“What is really ludicrous here,” he said when he could speak again, “is that you are comforting me. You’re the one who lived it, I’m the one who caused it.”
“That’s nonsense,” she said, dabbing his eyes gently with her skirt. “You had nothing to do with it. I’m the one who chose to run away. And it’s a good thing, too—the truth is if you had not come into my world, for however short a time, I never would have followed you. I would have spent my life, married to a farmer I didn’t love, never seeing the world you told me I would see, and have. I would have perished long before the Island sank; probably I would have died inside even before my body did. If you hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t be here now. You saved my life, Sam; think of it like that. Kyle hira. Life is what it is. Whatever we have suffered, at least we are together now.”
He pulled back and looked at her, sitting on his lap, holding his hands. The perfection of the image she had made earlier was gone; the dress was rumpled, her hair beginning to come down, but in the firelight she looked as close to angelic as anything he had ever seen.
“I was wrong,” he said, his voice quiet. “What you’ve told me does change the way I feel about you.” Rhapsody went pale. “If it is possible, it makes me love you even more.”
Relief flooded her face. “Gods, don’t scare me like that,” she scolded, slapping his arm lightly. Her face grew solemn. “But there is one more reason you might want to reconsider marrying me.”
“Impossible.”
“Sam—”
“No, Rhapsody.”
“I don’t know if I can give you children,” she blurted, her face growing pale again. “I think I’m barren.”
Ashe stroked her cheek gently. “Why do you think that?”
Rhapsody stared into the fire. “Nana used to give us an herb called Whore’s Friend, a leaf extract that prevented pregnancy and disease. I don’t know what, if anything, that has done to me inside. I have had none of that preventative in this land, but you and I have certainly made love often enough to have—”
He pulled her rapidly into this arms. “No, Aria; I’m sorry. I thought you knew. I’m a dragon, one of the Firstborn races. In order to sire a child, it would have had to be a conscious decision on my part, and, since you didn’t tell me you wanted me to—a wise choice, in my opinion, by the way—I haven’t done so.” Painful memory lingered in his eyes. “In fact, one of the greatest reasons for my despair about leaving you behind in the old world was that I never knew for certain whether you had become pregnant after our first night together.
“I had no control over it then. My dragon nature didn’t come out until much later, when the piece of the star was sewn into my chest. It was my first time, too—I was utterly lost to you, even then. So for all I knew, when I left you, you were with child. The thought of it almost killed me, imagining you alone and vulnerable, probably disgraced, in pain and frightened, with my daughter or son who I would never know. It was as if, in addition to the loss of the love of my life, my soulmate, I’d lost that child, too.” The hand that caressed her cheek trembled slightly.
Rhapsody took his hand in hers and kissed it. “There was no child. Gods, Sam, I wished for so long that there had been, but it didn’t come to pass.”
His eyes sparkled sapphire-blue in the firelight. “I’m happy to hear you say that you wished for a child, because I very much look forward to granting that wish someday, when the land is safe and the F’dor is destroyed. I dream of it, in fact, and have, even before you gifted me with your love again. And you needn’t worry about your fecundity; it is I who have withheld progeny from you, not the other way around. It’s not a reflection on you, or your fertility, in any way. In fact, my senses say you’re fine.”
Relief broke over Rhapsody’s face in the form of a heart-stealing smile. A moment later, she looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m very glad to hear it. Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”
“If you want to tell me.”
“It gets easier from here. After a few years, a kind man took an interest in me; an older man. He seemed as interested in my mind as he was in, well, other things; probably more, really. He set me up in my own house, and encouraged my desire to learn. He made sure I had the very finest instruction in music, and art, and other scholarly pursuits.”
“All the things you told me you wanted to do that night in Merryfield.”
“Yes. He set me up with the greatest Lirin Namer in all of Serendair, a man named Heiles, to learn the ancient arts, but not long after I had finished my training as a Singer and was just about to achieve Namer status, Heiles disappeared. To my knowledge he was never found. I was close to fully trained by then. I had to study on my own for about a year. I was just beginning to figure out the science of Naming when my benefactor died.
“Soon after that, a beast who had taken a fancy to me sent one of his henchmen after me, to collect me for some private entertainment. I refused. I was rather brash about it, and it turned out to be a serious mistake. And things became, well, let’s just say the situation was pretty ugly when I ran into Achmed and Grunthor. They rescued me and helped me escape. They were on the run themselves, and together we got out of Easton and made for Sagia; do you know of it?”
Ashe thought for a moment. “Yes, the Oak of Deep Roots. It was a root-twin to the Great White Tree.”
“Yes. The Axis Mundi, the line through the center of the earth, runs along that root as well. We went in through Sagia—I’m still not exactly sure how—and crawled along the Root, forever it seems. That’s when we changed, absorbing the powers of the Earth, of Fire, of Time. We passed through a great wall of flame at what must have been the center. I believe we actually were immolated, but the song of our essence went on, reforming us on the other side when our bodies burned away. And all the old scars, all the old wounds, were gone.” Gently Ashe stroked her wrist with his thumb, the place that had once borne the scar he remembered so vividly. “We were made new; that’s why when you met me your dragon sense thought I was a virgin.”
“That’s not why. I told you long ago why.”
She kissed his cheek and slid out of his arms, sitting beside him on the sofa again. “The trip seemed like it would never end. It must have taken centuries, because when finally we came out we were here, and everything, everyone we had known had vanished ages before into the sea. In fact, everyone I had loved was probably gone long before that; I didn’t know how many generations had passed before the Cymrians set sail, how many it had been since they arrived. “So, I suppose Anwyn didn’t really lie to you. We didn’t land; we never did set foot on any of the Cymrian ships, we never sailed. We left before those generations were born, we arrived long after the war. So, in fact, her answer to you was truthful.”
Ashe laughed bitterly, and stared into the fire. “Technically, anyway. But Anwyn knew, Emily. She knew that you had left, that you were on your way, crawling along the Root. She chose to keep it hidden; instead all she said was that you hadn’t arrived, that you never set foot on the ships that left the old world in time. It was like dying then, Aria. She watched me dissolve into anguish beyond measure, and she just stood there silently. This is my grandmother, Rhapsody, my own grandmother. Do you think my happiness, my sanity, means anything to her?”
He looked back at her. The sympathy in her eyes went straight to his heart, bringing with it warmth and consolation. “I guess not, Sam; I’m sorry,” she said, resting her hand lightly on his face. “Do you have any idea why? Why would she do this?”
“Power. Power over me. They are all like that; Anwyn, my father, all of them. Now can you understand why I don’t care a fig for the lot of them? Why I’m willing, even now, to turn my back on them, to give you back the memory? You are the only person who has ever really cared about me, despite my illustrious lineage, the only person who ever really loved me. I owe you everything; I owe them nothing. Yet you always seem to end up with the chaff while they get the wheat.”