Avner dropped through the demolished damper throat into the second-story fireplace, his body at once numb and anguished from the untold hours he had spent wedged in the sooty flue. His legs felt dead and cold, his back ached, and every heartbeat filled his head with such a throbbing he feared his skull would split. His hair was matted into a helmet of frozen blood, and he could feel a deep gash running along his crown-presumably put there by the small boulder around which he had found himself folded upon awakening.
The tower reeled with the titan’s lurching stride. The sway pitched Avner out of the fireplace and sent him tumbling across the listing chamber. By the time he smashed into the far wall, his head was swimming so fast he half-expected his throbbing brains to slither from his ears like eels. The young scout rolled onto his back and barely braced his feet against the floor before Lanaxis took his next step.
The ashen blush of first light seeped through the ragged remains of an arrow loop, filling the chamber with a drab, pale glow. Such an eerie stillness hung in the air that Avner thought Brianna had moved to some other part of the tower. The impression was reinforced when he saw her fur cloak lying abandoned next to him, along with several discarded capes. He snatched up the clothes and began to rummage through them, searching for any clue as to why they had been tossed aside.
After pulling a striking flint, a candle stub, and a handful of coins from the cloak’s pocket, the young scout felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. With his heart rising into his throat, he put the clothes aside and peered into the chamber’s dark recesses.
Brianna sat halfway up the adjacent wall, braced in the shadowy, cockeyed ledge where the entry foyer protruded into the room. She wore nothing but a light shift more appropriate to her well-heated bedchambers than the battered tower’s drafty confines. Her son lay naked and still between her feet. Though the queen’s gaze remained fixed on Avner, her eyes were as glassy and vacant as a dead woman’s.
“In the name of Hiatea, no!” He could think of only one thing that would plunge the queen into such a state. “Don’t let him be dead!”
Avner snatched the clothes and scuttled to the foyer, then climbed up beside Brianna. She was shivering violently, and her flesh had the pale, blotchy appearance of someone profoundly chilled. Though her gaze followed his movements, she did not speak or otherwise react.
The young scout steadied himself on her shoulder, then leaned over her leg to look at the child.
Avner did not know whether to be relieved or repulsed. Kaedlaw’s chest pulsed with rapid, shallow breaths, but his skin had turned pale blue, and his pupils were dilated. His face was that of the ugly child: fat and round, with a double chin, pug nose, and brown eyes sparkling with dark ire.
Avner braced himself with his head next to the queen’s feet, then reached around her legs and pulled Kaedlaw into his arms. He slipped the frigid baby under his own cloak and held the child for a long time, hardly able to believe Brianna would let her own son freeze. Something had snapped inside her mind. If he had crawled out of the chimney later than he did, the infant would have frozen to death, and perhaps the queen, as well. As it was, Kaedlaw showed no sign of warming. His skin remained as clammy and cold as it had when the scout found him.
Avner pressed the baby into Brianna’s arms. “You must feed Kaedlaw, Majesty. Your milk will warm him and give him strength to fight the cold.”
Brianna’s eyes remained blank, but she accepted the child and cradled him in her arms. Avner draped her fur cloak around her shivering shoulders.
The queen shrugged it off, then placed her son between her feet and pulled his swaddling away. She did not look at Avner or acknowledge that he was by her side.
“Brianna, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Avner protested. “You can’t let your own son freeze!”
When the young scout reached for the child again, Brianna’s hand grabbed him by the collar. Her vacant eyes drifted to his face.
“L–Leave us alone.”
Avner shook his head. “I helped this child into the world. I won’t let you kill him.”
“That is n-not your ch-choice.”
Brianna jerked his collar, and Avner found himself flying off the foyer alcove. However despondent she was, the queen’s strength remained as incredible as ever. The scout sailed halfway across the room before slamming into the floor, then he tumbled down the oak planks to smash against the wall.
He tried to gather himself up immediately. Every moment carried Kaedlaw closer to death, but there were a hundred forge hammers battering inside Avner’s skull. When he stood, the pounding grew to thunderous proportions, and such a wave of nausea rolled over him that he fell back to his knees.
A heap of cloaks sailed off the foyer alcove and landed on Avner’s back, knocking him to his belly.
“You knew!”
Avner crawled from beneath the cloaks and saw the queen, still on the alcove, glaring down at him. Her eyes had paled from their normal violet to a fiery silver.
“That’s what you wouldn’t t-tell me!” Despite her anger, Brianna was so cold she could not keep from stuttering.
“I saw Kaedlaw’s second face, if that’s what you mean.” The pounding in Avner’s head was subsiding. “And I also know you’re making a terrible mistake, Majesty. You can’t kill the ettin’s child without killing your husband’s.”
“Then I must k-kill us all,” Brianna replied. “The oath I swore as q-queen is not so different than the one Tavis swore as first d-defender. I must guard Hartsvale at any p-price.”
“Against what?” Avner scoffed. “An infant?”
“Infants do not have secret f-faces,” Brianna said. “This is a fiend’s spawn, and I will have n-none of it!”
Brianna grabbed her son from between her feet and raised him over her shoulder, as though she were going to hurl him at Avner.
“No, Majesty!” Avner jumped up to catch the child, his shoulder slamming against the wall as the tower rocked. “I forbid this!”
Brianna’s face clouded with fury, but, without appearing to realize what she was doing, she lowered the child. “You what? ”
“I forbid you,” Avner repeated calmly. Regardless of her oath, Brianna did not want to kill her son-or the infant would be dead by now. To save Kaedlaw, the young scout had only to keep her distracted until he found an excuse to spare the child. He reached inside his cloak and withdrew his sling. “I won’t allow you to kill your son.”
Brianna’s eyes widened. “You would assault your q-queen?”
“To save her from herself, milady.” The young scout plucked a fist-sized stone off the floor and slipped it into his sling’s pocket. “Now, feed your baby-or I’ll knock you senseless and do it myself.”
“What of your s-scout’s oath?” Brianna demanded. “You vowed to defend and obey me!”
“What of your oaths, milady?” Avner shot back. “As a priestess of Hiatea, didn’t you vow to protect and nurture all the children of your kingdom?”
Brianna’s face blanched, and Avner knew he had found the excuse he needed.
“Kaedlaw is dif-f-ferent.” This time, it was not the cold that caused the queen’s voice to quiver.
“Why?” Avner demanded. “Because he has two faces?”
“Because he is evil!”
Avner raised his brow. “Really? How do you know that? Has Hiatea sent you a sign?” “No, but G-Galg- gadayle-”
“Galgadayle is no priestess of Hiatea,” Avner insisted. “And even if he’s right, who says that makes Kaedlaw evil? Maybe Hiatea wants your son to be king of giants. Which oath should you honor then-the one you swore to your people, or the one you swore to your goddess?”
“Hiatea would never f-force me to make such a d-decision.”
“But she would ask you to murder your own child?” Avner scoffed. “The goddess of parental love?”
Brianna shrank away as though Avner had struck her. She closed her eyes and screwed her face into an anguished grimace, then remained silent for many moments. Finally, she laid Kaedlaw in her lap and looked up.
“Throw m-me your water,” she said. “I let mine f-freeze solid.”
