“So what?”
“That book tells of Twilight’s creation-thousands of years ago,” Basil said. “Arno and Julien are mentioned in it. They aren’t an ettin, they’re the ettin-the first one.”
Sweet wintergreen.
Tavis smelled wintergreen. It was a familiar fragrance, and one he could not imagine sensing in the depths of an avalanche. He would not be able to smell anything, except perhaps his own singed body, and then only until he suffocated. So he could not imagine why his nose was full of that most pleasant of all odors.
“Brianna?” He barely croaked her name, and the effort sent stinging waves of pain through his charred face. “Brianna?”
And there was a pounding, not in his head, but somewhere outside. Rocks crashing against rocks. And men yelling, twanging ballista skeins, banging catapults.
“Where… am… I?” Tavis opened his eyes. Lances of bright light shot through his head. His face felt cracked and leathery, his throat so parched that he could have emptied a horse trough. But still he smelled the wintergreen. The queen’s perfume. “Brianna?”
“Merciful Hiatea!” A blurry face surrounded by a golden halo appeared over Tavis’s head. Someone sat on the bed beside him. “How are you feeling?”
“Everything hurts,” Tavis groaned. “How’d I get here? Avner?”
The queen nodded.
“Then he must be all right.” Tavis pushed himself into a seated position, then nearly blacked out from the throbbing in his head.
The rumble of collapsing stonework echoed through the window. Brianna cast a nervous glance toward the sound.
“What’s happening?” Tavis asked.
“The giants are attacking,” the queen said. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “I assume you didn’t get through to Earl Wendel.”
“I sent a message,” Tavis answered. His vision was beginning to clear. There were two purple blotches where the queen’s eyes were supposed to be, and he could see the scintillating blue lights of a necklace hanging around her throat Ice diamonds. Avner had told him they were enchanted. “The army isn’t here?”
“You were supposed to bring it,” Brianna scolded.
“The giants ambushed me in Shepherd’s Nightmare. They had a spy in the castle,” Tavis explained. “It seemed more urgent to warn you about the traitor.”
Brianna raised her brow. “A spy,” she said. “I’ve heard that before.”
“It’s Prince Arlien,” the scout reported. “Has he returned? I injured him, but I don’t know if I stopped him.”
“Arlien?” Brianna gasped. Her voice sounded at once bewildered and frightened. “How can… you can’t be sure!”
“I saw him speaking with the frost giant chieftain,” Tavis replied. “Now you must tell me-has he returned to the castle?”
Brianna looked away, and in a distant voice she said, “You must… be mistaken.”
Tavis squinted at her, trying to clear his vision. He could not see well enough to judge her expression, but he guessed her eyes would seem vacant or glassy. Her voice certainly sounded unsure and stilted, almost as though the words were spilling from her mouth on their own.
“I’m not mistaken.” The scout waved his hand over his singed body. “Arlien’s the one who did this to me.”
Brianna rose. “You… why are you lying?”
“Listen to yourself, Brianna.” Although he had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the battle din outside, Tavis kept his voice calm and reasonable. “I’m a firbolg-you’d hear it if I were lying.”
The queen backed away, trembling and staring at the floor, shaking her head and mumbling to herself.
“It’s Arlien. His magic is confusing you.” The scout motioned for her to come over to him. “I can help you.”
“N-No. I need no… I don’t need your help.” Brianna turned toward the door. “I have to go.”
“To where? Arlien?”
As he spoke, Tavis swung his legs around and stood. He took three steps, then he realized he was trying to run on mushy lumps of flesh. He glanced down and saw black, swollen masses of toes and insteps where his feet should have been. Two searing waves of agony shot up his legs.
“Forgive my rudeness, Majesty.”
Tavis threw himself forward, clasping Brianna’s shoulder with one hand and grabbing the ice diamonds with the other. His fingers instantly blanched to a pallid, frozen white, and searing coldness shot up his arm. The scout did not care. He forced himself to clench the gems more tightly, then yanked the necklace off the queen’s throat.
Brianna whirled around, pulling free of Tavis’s grasp. The mushy-footed scout fell to the floor.
“How dare you!” the queen hissed. Her violet eyes had gone almost black with anger. “What are you doing with my ice diamonds?”
“They’re enchanted,” Tavis explained. He continued to hold the necklace, and the coldness became an icy, stinging numbness. The feeling was similar to the one he had experienced when Bodvar had deadened the pain in his injured toe, save that it was a dozen times more chilling. “Say my name.”
Brianna looked confused. “Your name?” she asked. The anger was fading from her eyes, but any sparkle of wit had yet to creep back into them. “Whatever for?”
“You loved me once,” Tavis said. “Try to remember.”
“Loved you?” she scoffed. “You’re my bodyguard! Now I know where Avner gets his crazy ideas.”
It did not matter to Tavis that Brianna’s forgetfulness had been caused by Arlien’s magic; her words made him feel tired and weak and defeated. If she could not remember the emotions they had shared, then she remained under Arlien’s spell.
The scout shook his head. “It’s just as well that you’ve forgotten,” he said. “Love between us could never be.”
“Now you’re coming to your senses.” Brianna pointed at her ice diamonds. “So you will return my jewelry.”
She reached for the necklace, but Tavis pulled it away. Even if the diamonds were not the source of the queen’s enchantment, the fact that she was wearing them now suggested that the necklace supplemented Arlien’s hold on her mind. The queen was hardly the type of woman to wear such gaudy jewelry into battle.
“I’m sorry, I can’t return your necklace,” Tavis said. The hand holding the ice diamonds had gone so numb that he doubted he could release his hold if he wanted to. “That would be a violation of my duty to you.”
“I’m your queen!” Brianna spat. “I name your duty!”
“When your mind is clear, yes,” he replied. “But not when your thoughts are chained by a spy’s magic.”
A dull flash appeared somewhere deep behind Brianna’s eyes, then the anger slowly faded from her face. She gaped at Tavis with an expression that seemed as lost as it did suspicious. The scout locked gazes with her. They stared at each other for a long time, until a set of heavy footsteps came pounding up the corridor. Someone rapped on the door, and the queen looked away from Tavis.
“Enter,” she called.
The door swung open. In the corridor outside stood a squat soldier with a curly red beard. His tabard was so besmirched by soot that Tavis could barely make out the White Wolf badge of his company.
“Majesty! What are you doing here?” In his excitement, the soldier forgot to bow. “The frost giants have frozen the channel, and even now they’re coming across with a battering ram. The main gate will fall soon. Now is the time for your special plan-”
“Special plan?” Brianna interrupted. “What special plan?”
“The plan that Avner said-” The soldier stopped as soon as he spoke the youth’s name. He closed his eyes in exasperation, then shook his head violently. “Damn that boy! Why would he lie about such a thing?”
“Tell us what he said,” Tavis commanded.
