Page 109 of Beneath the Flames
“She’s just a meaningless human.What does she matter to you?”The words were brutal, bitter as they slid past my lips, and I hoped that Maren knew I was lying.She wasn’t meaningless at all.At least not to me.
Carrow pointed at the broken pot on the floor next to him, the dirt all over the floor.My heart sank at the sight.After all that work…
“Not someaninglessafter all, hmm, Rhydian?”
It was then I noticed the little green stem poking out fromthe soil.
The seed…grew?
Maren did it?
Relief and elation swept through me in equal measures before it was squashed by a cry from Maren as Carrow tightened his hold on her neck.
“You’re using her to break the curse,” he continued.“So, yes, it does concern me.It concerns all Fae.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?”He lowered his arms, Maren gulping down air, though his violet magic still kept her in its grip.He ticked off his fingers.“First you bring a human to Eroth, then you tell her about the curse and try to get her to break it.And worst of all, she’s actually managed to complete two of the tasks.”
A snake-like smile spread across his face, and my stomach dropped.
“But have you told her what she has to do next?”Carrow asked.
My silence was answer enough, because he looked up at Maren as he said, “Tell her, Rhydian.Tell her what the third task is.Tell her the last requirement to break the curse.”
“Carrow—”
“Tell her!”he roared, the floor shuddering beneath me.
I’d never hated someone so much as I did Carrow in that moment.I had been avoiding telling Maren about the third task for weeks because I knew it would be the final nail in the coffin.She might have developedsomefeelings for me, but she would neverloveme.And I wasn’t sure I could ever admit that I loved her.
Love wasn’t in my nature.
That was what made the third task so impossible.
“A human must fall in love with me,” I said quietly, “and Imust love them in return.”
Carrow’s cruel laugh filled the room.“And who could love a beast like Rhydian?”he said, looking up at Maren.“And how could a monster ever fall in love when he has a heart of stone?”
Maren tried to open her mouth to speak, but the violet magic surrounding her kept her silent.
Defeat encompassed my bones so thoroughly that I felt weak, my knees trembling, threatening to collapse.I had tried to figure out how to tell Maren about this for so long, trying to find a delicate way of doing it, or maybe rewording it so it didn’t sound like such an awful thing—to love someone like me.But I hadn’t been able to come up with anything.
Now it was in the open.Now she knew.
I couldn’t read the expression on her face, and with her wrapped in Carrow’s magic, I couldn’t reach her emotions with my own to tell what she was feeling.
Carrow had gotten what he wanted, and yet he wasn’t finished.
“Do you want to know the kind of monster this Fae is?”Carrow’s smile was cruel, unhinged.I’d seen many faces on him in the centuries I’d known him, but I’d never seen such…desperation.Like he was willing to try anything to convince Maren not to love me.
Like he was actually…scared.
“Tell her, Rhydian.Tell her what happened to theothers.”
Every ounce of fight drained from my bones, and my legs suddenly felt weak.
Anything but that.
