The young man did not chastise her for her impropriety, but instead he laughed. He laughed so loudly even the servants around the fortress stopped with their chores to listen.
Astrid’s grey eyes peeked over her arms. A tiny smile raised her cheeks as the young man extended a hand to help her up.
The memory ended as if I had reached the end of a jagged cliff. I held out my hands and pushed, bringing myself up to the surface of the memory like I was floating on driftwood.
Although he was a teenager in the memory, there was no mistaking the white hair and Hyton Blue eyes. What was General Ragnar Hyton doing at Bloodstone Fortress all those years ago?
Mother had mentioned Ashmore students used to have summers at home just like the Heaston boys did, that was the only way Ragnar and Astrid could have met.
But why would a Hyton go to Bloodstone? Most of Lycaster avoided the Northern provinces.
I rested on my knees atop the glassy surface as I searched my own memories. Nikkolas and Hilda had brought up General Hyton’s mother, Duchess Ilsa, over dinner on my first night in Bloodstone. Even mentioning the traitorous, murdering, alleged sorceress was illegal in Lycaster, but Nikkolas and Hilda talked about her as if she were an old friend.
And if Ilsa was a friend of the Baron and Baroness of Bloodstone, maybe her son had accompanied her on a visit to the fortress.
“I have what you seek, young thief.”
I turned my head. That was Ganora’s voice…but what was it doing in Astrid’s mind?
Ganora’s voice came from another floating shard of memory. The jagged glass glowed white with sparkles of rainbow light refracting off the edge. I stretched my fingertips toward the memory and used my magic to pull it closer.
The moment my fingertips touched the cold surface, I plunged into frigid air.
Snow was all around me. Astrid wielded her sword as four giants stomped toward her. The giants smashed their grey fists near her, sending snow flying high in the air. Astrid screamed and swung her blade.
Like the claps from a raging thunderstorm, the giants hit the ground again and again, but Astrid barely avoided them. She held a hand over her abdomen and rushed forward.
If I had a body, my heart would have ached the moment Astrid protected her belly. She was pregnant…and facing the giants alone.
She ran toward a large, swirling pit full of glowing water. Gold, violet, green, blue, and white light all sparkled in the depths and on the surface.
It was a giant well…no, not a well…the Man of the Mountain’s grave, surrounded by frost-covered runes more than fifteen feet high.
Astrid panted as she raced toward the well. Tears and snot streamed down her ruddy face, but she kept her pace.
Then the giants went still. The temperature plummeted.
Astrid stopped mere feet from the edge of the well. Her watery eyes traveled up until she met the grey face of the Queen of the Giants. Ganora knelt by the edge of the well on the opposite side.
She raised her hands and invisible icy talons ripped Astrid’s sword from her fist, then an empty water skein from her shoulders.
Astrid’s eyes went wide the moment the skein disappeared into the snow. If the skein was empty, why did she panic?
Ganora’s glowing eyes were hard. “I have what you seek, young thief.” Ice laced her words. “Come take it.”
Astrid’s face hardened and then I understood. She was there to steal the Man of the Mountain’s tears from his grave.
Astrid accepted Ganora’s challenge and ran straight for the well.
She threw herself onto her hands and knees and desperately gulped down a mouthful of bitter tears. The moment she took a breath, her mind tumbled out of her body into the water.
The wisp of Astrid’s mind swirled around the perimeter of the well and I swirled with her, taking in everything I could.
Ganora stalked toward Astrid’s body and blew sparkling ice crystals into her nose and mouth. Astrid’s belly began to grow.
Then everything went black—Astrid’s mind plummeted into the depths of the place West of the Moon and East of the Sun.
I pushed myself out of the shard of memory. The weight of everything I had just witnessed sat in the center of my chest like a boulder.
