Ascia is tucked into one side, Lor the other, both swimming in blankets and sleeping deep as the trees. Two ears pop up between them where the fawn nests.
Once they reached the mountain, Lor pieced together the story. “I dreamt of you,” he told Ascia when Iohmar first sat them on the edge of his bed.
She gazed at him strangely, head on her shoulder—an expression Iohmar now remembers in earnest—and said, “I dreamt of you too.”
Iohmar didn’t know what to expect—for he’s certain now Ascia’s magic caused his son his terrible dreams, even if she didn’t realize it herself—but watched as Lor flung his arms about her and said, “You’re going to stay with us now.”
Hot tears sit along his cheeks. Iohmar scrubbed his face clean of dirt and the remnants of weeping once the children fell into sleep. These are fresh. He didn’t heal the cut he created in the mountainside, letting the sun reach the giant bones forever, but cast his magic upon it, dissuading others from venturing too close.
Iohmar rests his head against the back of the chair. He tests the strings of his magic against theirs. They are free of dreams, frightening or otherwise. Snippets of color dance behind his eyes. Extending it further, he finds Galen stronger. His people are well, some nurturing cuts and bruises from venturing into the gales. Many wander the now-calm trees. He dozes, continuing his pass of magic along the lands.
Far within the mountains and deep woods, the rippling borders are peaceful, awaiting him.
Some hours later, Iohmar sends Lor off to visit Galen after a dozen requests. Once alone, he follows the bright trace of Ascia’s magic.
He woke when she slipped from the chamber door but kept his eyes closed and his breathing soft. He fears allowing her out of his sight, overly sensitive, but knows in his heart nothing in the Fair Halls will harm her. Now that she is here alongside him, her magic is familiar and strong, easy to monitor.
It is bright noon, and the sunlight soaks Iohmar’s skin, welcoming him with vigor. As he leaves the shelter of the Halls, his crows flock, and he shoos at them to leave a path to walk along. Small creatures float about, drifting away when he sends a wash of magic over them.
She’s sitting at the peak of the mountain, atop a stone bathed in sunlight jutting high enough for her to see over the trees.
They came here often as children.
A handful of years ago, Iohmar sat atop the great stone at night, whispering his thanks to the shadows.
Her magic greets his, shadows dancing around her and rising to see him. He welcomes them with sunlight, sparkles and slivers of midnight sliding across the mountaintop. She smiles. In the daylight, with her face cleaned, freckles show on her cheeks. Her ears are narrow, carrying the same uncanny nature as Iohmar and Rúnda and Lor and all their kin who have been both under the earth and over the sky.
“You are so grown,” she says again, and hearing her speak turns him into a little child for the briefest moment.
“I know. Horrifying, isn’t it?”
She smiles, plucking a dandelion fae from the air. “How did my magic do so many strange things when I didn’t know?”
Time has never been a linear beast, and he accepts the change, though it is not with ease. He did not know such an aberration in magic could exist, but insisting it should not be possible would do nothing for either of them. Sadness is present in Ascia’s magic, but warmth and love are as well.
“I do not entirely know,” he admits, standing below the rock so they are face-to-face. “It protected you. Perhaps it was doing all it could because it was buried and frightened for you and could not save you on its own.”
“I didn’t know it worked in such a way.”
“Neither did I. The older I become, the more I grasp, but I will never understand the extent of these lands.”
“Has your magic ever done something so strange?”
“It causes me dreams, yes. It has never taken physical forms and intentions outside my own, but I was never buried as long as you.”
“But you were buried too?” she asks, gazing up at him. “I remember you being there and the mountain shaking. I don’t think any of the things I remember after were real.”
“I was buried. My athair found me. They searched for you, both my parents. As did I. For so long.”
She grasps his finger in her tiny fist.
“What are the other things you remember?”
A little divot forms between her eyebrows. “I remember nothing for a great deal of time. It didn’t even feel long. A handful of days here and there.
“Sometimes I couldn’t speak. Then I could, but only small words. And sometimes I saw you and tried to call out . . . but I thought . . . thought Lor was you. You were too big to be you. Sometimes I could talk, but only if I didn’t stray too far from the cavern. I dreamt I spoke to you . . . well, to Lor. Then the mountain was trembling, and I tried to call for help.”
Iohmar nods, encouraging. Hers were the words Galen heard in the tunnels.
“I had so many dreams of you. About those big monsters made of glass and reflections hurting you. And the monsters were in your woods, so I wanted to tell you. I talked to them because I didn’t want them to hurt you again, and they talked back.”
Iohmar’s breath catches. He bites the inside of his lip to hide the trembling. “Those were real things. Your shadows led me to the monsters, and you teaching them to speak allowed them to ask for help.”
“But they hurt you? Was that real?”
“Yes, some of them did. Some did not, and those ones needed help.”
Her eyes lower. She presses her hand to the place above his heart. “You have a wound here.”
Iohmar moves the fabric of his robe aside until marred skin is visible. She touches a scar as Lor did, as if she’s trying to pet a moth’s wing, and he does not remove her hand.
“I saw you fighting,” she tells him, and his heart aches. Did Lor share all Ascia’s dreams?
“I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t seen.”
She continues watching the scar but drops her hand. “I wish you hadn’t been there. I had dreams about Lor too.”
