Page 36 of Beneath the Flames
He shook his head, a sad glimmer entering his eyes.“I never learned.I was too young when—”
Rhydian’s loud throat clearing stopped Nico’s words, and I suddenly found myself desperate to know what he had been about to say.
Why wouldn’t he tell meanything?
I turned to him.“Who was that?”
“No one you need to worry about.”
“No one I need—Are you kidding me?He talked aboutsevering my spineand he’s no one I need to worry about?”
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Rhydian answered, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
“Wouldn’t you?You don’t want me here anyway.Wouldn’tthat solve the problem?Let him get rid of me so you can keep your hands clean?”
His eyes darkened further, lips turning down into a deep frown.“You don’t deserve a death at Carrow’s hands.”
I crossed my arms.“You don’t even know me.”
“No onedeserves a death at his hands.”The meaning in his voice was clear—Carrow was a monster.“Just stay away from him and you’ll be fine.”
That’s easy enough.He was creepy and terrifying.But why won’t he tell me anything about him?
I sucked in a slow breath, staring him down.“Enough with the secrecy.I want answers.Right now,” I demanded.“If there’s someone I’ve never even met threatening to suck out my soul, I think I deserve to know what is going on.”
Rhydian shook his head, running a hand through his hair.I was getting under his skin.Why wouldn’t he just tell me?What was so bad about this world, about him, that he would rather keep me in the dark?
I tried a different tactic.
“Fine, if you won’t freely tell me, will you at least answer my questions?Surely that’s a compromise you can live with?”
Rhydian considered for a few very long seconds before he finally conceded with a single nod.
Finally!
I waved him inside my room, and he fell with a heavy sigh into the chair near the fireplace.“You can go, Nico.”
“Are you—”
“Go.”
Nico hesitated, looking between us before he turned and left my room.
Now it was just the two of us, and I would have been lying if I said it didn’t set my nerves on edge.As much as I wantedto jump straight into the questions I was dying to ask, I settled for easier ones, hoping it would encourage him to start talking.
“What is this place?”
Rhydian quirked a brow.“Eroth.I’ve already told you that.”At my responding glare, he let out a long-suffering sigh.“This is Shadow Ire Castle.Every generation of the rulers of Eroth have lived here.”
“And you are one of them?”
His eye twitched.“I am the last of them.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,”—he sighed again—“that I am the last of my line, everyone else is dead.I am the last heir to the throne of Eroth.”
“And…what happened to the others?Your parents?Did you have siblings?”
