21. Niko

21

NIKO

E verything was pain. I couldn’t even hear the other giants screaming anymore.

I couldn’t hear myself screaming either.

And then the agony disappeared.

Gasping, my throat aching and raw, I blinked at the stony ceiling. Shouting still rang from the tunnel walls, and the laughter of the guards too. Every nerve in my body still thrummed with the aftereffects of that excruciating torture.

But the pain was just gone.

I struggled to push myself away from the ground, twisting to see what the hell was going on.

The giants were still writhing in agony. The guards still stood above them. But behind me…

Horror hit me like a wall.

Gwyneira was on the ground against the fallen boulders blocking the rest of the tunnel. She was curled up as if in pain, and wisps of smoke flickered around her body like she was struggling to resume human form. A metal bracelet lay near her, fallen against the rocks. But the guard stood over her, sword drawn.

“I said what the fuck are you?” he shouted. “Answer me, you freakish bitch!”

My eyes flashed from the bracelet on his arm to the one on the ground to my wrist.

Which was bare.

Awareness of my powers flooded me. They weren’t as strong as normal. The earth above me still felt like a thick, wet blanket trying to smother my gifts.

But my rage and terror for my treluria more than compensated for that.

Magic surged in me, stretching out and calling to the debris. The humans had killed so many giants down here. Over and over again, they’d sent my people into that death trap chasing their fucking gold. And when that hadn’t worked, when the earth only claimed more, it hadn’t stopped them. So what if dozens upon dozens of giants were dead, their flesh and bones crushed and their bodies left to rot? There were always kids to condemn to death too.

But rot was part of nature too.

And that was the humans’ mistake.

At my magical call, every tiny bit of mold and decay between those rocks surged out, growing and expanding and building on top of each other until they became like vines.

“You little…” The guard started to swing his sword at Gwyneira.

A makeshift vine snagged his wrist.

He faltered, starting to turn. “What the?—”

The vines weren’t done. Crawling across his wrist, his arm, his torso, they wrapped him until they covered him from head to toe.

“Life from death, you bastard,” I whispered.

His horrified eyes stared at me between the vines. Behind the gag of nature choking him, he tried to shout an order for his people to strike me down.

I shuddered. It would be so easy to send the vines inside him. Mold and decay were nature’s way of consuming the remains of the living, after all. They could devour him just as easily.

And then he would never be able to hurt the innocent again.

“Niko…” Gwyneira’s voice came as if from a distance, but the sound still pulled me back from the brink. My eyes snapped over to her, my chest rising and falling fast in rapid breaths.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re okay.”

My shuddering grew stronger.

She crawled over to me and pressed a hand to my cheek. “We’re okay .”

I stared at her, shaking like a leaf with only one thought making a damned bit of sense in my mind. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I was horrible to you in the forest. I never should have snapped at you or left you or?—”

Her lips found mine, cutting off my fumbling words. Ecstasy and relief flooded me, stealing anything else I would have said. I could only stare at her in shock when she pulled back again.

She smiled. “I forgive you.”

My eyes stung and my breaths turned ragged. A new kind of pain radiated through me, like something was cracking inside my chest and it hurt.

Hurt…

I spun, cursing myself. The other giants were still in trouble, and I?—

But they weren’t, because my vines hadn’t stopped. They’d coursed across the ground to wrap every guard in the hallway, pinning the humans to the walls like flies caught in a web. Beyond them, Casimir stood with Ruhl at his side, smoke still vanishing into the vampire’s form like he’d just gotten here, while nearby, the other giants were climbing to their feet, gaping at the guards, the vines, me and Gwyneira alike.

Snarling with rage, Norbert started toward one of the humans, pulling his foot back as if to kick the man into paste on the stone wall.

“Norbert, stop!” I called, my voice rough from all the screaming.

He threw me a dirty look. “Fuck off, pipsqueak.” He swung.

The vines caught him, yanking him off balance and sending him crashing onto his ass.

Norbert snarled, trying to scramble upright again, but the vines wouldn’t let go. He tried to lunge for me, falling short when a vine tugged him backward.

I trembled. Everything hurt so much, like I was made of paper and glass and both were on the verge of crumbling. I hadn’t eaten more than a few scraps of moldy bread in ages, hadn’t slept much in that long either. I couldn’t keep this up forever.

It was a miracle I’d done this at all.

Gwyneira pushed to her feet. “Niko just saved you, and this is how you thank him?”

Footsteps thudded in the tunnel. My heart climbed my throat, choking me, only to tumble down on itself when Dex and the others raced into view.

Things had been such a mess when last I saw them. But here they were anyway, rescuing me.

Gods, how did I respond to that? Thank you would make me seem like an entitled ass who thought he deserved the risk they must have taken to find me.

I retreated a step as my friends skidded to a stop in front of our princess.

“Dammit!” Clay cried, glaring at Gwyneira. “You were supposed to stay behind us!”

Wait, why was he yelling at her? He shouldn’t treat her that?—

“Niko was in trouble,” Gwyneira snapped back. “Another minute and he might’ve died.”

Clay floundered, raking a hand through his hair and then freezing when he seemed to register the other giants. At his side, Lars was watching the larger Erenlians too, his whole body tense. At the edge of our group, Byron had become like a statue, his eyes locked on Ignatius. I couldn’t even tell if the scholar was breathing.

“Okay, well…” Dex’s voice pulled my attention back to him. He cast the princess a grim glance and then gave a more relieved look to me. “You good?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I—” Reality caught up to me. “Well, no. We’re not the only ones down here. The Aneirans have prisoners. Kids. But?—”

“Kids?” Dex repeated, while nearby, Casimir’s head snapped around to lock a deadly expression on me. At the vampire’s side, Ruhl snarled, making a few giants recoil.

Ozias’s voice was a growl. “Where?”

“Back that way.” I pointed. “But they’ve got these bindings on us, suppressing our magic.” I gestured to the bracelet on the ground. “We can’t remove them, but she did, so first we need to?—”

“Wait, she—” Clay gave Gwyneira a quizzical look. “How’d you do that?”

When she hesitated, Ozias spoke up again. “Painfully.” He glared at her.

Anger surged like a hot rush of fire in my chest. He was still treating her like that? And Clay hadn’t been any better. What the hell was wrong with my friends that they would speak to our treluria like?—

The worried, apologetic look she gave him brought my indignation to a halt. “Sorry,” she murmured back to him. “Are you okay?”

Now I was lost.

“It hurt you,” Ozias growled, something desperate and possessive in the sound.

I blinked while she put a hand to his arm as if to comfort him. It hurt her so she comforted him like he’d been the one in pain? How did that make sense?

“Might I suggest we get moving before we continue this conversation?” Casimir commented from the back of the group. The vampire gave an uncomfortable glance to the tunnel, as if he could hear more than we could. “Our friend in the security station deactivated the pain-inducing spell within these little metal nightmares before we rendered him unconscious, but I doubt that is the extent of the threats in this place.”

Oh.

I swallowed hard, finding my voice again. “The soldiers have a device. It can lessen the suppressing power of the bracelets. But giants can’t use it. It doesn’t respond to us. But if the prin?—”

Gwyneira’s hand clamped over my mouth. She shook her head, making an “uh-uh” sound.

Confused, I glanced at the others.

Dex’s eyes pointedly went to the princess and then he shook his head.

Understanding dawned on me. Oh gods, I was an idiot. We were in a tunnel full of Erenlians who would crush the Aneiran princess given half the chance, and soldiers who would absolutely deliver her to the queen if they could.

Of course we were keeping Gwyneira’s name and title a secret.

I nodded at Dex, letting him know I got it, and then continued as calmly as I could. “But if my friend here could undo it, that might help.”

Apprehension twinged in me after I said that, and my eyes went to Norbert. Brock too. Letting either of them have their powers back was dicey.

In Norbert’s case, it might be suicide.

“Okay,” Dex said, though his tone was measured. “Then we need to?—”

Nearby, Ozias grunted, holding up a hand. He turned, regarding the tunnel beyond the giants.

“Ozias…” Gwyneira started, a strange note in her voice. “What… what is that?”

A low, displeased rumble left him. “Something is changing. The earth…” He trailed off, his head slowly cocking to one side as if he was trying to read something from the stone around us. “The earth is wrong.”

Byron jerked his attention away from Ignatius. “Wrong?” He scanned the walls. “Oh.”

“What?” Clay demanded.

“It’s the metal and spellwork that hides this place,” Byron said. “The force that suppressed our powers on the surface doesn’t extend this far down into the earth, but there is still something woven into the stones above us.”

“Indeed,” Casimir agreed pointedly. “And as I was saying, I highly suggest we begin moving toward the?—”

The ground rumbled. Cracks spread through the stone overhead.

“Oh, fuck,” Clay swore. “Run!”

I scrambled up, grabbing the princess and pulling her with me. Around us, the giants stumbled and tripped over one another, the shackles on their legs keeping them from fleeing.

Dex swung his sword, slamming it down on the lock holding Ignatius’s ankle. Nearby, Clay and Lars did the same, while Byron extended his hands, chanting something under his breath.

The locks clattered to the floor. The giants took off running, my friends on their heels.

“Pipsqueak, you bastard!” Terror filled Norbert’s voice past the rage. “You let me go or I swear I’ll?—”

A flick of my hand sent the vines around Norbert crumbling. He surged to his feet, his hands balled into fists.

Gravel and dust began falling from overhead. A tremendous groan went through the earth.

Norbert looked at the cracking ceiling and then ran for it instead.

I paused, glancing back. The soldiers were still pinned by the vines, writhing in their restraints as rocks began raining down around them.

They’d killed so many…

“Niko!” Several yards farther down the tunnel, Gwyneira motioned frantically for me to keep moving.

These men chose to make themselves my enemies. They’d killed so many innocents. Even threatened children .

But I couldn’t be like them.

The vines disintegrated at my gesture. The guards stumbled away from the breaking walls.

“Go!” I shouted.

The humans took off, scrambling across the shaking rocks to escape the tunnel. At the rear of their group, the guard who’d tried to kill me frantically ran after them.

But the ceiling couldn’t hold any longer.

Rocks gave way. Boulders crashed down. The last thing I saw was his horrified face, and then the earth took its own revenge.

Gwyneira grabbed my arm and pulled me with her, the tunnel collapsing in our wake.