Page 30 of Where Broken Wings Fly

Rory hassled Raegan and I with constant questions for the entire trek away from Killian. Neither I nor Raegan entertained his conversation, both of us just as gloomy as the other as we walked along with our eyes pressed to the earth. The jackrabbit hopped alongside the three of us, occasionally pausing to tear threads of worthy grass, filling the stretches of silence with quiet munches.

After what felt like hours of walking, my thighs burning beyond comprehension, we reached what I came to accept was Cluaineach. The maze of grass we had landed in was only the border of their kingdom, and the true magic laid in the heart of their noble land.

It was everything Choilltean was not. It was a strong, constant sun that brightened every surface in a casing of honey, dewy light. Greens that stretched as far as the eye could see in the form of grass, shrubbery, and plant-life that all existed peacefully amongst one another. The wide, blue sky never disappeared from above us, forever revealing itself to us in between the slow, floating clouds that came and went.

And flowers.

So many flowers. Blues and pinks, yellows and oranges, purples and reds. No matter where I looked, colour burst from every crack and crevice in the small village we came upon. Houses were built against bulges of earth, dug into the dirt or crafted of hardened grass or fleeting pieces of shrub-sticks.

Alongside the flowers were other random items of vegetation. We passed a bush of raspberries, the cherry-hue to them nearly blinding me as I ducked away from one of the fruits. It was a little over half my size, large enough to sleep on or drown in if I cut into the juices. Between houses, or sometimes the house itself, were mushrooms of brown and red and orange, each vastly different from the last where pixies shaded themselves beneath them or resided upon the rounded tops.

It was even more apparent here than Choilltean that this place had a magic to it. Whether it was literal magic, or the mere feeling of something other that floated in the air, it was there, and obvious. It danced against my skin, tickling at the small hairs along my arms and worming into my very bones with every step I took through Cluaineach.

Raegan must have felt it, too. Because for the first time since meeting him, his jaw was relaxed and his hands were unclenched. And perhaps it was the colourful mist that surrounded us, but his hair seemed to be getting more golden with every step, his eyes more green.

“Rory!” A collection of pixies squealed as we walked down a street, revealing themselves seconds later as a group of females. They were not so dissimilar to the flowers in the way that each of them were vibrant and unique to the next; one with hair like the feathers of a flamingo, the next with hair so green I almost mistook her for a blade of grass, and the next with locks not blonde or golden but yellow, like a banana.

That wasn’t the only thing about them that made my jaw drop. Like Rory, they wore silky, lace-shirts that hemmed just above their belly-buttons, skirts that just skimmed the tops of their knees. But it was their backs that kept my jaw dropped. What was on their backs.

Wings. Not feathered like the pegasus or leathery like a bat, but translucent, fluttering wings with an iridescent sheen, every colour of the rainbow reflecting away from them when light hit the thin skin. Some were rounded, both top and bottom. Some were sharp, both top and bottom. And one of them had a mix of the two — a rounded top with a sharp lower edge to the wing.

“Don’t gawk,” Raegan mumbled to me as he accidentally — on purpose — stumbled into me.

I slammed my mouth shut before any of them could notice my staring. Rory simply lifted a hand to them as we passed, the three girls swooning as they called out.

We continued down street after street. On one, we passed a small cafe-like building with chairs carved out of mushrooms that housed an abundance of brilliant pixies, each chatting amongst one another and caring little for the strangers that waltzed by. The next had a long stream of basins filled to the brim with a variety of fruits and vegetables, pixies floating from one to the next and gathering whatever they wished. Down the following street we stumbled across a carriage being pulled by a herd of field mice, the wagon behind it loaded with bodies each giggling to themselves.

I had only been in Cluaineach for less than an hour, and I already knew the difference between it and Choilltean.

Raegan had been quiet for the majority of our stroll, where we lingered a few steps behind Rory and allowed him to guide us towards whatever leader Raegan wished to speak with.

“It’s very…” Again, I trailed off. There were no words to describe Cluaineach, and I didn’t want to risk offending Raegan by speaking too highly of a kingdom that was not his.

“Radiant?” he offered.

“I feel like the pollen floating around us is laced with something — I almost feel high.”

Raegan chuckled for the first time in my presence. A true laughter, not the bitter one that he offered his subjects or the menacing one he offered his friends. “Maybe it is.”

“Maybe.”

He didn’t respond to that, and a little voice in me was craving conversation. Just not with Rory, of course.

“You seem—”

My sentence was shut off by the way that Raegan glared at me down his shoulder. Whatever it was that Raegan was feeling — happy, it seemed — he did not want it commented on.

To lighten the air around us, I mimed zipping my mouth shut and tossing away the key. He flicked a golden brow up, the corners of his lips wanting to follow suit.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Killian had ever been here. If he had, what did he think of it?

Twirling my fingers between one another, I frowned at the fact that the little nagging in my head was actually me missing him. Which was absurd, I had not known him for long enough to miss him. Maybe I just missed that quirky little grin of his, the way his eyes would have beamed at such a place.

At last, our silence was put to rest by the appearance of the Cluaineach castle.

It was surprising to see that the exterior of the castle was not made of grass, dirt, or clay, but stone. Towering several stories high with sharp spires, choppy parapets, and pointed rooftops, the whole structure was composed of a slate-grey stone with cobwebs of vine and moss plastered over every inch. But what made it breath-taking was not the architecture itself, but the fact that flowers blossomed across it, a mirage of every colour spread from one corner to the next where the petals flourished from between the vines and decades of compacted moss.

As we approached, a small flock of song birds of a normal size and not pixie took to the sky, sending mini tornados across the short-cut grass before the castle doors where several guards stood at attention with swords and shields.