Page 104 of Why Broken Wings Fray

It wasn’t just the gut feeling that leadened that made me realize, all too quickly, that I was in the right place. It wasn’t just the goosebumps that spread up my arms and caused my hair to lift as I came to understand that Rory simply wasn’t here. And it was no instinct of mine that had my knees shaking, my hand over my mouth, as I started to see that something very bad was about to happen.

Slowly, one step at a time as if I would trigger some sort of lethal trap, I crept towards what had caught my attention. Where I had met Rory before, where his lavender-hair had signalled me and he had turned around with a large grin, there was the base of a tree-stump.

And on the severed width of it, scribbled messily and pasted to the bark in a hurry, was a note.

One hand trembling against my agape mouth, I reached for that note and tried my best to slow my beating heart as I yanked it from the stub.

The Rachainn, after having convinced me to see them as anything but, were once again the largest threat to Saoghal, to me, to my happiness, as I read that note through my teary vision.

Even when my shaking took to new heights and I was forced to drop it, the stark, black curves of each letter stared up at me from the grass beneath me.

I’m sorry, Olivia.

Forgive me.

Rory x

I had never run as fast as I ran, then.

All I could taste was blood, all I could see were black spots, and all I could feel was my body giving up on me.

But I ran.

And I ran.

I ran until I was rife with delusion, until my body throbbed with desperation, until my blood ran with only fear. My body was jelly beneath me and my heart thundered itself into dust against my ribcage, but nothing would stop me from reaching Cluaineach, from reaching Raegan. Nothing would stop me from protecting him, from stopping any and all harm from coming to him.

I ran as the seconds slipped into minutes, and the minutes slipped into an hour. I leapt over protrusions and I ducked beneath unforgiving blades of grass. I side-stepped critters and I twisted around pebbles and rocks.

That was when I arrived.

Not in the throne room, as I had planned. Not even at the castle exit. No, I managed to make it just to the threshold of Cluaineach, to the very place that I had seen Raegan after a year of not seeing him.

And there I stood, just as I had then, staring across the kingdom to the lone path that would lead into its innards. There, just as he had been then, was Raegan.

But I was too late.

The Rachainn had him.

~

It was Rory that I saw first, his body stiff and tall as he watched the rest of his group haul at Raegan’s unconscious body. The King was loose and limp in their arms, his body flopped in all directions as three Rachainn grabbed onto various parts of him and tried to move him faster.

I could have ducked back into the grass. I could have hung my head and retreated. I could have gone back to Cornwall, slipped into my home, and forgotten all about the pixies of Saoghal and the King with Golden Wings.

“Raegan!” I roared. Not to draw his attention, but to draw the attention of others. Someone, somewhere, had to hear the cries that ripped from my throat. Someone would come to the aid of their King as they listened to someone shout and scream his name in raw agony.

Which was exactly what I did. Over and over, even though my lungs were shredded from two hours of sprinting and my body was convulsing with the desire to collapse. But my life-force continued, it thrummed to life within me and renewed itself with a whole new purpose as Raegan let out a deep groan, causing the Rachainn to tighten their grips on him.

On my second shout, Rory’s head snapped up and his mystical eyes met mine. He shook his head slowly, begging me with those eyes. “Go, Olivia,” he pleaded. “Go now! Go while you can!”

But I couldn’t. I would never be able to. And maybe he could understand that, or maybe he couldn’t, but I didn’t care.

I was overcome with a possessive, defensive, and ruthless side of myself that had never existed. Alongside the pulsing of fear for Raegan was this vicious within me that threw my body from the safety of the border of Cluaineach. Stumbling, my resolve greater than my physical strength, I started towards Raegan.

I knew I looked pathetic. I knew I looked as if I walked on stilettos and I had far too much champagne. I knew my face was blotched red and my eyes were so dry that it seemed more agonizing to blink moisture into them. And I knew, above all else, that the Rachainn would have me on my ass within seconds.

Yet I continued on. There was a flash of pity in Rory’s eyes as he watched me, as some part of him that I believed was still good cracked at the sight of me, desperate and prepared to take the brunt of it for Raegan.