Chapter 29
By the time Rhydian knocked on my door at moon rise, I was bursting to get started on the second task.
It was amazing what a few hours of sleep and a stomach full of food could do.
Growing a seed in dead soil might have looked impossible, but I was determined to make it happen.
I followed him through the castle halls in silence, neither of us mentioning our conversation the night before, content to sweep it under the rug like it never happened.
“So, one problem here,” I said, staring up at the moons where they infuriatingly hadn’t moved, hands resting on my hips. “There’s no sunlight. Flowers need sunlight to grow.” I raised my hands toward the dark, starless night. “How is anything supposed to grow here?”
Rhydian shoved his hands into his pockets. “That’s the beauty of Eroth’s plants. They thrive by moonlight alone. Perhaps a long time ago, it was true that sunlight was needed, but the plants here learned to adapt, growing and swelling with the rises and falls of the moons.”
I stared at Rhydian as if he had grown two heads.
“Right. Rises and falls of the moons.” Barely suppressing an eyeroll, I knelt down to the frozen ground and pulled off the gloves Nico had scrounged up for me before we came outside.
We were in what used to be a garden area at the west end of the castle, though it was so barren and overrun with thorny vines that I questioned if anything had ever grown here.
The ground was hard as a rock as I poked my fingers into it, trying to figure out what the soil consisted of.
Back home in Minnesota, most of our farm soil was clay, but other areas were sandier and that always made growing things tricky because water would drain away from the crops.
If we didn’t stay on top of keeping them watered, they always died.
That prompted a thought. “Wait. It’s absolutely freezing here. Why is there no snow?” There had been some when Rhydian first brought me here through that portal thing—my toes had nearly frozen to death because of it—but that had been up on a mountain. Down here by the castle, there was none.
“Snow mostly falls on the mountaintops now. The valleys remain in constant drought.”
I blinked several times. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me?”
“You said you were confident you could get a flower to grow.”
“You didn’t tell me the land was in a drought.”
“I told you it was dead. I assumed it was obvious.”
“You know what they say about assuming.”
“What?”
A strange sort of giggle bubbled in my throat. Rhydian might have been familiar with some things about my world, but not everything.
“Nothing,” I said with a chuckle. “Never mind.”
I huffed, blowing a piece of hair out of my eyes, and thought over my options as I stared at the dark, hard ground beneath me. Cold air crept beneath my coat, and I fought off a shiver.
“So I’m supposed to make a flower grow in dead soil with no nutrients, with no sunlight, and in a place where it’s freezing and hasn’t seen any rain or snow in who knows how many years?”
“Four hundred years,” Rhydian murmured.
My eyes felt like they were going to bug out of my head. “Excuse me?” I choked out.
Rhydian looked me dead in the eye. “Eroth hasn’t seen rain in four hundred years. And like I said, snow only falls on the mountains, but the conditions are too harsh on them for anyone to live there anyway. Nothing can survive long.”
“You mean to tell me that in four centuries, there hasn’t been a single rain cloud in the sky, dropping much-needed water onto your land?”
“Hence the word dead,” he deadpanned.
“How do you and Nico even have any water at all?”
“Simple Magic takes care of basic needs like that. It’s not enough to fix a drought.”
A little worm of doubt squiggled its way into my mind. Rhydian was right. Everything was against me, and the conditions were beyond problematic. This task appeared impossible, just like he had said.
But I couldn’t give up now. Not after climbing the tallest volcano in Eroth, looking death in the eye in the form of a giant lava monster, and almost freezing to death.
Not when an entire kingdom hung in the balance.
Not when my ability to go back home to my family hinged on my success.
Even if it seemed impossible, I had to try.
Resolve solidified, I bent down and ran my hands over the frozen, hard ground again.
“So how does it work?” Rhydian’s voice interrupted my mental list I was creating on what to do next.
“How does what work?” I glanced up at him to find him watching my hands on the dirt.
Even in the dark, it looked like a hint of pink colored Rhydian’s cheeks. He hesitated for a few long seconds before finally asking, “How do you grow something?”
My first reaction was to laugh, but I bit down on my tongue and held it back, not wanting to make fun of him for not knowing how to do something as basic as planting a flower.
But I still couldn’t stop my mouth from falling open as I gaped at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
No, not with the twin furrows that had appeared between his brows, and the way his eyes flickered in annoyance. Or anger. I couldn’t tell.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. “But there was once a garden here. You’ve never tried to plant anything? Even after the curse when you didn’t have food here?”
Rhydian shook his head, crouching down to poke his own fingers at the ground. “As a prince, I never needed to know how, and I was never taught. I had more important things to do than to play with the dirt.”
“Maybe you should have considered that playing with the dirt might save your life one day.”
The smallest curl appeared at the corner of his lips, but he fought it. “Perhaps.”
A heaviness settled between us, and it became hard to breathe. Our knees were inches apart, and I could feel the heat of his breath warming the air between our faces. Something twisted in my stomach, but it was almost…pleasant. What was that about?
I shook my head, trying to get rid of whatever strangeness had settled over me.
“Okay, well. Get ready to learn, Prince.” I brushed the dirt off my hands and stood. “First thing’s first—the soil. We need to amend it so that there are enough nutrients to feed the flower, so it will grow.”
“And how do you do that?”
I considered it for a moment. “Do you have compost here? Or worm castings maybe?”
Rhydian blinked, his head cocking to the side like I’d spoken another language.
“I’m going to take that as a no,” I said with a light laugh when he didn’t respond, continuing to look at me like I was crazy.
I wracked my brain, trying to remember everything we’d used on the farm to try to amend soil when things weren’t growing well. Compost, worm castings, bonemeal, what else?
I gasped out loud when it finally came to me.
“Volcanic ash,” I whispered, digging my fingers into the cold dirt once again, feeling momentarily triumphant.
“What?” Rhydian asked, still staring at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Volcanic ash,” I said louder. “We can use it to amend the soil.” I gestured at the volcano we had just come from.
“It’s not like you’re lacking for volcanoes around here.
” I glanced at Mount Kharos looming far in the distance.
“Although I can’t say I want to make that trip again to get it. ” My shoulders fell at the thought.
Rhydian waved a hand. “I’ll send Nico.”
My mouth dropped. “You’re going to send a young boy on that kind of a trip?”
He huffed. “Mount Kharos isn’t the only volcano in Eroth; it’s merely the biggest. There are closer ones he can collect ash from. I’ll send Nico by your chambers later, and you can instruct him on what you need. He may be young, but you forget he’s Fae.”
“I thought this was my task.”
Rhydian’s shoulders lifted. “No one said you can’t accept help.” His long fingers dug into the dirt like mine, inches away. “Once we have the ash, then what?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, since we only need to grow a single flower, and not a bunch of them, let’s concentrate the soil and the ash into a smaller area. Do you have a pot or container we can put the soil in?”
“I’m sure I can scrounge something up that would work.”
I nodded. “Good. What about a shovel?” Once again, Rhydian blinked at me. “Something I can use to dig this hard ground up?” I pointed at the earth, mimicking using a shovel.
“I’ll look where the servants used to keep their supplies. I’m sure something was left behind that we can use.” Rhydian offered a small smile, and it was like the world suddenly tilted on its axis.
Whoa, what is happening?
I gave a hesitant smile back and his widened. It did strange fluttery things to my stomach, and I fervently scolded myself.
“Okay. You go search for a pot and a shovel, and I’ll speak to Nico about the volcanic ash.”
It felt weird giving a prince orders, but he simply gave an eager nod and pushed to his feet, taking a handful of soil with him, letting it drift to the ground.
“What do we do after that?”
“We’ll gather enough soil into whatever container you find and add the ash to it. Then we water the heck out of it and hope it brings the soil back to life. After that, we’ll plant the seed, water it, leave it in the moonlight, I guess, and wait.”
“We wait?”
“Germination takes time. It could be a week or more before we see anything sprout—if it sprouts at all. I’ll do my best to make the soil better, but we’ll see if it works. I can’t promise anything.”
“I’ve never been a very patient person,” he commented, staring at the clumps of dirt sitting in his palms.
“Growing things is all about patience, Prince. Patience and great care.”
“And you have both of those?” he asked.
I had spent my entire life on a farm, in good seasons with plentiful harvests as well as bad ones. I called on patience every day to put up with my father’s abuse and keep my siblings safe. I knew a thing or two about being patient and taking care of things.
“Don’t worry, Rhydian. If anyone can get a flower to grow in a place where nothing grows, it’s me. I’m sure of it.”