Chapter 36
Something wasn’t right.
My magic was weakening by the day, withering in time with the cursed Magmara, but I still felt a niggling that something wasn’t right. There was a feeling, a presence that didn’t belong. It was faint. I probably would have missed it if it hadn’t flared for a moment, but there was no mistaking it.
Another flare.
Dread mixed into a deadly cocktail of terror. Maren.
Summoning every amount of strength in my bones, I ripped open the door and raced back to the room that should have been protected, the one room that Maren had been spending all her time in. The one room she should have been safe in.
My Fae speed allowed me to reach the room in a few mere heartbeats, and I burst through the door, calling for Maren before halting in my tracks.
My cold, nearly-dead heart stuttered in my chest. Maren was suspended in the air, grasping at her throat with desperate fingers, surrounded by swirls of violet magic. Carrow stood next to her, his hand outstretched, forcing his magic to drain the life from her.
“Carrow,” I said, lacing the single word with all the fury and threat I could muster. If it came to a fight, my magic was in no state to win against the Prince of Nefaroth. In a physical fight, I maybe had a chance, but why would he fight me when his magic was available?
“Ah, Rhydian. How nice of you to join us.” Carrow’s teeth flashed in the moonlight, those silver eyes flaring just as bright. He still held Maren aloft, and she was clawing in vain at her throat, trying to escape the grasp of his magic.
“Let her go, Carrow.”
“Now why would I do that?” he said, mock innocence in his expression. “Things were just getting interesting.”
“She doesn’t concern you,” I replied. “Put her down.”
“Or what?” he sneered. “You’ll fight me?” He gestured at me. “In your current state? Do you really think that’s wise?”
My teeth clenched so hard that shooting pain engulfed my jaw.
“And anyway, you’re wrong. She does concern me.”
“She’s just a meaningless human. What does she matter to you?” The words were brutal, bitter as they slid past my lips, and I hoped that Maren knew I was lying. She wasn’t meaningless at all. At least not to me.
Carrow pointed at the broken pot on the floor next to him, the dirt all over the floor. My heart sank at the sight. After all that work…
“Not so meaningless after all, hmm, Rhydian?”
It was then I noticed the little green stem poking out from the soil.
The seed…grew?
Maren did it?
Relief and elation swept through me in equal measures before it was squashed by a cry from Maren as Carrow tightened his hold on her neck.
“You’re using her to break the curse,” he continued. “So, yes, it does concern me. It concerns all Fae.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” He lowered his arms, Maren gulping down air, though his violet magic still kept her in its grip.
He ticked off his fingers. “First you bring a human to Eroth, then you tell her about the curse and try to get her to break it. And worst of all, she’s actually managed to complete two of the tasks. ”
A snake-like smile spread across his face, and my stomach dropped.
“But have you told her what she has to do next?” Carrow asked.
My silence was answer enough, because he looked up at Maren as he said, “Tell her, Rhydian. Tell her what the third task is. Tell her the last requirement to break the curse.”
“Carrow—”
“Tell her!” he roared, the floor shuddering beneath me.
I’d never hated someone so much as I did Carrow in that moment.
I had been avoiding telling Maren about the third task for weeks because I knew it would be the final nail in the coffin.
She might have developed some feelings for me, but she would never love me.
And I wasn’t sure I could ever admit that I loved her.
Love wasn’t in my nature.
That was what made the third task so impossible.
“A human must fall in love with me,” I said quietly, “and I must love them in return.”
Carrow’s cruel laugh filled the room. “And who could love a beast like Rhydian?” he said, looking up at Maren. “And how could a monster ever fall in love when he has a heart of stone?”
Maren tried to open her mouth to speak, but the violet magic surrounding her kept her silent.
Defeat encompassed my bones so thoroughly that I felt weak, my knees trembling, threatening to collapse.
I had tried to figure out how to tell Maren about this for so long, trying to find a delicate way of doing it, or maybe rewording it so it didn’t sound like such an awful thing—to love someone like me.
But I hadn’t been able to come up with anything.
Now it was in the open. Now she knew.
I couldn’t read the expression on her face, and with her wrapped in Carrow’s magic, I couldn’t reach her emotions with my own to tell what she was feeling.
Carrow had gotten what he wanted, and yet he wasn’t finished.
“Do you want to know the kind of monster this Fae is?” Carrow’s smile was cruel, unhinged. I’d seen many faces on him in the centuries I’d known him, but I’d never seen such…desperation. Like he was willing to try anything to convince Maren not to love me.
Like he was actually…scared.
“Tell her, Rhydian. Tell her what happened to the others.”
Every ounce of fight drained from my bones, and my legs suddenly felt weak.
Anything but that.
At whatever look was on my face, Carrow smiled. I glanced at Maren. Anger burned through my blood that I couldn’t reach her with my magic, that I had no idea what she was feeling now. I wished my magic was strong enough to attack Carrow, to make him release her.
“Time is wasting,” Carrow taunted. “Tell her.”
“You happened,” I ground out.
He clicked his tongue. “Don’t try to pass blame, Rhydian.”
“Pass blame?” I said, disbelieving. Faint golden light filled my palms in response to the fury roaring through me. “How is it passing blame when you were the one who tortured them and left them for dead by Eroth’s portal?”
Carrow’s face went blank, looking bored. “I didn’t take their lives.”
“You may as well have.”
Though shame had me wanting to press my lips tightly together and keep the words that I’d hidden for so long inside, I looked Maren in the eye. If she was ever going to love me, she needed to know the truth.
“Fifty humans,” I began. “Since the curse was laid centuries ago, I have brought fifty humans here, in hopes that one of them would be the cursebreaker. One by one, Carrow convinced each one of them to leave Eroth and go with him.” I let out a bitter breath.
“Only once he had them in his grasp, he wasted no time.”
I shifted my glare to Carrow. “He tortured each one to the brink of death and then left them by the portal in Eroth. By the time I found them, it was too late to save them. The only thing I could do was end their suffering.”
“Say the words, Rhydian. She needs to hear them.”
“It was a mercy compared to what you did to them!” I roared.
Carrow was unaffected by my anger. “Say the words.”
My chest heaved. “I killed them.”
I met Maren’s gaze, expecting to see a plethora of things: hatred, betrayal, fear. But instead, I was surprised to find that there was…understanding.
“Now, doesn’t that feel better?” Carrow straightened. “She might as well know everything. Tell her what will happen when the curse is broken,” he said, and my bones turned to ice.
When I hesitated, he wrapped his fingers around Maren’s throat once again. She gasped, clawing at his hands, but it was no use. A human was no match for a Dark Fae.
I had never planned to tell her this part. She never would have agreed to break the curse if I had. This was always meant to be a secret.
“Tell her, Rhydian.” His quiet command was somehow more terrifying than when he had yelled the words. A pained gasp sounded from her as he squeezed even harder.
Desperate for Carrow to release her, I swallowed hard and summoned the words that would seal my fate, ensuring Maren would never love me.
On a shaky breath, I spoke.
“You will die.”