He felt it first.
A shift in the air.
A scent.
Sweet, unfamiliar, yet warm with life. It teased and tantalized, summoning him forth from the tomb of darkness. Yearning stirred within, his heart gave a low, thumping beat.
Stones cracked around him, releasing his legs from their bonds. The hard molds around his fingers softened, one by one, as the paralysis of imprisonment faded. Hot blood rushed through his body, filling every vein, awakening him to the perfumed scents of a summer day. Somewhere in the distance was lavender, the musky scent of woolly animals and damp grass. Even closer, ash.
Warmth rushed through him as he recognized the voice of the wind, breezing through the hall of kings. The rich scent of earth permeated his nostrils, reminding him of the beauty of being alive. It was enough to make his throat constrict as his lungs filled.
Alive. Somehow the impossible had happened—he was alive. Again.
How long had it been? How much had he missed?
Power surged through his unused muscles as he stretched, breathing in the joy of being awake. Until chains grated against stone and yanked him back.
Euphoria shattered.
Memories of the past crashed over him. The trial, the betrayal, how they’d blamed him, Prince of the Giants, and sealed him in amber. Death and darkness had swallowed him whole, and even his strength, his superiority, and his skill had not saved him.
. . . or his People.
His pulse quickened.
Where were they?
He opened his eyes fully.
The chains—a bitter reminder—still held him in place, and he found himself not buried in the hall of kings, but chained to a stone archway on a slope. The pounding of a waterfall hummed in the distance, a grassy knoll stretched out to one side, while the other was ash and rock, a wild and desolate land.
But there, standing only a few feet from him, was a woman. She was young, dressed in silver and gold armor, which highlighted the warm tones of her brown skin and ebony hair, braided away from her face. Wind stirred, carrying her scent to him, but it was her small stature that teased a long-forgotten inkling. A memory of a new race. Mortal. Breakable. Humans.
Ink-stained fingers held a scroll, and an ochre hue glowed from it. A magic he’d recognize anywhere.
She read aloud, brows knitted together, her sure and steady voice moving over the vowels without pause. It was a spell, a summoning spoken in the old tongue, a language no human had any business knowing. She had done this, she had called him forth from the halls of the dead.
His blood quickened as the words of an old prophecy crowded his mind. The seals would be unlocked, the bolts that were closed, opened. He still had a chance to save them, but time was against him. Did she know what she was doing? Who she was awakening? Because no human would want what came next. Perhaps she knew that, and she called him to her side because she, too, had a burning desire for revenge.
Wordlessly he studied her, and a deep ache came, a sensation he had no way to describe. It was akin to hunger and burned in his bones in a way that left him distinctly uncomfortable. Shutting his eyes, he shook his head to rid himself of the sensation, and a low murmur came from under the earth. The sound of a gong ringing out. The signal.
Sleeping warriors would wake. They would come to make war, to take back the world as their own, as it should have been long, long ago.
His lips curled back into a snarl, blood boiling as he strained against his chains.
Let them wake. Let them come.
A clap of thunder came, and then a silence so sudden his ears rang. He shrank back from it, and when he opened his eyes again, the woman was right there, inches from him.
Liquid brown eyes gazed at him in awe, lips parted, fingers outstretched to touch him, as though he were a statue, a work of art, and she was the sculptor.
Once again, that strange, unnamable hunger twisted through him as she took a breath and spoke.
Greed of Giants releases July 7.
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