The Path of Giants

by B. T. Narro

That turned out to be a mistake.

  It wasn’t long after that I heard a gasp as I noticed movement—Hadley falling from her horse.

  She hit the ground awkwardly and screamed at the top of her lungs, clearly in terrible pain. I pulled my horse to a stop and jumped off. I ran for her as she grabbed her shoulder and continued to cry out in agony.

  There was a grotesque bulge of her shoulder; it was clearly severely dislocated. The pain seemed to be torturing her as she continued to scream and squirm.

  “Try to hold still!” I told her as I urgently put my hands around her shoulder. “This is going to hurt even worse, but it will be over quickly.”

  I felt the hand of her good arm fisting in my shirt. She twisted her whole body as I began to heal, my mana actually moving her shoulder back into place. She seemed to be holding in a scream as she buried her face in my chest, but this was a fairly easy injury to heal. My mana knew exactly what to do.

  It only took a moment to get her shoulder back in place and a single moment more to repair the damage of the dislocation.

  “It’s done,” I told her.

  She sucked in air as she slowly uncurled her fist from the side of my shirt and peeled her face away from my chest. Her breath slowly returned to normal as she moved her arm around, testing her shoulder.

  “By the devil’s tail,” she uttered as she glanced up at me. I was hovered over her on my knees as she sat on the ground. “I’ve felt pain before, but not like that. Thank you, Jon.”

  I figured it was a little intrusive, but I couldn’t help my curiosity as I let my mana run through her body to look for old damage. No, she was fit and healthy. I didn’t know why I had the sense that this was not her worst injury. Perhaps whatever had happened to her, it was too long ago to matter much anymore. At least in regard to her body.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  I noticed the dark circles under her eyes as I looked at her from close up. She seemed even more tired now after this ordeal, as quick as it was. I stood up first, but she looked as if she didn’t have the strength to get up on her own. I offered my hand.

  She took it. I pulled her up with hardly any effort.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I don’t think I can ride any longer without falling off again. I didn’t sleep last night.”

  “At all?” I asked.

  “Maybe an hour. I was just starting to rest when I heard your message. I traveled through the night to get to you.”

  “Oh.” I checked on the setting sun. “We’ll only lose an hour or two if we make camp now rather than later. It’s fine.”

  She nodded, then rubbed her shoulder a bit. “It still hurts, though I can tell it shouldn’t.”

  “Phantom pain,” I said. “It’s normal.”

  She nodded again. “Yes, sometimes pain is more in the mind than in the body.”

  It sounded as if she was speaking from experience.

  “Jon?” she asked as we went for our horses.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not sure what might happen tonight.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

  “With the callstone.”

  Oh. I’d had the wrong idea. “What about it?”

  “I don’t know what it might do. It’s a recent creation of mine. I’ve never had it close while sleeping near someone else.”

  “Isn’t there some way you can disable it?”

  “No, it’s not like a typical enchantment. Disabling and re-enabling would take too much time and effort. I just wanted to warn you.”

  “Consider me warned.”

  Frankly, after everything that happened in the last couple of days, I wasn’t worried about it. In fact, sharing some sort of waking dream with Hadley didn’t sound too bad.

  My spirits were picking up. Soon we would be at the castle. I hoped my friends had returned from Koluk after dismantling the Thieves’ Guild and regaining control of the city. It had been a long time since I had seen them. And I could probably pass Hadley to Remi, who would look after her and speak up on her behalf.

  I didn’t like the looks Kataleya had given me when she seemed to think I was standing up for the witch just because of her beauty. The last thing I wanted was to hear that from Reuben and Michael as well.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I had many odd sensations before I realized that I was dreaming. I knew where I was, in the room of King Frederick Garlin of Rohaer. I didn’t know how I knew that it was him here with me in his room, but that wasn’t the strangest part. It was how I felt fear like I had never felt before. It was a terror of complete vulnerability, like he was about to tell me to disrobe in front of him and I would have to obey.

  The king gawked at me. He had gray hair, fat cheeks, and beady, dark eyes. When he spoke, it felt like my worst nightmare was coming true.

  “Remove your dress now,” he demanded casually.

  I looked toward the door and thought about making a run for it, but I knew there were guards outside who would stop me by the king’s orders. Then Frederick would be angry. I didn’t want that.

  I found a mirror on the other side of the room and saw myself in it. It was me, Jon Oklar, but I was wearing a thin dress like the kind a girl might wear underneath her clothes.

  I felt small and completely helpless, something I hadn’t felt for a long time. Maybe ever.

  Everything went hazy for a moment as the king came toward me. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I didn’t seem in control of anything that was happening.

  Suddenly the dream was clear again. The king was kissing me. He was on top of me in bed.

  My heart was racing as I wanted to push him off me, but I knew he was much too large. I tried not to recoil in disgust as his lips slobbered all over mine. I knew he might kill me if I did.

  I still had on my dress, thank god, but I was terrified that I would soon have to take it off.

  This was a dream, I reminded myself, but I couldn’t stop feeling everything as he moved his hand up my thigh.

  I had to push him. I couldn’t help it. I tried to put on a smile as I did.

  He stopped kissing me and glared. I had to say something.

  I suddenly had an idea, my only way out of this. It might get me killed anyway, but I couldn’t let this go on.

  I moved my hand through his gray hair, pretending to play with it, knowing that my life depended on holding this false smile.

  He grinned at me proudly. “I knew you would come around.”

  It took everything in my power not to turn my face away as he leaned down toward me again. I almost screamed out as I felt his manhood pressing against my leg. It was even more disgusting to know that he was older than my father, and such an ugly, horrible man, the wine on his breath making me suppress a gag.

  “Wait,” I said. But it wasn’t my voice. It was Hadley’s. “Turn around while I undress.”

  “Ah right, you’re still at that age where you’re shy. I like that.”

  With a great amount of effort, the king pushed himself up from the bed and turned around.

  I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath, but the sound of my sharp breathing was foreign to my ears.

  With shaky hands, I fiddled around with one of the king’s gray hairs in my left as I searched through my secret pocket with my other. Thank god that I had the foresight to fashion a tiny pocket on the inside of my underdress. It was because of the stares the king had been aiming at my chest that I thought to do it in the first place. I couldn’t believe my horror that my fear was coming true, but I had prepared for this.

  I took out a tiny vial of snake blood, pulled off the stopper, and stuffed the king’s gray hair into the vial. I left the top open as I channeled the three notes of dteria and focused my mind on a curse that I had only theorized would work. I had never performed it. I had never needed to.

  “Are you done yet?” Frederick asked impatiently. “Don’t get under the covers when you are. I want to see you.”

  My
heart told me to run for it, but I knew my only way out of this alive and not violated was with a convincing act.

  The curse dissolved Frederick’s hair in the blood and then caused the blood to slowly disappear within the vial.

  “Almost,” I said in Hadley’s voice.

  I tiptoed over to door and quietly rolled the tiny vial underneath. My only hope was that it would be kicked by one of the guards at some point and roll away, hopefully down the nearby stairs where it should break. It was evidence that could not be found anywhere near me.

  I felt like I was suffocating as I quickly removed my dress and let it fall to the floor. I couldn’t help but try to cover myself, though I didn’t have big enough hands to do so completely.

  “Ready,” I squeaked out.

  The king turned and smiled. “Let me see.”

  I felt like there was a colony of ants crawling over my whole body as I exposed myself in front of the lecherous middle-aged man.

  He slowly formed a wicked smile. “You have hidden yourself from me for some time, Hadley. Has that been your intention?”

  Yes, it had. My parents had encouraged me to dress more provocatively when I was meeting the king, but I couldn’t stand the way he was constantly looking down at my bosom. I had made sure to cover myself completely after that first meeting.

  I hated that he’d used his power to see me like this, but it was far from the worst thing I had seen him do.

  I wanted to lie to him, to tell him I was just more comfortable being covered and that I had no reason to hide myself. But fear had taken away my voice.

  I couldn’t utter a word.

  Everything went hazy again. I thought I might finally wake up from this horrible nightmare. I closed my eyes and tried to fall out of it, but I came to lying on a bed.

  I was struck in the face with the king standing near me, rage in his eyes. I tried to escape, but he pinned me easily with one arm as he leaned over me. I was so damn weak!

  He struck me again. The second blow hurt worse than the first, a terrible pain throbbing inside my whole head.

  “You will undo this curse right now!” he shouted, raising his fist in a threat to strike me again.

  “I did not curse you, your majesty! I swear it. No such curse exists!”

  It was the anger at him striking me that had allowed me to find my voice. I didn’t care if he was the king. If I could get my hand on a knife, I would stab him in the neck right now.

  But I was trapped underneath his heavy arm, both of us stark naked.

  I shut my eyes and hoped for it to be over. I had to get out of this nightmare.

  “Are you saying this is caused by my own body?” the king asked threateningly, possibly ready to kill me if he thought I would lie.

  Tears escaped my eyes. I heard Hadley’s voice come out of me again, though I couldn’t recall if any of the past words had been hers or mine.

  “I don’t know what caused it, but it wasn’t me,” I said as I wept. “Please believe me.”

  He struck me again.

  I lost all hearing for a moment as I felt the world spin around me.

  “You’re a liar!” he yelled.

  “I swear on the life of my parents and on Valinox himself. Let the demigod come here and strike me down if I lie in his name. There is no curse that I have heard of that would do such a thing.” I had to stop, my throat closing as I cried. I swallowed and forced the next words out. “I was trying to make this work for you, your majesty. I was nervous, yes, but I wanted to please you.”

  I found more of my strength and cleared the lump completely from my throat. Holding down the bile in my stomach, I put on a sweet expression as I looked into his eyes.

  “We could try longer, if you’d like, but there will be people looking for me by now. If we don’t end soon, I will need to think of a lie.”

  He looked at me, then at himself. I kept my eyes up and away from his disgusting genitals. I wasn’t sure I could keep my vomit down much longer.

  He pushed himself up. “Get dressed and get out.”

  I finally awoke from the dream. I—Jon Oklar—was finally out.

  I felt paralyzed as I lay on my back. Holy hell, I muttered internally.

  I was sweating. I felt sick to my stomach.

  I looked over at Hadley. She sat up suddenly, so I did as well. The embers of our fire gave her face long shadows. I couldn’t make out her eyes, but I could hear her breathing hard. It matched my breath.

  “Did you just have a nightmare?” I asked.

  She took a sharp breath. “Don’t tell me you felt that?”

  I didn’t see any benefit to lying. “I did.”

  “How much?”

  “All of it, I believe.”

  “Oh,” she said sadly. “Oh no…I was worried that might happen.”

  “All of that really occurred, just like in the nightmare?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So that’s the real reason you left? You weren’t just sick of cursing innocent people?”

  She hung her head. “Yes.”

  I didn’t mind the lie. I didn’t know how I could when the truth was so terrible.

  “I was certain he would figure out that he was cursed soon enough,” she said. “And he would’ve raped me if I’d removed the curse, or killed me if I didn’t. I had to get out of there. It’s true that I was sick of cursing innocent people. I had wanted to leave for some time, but I had always been too afraid of being caught. Only after that incident was I more afraid of what else he would do to me. I had to tell many lies, including to my family. It was the only way I could get out of there without being stopped by anyone.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen,” she said.

  The king knew her age when he ordered her into his room, or he just didn’t care. I hadn’t heard much about Frederick Garlin. All I knew was that he seemed to be working with Valinox to help the spread of dteria, and this was the reason Valinox was assisting him in this war. I didn’t know what kind of plan or perhaps competition Frederick had had with the late king of Lycast, Oquin Calloum, who also seemed to be in the business of helping Valinox spread dteria. Whatever it was, the king I served seemed to be their worst enemy, but apparently I was starting to become a threat to them as well.

  Hadley had been a target for different reasons. Frederick seemed like the kind of man who would want vengeance. Had he figured out what she’d done after she left?

  “I’m more than just a traitor,” Hadley was telling me as I thought through all of this. “I cursed the king and denied him a certain act that he demanded from many women serving him. I had seen what he had done to the others who had denied him. He didn’t just kill them. He mutilated them. I’m sure he would do even worse to me if he caught me now.”

  “Is he still cursed after all this time?”

  “No, there is a limit to both the duration and range of a curse. Once one limit is reached, it fades away. Both are dependent on the strength of the curse, which depends on the ingredients used and the power of the witch. The curse faded after I got out of there. That’s why I’m sure he knows the truth about what I had done.”

  There was still so much to learn about curses, it seemed. I felt a little foolish for not having asked sooner, but I was angry after what she had done to Kataleya’s father.

  “Doesn’t Frederick have a wife and children?”

  “Yes, and I’m sure they are aware of his indiscretions, but he has Valinox on his side. He cannot be stopped by anyone now, and he knows this, so he does whatever he wants.”

  I fed the fire to chase away the cold. “Except for us,” I told Hadley.

  But as the fire grew, I could see that she was shedding tears quietly as she looked at me.

  “You don’t believe he can be stopped?” I asked, figuring this was the reason she cried.

  She wiped her eyes, then stared into the fire for a long time. When she looked at me again, with a hauntingly sad expression, her answer w
as clear. She just didn’t want to say it aloud.

  “We should go back to sleep,” I suggested. There was nothing I could do for her right now. Perhaps after she got to know me better she might give the right answer. We had to be able to stand against Frederick’s army. We just had to. And I wholeheartedly believed we could.

  “I wanted to answer you,” she said as I was about to lie down. “I just needed time to figure out the words.” She had a hard look in her eyes now. “No, I don’t think he can be stopped, but I am willing to die in order to see if I could be wrong. It’s the reason I came to the capital. I figured when times were dire, I could make myself known to your king and he would have no option but to allow my help. I figured…no, I am lying to myself. I was too afraid to speak to Nykal earlier, and I probably would’ve been too afraid even when I was most needed. I’m not a brave person, Jon. Even now, I don’t imagine letting myself face any danger.”

  “So you’re not prepared to die for this cause?”

  “It was wishful thinking. The only time I would accept death would be if it was to prevent my being captured.” She had a terrified look on her face. “Can you promise me something, Jon? No matter what, don’t let Rohaer take me alive. Even if it means you have to kill me yourself, you will do it before allowing me to be captured. I know it’s a lot to ask from someone I just met.”

  “I understand. I will do that for you.”

  Her eyebrows lifted in obvious shock. “You will?”

  “I was there with you, Hadley. I felt everything you went through. I would also rather die than live through that many more times, as I’m sure he would make you do if you are captured.”

  She put her hand on my arm. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I ask you one more thing?” Hadley said.

  “I won’t speak of it to anyone.”

  She nodded. “Thank you, again.”

  I nodded back.

  We lay back down.

  I tried to go back to sleep, but every time I shut my eyes, I felt like I was sinking back into the nightmare, stuck in Frederick’s chambers in Rohaer.

  I was glad when Hadley said something else. “You don’t seem very afraid of fighting.”