Lor knows his grandparents’ names now and the significance of the orchard, but little do they speak of it since Iohmar explained.
“When is Rúnda arriving?” he asks as Iohmar listens to the whisper of his crows.
“Soon,” he says, distracted by their gossip. “In the next few days, I assume, if they can hurry past the rain.”
“I want to go visit her next. You still wouldn’t let me climb the tower last time.”
“And I shan’t this time either.”
“Daidí,” Lor whines under his breath, but Iohmar isn’t paying attention.
He listens until his crows have finished their gossip, then drops breadcrumbs and seeds across his desk as they bounce and peck greedily. Lor’s expression is still drooping.
“Lor, do you wish to write to Laoise this time?”
In the seasons when Rúnda visits him, Iohmar has taken up the habit of writing short letters to her mother. Though Laoise rarely speaks to him in person and never sends a response, Rúnda assures him she reads all his letters to her mother, and they make her smile.
The last time they visited the windy tower, Iohmar introduced her to Lor. She stopped admiring her daughter’s garden long enough to pick the boy up and claim him for much of the visit. Iohmar remembers the smile upon Rúnda’s lips and the way it lit her eyes.
Lor grins, troubles forgotten. “Really?”
“Yes. Draft the letter, and we’ll go over it later.”
Lor presses his lips together, a withheld smile. “I know you’re off to do some sneaky kingly thing, but I don’t care. I’ll write the letter.”
Iohmar performs his best insulted expression. “I’m not sneaking.”
“I’m not that young, you know.”
He is, but Iohmar doesn’t say so. He remembers Lor’s age in a vague, dreamy sort of way, when the world was sunlight and playful winds and Ascia pretending adventurer by his side. He doesn’t wish to injure the boy’s infant pride. Standing, he hands him a sheet of parchment and a pen and kisses the crown of his head.
“Sneaking,” Lor whisper-sings as Iohmar slides on a soft blue robe and slips from his chambers. He restrains himself from rolling his eyes, a quirk Lor picked up from somewhere and that has been rubbing off on his father. Galen finds the action utterly baffling and bordering on the edge of enraging. Iohmar finds it worth his time to watch the old fae flustered by such a harmless and human action.
Iohmar leaves his Halls not by the wide front gate surrounded by trees and scooping vines but by the tunnels he often takes to the human world. He would have crawled out the bright opening into the mountain, but Lor may have followed, and Iohmar wishes to keep the path to the human lands a secret until he is older and has gained enough discretion.
He takes the same path where he found the men upon the borders of his woods, winding and ancient and overgrown. Spare raindrops pelt him, and wind twines his hair, but the storm has not yet arrived. He need not travel far. The human awaiting him is not upon the path nor in the human village but sheltered in a cluster of old pines and twisted oaks, needles carpeting the ground, dry moss stretching upon lower branches of trees.
Iohmar watches for a time, hidden in the shadows he calls about himself. She is unremarkable, a bland human with a matching expression and features. Her dress is simple peasant’s clothing, a coat and pants and a worn skirt over the top. Her feet are propped near a lazy fire, and she gazes about with unease.
She reminds Iohmar of someone, though he can’t put his finger on who. He has not visited the human world in a great time.
When he slips from the shadows, the woman starts. Her eyes roll across him, settling upon his horns and face and eyes. Were he to step closer, he’s certain his size and appearance would startle her back.
Still, as politely as he can, he asks, “Why are you in my woods, little human?”
She is not young by means of her own species, though to Iohmar she is an infant. Fine wrinkles around her eyes are not a great indication of age.
For a long while, she stares, and he allows her to consider her words. She carries no belongings save for a sack with the smell of food. She must have come with purpose, knowing her footsteps traveled along the borders between her world and the fae’s. She is brave, so Iohmar allows her time to gather her thoughts.
“You are the great king beneath the earth,” she says, voice uncertain but not afraid. She folds her hands in her lap, making an effort to meet his eyes without fear.
Iohmar smiles, the faintest curl of his lips. Copying her posture, he folds his hands before him. “Yes.”
“My father told me of you,” she says, eyes intense.
Was it the man upon the path those decades ago? He was brave enough to speak to him, with a grandmother who was suspicious and a daughter who gave him a toy. Iohmar cocks his head at her.
“And who was your father?”
“He never gave you his name,” she says. “But you visited his home once, decades ago. And before, when a group of men in our village went to find a man who murdered his wife. My father said you stopped him along the way.”
Iohmar stares. Though she is quite young to him, she must be a good halfway into her life. He believes he knows the answer but asks, “And how fares your father?”
The furrow of her eyebrows is sympathetic. “My father passed away over a year ago now.”
She does not lower her eyes, but there is sadness in them, less strength. Melancholy lodges in Iohmar’s chest. The human was a mild curiosity, someone he visited once. Never did he learn the man’s name. He was a wise man for such a discretion, but Iohmar doesn’t allow himself to smile at the memory. The woman would misread.
But Iohmar remembers his father and mother, their lives no more than the souls of soft trees. This is as much understanding as he can share with a human: The sympathy he grew for them after war came to his own lands. Grief and strength and loss.
So he bows his head and shoulders to her. “I am sorry for not realizing. Time passes quite differently in my world than it does in yours.”
The woman nods. Iohmar suspects she expected nothing different. Softly, she says, “I remember you.”
“You gave me a doll.”
She smiles. Iohmar steps farther from the shadows, crouching and plucking a pine needle from the forest floor. Fiddling puts humans at ease, and he is smaller now, nearer to her level. He can stand still for so long, and it unnerves them. Her posture relaxes.
“I am grateful you have told me,” Iohmar says. “I suspect there is more reason you’ve come to the edge of the woods.”
