Chapter 27
The rest of the journey back to the castle was quiet as we both fought to stay warm after almost five days in the freezing cold, and the exhaustion of fighting the Lavawraith lingering like a fatal disease.
When the castle came into view in the distance as we crested a hill, a strange sort of excitement thrummed in my veins.
Though I wasn’t thrilled to be in Eroth in the first place, I’d never been so happy to see Shadow Ire Castle.
My feet ached, legs wobbled, and fingers were thoroughly frozen, not to mention the fierce grumble of my stomach every few minutes from having eaten so little food.
But we had made it. We were alive.
“Okay,” I said, pointing. “There’s the castle. Now tell me what’s next.”
Rhydian stood there for a long moment, staring at his home before he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “The second task might be impossible.”
“I would expect nothing less,” I said sarcastically. “Because climbing a volcano and facing a lava monster wasn’t already impossible? I’d be insulted if the next one was easy.”
Rhydian’s lips twitched.
The wind whipped at my hair, feeling like icy daggers were trying to rip the strands from their roots. I shrugged deeper into my coat. “Let’s hear it.”
“If you’re unable to accomplish it, I won’t hold it against you.” He was stalling.
“Tell me.”
“I mean it, I—”
“Just spit it out, Rhydian.”
“The requirement to accomplish the second task is to make something grow.”
I blinked. Once. Twice. Why would such a task be deemed impossible?
When I didn’t react, Rhydian gestured around him. “Eroth is dying. Nothing can grow here. Only the hardiest of plants have survived. The task is to make a specific plant grow—one that hasn’t grown here for decades.”
“And what is the purpose of that?”
“The cursebreaker must be able to bring life back to a dead land. Therefore, to claim the second task as completed, you must make a certain flower grow. In the dead soil.”
I considered this for a long moment. “I grew up on a farm.”
“Yes, you’ve said.”
His annoyed tone had me scowling. “I’m accustomed to making things grow, Rhydian. I have a lot of experience amending soil to get difficult crops to germinate.”
Surprise flickered across his face, his eyes widening for a split second before his expression cleared.
“But have you ever grown something in dead soil?”
“How do you know it’s dead?”
His only response was to give me a bored blink of his eyes and gesture to the dead and barren winter tundra around us.
Fair enough.
It made it more challenging, sure, but if there was one person up to the task, I was sure it was me.
I held onto optimism with a death grip. “I’m confident I can do this.”
Carrow’s demand for me to fail the tasks flickered back through my mind.
This would be an easy one for me to pretend to fail.
Though I was certain I would be able to succeed, there was still a chance that the soil was too far gone for anything to thrive.
But part of me wanted to prove I could do this. I didn’t want to fail.
I knew little about Eroth and yet I wanted to bring a little piece of life back to it. If I could.
“Growing things can take a long time though. It could take weeks.”
I hated the thought of being stuck here for even longer. I had no idea if my family was okay. I needed to get home. But if this was my task, then this was my only option. I would have to find the patience, and the faith, that my family would survive without me until I could get home.
Rhydian lifted his hands, gesturing around him.
“Time is in short supply. The Magmara may not last that long. There really is no telling when the last petal will fall, when Eroth will join it.” Rhydian looked at me with a strange expression that I hadn’t seen before.
“But I will do my best to aid you, however I can.”
I offered a small smile. “We should start as soon as we get back to the castle.”
He shook his head. “You should rest.”
“There isn’t time. Show me where I should begin, and hand over the seed, and I’ll get to work. I might need other supplies to help the soil come back to life though.”
“Whatever you need, either Nico or myself will find it.”
Our gazes met, and for the first time, it sort of felt like Rhydian and I were almost…
friends. Or at least on the same side. It no longer felt as though he was my kidnapper, but instead that we were motivated by the same thing.
We might want to break the curse for very different reasons, but we had a common goal, a purpose, and that felt new. It felt nice.
Rhydian’s hand brushed mine as we walked, and I didn’t miss the way a jolt rippled up my arm, nor did I miss how he left his hand there, not jerking it away in disgust like I expected he would.
Maybe, just maybe, Rhydian Malathar wasn’t as bad as I thought he was.