Page 82 of Of Nine So Bold

Everything 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 justgone.

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 fuckareyou?” 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 treluriamorethan 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 alwayskidsto 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’reokay.”

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