THE PATH OF GIANTS
By B.T. Narro
Jon Oklar:
Book 3
Copyright 2020 by B.T. Narro
Cover and Map by Beatriz Rare
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
CHAPTER ONE
If I saw Eden again, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. There were people who had been caught aiding Valinox, like Aliana’s father, but he and our other prisoners all claimed the same thing. They said they had no other choice. Once Valinox came to them, they could either obey his requests or deny him and end up dead by the hands of his other followers. I might’ve believed Eden had no choice like these men, except for one thing. After she had nearly killed Remi by jamming a knife into her friend’s neck…after she thought Remi to be dead…she still had not returned or even sent a messenger to try to explain her behavior. It was as if she didn’t care what we thought of her anymore.
In the month that passed since then, my anger burned a little less hot each day. Now I no longer thought of Eden as a target for revenge. I just needed to stop her from helping Valinox. If that meant killing her, so be it. Surely, Valinox had something planned with her, but what was taking him so long to act?
All of us had remained in the castle for some time after the incident, training hard. I had made great progress lifting myself with dvinia. I could now pick myself up high enough that there was no way to land without a broken bone. But that was only if I didn’t catch myself on the way down, which I did, admittedly, mess up sometimes.
I could always heal my broken bones, though I never would get used to the pain.
With each day that passed, I could feel all of us relaxing a little more. It should’ve been the opposite. We should’ve been more vigilant, more worried about what Valinox would do, but it was hard to continuously prepare for the unknown. It took a toll on me. On all of us, I was sure.
I had to accept, eventually, that there was nothing I could do now except train and wait for Valinox to strike. Unless, of course, the king told me of his plan and needed my help, but that had not been the case.
But then, a few weeks ago, the king informed us that he was making us responsible for a number of tasks. They would take all of us sorcerers outside of the castle for a while.
I had worried what might happen to the king without us there with him. He had a whole mess of guards to watch over not only the capital, but the walls of the castle as well. However, none of them were sorcerers. None of them were like the seven of us he was sending away—and that seven didn’t include our instructors, Leon and Jennava, who the king was also sending away on a task.
But the king promised me that he and his castle would not be in danger. His scouts and spies would catch a group of dark mages planning to strike, if that was the case. There was nothing else to worry about. Valinox could not kill anyone directly. The demigod of dvinia, Souriff, had confirmed it. It was for the same reason that Souriff couldn’t kill any of our enemies. Like Valinox, she was afraid not only of waking Gourfist but of retribution from their father. They had taken an oath not to kill, and even Valinox had kept to it so far.
It was Souriff who had almost violated the oath. She would’ve killed Cason if Valinox hadn’t stopped her. She reasoned that their father wanted this because Cason was to be executed before Valinox had saved him.
There was no way of knowing if Souriff was right about any of this, but I was glad we didn’t have to find out. The krepps had come to help Souriff and me while we fought Cason and Valinox. They had finished off Cason and rid us of all the trouble the dark mage might’ve caused had Valinox taken him to safety.
Souriff had visited the castle one other time since Eden’s betrayal, answering many of our questions about Rohaer and the other demigods. According to her, every demigod healed naturally much faster than a mortal did. Only Souriff had the capability of casting the same healing spell that I was able to cast—the same one Cason had used many times to keep himself alive before the krepps had finally slain him. Souriff had also explained that demigods could be killed, not by sickness or old age, but with a well-placed blade or arrow to their head or heart. Kataleya asked Souriff if any demigods had been killed before. From the look Souriff had given to the floor, it seemed like one or more might’ve perished, but she chose not to answer.
I had asked Kataleya later if she was referring to a specific demigod with her question, only to find out that there were many rumors about other demigods who had once lived. But Kataleya had never heard evidence that backed up any of the rumors. She hadn’t seemed interested in sharing the baseless rumors, and I hadn’t been particularly interested in hearing them. So we left it at that.
I had kept my promise to Kataleya and not pursued her further in any romantic fashion. It had become easier to let go of her each day, though I still found myself longing for her as I lay awake some nights, when sleep eluded me.
The krepps had gone back to their home in Hammashar
