Ripplings and Shadows
Iohmar wakes, and the storm greets him against the window. Curled in the space between his arms and chest is Lor, his head under Iohmar’s chin. His finger runs the softest circle around his horn—the broken one.
Such strange dreams. They return to him in the slow trickle of a stream. Grasping them all at once is difficult. How did I come to be in bed? Did Lor move me?
Stretching his hands, he finds the marks still present, grains of rot drifting from his skin. They fade before settling upon anything. His joints are stiff but move when requested, his head lighter, his talons regrown.
A weight sits against his legs, and he raises his head to see the rescued fawn curled into a makeshift nest. The knobby creature flaps its ears at him, velvet nose wrinkling. A twig from its back pokes his ankle through the blanket. Iohmar sighs, content. Hesitantly, he brushes his fingers through Lor’s hair, not wishing to disturb him.
Lor rubs his face into Iohmar’s shoulder before peering up, sleepy. Breath whispers upon his cheeks.
“I see you’ve put on dry clothes.” Iohmar’s voice is cracked and thick, but words obey him.
Lor nods.
“I am sorry I fell asleep.”
“It’s all right. I like sleeping here.”
Warmth blooms in Iohmar’s heart, but he remembers an earlier consideration. “Because you have bad dreams?”
“Sometimes. But I still just like it here.” His fingers move down to Iohmar’s cheek. “Are you all right now? You still look sick.”
“Not entirely, but I am very much improved.” Telling the full truth is a relief. Hours or days have passed in a blur, but already his body feels less wounded than the previous experiences—quicker to recover, even if worse at the outset. He remembers wishing to hold Lor close when they lay on the forest floor, but his arms hadn’t the strength, and the boy was deep in sleep.
Are you helping me? Iohmar wonders, watching Lor’s eyes trail his face and hair.
“Sometimes I have dreams you are fighting someone. Not with those stick swords you and Rúnda play with, just with your magic. You always look sad.”
The warmth in Iohmar’s heart constricts. He curls Lor tighter to him while the boy’s hand travels to a section of skin along Iohmar’s chest.
“Are those dreams where you got these?”
Lor’s fingers brush one of the many pale scars. Iohmar doubts Lor has seen such disfigurements on others—not enough to register its gravity. Injuries are tended to with haste in Iohmar’s Halls, and don’t often leave traces.
“Yes, I received those fighting.”
“So that dream is true?”
“Perhaps. Not the exact memory, I would assume. You were not there to remember, after all.”
“There were mirrors everywhere.”
Mirrors. Ripplings.
Iohmar shudders. “Yes, a real memory.”
“And the dream of you looking at me through the window, that’s true.” It isn’t a question.
“Yes,” he says, quieter. The pain of the conversation is fresh. He wishes to take it from Lor, keep it all as his own burden. Such is a nonexistent magic.
“Does that mean the other things are true?”
“What things?”
“When . . . I’m in the caves and you can’t find me? Or you disappear?”
“No, no, no. I will always find you. I cannot tell you where those dreams came from, but I assure you, they are not true.”
For a moment, he fears Lor will not believe. There is no smile to his eyes, but Lor nods. Believes him.
“I am sorry you had such frightening dreams, Wisp. You could have told me of them.”
“I like some of them. I have many where you carry me around. I think I’m a baby and you carry me everywhere. It’s very nice.”
Tears prickle Iohmar’s eyes. Weeping is ridiculous, but he nuzzles his nose into Lor’s hair. For a while, they lie in silence, Iohmar drifting. His eyes remain heavy with sleep. He thinks of dozing. Visiting Galen tugs at him, but he isn’t sure standing is wise. His strength is returning, but curled under piles of blankets with his head on a pillow is simple. He may crumble the moment he attempts sitting.
“Daidí?”
“Hmm?”
“I have another dream sometimes. When I’m dreaming about the caves. I don’t understand.”
His voice is hesitant, and Iohmar’s relieved he’s confiding in him. “Yes? Tell me.”
“I hear people speaking to me,” Lor says, and Iohmar blinks awake. “A lot of times it’s a woman, and she’s the one I can understand. She’s realer. She’s a shadow, and she doesn’t have a face I can see, but she looks at me and calls me your name, and I can still tell she’s looking at me.”
Iohmar remembers the night in the caves when the shadows dragged them down, how a voice spoke his name to Lor. He never claimed it was a woman’s voice. And the woman in the tunnels he first approached to save Lor was faceless and shrouded in shadow. She treated Iohmar as if he were his father.
