35
____________________
Preparing for the Imbolc Ball was one of many times that I was forced into grief.
Grief for Niamh, for the young, full-of-boundless-joy pixie who would have screeched at the thought of helping to plan an entire ball.
Simply brushing my hair and dabbing at my face with powders and kohl had her buzzing with excitement, I couldn’t begin to imagine what playing a part in the full planning of a glorious ball and feast would have done to Niamh.
As the handful of Raegan’s ceadan drew me away from the castle and into the village, I remembered Niamh. Her energetic pace, her wide, untameable smile, that auburn hair that somehow brightened up all of her features and left you staring at a creature of unshakable happiness.
“You’re thinking about Niamh, aren’t you?” Shea said as she shoved Aisling off of my left arm and took the position from her, noticeably not touching me.
“Is it that obvious?”
Shea offered me a small, sad smile. Which was weird, considering Shea never smiled so I didn’t expect her to not only be able to, but to have different types. “No. Just that I was thinking about Niamh and hoped someone else was, too.”
I nodded a few times to signal that I understood, but I didn’t.
I would never truly understand the cycle of life, the hours, days, weeks, years spent existing only for it to disappear in only a single blink.
It made me wish, more than ever, that Niamh was in Mag Mell, that she was granted her warrior’s rest, an eternity in sanctuary.
“Last Imbolc–” Shea began, smiling to herself and shaking her head to free some blood-red hair from her eyes.
“Niamh was in charge of the fire-lighting.” Shea had to stop just to muffle her laughter, yet another thing that sounded wrong coming from her.
“She lit half of the Choilltean’s trees on fire, beat herself down with disappointment, then cried for five hours. ”
I laughed along with Shea. “That’s awful.”
Shea shrugged. “That was Niamh.”
“I wish she was here,” I admitted, having never actually said the words aloud and immediately regretting it as Shea stiffened her movements at my side.
Shea, finally, touched me. It was a subtle placement of her hand on the bend of my elbow, her fingers tightening ever so slightly. “Me too.”
~
Our group moved through the streets of Cluaineach, Shea and Aisling constantly taking up defensive positions at my side whenever we crossed the path of other pixies.
They continued to glare at me, to offer unkind, snarky comments and contemplate ridding the world of my natural evil, but Shea’s low growls and Aisling’s revealed fangs often kept them moving.
Only one, a male with bright green hair and near-yellow eyes, decided he would try and pick a fight with my two bodyguards.
He lost quickly and embarrassingly. And, to my surprise, it was Aisling that tossed him to the ground like he was a leaf.
Liam and Ciara took up the front of our little party, the two of them guiding us to various buildings made of mushroom stems, fallen and solidified flower petals, or burrows that were built into the natural bend of the earth.
For one, we entered to discuss the food that would be served.
For another, we spoke of who would like to play the jigs.
The most recent one was to what I could only describe as a seamstress, who knew Raegan’s measurements and nodded when Shea gave her the directions for what he would wear.
Four hours later, my stomach grumbling and my body exhausted at the thought of enduring much more party planning, the five of us found a small, empty space in Cluaineach and collapsed down in the grass.
Ciara and Liam had been bickering back and forth about whether or not it was appropriate to host Imbolc, considering we were a few months past the traditional holiday and it seemed insulting to host it late.
Aisling and Shea were taking quiet bets on if Liam and Ciara were soon to get into a fist-fight.
I, on the other hand, lay flat on my back, stared up at the blue sky above, and watched as clouds floated to-and-fro, each of them with their own unique shapes and stories.
“You are coming tomorrow, right?” Aisling asked as she slid away from her conversation with Shea, pushing her bubblegum-pink hair from her shoulders as she shimmied down into a position at my side.
“Of course.”
“I don’t think she has a choice,” Liam added, taking to the other side of me and fitting himself there where he, too, looked up at the sky. “Our King doesn’t seem to want to spend more than five minutes out of her company.”
Shea growled from where she sat at our feet, going so far as to punch Liam’s shin. He only snickered and pulled his knees up.
“It’s good,” Ciara said. “That he’s getting out and about, I mean. I was hoping one of these days he would spend a few nights out with Killian.”
One brow flicked up, I pulled my chin to my chest to see Ciara where she stood against the horizon. “Why?”
A bitter laugh fell from her as she twirled some hair around her finger. “Rumour has it, he’s taken to a life of abstinence as of late. It’s a whisper across the kingdom, that it has been an age since he even dared look at a female, let alone commit to bedding one.”
I frowned at that. I wasn’t the only one frustrated with her commentary, as Shea picked up a small rock and hurled it at Ciara. “That is my King you speak of.”
Ciara threw her hands up, cackled, and rolled her eyes.
I could still feel Raegan’s lips on me, the softness of his skin along my mouth, down my neck, across my shoulders. And there, if I looked, I would still be able to see the faint outline of his fangs.
“Ignore them,” Aisling muttered, her pink eyes full of evil as she glared at the two females who had taken to arguing. “I think it is great. I believe that Raegan has long deserved to find enjoyable company.”
“You are fond of him?”
“Absolutely. It took a while for me to get over… Well, what he did. But I had always dreamed of being in his ceadan, even while he resided in Choilltean. What a great honour, I mean! To serve him.”
My cheeks flushed, my mind diving into the early hours of my day and the less-than-pure ways I would have begged to serve him.
“You will stay? As long as you can?” Aisling’s voice cut through my thoughts, severing that brief daydream and the heat it flooded my body with.
“Yes. If I can be honest with you, Aisling, I don’t think I can leave.”
She turned onto her side, the grass beneath us bordering her fuchsia-tinted features. “What do you mean?”
“Raegan… He – well, I – oh, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Her eyes, big, round, and animated, blinked at me.
“I cannot describe it. Words will never do the feeling justice. My emotions, around him, they change. They become powerful and intense. Every second in his presence is heart-shattering, head-pounding. What I feel between us is like fire, it is unruly and it is unpredictable, it heats me and brings me to life. I’m sure I’m not making any sense.
But the very rhythm of my heart changes around him and the way I breathe quickens yet deepens. ”
Aisling was listening, her head cocked slightly to the side in curiosity as a look of excitement flashed across her face.
“I have never felt this way before,” I admitted. “It consumes me in every way until I can no longer tell fiction from reality, until I am so lost in it, in him, that I want to be nowhere else.”
She nodded, once, twice, and a third time. For a moment, only a blink, she looked at someone else. But then she was glancing at me again, nodding continued, encouraging my words.
“I must ask you something.”
“Ask me,” she whispered.
“Mates. Niamh… Well, she told me about them, once. Is that what this is? Ignore that I am not a pixie and all of that, but you must tell me. Is that what I’m feeling?”
She bit down on the inside of her cheek, her focus solidifying. I wasn’t sure why, but my world crashed down around me when she shook her head.
“No. A mating bond is clear. Pixies do not doubt the mating bond, it is not there and then it is there, as obvious and physical as a piece of clothing. You would know.”
My frown took to a new shape, curving and making way for sadness, instead. “Then what is this?”
She shrugged, contemplation in her eyes. “Have you ever been in love, Olivia? Because it sounds an awful lot like that.”
My mouth fell open at the same time that I shot upright.
I offered her a quick thank you, jumped to my feet, and ignored the four of Raegan’s ceadan as I sprinted away from them.
I was renewed in my purpose, in the conversation I wanted to have, and I could not do it – could not ask it of him – until I cleared my conscience of what Rory sent me to do.
~
I was burning my way up the winding staircase of the Cluaineach castle, fireflies in tow and tempting my patience, when I nearly slammed into Killian.
Shit.
In my heart-racing, brainless sprint through Cluaineach with all intentions gone to the wind, I had forgotten about Killian. Killian, soft-hearted, sweet Killian.
But it was time. Time to do what I should have done long ago.
“Olivia,” Killian said through a laugh, dancing out of the way just in time to avoid my forehead smashing into his chest. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
There was no good way to respond to that, so I simply blurted out the one sentence that I knew would spiral us into the conversation that I had longed since wanted to avoid. “I need to speak with you.”
I didn’t like the way that his eyes hooded, as if those six words had already crossed his mind. But he nodded, guided me up the staircase, and tucked us into the first empty room he could find.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yes. Well, no. Well, no, yes. I’ve been thinking about what you said, while we were in Marazion, and… Well… I don’t know how to–”
His eyes narrowed, though the look was gentle and open somehow. But I saw it, the brief widening of his nostrils, the darkening of his eyes as he must have picked up what scent resided on me.
“Take a breath, Olivia.”
I didn’t want to take a breath. I wanted to spit it out while I had the courage, while I had the strength to crush the fluttering hope that resided in his dark eyes.
“I wish to be honest with you, Killian. I wish to tell you what I feel, even though it may–”
“Raegan,” he sighed, his hand rubbing against his forehead. “This is about Raegan.”
“No. Well, yes. But no. This is… This is about me.” I stepped towards him, my heart on a platter that I knew his was already on, hoping to every one of their gods that he would not destroy mine and that I would not destroy his. “I think I have known for a long time. But I have avoided it.”
Killian nodded, his face shadowed as he tried to look at me. “You do not need to dance around the truth. You are not the only one who has known for a long time, and you are not the only one who has avoided it.”
My mouth fell open as I stared up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I am not a fool.” His voice was so low and frail, it brought a tear to my eye. “Actually, I am a fool, but only when it comes to you. So I knew what I was watching unfold before me, I knew that what was building between the two of you was not something that I could compete with–”
“Killian,” I whimpered, my heart shattering as the realization of how he did not deserve this broke me.
He smiled, a small and shallow thing that was supposed to make me feel better but made me feel worse.
“I was selfish. I have never been selfish yet you made me want to be selfish. I wanted to hold on to you for as long as I could. Because I love you, and I believe I will love you until the stars no longer exist in the sky. But I would be lying if I ever thought that you could love me, too. Not when you have given your heart to another, long before you realized it.”
“I am so sorry,” I whispered, surprised that the words formed at all. He shook his head several times before grabbing on to me and pulling me against his body, allowing me to bury my tear-soaked face against his broad chest.
“Do not be sorry. I have wished for nothing but your happiness since I saw you on that hillside. And although you are not mine, and although I can never be the source of your happiness, I will continue to wish it for you.”
I nodded, pushing more tears into his chest. With a deep breath he pulled away from me, tilting his chin upwards where he caught my eyes with his own.
“I love Raegan. He is my brother in every way but by blood. And he has endured so much, Olivia… He has survived so much that I do not know how he stands the way he does. I only ask…” His eyes pinched as he fought with whether to say what he wanted to say, or not.
“Do you know what you are getting into?”
Something defensive in me roared out, making me step backwards and away from him.
“I do not mean it as an insult to either of you. I only mean that I know Raegan, just as I know that you know him, and he is… complicated. But above all else, Raegan is a king. A king of Saoghal. So you know that–”
“I know.”
A sad smile climbed over both of our faces as we let that sit between us.
“I do love you, Killian,” I admitted, unable to let the moment pass. “I do.”
His smile shifted into something pained, nearing a grimace. “In a way.”
“In a way,” I said, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. “And it is you that I will forever be grateful to.”
“You don’t owe me kindness. You have gifted me the ability to love, and it is I that is grateful for what we shared. Even if it was not a mutual love but a kinship, a friendship that I will forever hold dear.”
My smile was full of endearment for Killian as I stepped towards him and hugged him. He gripped me like we could remain in that moment, like the hug could be something it wasn’t. And it was him who buried his face in my neck this time.
“Thank you for saving me,” I whispered.
“Thank you for showing me that there is more to this life than the sword and the shield I wear,” he whispered back.
Pulling away from him at last, I wished to remain in that moment of tender friendship for the rest of eternity, cocooned into this safe space where none could hurt us.
Except that could never be our reality, and I had a chamber to search. A King’s chamber.