Iohmar bites the inside of his cheek to keep his expression stone and ice. “I have never known you to need reinforcements . . .”
Rúnda leans close enough their noses brush. Her mouth is pulled into a false scowl. He brushes his lips over her eyebrows with the lightest touch, drifting down her temple and ear to a delicate spot along her neck. Blue flickers along her skin, responding to his touch. He rests his mouth and chin there and lets her hair tickle his face.
She sighs.
Her fingers push up his sleeve, trailing the bare skin on his arm. Warmth from her magic settles over him like a blanket. For a moment, he thinks of his refusal to admit Lor’s heritage, then stores those thoughts. The danger is over. They need speak of nothing but happy things. The air is somewhere between hot and icy, and Iohmar’s eyes are so heavy he could sleep against her shoulder. As he gazes past her wild hair at the miles upon miles of coastline, something shimmers along the sand. It isn’t far, but he has to squint to catch a glimpse. Still, the forms don’t become clear. He raises his head, leaning around Rúnda.
“What is it?” she asks, turning to follow his gaze. Her eyebrows pucker to match his squint.
Iohmar stretches his magic. There are many creatures in Rúnda’s lands who would sense their queen and the king beside her and wish to bask in their magic. Most are familiar to him, both simple and intelligent. Lovely.
No magic meets them. Cold sucks at his skin, and the air is yanked from his lungs so sharply he’s certain he won’t be able to catch his breath. Even at this distance, he knows them. Empty and thoughtless. Out of their borders. Surrounding him and surrounding him and surrounding him.
Rippling.
11
Ripplings
When first he saw them, Iohmar was a child.
Creatures existed in lands outside Látwill, he knew. His Halls and those of Rúnda and her mother existed in their own haze of mist and woods and desert. But surely there are other lands. Humans dwell not too far from his own mountains, after all. Other things, he would sense far off. As a boy, he imagined he could find dragons, though he outgrew such hopes.
Ripplings were different in their magic in it seemed to not exist at all, but Iohmar could sense their presence even before their borders spread into his.
They were difficult to see, shimmering as mirrors contracting within themselves, giving off a strange cold so different from the chill of the tunnels he and Ascia played in. His skin crawled when he watched them, a natural reaction to something with a void where magic should’ve existed.
Walking the borders of his land, hiding behind his father’s leg, he watched them shift in and out of the strange world bordering theirs, towering over them. The sound of his father’s voice has long been lost to him now. He can’t recall the tone and pitch of it. Perhaps it was worried. Perhaps curious. Calm, most likely. His father was a tranquil creature in the truest sense of the word, not Galen’s type of calm which hides his nerves. His father was not afraid, because he did not understand. He always introduced Iohmar to creatures in their world and in the next. These ripplings were new to them both. Iohmar wasn’t sure he liked them, but he was the prince and couldn’t make his discomfort known.
Likely, he asked, “What are they?”
Likely, his father gave some answer. Iohmar doesn’t remember.
He remembers when they stepped close to the border. When his father spoke to them, received no answer, and so reached out a hand. A stretch of glass and mirror reaching from the border. The rippling way it wrapped about the king’s outstretched palm.
His father’s littlest finger turned to a wilted, twisted vine. Iohmar remembers the sensation of the injury each time he took his father’s hand, a lifeless point against his bright growing magic.
War came much, much later.
A wounded noise rips from Rúnda’s throat. She stands out of Iohmar’s grasp, facing the rippling creatures across the sand. He puts his hand on her leg and curls Lor tight to his chest. There are a few of them, and a few can do neither king nor queen harm, not as old and magic filled as they are, but the sight of them raises sickness in Iohmar’s throat. He struggles to swallow.
Their rippling borders reach fingers into both kingdoms and perhaps into other lands Iohmar and Rúnda have yet to discover. He’s managed to keep them from the human realm. They have no set borders but haven’t expanded them since the end of the fighting. Before, it would not have been unusual in and of itself to see them here, rather far from Rúnda’s tower, here in a wilderness of sand and sea. But rarely do they venture to the edge now. Iohmar hasn’t seen them push their border out—even the little finger of a shimmering wall this is—in centuries, let alone caught them watching.
“What do they want?” Rúnda whispers. Her wounds are not the same as his, but the fear is as potent. He squeezes her leg.
“I don’t know.”
She huffs a breath, and the silence grows as they watch the creatures. Even from this distance, Iohmar sees them shifting along the sand, never touching the water. Rúnda steps forward. Once, then twice. And still, they do not retreat.
“How dare they come so close?”
Rage laces her soft voice. It echoes in his chest.
“Don’t,” he says when she steps closer.
“I will not tolerate them here,” she says, and she is not his lover, but queen over the sky in the fullest of her power. Iohmar understands and knows he cannot stop her.
“Stay here a moment,” she tells him. “These are my lands. And they despise you.”
Watching her stray across the sands sours his stomach and brings heat to his eyes. She does not need my protection. This he knows. She does not need my protection. But neither did his parents need his protection.
Lor has gone quiet and still. When Iohmar glances down, he finds the boy’s eyes on the creatures. Can he see them from such a distance? How can they appear to one so young and uncomprehending?
To his relief, Rúnda stops when she’s still a ways from the creatures. Her dress is a spot of bright sunlight against the purple-orange landscape. He cannot hear her words. His heartbeat throbs behind his ears. A weak chill has settled into his limbs. Such is the way a human would react to fear. Hate for his own ridiculous reaction adds to the burn in his throat.
A minute passes. He counts it out. Then another. Pressing his magic against Rúnda’s, he finds no increased distress. The creatures shift before her, and she stands tall and firm. The sea crests around her, roused by her rage. Wind swirls with purple sand.
Then they crawl closer to her, and Iohmar rises. Rúnda does not warn him back. His legs are heavy and aching, and shivers crawl like spiders across his skin. Each step is a strange sensation. Closer and closer, and he’s close enough he could defend her. Lor is hidden within his shirt. Up close, the reflective nature of their void bodies is clear and sharp and piercing.
He is close enough to touch Rúnda’s back, and the creatures scatter. They have no faces he can discern, no way for him to know if they were looking at him, but his presence sends them back, dragging their gossamer finger of a border along after. It should comfort him they are afraid when he and his queen stand together. Instead, he wishes to curl into a ball and weep.
King beneath the earth, indeed.
Rúnda turns her face to him. Fear must be written into his skin and eyes and magic. She knows he is afraid. So is she. But he hates for her to see it. She should never see such fear in me. She doesn’t speak.
“What did they want?”
