Page 85 of Where Broken Wings Fly

He dropped his strange grand motion and looked at me, finally. It was hard not to crack under that gaze, under the vibrance that somehow lived in those dark green eyes.

“We’ll protect it, to our dying breath. And we’ll enter Mag Mell with honour and glory, for we protected our kin.”

I glared at him.

“That’s what you can hear. What we can all hear. It’s not like the quiet before the storm, it’s the last breath before drowning. It’s silent and serene, it’s acceptance and bravery, and it’s all consuming.”

“What are you talking about?”

He cracked his infamous grin at me and I felt some light shine down on my face. “I don’t want you to sit here and feel sorrow, to mourn lives that are not yet lost. Look around at them all, do you see a single one with a frown on their face?”

Not at all. They were all torn apart with wild smiles, heads tipped back and throats bobbing as they laughed, meals being shared or thrown, all existing within the light air around us like they weren’t about to go to war in the coming days.

Killian's hand grazed mine as I looked around, bringing my focus back to him and only him.

“It is not easy, Olivia, to choose to see the good when everything feels the opposite. You have to want it.”

Something in me crumbled. I felt the dust of it tumble down my body, dissipating to smoke within my bones and setting my legs to jelly as I looked at him.

I leaned closer, letting our shoulders graze as I set my head against his shoulder. “How can there be good in anything that comes out of such violence?”

His chin dropped to the top of my head. “I am thankful that you have lived a life that allows you to see it so simply.”

“You’re saying I’ve been too sheltered?”

“No,” he chuckled, his chest beating with the rhythm, “just that for someone who claims to have spent so much time in the dark, you seem to be untouched by it. Your heart remains true and strong and pure, and for that I am thankful.”

I didn’t have the energy to explain to him that I was not untouched by the blackness of my own mind, by the little black dog who seemed content at nipping at my heels for the rest of my life. So I just released a deep sigh and fell heavier against Killian, allowing him to be the pillar of strength that I knew he was.

“I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand you all,” I whispered.

“And I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he muttered back.

31

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It seemed archaic to me, but the pixies of Speur took to the skies and beat drums of war as we crossed Cluaineach.

I tried to see things the way that Killian saw them. The way that all of the pixies saw them. But as we finished crossing the outskirts of the main village of Cluaineach, that resolve was fading in me again.

Which would have been fine, I had half a day more of travelling to come to terms with the war that was about to claim so many lives. Or at least I should have, but as we left the village and castle behind us and continued North, the horizon in front of us darkened.

Not because the sun was fading, the sun was very much still high in the sky. The reason for the long stretch of darkness across the meadow that stretched for all of eternity was none other than a host of pixies. The same size as our own, if not a little bit smaller.

The Rachainn had advanced on us just as we had advanced on them. I wanted to believe, with all of my heart, that it had been a coincidence. Yet something deep down in my chest knew otherwise, warned me otherwise.

Raegan, Queen Tonn, Diarmuid, and King Nevan all lifted their hands into the air. As one, our army halted and horns were raised, melodies of darkness spilling over Cluaineach as they were blown.

And then silence. Eerie, untameable silence that somehow was far worse than the beating war drums that had stopped or the hollowed horns that had paused. And in that silence, I finally heard what Killian had been talking about. He was right; it wasn’t a peace before a storm but a last breath before a plunge, an acceptance and a calling all in one that rippled over our army.

Thousands of pixies moved towards us, their footsteps one solid noise that thundered across the meadow. Bats soared in the air above, accompanied with crows and ravens, hawks and beetles, dragonflies and moths. On the ground were horses and moles, rabbits and foxes, domesticated cats and wolves. Between them all, upon them all, were the Rachainn.

My heart dropped.

I looked at them and all I saw were pixies. All I saw were creatures just like my friends, creatures that other animals had deemed worthy of caraid, beating hearts and operating lungs and wild looks on their faces. Pixies, not Rachainn, but pixies just like the ones at my sides.

How had they become so divided?