59. In the Cave

Kinch, Galva, Yorbez, and grievously injured Norrigal flee into a dark cave after the giant battle. A dead giant lies near the entrance, and inside, dim witchmoss reveals a wounded female giantess, lacerated and sweating, clutching something. Flies and corpses of kynd—one in fine sage-green, two in saffron—litter the cave.

A whisper in accented Gunnish warns of a giant. Galva recognizes the voice and calls out to Infanta Mireya, who weakly corrects her: Queen Mireya. The voice comes from a high, slick shelf unreachable by climbing; Mireya explains she flew there but is no longer a bird and cannot come down.

Galva and Mireya exchange words that make clear their former romantic bond. Kinch readies his bow despite limited arrows, assesses the wreckage of trunks and a ruined painted cage, and tries to calm the giantess, who claims to be the smallest of her family and already hurt enough.

The giantess proposes to tell her death-song, explaining that her tribe’s dead must speak truth to gain tongues in the afterlife. She insists on truth as a sacred duty of her people. Kinch, concealing his own black tongue, accepts responsibility to bear her words in dreams, setting the stage for her testimony.