34
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We were walking back to Rìoghail when I had a sudden thought, my body freezing into place as I was overcome with the immediate desire.
“Olivia?” Raegan asked, concern between his brows as he turned to face me.
“I want to see them.”
He looked confused for all of a second before a knowing look took to his face, shadows stretching along his eyes and casing him in a sorrowful type of darkness.
“I don’t–”
“Please,” I whispered, stepping towards him and rounding my eyes as far as they could go. “Please show them to me again?”
I had forgotten what he had said only hours before, that my mere asking would always grant me an answer, because Raegan drew in a large breath and nodded several times. It seemed like less of an answer for me and more of a reassurance for him.
Slowly, without looking away from me, Raegan pulled his remaining shirt up and over his body. I did not let my eyes wander, as I so desperately wanted to, and instead resorted to biting down as hard as I could on my lip to battle the anticipation.
His face pinched, and it was the only form of warning that I was granted before his back sprung open.
Two wings, golden and haloed in the most ethereal of light, spread from his tanned skin, the muscle of them stretching as far as they could.
Raegan watched me with curiosity as I gawked at him, at the true him, my jaw falling away as all manners slipped from my mind.
I clasped my hands together and placed them against my mouth, no longer able to contain the sudden rush of endearment that flooded me.
“Will you… Will you fly? For me?”
His face paled in one swift movement, his eyes diverting from mine.
“I would love to see you fly, Raegan.” It was more than that, though. It was about offering it to him, giving him a space where he could, after decades and decades of being unable to so much as share his wings with another.
He shook his head.
“I–”
“I can’t,” he said, his voice cracking before he took another deep breath. “I can’t. I don’t know how.”
There was something horribly sad about that, the truth of it daring to shatter my heart into mere shards at the thought of my grounded King.
Raegan was Raegan because of his wings, it was as clear as day when I saw them out on show.
They were as much a part of him as his green eyes or his blond hair, his mutilated ears and his sharp jawline.
The fact that he had not been able to learn to use them sat within me, rotting and decaying as I tried to dry the moisture that built in my eyes.
His smile was somewhat sad as he stepped towards me and placed his thumb against my cheek, squeezing gently.
“May I see them?” I whispered. Raegan nodded softly before turning, an inch at a time, until his whole back was revealed.
In a way, that subtle movement, placing himself in that vulnerable position, I knew that it meant more than any other offering or peeling back of his soul had. He trusted me, for some reason, to stand behind him and have full rein over the one part of him that he had hidden for so long.
I didn’t touch them, only because the last time I had he seemed to flinch in agony.
Instead, I looked at them, trying my best to memorize the exact shade of each golden feather, the exact shape and placement of them.
Just when I thought I was done, I saw something else. Not on his wings, but beneath them.
“Raegan,” I gasped. “What are these?”
A few of the muscles along his back flexed as he contemplated answering.
I tried again, softer and quieter. “What are those?”
I knew what they were without him telling me.
They were burn marks. What he had been burned with, I wasn’t sure I’d ever know, but they were there and they were as clear as day along his spine.
Up and down, at least twenty on either side of his center, spread out across his muscles in varying directions and patterns.
Raegan’s head fell forward, his shoulders rolling with it as he took a shaky breath. “My mother had wings. Iridescent, beautiful wings. And most of my appearance has taken after my kin from Cluaineach, so my father… My father was convinced that I would have them, too.”
My brows couldn’t press together any harder if they tried. “He did this to you?” Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a shock, especially considering it was him that had hacked at Raegan’s ears.
All Raegan could do was respond with silence, which was as good as a yes.
“For a few years, he was driven mad by the thought of them. Then as I got older, he let go of the idea. He wanted to see them so he could remove them. And he was so convinced I had them. So convinced that he could bring them out by inflicting more and more pain. But I would not bring them out. Not for him, not for anyone. They were the one thing I got to keep, the one part of me that no one would ever get to damage.”
I knew a tear had slipped from my eyes, I just hadn’t realized it wasn’t the only one.
“Can I touch them?”
Raegan’s spine snapped straight, his many muscles solidifying in one rippling motion that turned him into a rock.
“Here–” I stepped to his side and offered my hand. “Guide my hand, if you would prefer.”
He glanced down at the fleshy offering of my palm and shook his head. “You may.”
I could do and say nothing in response, so I simply stepped back around and examined his spine. My finger brushed the first burn and Raegan flinched, his body jolting in a way that nearly caused me to jump back.
One by one, I felt each and every single one of his scars.
Some were deeper, some were wider. Some were older, some were darker.
I was broken and repaired by the sweep of my fingers over his skin, until I was sure I had mapped each and every single one.
I would never let myself forget the pattern that they made across his skin.
I moved around him, quietly and carefully, until I was in front of the King of Talamh once more.
He, too, had tears in his eyes, but he had yet to let one fall. Instead, he reached forward wordlessly and grabbed onto my two hands. He lifted them to his mouth, where he carefully laid a kiss along each pad of my fingertips and then two more on my wrists.
“Thank you,” he whispered against my skin.
“For what?”
“Just… Thank you, Olivia.”
It was this moment, above all of the others, that finally made me solidify what I wanted to do.
No longer would I commit myself to betraying Raegan, to betraying his kingdom or his castle.
When Rory had first mentioned the task at hand, I truthfully hadn’t considered it a betrayal. I had been innocent and naive enough to believe that I was saving Raegan, that I could somehow take his fate and make it do as I wished.
I knew, now, how that was a betrayal to Raegan.
The one thing that Raegan had lacked, his whole life, was control.
No one had ever granted it to him, from the moment he was plucked from his life in Cluaineach to this very second as he reigned over a kingdom and did what he had to instead of what he wanted to.
So by taking this small thing from Raegan, by trying to alter the path he had set for himself, I was betraying him.
Not to mention that he trusted me. He trusted me, above all of the others, with his darkest and most hidden parts of himself.
Much like I trusted him, like I knew I could reveal the rotting and decaying parts of my soul, Raegan felt the same about me.
How could I ruin that by doing the bidding of the Rachainn?
They did not know Raegan. They did not understand him. No one did.
I decided, as Raegan smiled at me and motioned for us to move on, that I would do one sweep of his chambers.
I would check just once for this document, for this ritual that would allow us to appeal to the gods to unburden Raegan from his throne.
Not for the Rachainn, not even for Saoghal itself.
I would look for this document for Raegan, to offer him a way out and a path towards a life that he could live away from the masks and the fox-King persona.
And then I would let it go.
I would return to Rory after the Imbolc Ball and I would convince him, and the rest of them, that Raegan was in his right mind. That Raegan wanted nothing more than peace for his people, peace for the pixies, and peace for Saoghal.
And if they didn’t like that, then I would run to Raegan and I would warn him that the Rachainn were coming for him.
That was my plan, and I was dead-set on it.
~
Landing back the streets of Cluaineach was a strange type of dread, not because I hated Cluaineach or I wanted to be away from the magnificent kingdom, but because the moment Rìoghail’s hooves touched down on the path outside of the castle, I knew I would lose Raegan.
He slid down first, his movements swift and easy as his balance remained intact. With a charming half-smile, the King of Talamh offered his hand to me and ended up catching me completely as I awkwardly slid down from Rìoghail and crashed into him.
We both paused in that brief contact, in that momentary closeness, before he cleared his throat and took a sizeable step backwards.
“I have a few things I must see to before the ball tomorrow, Olivia,” Raegan said, dipping his chin respectfully and with an air of friendliness, even though his eyes remained on me and suggested we were anything but.
“Your assistance with Queen Tonn was most appreciated. I will not tell you that you must leave Saoghal, as you seem completely incapable of listening to any order I give you–” Raegan laughed, the crinkles beside his eyes tightening.
“I am more than happy to watch and observe for the signs that you must return to your regular size. And until then, you are more than welcome to remain here with… Well, to remain here.”
With a sweeping bow, far more than any King should offer any of his subjects, Raegan rose once more and allowed me to see the briefest softening of his eyes. Then he nodded once more, turned on his heel, and strode off.
It was worse than when we were arguing or shouting at one another. At least then I had a reason to crave distance from him. Now, all I wanted to do was trot after him in his shadow and refuse to leave his side.
God, Olivia – needy, much?
I couldn’t help it. I wanted to become a leech and simply siphon off of his presence.
But the King had, respectfully and gently, departed from me in a way that meant we would not see one another for a few hours, at least. So I sighed, rolled my head around on my shoulders to free the stiffness of my neck, and aimed to find my bed and collapse in it.
At least until Shea, Aisling, Liam, and Ciara crossed my path outside of the double doors, hooked my arms in theirs, and dragged me off to plan the Imbolc Ball.