And the shadows. Iohmar dipped his fingers into them those years before, as close as one living thing can be to another. There was magic, certainly, and hints of true life, but it was dim and quiet and slow, harmless despite the marks left upon his hand. They may have swallowed him and Lor, but such is a far cry from stitching the earth into place.
If they were trying to communicate, their message was lost to him.
“Strange,” he tells himself.
“You are,” says a female voice, and Iohmar nearly jumps from his skin. The sharp tip of his horn catches in the trunk of the closest tree. It’s been too long since he filed them for Lor’s sake.
Now that he’s paying attention, he senses her in the air about him.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and Rúnda puts a hand on her hip, raising an eyebrow. Her skin matches the dark of the night, rendering her nigh invisible.
He tries to maneuver his head from the tree, but the bark catches, and a small branch weaves itself around his other horns, welcoming Iohmar’s presence. He grabs the horn and pulls his head free, healing over the gash with a splinter of his magic before it bleeds sap. The branches unwind at a lazy pace.
“You startled me,” he says, less irritated.
“So I see. Why the magic display?”
If she was following him, she felt it full force. He picks splinters one by one from his horn. Recognizing the nervous gesture, he wipes them all at once, folding his hands before him.
“Don’t fold your hands at me, king beneath the earth,” she says, locking eyes. “I know you more fully than such.”
Iohmar sighs. He holds out his hand. She looks at it, unimpressed, but relents. Her fingers are slim and soft within his, and she steps close to his chest.
“I apologize,” he says. “I am trying to work out a few things before I attempt to explain. And I wasn’t going to explain while your queensguard was there. I was coming to speak to you.”
“Hmm,” she hums, eyelids low. She stands under his chin and looks up, close enough to kiss. He does so, a brush of their lips, and when she relaxes, the uncanny strangeness leaves Iohmar’s skin. Even in her chill windswept tower she wears slim, delicate clothing. Here, in these warm lands, in the soft dark blues of her evening dress, he feels every bit of her when she leans against him.
Against his skin, she says, “This is not an alternative to explaining.”
“I know,” he says, drawing her toward the mountain. “Walk with me. I’ll explain.”
Seated within the glass of Iohmar’s wide window, he tells her Lor’s story.
She leans against one side of the sill, he the other, their legs intertwined. Lor lies in his bed of roots and down blankets woven within the wall, deep in a sleep and unhearing of their words. Iohmar is calmed by the boy’s magic saturating the room, surrounding them.
Each word he drags from his throat.
He begins with the humans tromping the woods. Continues with the murderer in the hut. Rúnda’s eyes close when he speaks of the poor woman buried beneath the trees. He tells her of Lor, of the boy’s weak little life and soft innocence, and how he couldn’t convince himself to leave the helpless thing in the human world, even more so once he realized the boy was too sick to be returned.
He describes the woman in the tunnels. How Lor’s magic is bound to his. Life to life.
He explains the caverns and the ripplings watching him through the border. Rúnda shudders. He thinks of scooping her into his arms but can’t bring himself to move.
Finally, he explains the illness he thought had long passed, returned for no reason he can determine.
When he finishes, her eyes are no longer on him, so he says, “I’m leaving out details, I’m sure. But that is the greatest amount of it.”
“Do you believe the illness will return?”
“I didn’t. Now I’m uncertain. If I could pinpoint if it was triggered by something, I would have a stronger theory.”
“Will the woman know? The one in the tunnels?”
“She didn’t say it would return, and I believe she meant me no harm. She asked I not return. I swore I would not disturb her. Besides, I searched for her magic afterward. It seems she no longer dwells there.”
Rúnda nods, but this was another of Iohmar’s mistakes, she knows. He should never have made so foolish a commitment.
“Perhaps the second time was because of the shadows.”
“Perhaps,” he agrees. A linking between the two seems far-fetched, but he has no better idea.
Shame twists his heart. Was it correct to tell her? To saddle her with the burdens I have placed upon myself? If he is threatened, it is correct she be aware, not only because he loves her, but also because she is another leader.
But he cannot bring himself to regret these threats to his magic, because Lor is here, sleeping in his bed, healthy and growing and as much a part of Iohmar as his own magic. He can never think ill of any decision made to protect the boy.
Even if it labels him a foolish king.
“So, he is human,” Rúnda murmurs, gazing at Lor. He cannot read the thoughts in her expression.
Despite it all, his stomach twists. “Yes. I . . . don’t wish Lor to know. Not until he’s old enough to understand. I don’t wish him thinking something terrible will happen to him or to me, particularly not after his fright in the caves. And I don’t wish him to worry over all I experienced with the woman to save him.”
She gazes at him oddly but shakes her head. “I don’t wish him to think it’s his fault.”
Relief takes hold of him, guilt following for not telling her sooner. He shouldn’t be nurturing such weakness in himself.
His parents would not have been so feeble.
