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 king’s hall. The rich scent of earth filled 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 pulsed quickened. 

Where were they? 

He opened his eyes fully. 

The chains—a bitter reminder—still held him in place, and 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 statue that teased a long-forgotten inkling. A memory of a new race. Mortal. Breakable. Humans.