46
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I was not only a fool but I was a naive fool.
Of course Raegan knew.
How could he have not known?
Raegan knew my scent, likely better than any other did, so why had I not thought that he might recognize Rory’s alongside it?
He was a male and I knew that meant he was more in tune with those sorts of things, not to mention he was just a little possessive, and yet I had not thought for a second that he would be on to me.
This whole time. This whole time he knew, and he didn’t say a thing to me.
Did he feel betrayed? Heartbroken?
Did he even care?
Was this whole thing just a trick? A set up to mock me? To cause me such embarrassment that the height I was left to fall at was critical in every way?
No, a little voice hissed in my head. And I believed it, only because Raegan could fake a lot of things, could pretend to be a lot of people, but what he was last night and who he became in the moments we shared together, it was not fake. He was not fake.
No, something else caused him to turn a blind eye to the fact that I was betraying him. I just didn’t know what it was.
~
It took me far too long to get dressed. Mostly because I couldn’t decide whether to slide into my dress and perform an innocent walk-of-shame back to my room only to find real clothes, or if it would be strange for me to simply take some of Raegan’s.
I decided on the latter, using a strange sort of belt to keep his far-too-large pants up above my hip bones, where I tucked a tunic of Choilltean’s soft material in tight.
I looked ridiculous, but it granted me one small kindness: I could book it from the castle, run as fast as my tired legs could take me, and avoid the risk of bumping into someone that I knew only for the truth to be splattered all over my face.
If I heard a single person ask me, Are you okay, I would combust. Quite literally, there would be little shards of Olivia flying in all directions from the weight of those three words alone. Because, no. No, I was not okay.
I was a stupid human in love with a realm that couldn’t keep me, and even if it could, I would never be accepted into it in the way I wanted to be.
My friends on the outside – not that I had considered Rory a friend prior to this very moment – had decided, for some reason, to trick me into stumbling back into Saoghal, manipulating me into drinking a fertility tonic.
I had not only betrayed Raegan once but twice as I planned to release Tadgh, the Prince whose mother and Queen was just slaughtered and threatened the complete downfall of the world I loved.
And I was in love with a stubborn, brooding, sly-minded pixie king.
Yes, I was in love with him.
But none of it mattered because everything was as far away from okay as could be.
Of all of those issues, though, I could solve one.
Which meant returning to Rory.
~
I was hopeful and only a tiny bit delusional as I sprinted out of the castle, ignoring the guards that floated down the hallways and abruptly launched themselves out of my path as if I was capable of bulldozing them.
A few called after me, as if they didn’t recognize me when I wasn’t at Killian or Raegan’s side, shouting for me to be seized.
So I took the anger that was steaming my veins into mush and turned it into fuel, until I felt the harsh heat of the sun boring down on me as I at last found myself on the other side of the Cluaineach castle doors.
And there, for only a second, I paused in my grand escape and dared to look back at the sweeping architecture of glistening clay, adorning moss, and blossoming flowers.
I didn’t want to think this way, but for only the flash of a moment, I considered that it could be the last time I looked upon the place that had so quickly become home.
Swallowing those thoughts, choosing not to dive into darkness but to rise like a hurling flame, I growled like a pixie, spun on my heel, and started my mad dash from the kingdom and towards the meeting spot.
Rory, according to our plans, would be waiting there. At this time on this day, he would be eagerly awaiting an update and hopefully an answer to all of his, and Saoghal’s, problems.
The problem was, as I continued my maddened sprint out of Cluaineach, nearing over an hour at such a speed with not so much as a cramp in my legs, I realized I couldn’t remember where we were to meet.
Previously I had relied on his hair, on the brightness and beacon-like hue of bright purple that stuck out amongst the green grass and couldn’t be missed even if one was trying.
But there was nothing.
No one.
That, or I was in the wrong place.
It wasn’t just the gut feeling that leadened that made me realize, all too quickly, that I was in the right place.
It wasn’t just the goosebumps that spread up my arms and caused my hair to lift as I came to understand that Rory simply wasn’t here.
And it was no instinct of mine that had my knees shaking, my hand over my mouth, as I started to see that something very bad was about to happen.
Slowly, one step at a time as if I would trigger some sort of lethal trap, I crept towards what had caught my attention. Where I had met Rory before, where his lavender-hair had signalled me and he had turned around with a large grin, there was the base of a tree-stump.
And on the severed width of it, scribbled messily and pasted to the bark in a hurry, was a note.
One hand trembling against my agape mouth, I reached for that note and tried my best to slow my beating heart as I yanked it from the stub.
The Rachainn, after having convinced me to see them as anything but, were once again the largest threat to Saoghal, to me, to my happiness, as I read that note through my teary vision.
Even when my shaking took to new heights and I was forced to drop it, the stark, black curves of each letter stared up at me from the grass beneath me.
I’m sorry, Olivia.
Forgive me.
Rory x
I had never run as fast as I ran, then.
All I could taste was blood, all I could see were black spots, and all I could feel was my body giving up on me.
But I ran.
And I ran.
I ran until I was rife with delusion, until my body throbbed with desperation, until my blood ran with only fear.
My body was jelly beneath me and my heart thundered itself into dust against my ribcage, but nothing would stop me from reaching Cluaineach, from reaching Raegan.
Nothing would stop me from protecting him, from stopping any and all harm from coming to him.
I ran as the seconds slipped into minutes, and the minutes slipped into an hour. I leapt over protrusions and I ducked beneath unforgiving blades of grass. I side-stepped critters and I twisted around pebbles and rocks.
That was when I arrived.
Not in the throne room, as I had planned. Not even at the castle exit. No, I managed to make it just to the threshold of Cluaineach, to the very place that I had seen Raegan after a year of not seeing him.
And there I stood, just as I had then, staring across the kingdom to the lone path that would lead into its innards. There, just as he had been then, was Raegan.
But I was too late.
The Rachainn had him.
~
It was Rory that I saw first, his body stiff and tall as he watched the rest of his group haul at Raegan’s unconscious body. The King was loose and limp in their arms, his body flopped in all directions as three Rachainn grabbed onto various parts of him and tried to move him faster.
I could have ducked back into the grass. I could have hung my head and retreated. I could have gone back to Cornwall, slipped into my home, and forgotten all about the pixies of Saoghal and the King with Golden Wings.
“Raegan!” I roared. Not to draw his attention, but to draw the attention of others. Someone, somewhere, had to hear the cries that ripped from my throat. Someone would come to the aid of their King as they listened to someone shout and scream his name in raw agony.
Which was exactly what I did. Over and over, even though my lungs were shredded from two hours of sprinting and my body was convulsing with the desire to collapse.
But my life-force continued, it thrummed to life within me and renewed itself with a whole new purpose as Raegan let out a deep groan, causing the Rachainn to tighten their grips on him.
On my second shout, Rory’s head snapped up and his mystical eyes met mine. He shook his head slowly, begging me with those eyes. “Go, Olivia,” he pleaded. “Go now! Go while you can!”
But I couldn’t. I would never be able to. And maybe he could understand that, or maybe he couldn’t, but I didn’t care.
I was overcome with a possessive, defensive, and ruthless side of myself that had never existed.
Alongside the pulsing of fear for Raegan was this vicious within me that threw my body from the safety of the border of Cluaineach.
Stumbling, my resolve greater than my physical strength, I started towards Raegan.
I knew I looked pathetic. I knew I looked as if I walked on stilettos and I had far too much champagne.
I knew my face was blotched red and my eyes were so dry that it seemed more agonizing to blink moisture into them.
And I knew, above all else, that the Rachainn would have me on my ass within seconds.
Yet I continued on. There was a flash of pity in Rory’s eyes as he watched me, as some part of him that I believed was still good cracked at the sight of me, desperate and prepared to take the brunt of it for Raegan.
“Go,” Rory whispered, his plea as strong as ever even if his words barely formed.
“No,” someone declared, a voice far more powerful and assertive than the rest. A voice that I knew to be Brian. “We’re going to need her.”
Prepared to refute the idea of working with them ever again, I opened my mouth only to feel a blunt pain against the back of my head.
For a moment, it was just the simple ringing that vibrated every bone and ricochetted across my skull.
But then the ground was approaching and the world was a blur of blues and greens and yellows, the pain was ebbing across the back of my head, and I was left staring at the only thing that was focused in a world of blurring numbness.
Raegan, head hung against his chest, opened his eyes slowly. They met mine, the world went quiet, and I slipped away into a new type of darkness.