Page 102 of Where Broken Wings Fly

She didn’t deflect it with a shield. She didn’t deflect it with a sword. Niamh, the young pixie who should have been destined for anything but fighting, deflected that arrow from her Prince with her own body.

Raegan roared as it pierced her chest.

Everything and everyone around me blurred as I sprinted towards her crumbling body.

Raegan reached her and scooped her up before she could hit the ground, Killian, Shea, and me reaching her moments later.

Never before had this journey felt more like a dream than in that very moment. It was wrong, so wrong that someone as good, as pure as Niamh should fall victim to something as cowardice as an arrow.

A shaking hand pressed against her wound as her eyes dropped down towards it. “Oh, my — it… it hurts.”

It was selfish of me to break in the way that I did as I watched her young face pinch in agony. I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t stop the tears, the creeping of darkness that settled above us all. Her hand remained touching that arrow, her fingers soon coated with a thick layer of hot, steaming blood that filled the room with the tang of metal within seconds.

She finally registered us standing around her, looking at each of our faces with a lack of knowing in her eyes. She had no idea what was happening. Which made it even worse when she glanced at Raegan, still curled up in his arms, and let out a shuddering breath. “Raegan, it hurts.”

“I know,” he murmured, pressing his brows to hers. “I know it does.”

Her eyes started to widen, tears no longer streaming from them as her eyes set on something beyond us all. “Actually… it’s not so bad.”

Raegan’s whole body shuddered as he groaned against her, the noise so full of sorrow that my knees wavered.

“It’s… It’s okay, Raegan—” Her bloody hand found his, squeezing it ever so slightly. “—I-It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt so much now.”

We all knew what that meant. That was why Shea and Killian stepped forwards, each of them taking one of her outstretched hands.

She turned her head away from where she was rolled up against Raegan’s chest and found Killian at her side. “Perhaps it is me that is most reckless, after all.”

Killian wanted to laugh, for her sake, but he didn’t. He just stared at her, his skin pale and his lips trembling.

Her breathing was slowing. Her chest was moving less and less. Her eyes were focusing on nothing in particular, simply swiping around the room as blood continued to trickle from her one droplet at a time.

“I think… I think I’m quite tired—” She smiled at us all, her eyes finding Raegan once more. “I-I’m sorry, Raegan, I think I must rest during your ascension–”

“Shush,” he moaned as he pulled her tighter against him, her blood seeping into his clothes as his head remained bowed. “Find sleep now, my sweet friend.”

I was unsure how Raegan was even capable of talking. My own silent pain was taking my whole body hostage, forcing me to make jerked movements just to breathe.

With a smile I doubted would ever fade her joyful face, Niamh’s head went limp and Raegan wrapped himself around her, muffled sobs coating her dense hair.

Niamh did, indeed, find sleep. But she never awoke from it.

~

Raegan rose.

He was changed as he found balance over his feet, as he stared down the Cluaineach pixies who all halted and gasped at the murder of Niamh.

“Your… Your Highness,” Diarmuid stuttered as his eyes struggled to find Raegan’s and the war that lashed behind them. “Do not take the throne of Choilltean. We beg of you.”

For the first time in seeing the pixies of Cluaineach, they weren’t radiant with the light of the sun like it lived beneath their flesh. They were dull, like life would be incapable of resuming in their blood again.

Raegan was soulless as he looked down at Niamh, at his hands that were coated in her blood.

But the true shock came when he simply nodded. The Druid behind him gasped.

“Cluaineach calls me to her throne?” Raegan asked no one in particular.

Diarmuid said something in response. I didn’t hear him — I was too busy staring at Rory.