Page 11 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“And Olivia?”

I met his eyes over my shoulder.

“Whatever you do – don’t let your guard down.”

Heeding his warning, I finally peeled my body away from his midst and continued forward, pushing through blade after blade.

~

It took almost an hour for the grass to thin out around me, the sight familiar to the few trips that I had taken into the depths of Cluaineach. Even though the country was vengeful with its heavy rain and frigid temperatures, it was as if the kingdom was incapable of being deterred. Flowers sprouted around me in all directions, the overpowering scent of pollen dancing around my face at every turn.

The grass continued on, green and plentiful, for another half hour, before it finally took to the razed-down length where it only managed to reach my knees.

There, along the horizon, was Cluaineach.

I could see the stretch of houses that made up the first village, coupled with the varying colours of mushrooms that sprouted amongst the homes. Then it was the fireflies, present whether it was day or night, floating from surface to surface and casting a light across the tremendous kingdom.

Yet in Cluaineach, it wasn’t the fireflies that managed to bring an ethereal glow across the land. It was the sun that transformed a mere kingdom into a place of immense magnificence. A surreal, mystical-like glow that melted over every inch of the place, haloing every structure and begging me to walk towards it.

Which is exactly what I did. I walked faster than I had ever walked before, my legs burning but my chest aching. It felt like my upper body was in a press, forcing more and more out of my lungs with every step I took towards Cluaineach, as if no pace was fast enough to drive me right towards the roadway. I was only a few more minutes away from reaching that roadway, when someone stepped out onto it.

He could have been wearing a cloak. He could have been wearing a robe of the blackest material. He could have been missing his face – stripped of any feature that made him, him. In any of those situations, I would have known him. I would have known him before I saw him, before I smelled him, before I touched him.

The King of Cluaineach.

Raegan.

He wasn’t a hallucination this time. I was sure of it. And as my feet continued to push and push and push me towards him, his whole body froze. His back snapped straight, his eyes pinched together, and he cast his gaze across the meadow.

Raegan looked right at me.

6

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Raegan.

I was looking at Raegan.

Even though I had seen him every hour of every day for the entirety of my time away from him – it still punched all of the air from my body as our eyes met. I felt the need to gasp, to desperately refill my lungs as the King of Choilltean and Cluaineach – Talamh – stared at me.

He looked so familiar yet so unfamiliar. His hair, now flourishing as a radiant golden hue with dark brown peppered throughout, was brushed through, half of it tied up messily on his head. Which meant that his ears, still mutilated and destroyed beyond belief, were on show for all to see. What was left of his ears was adorned with all sorts of jewels, just like when I had first met him. Golds and silvers, both man-made treasures and that of the earth, hung from his ears, his neck, his arms.

Around his body he did not wear the familiar clothes of Choilltean – those leaf-like, cotton-textured clothes that I had worn for a month. He did not wear the familiar clothes of Cluaineach – that thin, near-translucent material that was tough and supportive yet felt as light as wearing nothing. Instead, Raegan wore what I could only describe as what a king of pixies would wear. A tight black shirt tucked into loose fitting trousers, completed with a regal surcoat of leather that stretched beyond his waist. It was tight in every place it should be, loose everywhere else. It revealed his broad, impossibly muscular shoulders, his testing biceps, and the sharp cut of his body.

But his eyes. They took to that fox-like shape that I had become far too familiar with. Far from the soft, glimmering eyes that I had last looked into atop a balcony in the castle of Choilltean. No, this Raegan had the eyes of the Prince I had met at the beginning of it all, the wickedness across his face just as it had been the day he killed Diarmuid and took both thrones.

It stole another gasp from me, for a whole different reason.

Raegan was as beautiful as he had ever been; as regal, poised, and radiant. Yet he was also as threatening as he had ever been; as sharp, dangerous, and enticing. It made me shudder.

His head craned ever so slightly as he blinked at me. There was no shock across his features, nor was there any sign of disappointment. Which, considering the last time I was here I had promised to never seek Saoghal – or him – out again, made me tilt my own head, freeing some of my hair across my shoulder.

Small, perfectly calm and calculated steps brought him towards me. I couldn’t move – I was stuck in place, petrified by both his excellence and his darkness.

There was an odd smirk on his face as he stopped in front of me, forcing me to tilt my chin slightly to make up for his towering height.

His hand reached up towards my face, his finger wrapping around one of those strands of hair, just as he had the first day he met me. Tilting his own head, that malicious look seemed to disappear, if only for a minute, as he sighed.