5
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I was fairly confident I could get in and out of Saoghal within a day for what I needed. Confident enough that I did not go to Urram – I did not tell him my plans, nor did I say goodbye, because I knew what he would say about it.
I would come to regret that.
Rory escorted me – alone – to Marazion. It was strange in that the moment we stepped out of the pub, there was a high sun across the country that I had not seen since winter started.
It was radiant and powerful, slipping over my skin and forcing me to remember exactly what it felt like to be in Cluaineach once more.
I allowed myself to slip into delusion, to pretend that it was some divine force relieved at my soon-to-be reunion with Saoghal.
Our painful walk into Marazion ended right as we glanced across the stretching causeway, the rocks that built it slowly drying as the tide continued to drop beneath them.
My eyes focused on the blanket of blue to the side of me, that had a name in the human world but I could no longer see as anything other than Uisge.
I looked to Rory, who I knew was starting preparations to shrink us and stumble our way through Cluaineach.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Rory didn’t bother looking at me, but he had a small smile on his face as we walked along, his attention mostly on that of trying to identify the beginning of the border of Cluaineach in the wild grass that bordered the bay.
“Why… Why did you change sides, Rory? I’ve only ever heard it from the opinions of the others. And I’d… Well, I’d like to hear it from one of you.”
His eyes narrowed as he turned his head ever-so-slightly to catch a glimpse of my face. That brilliant, neon-purple hair of his was as bright as ever under that persistent sun, furthering his overall unnatural glow.
He reached a hand out and I nervously accepted it. Once our skin grazed one another, the world shifted just as it had over a year ago. The grass around me elongated, until they were not small, sharp spires against my shoes, but towering masses on all sides of us.
I grunted as he released me, stumbling backwards and managing to catch my balance before I collapsed in the mud.
While it should have felt wrong to be in this form again, just as it had the first time I did it, there was a sense of relaxation that spread over my entire body.
My chest felt both tight and loose, thrumming with life yet numb to the elements.
I swallowed, trying to rid myself of that feeling, and turned my attention back to Rory who was still staring at me.
“You continue to surprise me,” he finally said, adjusting the backpack over his shoulders a few times. “If only the rest of Saoghal saw things as you did – perhaps none of this would have come to pass.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t make me into some sort of living martyr for your cause. I am curious, that is all.”
He smirked at me as I frowned, then motioned for us to begin walking. I would never quite understand how the pixies were able to navigate a world so large, especially when we were surrounded by nothing other than stretching blades of grass.
“I never sympathized with the Rachainn,” he began, treading carefully in front of me and checking over his shoulder every few seconds to assure I was upright.
“Until Diarmuid sent me into the human town one day to investigate a disturbance. Fairies, they thought. Not uncommon, especially on the far border of Cluaineach where the fairies stumble through the human world.”
I hadn’t been able to relax my frown, even more so as he spoke about the fairies. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had ever seen any, yet had no idea. I didn’t even know what they looked like.
“It was the day after the attack on Uisge, the day after the attack on the dragon's den. Aisling and I had just returned home from the Beltane Ball, and I hadn’t even had a chance to settle back home before Diarmuid had me pursuing the fairies.”
Aisling. I wanted to ask him where she was, if she knew about what he was doing. Especially because they seemed to be inseparable. But I didn’t want to interrupt him and lose the opportunity of some answers.
“It wasn’t fairies causing a disturbance, but some of the Rachainn who had been exiled from Saoghal. And it wasn’t a disturbance, just a bar-fight-gone-wrong that involved a—” Rory paused to let out a big laugh, “—just a young pixie female who decided to submerge a drunken patron in water.”
His face had changed. It was light and soft, his eyes bright and alert. And that laugh – it melted into a smile on his face as he shook his head a few times.
“I looked at her, this threat that I was supposed to deal with, and I knew, Olivia.” He stopped walking, turning to face me instead with so much joy on his face. “I just knew.”
“You knew what?” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure why. It was as if making a loud noise could shatter this bubble of happiness around Rory, who I didn’t realize could be more happy than the pixie I had met all those months ago.
“She was my mate. I looked at her and it just… It nearly suffocated me. I fell to the floor, and my chest – it was like it was being crushed, only for her presence to breathe life back into it. Into me. It was… It was like a death and a rebirth in the span of ten seconds.”
I was smiling. I didn’t want to smile, not with how furious I was at him. But I was smiling because how could someone listen to such a description and not smile? What was life, if not for living for that?
“She’s a spitfire, Olivia. She really is. I can’t wait for you two to meet.”
Rory was back again, living in this freeze-frame as if we had never snapped into a place of enemies. Like we were still friends, offering me that sharp smile that he had always offered me.
“You joined the Rachainn just because she was one?”
He shook his head several times. “No. Not at all. I joined the Rachainn because even if I had been capable of convincing her to come back to Saoghal – and trust me, there’s no convincing Maeve to do anything – we could never have been together.”
“She is from Uisge,” I sighed.
“Yes.” That humour melted off of his face as his features darkened.
“The thought of being torn from her…” His fists clenched at his side before he let out a deep breath.
“Nothing exists for me in this world outside of her, now. You have to understand that. How was I supposed to simply… let her go? Why would Cernunnos pair us if we were not supposed to be together? And it was then, right at that moment, that I doubted all the rules I had stood by.”
I nodded at him, once and then twice, before I let my eyes fall to the floor.
For a long while after learning of the Rachainn, I had my doubts about what side I stood on, torn between understanding my friends, their culture, their ways, and understanding the desire for change within Saoghal.
But hearing that – hearing him describe his whole lifeline being a pixie from another kingdom, bound to love one another by the gods themselves – it was harder than ever to understand why Saoghal kept such strict rules.
~
After walking in utter silence, Rory twisted his hair over his shoulder and finally stopped. “We’re here.”
The scenery around me had hardly changed for over an hour. We were still bordered on all sides by thick strands of grass that Rory continuously pushed through. The sky was still witnessing it all above, a mirage of blues that were further assisted by that overpowering sun in the midst of winter.
“I can’t…” Rory shook his head a few times, a moisture in those amethyst eyes. “I can’t cross the border.”
“Magic?”
“No,” he shot me a knowing look, a sorrowful smile on his face. “I just… I can’t. I don’t want to return home – not until it can be a home for both Maeve and I.”
Pity drove me to take Rory’s hand in mine, squeezing ever so slightly. “I can go on alone.”
He pulled the pack from his back, a tattered fabric-thing that looked like it had joined him for several pub-crawls. From it, he retrieved a shrunken human water-bottle, plastic and all, that was filled with that familiar pink juice.
“Drink it slowly, Olivia.” He glanced around, his eyes scanning our surroundings several times before he looked back at me.
“We will aim to meet here tomorrow, when the sun sits in the same position in the sky.” I looked up, only to be interrupted from doing so by Rory grabbing my shoulder.
“Be safe. Come back here tomorrow, regardless of what happens.”
Nodding, I went to turn away.
“And Olivia?”
I met his eyes over my shoulder.
“Whatever you do – don’t let your guard down.”
Heeding his warning, I finally peeled my body away from his midst and continued forward, pushing through blade after blade.
~
It took almost an hour for the grass to thin out around me, the sight familiar to the few trips that I had taken into the depths of Cluaineach.
Even though the country was vengeful with its heavy rain and frigid temperatures, it was as if the kingdom was incapable of being deterred.
Flowers sprouted around me in all directions, the overpowering scent of pollen dancing around my face at every turn.
The grass continued on, green and plentiful, for another half hour, before it finally took to the razed-down length where it only managed to reach my knees.
There, along the horizon, was Cluaineach.
I could see the stretch of houses that made up the first village, coupled with the varying colours of mushrooms that sprouted amongst the homes. Then it was the fireflies, present whether it was day or night, floating from surface to surface and casting a light across the tremendous kingdom.
Yet in Cluaineach, it wasn’t the fireflies that managed to bring an ethereal glow across the land.
It was the sun that transformed a mere kingdom into a place of immense magnificence.
A surreal, mystical-like glow that melted over every inch of the place, haloing every structure and begging me to walk towards it.
Which is exactly what I did. I walked faster than I had ever walked before, my legs burning but my chest aching.
It felt like my upper body was in a press, forcing more and more out of my lungs with every step I took towards Cluaineach, as if no pace was fast enough to drive me right towards the roadway.
I was only a few more minutes away from reaching that roadway, when someone stepped out onto it.
He could have been wearing a cloak. He could have been wearing a robe of the blackest material.
He could have been missing his face – stripped of any feature that made him, him.
In any of those situations, I would have known him.
I would have known him before I saw him, before I smelled him, before I touched him.
The King of Cluaineach.
Raegan.
He wasn’t a hallucination this time. I was sure of it. And as my feet continued to push and push and push me towards him, his whole body froze. His back snapped straight, his eyes pinched together, and he cast his gaze across the meadow.
Raegan looked right at me.