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“Olivia,” Raegan cried out as he abandoned all care for what was going on, making the large steps until he was at my side right as I collapsed. In his arms, I went numb, lost all feeling, lost all care, as the sound of Urram’s last words and last cry reverberated my entire skull, over and over.
Rachainn were launching themselves at Raegan left and right, but he managed to keep me balanced over his knees as he elbowed at them, hitting each one square in the nose and causing them to rebound off of him.
After too many of those, he switched to his fist, pounding mercilessly at the pixies all around me as I slipped into an abyss that I feared would never release me.
The few that Raegan could not handle, another did.
Two others, actually. Killian on one side, grabbing pixies by the neck and knocking the lights out behind their eyes with either his own head or his fist, then tossing them aside.
And behind me, I caught the occasional glimpse of purple hair as bodies fell and Rory continued to grunt over and over again.
With bloodied-fists and a split brow, Raegan allowed Killian and Rory to take over keeping the Rachainn at bay, and focused solely on me as he pushed some of my hair out of my face.
“You will survive this,” he said sternly, not only to convince me but to convince himself. “Let’s get you out of here.”
I didn’t want to leave. Not knowing that Urram’s body was out there, somewhere, mangled and destroyed and alone. He didn’t deserve to be alone, even once he was long gone, even as he stepped into Mag Mell and left me for good.
I cried harder at the thought, but no words came from me and no expression took form on my face. It was a new sort of low, a new level beyond broken and beaten that I had not realized I could fall to.
I rose as he offered me his hand, using his strength to launch me up to my feet, and then I simply froze. The thought of Urram and his death was heavy in my mind, but it was the roars and shouts that were coming from the pixies of Cluaineach that caused me to stop.
They were chanting for my death. Over and over. Begging the King to drive his sword through the truest traitor of Saoghal.
“You need to go,” Raegan begged of me. “Please, run. Run for me, Olivia.”
But I ignored him, my heart split open and raw in ways I would never understand.
Then came the strange declaration that bled from me.
“The sky is blackening and the world is shifting… My search for light, my selfish pursuit of it, has damned us all… It is not light that I found but darkness that I brought.”
The King looked nervously around, his eyes flicking from one member of the gathered audience to the next, fear pressing his brows tighter as he shook his head at me, over and over.
There was a brief stretch of silence. A pause that held everything in it. All of the love and the pain, the desire and the damning.
“There will come a day, my darling sunshine, where no boundary shall stand between us. Mag Mell will welcome us as we are. Together. And that little life we dream of will at last be ours. So I beg you to turn and run. Now. Go back and get as far as you can—”
The faintest ting could be heard amongst the chaos.
A ting that I knew all too well, that prefaced the death of a pixie, once. The wobble of a bowstring and the way the air whistled in response to it.
The pressure came next. Pressure right across my chest, originating from one tiny spot.
Everything paused for a moment. Just a moment.
That strange second of acceptance as I glanced down, as I took note of the feathers that fanned out on the end of an arrow, and the throbbing sensation that circled the wound it had caused.
Then that brief moment was over and reality crashed over me like a wave.
Raegan exploded, his whole being unfurling, as he nearly dropped me only to catch my body at the last moment.
There was no pain. At least not like I expected there to be pain. Instead, I was left staring up at him, watching him bellow in agony, his eyes moving over every single person to identify who had shot the arrow that now stuck out of my chest.
The pain still was not physical but something else, an agony like none other, so terrible, so violent, but I willed it to numb.
I wished to be left with nothing but peace as I stared up at him, as his lips peeled back at the world and he became a rabid beast, roaring command after command as he held my body close to him.
Lifting the blood-splattered hand that I had pressed to the wound, I gently brushed my fingers over his cheek. I left a long trail of that hot blood, but the relief at touching his skin was like none other.
He stilled at last, letting the world fade to nothing until it was just him and I, deep in the darkness that we had trekked together.
“Look at me, Raegan,” I whispered, one hand on his chin to bring his focus to me. “It’s just you and I. I need to know that you know — that not only I love you but that you are worthy of it.”
His eyes shimmered with moisture as he blinked slowly at me.
“Whatever becomes of you, know it. Know that I loved you, endlessly. And hold on to it.”
His whole body shuddered as he pulled me closer, as his nails dug into the flesh of my neck.
“You’ve been struck with an arrow,” he began, his voice laced with panic as his eyes scanned my face. “But you’re going to be okay. Just hold steady, Shea has gone for healers and you’ll be okay—“
“I’m okay,” I mumbled, smiling up at him. And it was true. Even though my senses were slipping with every moment, and my body was flashing rapidly between hot and cold, I was really okay.
“I’m going to be okay. Listen to me… My end is welcome.”
He broke, every mask tumbling from his face and shattering around us as he let out an agonized groan and pulled me even tighter to him. He held me there, the two of us rocking back and forth as he muttered prayer after prayer into my skin.
“You heard me before, right?” I asked, my voice quieter than it had ever been. But he didn’t respond, he continued to plead to his gods, to beg them as he rocked us faster and faster. “Raegan, did you hear me?”
He finally pulled his face away, revealing to me the broken eyes and watery cheeks that made me frown.
“You were worthy of it,” I whispered. “And you will continue to be worthy of it.” I brushed my bloody knuckles along his cheek and smiled for him again. “Please don’t forget it. I will wait for you, in that little life, until you can join me.”
Raegan was roaring again, the very melody of pain and anguish that stained his face red and turned him into something else.
But my body was now completely numb and all I could do was look at him.
He pressed his lips to my brows, over and over, until I was sure the flesh was worn to nothing, until I was sure that there was now an imprinted scar of his lips.
With the last of my strength, I pulled my necklace from around my neck and set it into his hand. He stilled as I wrapped his fingers around the wilted aotrom. “Let it guide you, as it guided me,” I whispered.
“Olivia,” he whined, his voice the final agony that sent me on my way. “I shouldn’t have waited so long, please do not go. Do not go without me. I should have told you that day, I should have told you—”
His words tapered off as my ears silenced all noise but a sharp ringing through them.
The last thing I was blessed with was the sun of Saoghal. Not the fiery star in the sky, but the radiance of a king that had warmed me from day one.
My body went limp in his arms, his head pressing against my neck as he made feverish moans.
The pixies thought Mag Mell was a glorious paradise, but it wasn’t. Right here, right now was.
I died in the same place that had brought me life, and I died in the arms of the one who had reminded me just how badly I wanted to live.