Page 17 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“You and the Prince seem to be friends. Can I trust him?”

“No.” Killian let out another sigh as he swallowed the last of his food. “Raegan is exactly the type of pixie you need to steer clear of. I love him, like a brother, but deceit is in his nature just as it is in all of ours.”

I couldn’t help but to frown. “How do you all get along, then?”

Killian chuckled again, the noise lightening the air around us as another breeze from the moon skipped over my skin. “We don’t.”

“Perhaps your definition of peace is different to mine, then. Back home, fights break out in the street every night.”

“King Ronan worked tirelessly throughout his reign to ensure Choilltean found its own balance amongst the world. Our people are held to a certain standard to keep it that way. The others? Not so much.”

“I don’t understand.”

He gave me a knowing smile. “Before King Ronan, the kingdoms of Saoghal were in disarray. We don’t like one another during the best of times, but those were dark days, belonging to war and chaos that feasted upon us all.”

“There are others?” I paused only to place some food in my mouth. “Other kingdoms?”

“Yes.”

A place so small was becoming bigger by the second.

“Will you take me to see them?”

Mischief danced in Killian's eyes. “Choilltean isn’t enough for you?”

“It is.” I nodded. “But I want to see it all.”

“Why?”

“The answer to that will only make you laugh at me.”

Killian pursed his lips, no promise of acting otherwise in sight.

“I… I feel like I can breathe properly for the first time in… years. I just… I feel like I need to see it all.”

He regarded me for a moment, the noise around us fading into a quiet buzz. “I never understood the ways of humans. Such short lives spent in frenzy and peril. So no, it does not sound crazy that you wish to be freed of it, if only for a short while.”

My chest tightened at that, at the reminder of the hourglass that had been placed on this strange situation of mine. Half of my mind was still convinced it was a dream, the other half was possessed by my bleeding heart that wished it was not.

It is just a dream, though.

Whether it was, or it wasn’t, I decided at that moment, at that table, that I would not waste a moment of it. That I would engrain every second of my time in Saoghal into my brain, because the power of it was stronger than any medicine that had ever entered my body, the memories already far more powerful than every word spoken to me by a professional.

I was going to tell Killian that, too. But I didn’t get the chance.

~

When I was twelve years old, my parents took me to the doctor. It had become increasingly apparent that there was something different about me, but no one wanted to put a name to how I acted, how I floated through life. My teachers had told my parents, time and time again, that I was unusual. They made note of the way that I sat alone at lunch-time, or how I stowed myself away in the art-room during the breaks throughout the classes. One of them actually sent me to detention, more times than I can remember, due to falling asleep in the middle of class. But the school finally hit their tether with me when I started a fist-fight in the courtyard after the exhaustion had become so powerful that I resorted to the only thing I had left — anger.

So we went to the doctor. He finally gave them a name to put to how I acted, how I felt, and that was that. But it didn’t cure it, of course it didn’t. As time went on and I lived with this thing inside of me, I started to accept that it was just who I was, who I’d always be. Because every time I started to find an ounce of joy in my life, some divine interruption would rip it away from me.

That was exactly what happened sitting on the patio of that small cafe in Choilltean. The moment I felt myself unfurling, a heaviness lifting from my chest, the world felt the need to correct it.

It was hard to say where, exactly, they came from. One moment, Choilltean was quiet save for the natural song of lives being lived. And the next, chaos reigned over the world.

Bodies dropped down from the sky. A couple at first, then a dozen, then easily hundreds. They soared down towards the ground, weapons in their hands that glinted against the light of the fireflies. Hair pulled back, hair shaved, hair braided. Eyes bright, eyes dark, eyes clouded. All of them hit the earth with a thud, and then they got to work.

Pixies screamed as the intruders burst into homes, dragging bodies to the streets and carving them up like meat on a stick. The few that decided to flee before they were attacked were targeted with bows and arrows, small sticks with sharp stones on the ends that pierced the backs of those who tried to run. A village of green and brown was soon red.