Alastar barked at the cowering men, but they could not understand him. I had to study the Latiman language in school, but I had never heard it spoken in conversation. It sounded much less formal and more…harsh.
The men before him babbled in panic, but Alastar was growing visibly frustrated with their barbarian tongue. Alastar pointed at Fraleigh. The man in the center of the line spoke up.
“The mountain!” He pointed toward the mountain pass. “She gets her power from the mountain! Go up the mountain!”
Alastar’s blue eyes gleamed with understanding. He helped the man onto his feet, who looked relieved.
Then Alastar drove his spear into the man’s chest. The man crumpled to the ground as blood pooled into the snow.
Death did not faze Alastar. He walked over to Fraleigh and gently plucked the arrows out of her tired body. On the final arrow, Fraleigh folded forward into Alastar’s arms. Alastar picked her up and her half-lidded eyes met his.
Alastar sneered and his eyes cut to the bleeding body in the snow. “Proditor.”
Even without the context, I knew what that word meant.
Traitor.
A flurry of snow blanketed my vision and soon Fraleigh and I stood at Nordingaard’s peak again. Alastar held her in front of the swirling well. Even if she had any energy to run, his grip on her arms was too tight for her to escape.
Alastar barked at his soldiers and pointed at the well. Half a dozen ran to the edge with leather skeins, gathering up as many tears as they could.
Ganora appeared from behind a rune with Fraleigh’s discarded knife in her hand. Her eyes were lined with tears and ablaze with rage.
“Free my sister,” Ganora commanded.
“Lamia?” Alastar said with a wicked smile.
I remembered that word—sorceress.
He motioned for his soldiers to seize Ganora.
“Ganora! No!” Fraleigh cried as she struggled against Alastar’s iron hold.
Ganora’s eyes found Fraleigh’s and the weight of the air crashed around us. “And this is for you.”
She sliced her left palm and ran into the well. She fell through the surface of the water without even a splash.
Ancient screams of anguish swirled around the frightened soldiers.
“Through the fear of lost love, I hold the magic of Nordingaard,” the Man of the mountain said. “Through your fear, you hold its power. Turn your fear into rage, live eternally as the magic always will, and destroy all who try to corrupt my gifts.”
The ground shook as Ganora emerged from the well. Her hair had bleached into a scream of white, her eyes were icy and bright, and her skin had become as grey and unfeeling as stone. She was no longer a teenage girl, but a huge, snarling monster.
Ganora’s fear had turned her into a giant.
The soldiers all loosed arrows, but they merely bounced off Ganora’s skin. Ganora swiped through the air, her magic freezing the blood of the soldiers and snapping their necks in a blink. Their bodies crumbled to the snow as Ganora’s eyes turned to Alastar.
My consciousness snapped backward as Alastar threw Fraleigh over his shoulder and ran back through the pass.
Ganora’s pained screams echoed through the fog. “Fraleigh!Fraleigh!”
Fraleigh’s eyes watered as the realization that she had trapped her baby sister spread across her face.
Even though I was merely witnessing her memory, I could still feel heartbreak hardening within Fraleigh’s bones like permafrost.
The Great Sorceress’s sacrifice was all in vain.
And so the Queen of the Giants began her reign.
