Page 106 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“You treated me as… what? A broodmare? Nothing more than a thing to be dangled and bred?” I couldn’t even tolerate the word as it came out of my mouth, fouling my voice and making me wince.

Rory, too, winced. “What are you talking–”

I launched at him again, placing the pointed tip of the scalpel to the small gap between his ribs that I estimated hosted his heart. “Do not bullshit me, Rory. The tonic. I know what it is, what you assumed it could do for me.”

Instead of being disappointed in himself or showing any sign of disgust at his actions, Rory instead perked up, his eyes brightening and hope shimmering within them. “You have been drinking it?”

I was taken aback by his switch up, so much so that I couldn’t stop my mouth falling open as I stepped backwards and away from him.

“Olivia, this is important – could it have worked? Did you two–”

I stabbed his forearm as he raised it in an attempt to make some sort of motion with his hand that I assumed would be vulgar. He hissed as he wriggled backwards and away from me, only to slam back into the wall and growl about it.

Now the rage was shifting into heartbreak, my eyes filled with tears as I shook my head in disbelief at him.

“I just… I cannot believe you. I cannot believe you would do this. I can’t even begin to understand why you would do something so vile, so disgusting, Rory.”

“It was for the greater good–”

“I don’t care!” I howled, my voice climbing too high though it shook. “You… you used me in a way that I don’t think I will ever be able to fully comprehend. And for what? So some kingdom could have an heir when it already has a King? Yes, Raegan is the King. The King of Talamh. No amount of forced heirs from me–” my voice cracked, the tears finally slipping from my eyes. “We are done. I… I can’t even look at you. And if I was a different person, Rory, I would gut you. Right here, right now, I would bleed you dry and I wouldn’t shed a single fucking tear. So be glad that I am who I am, because for once in my life I am struggling to grant mercy.”

His eyes were watering just as mine were, though his were wider and full of a hazy sort of confusion. “You don’t mean that. Please, let me just–”

The whole cellar structure that we were in rumbled. Not because of a harsh wind or some sort of earth-quake, but because of a roar. This roar was familiar in that I knew the owner of it, but unfamiliar in that it wasn’t rage or anger that caused the noise like usual, but pain.

Extreme pain.

That – knowing Raegan could cry out that way – ended the conversation between Rory and I within a second. I turned on my heel, my heart in my throat and my scalpel gripped in my hand, and ran towards that broken voice. Even though Rory begged me not to.

~

I was right in believing that we were underground, but it wasn’t a cellar that the Rachainn had taken us to but some sort of intricate series of dark, wet tunnels that I struggled to find my way through. Every-time I started to get lost, though, Raegan would release another one of his blood-curling screams and my feet would be pounding against the stone beneath me once more.

He had howled at least ten times already, each time his voice cracking more and more though he was louder and louder. But I could hear that faint weakening to his cries, evidence of whatever was happening to him breaking him, moment by moment.

When I turned the last corner, guided mostly by the lights around me that bounced reflections off of the collections of puddles every few feet, I understood why Raegan was breaking.

That turn led me into a large, open room. Yet again there was no natural sun in that space, no windows for it to pour through. Even if there had of been, I doubted the sun would have wanted to witness what was happening to the King in that murky room.

There were five Rachainn within the space. They had placed themselves randomly throughout the bare room, resorting to leaning against the rusty-coloured brick walls or crouched over their ankles as there seemed to be no sort of furniture. Four of them, I did not know.

One, I did.

The one that was stood next to Raegan, the one that was pulling cry after cry from him, I knew. Except it was not a Rachainn, as the other four were, as was Rory that had sprinted after me. No, who stood against the farthest wall, his eyes focused solely on Raegan and the heavy, agonized breathing that came from him, was a fairy.

Taran.

I might have spared an extra minute to appreciate that, to put the pieces of the puzzle together and somehow figure out who was on what side of this multi-faced war of Saoghal. But I couldn’t. Not when I got a look at Raegan, at what was making him bellow the way he was.

I doubted I would ever come to know how they managed to get him to reveal his wings.

His father had tried. Tremendously. Repetitively. Raegan had never given in, never revealed his most vulnerable, most treasured part of him.

Now, though, he had. Both of them were out, spread as wide as they could go. Raegan couldn’t pull them back, even if he wanted to, because they were pinned to the stone wall, two anchors on which his whole body hung from.

He was a few feet off of the ground, his toes scraping the floor only when he screamed and adrenaline stretched his body as far as it could go. His shirt had been ripped and discarded, likely to bring forth his wings, and Raegan was coated in a wild concoction of his own sweat, spit, and… blood.

Blood.