“All right,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“Very well,” Ashe said, smiling nervously. “Rhapsody, what I have to tell you is not pleasant, and it won’t be easy for you to hear it. But before we get into it, I have one last thing to ask of you. Please hear me out.”
“Of course. What is it?”
He took a deep breath; his voice was tender. “Aria, I know you have never refused me anything I have asked, and you have gifted me with so many favors that I haven’t asked for, that it seems unbelievable I could make yet another request of you, but I have to. It’s the most important thing I will ever ask of you, on behalf both of myself and, with any luck, the united Cymrian peoples. Will you consider it, please?”
Rhapsody looked into his eyes; they were gleaming intensely, and he seemed on the verge of tears. The star formations that surrounded the strange vertical pupils were glowing as she had never seen them before, and she closed her eyes, burning the image into her memory for the Future. On the loneliest nights of the rest of her life she would picture the way he looked just now. She knew that the thought would bring her comfort.
“Of course; of course I will,” she answered, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “I’ve already told you, Ashe, that I will always be your friend and ally. You can ask whatever you need of me and I will do whatever I can to help you, if it’s in my power.”
He smiled, then turned her hand over in his and kissed it. “Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Marry me, then.” His words were out of his mouth before his knee touched the ground in front of her.
“That’s not funny, Ashe,” Rhapsody said, looking annoyed. “Get up. What do you really want?”
“Sorry, Rhapsody, that really is what I want. It has been from the very beginning. I haven’t joked about it, or argued with you about it, or even brought it up until I was sure that you would listen without prejudice, because I have never been more serious about anything in my life.” He saw her begin to pale, and he took both of her hands and plunged ahead, afraid to let her answer yet.
“I know you have long been under the assumption, fed by my father, that there is a hierarchy to which you don’t belong by birth, and that it somehow is a good reason to deny us both happiness and our people the best Lady Cymrian they could possibly have. Aria, it isn’t true. The Cymrians may have a family right of ascendancy, but they are a free people. They can confirm or deny anyone they want at the Council that meets when a Lord is to be crowned.
“For all I know they will throw me out, and then together we will build the most beautiful goat hut you have ever seen and our days will be blessed with peace and privacy. Or perhaps you will choose to rule in the court of the Lirin, as I know well they will one day want you to. Then I will be your humble servant, massaging your neck and back after long days on that uncomfortable throne, supporting you in any way I can, acting as your consort.
“All I know is that I cannot live without you in any case. I don’t mean this as a flowery endearment; I mean it literally. You are my treasure. You must know what that means to a dragon. I cannot allow myself to even contemplate the loss of you from my life, for fear my other nature will take over and lay waste to the countryside. Please, Rhapsody, please marry me. I know I don’t deserve you—I am fully aware of that—but you love me, I know you do, and I trust that love. I would give anything—
“Stop, please,” Rhapsody whispered. Tears were streaming down her face, and her hands trembled.
Ashe fell silent. The look of shock on her face was so blatant that he was stunned, and his face mirrored the hurt he felt. After what seemed an eternity, he spoke. “Is the prospect of being my wife so onerous, Rhapsody? Have I frightened you so much that—
“Stop,” she said again, and her voice was full of pain. “Of course it isn’t; what an awful thing to say.” She began to sob, and buried her face in her hands.
Ashe took her, still weeping, into his arms. He held her until the storm of tears had passed, and then pulled from his breast pocket a linen handkerchief and handed it to her.
“Needless to say,” he said, watching her dry her eyes, “this is not exactly the reaction I had hoped for.” His voice was light, but his eyes watched her anxiously.
“I know how you feel,” she said, handing him back his handkerchief. “This is not exactly the question I had expected, either.”
“I know,” he said, taking her chin in his hand and gently lifting it to look into her face. “And I’m sorry. But I couldn’t let you go on believing that I would even consider marrying anyone but you. There is a limit, even if it is a distant one, to what I am willing to do as far as my father and the responsibilities of leadership are concerned. There is a limit to my love for you. Of course it would win out. And though you will have no conscious memory of this night for a while, I hope that somewhere, deep inside you, you will remember this and stop feeling the despair we both feel now.
“Aria, none of these people, these things, matter. Be selfish, for once in your life. Make the decision that makes you happy. I can’t speak for you as to what that is. All I know is that I love you beyond description, and I would make your happiness my life’s purpose. It would give me the greatest joy imaginable if you would consent to be my wife. Please; forget all the rest of this; give me an answer, not as whatever else you perceive me to be, but as the man who loves you.”
There was a simplicity to his voice, a clarity that cut through the mountain of objections and laid the decision plainly at her feet.
Rhapsody looked up at him through new eyes, cleared of their blinding tears. It was as if he had shown her the trail through a dark forest, one that she had been lost in since the Three had arrived in this land, a twisted place complicated by the agendas and expectations of others, dictated by their needs and prejudices. And some of her own as well; she had assumed from the beginning there was no future for them because of their different birth classes, but Ashe had avoided the topic altogether, refusing to fight about it. She now saw that he had known all along what he wanted, and had waited until he was sure that she loved him before bringing it up.
As he caressed the paths of the tears from her face, Rhapsody thought back to a conversation she had once had with her father, not long before she ran away from home. How did the village come to change its mind about our family? she had asked him. If Mama was so despised, when you first married, why did you stay’?
She could see his face in her memory, wrinkles pocketing around his eyes as he smiled at her, his hands still polishing the wood carving he was making, unable to ever be idle. When you find the one thing in your life you believe in above anything else, you owe it to yourself to stand by it—it will never come again, child. And if you believe in it unwaveringly, the world has no other choice but to see it as you do, eventually. For who knows it better than you’? Don’t be afraid to take a difficult stand, darling. Find the one thing that matters—everything else will resolve itself.
Once the memory had given her wisdom about her loyalty to the Bolg. Now Rhapsody looked into Ashe’s eyes, and knew again what her father had meant. It was as if heavy cloaks were falling off her shoulders; the yammering voices in her ears faded away, leaving only the song of one man, the man who had taken over her whole heart. He was offering her a handhold out of the forest, guiding her to where she wanted to go as surely as he had shown her the way to Elynsynos’s lair or Tyrian. And she desperately wanted to follow him.