40
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I learned, about two hours later, that the throne rites to a kingdom in Saoghal need to be witnessed by their religious powers — a Druid — and one other.
For that reason, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the few rays of it that penetrated Choilltean died, Raegan ushered everyone out of the throne room.
He left behind the only people that he wanted there— Killian, Niamh, Shea, the Druid, and… me.
All humour had disappeared from his face. All of that fox-like charm had slithered away. Instead of Raegan, a sly, cunning friend of mine, I was now looking up at a prince of Saoghal in every way. His chin had never been lifted so high, his shoulders never so square.
The doors creaked shut to the throne room and silence crashed down on us like a vengeful storm.
The Druid led Raegan up towards the throne, where the four of us were left to watch with our mouths slammed shut and our eyes far too dry.
He looked down at the throne. There was a hesitation in him, a rigidness to his spine, as he looked at that seat. All that it represented, all that it meant to him. With a deep breath pulled into his lungs, he turned to face us all and folded himself into it.
The air shifted. I felt it. The pixies at my side felt it. We all bristled.
The Druid crouched down and retrieved a second, newly carved crown that he had hidden away, and began a slow prowl towards the back of the throne where he finally paused.
The Druid looked up to the ceiling. “This one is Raegan. His full name is a curse, forgive me for the utterance of it in such a holy time. Gods of Saoghal, meet Raegan Righ’Fiodh’Faiche’Rugadh.”
I swore there was another shudder from the earth.
“From this day forward, know him as Raegan Righ’Fiodh’Rugadh.”
Raegan’s face pinched. There was agony within him.
I wasn’t sure if his other friends could see it, but I certainly could.
All I was left to think of was the Raegan of Cluaineach, bright blond-hair and hauntingly green eyes, haloed in sunlight with a head tipped back and throat bobbing, golden feathers snapped to either side of him, joyful smile upon his lips.
Duty and heart.
He had finally made a choice, it seemed.
“Raegan Righ’Fiodh’Rugadh,” the Druid continued, “do you accept this responsibility of ruler of Choilltean, protector of the people of Saoghal?”
“Y–”
Pandemonium spread across the room.
Rory had been right before. Raegan’s ascension to the throne was going to be a war, in and of itself. And in some ways, it was the events that came to pass during the beginning of his reign that threatened the downfall of Saoghal, not the Rachainn.
Everyone jerked violently as a group of pixies burst through the throne room door. Not just any pixies, but those of Cluaineach.
“Pause the succession at once!” Diarmuid howled as his group flooded the room.
But Raegan’s eyes glinted. His lips parted. Words were muttered to the Druid. The crown was lowered towards Raegan’s head.
Though there was shouting and screaming, metal crying, swords vibrating, the faintest ting of a taut bow string silenced the room.
I swore time froze as one lone, bold arrow soared across the space. Not towards Raegan, no, I refused to believe Rory was trying to kill his Prince. It was travelling towards the crown. To stop the succession.
Niamh didn’t know that, though. All she saw was an arrow travelling towards her Prince. Her friend. In a way, her brother. So she did what any of his friends would have done and made to stop it.
She didn’t deflect it with a shield. She didn’t deflect it with a sword. Niamh, the young pixie who should have been destined for anything but fighting, deflected that arrow from her Prince with her own body.
Raegan roared as it pierced her chest.
Everything and everyone around me blurred as I sprinted towards her crumbling body.
Raegan reached her and scooped her up before she could hit the ground, Killian, Shea, and me reaching her moments later.
Never before had this journey felt more like a dream than in that very moment. It was wrong, so wrong that someone as good, as pure as Niamh should fall victim to something as cowardice as an arrow.
A shaking hand pressed against her wound as her eyes dropped down towards it. “Oh, my — it… it hurts.”
It was selfish of me to break in the way that I did as I watched her young face pinch in agony.
I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t stop the tears, the creeping of darkness that settled above us all.
Her hand remained touching that arrow, her fingers soon coated with a thick layer of hot, steaming blood that filled the room with the tang of metal within seconds.
She finally registered us standing around her, looking at each of our faces with a lack of knowing in her eyes. She had no idea what was happening. Which made it even worse when she glanced at Raegan, still curled up in his arms, and let out a shuddering breath. “Raegan, it hurts.”
“I know,” he murmured, pressing his brows to hers. “I know it does.”
Her eyes started to widen, tears no longer streaming from them as her eyes set on something beyond us all. “Actually… it’s not so bad.”
Raegan’s whole body shuddered as he groaned against her, the noise so full of sorrow that my knees wavered.
“It’s… It’s okay, Raegan—” Her bloody hand found his, squeezing it ever so slightly. “—I-It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt so much now.”
We all knew what that meant. That was why Shea and Killian stepped forwards, each of them taking one of her outstretched hands.
She turned her head away from where she was rolled up against Raegan’s chest and found Killian at her side. “Perhaps it is me that is most reckless, after all.”
Killian wanted to laugh, for her sake, but he didn’t. He just stared at her, his skin pale and his lips trembling.
Her breathing was slowing. Her chest was moving less and less. Her eyes were focusing on nothing in particular, simply swiping around the room as blood continued to trickle from her one droplet at a time.
“I think… I think I’m quite tired—” She smiled at us all, her eyes finding Raegan once more. “I-I’m sorry, Raegan, I think I must rest during your ascension–”
“Shush,” he moaned as he pulled her tighter against him, her blood seeping into his clothes as his head remained bowed. “Find sleep now, my sweet friend.”
I was unsure how Raegan was even capable of talking. My own silent pain was taking my whole body hostage, forcing me to make jerked movements just to breathe.
With a smile I doubted would ever fade her joyful face, Niamh’s head went limp and Raegan wrapped himself around her, muffled sobs coating her dense hair.
Niamh did, indeed, find sleep. But she never awoke from it.
~
Raegan rose.
He was changed as he found balance over his feet, as he stared down the Cluaineach pixies who all halted and gasped at the murder of Niamh.
“Your… Your Highness,” Diarmuid stuttered as his eyes struggled to find Raegan’s and the war that lashed behind them. “Do not take the throne of Choilltean. We beg of you.”
For the first time in seeing the pixies of Cluaineach, they weren’t radiant with the light of the sun like it lived beneath their flesh. They were dull, like life would be incapable of resuming in their blood again.
Raegan was soulless as he looked down at Niamh, at his hands that were coated in her blood.
But the true shock came when he simply nodded. The Druid behind him gasped.
“Cluaineach calls me to her throne?” Raegan asked no one in particular.
Diarmuid said something in response. I didn’t hear him — I was too busy staring at Rory.
“Then Cluaineach shall have her heir,” Raegan sighed.
But I couldn’t quite hear him. Everything in me had stilled as I refused to blink away from Rory.
Rory, who in all of the chaos had released that bowstring.
The bowstring, that in its recoil had disturbed the straightness of Rory’s hair.
Rory’s hair, which was now pushed aside to reveal his ears.
His ears, which were no more.
Where they should have been was torn flesh, their removal recent from the puffiness of the flesh.
His eyes met mine.
He looked at my agape mouth and the betrayal in my eyes.
As he pushed his hair back over his lack of ear, I stared at the traitor of Saoghal.