Beneath the Flames

Chapter 41

A violent quake shook the castle.

I wasn’t sure if that meant the curse was broken, or if it meant the words had come too late and now Eroth was collapsing. The floor swayed beneath me, and I struggled to stay on my feet. Nico stood a few feet away, barely affected by the trembling castle.

“What’s happening?” I shouted over the din.

“You did it,” he murmured, eyes wide as he stared at Rhydian, who stood there swaying on his feet, looking moments from passing out.

A sudden crack rent the ceiling in two, raining dust and pebbles on the room.

Confusion twisted my insides. If the curse had been broken, why did it feel like the castle was about to crumble around us? My gut told me something was terribly wrong.

Before I could react, Rhydian collapsed to the ground, turning white as a sheet.

“Rhydian?” I cupped his face in my hands. His skin was freezing cold, clammy with sweat. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes remained closed. I lightly patted his cheek, trying to wake him up to no avail.

I looked to Nico. “What’s wrong with him?”

For a minute, he just blinked at Rhydian, all the fear I was feeling reflected in his eyes. But then he cocked his head, and it disappeared, replaced by a fierce determination I’d never seen on his face before.

“We need to get him to Mount Kharos.”

“What?”

Nico nodded, as if what he said wasn’t the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.

“And how am I supposed to carry him across a winter landscape and climb a volcano during an earthquake?” I shouted, struggling to stay upright. “It took days last time!”

“We must get him there,” Nico repeated, disappearing out the door, and I screamed after him to come back.

“Where are you going?” Tears filled my eyes.

Rhydian was curled into a ball on the floor.

The journey to Mount Kharos had felt impossible the first time.

How was I supposed to carry him all the way there?

The ground trembled so violently, I expected a crack to cleave the earth and swallow us up at any moment.

“I don’t understand,” I said into Rhydian’s chest as I rested my forehead against it. “The curse is broken. I thought everything was supposed to be better?” I moved hair from his eyes, wishing he would wake up and explain what was going on. He remained unconscious, unable to answer me.

“I’ll help you,” a muffled voice said a moment later, and I spun to find Nico in the doorway.

He was carrying a massive armload of coats and boots, which he dumped on the ground before me.

“Last time, Rhydian took you the long way to avoid the Scorching Rivers as much as possible. Now that the curse is broken, we can take the shorter path there. Plus, now that my magic is restored”—he paused to show the golden glow in his palms and then lifted the amulet he still wore around his neck—“these will help us get there faster.” He pointed at the clothes.

“Hurry.” He knelt next to Rhydian, jostling his shoulder as if it would wake him up. Then he turned fearful eyes on me.

“We don’t have much time.”

***

If I thought the trip to the volcano was brutally bitter last time, it had nothing on the cold this time. The air was so frigid that it felt like there was no air to breathe at all. I thought breaking the curse was supposed to set Eroth back to normal, not make the climate more unbearable.

I had no idea where he got it from, but Nico had found a long, skinny…thing—I really had no clue what it was—but it resembled a snow sled from back home. It appeared to be made of some sort of light wood, with raised edges and a long rope fixed to one end.

“Hurry, help me lay him down,” he said, and we worked together to lower Rhydian down onto the makeshift sled.

Were we really going to pull him all the way to Mount Kharos? He was not a small Fae, and after struggling just to get him out of the castle, I could attest that he was not light.

“You can’t be serious.” I had to shout over the wind that whipped around us.

“As the dead,” Nico replied, dumping an armful of blankets on Rhydian, tucking them around him. It seemed pointless when his skin was already so cold, his life draining away at an alarming rate.

“I thought breaking the curse was supposed to save him,” I said, the thought of him dying making my voice catch.

Nico shook his head. “There are many ways to be saved.”

“What does that mean?” I cried.

“I don’t have time to explain.”

I wanted to demand answers, wanted to tell Nico that I wasn’t going anywhere until he told me what was going on. But one look at Rhydian’s deathly still face had me squashing my need for an explanation. I grabbed the rope on the sled.

How were we ever going to make it up Mount Kharos?

My teeth were chattering together so hard my jaw ached, and I had already lost feeling in my toes. Pulling the three coats I had laid over myself tighter to my body, I did my best to wrap my frozen fingers around the threads of the rope.

“Let’s go,” Nico declared once Rhydian was situated. It took both of us pulling the rope to bear his weight, but we eventually found our rhythm.

It was too cold to even attempt conversation, which made the journey feel even longer with only my terrified thoughts for company.

Though it had taken Rhydian and me three days to reach the volcano last time, Nico and I made it through the valley in just a few hours thanks to the shortcut that Rhydian had so conveniently forgotten to mention.

The golden magic Nico wielded never faltered, enhanced by the amulet swinging from his neck.

The combined magic pushed our legs faster, making Rhydian’s weight lighter than it should have been.

When the giant volcano finally loomed over our heads, I never thought I’d be grateful to be at the base of Mount Kharos again.

Though that feeling was quickly squashed by the reality that now I would have to carry Rhydian up a mountain.

Every inch of me trembled from the cold, my fingers and toes on the verge of frostbite. Ice sat on my eyelashes and crusted my nose. It was so hard to breathe.

“Come on,” Nico said, urgency in his tone. “We have to get him up there.”

As if the earth had heard him, it started to buck and shake harder.

That’s going to make things more difficult.

The ground trembled so violently I could barely stand.

Lava roared down the mountain, the heat a welcome relief from Eroth’s bitter climate, even if it did have me on edge.

The Scorching Rivers, for the time being, were absent, and I wondered if breaking the curse had rid the world of them once and for all.

“Hurry,” Nico said for the five thousandth time, and I fought the urge to snap at him. Rhydian was silent on the sled-like bed, even paler than before. If it weren’t for the faint pulse fluttering in his neck—which I had checked at least fifty times now—I would have said he was already dead.

“What’s happening to him?” I asked Nico again, hoping this time he would actually answer me.

He let out a shuddering breath. “Mount Kharos is Rhydian’s source of magic. The Magmara died right as the curse was broken. For lack of a better way of describing it, his magic is confused now. If we don’t get him to the volcano soon, not only will he die, but also Eroth will collapse into dust.”

A shocked breath plumed in the air in front of me. “Oh. Is that all?” Irritation built inside me. “So we basically broke the curse for nothing?”

Nico huffed. “Not for nothing. Just poor timing.”

“How do you know this?” I wished Rhydian would wake up so I could ask him to explain.

“Rhydian told me this was a possibility if the curse was ever broken.” His fingers twisted as he wrung them together. “I didn’t expect it to actually happen though.” Determination set his jaw. “Come on, we need to move.”

There was no way to pull the sled up the mountain—Rhydian would have slid right off with the incline, so Nico and I were forced to each take one of his arms around our shoulders and drag him up the volcano. Though it was mostly me bearing the weight since Nico was quite a bit shorter than I was.

“What do we do once we get to the top?” I asked between laborious breaths.

Sweat poured down my face from the heat of the lava, which we avoided as carefully as we could, though my bones were still frozen from the journey here.

Based on the way I could no longer feel my feet, I worried that they were irreversibly frostbitten.

Nico hesitated for a second, uncertainty flooding his eyes. Then he said, “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“What?”

“If I tell you now, you won’t continue.”

My legs stuttered to a stop, my numb foot slipping on a bit of loose rock. I struggled to remain upright, grunting against Rhydian’s weight pushing me down.

“Nico, you better tell me right now, or so help me—”

“Maren,” he cut me off. “Please, just trust me. If you want him to live, then get him to the top and do as I say. There’s no other way.”

Fear constricted my throat, and I felt the urge to cry, but I was too cold to produce any tears.

Nico hadn’t done anything to lose my trust in the weeks I’d been in Eroth. He had only helped me. I had no reason not to trust him now. Even if I hated the sound of what he’d just said.

What were we going to have to do once we crested the top?

The tight squeeze of anxiety constricted my stomach, making it even harder to get air into my lungs. The sulfurous smell of the lava suffocated me as I forced my feet forward, my entire body exhausted from bearing most of Rhydian’s weight, but I would not quit.

He needed me. We didn’t break the curse for nothing.

I wasn’t going to let it be for nothing.

I was going to save him. There was no other choice.

I couldn’t stand a world that didn’t have him in it.

We fought for each step forward, losing feeling in our limbs, our clothes growing damp from the sweat caused by the heat of the lava streams. Our knees barked in pain as we slipped and fell more than once, groaning in pain and exhaustion as we pushed ourselves up and continued on.

It was brutal. It was excruciating.

But I would not let Rhydian die.

I could hardly believe it when we climbed over the lip of the mountain, dragging Rhydian with us. We collapsed to the ground, panting, trying in vain to get any ounce of air in our lungs. Rhydian was so cold I was surprised there wasn’t ice coating his skin.

“Okay, we’re here. Now tell me what I’m supposed to do,” I said between panting breaths.

Nico’s eyes met mine, full of sorrow that I didn’t understand. It felt like a year passed as he stood there in silence.

“Spit it out, Nico. You said we didn’t have time.”

As if the words were a reminder, he swallowed and braced himself.

“You must get him in there.” He pointed toward the lake of lava.

I balked. “I’m sorry. What?”

His only response was to nod.

“You mean, I have to carry him around the lake to the cave I went to for the first task?” I asked hopefully, though I didn’t want to do that either.

Nico shook his head.

“I don’t understand.”

Despite the roar of the wind, I still heard Nico clearly as he softly said, “Into the fire or he will wither. Beneath the flames or he will die.”

“What do you mean into the fire? If I throw him into lava, he will die!”

Nico’s eyes filled with tears. “You have to trust me, Maren.”

Hot anger burned through me. After all we’d just went through…

“Well, I don’t,” I spat. “Rhydian never told me anything about throwing him into a volcano.”

Nico’s face was apologetic. “There’s a lot of things Rhydian never told you.” His voice was achingly soft. “This is the only way.” When I still hesitated, he added, “If you don’t do it, I will.”

My stomach sank into a sea of hopelessness.

“Why?” I asked, burning tears slipping from my eyes.

“Because it’s the only way to save him.”

I looked at the lake of lava. How could that save him? How could anyone survive going beneath it? Even if he was Fae…he wasn’t invincible.

But what if Nico was right? What if, somehow, the lava saved him? If Mount Kharos fueled his magic, then I supposed it made sense that it might save him.

I kneeled next to Rhydian, running my fingers over his face. He was so, so cold.

I didn’t understand any of this, and my brain wanted to rebel against this with every fiber inside me. Throwing him into the lake felt like killing him myself.

A sob stuck in my throat, and I clenched my teeth to keep it inside. I could cry later. Right now, I had to try.

With every ounce of strength I had left, I grabbed Rhydian’s arms and dragged him toward the lake.

Nico moved to help me, but I held up a hand.

If I had to do this awful thing, I was going to do it alone.

The way his eyes softened told me he understood.

I didn’t miss the glistening tear that streaked down his own face.

I wouldn’t let myself dwell on why Nico was crying. I would lose my nerve, and then Rhydian would die for certain.

The heat of the lake was unbearable as I stopped at the very edge, kneeling next to him.

The sob I had worked so hard to hold inside broke free, and I pressed my face into his chest, wishing he would wake up and wrap his arms around me, tell me that everything was how it should be. That I wasn’t making a mistake.

The tremors of the volcano intensified, and I nearly fell into the lake myself. I didn’t need Nico to call my name in warning. Mount Kharos was telling me it was time.

I took one last look at Rhydian, the Prince of Eroth, the Fae who had kidnapped me, and that I had somehow fallen in love with.

“This isn’t goodbye,” I said, the words a command that he had to stay alive, come back to me. His clothes were stiff beneath my frozen fingers as I grabbed onto him.

“I love you,” I whispered, hot tears streaking my face as I pressed a kiss to his forehead.

And then I pushed him beneath the flames.