Page 27 of Beneath the Flames
A breath slipped through my lips, and I nodded.“Coming.”
I hurried to catch up to him, and he led me down two more hallways before we came to the staircase.Once again, I was slapped in the face by the amount of white and light in the room, and yet equally confused by the light being devoured by shadows.
I was just about to ask Nico about it when he abruptly turned at the bottom of the stairs and entered through a large door.
Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t contain my gasp as I followed him into the so-called Hall of Feasts.
The ceilings towered above us, arched like a gothic cathedral, and every clomp of my too-big boots—the ones Nico had said were the only ones he could find but were blessedly free of holes unlike my farm boots—on the white marble floor echoed endlessly.Humongous paintings hung along the wall, each of a different person.They all had pointed ears like Rhydian.I assumed they must have been the different rulers that had lived in this castle at one point or another based on their regal attire.I couldn’t help but notice the last one on the end had the face burned beyondrecognition, as if whoever did it couldn’t bear to look at the portrait any longer.
I wanted to ask who it was and why it was destroyed, but one glance at Rhydian’s tense body language as he entered the room behind me and my lips sealed shut.It didn’t matter anyway, not if it didn’t give me a way to get home.
Which, unless the portrait was somehow a magic portal like the one that had brought me to Eroth, it wouldn’t.
Turning my attention back to the room, Nico was at the far end of the longest table I’d ever seen.It easily could have fit fifty people, and yet the size of the room still made it look small.Rhydian picked up the pace and sauntered to the end and took a seat, Nico on his right.Several platters of food sat in front of them, and they wasted no time digging in.I, on the other hand, still stood at the other end of the table, feet glued to the floor.
When I didn’t move, Nico looked up, his head cocked to the side.“Aren’t you hungry?”
Rhydian didn’t look up as he remarked, “She’s afraid the food is poisoned.”
Alarm bells rang in my mind as I narrowed my eyes at Rhydian.How did he know that?
Nico’s face fell.He looked…hurt.“I made it all myself, Maren.I promise I didn’t poison anything.”Hemade the food?As much as I didn’t trust either of them, I felt slightly better knowing he had done this rather than Rhydian.Though, with some of the things my brother had made, maybe that shouldn’t have been as reassuring as it was.
To prove his point, Nico quickly took a bite of one thing on each platter and then stared at me.Tentatively, I took a seat, keeping three full chairs between Rhydian and me.Not that it would have stopped him from hurting me if he wanted to.Agrowl of my stomach roared embarrassingly loud, but still, I didn’t touch anything.
The platters in front of me were full of food, and it all appeared relatively normal, much to my surprise, though most of it was strange versions of leafy greens, vegetables, and weirdly shaped breads that I’d never seen before.
Before I could stop myself, I asked, “No meat?”
It wasn’t that I had anything against vegetables.It was just that I liked meat.
Rhydian snorted but didn’t deign to answer me.
It was Nico that eventually spoke up in a quiet, sad voice.“There are no animals left.”
Rhydian’s head snapped toward him, silencing him with a look.
“No animals?What, did you hunt them all to extinction?”I couldn’t hold back the disgust in my own voice, nor could I stop my eyes from shooting daggers at him.
Rhydian’s face was hard as stone.“On the contrary, we treat all life within Eroth with respect.The animals have all left.”
I blinked at both his sentiment that as a killer he’d treat anything with respect and the little nugget of information he’d dropped too.
“Left?Not died?”I asked.
“The people too,” Nico added.
At my confused look, Rhydian gave an exasperated sigh and set his silverware down.“Yes, the animals and Fae that once inhabited these lands have all left.”
“But…why?”
Nico’s face lit up, eager to answer.“Because—”
“Nico,” Rhydian said, glaring at the boy.Nico immediately quieted, his face falling.
“In case you didn’t notice when you stepped through theportal, Eroth has become a veritable wasteland.Nothing survives here anymore,” Rhydian said, turning those gold-ringed eyes back on me.“We’re the only ones here, and that’s all you need to know.”
When Nico didn’t keel over dead from poisoned food, and my hunger grew unbearable, I finally relented, picking up a green leaf that looked like spinach but tasted like dirt.I thought through his words as I chewed.
