Page 44 of Beneath the Flames
“What about the Pure Fae lands?”I asked.“They didn’t have monsters?”
Rhydian shook his head.“No, Siris and Aeros each had a creature—deities, I suppose you’d call them—whom they claimed watched over their lands.Ylena and Thala.”
“Claimed?You don’t believe in them?”
Rhydian stiffened, his features darkening.“They’re very much real.I’ve had the great displeasure of encountering them before.”
Surprise flickered through me.“Avalea has deities and you’ve…met them?”I asked, incredulous.
He crossed his arms.“They’re nothing special, believe me.”
“I’m having a hard time doing that,” I replied, sinking down and taking a seat on the cold floor.Maybe Rhydian had had the right idea by only giving me small bits of information at a time.It felt like my brain was stuffed to the brim.How did I even begin to make sense of all this?I never imagined this strange place Rhydian brought me to would be a place of beasts and deities and magic.How could such a place exist?And weren’t deities supposed to keep to themselves and keep out of the affairs of mortals?Why would Rhydian have encountered them?
“If you’re stuck in Eroth, how did you meet them?”
Unsurprisingly, Rhydian shut me down.“That’s a question for another time.”
He’d given me a lot of answers.I should have assumed he’d cut me off at some point.But why was this where he ended things?What was he hiding?
“I’ve told you your first task.You still want to try to break the curse?”His lips curled ever so slightly, as if he expected me to change my mind.
I gestured to my clothes that were not meant for a journeythrough a winter tundra.“How exactly am I supposed to climb avolcano, never mind survive the ridiculous cold?”As if talking about it made it even colder, a shiver went through me.I rubbed at my arms, tempted to find a blanket to wrap around me.
Rhydian waved a hand.“I’ll have Nico scrounge up proper attire for you if you’re actually serious about this.”
I considered it for a moment.“And how, exactly, will climbing a volcano, risking my life, and finding this relic break a curse?Why aren’tyouthe one doing this?It’syourcurse after all.”
He shook his head.“The Fae who trapped me in this curse gave these tasks separately because they were required to offer a way for me to be freed.Nico is the only soul in my kingdom I’ve ever told about them.Part of the requirements is thatIcannot fulfill them—only a human can.That was their way of ensuring I couldn’t free myself.Only the final task requires me to play a part.”
I chewed on his words, thinking it through.“This seems too simple,” I said.
His lips pursed.“Finding a human willing to risk her life for someone like me?Not so simple.”
“Another Fae couldn’t do it?”I asked.
“Only a human.”He let out a tired sigh.“I made the Fae of Eroth assume there was nothing to be done, and that it was better for them to leave than to risk the devastation that awaited them here.”
I looked at him for a long moment, seeing the invisible weight that sat on his shoulders that he tried to keep hidden.How lonely it must have been carrying such a thing by himself all these years.
“That’s a heavy burden to bear.”
“And it is my job as the last heir to bear it.”
“So why tell me then?”
“Other than the fact that you’ve been insufferable, demanding answers, and wanted to know how to break the curse?”He gave me a knowing look.
“Fair point,” I admitted.“What are the other two tasks then?”
“Ah ah,” Rhydian tsked, coming back to the pedestal that held the Magmara, running a single finger down the glass dome before his hand curled into a fist, as though he wanted to smash it.“One at a time.You must complete the current one to find out what’s next.”
I tried to keep my gulp silent.“Why?”
“If you hear it all up front, you’ll run away scared.But if you wait until you’ve gone through the trouble of completing the task, then you’ll be less likely to give up.”
“That sounds like a bunch of crap.”
He shrugged, the movement telling me he couldn’t care less what I thought.
