52
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I was not overly well-versed in the ways of politics and general warfare, but the way that we simply walked towards Raegan and he walked towards us seemed far too safe and far too easy.
There was, of course, an entire army at his back.
Pixies of Cluaineach with their hair of the meadows and their wings on full show, each sporting a variety of weaponry from basic blades to full long-bows and everything in between.
At least he was prepared.
He dismounted.
I stared at him and he stared at me. Neither of us blinked off of the other as we advanced, our strides matched, our feet falling in the same pattern.
I did not want to remember him this way, his body adorned in leathers and his forehead pulsing a vein that I knew was tempered by the events of the day.
But mostly, I didn’t want to remember him looking at me the way he was. Because it was not excitement to see me again nor tension from the way of our meeting, but disappointment. The disappointment wasn’t because of who I travelled with but the fact that I had returned.
I could imagine him, if he could pull me aside and whisper to me.
I could hear the words he would usher, the quiet plea to turn and run before this blew up the way it seemed like it was going to blow up.
That silent imagination of his words did the opposite, though – I started walking faster towards him, speeding up the army at my back.
He did the same.
I wanted to run. Faster than my legs could carry me. Faster than Urram’s wings could beat. Just to him and into him, to whisk us away from it all and disappear amongst the magic of Saoghal once and for all.
Except that was the problem, wasn’t it? No matter what Raegan and I did, no matter what we wanted, we would damn Saoghal.
I understood, all too well, how he felt the division between what he wanted and what was right for his people.
Because as I strode down that hill, each rhythmic thud of our boots beating a new fate into Saoghal, I realized that I was just as torn between the two.
Between him and the life we had dreamt of, and the world that I loved more than life itself.
Like him, I knew the day would come where I had to choose. I just hadn’t expected it would be this day.
~
We stopped and they stopped.
Urram was a whole different creature to the dragon I had once known.
All of his scales were lifted, the mane of leather along his neck erect and fanned just as he angled his head to reveal his horns to his old friend across from him.
They both took a similar stance – rounding their back and lifting their shoulders high, hardly balancing on the winged forelimbs and instead relying on the powerful muscles of their hind ends.
Yet again, kin was turning on kin. Friends were turning on friends. And lovers…
I swallowed as I watched Raegan’s eyes tighten, his glare unapologetically on me and no one else.
I saw the pleading, the thousands of words he wanted to use to chase me out, but just as he had made his decision, I had made mine.
I would not leave him now, not in the hour of his greatest need, when all that he knew was being turned against him.
His eyes shifted, for only a second, to the body at my side. One of his nostrils scrunched, his face twisting into fury, before he blinked off of Killian and found me, again.
“Raegan Righ’Faiche’Fiodh’Rugadh,” Brian began, stepping forward and placing himself between Rory and I.
I had forgotten about Rory, but now that he was apart from me and Brian took his place, I dared a glance at the purple-haired pixie.
Only to see him staring beyond Raegan – not to just anybody, but to his pink counterpart.
Aisling, tears in her eyes as she blinked in disbelief not at him but at me.
Next to her, Shea, whose face had become a weapon and any shred of our existing friendship went up in dust.
Everything was falling apart. In the most catastrophic of ways. In a way, as Raegan and I found one another’s eyes again, we both knew that it had always threatened to come to this.
Finally, Raegan sighed and rolled his weight over one hip. “And who are you?”
Whether or not Brian was insulted by the lack of knowing, it was hard to tell. He took the role of a pixie quickly, the sly grin and the narrowed eyes as he purred out a response. “Your father and I knew one another well.”
“Ah,” Raegan crooned. “Brian of Uisge – failed commander of the Sea Army.”
“It seems you know your enemies better than you know your friends, young King.”
Raegan’s nose twitched as he fought the desire to look at Killian next to me.
His stare remained lethal, cold, and cruel on Brian as his grin turned pointed.
“Are we enemies, Brian Mar’Rugadh?” The question was cool and lacking an ounce of care as Raegan’s eyes turned lazy.
“I would have to care about you to consider you an enemy, would I not?”
The Rachainn behind us let out a series of damning noises from growls to snarls to grunts. The pixies behind Raegan did the same, some of them taking to tighter grips on their weapons and placing planned war between their brows.
Urram warned the world with the vibrations that came from the back of his throat.
Which only made Gliocas chuff out a hateful noise and prowl one step closer.
They remained in their cat-like stance, the two of them simply waiting for the smallest of commands to allow the taut tension between them to snap.
“When I lived in Saoghal and I abided by the ancient and twisted rules that govern your life – yes, we would have been enemies. Enemies, because a border sat between our lands. Because you prefer the grass and I prefer the sea. Because my people have gills that form against their ribs and your people have wings that sprout from their back. Enemies, because of what divides us instead of what unites us.”
Raegan gave off no sign of having even listened to Brian’s little speech. I, on the other hand, found myself agreeing with every word he said, for once.
“Explain it to me, young King – if the bay did not separate your people within the trees and your people beneath the sun, what would you expect of them? Would you want them to become one, to unite beneath the title of Talamh that you so confidently wave around? Or would you expect them to do as the rules of Saoghal tell them to – to despise one another and find commonality only in the love of their throne?”
One of Raegan’s eyes twitched, but he said nothing.
“Would you free them of these aged confines? Would you allow them to become one people?”
“Do you have a point, Brian?”
“You took the first step, Your Majesty. The first step towards a new future, a new Saoghal where our enemies are not our own kin. I believe that you did not intend to do that, but tell me what else you managed to achieve by uniting Choilltean and Cluaineach?”
“Other than the attention of low-lives like you?” Raegan prowled closer to Brian, Gliocas close behind him, and the Rachainn let out a variety of threatening noises.
Raegan paid none of it a shred of attention.
“I heard what you did while you commanded the soldiers of Uisge. I heard of your cruelty, of your wicked ways. Do you truly intend to stand here and tell me how I must treat my people?”
Brian let out a bitter, grating laugh. “No.” He grabbed onto my arm, his nails digging into my flesh and causing me to try to yank away from him. He only affirmed his grip. “I have come here because I have something that you care about.”
Raegan’s interest did not change. If anything, he cared even less, rocking backwards on his heels and sighing.
“The Rachainn – good for nothing but threats and violence. It makes it hard to believe that you opt for anything else. You claim to want peace and equality throughout Saoghal yet you, likely yourself, have killed more than most of us.”
The soldiers on both sides were growing restless, the adrenaline slowly trickling out of them and demanding to be used.
“I shall arrive at my point at last. When you took the thrones of Choilltean and Cluaineach, you did so without care and now Saoghal is sick. Above all else, that is what I care about. I can fight for peace any day, but I cannot revive a realm that has fallen beneath your pretty boot.”
Raegan narrowed his eyes.
“I have planned and plotted and schemed to fix what you have broken, young King. But you have, too, haven’t you? Why, does the Prince of the Sea not sit within your dungeons as we speak?”
Raegan grumbled as he flashed an unpleasant look at Killian. Why he assumed it was Killian and not me, I’d never know.
“So I find myself shifting my plans, Raegan,” Brian continued. “Because if you play the rest of this out right, I believe we will both achieve our goals.”
Frowning, I turned to get a glimpse of Brian’s face.
Brian released me, only to drop to his knee. Behind him, the Rachainn all followed, the ground shuddering as a thousand weights were dropped against it.
“Take an oath of allegiance with me, Raegan of Talamh, and the Rachainn shall serve you as we turn our sights to Speur.”
My mouth fell open, prepared and eager to refute that idea altogether, but I was stopped dead by the look in Raegan’s eyes.
“Deny us, and we will kill her.”
Growling, I tried to step away from Brian only to be caught on both arms by two more Rachainn, more and more and more flooding towards me to try to pin my body still as I fought against them.
Somewhere amongst the chaos I heard Killian, his bellows and his lashed threats, but it was no good as dozens of the Rachainn grabbed onto my arms and I was lost amongst them.
It was not Raegan who spoke next but someone else. Someone whose voice I did not recognize, whose features were unfamiliar. A male, one of Raegan’s ceadan, standing only a few feet behind him where he strung his bow and pulled it taut in my direction.
“The Bringer of Evil must die at long last before she fouls the heart of our King!”
Beautiful words. True poetry. If I wasn’t so busy fighting to find purchase with my own two feet, I might have clapped for him.
Urram didn’t think so highly of his words, though. He launched himself forward, his maw ripped wide, and released a roar meant to warn but likely killed a few people from the power at which it pulsed through skulls.
“Red Fury!” Urram bellowed. “You will have your caraid control his subjects or I shall set fire to every last one of them. Beginning with the King himself.”
Gliocas let out an equally as disturbing noise before leaping forward, a mass of red in the sky that prefaced the thundering vibration of the ground beneath me. “Silver Wrath! Old friends, we might be, but none shall threaten my caraid and live to tell the tale.”
If I was learning anything about the dragons, it was that the minute they turned to calling one another by strange, tortured titles instead of their mere names, nothing good was going to come of it.
“Urram!” I squealed, managing to kick one Rachainn in the face – somewhat by accident. “Do not fight, Urram! It is not worth it!”
My dragon was one stubborn asshole because he did not listen to me.
Urram and Gliocas moved towards one another, powering themselves into the charge with their hind legs, both wings splayed out to the sides just as their maws ripped wide and embers glowed deep within their throats.
Cluaineach was going to burn, because a dragon fight kicked off before my very eyes.