Page 97 of Beneath the Flames
It made it even worse that the room with the brightest moonlight throughout the day was the one with the Magmara, so while nothing happened with the seed, that flaming petal taunted me with each whisper of breath that had it swinging on an invisible thread.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was even looking for, seeingas I’d never grown anything before.But I knewsomethingwas supposed to change, and yet the soil remained the same as it was the moment we put it into the pot.
For days, Maren kept telling me to be patient, but I couldn’t find an inkling of it within me.Each day brought me closer to the end, closer to the death of Eroth, and my final breath.
There was no time for patience.
That last petal could fall at any moment, and here I was waiting for a plant to grow in soil that hadn’t grown anything in four hundred years.
This task was foolish.Those queens may have been Pure Fae, but their hearts were bitter and cruel.They knew this was impossible.How could anything grow from death?
The only positive thing that had happened in the last six days was the amount of time I was able to spend with Maren.If I’d been in this position weeks ago, I would have been at my wits’ end with her, wanting to put as much distance between us as possible.
But now she was all I could think about—besides the looming death of my kingdom.
And, of course, I had to ruin whatever was starting to bloom between us by being a grumpy idiot.Why had I done that?Regret was a rancid taste on my tongue that I couldn’t get rid of.All I wanted was to go to her, apologize, and spend the rest of the day at her side.
Moons, I was falling for her.
Or at least I thought that was what this feeling was.I’d never felt anything like it before.
I never knew a human could be so interesting.When Maren had told me stories of her life back in her world, of her dreams and secret desires that she had never dared to speak aloud before, and about her siblings and how theywould hide in the corn stalks outside their farm house and would play hide-and-seek—a strange, childish game—for hours, I felt the hardened pieces of my heart begin to crack and soften.
What really pierced through the cold stone in my chest was when she had told me about the years of abuse that her father had inflicted upon her and her family.I had made a silent vow that if the curse was broken and I was free once more, I would pay her father a visit.If it weren’t for my failing magic, I would have marched through that portal and taken care of him right now.
Then Maren and her family would never have to worry about him again.They could stop living in fear.In pain.They couldlive.
Frustration speared through me as I glanced at the door once again, waiting for her to appear.Maren had spent days gradually opening up to me, being vulnerable, sharing her life with me—despite everything I’d done to her.And yet, all I told her was surface-level things about me, unable to get myself to open the door, to let her in.It was centuries of defense I had built into a stone wall around my heart.I had learned the hard way never to trust anyone.
And I had thrown all those vulnerable moments into the fiery volcano by treating her so poorly yesterday.She hadn’t deserved it.Would she be angry and ignore me today?The thought of not hearing her voice or seeing the curl of her lips as she fought off a smile at something stupid I’d said, made my chest give an unfamiliar lurch.
What was she doing to this old, dark heart of mine?It felt like Maren had found a chisel and slowly chipped away at the stones, revealing more of me a little bit at a time.All the things I tried so hard to keep hidden.
Part of me hated it.
But a bigger part of me was…relieved.
I never knew how much I wanted—needed—someone to see me, to understand.
Though a human could never understand what it was like to be a cursed Fae prince, Maren tried, and it was more than I’d ever expected from her.
Thus, here I sat, on the floor staring at the dirt, like I had for the past six days, waiting for her presence to chase the shadows from the room.
“It’s not going to grow if you keep staring at it like that.”Maren’s voice came from the doorway.I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see hatred or anger twisting her face, but her expression was carefully blank.
“I don’t think that’s the problem,” I muttered.
Bootsthunkedacross the tile, echoing until she appeared at my side and took a seat next to me.Her knees grazed mine, but she didn’t pull back, despite the way I’d treated her yesterday.I had the urge to take her hand, intertwine our fingers, but I quickly shut that down.
“I told you growing things takes time.Some crops back home take more than two weeks to germinate,” she said, bringing my attention back to the pot instead of how the tip of her knee touching mine had a pleasant prickly feeling spreading up my body.There was no trace of anger in her voice.How could she not be upset after how I’d acted?
“Yes.”My voice cracked, and I coughed, hoping she hadn’t heard.“Well, I underestimated how frustrating it would be to watch nothing happen day after day.”
Maren’s smile brightened the dark room, and I immediately scowled.I couldn’t afford to keep dwelling on these feelings.Not when I knew how this would end.
“Nothing happened with the curse for decades, and you survived that,” she said, a playful tone to her voice.
I scowled.“Like I said, frustrating.”
