Page 88 of Where Broken Wings Fly

I clutched to him like my life depended on it — because it did — and leant against his scales. Narrowing my eyes, I fought against the slurry of water pelting my face, then the frigid winds that threatened to freeze my features into that contorted mess.

Riding a dragon was nothing like riding a pegasus. At least on the back of the equine-like body, I felt like I had some control over what we were doing, between my legs at their sides and my hands against their neck. But upon Urram, I was completely at his mercy like a mere mouse atop a cat. I expected his large stature to mute all of his movements, but in a way it was worse. Every tiny adjustment through his scales, every minor flutter of his wings, and every contraction of his muscles was twice as powerful beneath me, causing my grip to inadvertently tighten against the two spikes that I was gripping on to for dear life.

There wasn’t much point in trying to see where we were going, not with how high Urram was holding his head and blocking the world around us. Instead, I resorted to peering down my legs, looking at the small blots and specks that indicated pixies fighting below us.

Urram fanned his wings out as he made a broad turn, only for me to realize that we had made it to Raegan and the fight that he was currently swallowed in. He had somehow managed to cut through most of the males that were defending Uamhas, though the amount of blood that was sprayed up and down his body left little to the imagination as to how he managed to get close to the King of Rachainn.

But something stole his attention. For the briefest of seconds he glanced over his shoulder to see a pixie with an arrow nocked and bowstring pulled taut. The arrow wasn’t focused on him, but at something in the air.

Me.

Raegan howled my name.

Then he roared it again, just as he took his sword and snapped it through the air towards the pixie who had me as his target.

Raegan’s sword sliced right through that pixie, leaving nothing but a head and a gaping wound in his chest. The Rachainn collapsed to the ground, but not before he released his bow-fingers.

The arrow soared towards me. So slowly it moved, like the world around me halted to witness what would become of the human amongst the pixies.

My eyes moved from the arrow, from my approaching death, towards Raegan. Raegan, who had given up his only weapon, his attention stolen by the arrow that advanced on me, and was no longer watching his back. Which made it all too easy for Uamhas to plunge a sword into the Prince.

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Hundreds of pixies from Saoghal were dead.

Hundreds of Rachainn pixies were dead.

I got a clear look at that, at the spread of bodies and the flooding of blood across the meadow from where I free-fell.

That arrow that Raegan had sacrificed himself to deter from my flesh had managed to hit me. Not where it had been aimed, I assumed, but straight through my left shoulder. The momentum of such a powerful hit had loosened my seat from Urram, where I now fell down towards the ground.

White-hot pain ripped through my body as I fell and fell. Droplets that were freeing themselves from my wound hovered around me, careening down at my side where we were sure to soon hit the earth. But I couldn’t focus on that, on my pain, on my approaching death, when all I could see and hear was Raegan. The shout that had torn from his mouth as he had been impaled. The roar that he had bellowed when he had seen the archer. The widening of his eyes as he looked down at the sword through his body.

It was possible Urram hadn’t felt me fall. That, or he was so distracted by the sudden shifting of Gliocas on the ground below, on the red maw that was wide open with the call of the dragon released that echoed through the haunting world.

I closed my eyes.

I zoned out the shouting, the screaming, the sound of bloodlust. I muted the cries, the wails, the last sounds of a dying breath. I ignored the whipping winds around me and the ice-like rain that pelted at my skin.

I was left with only Saoghal. The quiet whisper of the meadows that I had strolled through. The chitter of creatures, the padding of their feet against the ground, the hot air blown from their noses as they tucked their bodies against ours and accepted caraid.

The melody of the trees deep within Choilltean as a breeze tickled at the leaves. The lapping waves of Uisge against the riverbed. And Cluaineach – always Cluaineach – the sun that had never felt as warm as it did in Saoghal. The orange and pink of a rising world.

And briefly, for only a quick second, I saw green eyes against my eyelids and felt the warmth of a prince born beneath a sun against my flesh.

I could think of no better place, no better way, to die.

But the world had other plans for me. Maybe it was Cernunnos, the god that they all prayed to and gathered for. Maybe it was the spite of Charlotte, wherever she ended up. Or maybe, just maybe, there was something left for me to do in this world.

Because all of a sudden, blades of grass were reaching up towards me. Stretching and winding themselves through the unforgiving wind, until they were wrapped around me, over and over, cradling my body until I was set against the earth. There, I ripped open my eyes only to see Rory, panting where he had his body curled over his knees, before his hands dropped and the grass around me restored itself as nothing more than plant-life.

“You… You saved me,” I breathed, blinking absentmindedly at the pixie who simply nodded his head. His once lavender and elegant hair was cast in a thick concoction of blood and rain and mud, hardly recognizable if not for the gentleness to his eyes.

From where I had fallen, I couldn’t see Urram. Nor Gliocas. Certainly not Raegan.

I could, however, see the small gathering of Rachainn who had identified my free-fall and were sprinting towards Rory and I with violence spinning behind their eyes.