Page 110 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“What version of Olivia returns to your world?” Raegan finally halted at my side, placing two hands on the branch railing.

His physical presence made me open my eyes, but not to look at him, not yet. “What do you mean?”

“The one lost to darkness, or the one who found the light?”

I pondered that for a moment, my eyes still cast out across Choilltean.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, relieved to be rid of the weight.

“I think you do—” He smiled, also looking across the world. “Cluaineach lives within you now, as it always has for me. Perhaps that is why the last few weeks have been bearable, because you brought a piece of it to my court. For that, I am thankful.”

Swallowing, I finally looked at him. In such a short time, I had met a dozen variations of Raegan.

The Raegan that was a friend, that laughed like a child and partook in hail-racing, who roared out with his arms to either side of him atop a pegasus.

The Raegan who was a prince, who had assessed me head to toe on my first day here, who had sent a shudder over my skin.

There was the Raegan that was a king, who had an impossibly high chin and stern scowl over his face, turning that shudder into a true shiver of fear.

Then there was the Raegan that I couldn’t quite place, the one who leant against his dragon and let the weight of the world roll off of him, the one who tipped his head to the sun and let a rare smile crawl over his face as golden wings snapped free from his flesh.

But this Raegan... Somehow, he was all of them, yet none of them.

“What about you, Your Majesty?” I mocked a bow for him. “Did your duty finally align with your heart?”

He looked down at me, his eyes soft but his jaw stern. “Almost.”

Content to leave it at that, I tried to turn my focus away. But a calloused thumb and a calloused finger pinched at my chin, drawing my face back towards his. Slowly — agonizingly quietly — he brought his lips down and to mine. Just a brush of them, hardly connecting at all, yet everything in me crashed down.

Like I had been impaled on a blade, all of my air was stolen from my lungs. And my chest tightened yet loosened, leaving me numb and shaking as he finished sweeping his mouth over mine.

With his breath lingering on my lips, he muttered, “Almost.”

Drawing away from him, my eyes wide and unblinking, he offered me the truest version of himself behind his eyes.

Just as quickly as he had shifted into that real version of himself, he shifted back. Shaking his head as if to rid himself of a bee, he took a breath and finally looked away from me.

As one, we looked out. Beyond Choilltean, following the trail of fireflies as they scattered across the blue of Uisge. But there, just against the fading horizon, was Cluaineach. It warmed me in ways I knew I would never feel again.

I dared a sidelong glance at Raegan and finally confirmed my deepest suspicion. The sun was bright and it was warm and it was life and joy, but he was somehow even more. I looked at Raegan and wondered if, at his side, I would ever need to search for light again.

When Raegan’s hand found mine atop the railing, I closed my eyes and wished, for the last time, that this didn’t have to end.

But it did.

Epilogue

____________________

After talking with Raegan, I returned to the inside of the castle, somehow found my way back to Killian’s room, and set myself back against his chest only for sleep to dive into me and drag me down.

But when I awoke, it was not a bed of packed leaves and a duvet sewn of feathers and moss that caressed my body. It was a stiff, foam mattress beneath me that I knew every inch of. The springs of it shifted and groaned as I let out a pained sigh, realization sinking into me as I stared up at the ceiling above me.

It would have been easy to believe that it was the morning of the day I was due to leave London, to travel across the country and scatter ashes. That it had, indeed, just been a dream. I was almost content to let it be so, until a weight pressed against my chest and made me gasp.

Urram.

His talons were digging into my duvet as he turned and began plucking feathers from beneath his wings, releasing a handful of them down onto the bed.