Erik landed on a low tree branch above us, giving me a pointed look with his small black eyes.
Damn it! Why could he not have just stayed in the fortress keep with Annalisa?
I pursed my lips and shook my head as tears threatened to appear. What a sick twist of fate—nowIwas going up the mountain to face the last giant without knowing if I would ever return.
“I will not tell you goodbye, Erik.” My throat shook as I fought a sob. “Not when Endre is not here. Not when it might be forever this time. Not…”
I forced myself quiet before I could finish my thought—not when I also failed to turn them back into men.
Erik turned his gaze from me to Daigen. A chill coasted through the breeze and cut across my shoulders.
Daigen kept his violet eyes on Erik and slowly lifted his arm. Erik took the invitation and perched on his forearm. For a heartbeat, Daigen and my oldest brother simply looked at each other.
Then Daigen said in little more than a whisper, “I will keep my promise.”
What had he promised my brother?
After a moment, Erik spread his wings and gently flew to my shoulder. He preened a hair close to my face and then took off for the gate.
My heart ached as my eldest brother left me again, but Daigen’s voice pulled me out of my sorrow. “Your brothers will be men by sunrise.”
I turned. Daigen’s face was softer than I had ever seen it. Did he know what Ganora planned to do with my eternal servitude?
He gently took my hand. Bits of magic dragged against my skin and Daigen pulled me through the air. We left the Bloodstone Fortress gate behind as a frosty wind whipped across my cheeks.
I opened my eyes. Two towering boulders stood in front of me, a rolling fog pouring out between them.
My heart pounded. My fate was on the other side of those boulders.
The moon was rising in the inky sky. Snowflakes stung my cheeks as I turned to face Daigen for the last time as a free person.
He closed his cloak around him, though he did not look cold, and gave me a small smile. “I will be here when you come out.”
His words loosened the knot in my chest. I hated how vague he was, but at least he was sure that Iwouldcome back from the place West of the Moon and the East of the Sun.
I gripped the Hyton dagger from its place on my belt. I needed it to slice my palm just as Fraleigh had to make my final bargain, but the familiar bronze hilt was a comfort all the same.
“Tell Astrid hello for me, would you?” Daigen called.
I smiled. “I will.”
I turned back around and took the first step, feeling the weight of my impending bargain like iron in my toes.
The fog blurred my vision and filled my lungs, but I kept going. Everything went dark, like I was treading between reality and a nightmare, but I kept going.
At last, a tiny pinhole of rainbow light reached out through the fog like an old friend. Like a moon in a starless sky, the light grew bigger and bigger until it was all I could see.
I blinked, and then I faced the familiar tall runes surrounding the wall of churning water. The water threw off rainbow light like little stars.
My blood buzzed with energy. I stepped forward as if my heart were pulled on an invisible tether, only stopping when I was at the edge of the swirling water.
The door to eternity was at my feet.
“So, where is my sister?” asked a voice cold as a frost.
Quiet but heavy footfalls filled the air. The Queen of the Giants appeared behind a rune depicting a crying man, directly across from me on the other side of the well.
I held my breath. She was fifteen feet tall, wearing the same necklace of bones and tunic of blackened animal hides that I last saw her in.
