Page 51 of Scaled Hearts

I wonder what happened to those inhabitants in order for them to up and abandon their city after preserving it so well down here.

Up ahead, there is a noise that sounds distinctly like the sound of running water. My curiosity peaks.

When we reach the end of the tunnel, another chamber opens up before us. Angurus’ light cascades up to the top of the ceiling and hovers a few feet away from it. It casts light around the entire area, illuminating the waterfall that seems to come in from an unseen source.

I stop to marvel at it.

“Wow…”

Closer to us, thick green vines wrap around the sides of the walls and coat it in lush leaves and small white wildflowers. On the ground leading over to the waterfall are more flowers, each of them beautiful and vibrantly colored.

I take it all in with wonder. Never would I have thought that something this magical could be down here.

Angurus slips his hand out of mine and treads through the flowers. His head is bent over, looking for something.

“You think it’s here?” I follow after him.

He wanders for a few minutes silently, bending over to look at over a dozen flowers. He carefully inspects each one with a gentleness that I’ve never seen in him before. It makes me wonder what else, besides me, would he be that kind with.

It’s humid inside of the chamber, much more so the closer we get to the waterfall. I look up when I reach the base of it and see that it seems to be coming from a fissure in the wall. I wonder if the Dark Elves that used to live here irrigated it that way.

The water falls into an endless pit down below, the ledge of which I look over to see where it goes. The flowers seem to sit on top of some kind of ledge that has formed due to the erosion from the waterfall, though it’s a mystery as to how the flowers got here and have survived.

It must be some kind of magic.

“I’m afraid there is some bad news, Kelly.”

I turn away from the water to head back over to him. “Is it not here?”

I hope that he doesn’t say yes—in fact, I’m terrified. This was our only lead and if it doesn’t pan out, then I’m back to square one.

“It is, but it’s been crossbred.”

I blink. “Crossbred?”

His eyes shimmer in the light from above as he turns toward me. “The flower is not pure as it once was.”

My head swivels around to the flowers that surround us. There aren’t any pollinators in here, so how in the world would it have been able to interbreed with the other flowers around it? You think the dark elves did that?”

He shrugs a shoulder, twisting the flower by the stem to inspect it.

“Hard to say. The only problem is that I have no idea whether this will have the full effects of the actual Paradise Lotus or if it will be some kind of watered down version.”

I sigh and take the flower away from him. “We don’t have any other options, do we?”

He shakes his head at me. A rare forlornness crosses his features.

I know he doesn’t particularly care about Kara, but I appreciate that he cares thatIcare. “If it doesn’t work, we shall find something else.”

I nod and hold back another sigh.

The only problem is that I don’t think Kara has any more time left. I’d only been gone for a few days when I’d gone to Angurus’ island and found him, and Kara’s violent episodes had only increased.

There really is no telling how long I had before I lost her to her curse completely. There is no telling what exactly she’ll even turn into.

Angurus bends and picks a few more flowers, all of them with similar looking petals to the Lotus but had different color variations.

“We’ll take a few of the crossbreds and see if any of them work for her. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and by combining them all together, it will negate the effects just like a regular Lotus.”

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