Page 84 of The Sword & the Stone

I nodded, suddenly exhausted. The events of the day—the emotional turmoil, the mating, the magic—had left me drained. I made my way to the tent Merlin had conjured earlier.

I curled up on my side, pulling a blanket woven from silken thread over me. It was impossibly soft, like being wrapped in a cloud, and smelled faintly of lavender and moonflowers. Despite my exhaustion, I found myself straining to hear the conversation outside.

The tent's walls did little to muffle the sounds of the forest or the low voices of Tristan and Gawain.

"What were you thinking? A mating bond? Now, of all times?"

Tristan's reply was calm, but I heard the underlying steel in his tone. "It wasn't a conscious decision. You know as well as I do that the mating urge isn't something we can control."

"But the timing?—"

"The timing is what it is," Tristan cut him off. His voice was more harsh than I’d ever heard him. “If you lot pulled your fucking heads out of your arses…”

Their voices faded as they moved further from the camp, likely to avoid waking the others. I strained to hear more, but the sounds of the forest soon overtook their conversation.

Slowly, my eyes grew heavier, and hot tears pricked at them. I didn’t let them spill over, though. I wouldn’t cry another fucking tear over men who didn’t want me.

Hours into the next day, I still hadn’t spoken a single word to anyone. Tristan had kissed me good morning by the fire, while every single of them studied us, probably scenting the mating bond between us.

We rode for hours in complete silence, and it was awkward, to say the least. There were so many things left unsaid, but I wasn’t going to be the first one to break it.

We crested a steep hill and came to an abrupt halt. Before us stretched a vast canyon, its depths plunging into shadow. The air grew thick with the scent of dirt, and I could hear distant groans echoing from far below, as if the earth itself was sighing.

Lancelot pulled his Elhorn up beside mine, scanning the horizon. "We've reached Giant Country," he said. “We'll have to go through it.”

I gazed out at the sprawling expanse before us, my breath catching in my throat. Massive boulders dotted the landscape like silent sentinels, their rough surfaces blanketed in a carpet of reddish dirt. Some stood taller than the highest towers of Camelot, their peaks disappearing into the low-hanging mist that clung to the canyon walls.

The ground beneath our Elhorns' hooves felt solid yet strangely alive, as if the very rocks were breathing. Occasional low rumbles reverberated through the earth, causing pebbles to skitter and dance at our feet.

“We can’t go around?” I asked, eyeing the vast canyon. “Or what about over? Can we fly across?”

As soon as I finished my question, a massive winged creature leapt out from the canyon wall and into view. Its wings flapped furiously, but before it could get far, a colossal stone hand emerged from the ground and snatched it in its grasp, pulling it down to the earth.

I stumbled backwards in shock as I realized the hand was connected to a body made entirely of stone. The once-still hillside now began to move as a living, breathing giant stood up from its crouched position and devoured the winged beast whole.

Lancelot gestured to the giant, "That'swhy we can't just fly over it. Giants may look slow and dumb, but they can actually move quite fast and appear anywhere at any moment. Luckily, giants aren't usually interested in fae meat, and their eyesight is notoriously bad for seeing things up close. So if we're fortunate enough, we'll only be seen as tiny insects wandering through their land."

That didn’t sound promising in the slightest, but who was I to argue?

We began our descent into Giant Country; the Elhorns picked their way carefully down the steep, rocky path. The further we went, the more the landscape seemed to dwarf us. Boulders the size of houses loomed on either side, their surfaces etched with strange, swirling patterns that almost looked like faces when viewed from certain angles.

The air grew thicker, heavy with the scent of dry earth and something else. A musky, ancient smell that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Every so often, a low rumble would echo through the canyon, causing pebbles to skitter down the path in front of us. I tried not to think about what might be causing those sounds.

I eyed the walls, and out of the corner of my vision, I spotted the unmistakable sleeping forms of giant bodies molded to the side of the canyon walls.

As we rode, Galahad and Gawain's voices drifted back to me, arguing about some encounter with an adolescent giant halfbreed several hundred years ago, and whose fault it was that they were nearly killed.

Galahad chuckled. “To be fair, you did call him a 'pebble-brained mountain of snot' right to his face."

Gawain scoffed, waving Galahad off. “I honestly thought he’d take it as a compliment.”

Galahad and Gawain's bickering continued as we wound our way deeper into Giant Country. Despite my lingering anger, I found myself listening with growing amusement.

"You're conveniently forgetting the part where you tried to seduce his sister," Galahad said, rolling his eyes. "A giantess three times your size, I might add."

Gawain grinned, unabashed. "I've always appreciated a woman of stature."

"She nearly crushed you when you suggested an'intimate exploration of each other's geographical features’," Galahad countered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

---