Your child will be even more of a dragon than you were, so the chances of the mother’s survival are not good. If your own mother could not give birth to you and live, what will happen, do you think, to your mate?
Without looking at his wife he shook his head again, concentrating on the waving green sea of highgrass below him.
“I have seen too much death to risk it, Aria; I have known too many divinations that have been misheard, misunderstood. With the very last words of advice my father gave me he warned me that I should not trust prophecies, that their meaning is not always as it seems.”
“If you are discounting prophecies, then why does the first one worry you at all?” Rhapsody said, taking his hand. “It seems to me that you are giving credence to those that would prevent us from living our lives as we see fit, in order to avoid peril, but shun those that nullify those dire warnings. Either accept both, or neither, but do not choose to fear one and refuse comfort in the other.”
Ashe’s skin darkened in the light of the afternoon sun. “There are so many children in your life, Rhapsody, in our lives. Anywhere you go, from this very keep you live in to the mountains of Ylorc, from the Lirin forest to the Hintervold, you have ‘grandchildren’ to love and look after. I don’t think it is wise to tempt Fate by risking your life giving birth to the child of wyrmkin, an infant with dragon’s blood in its veins. There are enough motherless children to tend to without bringing another into the world.” His voice carried a bitter sting.
Rhapsody took him by the arms and turned him around, slipping into his embrace.
“I refuse to make my choices based on the maniacal rantings of your aunt,” she said humorously, “which is why I never use the hideous brocade table linens she sent us as a wedding gift.” Her tone grew more serious, and she caressed his cheek tenderly. “I want to make the life with you that we planned, Sam; I want to mix my blood with yours, to carry your children within me, to raise a family of your line and mine that is entirely our own. I thought this is what you wanted as well.”
Ashe did not break his gaze away from the windy plain. More than you can know, he thought.
“If there is good reason not to have children, I will yield the idea in a heartbeat, but in the face of two conflicting prophecies, I see no need to live in terror of something that she has told you will not happen. Besides, the prophecy you fear has already been fulfilled; it was not directed at me, but at the mother of the last child fathered by the F’dor we destroyed.” Her eyes darkened at the memory. “I witnessed the birth, and the death. The mother died. The child lived. It’s over. The prophecy was fulfilled.”
“You don’t know that for certain, Rhapsody.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation and turned away from him. “What do we ever know for certain, Ashe? Moment to moment, life is unsure—you can’t live in fear of it.” Another thought occurred and she turned back. “Man-wyn cannot lie, can she?”
“Not directly, but she can obfuscate and evade, and she knows the distant future as well as the immediate, so she can give an answer to a question that qualifies as truthful, but may not be pertinent for a thousand years. She is not to be trusted.”
“But if she answers directly, yes or no, that cannot be false, can it?”
Ashe shook his head. “Supposedly not.”
“Well, then, since I am headed to Yarim in the next few days, and Manwyn’s temple is in Yarim, I will have ample opportunity to ask her directly, yes or no, if giving birth to your children will cause my death or permanent infirmity. Perhaps she can lay this ambiguity to rest then and there.”
Ashe’s face went pale, then red. “A moment ago I was grateful beyond measure that you had returned home,” he said stonily. “Now I wish you had remained in Tyrian, where at least you would be safe from your own foolhardiness. Rhapsody, didn’t you learn the last time we addressed Manwyn in her temple that it was an experience not to be repeated?”
“Apparently not,” she snapped, pulling away and turning back to the tower doorway. “Apparently I’ve also been wrong in assuming you shared my desire to have a child; if you did, you would not be deterred by so flimsy an excuse.” She started down the stairs, only to be caught by the arm and turned around.
Ashe stared down at her for a long moment. Rhapsody’s anger, white-hot a split second before, cooled at the sight of the pain in his dragonesque eyes, the depth of the agony she knew he had suffered, and the love that ran even deeper. Inwardly she cursed herself for the pain she was causing him now, the fear her selfishness had rekindled. She opened her mouth to recant but was stopped when he rested his forefinger on her lips.
“We will go together,” he said, cupping her face gently. “We will put the question before her, and I will try and live with her answer. It’s the only way to reclaim control of our lives.”
“Are you certain you want to do that?” she said, arching an eyebrow. “If memory serves, you were the one she attacked last time we were there. She didn’t give me any difficulty.”
“Well, she and I are family, after all,” Ashe replied, a hint of humor returning to his eyes. “If you can’t fight with family, with whom can you fight? Look at my grandparents. Their marital spat led to a war that took down an entire empire.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps we should reconsider adding to our family after all,” Rhapsody said. She looked off across the whipping highgrass and smiled as a brightly colored kite in the shape of a copper dragon caught the wind, streaking suddenly higher on a strong updraft. She waved to the tiny figure in the distance, and Melisande waved back.
Ashe exhaled. “No, you’re right,” he said at last. “If it is at all possible, I would dearly love to see the children of the House of Navarne and those of the lines of Gwylliam and Manosse playing in these fields once more.”
“Well, in a sense that decision is entirely up to you.” Rhapsody spoke the words gently, knowing that to do so heavily would sting; as a descendant of a Firstborn race, Ashe had to make a conscious decision to procreate. “But once you decide in favor of it, whenever that may be, I promise to make that decision worth your while.”
Ashe laughed and kissed her hand, then went back to watching Stephen’s daughter draw pictures in the sky with her dragon kite, lost in memory.
The darkness of the inner sanctum of Manwyn’s temple was broken intermittently by fires burning in decaying receptacles and the tiny flames of countless candles, thick with the stench of burning fat barely masked by pungent incense.
Mother Julia stared across the jagged well in the floor to the dais suspended above it, trying to hold the Seer’s gaze and failing; the eyes of the mad prophetess were perfect mirrors of quicksilver, devoid of any iris, pupil or sclera. They reflected the myriad flames, making Mother Julia’s head spin crazily.
“How—how long will I live?” she whispered, dotting her gray forehead with the colorful fringe of her shawl.
The Seer laughed, a maniacal, piercing sound, then rolled suddenly onto her back, pointing the ancient sextant in her hand at the black dome of the temple above. She began to swing the dais wildly over the jagged pit beneath her, singing in mad, toneless words.
Finally she righted herself and leaned over the edge of the platform, fixing her reflective gaze on the trembling crone.
“Until your heart stops beating,” she proclaimed smugly. She waved a dis missive hand at Mother Julia, her rosy golden skin, scored with tiny lines of scales, gleaming in the half-light.