With her pulse quickening, she shifted the white petal right above her head and peered out at the scene. Her eyes flew wide.
While the outside of the building was all stone, the inside was a green jungle. Vines climbed walls like live wallpaper, and captured firebugs fluttered in clear jars, lighting the expanse of the soaring hall. And there, filling up all the air, were giants. Massive green-and blue-skinned creatures with thick muscles that bulged from sleeveless wraps and barely there tunics. They mingled with one another, talking and drinking from goblets as large as horses.
Now that she was among them, no longer separated by thick walls, their energy of movement was even heavier than she had first felt, like being crushed by a roomful of sand. Weighted. Oppressive. Paralyzing.
It took her breath away.
She now knew why her father had said her magic wouldn’t do much against them. Her gifts were powerful, yes, as were Alōs’s, but with so many . . . it would be like a drop of water trying to extinguish the sun.
She ducked back down, her thoughts racing as a new panic overtook her.
It was not merely locating the Prism Stone that they were up against tonight. No, she had truly underestimated what they would find here. Impenetrable stone walls in the form of giant cannibals.
“Are you all right?” Alōs drew close.
“Their movements are like holding a city on my back.” She met his eyes, saw the worry in them. “Alōs, our magic cannot save us here. Not against them.”
The crease between his brows deepened. “No, perhaps not against them, but our gifts are called gifts for a reason, fire dancer. There is always a benefit to be found in them. Now, let’s get out of this hall. I am not sure why yet, but something is telling me to follow this flower bed to wherever it leads us to down there.” He pointed right. To the endless flower forest with no distinguishable end.
Finding her bearings, Niya forced herself on, following Alōs forward and careful not to disturb stalks as they remained crouched under leaf and petal.
“I see an end approaching,” said Alōs after they had walked for some time, the party and pounding of giants around them their beat to keep moving.
Coming to the end ledge of the flower bed, they peeked over its lip to look into a domed chamber. Its floor was made up of a mosaic stone pattern swirling into a point in the middle, the roof a curved masterpiece of stained glass, more depictions of plants. Yet despite its size, which Niya would have thought would be the perfect area for the giants to mingle in, it was empty, save for one.
While his height was not so tall as to reach treetops, it still was that of five or six men. His black hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, revealing facial features that sat plump and heavy, as if a bee had stung his brow, nose, and lips. He leaned against a wall on the other side of the room, picking at his nails with a stick.
A stick that looked an awful lot like a bone.
Niya swallowed. “Do you think he’s a guard or guest?” she whispered.
“I think all guests are guards here.”
“What should we do?”
Alōs didn’t answer, his brows drawn together as he peered toward an entryway that sat across the domed room.
“What is it?” she asked, inching closer to him, trying to see whatever it was he did.
“I can feel something.”
“Yes, so can I. It’s the giants stomping about.”
Alōs shook his head. “No, it’s similar to what I’ve felt around . . .”
“Around what?” Niya pushed impatiently.
“The other pieces of the Prism Stone.”
Niya’s heart stuttered, her grip tightening on the ledge they crouched behind. “You feel it here? Are you sure?”
“Not entirely, but . . .” His gaze turned toward her, a spark of light, of hope. It was a look that was enough to send her own optimism soaring. “I’ll be more sure if we can search whatever is in that hall over there.”
Niya glanced back to the open door across the room. The hallway looked similar to the one at their back, except it hung in silence. She could sense little movement down its length. But she no longer entirely relied on her senses here. The waves of movement coming off these giants discombobulated her bearings.
“The distance isn’t far,” she said. “But there is nowhere to hide to reach it.”
The long flower bed ended where they crouched, nothing but stone floor in front of them. Not even a pot or statue to hide behind.
“Then we’ll have to be true thieves tonight,” explained Alōs. “If we stay quiet and move slowly, we should be able to make it past with him unaware.”
Niya frowned. It wasn’t really the best plan, but what so far had been? And what other options did they have? Their magic was useless against such a creature. She could almost imagine how drained she would become, and how quickly, attempting to penetrate such thick skin and hulking muscle with a spell.
Beside her Alōs began to grab handfuls of dirt by their feet, slathering it over his face and coat. “To hide our smell,” he explained when he met her concerned look. “Just in case.”
“This keeps getting better and better,” she grumbled, bending down to do the same.
Once properly dirty, they climbed out of the flower bed, pausing with backs flat against the curved wall to their right.
Niya’s heart seemed to ricochet against the ground, every one of her senses heightened as she waited. Fight, her magic hissed, not understanding why she kept it contained, suppressed. She continued to ignore its demands as she watched the giant take no notice of the two mice wedged in tight across the room. He merely moved from cleaning his nails to picking his teeth.
Alōs glanced her way and gave her a smile before sliding forward, one slow step at a time.
He looked strangely endearing covered in dirt, she realized, his usual impeccable state lost under smears and smudges.
Niya’s gaze swung erratically between the new hall they approached and the giant on the other side of the room. We are nothing. No one. Tiny bugs not even worth squashing.
They were now only ninety steps away.
Seventy.
Fifty steps.
The giant looked toward them. Niya sucked in a breath and froze, Alōs now motionless beside her.
The beast sniffed the air, and Niya pressed tighter against the wall, as though the effort might have the stone swallow her whole.
She felt like a sitting target. The giant was looking right at them.
What had they been thinking, walking into the middle of this room? It was madness!
Everything inside Niya screamed to move, run, spin a spell that would at least buy them time to retreat.
But she remained still. As did Alōs. As did their magic, which she could sense wanting to jump from the pirate’s skin as much as hers, a contained vibration beside her.
By some miracle the beast turned back to his task.
She and Alōs slipped forward once more, but not until they had successfully rounded the corner into the next hall did she let out a relieved breath.
“By the Fade,” she whispered. “That took years from me, I’m sure.”
“Better a loss of a few years than the giant taking them all if he had seen us.”
Niya held back a shiver. “Where to now?”
Alōs drew his brows together in concentration, peering down the long hall. It had no windows, but the twinkling lanterns woven into the tapestry of vines lit the stretching path. Six open doorways, three on either side, patterned its length.
“It’s stronger here,” he said, “but we should search each room before moving on.”