Page 43 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“I don’t think so, Little.”

Not reassuring.

“A human!” Stoirm roared. “You took a human as your caraid? Mighty Land-Shatterer, Urram of the Grey Skies! I remember your vow never to accept any caraid.”

That would have been heart-warming and slightly complimentary, if Stoirm didn’t sound so outraged by it.

“And yet I did,” Urram said, his voice a lethal calm that made me fear a fight was coming. “Your experience with one will not be mine, old friend.”

“We shall see.” The look I received from the great water-snake was in no way welcoming. “What does it want here? Why do you venture into my kingdom, Urram of Death’s Song?”

I was making a mental note to ask Urram where he obtained his many colourful names. So far, the only nicknames I had offered him were short at: Stinky-Bird, Bird-Bastard, Shrieking-Shit, and, my favourite, a simple Asshole. They paled in comparison to the mighty titles Stoirm laid on him, I must admit.

“Go on without me, Olivia. I have matters to discuss with Stoirm.”

Frowning, I slid off of his side and paddled my way to his fish-face. “Don’t start something you can’t finish down here, Urram.”

“I finish all that I start.”

“That really doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Go, Little. We dragons do not petty-squabble like you fleshy creatures.”

My caraid was so insulting sometimes.

“If I catch wind that you’re fighting out here, Urram, you’ll be eating only spinach for the rest of your immortal life.”

He flinched. “Plech. Not the spinach!”

“Behave,” I warned him, patting his face as lovingly as I could before I turned my attention back to Brynn and Killian, both of which were waiting for me to swim along with them.

Ahead of us, the palace doors swung open.

And then came a voice, sweet and soft. “Ah, I was wondering when he would send you.”

21

____________________

When I had last seen Queen Tonn of Uisge, it had been on the back of a creature as she bellowed a cry of war and led her people into a mass slaughter opposite the Rachainn.

Now, the Queen of Uisge was a queen once more. The long, sea-blue hair of her was still tucked gently and easily behind her shoulders, where the same strands of seaweed and accents of small shells were wound throughout the vibrant colours.

Her eyes were darker beneath the surface, not quite blue but more of that indigo colour, that hue that suggested a slow leak of purple across her iris’. But that was not the major difference in our last meeting to now. No, that would be her attire. And her legs.

Of which, she had neither.

Other than the sandstone crown with small gems and intricate carvings upon her head, Queen Tonn was revealed to the water around her. But like Bryn, she had skin that appeared to be more rubber in nature than the skin Killian and I had, and it stretched from her hairline down to her, well, tail. Also like Bryn, Queen Tonn no longer had two powerful limbs beneath her waist but one, long and twirling, covered in scales and ending in a fanned out fin.

Queen Tonn regarded both Killian and I with a long scrape of her eyes from our feet – no tail in sight – to the tops of our heads – out of which our hair flowed without control from us.

“I wish for your audience, Queen Tonn,” I tried, and failed, to curtsey to the Queen of Uisge. The water around me contorting my movements until I looked as if I was trying to twist myself into that of a pretzel.

“And you shall have it, Olivia.”

~

There was nothing more to say as Queen Tonn turned away and led us deep into her castle. To my surprise, it was not so dissimilar to the castles I had already walked within Saoghal, other than it being completely underwater of course.