6
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After leading me up a spiralling staircase of branches, dragging me down two hallways, and shutting the door behind me as we stopped in what I could only assume were the ‘guest chambers’, Killian let out a deep breath.
I was twirling around the room like a child, dancing from the plush bed to the small woven couch, pausing at the bay-window to look out at the woodland beyond, and starting all over again.
“I have so many questions!” I squealed as Killian watched me with a smile on his face.
“And I might have some answers,” he chuckled as he approached. Once he was a few feet from me, I stopped my spinning and chaotic movements, sensing the seriousness in his face.
I wasn’t sure why I trusted Killian, I just did. It was likely my unconscious mind identifying him as my dream-guide, or something. Whatever it was, it was the only reason I didn’t flinch as he took a small step closer to me.
“Let’s have dinner together tonight,” he said, his voice breathier than normal as his eyes scanned every inch of my face.
Gulping before he could notice how much my hands were shaking, I nodded. “I’d like that.”
He reached up and tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear, his focus snatched by the absurdity of their shape for a moment before he finally found my eyes again. “You can ask me all of the questions you desire then. For now, I have to go back. Please, stay here.”
“In this room?”
He narrowed his eyes as he fought a grin. “In this room. I won’t be there to protect you if you wander off.”
Protect me? How violent could pixies possibly be?
Just a dream.
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
I matched his smile. “Yes. I’ll wait here for you.”
His eyes roved over my face a second and third time before he took a large step back, bowed at his waist, and left the room.
~
It only took ten minutes for boredom to kick me up off of the strange, grass-packed couch. Boredom mixed with the slow creep of dread back into my mind as I was left alone with only my thoughts. It seemed like the more I moved, the less I seeped into that deep pit of tar. So I started pacing.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Until a small door tucked into the shadows of my room caught my attention and brought my panicked stroll right to it. I pushed at the wooden slab until a second, tiny room was revealed. And in it, clothes.
Similar to what the pixies wore, hanging along stretched branches and laying out an assortment of shirts and pants.
With that revelation, I had an idea…
Once I was changed into the dark green attire that began at my neck and ended at my feet, I got to work on my hair.
I slipped into an adjoining room that was supposed to be a bathroom of sorts, yet there was no running water and I highly questioned the plumbing system that they had going on.
Luckily for me, I wasn’t in there for those services but to locate a mirror.
Instead of a pane of glass like what I had hanging over my sink back at home, the pixies had a strange bowl that was hung on the wall, filled with water that should have trickled out of it due to gravity but was somehow confined to the boundaries of the sideways container.
The fluid within rippled over and over, a continuous motion that I had no choice but to assume was how it stayed upright.
While my reflection in it wasn’t perfect, it was good enough to provide me insight as to how my efforts on my hair were faring.
I had stormed across the bedroom on a mission, picking up a variety of natural debris from tiny twigs to torn pieces of leaves, and took them all to the bathroom.
There, I spent a lengthy amount of time scrunching and twisting my hair until it looked far too similar to a bird's nest. Once I had that wild texture figured out, I got to work on inputting the various pieces into my hair.
At last, I stepped towards the floating pool of liquid and admired myself. I looked like I had just survived a month on a mountain-survival show. Which was to say I looked like a woodland pixie.
I hadn’t taken the time to assess how the pixies moved, so assuming that they walked the same way that I did, I slipped out of the guest chambers and clung to the outside of the door as I cast a gaze left and right down the hallway. No one was lingering.
Puffing out my chest as I basked in my success, I got to work slowly moving down the length of the hallway as I tried to remember where the staircase was.
Once I found it — at the help of a group of fireflies that were floating behind me no matter how many times I swatted at them — I began the steep descent down the spiralled shape until I was on the main floor once more.
Having completely forgotten where the throne room even was, I was thankful when a loud roar of voices echoed across the too-quiet castle, drawing my attention — and feet — in their direction.
One foot in front of the other, my eyes constantly swinging from the path ahead of me to the path behind me, occasionally pausing on the fireflies and uttering curses to them, I found myself around the corner to the throne room.
I knew it was the right place when I tried to take the corner only to see four guards standing at arms in front of it, spears pointed to the ceiling as each of them took turns yawning.
But I was close enough. I could hear most of what was being said.
“ – It’s outrageous!”
“ – Completely unacceptable –”
“They should be–”
“Why are–”
An assortment of shouting was carried across every inch of the castle, until one voice more powerful and ruthless than the rest silenced them all with one word.
“Enough.”
Prince Raegan had been capable of silencing Shea, Niamh, and Killian with a similar motion, but that was not his voice. Drawing up the only logical conclusion, I decided that perhaps it was their King.
“Apologies, Your Majesty. It’s just that they need to be dealt with. We must hunt them down.”
The King let out a guttural noise. “We will do no such thing. Pixie blood has not been spilled by our own for decades in Saoghal, and we will ensure it remains that way.”
“If I may, Your Majesty?” The silence following suggested that the speaker was given permission. “If we do not act soon, they threaten everything. Everything that you have worked so hard to restore. We could lose it all.”
Just a dream.
But the thought of these creatures, which I knew nothing about, losing this little slice of paradise? It made my stomach stir.
“Your suggestions are outrageous, Fergus. I suggest you keep them to yourself.”
I swallowed my own thoughts, as if I was inclined to offer them. It was a surprise to me that anyone would dare speak again after being shut down in such a way by the King. But they did.
“Prince Raegan? Would you like to share your thoughts on the matter?”
“Oh Conway, bore me with your politics any other day,” Prince Raegan responded, his voice far too familiar to me.
I could even picture the way that his eyes would have rolled as he sighed, slumping back into whatever chair he had found.
“My ceadan have received no such reports as what you all claim.”
Arguing arose once more, voices climbing higher and higher as everyone fought for a moment to speak.
“Your King’s decision in this matter is final. Poke and prod for favour with us another time,” the Prince grumbled.
“I did not mean to–”
The abrupt way in which the speaker halted their sentence suggested another one of Prince Raegan’s lifted hands. In my mind, I could see the brown rings upon each of his fingers as he lifted them.
Far too much silence stretched, enough to suggest the end of whatever meeting they were having. Yet no bodies emerged from the throne room.
One appeared behind me, though. Their chest grazed my back as their breath skimmed my neck. “I could have your ears for eavesdropping.”
I spun around without thinking, my head nearly knocking into the chest of Prince Raegan as he glared down at me.
One of his jewelled fingers lifted as a stray hair fell from my face, wrapping itself around his finger while he watched. “You look like you’ve just come from the barnyard.”
We were far too close. I was breathing death into my lungs. But why did my body welcome it so?
Just a dream.
“I thought I looked like one of you.”
Prince Raegan snorted as one corner of his lips rose. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered by your attempt or insulted.”
Then the Prince paused, his eyes becoming impossibly darker as he let his finger fall through that strand of hair. And from his lips came a whisper, a murmur, something that I would never be sure that he intended to say. “Your hair, it is like sunlight.”
It was hard to tell what the Prince was thinking at any given moment. Such lifelessness resided in his eyes as he returned to staring at me.
“Forgive me, Prince Raegan—” I tried a curtsy like I had seen actresses do on TV all the time, and dipped my chin.
“Oh, none of that,” he spat, stepping backwards. “I’m not sure what you just did with your knees there, but you looked like an ailed donkey. Do not do that again.”
“Apologies, Prince Rae–”
“Raegan,” he snapped. “Only Raegan.”
“Raegan.” I tried a small smile, if only to lessen my chances of death as the pixie refused to blink. I regretted questioning how violent these creatures could be — I could see it in the rigidness of the Prince’s spine and the tension in his flickering jaw.
“Run along now, little human. You might just make it back to your chambers before Killian arrives there.”
Raegan pivoted on his heel, his other foot only just leaving the ground as I spat out a thought far too quickly. “I have a question.”
“Ask your keeper,” he said, without turning to face me.
Just a dream.
No matter how much I tried to convince myself as such on my jog back to my room, I found myself struggling more and more to believe it.
~
I slammed down on the couch only seconds before Killian stepped into the room.
“Keep yourself busy?” He cocked his head as his eyes roamed from my tousled hair to the outfit that matched his, save for the armour.
“You could say that.” I tried, and failed, to hide just how much I was panting. “You?”
He rolled his head left to right as he freed a knot in his neck, before he got to work on removing his leathers. “You could say that.”
“You mentioned dinner?”
He looked as carefree as ever as he lifted a brow in my direction.
“What, exactly, do pixies eat?”
Whereas Raegan used scowls to look malicious, Killian used wild grins. He managed one for me, winked, then stretched a hand out in my direction. “Let me show you.”