Page 6 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“Rory?” a man drawled, his voice a whole new form of deep that made me shudder. “You have brought a stranger?”

“No, Brian,” Rory stepped around me, placing himself ever-so-slightly in front of my body. “This is the one I was telling you about. You can come out, she won’t bite.” Rory winked at me.

Sliding my hand into the pocket of my scrubs, feeling the cold texture of the scalpel I had slipped in there, I rolled my eyes at Rory. Even though he was as he always was – joyful and quick to warm to – I wasn’t ready to forgive him.

Prepared to show him as much with the glare I had ready for him, all of it simply ceased to matter when a third person suddenly appeared in front of us. In reality, he had been there the whole time. But now he took to a size like us – like humans.

“Brian, meet Olivia,” Rory smiled at the both of us. “Olivia, meet Brian.”

Brian was… Brian was from Uisge. That much was obvious almost immediately, due to the fact he looked like a duck out of water. Like he could survive away from the water, but it was wilting him day-in and day-out. Everything about him looked far too dry, which was absurd – especially in this country.

On top of that, the signature blue-green-purple hue to his cracked skin, the long length of seaweed-green, straw-like hair, and unblinking, sky-blue eyes were enough to give away his kingdom of birth.

I must have been staring, because Brian cracked a small smile and dipped his chin at me before adding, “It is not easy for me to be away from the sea.”

A frown took over my brows before I could stop it.

“Just like I imagine it’s not easy for you to be away from Saoghal.”

“I’m not a pixie,” I spat out far too quickly. The truth about how I felt about that was there, right in my tone and my quick-defence. “So I have no right to miss Saoghal.”

Brian bobbed his head side-to-side, that overly-dry hair crinkling with each movement. “Perhaps.”

There was a knowing look upon his face as he bore his gaze into me once more, just as I saw a quick flash of Raegan’s eyes behind my own eyelids.

“It doesn’t come down to having the right or not having the right, does it?” Brian began to circle me, each of his movements slow and precise. I tried my best to stay still, focusing instead on the distorted reflection of Raegan in a grime-covered mirror in the corner of the room. “At the end of the day, it comes down to what lives deep in here.”

I swung my head over my shoulder to see Brian pointing at his heart.

“Don’t you agree?”

My tongue felt like lead in my mouth. I knew where this conversation was going and the hairs on the back of my neck simply kept rising. “Maybe. But I gave my word — at what point does what is in my heart get to override the clear rules that were set before me? At what point do I throw my loyalty and my honour to the wind?”

Brian let out a menacing chuckle as he finished the first circular prowl, pausing in front of me. “You truly wish to stay right in the middle, don’t you?”

“You are asking for my opinion on something I do not know enough about. My thoughts on the divide of your people should not matter.”

Brian went to say something, but I coughed out more words, finally finding a rhythm at which to spew them. “I will give you my opinion on one thing, though. The slaughter of your kin, of your flesh and blood – it makes it far too easy for me to look at you with nothing but disgust.” In an attempt to further my point, I let my eyes slide to those shaved ears of his.

“Ah,” Brian began his prowling again. “You would judge us all on the actions of a handful of radicals?”

“A handful?” I scoffed. “I was there – I saw who marched against the kingdoms of Saoghal. I saw your Rachainn in full force.”

Brian stopped, the absence of his shoes against the concrete beneath me somehow worse than when he was moving. “That was not the Rachainn in full force.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rory sigh and slide himself into an old, near-crumbling bar stool.

“What you saw, Olivia, were the Rachainn amongst us who believed the spilling of blood was the answer to our problems. They did not represent all of our views, and they certainly were not the full extent of our numbers.” Brian let out a far-too-eager laugh at that, making me pinch my eyes.

There was a shudder that took my whole body hostage as I continued to feel like prey.

I did not come to feel like prey.

“Why am I here?” I finally blurted.

All humour slipped off of Brian's face. “We have been left with no choice but to remove King Raegan from his thrones.”

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