30
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All that I knew was that Raegan was alive.
Killian was alive.
Urram was alive – albeit, pissed.
Shea and Aisling, Ciara and Liam, were all alive.
The fairies – not so much. Only one survived. Taran, who fled on a pinch of dust at his feet.
I couldn’t tell you how the fight ended, other than that.
I couldn’t tell you how many of Raegan’s ceadan died, or how bloody the room became.
I couldn’t tell you how long it took to end.
I couldn’t tell you how I left the room.
I couldn’t tell you how I ended up back in the room that I was inclined to call mine.
All I could tell you was this: I was back in my room, my hands soaked in blood that had turned sticky, and everything around me was blurry.
There were no tears in my eyes, only a heavy pounding in my head that beat at my eardrums and threatened to deafen me completely.
But I could not look away from my hands.
My hands.
Blood.
So much blood.
I had seen blood. I knew blood. I operated day-in, day-out.
I sliced into flesh at every hour of the day and I packed wounds every spare second.
So I was no stranger to the red liquid, nor the way it changed from runny to sticky to flaky.
I knew how it smelled, what temperatures it could take to, how it interacted with other substances and materials.
But I did not know blood like the blood on my hands now.
I did not know the blood of a stranger, of another being that had the ability to speak to me, to look at me, to know me.
I did not know blood as it poured over my skin, I did not know blood that came from an act of violence and not an act of healing.
A little part of me unravelled at this moment. It was only a tiny fray, a tiny thread that dared to separate from the rest, but I felt it. I knew that all one would need to do was grab it and pull, and all that I was, all that Olivia was, would disappear.
I remained frozen, still, completely unmoving, for two hours. I knew it was two hours because the sun outside of my window was starting to come up, meaning that at some point between Raegan and I standing on the balcony, until now, an entire night had passed.
The first ray of the sun shone through the room and penetrated my skin, setting a rusty colour across the blood that forced me to blink. Ray by ray, inch by inch of the lifting sun, I woke out of my state of petrified stillness.
But I was in no way okay. I moved from the bedroom to the attached ensuite, closed the door, and set myself over the tub.
It had been a while since I had to try and use their strange method of bathing, but I was running solely on muscle memory as I cranked at the indoor well.
It creaked, the noise just as agonized as my skeleton was starting to feel, until it was spitting water into the tub.
The few baths I had in Saoghal required two pinches of powder that was forever accessible at the side of the tub. Two would bring it up to temperature, a soothing warmth that would be capable of settling most.
I dropped two pinches in. Then two more.
Steam started to lift from the bubbles that formed, the sensation hot and scalding.
I dropped two more pinches in, hardly feeling as it burned at my face.
All I knew was that the heat was growing and growing, becoming more and more promising with every pinch I put in.
I lost count of how many pinches fell in, before I dropped the bag to the side and instead waited and waited for the tub to fill.
I didn’t remember shedding my clothes, only that I had, and I stepped into the tub. The temperature was far hotter than I had ever dared to take to, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. Only the hottest of waters would wash away the stains.
I finally switched the water off when there was enough to cover most of my body, leaving my curled-over shoulders and head out of it.
It was truly hot, hot enough that my skin immediately turned red and I groaned every time I made the smallest movement, but that was good.
It was burning layers off and that was good.
A few more layers and it just might get rid of the blood–
On the edge of the bath, a little scrub-brush caught my attention.
I ripped a somewhat bloody hand from the water and snatched the brush, using the other to assess the rigidness and stiffness of the bristles.
I almost wanted to equate it to a grill brush, something meant for scraping decades and decades of solidified junk from metal.
Perfect for the blood on my hands.
I scrubbed.
And scrubbed.
And scrubbed.
Yet again I slipped into that timeless void, a space absent of everything but me, the brush, and my bloodied hands.
The more I brushed, though, the bloodier they became.
Until it wasn’t just my skin that was coated in blood but the water around me, slowly shifting from clear liquid into something tinged with cherry.
But I continued, faster and harder, desperate to see the blood gone.
“Olivia?” Killian’s voice cut through the numbness and the abyss that I had surrendered myself to. I vaguely recalled hearing footsteps thunder through the space, until the ensuite door swung open and Killian’s gasp was enough to make me lift my head and look at him.
It was then that I realized I had been crying. Wailing, actually. Streams and streams of tears had abandoned my eyes, filling the redder and redder water around me.
“Oh,” he groaned as he shut the door quietly behind him, creeping his way closer. “Oh, Olivia. What are you doing?”
His voice was cracking and broken, so I frowned at him through the tears, all the while refusing to stop scrubbing.
His hand reached towards me, where he dared to try and slip his fingers beneath the water. With a screech he pulled his hand back, shaking it as his mouth fell open. “Gods, Olivia, this water is scalding.”
I said nothing. I could say nothing. I simply stared at him, tears still falling, hands still scrubbing.
“Please stop,” he cried, “you are hurting yourself.”
No no no no.
I needed to get the blood off. Blood, off. That’s all that mattered. But there was more and more and more – why why why.
Killian braved the dunking of his hand, his face twisting in pain as he grabbed onto my wrists and yanked them both above the surface. I stared at my own fingers as if I had never seen them before, overly disgusted as blood continued to rise.
He took the scrub-brush from me and tossed it across the room, letting out a sigh as he settled on the edge of the bath and looked at me.
“We need to get you to a healer.”
“Blood,” I croaked.
“Yes, you’ve scrubbed your hands raw. They are bleeding. Quite a lot.”
There was a shift in his voice, almost as if he was disappointed. But the frown and the moisture in his eyes suggested that perhaps it was something else.
“I shouldn’t have left you,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I am so sorry. I set you in here and then I had to check on the others. There were so many injuries I just couldn’t keep track of–”
“Raegan?”
Killian allowed a small, sad smile to his face. “Raegan is okay. He took a nasty slice to his arm but he’ll be fine.”
I nodded, over and over, as I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face in them.
A hand set on my back, his callouses slowly softening as the water heated and manipulated them. Slow, easy circles were drawn across my revealed skin, sending a scattering of goosebumps along my body that allowed me to further relax.
“I killed someone,” I whispered.
“What did you say?”
“I… I killed someone,” I whispered again, in no way louder than the first time.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, his hand still working a large circle that soothed and drew me deeper and deeper into a new sort of numbness. “It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not,” I said, my voice cracking. “I thought Raegan was going to die and I was… I just… I killed someone, Killian.” I finally lifted my face from my knees, my eyes swollen and puffy as I stared at him.
He moved the hand from my back to my cheek, pushing some of my soggy hair out and away from my face, tucking it quietly behind my ear.
“I know you did.”
As I came down from that place of delusion and fear, the adrenaline soaking off and into the water, survival took over. Shock took possession of me, rattling my bones against one another and causing my breathing to come in choppy bunches.
“I… H-how.. H-how do I… Do I do…”
“Easy,” he whispered, his hand back to my spine where the movements resumed and my eyes fluttered shut. “It’s not easy. Not the first time, nor the hundredth time. And I have nothing to say, nothing to offer, that makes it easier.”
A pained, strangled noise escaped me as I let my head fall heavy to one side, my cheek placed to my knee so that I could see Killian.
“Come on,” he finally said after several moments in silence, his soothing motions constant. “Let’s get your hands fixed up, then let’s get you to bed.”
I nodded, my body going limp as I lacked any strength and all energy to so much as lift myself out of that place of doom.
Killian swept me up into his arms, his movements swift and easy, before he carried me out of the ensuite and onto my bed.
I waited there, my limbs like jelly, as he sorted through some clothes and managed to find some trousers and a shirt that looked as if it would fit.
Neither of us said a thing as he dressed me, as he placed my arms through holes and pulled my pants to my waist. I cried, more and more with every movement, until I was gone, slipping away into exhaustion.
Blinking in and out of consciousness, I remembered the halls of the Cluaineach castle, the healers room, and then a pixie with blond hair and fox-like green eyes standing over me, tucking my sheets against my chin, and placing a kiss atop my head.