She must’ve been there.
“Take him,” he said. “Take him.”
Arms replaced his own. For a moment, he was held in the circle of kingsguard, unable to bring himself to break free. Shoving from them, he approached the border. Swirls ran up the shimmering gray barrier reaching to the sky—a fingerprint of his mother’s magic.
“Máthair!” he called.
The land was dead, a scar plunging into the earth so far that he couldn’t reach its end. Uprooted trees and withered flowers littered the ground. He slipped on them. His thoughts were weak, body screaming and strong but exhausted after stealing back his own lands. Rippling shards drew his eyes, and he saw them slinking out of their lands, scavenging for magic leftover in what they’d already consumed.
He slipped from downed tree to downed tree rather than face them.
He found her there, a patch of soft red flowers anchoring themselves to ashy ground. He sobbed. Sobbed. Sobbed and could not remember a time he’d done so since he was a little boy and Ascia had been lost to him.
He pulled roots from the ground—the only things he could call in the dead lands—and eased the flowers from that place. She could not stay there. None of them could.
One was near, near enough Iohmar felt the void of its body pulling at him, washing him with cold. He stared at it, and though there was no face, he felt it watching, towering three times his height. Sunlight broke the clouds, startling it back. It slithered around the beam of light, almost curious if Iohmar didn’t know better.
There were more behind it. Large. Strange. Iohmar wondered if they had parents and children and concepts of what they’d taken.
One of the poppies shriveled under the creature’s touch.
Iohmar screamed.
He called the trees. The sunlight and shadows were still there, hidden by all the consuming gray. Trees and roots and soil fused to the remnants of the border his mother had created. He did not have her magic but could reinforce her protection. The creature nearest gave a harsh scream, cut off from its land.
Surrounding himself in shadow, Iohmar pressed out sunlight and heard shattering, a thousand mirrors breaking across his ears. Pain cocooned him, shards of glass coming to pieces, burying themselves in the felled trees, the shimmering border, everything left to contact.
When he raised his head, they’d retreated so deep within their borders that even their soulless forms were no longer within his reach.
He wanted to collapse.
He had to go home. They had to go home.
His kingsguard were bundled where he’d left them, the few remaining who’d come to defend these lands clustered beside them, bodies cut from the shattering. Their eyes were on him. Iohmar looked at himself, touched a hand to his chest, and found himself more in pieces than together.
The roots of the poppies twined between his fingers.
Calling his sunlight, he drew his folk to him and yanked
them home.
Iohmar remembers bringing them home, remembers the trees of the orchard and Galen tending to his ruined body. He thinks Ascia must have been there, but she’d been lost to him so long ago. He hears her voice, his mother’s name, his father’s, and the names of everyone he has ever known, fae or human or otherwise, all in his thousands of years.
He thinks of the orchard. Dreams of it.
Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.
When he wakes, he feels tears upon his face.
17
The Orchard
Lor is beside him.
Iohmar wouldn’t need more than a breath of magic to wake him, but his limbs quiver when he shifts on the forest floor, and the boy looks so peaceful. Iohmar’s certain, though rot no longer drifts, his appearance must be dreadful. His skin is thin to the touch, fragile as if he’s thousands of years older. Rolling onto his back with a great deal of care, he tests his muscles. His right shoulder aches. It’s the one he slept on. How many days have they been here? Usually his body is not so sensitive.
He spreads his fingers. His talons are sharp and dark as midnight. Pulling his hair over his shoulder, he finds it still washed with ink, his fingers stained from touching the shadows. His skin is translucent as ever, though a little gray with exhaustion. The streaks of rot have faded, leaving no trace on his skin or clothing or even the moss beneath him. He flexes his fingers and watches the tendons move—the piercing scar on his left hand from a shard of rippling glass.
What awful dreams.
He presses his palms to his eyes and finds his cheeks wet. He is a king and far too old to be sobbing like an infant.
Årelang. Croía. He thinks his parents’ names and tries to steady his breathing before sitting up. His limbs tremble. He remembers training long and hard as a youngling and how he would wobble when standing for days after. This is not so different a sensation.
Leaves shiver. Iohmar notices the other presence only now, eyes gazing at him from among the trunks.
“Túirt,” he says, uneasy but relieved.
The trees here are dense and clustered. He walked farther than he imagined before settling. Were he in his right mind, he would never have settled in these parts of the woods. Túirt must have felt him nearby and come searching.
Was he watching him while he was ill? What does he think of his king lying helplessly on the forest floor?
Túirt slides from the shadows, folding himself on the ground. “I found you sleeping.”
