Page 80 of Where Broken Wings Fly

Urram let out a low squawk as he rustled his feathers. “I wasn’t going to come, it is too risky. But he mentioned you are leaving soon.”

Raegan looked at me, trying his best to gauge my reaction to his declaration. I let my folded arms fall to my sides, intentionally looking anywhere but him.

“That’s right.”

“You cannot.”

“She can–”

“Be quiet, young Prince.” Even with the voice of a bird, Urram commanded a certain aura to him, a wisdom and ancientness that was powerful enough to shut Raegan up. “Your part in this is not over yet, Olivia.”

“I don’t have a part in this, that’s the whole point.” My gestures were wild and wide as I motioned to the entirety of Saoghal. “This is not my fight.”

“Perhaps not. But that does not mean you have no part in it.”

Raegan was at the end of his tether, pushing to his feet where he strode towards Urram. “She is going home. The decision has been made.”

“If you wish for our allegiance, young Prince, you shall reconsider.”

“You’re… You’re going to fight with them?”

“We both are,” this voice was bird and hoarse, but not Urram’s. A second, a Scarlet Macaw as red as a ruby with a rainbow of feathers across its wings soared down from the tops of the trees, landing gracefully on the branch above Urram.

“Gliocas?” Raegan breathed as he tilted his head to get a better look at the magnificent avian. As if in answer, the macaw tipped its hooked beak and let out a low call, the sound hauntingly loud in a place so quiet.

“Do we have your word, Raegan?”

Raegan took a moment to stare at Gliocas, weighing the pros and cons of me staying. His word was a precious thing to him, that much I knew, so when he turned to the two birds and accepted their strange offer, both Gliocas and Urram received his decision with a nod of their small heads.

“But you’re not going to fight with them as birds, right?” I tried a joke, to which no one laughed — bird or pixie.

“You must stay, Olivia.”

What was a girl to do if a dragon transformed into an African Grey parrot tells them to stay and fight a pixie war?

29

____________________

The next day, the host of Choilltean began to move.

Raegan rode at the head of their army, proudly balanced over Rìoghail, with a Red Macaw on his shoulder picking at his hair constantly.

Shea and Niamh rode just behind him atop Milis and Sonus, both fit with long stretches of leather armour, a sword on either hip, and a shield over their backs. Niamh had managed to tie her bow and quiver into a strap around Sonus’ neck, who was either very unhappy about it or was being berated by bugs.

Killian, whether he liked it or not, walked alongside me. We were several rows back from the Prince and his ceadan, wedged between healers and their wagons full of powders and mists and fluids, and the beginning of an infantry who were stomping along to an obnoxious beat behind us.

“They—” Killian pointed way behind us, to a row just visible to my eye, “—are the marcaich. It takes decades and decades of training to become one.”

I was glad to be next to Killian with his radiant smile and never-dull outlook on life keeping me distracted. “Why?”

Just as I asked, the reason became apparent. It wasn’t a horse or a pegasus or even a fly that one of the marcaich that I could see rode, but a cat. Not just any cat, but a beast with the build of a bull and the pelt as black as the midnight sky, covering up the faintest of patterns across his sides.

The marcaich, it seemed, rode panthers.

“Oh my,” I breathed, unsure of what else to say.

“Riding a horse is one thing. But riding a panther? The way they twist and turn, their bodies are freakishly agile and not many can stay seated. But the true test is when they start to climb. We’ve lost a lot of proud soldiers who couldn’t refuse the chance to try.”