“Perhaps, but he’s pledged not to kill the child himself.”
“What? He would never make such a pledge, unless you…” A chill crept down Brianna’s spine. “And what did you promise, Tavis?”
“We can decide what to do about Kaedlaw’s destiny later, after we’ve had time to think,” the high scout replied, in the same breath both answering and avoiding the queen’s question. “At the moment, we’d better prepare ourselves. I only wounded Lanaxis, and twilight is not so far away.”
The slap, slap of Basil’s flat feet rang off the walls of the antechamber, with the thud of Galgadayle’s boots close behind. Tavis’s baggy eyes grew narrow and wary, and he stooped over to retrieve Sky Cleaver. An instant later, the two ’kin raced into the throne room. They appeared as battered and exhausted as the high scout, if much younger.
Basil threw his arms wide and rushed Brianna. “Majesty, you’re well!”
The queen started to back away, saying, “Stay where you-”
Basil gathered her up and embraced her for a long moment. Finally, he seemed to hear Kaedlaw’s wail and put her down, then knelt beside the child. His heavy lips cracked a delicate grin, and his ice-crusted eyebrows slowly formed an awestruck arch.
“What a handsome child!” he exclaimed. “He looks just like his father!”
Brianna felt someone peering over her shoulder and glanced back to find Galgadayle standing behind her. Though the seer remained silent, the disdainful sneer beneath his beard made it clear that he wondered which father Basil meant. The queen found the differing reactions of the two ’kin surprising. Kaedlaw might look as handsome as Tavis one moment and as sinister as the ettin the next, but she had never seen both faces at the same time.
Basil turned to the queen. “Far be it from me to criticize, but I thought only verbeegs let crying infants lie. Don’t human mothers comfort their children?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Brianna was filled with such a sense of shame that she could barely whisper the admission. She knew that the affliction was no fault of hers, but that did not prevent her from feeling like a failure. “I can’t do it.”
“You don’t have to keep him quiet,” Galgadayle said. “I doubt Lanaxis can hear him anyway. But we really must hurry if we are to leave this place.”
Brianna whirled on the seer, her frustration and fear pouring from her mouth in a tempest of angry words. “Why, so Tavis can commit your murder for you?”
The queen had no defense left except her rage. Her magic would not work against her husband, and she could not best a trio of giant-kin-even ’kin as old as these three-with her bare hands.
She cast an accusatory glare at Tavis. “If you have come to keep your vow, do it now, Husband!”
Tavis’s cloudy eyes turned as soft as water. “I have come to keep my vow,” he allowed. “But not by killing you or Kaedlaw.”
“Tavis, must I remind you of our agreement?” Galgadayle demanded. “You promised-”
“I know what I promised!” The high scout’s head swiveled toward the seer, anger flashing like lightning behind his cloudy eyes. When Galgadayle voiced no more objections, Tavis exhaled slowly, then stepped over to Brianna. “Milady, do you trust me?”
Brianna started to ask what he meant, but then she heard Avner’s voice ringing inside her head: Tavis will see what you see… It’s your only hope.’ The young scout had spoken those words less than a day before his death, but the queen seemed to hear him now more clearly than ever. Whatever her husband intended to do, it would be the right thing. It simply was not in his nature to do anything else.
Brianna nodded. “Yes, Tavis. I trust you completely.”
The high scout stroked her cheek with a huge, wrinkled finger, then stepped around her and knelt beside Kaedlaw. He scooped the child up in his palm and studied him for a moment, a broad smile creeping across his cracked lips.
Kaedlaw’s wails began to subside, and Tavis said, “You’re right, Basil. He is handsome-and he has my eyes.”
Galgadayle brushed past Brianna to peer at the infant “I don’t see that, not at all,” the seer said. “To me, he’s as ugly as a troll. Use the axe.”
Now that Kaedlaw was growing quiet, his face had once again assumed a handsome and loving aspect in Brianna’s eyes. Her deepest instincts urged her to leap forward and snatch her child from Tavis’s palm. She desperately wanted to know the truth about her son and just as desperately wanted to remain ignorant. It was the conflict between those two emotions more than her willpower that kept her standing fast as her husband covered her helpless child with the flat of Sky Cleaver’s obsidian blade.
Tavis spoke a word in the same ancient tongue the titan used to cast spells. He grimaced with pain, and the last of the color faded from his pale skin. Even his muscles turned partially translucent, so that beneath the stringy cords of sinew, Brianna could see the yellow outlines of bone and the more nebulous shapes of internal organs.
Kaedlaw’s growls gave way to a muffled chortling.
The high scout took Sky Cleaver’s blade away. In his palm lay a rather plain-looking baby, neither as handsome as Tavis, nor as hideous as the ettin. The infant had a rather cherubic face with pudgy jowls, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes as gray as steel. Brianna could see her husband’s influence in the child’s straight nose and even features, while the ettin’s could be seen in the cleft chin and dark, curly hair.
“He’s not handsome any more!” Basil gasped. “He just looks normal!”
Tavis’s smile broadened. “He’s always looked that way,” he said. “But we couldn’t see it.”
Galgadayle frowned. “What? I know what I saw before. It was as plain-”
“Of course it was!” interrupted Basil, growing more excited by the moment. “Kaedlaw is no different than any child. We see in him what we expect to see-isn’t that what the axe showed you?”
“More or less,” Tavis answered. “Like any child, Kaedlaw has the capacity for both good and evil. How we rear him will decide which comes to dominate.”
“That is the more,” said Galgadayle. “What is the less?”
Tavis cast an uneasy glance at Brianna, and the queen felt a cold dread seeping into her heart. She began to fear that Galgadayle’s prophecy had been right, after all. Whether Kaedlaw grew up good or evil, he would lead the giants against the rest of the northlands.
When her husband still did not speak, Brianna said, “Tell me.”
Tavis took a deep breath. “Kaedlaw has two fathers,” he said. “I’m sorry, milady. Please forgive me for allowing it.”
Brianna hardly heard the apology. She felt no need of one, and there were other, more pressing matters on her mind. The queen took a tentative step toward her son.
“What of his future?”
Tavis shrugged. “No one can say. Ifs impossible to tell the future-at least Kaedlaw’s.”
Galgadayle shook his head violently. “What of my dreams?” he demanded. “You’re lying!”
Brianna swept Kaedlaw from Tavis’s hand, then whirled on the seer. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She was almost laughing. “Firbolgs can’t lie!”
“Then what of my dreams?” the seer demanded. “They have always come true!”
“Have they really?” Basil’s tone was more one of curiosity than debate. “Has anything ever happened exactly as you saw it?”
“Of course!” the seer replied. “A landslide swept Orisino’s village away, just as I dreamed.”
“In your dream, what happened to Orisino’s tribe?”
“They were buried.”
Basil smirked. “Obviously, your dream was inaccurate. We both know you warned Orisino in time to save his tribe.”
Galgadayle furrowed his brow.
“The same thing happened with the fomorians, I presume,” the runecaster continued. “You dreamed they would drown, then saved the entire tribe by warning Ror of their danger.”
The seer’s face grew almost as pale as Tavis’s, then he fell on his knees before Brianna. “By the gods, I have made a terrible mistake!” he cried. “How can I earn your forgiveness?”
