“Why are we here?” Iohmar breathes, turning his back to the mountain to face the line of trees concealing the barrier. Moonlight catches in reflective shimmers.
“Daidí, there she is.”
He points, and Iohmar finds, among the trees and grasses, the shadow child who led him to the heart of the woods.
“Iohmar,” it says in a voice he recognizes, then slips into the trees. Her voice echoes in his ears.
Ascia, he wants to say, to scream, but the word catches in his chest.
He can’t bear to be here—not so close to their barrier, not with his son in his arms. He hates for Lor to know these nightmare creatures told of in stories, hates for Lor to see him crumble under memories and fears.
“We have to follow her,” Lor whispers, little eyes troubled. Iohmar squeezes him tighter, tight enough no monster can touch him, and steps toward the rippling border.
27
A Long-Unforgotten War
Past the trees, ripplings greet him.
Several dozen are poised behind their barrier, small and inconsequential beside his power, but enough to turn his legs to petals and his fingers to ice. He recognizes the one at the heart of the woods, larger, gazing at him with a faceless body, something unforgettable in the way it contorts about itself. As before, the shadow girl is nowhere to be seen, but he believes she watches.
She led him to the ripplings before; there must be a reason now.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
Never has he expected an answer, and he doesn’t this time. Perhaps the shadow will answer. Some of the closest trees are withered at their smallest branches, and he shoves down immediate and unhelpful rage.
When Lor sees them, his breath hitches, arms tightening around Iohmar’s neck. “Those are the creatures in my dreams. The ones that hurt you.”
Again, Iohmar’s eyes burn. He refuses to blink. “Yes. They will not harm you, Wisp.”
The creature cocks its head at him, a strangely familiar gesture. Iohmar knows they are not one in the same, the shadows and the ripplings, but he wonders where this thing could’ve learned such a gesture if not from the woman in the caves, looking at him and cocking her head like a bird.
“You wish for me to be here,” Iohmar says. Though he isn’t certain it’s true, he must speak. “What do you wish of me?”
What can I expect? His father’s first interactions were in friendship, and they were met with pain. Their only thought is to consume.
He thinks of his father and mother, their lives slow and soft in their trees, and steps so close to the border that he feels the chill of it upon his cheeks. “What do you want—”
“Help . . .”
Iohmar twitches, jerking back so sharply that his ill body nearly gives. Lor yelps and clings to his horn. Catching himself against a tree, Iohmar stares. His eyes ache. Heartbeats throb behind his ears. It spoke to him.
It spoke.
In a sharp, soft voice so much like tinkling glass that Iohmar could almost believe it gentle.
“Daidí?” Lor asks, voice trembling, and Iohmar maneuvers him from his side to between his shoulder blades, arms curled under him. His body is between the ripplings and his little boy.
“Help,” he repeats. His voice is incorrect, echoing, but he will not back away further. With force, he steps toward the border. Some of the small creatures disappeared, frightened by his sudden reaction. The largest one, the one that spoke, shifts but does not flee.
“When did you learn our tongue?” Iohmar asks.
It almost appears nervous, the way it twists and shifts, and the part of it that could be a face turns every which way.
“Your tongue is . . . uneasy . . . difficult . . .”
Numb, Iohmar finds himself nodding. They are speaking to each other. His eyes won’t stop burning.
“When? How?”
“After you were frightened of me . . .”
Frightened. In the heart of the woods, Iohmar encountered this one. He was frightened. Terrified. And the creature realized.
“The little shadow taught us . . .”
Little shadow. Iohmar searches for the shadow girl, finding nothing but the darkness opposite the moonlight.
“Is she one of you?”
“No . . .”
Iohmar didn’t believe so. Not when her name is caught in his throat.
“How did she teach you?”
“She . . . sat at our border and spoke long things until we understood her words . . . one by one . . .”
