I was paralyzed among the rocks, feeling smaller than ever.
But at that moment she looked at me.
—Matthew.
Her voice was soft, almost like a caress.
—I need you to trust me.
I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t understand the world I belonged to. But after everything I had seen in those days… I nodded.
The other giants began to approach.
The wind was roaring.
The sea rose up like liquid mountains.
Then Aelira did something I will never forget.
He extended his hand towards me.
—Come.
I clumsily climbed up his arm until I was near his shoulder. From that height, the world seemed different. The storm, the ocean, the dark giants… everything looked gigantic and terrifying.
“Listen carefully,” he told me. “If anything happens to me, you must take him with you.”
—Take what?
But at that moment she let out a scream.
A deep, ancient cry.
A light began to shine around her belly.
The dark giants stopped.
“It’s too soon!” roared one of them.
The light grew, enveloping her entire body as if dawn had decided to be born in the midst of the storm.
I clung to her hair, unable to understand what was happening.
Then I felt it.
A heartbeat.
It wasn’t his.
It was someone else.
Smaller.
Faster.
The light focused on her arms.
And suddenly… I saw him.
A baby.
A tiny newborn giant, enveloped in a warm light like the sun over the calm sea.
Aelira held him with infinite tenderness.
But his face was pale.
Very pale.
“Matthew…” she whispered.
The dark giants were approaching again.
—You must protect him.
My heart stopped.
-I?
She looked at me with a sad and beautiful smile.
—Humans believe they are small… but their courage is greater than any giant.
She reached out and placed the baby in a makeshift cradle made from her robe.
The cradle… began to shrink.
Before my eyes, the child also began to change.
The light enveloped him until his size became… human.
A small sleeping baby.
The wind was screaming.
The giant enemies were advancing.
Aelira gathered her last bit of strength and lifted me in her palm next to the child.
“The world will need your heart someday,” he said.
Then he placed me in a cave among the rocks.
—Run when the sea calms down.
“Aelira!” I shouted.
But she was already getting up.
With a strength that seemed impossible, he walked towards the dark giants.
The storm was raging.
Lightning illuminated the sky.
The last image I have of her is her enormous silhouette against the raging ocean, defending something bigger than her own life.
The battle shook the island.
Rocks fell.
Giant waves crashed onto the coast.
I stayed there hugging the baby in the dark, trembling, waiting for it all to end.
When dawn arrived… the silence returned.
I left the cave.
The beach was devastated.
The sea was calm.
But Aelira was no longer there.
Nor the other giants.
I only found one thing in the sand.
A braid of her golden hair, shining in the sunlight.
I looked at the sleeping baby in my arms.
He was breathing calmly.
As if the world hadn’t changed.
But I knew the truth.
That island had not given me a simple survival story.
He had given me a promise.
And as I gazed at the endless horizon of the ocean… I understood something I will never forget.
Seven days earlier he had saved a giantess.
Now… I had to help raise the future of the world.
