Chapter 19
I paced the floor of my chambers, my shoes clacking against the tile. The fire roaring in the fireplace did little to take the chill out of the air.
“We have to be more careful,” I said to Nico, who sat in the chair holding his hands close to the flames. “The Pure Fae queens are onto me.” I winced, telling him about the encounter with the two of them not even an hour ago.
“But that has to be a good thing, right?” Nico’s head perked up.
“If they’re concerned about Maren, then maybe there really is a chance.
” I had to look away from the bright flare of hope shining in his eyes.
I couldn’t deny that he may have had a point.
If Maren didn’t have any chance, then the queens wouldn’t have shown their faces here, and Carrow wouldn’t have run to them in the first place.
That had to mean that she seemed promising as a cursebreaker, right?
Or maybe they just didn’t want me giving it one last try now that the time was fading faster than each of my heartbeats.
I looked at Nico, my stone heart softening infinitesimally.
I hated that he was stuck here with me, that he would share my fate.
Not for the first time, I had the thought of trying to find a way to get him out of Eroth before I met my end.
Maybe he could find his parents—if they were still alive.
I doubted the Pure Fae queens would ever allow him to stay in their kingdoms, but if he could somehow find his family, then he wouldn’t have to suffer—to die.
But how could I do that? I couldn’t set foot through the portals to the other kingdoms, and I wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to speak with the queens again.
Their lack of compassion for the Dark Fae, even a young one such as Nico, wouldn’t allow them to take pity on him anyway.
I gripped the back of my neck with my hands and stared at the ceiling.
“I’m not sure they think there’s a chance so much as they know I’m desperate.
The final petal could fall any day now, and they know I’d do anything to stop it from happening.
Carrow’s warning that I had brought a girl here after so many years must have sent a jolt of panic through their cold hearts for them to pay me a personal visit. ”
Nico opened his mouth, but he bit his lip and held the words back. Instead, he asked, “So what do we do then?”
I dropped my arms, trying to release the tension building in my shoulders.
“We keep a low profile. We try not to let anything slip. We’ll help Maren complete these tasks and no one will be the wiser.
If Carrow or the queens dare to show their faces again, we lie through our teeth until they leave.
” I met his stare, making sure he understood the severity of the situation.
“Under no circumstance can they be allowed anywhere near Maren. If they get even a sense that she feels anything but hatred for me, who knows what they will do?”
That garnered more of a reaction from Nico than I’d expected. His eyes widened in fear, and he began twiddling his fingers in front of him. In only a few short days, he had grown more attached to Maren than I would have liked. What would he do when this was all over and she was gone?
I started pacing again.
What would I do? Oh wait, I’d be dead.
Nico’s eyes bored holes into my back, setting my nerves more on edge.
“Would you stop watching me?” I snapped, my frustration getting the better of me. The words tasted like ash on my tongue, and I wished I could take it back. It wasn’t Nico’s fault. It was mine.
Nico, having learned my moods over the last few years, was completely unfazed by my outburst. “You’re really going to do this? Make the girl do these dangerous things?”
I stopped in my tracks, looking at him in disbelief.
“You were the one that kept saying she could be the one. Now she wants to try, and you’re second guessing it?
Besides”—I flicked a dismissive hand—“at the very least, it’ll fill our last days with a nice distraction.
” The words tasted bitter coming out, but I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Rhydian,” Nico scolded inasmuch as a young Fae could scold.
“What? I won’t remind you again, Nico. There is no hope. If death awaits me at the end of this, then I might as well spend the remainder of my life entertained.”
He shook his head. “She’s different than the others. I know you know what I’m talking about. I think she might actually be able to break it, but she needs help. She has no magic. She’s vulnerable here.” He paused and let out a sigh. “Why don’t you just tell her—”
“The truth?” I interrupted. “The truth that after she completes the first two tasks, the only way to accomplish the third is for her to love me? How do you suggest I do that? Do you really think a human that I stole from her own world would ever fall in love with me? Because I certainly don’t. She loathes me.”
And I don’t blame her.
“There has to be a way,” Nico said, a soft pleading in his voice.
I tried not to lose my temper, forcing my frustration back inside. It wasn’t his fault, and exploding at him would do nothing but hurt him. I might have had a stone heart, but when it came to Nico, it turned into a ball of mush. “You know there’s not.”
“But if you spend time with her…help her with these tasks, maybe—”
“Enough, Nico.” I sighed. “She’s not the one. The cursebreaker doesn’t exist. We’ve been fools all these years. Let it go.”
I hated the shine in his eyes as he bit his lip to hold back tears. I didn’t often scold him, but ever since I brought Maren here, I’d been having a difficult time controlling myself.
His head hung low as he wordlessly nodded and left the room. I’d apologize to him later. He didn’t deserve my ire. He’d done nothing wrong unless hoping in vain was a bad thing.
A long, tired breath worked its way out between my lips. The whiplash of hoping and forcing myself to stop was too much. My entire body was fatigued and I wanted to throw myself onto the bed and lie there until the curse finally ran its course.
But I didn’t have that luxury.
***
“Tell me about the other kingdoms,” Maren said the next morning when I was forced to endure her presence at moon rise feast.
It had been a long night of researching in my library, for the umpteenth time, if there was some other way to break the curse.
Some other way that I might have missed, even though I had searched nearly every day since it was set.
In a brief moment of desperation in the middle of the night, I almost considered going back to them, begging for my life, but I knew it was no use.
They wanted me to suffer.
They wanted me dead. Gone. Forever.
And with Maren here…I would suffer even more before meeting my end.
Part of me wanted to feel bad about bringing her here, about the fact that she was an innocent who would meet the same end as me for no reason other than that I was selfish.
But then I was forced to be in her presence, with those piercing eyes and the defiant upturn of her chin, and the quiet way she often challenged me. Then I didn’t really feel bad anymore.
Once again, I caught my internal critic scolding myself. What was I thinking bringing her here?
“What do you want to know?” I replied after taking my time chewing a piece of bread slathered in honey butter.
“Well, I know that Eroth is a land of freeze-your-butt-off-darkness, and there are three other kingdoms. Are they all cold and dark too?”
I forced my lips to stay neutral and not smile at her description of Eroth, even if it was slightly charming.
No, she’s not charming, Rhydian. Get a hold of yourself.
“No, they’re not like here.”
She blinked at me, waiting.
“Nefaroth is the other kingdom of the Dark Fae,” I explained.
“Carrow, the Fae you had the displeasure of meeting, is the ruler. There are similarities, but it’s different from here.
While it mostly stays dark there, they have a few hours each day of something akin to daylight in your world, but it’s not quite the same.
And instead of freezing temperatures, it’s dreadfully hot all the time. It’s quite uncomfortable.”
A shiver shuddered through her. “I’d take it over this cold,” she muttered.
I bristled at her words, muttering under my breath.
“No, you wouldn’t.” Carrow’s remark about the others preferring him replayed in my mind.
The bread in my mouth suddenly tasted like dirt, and I struggled to swallow it.
Nico was right, Maren did seem different than the others.
She was braver, maybe even smarter. I had to get Carrow—and the past—out of my mind.
Just because it happened before didn’t mean it was going to happen again.
“What about the other two?”
“Aeros is the Land of Air and Stone, ruled by Queen Elonara. Siris is the Land of Water and Light and is ruled by Queen Valianna. They are Pure Fae lands. They have day and night cycles like your world does. In your world, Aeros would be considered in perpetual autumn while Siris is in perpetual spring.”
“So then if Nefaroth is hot, and Eroth is frigid, would this be perpetual winter and his perpetual summer?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
Maren was quiet for a few moments as she absorbed this information.
“And do all of them have golden death rays like yours?” she teased, the amusement in her voice catching me off guard. My stone heart dared to utter an extra beat.
I huffed a breath at her continued description of my magic, trying to shove away the strange feeling her taunt had elicited. “They’re not golden death rays.”
“Well, they’re gold and you killed with them, so therefore my assessment is not wrong.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something I couldn’t take back.
“My magic does what I will it to, whether that’s taking someone’s life or something else that I desire.”
“It can do more than kill kidnappers?” she deadpanned.