Ridiculous to act in such a way, he thinks, though his limbs are heavier than they’ve been in centuries, betraying him. What a foolish thing I’ve done.
Before his magic returns him to the sea of memories, he eases down the open window, stumbling on the carpet of leaves. Though he left in the darkness of night, it is once again late and lightless. Strange the way time passes in the tunnels.
Perhaps this is how humans feel. He chuckles. He wouldn’t normally find this amusing.
After laying the squalling babe on the bed, he takes a scrap of parchment from his desk, squinting at the trembling in his fingers. The last time his body shook so . . .
He pushes aside war and battles. Galen will appear in the morn, no matter how badly Iohmar wishes him never to see him in such a way, and he isn’t sure how long this weakness will last.
Do not be alarmed, and do not call for anyone. All will be explained. The words will not comfort the old fae, but he hasn’t time to consider better ones. Folding the paper to stand upright, he sets it on the table beside his bed, words facing the door so Galen is sure to notice. Letting the inky robe fall to a pile at his feet, he kicks off shoes. Still, the boy wails, and Iohmar bends over him with a frown. Lying alongside, he drapes a hand atop the child’s chest. There is no pain or true suffering but a sharp discontentment the boy cannot shake.
“Shh,” Iohmar whispers to the side of his soft head.
Using the last of his magic available to him, he presses comfort and warmth into the child—the memory of calm water, the weightlessness of wind, the heat of Queen Rúnda’s ocean shores—until the boy falls to peaceful sleep. Without bothering to crawl beneath the covers, Iohmar follows.
Once, when he wakes, he is falling to pieces.
Outside, his lands are dark as before, but the stiffness in his muscles and the haze of his thoughts insist it’s been days, not mere minutes. He raises his hand. Dust drifts from his fingers. No, not quite dust, but flakes like shredded paper dipped in ink, dissolving to nothing as they leave his skin. Fascinated, he turns both arms over. His claws, once clear and pale, are streaked with darkness like roots reaching into soft soil. He imagines the decorative marks on Galen’s body and wants to giggle.
No mirror lies within reach, but placing his fingers on his face, he’s certain it must appear the same. His skin is cool and otherworldly under his touch. His horns ache where they meet his skull, the one broken many years ago sending streaks of pain along his scalp. The one broken by the woman throbs in a shallower sensation. They weigh his head as if the entirety of his lands rest upon his hair. He has the presence of mind to recognize he should be frightened, but he is not, and the child is no longer crying, and this is a pleasing thing.
Something brushes his hair, and he’s falling back to sleep before his mind can consider it.
Once more does he wake, and he is terrified. Limbs pinned to the bed, tightness in his chest, he is still beneath the tunnels, crushed under the weight of the earth collapsing upon him. He is a child with a mountain atop him and his best friend lost to him, waiting forever and forever and forever for someone to find him.
But he is within his own bed, facing the vast window where silver light is appearing, cool dawn breaking the color of plums. His parents’ chambers are alongside his own, closed up as they have been for centuries, overgrown with vines and flowers to fill the void. It’s quiet—such are the things he loves greatest in his lands—a silence humans never experience. Even his birds, with heads tucked under wings in sleep, do not sing in the morning stillness.
Peace does not shake the terror in his bones. Not since battles and blood and grief has he felt so weakened and vulnerable. Even with thousands of years in his past, he’s never felt so aged and frail. He almost drowned in grief then and will not surrender to it now. Not safe in his chambers.
I am Iohmar. I am alive.
Over and over he thinks the words, small and childlike for a king of the fae, but it calms him better than the quiet. Drawing his eyes from the window, he settles them on the child. Arms spread to either side, resting on his belly with his tiny round face toward Iohmar, the babe is lost to sleep. There is something not quite the same in his appearance, skin no longer frail and devoid of warmth but paler and blue gray as Iohmar’s birch-bark eyes. His limbs are slimmer but stronger. Iohmar rests the tips of his fingers against the boy’s back.
A thread of magic reaches him, steady and strong.
Noon shimmers bright and warm when Iohmar wakes to strength in his limbs. A chill clings to him, and he basks in the heat. Reaching to his magic, he finds it weak but recovering. There’s something new as well, a consistent spark of warmth and life connected to his. He tests it, then brushes his fingers against the child’s satin skin. Affection squeezes his heart. Fascinated, he nuzzles his nose into the tiny cheek. Even in sleep, the boy’s magic strengthens at the contact, and Iohmar is aware of it without effort. Even with his own parents, there was never this connection of magic.
Inspecting him, he finds the babe resembling one of his own kind: limbs elongated, eyes rounded, elegant, and slim, ears slanted. His skin is papery as bark, expression graceful even in sleep, flowers blossoming in the soft wisps of infant hair. These are his own features, unique to him alone, and Iohmar is pleased at how the boy’s magic reflects his own propensities.
The woman succeeded.
But Iohmar’s claws, pointed once more, are black as pitch. He runs the pad of his thumb across the sharp tips, testing his ability to change them back and finding them unyielding. An odd change. Iohmar doesn’t understand how the two are linked.
It matters not, he reminds himself. There will be time to dwell on his appearance later. For now, he basks in the life of the child he’s saved, strong and unique and beating.
My own little boy.
He is aware, then, of another in the room. Before he can tense, Galen’s calming presence washes over him, the easy, slow threads of his healing soul. Iohmar rolls onto his back, careful of his traumatized body and unhappy magic.
His old caretaker reclines in the chair woven of soft willow boughs, elbows on the armrests, fingers laced together, expression an absolute storm. Iohmar’s seen it before, directed at him as an unruly child, and even once directed at his father, though it never was acknowledged. He awaits the thunder, which never comes.
Testing the waters, he says, “ ’Tis a lovely morn.”
“ ’Tis,” Galen agrees.
But Iohmar does not trust such an expression. Gingerly, he sits, testing the ability of his arms to support his weight. They tremble but hold. Galen was watching him sleep, helpless and exposed. Iohmar knows, after all the old fae has seen, it’s ridiculous to hate the vulnerability. He tries to put it from his mind. Galen doesn’t deserve a cold shoulder.
“Have you seen your appearance?” Galen asks, voice beginning to match his expression.
Iohmar stills, glancing at his talons.
“I don’t mean merely those.”
Raising his eyebrows, Iohmar slips to his feet, relieved his legs don’t shake enough to be visible. He finds his way to the washroom parallel to his desk and the mirror above the water basin.
He looks a terror.
The streaks of shadow invading his talons have seeped into other parts. His horns—two on each side, one larger and one smaller—as well as his hair, are dark as the deepest night. His right eye has turned to pitch, the very center a white dot. The left is as it was. He turns his head side to side, acclimating to the change. His sight is not affected, and neither is the strength of his horns when he touches them. The newly broken edge is rough and incorrect under his fingers. Swallowing, he closes his eyes and accepts the alterations. Strange as it is to have another modify him in a way he cannot correct, he has experimented with his appearance a handful times throughout his long life. No one should think much on it. He will deal with this for the child’s health.
He doubts Galen will be so understanding.
As if called by the thought, his caretaker says, “High Queen Rúnda sent you a letter.”
