Page 96 of Beneath the Flames
“How do you figure?”I asked, cocking my head.“It’s about two warring kingdoms and the lengths they’d go for victory.”
She shook her head.“That was part of the plot, yes, but the princes on either side were fighting to protect the women they loved.”
I’d never thought of it in such a way.I’d only seen it as a war story, violent and scheming, full of mind games and gruesome battles.Sure, Maren was right that the main characters each had a love interest, but I’d never thought of it as the central plot.
“I’m just surprised you’d enjoy such a book when you’re supposed to be a cold-hearted, dangerous Dark Fae.”
“Perhaps my heart is not as cold as I previously thought,” I replied.
Her answering smile lit up the darkness lingering in the room, sending my cold, unfeeling heart racing.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever felt.
Day five of waiting for the seed to sprout.
I woke up on the fifth day irritable and frustrated.The final petal on the Magmara wavered on a single thread beneath its glass cage, taunting me as I braced my hands on the edge of the pedestal.I despised that my life was tied to this flower, that those queens had done this to me.And the last few days, the most annoying thing was that I was more upset over Maren being the collateral damage in all this, and that I had no way to change it.Not if I wanted to finally be free and save Eroth.
I shoved away from the fiery flower, took one look at the never-changing pot of dirt, and stalked out of the room.My feet led me up and down hallways as though they had a mind of their own for hours.It wasn’t until they had led me all the way back to the Magmara room that I realized it was long past moon rise.
The door was already ajar, Maren kneeling next to the pot, pouring water on it once again.When she finally turned and noticed me leaning against the wall, her face spread into a smile thatalmostchased my bad mood away.
But then she started talking—or rather asking me endless questions, stoking my ire.
“How did you sleep?”
I grumbled an incoherent response.Her eyes burned my skin as she studied me, brow twisting at my nonanswer.
“Nico was just here,” Maren said, turning back to the pot, momentarily ignoring my grumpy attitude.“He’s bringing some food for us.”
I couldn’t even manage a response, opting to plop downon the floor and fix a death glare on the seed that wouldn’t sprout.
Maren tried again, asking inane question after question, until she finally got the hint when I stopped grumbling answers and simply ignored her instead.
Her silence felt like a kick to the gut, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.She wanted me to open up and share pieces of myself with her, but it was too painful.At the core, Maren was a good person.Iwasn’t a good Fae.
Part of me was afraid that if I told her anything about my life, she’d be disgusted and want nothing to do with me.Especially if she found out about what I’d done to the others.
And after the feelings I had been developing for her over the past few days—ones I could no longer deny—I couldn’t stomach the thought.
So even though we’d made so much progress, I ruined everything by once again becoming short with her, snapping at her when I didn’t mean to, and shutting her out even though I so desperately wanted to let her in.
Maren and I ate in silence, and when I had proven that I wasn’t going to say another word, she pushed to her feet and left the room.
She didn’t talk to me the rest of the day.
It was the worst day yet.
Growing things was stupid.
I didn’t have the patience for it.
Six days had passed since Maren did her own type of magic on the dirt we had gathered from the dead garden, six days since Nico had helped her get the volcanic ash and she mixed it with the soil.Six days since I had handed over a single seed—the only one left in Eroth—and she’d planted it in the dirt.
But then nothing happened.
Every day the dirt remained only that: dirt.
The flower wasn’t sprouting.
