Page 118 of Beneath the Flames
“We need to get him to Mount Kharos.”
“What?”
Nico nodded, as if what he said wasn’t the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.
“And how am I supposed to carry him across a winter landscape and climb a volcano during an earthquake?”I shouted, struggling to stay upright.“It tookdayslast time!”
“We must get him there,” Nico repeated, disappearing out the door, and I screamed after him to come back.
“Where are you going?”Tears filled my eyes.Rhydian was curled into a ball on the floor.The journey to Mount Kharos had felt impossible the first time.How was I supposed tocarryhim all the way there?The ground trembled so violently, I expected a crack to cleave the earth and swallow us up at any moment.
“I don’t understand,” I said into Rhydian’s chest as I rested my forehead against it.“The curse is broken.I thought everything was supposed to be better?”I moved hair from his eyes, wishing he would wake up and explain what was going on.He remained unconscious, unable to answer me.
“I’ll help you,” a muffled voice said a moment later, and I spun to find Nico in the doorway.He was carrying a massivearmload of coats and boots, which he dumped on the ground before me.“Last time, Rhydian took you the long way to avoid the Scorching Rivers as much as possible.Now that the curse is broken, we can take the shorter path there.Plus, now that my magic is restored”—he paused to show the golden glow in his palms and then lifted the amulet he still wore around his neck—“these will help us get there faster.”He pointed at the clothes.“Hurry.”He knelt next to Rhydian, jostling his shoulder as if it would wake him up.Then he turned fearful eyes on me.
“We don’t have much time.”
***
If I thought the trip to the volcano was brutally bitter last time, it had nothing on the cold this time.The air was so frigid that it felt like there was no air to breathe at all.I thought breaking the curse was supposed to set Eroth back to normal, not make the climate more unbearable.
I had no idea where he got it from, but Nico had found a long, skinny…thing—I really had no clue what it was—but it resembled a snow sled from back home.It appeared to be made of some sort of light wood, with raised edges and a long rope fixed to one end.
“Hurry, help me lay him down,” he said, and we worked together to lower Rhydian down onto the makeshift sled.
Were we really going to pull him all the way to Mount Kharos?He was not a small Fae, and after struggling just to get him out of the castle, I could attest that he wasnotlight.
“You can’t be serious.”I had to shout over the wind that whipped around us.
“As the dead,” Nico replied, dumping an armful of blankets on Rhydian, tucking them around him.It seemedpointless when his skin was already so cold, his life draining away at an alarming rate.
“I thought breaking the curse was supposed to save him,” I said, the thought of him dying making my voice catch.
Nico shook his head.“There are many ways to be saved.”
“What does that mean?”I cried.
“I don’t have time to explain.”
I wanted to demand answers, wanted to tell Nico that I wasn’t going anywhere until he told me what was going on.But one look at Rhydian’s deathly still face had me squashing my need for an explanation.I grabbed the rope on the sled.
How were we ever going to make it up Mount Kharos?
My teeth were chattering together so hard my jaw ached, and I had already lost feeling in my toes.Pulling the three coats I had laid over myself tighter to my body, I did my best to wrap my frozen fingers around the threads of the rope.
“Let’s go,” Nico declared once Rhydian was situated.It took both of us pulling the rope to bear his weight, but we eventually found our rhythm.
It was too cold to even attempt conversation, which made the journey feel even longer with only my terrified thoughts for company.Though it had taken Rhydian and me three days to reach the volcano last time, Nico and I made it through the valley in just a few hours thanks to the shortcut that Rhydian had so conveniently forgotten to mention.The golden magic Nico wielded never faltered, enhanced by the amulet swinging from his neck.The combined magic pushed our legs faster, making Rhydian’s weight lighter than it should have been.When the giant volcano finally loomed over our heads, I never thought I’d be grateful to be at the base of Mount Kharos again.
Though that feeling was quickly squashed by the reality that now I would have to carry Rhydianupa mountain.
Every inch of me trembled from the cold, my fingers and toes on the verge of frostbite.Ice sat on my eyelashes and crusted my nose.It was so hard to breathe.
“Come on,” Nico said, urgency in his tone.“We have to get him up there.”
As if the earth had heard him, it started to buck and shake harder.
That’s going to make things more difficult.
