Page 26 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“Not without encouragement from King Nevan, I assume,” Killian grumbled.

“Assumably,” Raegan sighed. “We must win Queen Tonn’s favour back. She had faith in my kingdoms, in me, all that time ago. She has never been fond of Choilltean, but she found it in her heart to ally with us, only because of the life debt she felt fall into her lap.”

I was stabbing a carrot over and over with my fork. I was on the third line of stab marks when I realized the conversation had stopped. Awkwardly, I looked up from the massacre of my food to see everyone was staring at me.

“Me?” I gasped.

“You saved the Prince of Uisge,” Aisling ushered across the table. Her pitch and excitement at such a feat was far too familiar to Niamh, forcing my eyes away from her.

“She will not speak to me, nor will she speak to any of my messengers that I said,” Raegan continued, “but you, Olivia… I believe she will entertain a conversation with you.”

“That’s why you want me to stay? To go and speak with Queen Tonn?”

Shea looked between the two of us several times with a general frown.

“Yes. You very well might be the last hope for my kingdom. Yet again.”

“She cannot go alone,” Killian grumbled.

“Killian is right. If Queen Tonn suspects she is anything more than a messenger to you, Raegan–”

“Quiet,” Raegan hissed. “I am aware, which is why she will be escorted there and back. Queen Tonn would not dare ail herself with the curse of harming a messenger. She knows that she would face the judgement of the gods.”

Shea snorted as she folded her arms over her chest.

“So I will send with her–”

“Me,” Killian barked. “I will go.”

Raegan’s eyes were capable of flaying bones from flesh with the look that he offered Killian. “I was going to send Shea.”

My face twisted in a complete reflection of what, exactly, I thought of that suggestion. It wasn’t like I disliked Shea… We were just as compatible as a puppy and a honey badger.

“I’ll go with Killian,” I said, refusing to meet the gaze of any of the three of them. I highly doubted Shea would even care, Raegan would have no choice but to go along with my decision, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to see on Killian's face. Relief or disappointment? Both would have forced me into another state of confusion.

Needless to say, the remainder of dinner was had in complete silence.

13

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Killian slipped away from the meal first, right as the silence became somehow more detrimental to my mind than the loudest of sounds. Even though I could feel Raegan’s eyes on my every movement, I rose from my seat, offered everyone a goodnight, and trotted after Killian.

I caught up to him just as he stepped onto the first of the twisting staircase.

He must have heard me the moment I rose, because he was frozen there, his eyes waiting for me to appear in the hallway. As I did, his expression both softened and hardened, unable to decide wholly on which form it wanted to take.

“You didn’t need to leave just because I left.”

I waved him off as I finally arrived at his side. “Walk me back to my room?”

He nodded, offering me the bend of his elbow that I took with ease. Each one of our steps up the stone stairs echoed throughout the entire castle, muffling out the faint trace of laughter in other rooms and chatter amongst the other levels.

“You were very quiet,” Killian said after we levelled out on the third floor.

“I suppose I was,” I hummed, letting his broad arm nearly drag me along. “If I’m being completely honest, I thought that returning here would feel just as it felt the first time.”

“And it does not?” he asked, though we both knew that he already knew the answer to that. I waited to answer him until he finished opening my door, to which I dragged him in behind me.