face.

“L–Leave us alone.”

Avner shook his head. “I helped this child into the world. I won’t let you kill him.”

“That is n-not your ch-choice.”

Brianna jerked his collar, and Avner found himself flying off the foyer alcove. However despondent she was, the queen’s strength remained as incredible as ever. The scout sailed halfway across the room before slamming into the floor, then he tumbled down the oak planks to smash against the wall.

He tried to gather himself up immediately. Every moment carried Kaedlaw closer to death, but there were a hundred forge hammers battering inside Avner’s skull. When he stood, the pounding grew to thunderous proportions, and such a wave of nausea rolled over him that he fell back to his knees.

A heap of cloaks sailed off the foyer alcove and landed on Avner’s back, knocking him to his belly.

“You knew!”

Avner crawled from beneath the cloaks and saw the queen, still on the alcove, glaring down at him. Her eyes had paled from their normal violet to a fiery silver.

“That’s what you wouldn’t t-tell me!” Despite her anger, Brianna was so cold she could not keep from stuttering.

“I saw Kaedlaw’s second face, if that’s what you mean.” The pounding in Avner’s head was subsiding. “And I also know you’re making a terrible mistake, Majesty. You can’t kill the ettin’s child without killing your husband’s.”

“Then I must k-kill us all,” Brianna replied. “The oath I swore as q-queen is not so different than the one Tavis swore as first d-defender. I must guard Hartsvale at any p-price.”

“Against what?” Avner scoffed. “An infant?”

“Infants do not have secret f-faces,” Brianna said. “This is a fiend’s spawn, and I will have n-none of it!”

Brianna grabbed her son from between her feet and raised him over her shoulder, as though she were going to hurl him at Avner.

“No, Majesty!” Avner jumped up to catch the child, his shoulder slamming against the wall as the tower rocked. “I forbid this!”

Brianna’s face clouded with fury, but, without appearing to realize what she was doing, she lowered the child. “You what? ”

“I forbid you,” Avner repeated calmly. Regardless of her oath, Brianna did not want to kill her son-or the infant would be dead by now. To save Kaedlaw, the young scout had only to keep her distracted until he found an excuse to spare the child. He reached inside his cloak and withdrew his sling. “I won’t allow you to kill your son.”

Brianna’s eyes widened. “You would assault your q-queen?”

“To save her from herself, milady.” The young scout plucked a fist-sized stone off the floor and slipped it into his sling’s pocket. “Now, feed your baby-or I’ll knock you senseless and do it myself.”

“What of your s-scout’s oath?” Brianna demanded. “You vowed to defend and obey me!”

“What of your oaths, milady?” Avner shot back. “As a priestess of Hiatea, didn’t you vow to protect and nurture all the children of your kingdom?”

Brianna’s face blanched, and Avner knew he had found the excuse he needed.

“Kaedlaw is dif-f-ferent.” This time, it was not the cold that caused the queen’s voice to quiver.

“Why?” Avner demanded. “Because he has two faces?”

“Because he is evil!”

Avner raised his brow. “Really? How do you know that? Has Hiatea sent you a sign?” “No, but G-Galg-gadayle-”

“Galgadayle is no priestess of Hiatea,” Avner insisted. “And even if he’s right, who says that makes Kaedlaw evil? Maybe Hiatea wants your son to be king of giants. Which oath should you honor then-the one you swore to your people, or the one you swore to your goddess?”

“Hiatea would never f-force me to make such a d-decision.”

“But she would ask you to murder your own child?” Avner scoffed. “The goddess of parental love?”

Brianna shrank away as though Avner had struck her. She closed her eyes and screwed her face into an anguished grimace, then remained silent for many moments. Finally, she laid Kaedlaw in her lap and looked up.

“Throw m-me your water,” she said. “I let mine f-freeze solid.”

Avner took his waterskin from beneath his robe and tossed it up, then gathered the cloaks and made his way across the rocking tower. By the time he clambered up onto the alcove, the queen had taken the flaming spear amulet from her neck and dipped it into his waterskin. The liquid inside was bubbling and steaming from the heat of Hiatea’s blessing. Kaedlaw’s eyes were closed, and his skin was as blue as a tourmaline. Only the sporadic rise and fall of his chest indicated he was still alive.

“Open a c-cut on his arm.” Brianna motioned Avner to lay the cloaks aside.

The young scout hesitated to obey. He had seen the queen heal the injured often enough to know what she was doing. When she poured the blessed water on the cut, it would cleanse the infant’s blood of wicked thoughts and emotions. If the child was truly evil, the process would cause an endless black froth to erupt from the wound.

“What are you w-waiting for, Avner?” Brianna demanded. “Are you afraid of Hiatea’s j-judgment?”

“Only for myself, Majesty.” Avner pulled his antler-hilted skinning knife and drew the blade across the infant’s forearm.

A thin line of blood welled up beneath the steel, and Brianna poured the bubbling water onto her son’s arm. The blue flesh turned rosy pink. Kaedlaw’s eyes opened wide, and he let out a pained growl that rumbled through the chamber like a bear’s roar. A single bubble rose in the center of the cut.

It was white as snow.

“Hiatea, forgive me!” The queen snatched the child into her arms. “He’s pure! He’s as innocent as any newborn!”

Brianna lowered her collar over her shoulder, then held her son to her breast. The feel of his icy flesh filled her with a guilty burden heavy enough to crush the titan’s heart. Kaedlaw reluctantly began to nurse, and Avner covered them both with the cloaks he had brought up.

“Avner, I’m grateful,” Brianna said. The first silver rays of dawn were beginning to stream into the tower. “Your impertinence prevented me from committing a grievous sin against Hiatea-and it spared me more anguish than I could bear.”

“Then he’s going to be all right?”

“Thanks to you.” Kaedlaw was already suckling eagerly at her warm milk. “And I would ask you to make a new oath to me-one you won’t break this time.”

“I didn’t break the last one!” Avner objected. “At least not much.”

“I doubt Tavis would agree,” Brianna replied. “But he wasn’t here, and you were right to stop me. Now I ask you to pledge that you’ll always protect Kaedlaw-against anyone who would harm him.”

“Brianna, I’ve already made that vow.”

“I mean the lord high scout in particular,” Brianna clarified. “If we can’t convince Tavis to ignore Galgadayle’s prophecy, can you kill the man who raised you?”

Avner bit his lip and looked away. “If it comes to a fight, I doubt Tavis will be the one who dies-but I’ll give him a good battle. I can promise that much.”

“Thank you. I’ll need you at my side,” Brianna said. “I hope I’m not making traitors of us both. If Kaedlaw grows up to lead the giants, we’re committing a terrible crime against our kingdom.”

Avner shrugged. “Crime is a relative thing. Besides, the time hasn’t come to give up. My guess is that Hiatea wants us to escape, especially when you consider the kind of uncle Lanaxis would make.”

Brianna grimaced at the thought, then glanced at the pale rays streaming through the shattered arrow loop.

“I think Lanaxis will stop when it gets light, but he’ll be ready for an escape,” she said. “We can’t expect to succeed.”

“You’re right, we can’t escape.” Avner smiled. “But he might accidentally leave us behind-if he doesn’t realize we’ve slipped away.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Brianna demanded. “After your escape attempt at Wynn Castle, Lanaxis must know about the sally port.”

Avner nodded. “He saw me climbing back into it.”

“There aren’t any other secret doors in this tower.”

“But there might be a thief’s gate,” said Avner.

“A thief’s gate?”

“On the first floor, in the bottom of the chimney,” the youth explained. “The water collects down there and rots the mortar. I used to sneak into buildings all over Stagwick by scraping the mortar out and pulling a big stone loose.”

Brianna scowled at this idea. “I’m hardly small enough to climb down through the chimney.”

“Sure you are. In a tower like this, the chimney is huge-well, big enough anyway,” he explained. “It’s squeezing through the damper throat that can be tight-but Lanaxis has already solved that problem for us. The throat is smashed to pieces. You can practically walk into the flue.”

Brianna eyed the battered fireplace on the high side of the room. The lintel was four feet above the hearth.

“I think I’ll have to crawl,” she said. “What can I do to help you?”

“Do you have any way to dissolve mortar?”

Brianna shook her head. “Not without my spell satchel,” she said. “And even then, not quietly.”

Avner grimaced. “Then I’ll have to scrape it out.” He fingered the antler hilt of his skinning knife. “I’m glad Tavis won’t be here to see how I treat his gifts.”

“I’m sure he would understand.” Brianna motioned toward the fireplace. “You’d better get busy. After the titan stops, I’ll feign an escape. It won’t work, but Lanaxis will get suspicious if I don’t try.”

“Good-but be careful.”

Avner scrambled up the floor and climbed into the fireplace. He hoisted himself past the smoke shelf, then entered the flue and started his descent to the first floor. Once he had disappeared, Brianna tore a woolen cloak into strips and began to braid it into a rope. Kaedlaw was suckling hungrily now, and she could not help wincing at his enthusiasm. The blue tint had vanished from his skin, which now felt warm and pleasant against hers, but his head remained plump and ugly. The queen could not help wishing that it was Kaedlaw’s other face she saw.

Brianna was still making her rope when Lanaxis stopped and kicked his heel into the frozen ground. The strike sent such a jolt through the floor that the queen’s teeth clacked together. A few moments later, the shocks ceased and her stomach suddenly rose into her throat. A weary groan reverberated from the tower foundations, then the building tipped toward the fireplace and steadied itself.

Brianna stuffed her half-finished rope beneath her cloak and went across the room to the smashed arrow loop. The air outside was so crisp it sparkled and so cold it stung like a wyvern’s breath. At the base of the tower lay a short expanse of virgin snow, gleaming blue in the pale morning light. At the edge of the field rose an enormous drift, the stubs of three battered chimneys poking above the wind-crusted surface. Dozens of smaller mounds lay beyond the largest hillock, some with smaller chimneys or splintered beams showing above the snow. Beyond the buried village rose the black wall of a dense conifer forest, where the barbed tips of spearhead spruce and bloody tamarack scraped at the cloudless belly of a violet sky. In the center of the wood, the sun was poking its yellow crown above the horizon, kindling embers of golden fire in a small crescent of dark boughs.

Brianna placed their location somewhere near Hartsvale’s northern border, for the forest was typical of the groves in the Cold Marches. The village itself was certainly one of the many manors that had fallen earlier this year when a tribe of frost giants had slipped across the frontier and gone on a month-long rampage.

A long boom, deeper and louder than any sound Brianna had ever heard, rose from the other side of the tower. Stones began to rattle in the walls. The snow lifted off the field outside, whirling around the building in a whistling white funnel. Kaedlaw howled in protest, but the queen could not hear him. She merely felt his body quivering with the effort.

Brianna rushed across the chamber and peered through an arrow loop, where she found her view blocked by Lanaxis’s gloom-shrouded form. As the sun rose behind the tower, a tide of yellow light slowly crept down his robe. The purple murk rose from the cloth like steam, exposing the dingy, tattered linen that lay beneath. Though she could not see past the loop’s upper sill to examine the titan’s face, one hand dangled within her view. The skin was slack and wrinkled, and covered with scaly liver spots the size of platters.

Lanaxis fell to his knees beside the queen’s tower, and the floor jumped so hard that Brianna nearly fell. She found herself staring at the titan’s profile. His white-bearded chin was tipped up, with his mouth open and bellowing at the sky. His eyelid, still pinned shut by a crossbow quarrel, was baggy and wrinkled. The crow’s-feet at the corner of his eye were as deep as planting furrows, and all that remained of his hair was a sparse fringe of coarse gray strands.

As the growing daylight swam over his body, Lanaxis dropped his head and fell silent. At first, Brianna thought the pain of his first sunrise in three thousand years had caused the howl, but then the titan’s voice came crashing down as though it had echoed off the sky itself.

“Sons of Vilmos, I summon thee!” it boomed. “Answer the call of your ancient uncle, I command it!”

A southerly wind came howling out of the still air and tore across the field, driving before it a blinding wall of snow. The pounding gale hammered the foyer door against its jamb. Tongues of ice whipped through the arrow loops, lashing at Brianna like the strands of a torturer’s flail. Distant peals of thunder erupted in the south. The tower shuddered so violently that it would have toppled had Lanaxis not thrust out a hand to hold it steady.

Brianna pulled up her hood and fastened her cloak tight, then retreated across the chamber to look through the arrow loop Lanaxis had shattered the night before. A line of snow clouds had appeared on the southern horizon. They were racing northward so fast it looked as though the gods were drawing a curtain across the sky. Inside the churning mass flashed a constant flicker of silver lightning, and the howling wind carried a musty, rainlike scent.

Storm giants.

It had been centuries since their last visit to Hartsvale, but Brianna knew the signs well enough. As a young girl, she had listened in heartbroken captivation to the tales of their gloomy visits, when rivers spilled over with tears and mountains thundered with grief. Simon, her father’s high priest, had once told her they were the noblest of all giants, but also the most dangerous because even their huge hearts could not contain all of their ancient sorrows.

With a makeshift sling, Brianna fastened Kaedlaw to her chest, then tied her rope to one of the crossbar brackets on the foyer doorjamb. She opened the door and ran the line across the small hall to the gaping hole that had once connected the queen’s tower to its stair turret. She dropped the end over the side. The wind caught it and whipped the long cord against the tower wall.

Brianna sat down and dangled her legs over the doorjamb, then took the homemade rope in hand. The clouds already covered half the sky, and the thunder was so loud she felt it in her bones. In the dark forest, the trees either bowed to the wind or snapped. Great white plumes of snow billowed off the drifts where the village lay buried, and the field below was concealed beneath a raging ground blizzard. The queen hoped Lanaxis would catch her soon, for she did not relish the thought of struggling through a thunder-snow with a heavy baby tied to her chest.

Brianna slipped off the doorsill and slid down the rope. The distant village and forest vanished behind a curtain of wind-driven snow. When the titan did not immediately recapture her, she uttered a prayer beseeching Hiatea’s protection and struck out in the approximate direction of the hamlet. The snow was so deep she sank to her hips, and she had to swim more than wade to make progress through the powdery stuff. Her face quickly went as numb as a rock, and her breath came in gasping wheezes. The queen struggled onward. For Avner’s plan to work, she had to convince Lanaxis this was her only hope. She would not accomplish that by turning back.

It took only a few minutes for the tower to vanish behind the driving snow. For a while, Brianna kept her bearings by traveling parallel to the advancing line of clouds, but it was not long before they had drawn a formless gray shroud across the entire sky. The thunder grew deafening, and graupel-hard pellets of rain quick-frozen into snow-hammered down on the ground. Silvery flashes of lightning danced all around the field. The queen struggled blindly onward, cringing in terror and shivering with bone-aching cold, praying Lanaxis would catch her soon.

The thought occurred to Brianna that perhaps dawn had weakened the titan more than she knew. Certainly, after thousands of years of constant twilight, full daylight would be excruciatingly painful. But the queen saw no reason it would paralyze or cripple her captor. Even after the sun had seared away his gloomy cloak, Lanaxis’s ancient body had looked healthy enough to hobble after her.

The wind stopped as suddenly as it had started. A pearly white cloud separated from the gray mass above and slowly descended, still pounding the field with a torrent of graupel. The dark forest appeared through the storm, its skyline jagged and irregular with broken trees. The village lay off to the left, the leeward sides of the demolished manor and several huts now stripped of snow. Hundreds of birds large and small were streaming over the ruins into the field, filling the air with a cacophony of screeches and squawks and blood-chilling shrieks. The storm giants would arrive soon; according to the legends, the birds were their harbingers.

From behind Brianna came the muffled crunch of compacting snow. She felt the powdery stuff settling around her hips, then suddenly found herself standing in Lanaxis’s hand. As he lifted her into the air, the queen had to grab his thumb to keep from sliding off his slick palm. The titan twisted his wrist around so that she found herself staring up his sloping nose into his single good eye.

“Insolent child!” The words flew from his cavernous mouth on a dank, warm wind. “You would risk my nephew’s life in a thunder-snow?”

The pearly white cloud descending from above settled over their heads, filling the air with a cold fog so thick Brianna could barely see her captor’s face. The birds arrived in the same instant, their screeching silhouettes streaking through the thick mist like black ghosts. There were many different species-eagles, owls, warblers, even a condor-all cackling or hooting or chirping in melancholy voices.

Brianna watched the display for a moment, then remembered herself and tore her gaze away. She glanced over the edge of Lanaxis’s hand and slid toward the brink as though she intended to jump.

The titan’s fingers tightened around her legs. “I cannot believe you would be so stupid.”

A cold knot formed in Brianna’s stomach, and she wondered if she had overplayed her ploy. “Better to die for freedom than live in captivity.”

“Kaedlaw is free!” The titan’s bellow would have blasted Brianna from his palm had she not been holding his thumb. “He is emperor of Ostoria. No one can be more free.”

“If that were so, you would let us go,” Brianna said. “Let me raise him in his own home.” “So the filthy giant-kin can slay him?” The white cloud was lifting, and Brianna could see the titan’s desiccated lips curled in derision. “Or do you think your puny citadel can stand against their hordes until he reaches manhood?”

“Why not?” she demanded. “So far, we have held your giants at bay easily enough.”

Lanaxis shook his head. “The gods have decreed Twilight his new home. They have chosen me to raise him, to mold him into a wise and powerful emperor.”

“They gave him to me first,” Brianna countered. “I am his mother, or have you forgotten?”

“You?” Lanaxis’s breath had turned as sharp and caustic as brimstone. “You are no more to him than a nursemaid. Once he is weaned, he will be done with you.”

A searing anger swelled inside Brianna. She suddenly felt her dagger hilt in her hand and saw no reason to restrain herself.

If Lanaxis felt the blade slash his thumb, he showed no sign. He merely turned toward the queen’s tower, where six pale figures stood waiting, barely visible through the thinning fog. They were large even by the standards of giants-taller than her battered tower-but they seemed mere children compared to the immense titan. Brianna judged that even the biggest would rise no higher than her captor’s chest, and it would have taken all of their number to match his bulk.

As Lanaxis neared the tower, Brianna’s view of the giants improved. All were clean-shaven, with unkempt, blue-black hair cascading over their shoulders. They had solemn, handsomely chiseled faces with gloomy silver eyes, and wan violet skin so pale it was nearly gray. Their simple tunics were belted at their waists, clean but rumpled. Each warrior wore a king’s ransom in silver jewelry, all of it black with tarnish.

The birds were swarming the giants, circling their heads or roosting on their shoulders, sometimes perching on their belts or the pommels of their huge two-handed swords. Save for the constant flutter of wings, the entire flock had fallen as silent as a snowfall. Their eyes were fixed on Brianna and her captor, giving the queen the uneasy feeling that while there was a bird overhead, she would never be out of a storm giant’s sight.

When the titan reached the tower, the six newcomers knelt in the snow and bowed their heads. The air smelled musty and old, and Brianna’s joints began to throb with a cold, damp ache.

“You have called, aged uncle, and we six have answered,” said one giant. He did not look up, and his voice sounded as dismal and languid as a dying man’s. “How may we serve?”

Lanaxis regarded the giants with a cold eye. “You may start by standing, Anastes,” the titan rumbled. “I have summoned you here to amend the wrong committed by your ancient paramount.”

The storm giants turned the color of snow and looked up with uncomprehending eyes. The birds left their shoulders, filling the air with a melancholy din of chirping and trilling. Peals of the thunder rumbled down from the sky, and the graupel sounded like a drum chorus as it hammered the exposed planks of the tower’s third-story floor.

“Stand I say!” Lanaxis ordered. “I did not call you here to brood.”

The giants obeyed, but the wind picked up, and the graupel fell harder than ever.

“Forgive our feelings, ancient uncle. Your news comes as a great shock-as much as we welcome it.” Anastes’s voice sounded anything but happy. “At a time like this, it is difficult for us to control our emotions.”

“Vilmos had no trouble.” Lanaxis cast an impatient glance skyward, then lowered his hand to display Brianna. “Beneath her cloak, this queen carries the new emperor of Ostoria. You will guard her while I sleep-and if you allow anything to become of him-or her-I shall give you reason to storm for centuries.”

Lanaxis stooped down and thrust Brianna into the second-story foyer. When she retreated through the door, she found the room filled with flitting birds. From the chimney flue came a faint scratching sound, which she at first attributed to the birds, but quickly realized was more likely Avner scratching at the mortar in the fireplace below.

Brianna went to a corner and chased a bevy of siskins off the floor, then sat down and opened her cloak to check on Kaedlaw. His face remained round and ugly, but his skin was pink, and the sparkle had returned to his brown eyes. He raised one of his chubby hands toward the queen’s breast. She lifted him to suckle. Nothing came out, and he growled.

Brianna cringed at his gravelly voice, then switched him to the other side. “You’re a hungry one, aren’t you?”

From across the chamber came Anastes’s melancholy voice. “A baby giant does need plenty of milk.”

Brianna’s heart jumped into her throat. The noises in the chimney suddenly sounded dangerously loud, and she had to struggle to keep her gaze from straying toward the fireplace. She looked instead toward the shattered arrow loop, where Anastes’s sad eyes were staring into the room. It seemed unlikely he would hear the faint scratching of Avner’s knife, especially over the hissing wind and the fluttering birds. Still, the queen did not know how keen the giant’s ears were, or what he might learn from his pets within the chamber.

Brianna pulled up her cloak to shield Kaedlaw and her partially exposed breast. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m nursing.”

“I’m truly sorry for the intrusion.” Anastes made no move to look away. “And if you’ll forgive me for expressing my concerns, I must say a tiny thing like you will never keep a baby giant fed.”

“Lanaxis thinks I’ll make a fine nursemaid.” Although the scratching had grown no louder, it filled Brianna’s ears like a trumpet blare. “He seems to believe that’s all a mother is good for.”

“I suppose that’s what comes of being born to a mountain.” Anastes was referring to the legend that Lanaxis and his brothers had been born of the mountain goddess Othea. “When one crawls from the birthing cave fully mature and immortal, how can one fathom the soothing balm of a mother’s love?”

“Perhaps you’d better teach him,” Brianna suggested. “Or your new emperor will grow up as warped as your titan.”

A doleful look came to Anastes’s silver eyes. “Would that I could, but we storm giants have already brought misery enough to the world. By trying to change what is destined to be, we can only make things worse.”

“How convenient for you.”

Anastes’s face darkened to sullen blue. The thunder outside growled plaintively, and a flurry of birds flashed past his face. The sulking storm giant looked away, turning his enormous ear to the window.

The queen’s stomach knotted with alarm. She rose and paced across the floor, holding her son to her shoulder as though she were burping him. Kaedlaw immediately growled his protest, filling the chamber with such a rumble that the birds fluttered off their roosts. Even Brianna could no longer hear the scratching in the fireplace.

Anastes turned back to the chamber. “Poor child. The pain of life is so new to him.”

“Perhaps he is cold,” rumbled a second storm giant. “We could strike a fire.”

“No!” Brianna spun around to find a huge gray eye peering through the arrow loop behind her. A pair of brown falcons were roosting on the sill, their cocked heads turned toward the giant. “The chimney’s blocked. We’d choke on the smoke.”

“That’s a small matter to fix,” offered another giant, this one peering through an arrow loop by the chimney. “I’ll have the flue clear in an instant.”

“I don’t want a fire!” Brianna insisted. She doubted the smoke would trouble Avner in the bottom of the chimney, but she didn’t want a giant dropping a stone on the young scout. Besides, the queen suspected she would find it difficult enough to crawl into a flue that was cold. “I’ll only have to put it out when Lanaxis lifts the tower, and even then I’ll have embers flying all over.”

Anastes knitted his brows, but did not argue. “Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”

“What I really need is to eat.” It was the truth, but Brianna also hoped to keep the storm giants busy. “If you want to help, bring me some fresh rye bread, goat’s cheese, and a warm meatcake.”

“There’s a pair of moose in the fen beyond that forest,” rumbled one of the giants. “Wouldn’t they be enough for you?”

Brianna shot an impatient scowl at Anastes. “Do you see my cooks here? Or perhaps you expect me to eat raw moose?”

“Nikol and Ramos can cook them for you,” offered the giant.

“Very well,” Brianna sighed. “But my moose must be slow-roasted on a spit, and cooked through. Of course, I shall need wine to wash it down, a honeycomb to sweeten the flavor, and a bowl of pottage to settle my stomach.”

Anastes paled. “You have demanding tastes, milady.”

“You’re the one who suggested moose,” Brianna reminded him. “I’d be just as happy with my first request-but if that’s too much trouble, perhaps you could keep the milk flowing for your new emperor by feeding me finches and falcons.”

Anastes winced. “No, of course not! We wouldn’t think of such a thing!”

He was speaking more to the birds than to Brianna, but that did not keep the queen’s unwanted guests from leaving the chamber in a squawking flurry. Clearly, the creatures understood more than she would have liked.

Kaedlaw let out an enormous burp and stopped growling. Brianna continued to pace, sliding her feet across the floor to mask the sound of Avner’s work.

“Well?” she demanded. “What shall it be?”

“We will cook the moose,” Anastes sighed. His head rose out of view, then his muffled voice reverberated across the third-story floor. “Nikol and Ramos, you roast the moose. Sebastion, you and Patma find some wine and vegetables for the queen’s pottage. Eusebius, see if the thrushes can guide you to a beehive.”

The giants did not rush off to do their paramount’s bidding.

“Before we go, I would like to behold our new emperor,” said one. “Perhaps we are not worthy of the honor, but it is truly my heart’s desire to lay eyes on him at least this once.”

Brianna started to pull Kaedlaw from beneath her cloak, then thought wiser of it. She might make better use of this boon later.

“The emperor is resting now.”

The storm giants sighed, and a chain of frigid drafts twirled through the chamber. Somewhere above the tower, half-a-dozen hawks voiced a string of forlorn tseers. The wind picked up and whistled past the arrow loops, spinning flurries of graupel into the room, and, save for Anastes, all of Brianna’s captors lumbered off to gather the food she had demanded.

“You are right to deny us, of course.” Anastes looked away, and a peal of long, soft thunder rumbled across the sky. “It is wrong for us even to hope we might lay eyes on one so sublime.”

“And why is that, Anastes?” Brianna was at once sympathetic and impatient with the giant’s self-pity. She went to the shattered arrow loop and stopped there. “What ancient wrong did Lanaxis call you to amend? No deed can be terrible enough to condemn an entire race to such suffering.”

The storm giant lifted his chin and fixed an enormous, woe-filled eye on Brianna. “I fear you are wrong, milady.” His lips trembled with shame. “Our race is to blame for all the misery and suffering on Toril.”

Behind Anastes, forks of lightning lanced down from the gray snow clouds, stabbing at the ground and spewing great plumes of hissing steam into the sky. The birds screeched as though they were dying. The graupel battered the giant’s shoulders so fiercely he grimaced.

“That’s a heavy burden to claim,” Brianna observed. “Are you certain it belongs to your race alone?”

“Oh, yes. There can be no doubt.” Anastes’s voice was growing louder and more pained with each syllable he spoke, once again raising the storm outside to blizzard proportions. “We are the ones who plunged the world into chaos and war. We are the ones who slew Ostoria’s divine ruler, Hartkiller, and drove Annam the All Father from Toril forever!”

The howling winds buffeted the tower so harshly that Brianna had to brace her arm against the wall. “I see!” she shouted. “But did you ever consider that your ancestor might have done other races a favor? Perhaps they had no wish to be ruled by giants.”

Anastes looked aghast, and the storm lulled. “How can you say that?” he demanded. “You, a descendant of Hartkiller!”

“I’m more human than giant,” Brianna reminded him. “I’m glad to rule Hartsvale instead of the giants, and the humans are happy to have me.”

Anastes shook his head in disbelief. “Then you are as foolish as your people,” he declared. “Annam decreed that the giants would rule Toril, not for our sakes, but for the welfare and harmony of all races. By killing Hartkiller, we defied the All Father’s will. We destroyed Ostoria.”

“Now you’re the one who’s being foolish,” Brianna countered. “My runecaster has translated the histories written by the stone giants. I know who destroyed Ostoria, and it wasn’t your ancestor. It was Lanaxis.”

Anastes’s face went as white as the snow. The birds on his shoulders took flight, and the storm grew so quiet that even the graupel seemed to hang frozen in the sky. The scratching of Avner’s knife hissed loudly in the queen’s ears.

Brianna pinched her son. Kaedlaw responded admirably, filling the chamber with a low, angry growl.

“You mustn’t say such things about Lanaxis,” Anastes warned. “Never!”

“Why not?” Brianna demanded. “Must I tell you the legend? Annam the All Father wanted true giants-his progeny-to rule Toril. But faithless Othea spawned children by many different gods, and she wanted all her offspring to share the world. That’s why she helped one of her lovers unleash the glacier that would one day wipe Ostoria from the land.”

“I know the history of my own people!”

“Then think about it.” Brianna was beginning to hope she could make an ally of the storm giant. When men consumed by false guilt learned the truth, they often turned against those who had abused their emotions. “After Othea forbade Lanaxis from destroying the glacier, he poisoned her, and that made him a murderer. What did he become when he allowed his brother kings to drink the same poison?”

“He loved Ostoria!”

“Lanaxis would not be the only fool to destroy what he loves most,” Brianna replied. “Nor the only one to go mad after he realized what he did.”

Kaedlaw fell silent. Though Brianna could still hear the faint scratching of Avner’s knife, she did nothing to cover the sound. Anastes was lost in thought, and it seemed a worthwhile risk to let him think in peace.

At length, the birds returned to the storm giant’s shoulders, and the wind howled as mournfully as before.

“We still bear the blame for Hartkiller’s death.” Anastes sounded almost relieved. “Lanaxis did not murder him. ”

“By then, Ostoria was already lost,” Brianna said. “Your race has been blaming itself for a tragedy the gods set in motion. By trying to right things now, you’ll be making a mistake even more terrible than the one for which you have blamed yourselves all these centuries.”

The giant’s silver eyes grew thoughtful, and he looked away. Once again the winds quieted, the graupel fell more slowly, and the birds deserted their roosts-then a muffled clatter echoed out of the fireplace.

Anastes’s head snapped back toward the tower. Brianna braced herself for a tempestuous display of temper, but the storm remained calm.

“How do you know?” demanded Anastes. If he had heard the clatter, he paid it no heed. “What makes you certain Lanaxis is wrong to restore Ostoria?”

Brianna breathed no sigh of relief. She pulled her son from beneath her cloak and said, “I know because I have seen the face of your new emperor.”

Another clatter sounded from the fireplace, this one too loud to miss. Brianna turned Kaedlaw toward the shattered arrow loop and thrust his hideous visage toward the storm giant.

Anastes’s silver eyes opened wide, and he grimaced with revulsion. “There is nothing I can do.” He looked away from the tower. “What will be will be-the matter is entirely out of my hands.”