Page 43 of Beneath the Flames
My eyes snapped to hers.“Of course not.”
“Then be a man and quit moping.Help me help you.”
“I don’t like you,” I said in response.I hadn’t meant to say the words, but they slipped through my lips before I could stop them, leaving behind an awful bitter taste.
Maren’s face darkened.“The feeling is mutual.”
Anger burned in my bones, and my magic was all too eager to jump into my palms.
Breathe.
I forced my lungs to expand, sucking in as much air as I could, then let it out as slowly as I could bear.Gradually, with each breath, the burning dissipated until it was manageable once more.
When I could finally stand the sight of her again, I fixed her with a glare.
“There are three tasks required,” I said between clenched teeth.“They weren’t included in the language of the curse, but the ones who bound me made sure to write it down elsewhere.”To taunt me, knowing I’d never be able to fulfill them.
Her face lit up at the same time reality crashed back down on me like a heavy wave.There was no way she would ever be able to accomplish one let alone all three of them, especially without magic.
She wouldn’t be falling in love with me.The other tasks were pointless if they didn’t end with her saying, “I love you.”
And if there was one thing I was confident about, it was this:
Maren would rather die than say those three words.
“I’m sorry, you want me to do what?”
I wasn’t sure what would be expected to free Rhydian, especially seeing the magical flower on the pedestal in front of me, but it definitely wasn’t the words that had come out of his mouth.
“Go to the top of Mount Kharos, find the hidden relic, and bring it back to the castle.”
I blinked several times.Climb amountain?I glanced down at the too-big boots Nico had found for me when I arrived.With the way they slipped and slid around my feet, I might as well try to climb a mountain in flip-flops.
That’s going to be a problem.
When I asked for tasks to do to break the curse, I hadn’t quite expected something so…physical or laborious.
I had some muscle from doing chores around the farm, and I wasn’toutof shape, but I also wasn’t…init either.
What happened to solving clever riddles, or helping orphans or something?Climbing a mountain seemed a tad excessive.And in this brutal winter tundra?
I glanced out the balcony doors behind him.The light from the two moons was bright, casting a glow into the room.“What is so special about Mount Kharos?”Maybe if I was lucky, it wouldn’t be a mountain at all but a small hill or something.Or maybe it was just a city I needed to travel to.I could do that, right?
Rhydian stood up straighter.“It’s the largest volcano in Eroth.”
My ears rang, a wave of dizziness washing over me.“You want me to climb avolcano?”My voice rose with each word.He ignored me.
“Named after the beast who once dwelled in these lands.”
My brows lifted, momentarily forgetting the volcano part.“Beast?”
Rhydian paused, glancing out the window at the mountains surrounding the castle.“There are four kingdoms in Avalea.Two in which the Dark Fae inhabit, and two that home the Pure Fae.For millennia, the lands of the Dark Fae were overseen by two beasts.Kharos in Eroth, and Ixos in Nefaroth.”
My first instinct was to laugh at his face.There was no way a world with monsters and beasts and Fae existed.Those things happened in fairytales—darkfairytales—but not in real life.Not inmylife.
And yet Rhydian’s face was dead serious.I’d been begging Rhydian for answers, but I hadn’t expected to struggle so much with them once he finally deigned to share.If all of this was true, how would I ever survive here?Getting home suddenly felt even more impossible than it had before.
I was beginning to understand why he claimed that humans never left here alive.
