55
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The human woman who stumbled her way into the world of the pixies, would forever remain within it. The King, the pixie that loved her more than life itself, made sure of that.
That was why Olivia Loughty, Vet, caraid of Urram of the Grey Skies, lay on a slab of stone within the mausoleum that, until now, had been empty.
It was the only place worthy of her, mostly because of the intricate and delicate carving of the stone exterior, the pillars of beauty and the impressive exterior.
But it was the inside that made the King think of her, that made him feel close to her once more.
The ceiling of the mausoleum had been torn out, replaced by panes of glass that would only ever let one thing in: sunlight.
Olivia Loughty deserved to rest in sunlight.
There she was, laid across that marbled-stone, her body wrapped in the ancient robes of mourning.
For Choilltean, they were dark green. For Uisge, they were dark blue.
For Speur, they were nearly white. But for Cluaineach, the place that would forever be Olivia’s home, her robes were yellow.
A pale yellow, like the sun peering through clouds.
Nothing loud and obnoxious, because Olivia was none of those things.
No, these robes were soft and inviting, warm and gentle. Just as she was.
There was not much within the mausoleum.
There was the dripping sunlight that would forever grace the space above.
There was the slab with the human woman laid upon, her hair wound in an elegant braid and her hands crossed over her still chest. And there was the King of Talamh, a pixie male who knelt at the side of her, his head laid across her chest, his eyes sore and dry from being unable to blink off of her pale face.
He did not stir when he heard another enter the space, their footsteps somewhat heavy yet their scent familiar.
Shea, the pixie female who had been a mentor of sorts to the King when he first arrived in her kingdom, leaned against the nearest wall of beige and watched him, quietly.
It was Raegan who broke the silence. A voice cracking and brittle, not belonging to him at all. “How did my father do it?”
Shea’s lips turned downwards as she crept across the room, coming to a stop beside her King where she crouched down. And Shea, who rarely touched another, placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
But she hesitated on her answer. And when she finally did answer, even Raegan could hear a sprinkle of deceit in the answer she offered.
“Because your father was a heartless male. But you, Raegan… You have a heart.”
Raegan frowned as he stared at Olivia. “Not anymore.”
He was not surprised that Shea offered no response, instead just retracted her hand and remained at his side as he continued to stare absently at the human.
Raegan had never been much for talking. He remembered, vaguely, living in Cluaineach.
He remembered a life with his mother, with the male that she was with.
He remembered laughing and smiling, running and climbing, singing and dancing.
But then he was taken beneath the trees, away from the sun, and the King of Talamh forgot how to do those things.
But then she came. Olivia Loughty had stumbled into his throne room, her cheeks flush with fear, and Raegan remembered.
He remembered how tight his chest could get when he laughed, he remembered how fast his heart could beat when he smiled.
He remembered the songs he used to sing and he remembered how warm it was to be loved.
Raegan had learned it all, and now she was gone. Now, Raegan would be stuck with remembering, with feeling the ghost of the life that he could have had.
Olivia had taught Raegan to talk, so talk, he did. “She claimed we were mates,” he laughed, somewhat bitterly, the noise bouncing as he shook his head. “She claimed it multiple times, actually. Can you imagine?”
His snort was cut short by Shea’s sharp, “Yes.”
Raegan, for the first time since she had gone limp in his arms, looked away from Olivia. His eyes snapped to Shea, who had rocked back onto her heels and resumed her crossed-over-chest position with her arms.
He prefaced his words with a nervous laugh.
“There is no way. I knew love, once. I knew it in my mother’s eyes.
In the soft kisses to my brow, in the songs she lulled me to sleep with.
But the gods… The gods, Shea… they despise me.
They curse me, over and over and over, and they will not allow me to have love.
I do not have a mate, nor did I ever have one.
I will never have one. I am unworthy of such a beautiful thing. ”
Shea only stared at Raegan, watching the King rattle off more words than the two of them had shared in over a century.
“I thought I could be selfish with her,” he mumbled, looking back at Olivia as he took her hand in his and rolled his thumb over her knuckles.
“I thought I could love her silently and that the gods would not notice. I thought I could steal this joy for myself and hide it from the world in hopes of keeping it. And then I thought… I thought perhaps the gods had forgiven me, that I was allowed to love and be loved.”
Shea had a tear in either of her eyes and one on her chin. She wiped none of them away.
“I should have sent her away long ago. I should have sent her away the day Killian walked her through those doors and I felt a warmth like none other. I should have sent her away when one look from her stilled the beat of my heart and collapsed the expansion of my lungs. I should have been selfless–”
“She wouldn’t have wanted that, Raegan,” Shea murmured, crouching closer again.
“She was like you in that way. Stubborn beyond belief with a heart far larger than what was good for her. And… And she loved you. I saw it when she first visited, and I could not look away from it when she returned. She would not have allowed you to cast her aside. You know this. Whatever it was that was between the two of you, it was raw and it was real. The gods themselves cannot deny such a thing.”
Raegan’s frown slipped off of his face, just as the rest of his emotion did.
He snapped upright, his body taking to a rigid, straight line at once that caused Shea to gasp and stumble away from him.
“No one is to enter this room,” he commanded, his voice that of a King’s once more.
Shea flicked her eyes from Raegan to his human, over and over again. “She’s not going to–”
“Go and hunt, Shea. Hunt to the ends of this world and the next, if you must. The Rachainn have spread out but they will not stay that way for long. I want them all dead.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you sure–”
“Go. Out,” he snarled.
Raegan knew when he was cruel. He knew how to be cruel. He knew the way to hold his body so that others did not argue with him, he knew how to sharpen his voice so that others scattered away from him. And he knew Shea was not deserving of it, but he did it nonetheless.
Shea bowed to her King, a cautious look in her eyes, before she shot out of the mausoleum and shut the stone door behind her.
~
Raegan broke.
It had started the moment she died, but it truly knocked into him then. His body decayed from the inside out, his mind soon a cruel torture that he had to endure as he looked at Olivia.
He grabbed onto her hands, her skin so pale and cold as they touched. Slowly, one pad of her finger at a time, he kissed the frigid skin.
Back on his knees, a position he would only ever take to for her, he pressed her knuckles to his trembling lips and closed his eyes.
“Cernunnos,” Raegan whispered, a warm tear gathering in the corner of his eye.
Uncurling her fingers, he placed them against his cheek and leant into them, nuzzling his nose into the bend of her wrist where her pulse should have been strong.
“Cernunnos, I beg,” the King croaked. “I beg of you, give her back to me. Take my crown, take my title, take my people, if you must. Take it all. Just give her back to me, please. Let me have her, let me love her. Let me love her the way she deserved to be loved. Let her turn me kind and soft and warm, just as she was.” Raegan’s voice cracked at last as he tried to bring warmth to her skin by rubbing her hand on his cheek.
But her skin would not take to the temperature.
“Give her back to me,” he murmured, brushing a kiss across her palm a second, third, fourth time.
But Raegan knew, then, that he had been wrong. That he had been a fool. Because the gods did not forgive him. And he was, as he had always been, unworthy.
Unworthy of love, yes.
But unworthy of Olivia Loughty.
Unworthy of the little life she would have gladly lived with him.