18
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Right as we walked towards the shoreline of Mount’s Bay – Uisge – it hit me. And then I was confused and disappointed in myself for only realizing it then and there.
“Uisge is underwater,” I spat out.
Killian halted several paces in front of me, spinning around and looking far too humoured. “You’ve just noticed?”
I rolled my eyes at him which brought forth a rumbling type of laughter that only Killian was capable of making.
“You’re not going to… turn me into a… fish, are you?”
Killian’s humour took to new heights as his next bout of chuckles took him by storm, leaving me to watch as he clutched his stomach and curled over. “A fish?”
“I don’t know!” I felt the need to defend myself as his cheeks rose even higher.
“You turned me into a tiny, rock-sized person! Is it really that wild to assume you might turn me into a fish? Oh, god, you aren’t going to turn me into something weirder are you?
Please don’t take my legs from me, Killian! Not my human legs!”
He was still laughing as he approached me to place a hand on my shoulder, begging me to be quiet between his laughter. “I won’t turn you into a fish, Olivia. Nor anything with scales. And you can keep those two gorgeous legs of yours.”
I was a little bit ashamed how quickly my cheeks reddened and my body roared to life with an approving hum. Either Killian felt the same way, or he had some strange way of reading my body and mind as if I was an open book, because one of his brows flicked up.
Not the time. Not the time, Olivia!
“So not a fish?” I managed to croak out.
“Not a fish.” His smirk was as it always had been – radiant and mischievous. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s good. I’d be a little concerned if you were dreaming of me as a fish. So, how are we going–”
Just as it had all that time ago, when it had been Raegan standing at the waterline and not us, the ocean in front of us parted. A few feet to the left and a few feet to the right, a wide enough split that allowed a body to emerge from it, bare feet padding against the seabed.
I recognized the pixie in front of us immediately, being the same female that had greeted Raegan – albeit, rudely – the last time we dared to ask anything of Uisge.
It was hard to look at her and not be taken back to that day, when I had only been in Saoghal for the duration of a single blink and everything was overly magical.
It was the first time I saw that Raegan had not one but many personas that he could attach to himself as he strode up to her and demanded passage over her kingdom.
Looking at her now, her sapphire hair wet and dripping, hugging her body as she glared at us, I wondered how he had ever been capable of demanding anything of her. The tone of her eyes was deep and alluring yet sharp and frigid as she continued to stare.
“Your kind are not welcome here,” she spat at Killian in particular.
I frowned. His kind? They were all pixies?
Then again, much had changed in Saoghal since Raegan defied all of their laws and broke their most sacred of rules.
That much was apparent as the Mar’Rugadh in front of us flicked her gaze up and down Killian, anything but inviting and kind.
The divide between the various pixies of Saoghal had been evident before, but now it was blatantly obvious.
How had joining two kingdoms somehow widened the divide?
The pixie shot her coral-hued eyes at me and I shuddered against Killian.
“And you? What are you?”
My mouth fell open with some sort of answer on the end of it, but Killian spread a hand across my body and stepped in front of me. “You should speak to her with respect, Mar’Rugadh. For your Queen owes her a great debt.”
That wasn’t fair. I wanted to say that wasn’t fair, that Queen Tonn of Uisge owed me nothing for saving her son, but Killian shoved me farther behind him just as the pixie in front of us widened her eyes and tried to get a better look at me.
“She is the one? The human?”
Killian said nothing, only squared his shoulders.
“And she wishes for entry? To see the Queen?”
The pixie’s voice was different, now. Lighter and softer, more elegant and poised as she straightened her spine.
“I can bring the human. But you, tree-scum, will remain here.”
Killian’s hand moved for his sword so quickly the only warning I had was the vicious growl that came from him.
I moved urgently and without thought, as I often did in this world, and placed myself between the two of them.
Soft-eyed and pleading, I looked up at him and placed both hands on his forearm.
He glanced down at the contact then back up at me.
“She is cruel,” I said, my tone unforgiving if she heard. “But you are not.”
Even I doubted that as his brows twitched and tension took him.
“Do not stoop to her level, Killian.”
He flicked his gaze over my head – which wasn’t exactly hard as he towered over me – and let out another snarl at whatever he saw there. But I did not falter in front of him, keeping my hands on his forearm in order to ground him.
Nothing good would come of letting Killian loose on her, even though in that moment, as she insulted him and looked at him as if he was some great disgust, I wanted to rip her throat from her neck. But we had a duty. Raegan was relying on us.
I moved one hand from his forearm and placed it on his chest, roughly where I estimated his heart was, if it was in the same place as humans. The steady beating of it transferred into me, the quick rhythm at which it pounded against him.
“Settle now,” I whispered. “Be better than them. Be kind.”
He blinked, some sort of realization rushing through his body that had him relaxing at once. I went from standing next to a rabid animal thrashing on the end of its leash to inflict carnage, to a peaceful creature simply staring at me, in the span of a single second.
I turned on my heel to face her at last, using all of the rage that I had siphoned from his body and putting it across my face. “Killian is my protector and he is to come with me.”
She looked taken aback before she schooled her features into indifference. Then she nodded, moving to the side to allow us to walk with her. I hooked Killian’s arm with my own and made sure our chins were higher than ever as we strode up to her.
“Speak of him that way again, and you’ll have a whole lot more to worry about than him,” I hissed as we passed.
The damning and slightly terrifying thing was that I was speaking the truth. I had never been one for violence, but the love I had for my pixies did something to me. Turned me into something. All it needed was a poke.
“Take these,” the Uisge pixie who finally revealed her name to be Bryn said as she passed over two rings. I stared at mine as if it was full of some sort of hidden poison, whereas Killian slipped it easily onto his finger without question.
My thought about doing the same must have been showing on my face because he grinned and leaned towards me. “Unless you plan on holding your breath for the entirety of our visit, I suggest you place that on your finger.”
I dropped my gaze from him and to the rounded band of sapphire, which was overly cold in my palm no matter how sweaty my skin was getting. Trusting not Bryn but Killian, I slammed my eyes tight before sliding it onto my finger.
I didn’t immediately explode, so that seemed to be a good sign.
“Are you ready?” Bryn asked the two of us.
A nervous glance was shared as I looked up at Killian, but we ultimately nodded at one another.
Bryn shot us a somewhat vicious smile before taking a deep breath, her body expelling a violent wave of air from her.
As she did, the waves that had parted to allow us passage onto the riverbed reformed, dragging the three of us down and into the depths.