found herself staring at the titan’s profile. His white-bearded chin was tipped up, with his mouth open and bellowing at the sky. His eyelid, still pinned shut by a crossbow quarrel, was baggy and wrinkled. The crow’s-feet at the corner of his eye were as deep as planting furrows, and all that remained of his hair was a sparse fringe of coarse gray strands.
As the growing daylight swam over his body, Lanaxis dropped his head and fell silent. At first, Brianna thought the pain of his first sunrise in three thousand years had caused the howl, but then the titan’s voice came crashing down as though it had echoed off the sky itself.
“Sons of Vilmos, I summon thee!” it boomed. “Answer the call of your ancient uncle, I command it!”
A southerly wind came howling out of the still air and tore across the field, driving before it a blinding wall of snow. The pounding gale hammered the foyer door against its jamb. Tongues of ice whipped through the arrow loops, lashing at Brianna like the strands of a torturer’s flail. Distant peals of thunder erupted in the south. The tower shuddered so violently that it would have toppled had Lanaxis not thrust out a hand to hold it steady.
Brianna pulled up her hood and fastened her cloak tight, then retreated across the chamber to look through the arrow loop Lanaxis had shattered the night before. A line of snow clouds had appeared on the southern horizon. They were racing northward so fast it looked as though the gods were drawing a curtain across the sky. Inside the churning mass flashed a constant flicker of silver lightning, and the howling wind carried a musty, rainlike scent.
Storm giants.
It had been centuries since their last visit to Hartsvale, but Brianna knew the signs well enough. As a young girl, she had listened in heartbroken captivation to the tales of their gloomy visits, when rivers spilled over with tears and mountains thundered with grief. Simon, her father’s high priest, had once told her they were the noblest of all giants, but also the most dangerous because even their huge hearts could not contain all of their ancient sorrows.
With a makeshift sling, Brianna fastened Kaedlaw to her chest, then tied her rope to one of the crossbar brackets on the foyer doorjamb. She opened the door and ran the line across the small hall to the gaping hole that had once connected the queen’s tower to its stair turret. She dropped the end over the side. The wind caught it and whipped the long cord against the tower wall.
Brianna sat down and dangled her legs over the doorjamb, then took the homemade rope in hand. The clouds already covered half the sky, and the thunder was so loud she felt it in her bones. In the dark forest, the trees either bowed to the wind or snapped. Great white plumes of snow billowed off the drifts where the village lay buried, and the field below was concealed beneath a raging ground blizzard. The queen hoped Lanaxis would catch her soon, for she did not relish the thought of struggling through a thunder-snow with a heavy baby tied to her chest.
Brianna slipped off the doorsill and slid down the rope. The distant village and forest vanished behind a curtain of wind-driven snow. When the titan did not immediately recapture her, she uttered a prayer beseeching Hiatea’s protection and struck out in the approximate direction of the hamlet. The snow was so deep she sank to her hips, and she had to swim more than wade to make progress through the powdery stuff. Her face quickly went as numb as a rock, and her breath came in gasping wheezes. The queen struggled onward. For Avner’s plan to work, she had to convince Lanaxis this was her only hope. She would not accomplish that by turning back.
It took only a few minutes for the tower to vanish behind the driving snow. For a while, Brianna kept her bearings by traveling parallel to the advancing line of clouds, but it was not long before they had drawn a formless gray shroud across the entire sky. The thunder grew deafening, and graupel-hard pellets of rain quick-frozen into snow-hammered down on the ground. Silvery flashes of lightning danced all around the field. The queen struggled blindly onward, cringing in terror and shivering with bone-aching cold, praying Lanaxis would catch her soon.
The thought occurred to Brianna that perhaps dawn had weakened the titan more than she knew. Certainly, after thousands of years of constant twilight, full daylight would be excruciatingly painful. But the queen saw no reason it would paralyze or cripple her captor. Even after the sun had seared away his gloomy cloak, Lanaxis’s ancient body had looked healthy enough to hobble after her.
The wind stopped as suddenly as it had started. A pearly white cloud separated from the gray mass above and slowly descended, still pounding the field with a torrent of graupel. The dark forest appeared through the storm, its skyline jagged and irregular with broken trees. The village lay off to the left, the leeward sides of the demolished manor and several huts now stripped of snow. Hundreds of birds large and small were streaming over the ruins into the field, filling the air with a cacophony of screeches and squawks and blood-chilling shrieks. The storm giants would arrive soon; according to the legends, the birds were their harbingers.
From behind Brianna came the muffled crunch of compacting snow. She felt the powdery stuff settling around her hips, then suddenly found herself standing in Lanaxis’s hand. As he lifted her into the air, the queen had to grab his thumb to keep from sliding off his slick palm. The titan twisted his wrist around so that she found herself staring up his sloping nose into his single good eye.
“Insolent child!” The words flew from his cavernous mouth on a dank, warm wind. “You would risk my nephew’s life in a thunder-snow?”
The pearly white cloud descending from above settled over their heads, filling the air with a cold fog so thick Brianna could barely see her captor’s face. The birds arrived in the same instant, their screeching silhouettes streaking through the thick mist like black ghosts. There were many different species-eagles, owls, warblers, even a condor-all cackling or hooting or chirping in melancholy voices.
Brianna watched the display for a moment, then remembered herself and tore her gaze away. She glanced over the edge of Lanaxis’s hand and slid toward the brink as though she intended to jump.
The titan’s fingers tightened around her legs. “I cannot believe you would be so stupid.”
A cold knot formed in Brianna’s stomach, and she wondered if she had overplayed her ploy. “Better to die for freedom than live in captivity.”
“Kaedlaw is free!” The titan’s bellow would have blasted Brianna from his palm had she not been holding his thumb. “He is emperor of Ostoria. No one can be more free.”
“If that were so, you would let us go,” Brianna said. “Let me raise him in his own home.” “So the filthy giant- kin can slay him?” The white cloud was lifting, and Brianna could see the titan’s desiccated lips curled in derision. “Or do you think your puny citadel can stand against their hordes until he reaches manhood?”
“Why not?” she demanded. “So far, we have held your giants at bay easily enough.”
Lanaxis shook his head. “The gods have decreed Twilight his new home. They have chosen me to raise him, to mold him into a wise and powerful emperor.”
“They gave him to me first,” Brianna countered. “I am his mother, or have you forgotten?”
“You?” Lanaxis’s breath had turned as sharp and caustic as brimstone. “You are no more to him than a nursemaid. Once he is weaned, he will be done with you.”
A searing anger swelled inside Brianna. She suddenly felt her dagger hilt in her hand and saw no reason to restrain herself.
If Lanaxis felt the blade slash his thumb, he showed no sign. He merely turned toward the queen’s tower, where six pale figures stood waiting, barely visible through the thinning fog. They were large even by the standards of giants-taller than her battered tower-but they seemed mere children compared to the immense titan. Brianna judged that even the biggest would rise no higher than her captor’s chest, and it would have taken all of their number to match his bulk.
As Lanaxis neared the tower, Brianna’s view of the giants improved. All were clean-shaven, with unkempt, blue-black hair cascading over their shoulders. They had solemn, handsomely chiseled faces with gloomy silver eyes, and wan violet skin so pale it was nearly gray. Their simple tunics were belted at their waists, clean but rumpled. Each warrior wore a king’s ransom in silver jewelry, all of it black with tarnish.
The birds were swarming the giants, circling their heads or roosting on their shoulders, sometimes perching on their belts or the pommels of their huge two-handed swords. Save for the constant flutter of wings, the entire flock had fallen as silent as a snowfall. Their eyes were fixed on Brianna and her captor, giving the queen the uneasy feeling that while there was a bird overhead, she would never be out of a storm giant’s sight.
When the titan reached the tower, the six newcomers knelt in the snow and bowed their heads. The air smelled musty and old, and Brianna’s joints began to throb with a cold, damp ache.
“You have called, aged uncle, and we six have answered,” said one giant. He did not look up, and his voice sounded as dismal and languid as a dying man’s. “How may we serve?”
