The Path of Giants

by B. T. Narro

  “What happened when Eden almost killed Remi?” Hadley asked.

  “It was actually because she snuck out of the castle to see you.”

  “See me?” Hadley sounded confused. “I haven’t seen her in some time.”

  “To drop off the hair of her attacker,” I corrected myself.

  “Oh, that night. That makes sense. I noticed the guards watching me soon after. What happened after she dropped off the hair?”

  I figured this was a good chance to find out what people in Rohaer thought of Valinox. “She snuck back into the castle and accidentally surprised Valinox dropping off a callring for Eden. That’s how she nearly died, and how we found out Eden was the traitor.”

  “The traitor, not a traitor?”

  “Yes, we knew someone was providing information to Cason. We couldn’t figure out who it was.”

  “But Eden escaped?”

  “Yes, with Valinox’s help.”

  I waited, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not surprised to hear about him doing these things?”

  “I am a little,” Hadley said. “But many people in Rohaer already knew of his existence. I knew he had been trying to spread dteria. What surprises me is his aggression.”

  “It was because of him that Endell killed Whitley Yorn. Valinox wanted me dead first, but that didn’t work out. They escaped after they got Whitley, mostly thanks to Kataleya arriving.”

  “What happened exactly?”

  I figured there was no reason to keep the truth hidden any longer. It wasn’t going to do me any good. So I shared the story with her.

  She was gaping at me by the time I was done.

  “You are the healer after all?”

  “I am.”

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out if I can trust you.” I knew it wasn’t the best excuse, but it was the truth.

  “So you could’ve healed my face this whole time!” She stopped her horse.

  I stopped mine as well. “I could’ve,” I admitted.

  “Then why didn’t you? You must know I’m in pain after what that…what Kataleya did to me.”

  “She only did that because of what you did to her father. I thought you deserved a little pain for your deceit.”

  “It’s more than a little. It hurts every time I breathe.” She hopped down from her horse holding her nose. “Are you going to heal me now?”

  I stayed on my horse as I contemplated. I supposed there was no point in letting this go on any longer. If she was going to learn a lesson at all, it had already happened.

  I climbed down from my horse.

  “It’s not just my nose. My cheeks as well,” she said.

  “All right, hold still.” I put my hands on her cheeks.

  She looked into my eyes as we fell quiet.

  The oddest thing about it was that it didn’t feel uncomfortable. There came the urge to protect her again. Was this just because the cute features of her face seemed to do a number on me? Or did it have something to do with how our mana had interacted with each other?

  I noticed again her dark eyes, her full lips, the soft feeling of her bruised and swollen cheeks. I focused away from all that and got to work.

  She really must’ve been in pain. Kataleya had done a considerable amount of damage to Hadley’s face, but I repaired it quickly as she shut her eyes and grabbed my wrists with a hiss.

  I took my hands off her face as hers slid down from my wrists. She felt around her cheeks and nose, her eyes wide.

  “That is quite a talent you have.”

  “It’s the reason I was going all around Lycast. There are many people who needed healing.”

  “That’s generous of you.”

  I shrugged. “Wish I could keep doing it. There are many towns I couldn’t get to because I didn’t have more time.”

  “You know…your hair…” Her tone was overly friendly as she peered at the top of my head. “I think you could use a trim. It seems a bit long to me.” She moved her hand through my hair.

  I was shocked at first until I understood what she was doing. I grabbed her wrist.

  She had made a fist. “What?” she asked.

  I opened her hand with my free fingers, finding one of my hairs tucked in the palm of her hand. I slowly turned her hand over so that my hair fell out and blew away in the wind.

  “That usually works,” she said nervously.

  “Were you even a barber at all?” I asked as I got back on my horse.

  “I was.” She climbed up on hers.

  We started riding again.

  “What would you do with one of my hairs, anyway?” I asked.

  “Nothing if you continue to behave.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I don’t know you very well, and we are basically alone. I would like some means of protecting myself if it turns out I was wrong to trust you.”

  “I’m a sorcerer of the king,” I reminded her. “I’m not a danger to you. Quite the contrary. I’m all the protection you need.”

  It was silent for a long while.

  We passed by two others going the opposite way. I recognized them when we were close, smiling and giving a nod.

  “Good to see you, healer,” said one woman who’d had a broken toe. She was traveling with her husband, who I had also met.

  “How’s the toe?” I asked her, already knowing the answer but happy to hear it again.

  “Better than ever.”

  “Safe travels,” I said.

  “You as well!” called the man as our horses took us far from each other.

  Hadley didn’t comment on the exchange. Instead, she said, “If you’d met King Frederick’s sorcerers and had heard them claim the same thing before witnessing what they’d done to girls, you also would have trouble trusting a sorcerer like yourself.”

  “I’m not like them. I don’t use dteria.”

  “Not all of them do. There are wicked men of all kinds. Sometimes their morals are not corrupted because of the sorcery they choose.” She was silent as she looked at me, and I could tell she wanted to say more.

  “What are you hinting at?”

  “Whitley Yorn.”

  I stopped my horse. She stopped as well.

  I let my anger come out. “How dare you!”

  Hadley seemed disappointed as she gazed at me. “Your reaction tells me that you didn’t know him as well as you think.”

  “I knew him better than you did!” I couldn’t believe her audacity. How could she claim Kataleya’s father was corrupted when she hadn’t even met the man?

  “Fine. You’re entitled to believe that,” she said, then gave her horse a little kick.

  I was in disbelief for a moment before I gathered my wits and caught up to her.

  I had to make sure of something before I unloaded my rage. “Have you ever met the man?”

  “No.”

  “So you are basing your opinion entirely on rumors?”

  “No, not that, either.”

  “Then what? How could you claim he was corrupted?”

  “Because he was rich, healer!” she snapped.

  “That is not reason enough to dishonor the dead by claiming they are corrupted. And I prefer Jon or bladedancer.”

  Her gaze went to the sword on my belt, then to my face. I couldn’t stand the tone she’d used when calling me healer, as if that was all I was and all I’d ever be. I was sick of being addressed like that by Whitley, and I wasn’t going to take it from her.

  “I don’t wish to call you bladedancer until you prove that you are one, Jon.”

  “Not all rich men are corrupted, Hadley. You can’t make judgments like that about the recently deceased.”

  “It’s not a judgment. It’s the truth. When men are that rich, they are always corrupted. The rumors I heard about the healer seem to be true of you, Jon. You are from a small town up north. You probably have not met many nobles. I h
ave encountered more than I’d like to admit, most of them in Rohaer, sure, but enough of them here as well to know what I’m talking about. A person cannot obtain that level of wealth and power without corrupted morals. It just doesn’t happen.”

  Before debating her, I thought a little test was in order. I needed to see just how much she really knew.

  “So you must believe the king himself has corrupted morals?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “The king is poor, Jon. I’m surprised you don’t know that.” Her mouth fell open for a moment. “Or are you testing me?”

  “It was a test,” I admitted. “But I still think you claim to know things that you couldn’t possibly know, and I don’t appreciate that.”

  “And I still think you don’t know things that you should know.”

  I felt anger wanting to twist my words, but I controlled myself. “Perhaps it’s best if we don’t speak.” I somehow managed to keep my insults from coming out and was quite proud of it, considering the difficulty.

  “Fine by me.”

  *****

  We didn’t speak for the rest of the day, even when we stopped and ate much of the bread I had brought with us. We passed by a good hundred or so people during our trip, more so when the path took us nearby to the towns I had visited. I recognized maybe a quarter of them, all seemingly happy to see me and wishing me safe travels.

  I would’ve been fine with the silence between me and Hadley, except that it eventually started to feel like a waste. She had so much knowledge in that little head of hers. If she didn’t end up joining us, which seemed like it might be the case considering her troubles with Kataleya, I should at least learn something from her.

  “How does the red diamond work?” I asked when there were no other people ahead of us for a while.

  She eyed me for a moment. “It’s called a callstone,” she answered.

  “Like a callring?”

  “You mentioned that word before. What is that?”

  I wished I had a callring with me so I could show her, but Charlie had taken the pair of callrings to Koluk with Leon and the others. They needed them more than I did.

  “Rings enchanted with the essence of bat, and maybe something else.”

  “Oh, you mean a signal ring. I didn’t know you called them callrings in Lycast. They are very different from a callstone, however. A signal ring is like hearing a whistle. A callstone is like having a conversation, but it does have its limitations. Are you interested in knowing how it works?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “What will you give me in exchange?”

  I let out my irritation with a breath. “Nothing.”

  “Then why should I tell you? At least give me one of your hairs. Then I will tell you everything you could want to know and more.”

  “You’re not getting one of my hairs. Isn’t it clear to you by now that we’re going to be fighting against Valinox, Rohaer, and dteria together?”

  “I will do no such fighting,” she said with a bitter laugh.

  “You will not fight in any form? Not even to curse our enemies?”

  “I will do everything I can in exchange for my freedom, but that does not mean entering the fray at any point.”

  “You said you wanted to help us,” I reminded her. “You said you came to me not just because you were tired of running but because you have wanted to help for some time.”

  “That is the truth. I do want to help, but in my own way. I will speak to the king about what I can and cannot do and leave it up to him. Now if you would like to know about the callstone, I’m going to need one of your hairs. It is the only way I can trust you with information that you can use against me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “If I wanted to harm you in some way, it wouldn’t be through information. I told you, I’m your protection. It’s better that you realize that sooner rather than later. I might be the only one on your side when we get to the castle.”

  “So let’s start building this trust between us by you giving me one of your hairs.”

  I could see she wasn’t budging, but there was something else in her eyes. It surprised me to see. Fear.

  She really was afraid I would do something…like force myself on her?

  I supposed we would be sleeping near each other tonight, and it wasn’t as if anyone else would be around. I hadn’t thought about it too much until then, but it had probably been worrying her for some time now.

  “Please,” she said.

  I wondered if she had been a victim in the same way Remi had. I suddenly felt bad I hadn’t considered it earlier. I didn’t want to make any girl worry about that.

  “If you tell me what you could do with one of my hairs and swear that you wouldn’t unless I endanger you, then I will give you one,” I said.

  “And some blood?” she asked.

  “Now you’re going too far.”

  “It was worth a try. I swear I won’t curse you unless necessary. I can do many things with one of your hairs, but nothing more debilitating than temporary blindness or a form of paralysis. Ride your horse close to mine and give me a hair.”

  “What do you mean by a form of paralysis?” I asked as I rode up to her.

  “Like your legs or arms. I don’t think I could paralyze an entire body, though I haven’t tried to paralyze someone in a while, I’ll admit. I might’ve grown stronger.”

  We were riding next to each other by then. She held out her hand.

  “I’m trusting you,” I said as I took a hair from my head.

  “And I’m trusting you,” she said, keeping up her hand.

  I put my hair into her palm.

  She ran it between her fingers and put it up to her eyes for a close look. Then she stuffed it in her pocket.

  I was a little nervous, but I asked myself, what’s the worst that could happen? She wasn’t going to run off, and she wasn’t going to kill me. I could deal with pretty much everything else.

  “You seem to have some skill with ordia, but not a lot,” she said. “Did you know that when you use Identify, your mana communicates with you?”

  I figured this was the beginning of her explanation about the red diamond. “Yes, I did know that. But I learned more about communicating with my mana from my healing spell.”

  “Well, a callstone uses mana to communicate as well. Part of my mana is trapped in that diamond. It is able to listen to your mana and relay the messages of your mana all the way to me.”

  “How far?”

  “That has to do with the limitations I was talking about. The range of clear communication is much shorter than with a signal ring. Additionally, it only works with me. You couldn’t use my callstone to communicate with someone else. There is one trick that extends the range, but don’t ask me how it works because I don’t know. If you sleep near the callstone and I am asleep elsewhere, it seems that the clarity of communication between us is better.”

  “So you were dreaming as well the first time we spoke?”

  “I was. I didn’t mean to contact you. It just sort of happened.”

  “But you did something when we were speaking. You compelled me to answer somehow.”

  She seemed confused. “I think you are mistaken. My mana was communicating with your mana. Any urges you found happening to your mind or body had to do with your mana. I couldn’t possibly control or elicit any feelings from you.”

  So it was my mana that compelled me to help her? But why would it do that?

  If she was being honest, then this attraction I had for her had nothing to do with a spell of any kind but had started when my mana communicated with hers.

  “Because of my experiences with a callstone, I assume that our mind’s connection to our mana is stronger while asleep,” she went on, “but again, I don’t know why or how that is.”

  “I had figured there were other ways mana could communicate with our minds. Do you know of them?”

  “Perhaps,” she said with a bit of a sly tone.

  “
But?”

  “But we don’t know each other very well, still. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?” she asked, confused.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Oh, I just…I’m not used to that.”

  We rode for a while longer. The sun would be setting in a couple of hours. At this pace, we might arrive at the castle before noon tomorrow. I wondered if Kataleya was just arriving now. I couldn’t imagine having to tell the king what happened, if it was my father who had been murdered.

  I recalled having to tell my neighbors that my father had finally passed. I had asked them to tell the other people of our small town so I wouldn’t have to. Many people came by to offer their condolences and see if I needed anything. I had greatly appreciated that, as I couldn’t bring myself to get any food together for about a week.

  Kataleya was stronger than I had been after losing my father. I hoped the king would give her anything she required.

  As my mind shifted to Hadley, I started to wonder if I was missing something about her. Could there be a more sinister reason she had come to me so willingly? I had assumed she was just sick of running and realized she couldn’t keep it up her whole life, but after meeting her, she seemed a little too confident in herself for that to be the case. It was as if she didn’t think something bad could happen when she spoke to the king. It was as if she thought she had leverage.

  I started to realize what it was. She must be a more powerful witch than I had thought previously. She must really have a lot to offer.

  I started to notice Hadley’s head drooping as she seemed to be falling asleep on her mount.

  “Hey,” I said to wake her.

  She gasped and straightened up, luckily not scaring her horse.

  “It’s dangerous to fall asleep on a horse,” I told her.

  “I know; I’m just very tired.”

  There were still a couple of hours of daylight left. I couldn’t imagine sleeping now, and even if we could, we would be up again while it was still dark.

  “You’re going to have to keep going a lot longer.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Over the better part of the hour, I watched her. Her eyes seemed heavy as she blinked, but she didn’t seem to be dozing off like before. Eventually I took my gaze off her.