I rolled my eyesand scoffed.
“I’ll leave your left hand, though.” His smile got bigger in his voice. “I’ll send it to precious Lord Hyton so he’ll have something toremember you.”
“Stop it!” I hissed. I jammed my elbow into his ribs and he laughed like Itickled him.
“Well now I can’t eat you,” he chuckled. “You would give me theworstheartburn!”
His stomach rumbled loud enough to echo inmy ears.
“Really, though,” I said. “You need to eat and I have no idea how we canfeed you.”
“There is a village up ahead,” Riyan said. “Can’t yousmell it?”
“No? You are not…smelling the peopleare you?”
“No! They aremaking bread!”
I bit my tongue as I tried not to laugh. “Where isthe village?”
“It’s a bit farther up the mountain in a place called the Beast’s Pass,” he replied. “It’s on the way to Fraleigh’s palace. As soon as the moonlight comes back, we’ll headup there.”
Did the villagers of the Beast’s Pass know Riyan was their new Baron? Would they just see him as a giant and attack him? Or worse, would they see him asa murderer?
I knitted my eyebrows and patted his arm that was longer than my entire body. “How are we supposed to go into the village with youbeing so—”
“Devastatingly handsome?”
“Big. You will terrify everyone and starta panic.”
Riyan sighed. “Worst case scenario, I grab you and run.” He reached across his body and tugged at the cape around his hips. “But since I have my crimson cape, the people will recognize me as a Bloodstone and not agiant. Plus—”
He picked up a golden disc that looked like a coin in his massive hand. “—I also have this, if allelse fails.”
I glanced at the gleaming metal—the House of Bloodstone pin, proving he was Baron of Bloodstone. The Bloodstone army must have included the pin in their offerings to cajole Riyan into returning tothe fortress.
I at least knew where the Bloodstone pin came from, but I had never seen the gargantuan crimson cape before. “Where did that cape comefrom, anyway?”
Riyan’s body shifted like a small earthquake. “I found it wrapped around my sword. Those bastards just left Endre’s Revenge on the mountainpath and—”
My heart stopped. “What did youcall it?”
Riyan was silent for a heartbeat and he cleared his throat. “You’re supposed to name swords to give them more power and…well, I gave my sword a name with areal purpose.”
Ten giant heads was mybrother’s revenge.
I could barely breathe. “Youknew him?”
“Fought alongside him. Right untilthe end.”
My lip trembled and I pressed on Riyan’s chest, if only to keep myself from plummeting into the pit that had opened up in my stomach. Riyan must have sensed the shift in my body because he spoke again in agentle hum.
“As far as the huge cape goes, I think Grandmother made it for me a while ago. She must have known thatI would—”
Riyan cut himself off. Hischest fell.
I gently rubbed Riyan’s shoulder. Riyan’s birth had caused Hilda to lose both her sons and the daughter she knew. Despite that, she had loved Riyan with all of her warm andgentle heart.
Riyan’s love for his eternally sleeping grandmother sang through every one of his shaking breaths. If fear caused him to grow, then losing the person he loved the most must have sent him into a greater terror than any giant could. He had said the magic in his blood was supposed to protect him, but it had bent and twisted him until he made his own greatest fearcome true.
