Under the Earth, Over the Sky by Emily McCosh

Author:Emily McCosh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emily McCosh
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Night has spread across the mountains when a breeze brushes Iohmar’s face.

He sucks in the chill as the first breath after sinking to the bottom of the sea, crawling out of the small fissure. Arms aching, legs wobbling, he sits in a meadow and curls Lor against him. The boy relaxes but doesn’t relinquish his grip.

Moonlight illuminates the grasses, a brush of lace across the landscape. Not far from the clearing where they feasted, Iohmar finds himself in one of the many grasslands separating his woods. Taking a fistful of fragrant grass, he tucks it into a pocket.

“We’re safe, Wisp,” he says but doesn’t try to peel Lor from his chest.

Rippling lands. Iohmar’s skin absorbs the chill of the border, a separate cold from the fresh night air. Straining to see over the trees, the shimmering dead barrier rises into the night. They are close—so very, very close—and Iohmar feels weak.

Standing, he walks not to his mountains but toward the rippling lands, steps and steps closer until he is along the border of the trees where the moonlit meadow ends, and he glimpses the creatures past the trees.

They are there. Inside their border. Not touching his lands, but close. A whisper of breath from entering his world. Faceless and noiseless, mirrors convulsing within themselves. Iohmar does not need eyes and faces to know they are staring into his own.

“What do you want?” he hisses.

Lor starts, turning in Iohmar’s arms to gaze at the ripplings.

“Daidí, what are those?” he asks. Never has Iohmar taken him close or even spoken of the existence of these lands and their creatures. Lor knows nothing of the wars. Iohmar doesn’t believe it has yet occurred to the child that his father does not have a father and mother of his own.

“They will not hurt you,” Iohmar says, because he will not allow it. Monsters shall never touch his child. They shall never again step into his lands and cause his folk harm.

“Da?” Lor asks as the ripples slither close to their border. They do not travel at all like shadows, jerking and uneven in movement. Unnatural.

Iohmar steps against the wall, twining Lor around to his back, the tips of his horns piercing the barrier. It resists him. He could press past if he wished, but he snarls, ready to unleash every scrap of his magic. The sunlight is gone, but his trees are behind him, and he is a creature of shadow as much as of light. They will regret pressing his borders—

A dull twinkle of noise punctures the night as they scatter, disappearing into the corpses of trees on their side of the land. Iohmar feels the lack of their presence, and his legs tremble. He yanks back, staring at shards of moonlight cast off the border. Lor is clinging to his horns, and Iohmar is grateful to absorb confusion rather than fear from the tether of their magic.

He should not have acted in such a way before his son. Not when the threat was not immediate.

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