by Bonnie Lamer
I can’t help a small giggle. “I’m not planning to kill anybody.” But that was one of the sweetest, if not necessarily the most romantic, or sane, thing he’s ever said.
He stands up straight again and smiles. “That is a relief to hear.”
Grabbing his hand, I say, “Come on. We have to find Breena.” He gives me a strange look, but he follows me out of my now really dusty, probably hazardous and bordering on a cave in, bedroom.
Chapter 18
The house is in an uproar. Dagda is howling like a werewolf. Radella is corralling her security team and trying to come up with a defensive plan. Quinn is bellowing about waging war immediately. No matter what they’re all saying, it all boils down to violence on a grand scale. Mob hysteria provoked by an unknown enemy never turns out well.
So, I’m going to slip past the library and down the marble stairs. Everyone is so busy trying to get someone else to listen to them; no one even turns an eye in our direction. When we reach the kitchen, Breena’s father is there alone. He’s hunched over the table with a small knife in his hand and a piece of wood. He’s whittling it into something. I can’t tell what.
“Do you know where Breena is?” I ask him.
He mumbles something unintelligible. I’ll take that as, no, he doesn’t know where she is. I’m pretty sure asking him again isn’t going to make his answer any better. So, we wait.
After about fifteen minutes, Breena finally shows up in the kitchen. “We must go,” she says, as if we haven’t been waiting for her.
Once again, I turn to leave the kitchen and a gnarled hand clamps down on my arm. How do I get this old man to stop doing this without hurting him? It freaks me out. He holds the little figure he whittled out to me. Reluctantly, I take it.
“For the beautiful virgin who captures hearts, a touch of blood holds them in place,” he says. “A touch of poison prevents escape.”
Wow, that was beyond creepy. And what’s up with the whole world being so concerned about my virginity. I don’t spend time worrying about other people’s virginities. Except Kallen’s, of course.
I force a smile and say, “Thank you.” He mutters something as he sits back down at the table and I shove the figure in the pocket of my sweater, next to whatever he gave me earlier. He sure likes giving gifts. I wonder how you tell a crazy person to stop doing that without hurting their feelings? I know, I can’t. I’ll just have to get rid of them later.
“We must go,” Breena says impatiently.
I’m with her. I grab Kallen’s hand and pull him and his puzzled look out the back door of the kitchen. The night has turned chilly and I wish I had grabbed a sweater. I probably won’t need it in a couple of minutes, though, when I start sweating because I have to jog to keep up with Breena’s long strides. She’s worse than Quinn.
The walk is long and paranoid. Breena jumps at every little noise, which makes me jump. Kallen’s still confused and hardly seems to notice that Breena is darting around bushes and trees like she could actually hide behind any of them. Strange that she knows exactly where each possible tree to hide around is, though. I’m suspecting that this isn’t the first time she’s made this journey.
Huh, Breena may be keeping some interesting secrets. Hopefully, none of them will get me killed. It’s just now dawning on me that this Devas Giant, who claims to have connections to the Daityas, could be drawing me into a trap. I should probably create a reference chart that could help me in these situations. It could have little boxes with arrows on it that say things like: Has the person you are following ever acted like she likes you? If no, is she leading you far out into the outback of a country you don’t know anything about? If yes, you should strongly consider the fact that you may be an idiot and she may be psychotic. Oh well, too late now, I guess. I’ll work on it after this calamity is over.
Soon, we can see a great house in the distance. It’s bigger than Quinn’s, and a lot fancier. Even from this far away, I can tell that it has elaborate spires and gargoyles on every corner. The closer we get, the more I notice. The windows are leaded glass, each of them forming a lily in the center. The oak doors are tall, even for Giants. I wouldn’t be able to reach the knockers if I had stilts. Well, one, because I still wouldn’t be tall enough, and two, I don’t have the balance it takes to use stilts. It was just a bad analogy all around.
I think we’re headed for this humongous house, until Breena abruptly turns right and I almost walk into her knee and hip. “Where are we going?” I ask.
“You will see when we get there. The trees have ears.”
See, paranoid. Even if the trees did have ears, there aren’t enough of them around to be worried about. I’m not going to argue, though. What I will do, is make sure that I’m prepared for an ambush. I pull a little bit of magic, hoping that I will be able to keep it under control. Kallen does the same thing. I don’t know if it’s because we’re thinking the same thing, or he’s worried about the fact that I did it. Probably a little of both.
After another few minutes, we come to a small building. Small by Giant standards, anyway. It looks like an old tool shed or something. It’s rundown and should probably be condemned. The roof has huge holes in it, and one wall has started to crumble, making it strongly resemble the leaning tower of Pisa. The stone walls were painted white at one time, but now they’re mostly gray. The wooden door has rusty hinges and no glass in its windows. Breena swings it wide open and gestures for us to go in ahead of her.
Not going to happen. “I’d feel better if you lead the way.”
With a pointed look that lets me know that she’s offended, she walks into the building, letting the door swing closed behind her. That was rude. Kallen pulls the door open and I walk in after Breena. I don’t mind walking ahead of him. That means he has my back.
Breena disappears into a room at the back of the building. The door for it fell off its hinges long ago. It’s almost pitch dark in there, as there are no windows. I can barely see Breena in the middle of the room, tugging at something on the floor. After a couple seconds, a trap door swings up and open.
After another pointed look, she starts to disappear into the floor. She’s smart enough to know that I definitely am not going to crawl ahead of her into a dark hole in the floor. I’d like to think that I’m at least a little bit smarter than the women in horror movies.
Peering down into the hole, I see there’s a rung ladder. A rung ladder made for Giants. I think I’m going to need a grappling hook and harness to get down it. I look at Kallen and he raises his brows at me, wondering what I want to do. I guess I’m going to have to give it a shot. I crouch down next to the trapdoor and with Kallen’s help, I drop down and dangle a moment as my feet search for the first rung. My toes barely skim it. I let go of one of Kallen’s hands and reach out for the side of the ladder, letting my feet drop onto the rung. Once I’m on that one, I repeat the process by myself, seriously wishing that I had taken gymnastic lessons at some point. They would have come in handy about now.
It seems like it takes forever to see the bottom. Once I’m on the second rung from the bottom, I about have a heart attack when Breena puts her hands on my waist and lifts me off. She sets me down on the ground about three seconds before I would have attacked her with magic. Guess she was just trying to be helpful. Kallen jumps down on his own. Showoff.
We’re now in a smaller room with the ladder and a door. Nothing else but dirt. Breena pulls a key from her bra, or slip, or whatever it is Giant women wear under their clothes. Using it to unlock the door, she swings it open, revealing a long, underground passage. Why does she have a key to an underground passage in what I think is the Daityas’ village?
“Where does this lead?” I ask.
She hesitates, debating how she wants to answer, I bet. Finally, she says, “I am…was…close to Ellu.” She looks down at her face as she says this.
I tilt my head and raise my eyebrows. “How close?”
She doesn’t look up when she says,
“Closer than you two.”
The hypocrite! I put my hands on my hips and I’m about to ream her out, when Kallen puts a hand on my shoulder. I look up at him and he shakes his head. Turning to Breena, he says, “Why did you use the past tense?”
It takes her a moment to answer. “He has changed,” she says, lifting her head to look at us. “His behavior is erratic, and his judgment poor, as of late. It has been difficult to be around him.”
She’s holding something back. “How long has it been since you were with him?”
If there was light in here, other than the little candle she lit, I bet we would see her blush. “We have not seen each other for two moons.”
Moons? Giants tell the passage of time by the lunar cycle? How old fashioned is that. “Why?”
She looks me straight in the eye, now. “That is not your business.” There’s a finality in her voice that says she’s not going to say anything more about it. “You only need to know that I still care about him enough to try to prevent this war.”
Okay, then. She drags us out to the middle of nowhere, leads us through a trap door, expects us to walk through a passage underground that leads to who knows where, and it’s none of my business why she and Ellu broke up? No, it probably isn’t. She kept her end of the bargain. She showed me a way in. That’s all she promised. She never said she’d dish on her relationship with the opposing tribe’s Chief.
“Where does this lead, exactly,” Kallen asks. I don’t think he cares why they broke up.
I bet she says cellar. “To the cellar of Ellu’s home.” I knew it. It’s not like underground passages dump out on second floors very often.
“What are we expected to do when we get there?” I’m not sure if he’s asking Breena or me that question.
“That will be up to you. I must get back before my absence is noticed.” Yeah, like people aren’t going to notice mine and Kallen’s absence. She hands the candle to me and I take it. Without another word, she turns and leaves. To make things even better, we hear her close the trap door. That makes our only option the tunnel.
Chapter 19
It’s a really long tunnel. It takes a good ten minutes before we reach the door on the other side. To my great surprise, the door isn’t locked. It pushes open easily. Kallen goes ahead of me, peering around the door to see if the coast is clear. It must be, because he opens the it farther and gestures for me to follow him.
The cellar is a typical cellar. A bunch of old junk lying around. There’s a wine rack that lines one wall. Nothing interesting. I’m much more interested in the stairs that will lead us up to the rest of the house. The Giant stairs that I’m going to have to scale. By the time we get to the top of them, I’ll admit it, I’m a little winded. Should have teleported.
Kallen goes first again, pushing the door open a crack to see where we are. I expected to find the kitchen, but instead, we’re in a short hallway. Looking to right, I see the kitchen and there are definitely Giants in there. To the left, another hallway, perpendicular to this one. I don’t hear anything from that direction. The choice is obvious, then. We go left until it dead ends into the other hallway.
One end of the new hallway looks like it leads out to a foyer, the other way is long and lined with doors. The second door down on the left, loud voices are carrying out into the hallway. We move a little closer to hear what’s being said.
“Ellu, we are on the brink of war. Do you not care?” a frustrated and strained male voice says.
“What are you talking about, what war?” a man replies. I’m assuming this is Ellu.
“The war that the Devas are about to wage because they think you are responsible for the kidnapping of the Princess. We discussed this just an hour ago.”
“What is all this foolishness about a Princess? You know as well as I do that the Queen is barren.” I look up at Kallen with raised brows. He nods to let me know it’s true. Huh. Guess that’s why I’m Dagda’s only kid.
“Ellu, snap out of it! You have been walking this house as if in a cloud of dreams. I have already explained to you that the King does indeed have a daughter. She is the bastard child of a Witch.”
Hey! That’s not true. I put my hand out towards the doorknob as I pull magic. I’ll show him who’s a bastard. Unfortunately, Kallen grabs my shoulders and pulls me back to him. “Stop,” he whispers in my ear. If I didn’t love him so much, I’d punch him in the nose. Instead, I let him draw me into a dark room across from the one we’re eavesdropping on. He must have heard the Giants coming from the foyer while I was too focused on being insulted by strangers. You know, I’m finding it really hard to warm up to the Giants.
After the Giants in the hall disappear around a corner, we hear the door across the hall slam. Peeking through the keyhole, which is conveniently at eyelevel for me, I watch the thighs of a Giant walk out of the room and stomp down the hall. He seems really pissed.
Well, I guess this is my chance to talk to Ellu. Opening the door, we walk quietly across the hall and I open the door to room he’s in. I get my first look at him from the back as he’s staring out the window. Wow, he’s tall. He has to stand at least thirteen feet high. So much for Quinn’s theory that the Cowan blood has made these guys shorter.
He has on what looks like a dressing gown from old movies I’ve seen back home. Under that, he has on blue and green striped silk pajamas. He’s not as muscular as Quinn, but he’s close. There are strands of gray in his hair, but not too many, making him seem distinguished, not old. He’s probably only a decade or so older than Quinn. The room we’re in looks like an office; it has a desk and some chairs, but there’s about half an inch of dust on all of them. If it is an office, it certainly hasn’t been used in a while.
“I told you to leave,” Ellu says, turning around. His eyes open wide when he sees us instead of the Giant he expected. “Who are you and how did you get in here?”
Kallen starts to say something but I know it’s going to sound all formal about me being Princess, so I cut him off. “I’m Xandra and this is Kallen.”
He slams the glass he has in his hand on the small end table next to him. The glass shatters, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s across the room in a couple of strides and he looms over us. “Again, who are you and how did you get in here?” he growls.
Yup, really having a hard time warming up to these guys. “I’m the person all the Devas Giants and the King think you kidnapped and tried to kill.”
To say he’s shocked is putting it mildly. He’s getting awfully pale. I’m about to search the room for an emergency defibrillator. “Then it is true, the King does have a daughter.”
“Well, yeah. I’m pretty sure people have been telling you that for a few days now.”
Ellu puts a hand to his head and stumbles a bit. Kallen and I back up quickly. We do not want to be Giant made pancakes. “Are you okay?” I ask.
He waves his hand that isn’t holding his head in our general direction. “I am fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re going to fall down.”
“Perhaps I should sit down,” he says. He walks to one of the dusty chairs and sits on it. A little dust storm is created when his body hits the seat. It’s no wonder he sneezes. Twice. Finally looking at us again, he asks, “Have you come to declare war as my advisors have warned?”
I can see that Kallen is itching to say yes. He has a ton of magic inside of him right now. I guess I didn’t think about the whole ‘it’s not a good idea to bring my boyfriend around the guy he’s convinced tried to kill me’ thing through. Before he can answer, I say, “Actually, I’m here to try to prevent it.”
He raises one brow in disbelief. “Why would you do that?”
I shrug. “I’m a pacifist, I guess.” I give Kallen a dirty look when he snorts.
Ellu rises unsteadily to his feet. “Ah, the delusions of youth. Peace and pacifism do not go hand in hand. It is the threat of war that brings peace, just as war brings sorrow and pain.�
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That’s deep. I roll my eyes. “Can we skip the philosophy lesson? I came to ask why you’re sending your Giants out to attack the Devas.”
He looks puzzled. “You are not the first to claim I have done such things. Yet, I do not remember doing so.” He puts his hand to his head again. “In fact, I do not remember much that has happened these past months. Your father came yesterday, and it was as if he woke me from a year’s slumber. It has been a full day, and I have still not been able to shed the exhaustion that overcame me so long ago.” He puts his hand on the back of the chair he was sitting on to steady himself as he almost stumbles again.
There’s a thought trying to creep into my head about what he just said. It’s there, waiting for me to get that aha moment and figure out what all this means. “Why aren’t you mad that we’re here?” I ask. A brief look at Kallen tells me he’s mad we’re here.