Page 47 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“Does this look like the face of someone who has been looped in?” I motioned wildly to my face, to my hanging jaw and pinched eyes. “What is a mate?”

Niamh motioned for me to take a seat at the stool in front of her. Begrudgingly, I traipsed over there and sat down, my desire for an answer stronger than my desire to deny her.

“A mate,” she started, pulling my hair back over my shoulders where she began to poke at my hair, “it’s like a soulmate, but so much more.”

“That’s not really helpful, Niamh.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her stick her tongue out.

“It’s an ancient sort of magic, a blessing to us from Cernunnos. A pairing imprinted into our very souls, a bond so all-consuming and… magical.” Her eyes went glassy as she let out a soft sigh. “It’s what we all seek. Females and males.”

Wincing as she yanked at a piece of stray hair by my face, I bit down on my tongue. “How does it work?”

“No one really knows. Some never find their mate. Those who do, though, explain it as a sort-of out-of-body experience, a ringing deep in their chest that matches the pitch of their mates. And in that moment, they just know. From there, it’s unbreakable.”

“Wow.” I meant it. It was the sort of thing that I dreamed of, curled up on my couch with a bucket of popcorn as I watched cheesy rom-com after rom-com. The type of thing that would make one believe in love at all. “Imagine that, hey?”

“Imagine that.” She smiled at me. “Shea really did think Aidan was hers, she had just been waiting for the bond to appear between them.”

“It’s not instant?”

“Not always. My parents, for example, served in King Ronan’s ceadan for two centuries, side-by-side, before it appeared between them. They were lucky, though — they loved each other long before it and even more-so after it. Some say that pixies have to prove their love for one another to Cernunnos before he will grant them their bond. So we do what we can — we meet pixies and we love, and we wait for the day that it appears. And if it doesn’t, then the love between partners is enough.”

Niamh, who to my surprise knew how to use a comb, started getting to work on the long lengths of pale hair over my shoulder. All the while, I just let that knowledge sink into me.

“But no matter what Shea and Aidan felt for one another… it wasn’t enough?”

Niamh shook her head. “Unfortunately not. I think that’s why it’s hurting her the way it is. There’s nothing for her to be mad about, nothing for her to use to distance herself from him. She simply loves him, but that’s just not enough.”

“Should we… should we do something for her?”

Niamh laughed just as she pulled a heavy section of my hair up, twisting it and pinning it with strange pieces of wood. “Unless you’re willing to stand in the woods and let her use your body as target practice, there’s nothing Shea would want from us.”

She finished plucking at my hair and took a step to my side, admiring — or grimacing — at her work before she started picking up various powders. I said nothing as she blotted them on my face, resorting to staring out the window at the miniature elms surrounding us.

“King Ronan and Queen Aoife… Were they mates?”

Niamh paused, her hand on its way towards my cheek with another dip of powder. She narrowed her eyes at me, her mouth slightly agape as she pondered her answer. Only after swallowing and continuing to poke at my face, did she nod. “They were.”

“Were they… before Raegan? Before Queen Róisín?”

“Interesting questions you ask me, Olivia,” Niamh tutted just as mischief danced in the darkness of her eyes. “But yes.”

“Then why–”

“He is not a good–” Niamh stopped herself, biting down on her lip as she swapped the powders for some dark mineral that she lined against my eyes. “King Ronan is a wonderful king.”

Just not a wonderful person.

I understood what was carefully laid between her words and decided to drop it.

But I wasn’t done prying answers out of her. “What do you think of Raegan?”

She halted again, setting down the dark stick and moving for some cherry-red substance at her side. “I think he will be a magnificent king, one day.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She narrowed her eyes at me again, though I couldn’t tell if it was concern for my line of questioning or concern for whatever she was doing to my face.