“If the Sea Mages are sending a representative, there must be something else going on here,” Gwydion mused aloud. “It would be vain beyond measure to imagine that my schooling was of any interest to them—or to anyone else in that room except Rhapsody and Ashe, and perhaps Anborn.”
“Maybe they are going to execute you instead,” Melisande said jokingly, rising from the bench and drawing out her jackstraws again. “Your report from the tutors must have been worse than we imagined.”
At that moment the doors opened, and their guardian emerged. Both children stood immediately. The Lord Cymrian, whose given name was also Gwydion but whom they both referred to in private as Ashe, was attired in court dress, a happening so rare that it made both Melisande and Gwydion begin to fidget.
The Lord Cymrian’s eyes, cerulean blue with vertical pupils that told of the dragon’s blood in his veins, sparkled warmly as he beheld the children.
“Melly! You’re here as well. Excellent. Please remain here in the hallway for a moment, and then they will bring you in.” He held out his hand, banded at the wrist in leather at the end of a sleeve of white silk slashed with dark red, to Gwydion. “Will you come with me, please, Gwydion?”
The youth and his sister exchanged a terrified glance; then Gwydion followed Ashe through the vast double doors, which closed almost imperceptibly behind him.
As they passed through the entrance to the Great Hall Gwydion’s eyes went to the vaulted ceiling on which historical frescoes representing the history of the Cymrian people had been meticulously rendered in a circle around a dark blue center. When his father was alive, they had entered the Great Hall only on rare occasions, spending most of their time in the family quarters and the library, so the grandeur of the Hall never became commonplace to Gwydion. He found himself unconsciously following the story of his ancestors who had refugeed from the doomed Island of Serendair fourteen centuries before.
Each vault on the ceiling covered a period of the history. Gwydion stared up at the first panel, a fresco depicting the revelation made to Lord Gwylliam ap Rendlar ap Evander tuatha Gwylliam, sometimes called Gwylliam the Visionary, that the Island would be consumed in volcanic fire by the rising of the Sleeping Child, a fallen star that burned in the depths of the sea. It made him even more nervous when he realized that the court clothing that Gwylliam was wearing in the painting was very similar to what Ashe, who was walking before him, was wearing now.
Each of the additional ceiling frescoes told more of the story—the meeting of the explorer Merithyn and the dragon Elynsynos, who had once ruled undisputed over much of the middle continent, including Navarne; her invitation to the people of Serendair to take refuge in her lands; the construction and launch of the three fleets of ships that carried the Cymrian refugees away from the Island; the fates of each of those fleets; the unification of the Cymrian royal house with the marriage of Lord Gwylliam to Anwyn, one of the three daughters of the dragon Elynsynos; the building of the mighty empire over which the first Lord and Lady Cymrian had ruled, and its eventual destruction in the Cymrian War.
Gwydion had once suggested to Ashe that the blank blue panel in the center be painted to commemorate the new era into which they had recently passed, known as the Second Cymrian Age, with his godfather’s ascension to the Lordship along with Rhapsody, who had been named Lady by the Cymrian Council three years before. Ashe had merely smiled; the panel remained blank.
In the Great Hall itself numerous chairs had been set up. Occupying those chairs were the dukes of the five other provinces of Roland and representatives from each of the other member nations of the Cymrian Alliance, the loose confederation of realms loyal to the Lord and Lady. Rial, the viceroy of the forested kingdom of Tyrian, where Rhapsody was also the titular queen, nodded to him pleasantly, but with a look of sympathy that was unmistakable. The back of Gwydion’s neck began to tingle.
Before they passed under the arch that demarked the second vault, Ashe turned and took him by the arm.
“Come in here for a moment,” he said, diverting him into a side room.
Gwydion followed blindly, his stomach clenching with worry. Ashe closed the door behind him. The echo of the vast hall was swallowed immediately by the smaller room’s carpets, drapes, and tapestries.
In the room near the windows the Lady Cymrian was standing, watching the leaves on the trees beginning to lose their verdant hue and turn the color of fire. She, too, was dressed in heavy velvet court clothing, a deep blue gown that hung stiffly away from her slender frame, hiding the swell of her belly. Her golden hair was swept back from her face and plaited in the intricate patterns favored by the Lirin, her mother’s people. She turned upon hearing them enter the room and eyed Gwydion intently for a moment, then broke into a warm smile that faded after a second into a look of concern.
“What’s wrong?” Rhapsody asked, coming away from the window. “You look like you’re about to be executed.”
“You’re the second family member to suggest that this morning,” Gwydion replied nervously, taking the hand she held out to him and bowing over it formally. “Should I be worried?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, pulling him close and tousling his hair fondly. The skin of her face, normally a healthy rose-gold tone, paled visibly; her clear green eyes brightened with tears of pain. She released him and walked over to a chair where she sat quickly. Her pregnancy was a difficult one, Gwydion knew, and she became fatigued and nauseated easily.
“We have a few announcements to make shortly, but since all of them concern you directly, I thought you should hear of them before the general council does,” Ashe said, pouring a glass of water for his wife and handing it to her. “And, of course, if you object to any of them, we will reconsider.”
Gwydion inhaled deeply. “All right,” he said, steeling himself. “What are they?”
Ashe hid a smile and put his hands on Rhapsody’s shoulders. “First, Highmeadow, the new palace I’ve been having built for your—grandmother”—his dragonesque eyes twinkled in amusement at the word—“will be ready on the first day of autumn. I plan to move our lodgings there; it is time we leave Haguefort and set up our own residence.”
Gwydion’s stomach turned over. Rhapsody and Ashe had been living in his family’s home since the death three years prior of his father, Stephen Navarne, who had been Ashe’s childhood friend. Their presence was the only thing that had made living in Haguefort tolerable; otherwise the memories would have been too strong to bear. Even though he had been a young boy, and Melisande an infant, when their mother was murdered on the road to town, he still remembered her, and missed her when the night winds shrieked and howled around the castle parapets, or on warm, windy days, like the ones on which he and his mother had flown kites together. And the loss of his father in battle, before his eyes, had dealt a death blow to his optimism. Though he knew he would always carry the weight of these tragedies, the load seemed lighter when shared with people who loved him, and who had loved his father.
“We also think it would be a good idea for Melisande to come with us for the time being, and live at the new palace,” Ashe continued.