Page 59 of Where Broken Wings Fly

A curse and a blessing — if I could cut through it, it looked like it just might hold up.

Raegan noticed my shaking hand and clenched jaw and took the blade from me. “Show me where to cut.” Adding heat to the dagger through his burning palm, he pressed the edge of the blade where I told him to and dragged.

Once my dress was torn into twelve equal-sized, thick spindles of rope, Raegan helped me with the part I had been secretly dreading. Using the dagger as a needle, we poked at the tough hide in order to make twenty-four small holes, big enough to thread the spider-silk through and tie on the opposite side.

It took far longer than it would have in the clinic, had Gliocas been a cat, but after a gruelling few hours his wound was stretched as close as we could manage, and the blood-loss had slowed itself to a normal droplet here and there.

With a huff of defeat and a dash of success, my whole body collapsed and curled itself into a tight ball against Urram, where I found the deepest sleep of my life.

21

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For the first time in about ten years, I rose with the sun.

My eyes peeled open to a tinge of orange that spread across the opening of the cave. Yawning, stretching my arms over my head, I pushed off of the ground where I had slept all night long against Urram’s wing.

By the time I made it to the cliff-edge, my jaw dropped and I couldn’t peel my eyes off of the sunrise that was lifting across Saoghal. One step at a time I dared the treacherous descent down the mountain-side, until I was standing in the long grass of Cluaineach with the melting morning sun draped over every large blade of grass.

It was only then that I realized my body had been covered. I wore a large, green shirt made of the familiar Choilltean cloth, and someone had even bandaged the burning slice along my forearm.

Doubting my ability to decide which of my four friends had done that, I crept my way through the meadow grass until I was at a spot large enough and short enough to appreciate the sun as it shifted through a sky of orange-and-pink. There, I dropped to the ground, pulled my knees up to my chest, and enjoyed a sunrise.

It was beautiful, beautiful like the late months of fall as the world turned rusty and the air grew chilly. With every inch the sun crept my body warmed and warmed, not from the heat itself but from the mere sight. From that familiar feeling of being in a world so vast, so inexplicably magnificent that my soul ached from the stretching of my chest.

“There you are.”

Raegan’s voice cut through the air around me, until his body was at my side a second later and he dropped down into the mud. Crossing his legs in front of him, he found the lighting of the earth against the horizon just as I did, a small smile to his lips. Just as the world around us came alive with the rising sun, so did Raegan. The darkness that clung to him in Choilltean faded away, making room for the golden thread of his hair and the rosy-tint to his cheeks.

I wasn’t planning on commenting on the fact that under his surcoat, he no longer had his green shirt.

The silence between us wasn’t as venomous as normal. Instead, it was filled with evidence of life in a world so small; crickets leaping from blade to blade as they made their path through the meadow, birds sweeping down amongst the grass and emerging with insects tight in their beaks, and the everlasting hum of winged things buzzing from place to place.

“Thank you.”

If I wasn’t so tired, I would have made a remark about the Prince having manners. But I was exhausted, so I simply looked at him and offered a small smile.

“You saved Gliocas last night.”

“I just did what any of you would have done—”

“No—” Raegan shook his head. “No, Olivia. You saved him. You…” He trailed off, his eyes dropping from mine. “I have no way of thanking you but this.” He pushed up to his feet, motioning for me to do the same.

Hesitantly, I rose.

“I’ve never shown anyone this before. But last night… Last night you held my whole heart in your hands and you saved Gliocas. The least I can do is try to show you what that means to me.”

I wasn’t sure where this was going, only that he didn’t need to prove anything to me. “Raegan, it’s fine–”

My mouth fell open when he shed his surcoat. It wasn’t very ladylike of me, but I couldn’t help but scan the tight skin of his torso, the deep grooves of his muscles and the sharp outline of him.

I had even less idea where he was going with this. “Raegan, seriously. It’s fine.”

“Would you be quiet for just a minute?” He chuckled, then glanced over his shoulder. Only once he was content with what he saw did he turn back to me. The Raegan that looked down at me was unlike any of the previous versions I had met. With a sigh, he turned and faced away from me.

“Raegan—”

His back burst open. Not literally, but two limbs emerged from between his shoulder-blades. Two golden, sun-kissed wings of not leather nor iridescent film, but of feathers. They ruffled in the low breeze of the morning as he stretched them wide. And for a moment, Raegan’s head tilted back in relief, the most genuine smile to his lips stretching as the sun spilled over his beauty.