38
____________________
Apparently, the pixies of Choilltean did have attire other than leaves and thread shirts and pants. This was a shock to me, especially when Niamh arrived the next morning with a handful of clothes and more of her powders and things for my hair.
Unlike the last time Niamh had helped me get ready, this time we did not share light, easy chatter.
We hardly spoke at all, actually. Only here and there, when she’d ask me how I wanted my hair to look, or when she’d observe that she had a feeling she accidentally put too much red powder on my cheeks.
Other than that, we let silence sit between us as the eerie events of the last few days hung over us like a reaper to the dead.
When she was finished, my hair had been tamed to look like I did own a brush, the strands pulled back into a loose bun, enough hair pulled from the fronts of it to cover the majority of my ears.
My face was painted in a variety of powders and kohl, which for the sake of a funeral I thought might be a little much but Niamh just kept tapping and tapping more of it onto my skin.
But the dress that I wore — it was Choilltean in the way that it was dark green, the very colour of the shadows of leaves.
It spanned the length of my body, beginning in a low plunge in the neckline, an almost non-existent back, and ending with flowing material down near my ankles where it turned nearly translucent.
It sort of reminded me of the material of dragon-fly wings, a light material that could have one thinking they weren’t wearing anything if not for the vibrant colours dyed into it.
“You look beautiful, Olivia,” Niamh exclaimed as she smiled at me.
“Should I, though?” I pinched at my face, my brow and cheek meeting as one on the side of my face. “Should I maybe not look so… put together?”
Niamh cackled to me as she swept her way around the room, finishing the final touches to her own dress, her own face, her own hair.
It was redundant to say that Niamh looked beautiful, Niamh always looked beautiful.
It was like calling the sun warm or the grass green.
But she did look slightly chaotic as she dove from room to room, incoherently babbling to herself with every movement.
“Niamh?”
“Hmm?”
I shook my head with a small smile on my face. “Don’t you think I should look a little less…”
She waved a hand in my direction as she finally finished her rapid movements. “You’re fine. Our funeral rites are a time of celebration of life lived, not the mourning of death like you humans. You look appropriately excited for the rites.”
I didn’t feel excited for the rites. Not only did I have no idea what they might look like, but it almost felt wrong for me to be included in the celebration of the King’s life. I didn’t know him well, if at all, and in a way I just felt like an intruder.
But then there would be the ceremonial rites for the throne of Choilltean.
The day of crowning the new King of Choilltean.
Raegan’s ceremony. No matter how I felt about Raegan, I had promised I would be there.
That I would be at his side as he made his ascent to the throne, as the crown was placed on his head.
I would not break that promise, not now, so with a long draw of breath into my lungs I nodded at Niamh and let her lead me out of my own room.
When we opened the door, Killian had one hand raised where he was preparing to knock.
“You’re ready?” He tried, and failed, to hide his own shock at that simple success Niamh and I had managed.
“Why, of course.” She let a sweetness pull the corner of her lips from ear to ear as she swung past him out of the door. Once she made it into the hallway and tossed her eyes over her shoulder, realizing I wasn’t following her, that smile slipped off of her face. “Aren’t you coming, Olivia?”
“Actually—”
“Can you give us a moment, Niamh?” Killian answered for me, allowing me to release a deep sigh.
Her eyes flicked between us for a moment, the desire to pinch and squeeze her features apparent in the creases of her brows as she contemplated his simple request. Ultimately, she twitched one brow, let out a faint hmph and spun away from us.
“Killian, I—”
For the second time he cut me off, this time not with his words but with his body.
One hand reached forward, wrapping the length of his arm around my waist where he tugged my body against his.
The second cupped the side of my cheek, his finger gently grazing the highest point of my cheek.
As if that wasn’t enough to still my beating heart, he stepped impossibly closer to me, his neck bent to allow for the briefest of contact between his nose and my forehead.
It put him at an awkward angle, his body far too large to try and match mine, but he managed with an air of cockiness that he wore like a badge of honour.
“Are you doing okay?” he breathed, his breath skimming over my face and leaving my lungs little chance at ever filling to capacity again. He was so close, his body, his chest, his chin, his lips. They were right there, if only I pushed up onto my toes…
“Olivia?”
“What?”
Humoured, as he often was, Killian let out a small chuckle. “Are you okay?”
I let my eyes meet his. I let all that I was shine through that point of contact, until I could feel into my very soul.
“Yes—” I smiled, “—yes, I am. I really, really am.”
And I meant it.
He matched that soft smile, decades of crinkles and divots in his face fading away just as the world did behind us.
And just when I thought that the air around us couldn’t feel any more perfect, he let the straightness of his knees falter until my height was his height.
The hand that had been against my chin moved, his thumb and finger pinching at my chin and tilting my head upright.
There, his lips skimmed mine, the gentlest of touches yet more powerful than a gust of wind, nearly knocking me to my knees with how it rushed over me in waves.
Which was why I stumbled away.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s okay.” My bottom lip trembling, I nodded at him. “It’s okay. It’s just… I’m leaving soon.”
That wasn’t the entirety of what I wanted to say.
What I wanted to say was that I didn’t want to wake up everyday and feel ghostly lips against mine.
I didn’t want to be at the clinic and feel a breeze tickle at my chin just as his hand did.
I didn’t want to live with the reminder of him in a mind that couldn’t remember him.
“Right—” He nodded, his brows pinching ever so slightly as he offered me the bend of his arm. “Shall we?”
“We shall.”
~
At least Niamh hadn’t been lying. The funeral rites were definitely not what I was used to.
The pixies of Choilltean spared no expense —not that they had such things as expenses — in the grandeur of the event. The sight of the castle of Choilltean even contested the brilliance of the Beltane Ball, which I never thought would have been possible.
Bodies flitted through the halls of the castle as Killian led me, fireflies buzzing around our heads and ivy swinging on the walls.
Gowns were worn, long stretches of elegant material and well-tamed hair, sparkling powders dabbed onto faces and kohl lining their eyes.
The major difference between the funeral and the Beltane Ball, though, was that the only pixies present were from Choilltean.
Only curled down ears, dark hair, and haunting eyes could be seen on the walk from my chambers to the throne room.
The excellence continued into the throne room.
A feast had been erected on both sides, meats and fruits and vegetables all thoroughly spiced and seasoned, the smell soaring into my nose before my eyes even found the tables.
Between the bowls and plates and basins were hundreds, possibly thousands, of goblets of nectar.
That was where I found Raegan and Shea, chatting to themselves as they pressed the clayed cups to their lips.
“It’s incredibly disgusting,” Shea huffed as Killian and I reached them, Niamh appearing only seconds later.
“It’s incredible,” Raegan purred as he taunted Shea, earning him a swat in his direction that he ducked under and chuckled to himself.
“Is he doing it again?” Niamh asked before pretending to gag.
“Doing what?” I laughed along with them, their wide smiles and gleaming eyes.
“This freak—” Shea rolled her eyes as she hooked a thumb at Raegan, “—spices everything with cayenne.”
I glanced down at his nectar and winced. “Like… everything?”
Raegan held my eye contact as he took a pinch of the red powder and sprinkled it into his drink.
I didn’t even have to pretend to gag, the convulsion ripped through my spine and I had to clench my jaw against the desire.
They all burst into laughter just as Shea grabbed an apple from the table and tore into it with her sharpened fangs.
Conversation was floating from wall to wall as more and more pixies filtered in. The only space in the throne room that was left hauntingly empty was a large slab of rock, dead-center, that had something atop it where a sheet had been thrown across.
~
Killian and I moved from space to space, engaging in small-talk and light-chatter with the fair folk.
Most of the time, I was staring at my boots beneath my dress and hoping that none of them would ask anything of me.
Thankfully, it was few and far between that one of the pixies even noticed me at Killian’s side.
All discussion stopped when several large thuds echoed through the space, all eyes spinning to the source.
Raegan was standing behind the stone-table, the Druid hovering over his shoulder wearing some odd draping-material that was solid black.
Of everyone here, he looked to be the only one appropriately dressed for a funeral. A human funeral, though.
“People of Choilltean,” Raegan declared as he lifted his goblet and smacked against it with a stone a few more times. “Gather around, it is time to begin.”