“I would expect nothing less,” Ashe said. Rhapsody smiled at him. “And should you receive word that something has befallen me, let Anborn prosecute the war until you are ready to assume command.” Rhapsody’s smile faded. “Come; we should be returning,” she said. She rose and gave Ashe her hand again, and together they headed back to the small, dark room beyond a hidden door. He stopped one last time at the window just before the tapestry, in a pool of light from the nearby windows, and sat down on a bench beneath it. Rhapsody sat down slowly as well. “You have not told me of Llauron’s death,” he said quietly. “Did my father suffer in the end? I know you will tell me the truth, sworn to it as you are, being a Namer, but do not spare me the blow of the words as my wife. Just tell me.”
“He did not, in my estimation,” Rhapsody said gently. “He stepped between Anwyn and me, with Meridion in my arms, and surrounded us with his ethereal essence—and then he was gone, his body a shell of elemental earth, a mist lingering within it. There was no pain, no hurt your grandmother could have inflicted on him, though I suppose there was regret in the last knowledge of her being willing to take his life, after all he I had done and sacrificed for her throughout history. You saw the expression in his eyes, Sam; it was peace, and resignation—he knew he had saved his grandchild from certain death. I think, if nothing else, that will bring him to the door of the Lord and Lady Rowan, and to life everlasting.”
Rhapsody watched for the hint of water in his cerulean blue eyes, eyes scored strangely and beautifully by draconic vertical pupils, but there was no such sign, an absence that betrayed an even deeper sorrow, one beyond tears. “I don’t know what possessed me to be so cruel to him the last time we saw each other,” Ashe said. “He was so excited about Meridion, so desirous to make amends so that he might be part of his grandchild’s life. And I spurned him, turned him away, told him he would never gain what he wanted. I don’t know what possessed me.” She took his hand. “The same thing that possesses me to leave all that I know, all that I love,” she said simply, without sentiment. “The duty—and the desire—to keep our son safe at any price.” Her small calloused fingertip caressed his palm. “Llauron understood that as well, more titan anyone I have ever known. He Ended, protecting his grandchild. Only once more in all of history has such a sacrifice been made. When he is older, Meridion will know how much Llauron must have loved him to make it. And, though I can’t be certain, it seems as if he may have passed some of his lore along to Meridion—I thought I beheld a mist hovering in the prison of Llauron’s body that the baby breathed in.”
Ashe continued to stare out the window of the keep at the silver trees glistening black with the onset of Second Thaw. “It’s nice to think so, anyway,” he said at last, rising from the bench and pulling her up with him. “Come, let us go back and finalize what we have decided. Then we can have Meridion’s Naming ceremony before you leave. At least one happy memory should come from this day.” He pulled aside the tapestry and led her carefully down the stairs to the secret entrance, then opened the door to the hidden room, where the rest of the group meeting in secret was finishing their repast. They returned to their places at the table. Ashe placed the sleeping baby back in Rhapsody’s arms. “Thank you for your patience,” Ashe said. “The decisions we have come to are dire ones, and will be difficult on each of us to enact. Each requires sacrifice that in many cases is almost too great to be borne—but that is the way of leadership.”
“Alas,” said Anborn. “First, I wish to officially ask the Firbolg king a boon.” Ashe looked at Achmed. “You’re asking me for a favor?” Achmed said incredulously. “If it is the commitment of troops, the answer is no. The Firbolg army has already come to the aid of Roland once, at the Great Moot. Under the circumstances, I’m going to need every soldier I have.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Ashe archly. “My request is this: take my wife and son tonight, under cover of darkness, and travel off the road, over the desert to Ylorc, where I ask you to keep them hidden and safe within the Teeth. Something hunts our son; knowing this, I cannot rest, nor can I prosecute this war correctly until I am certain that he is as safe as it is possible to make him, as well as his mother. Since Rhapsody has agreed to assist you with the building and development of your Lightcatcher, she may as well have the protection of the mountains to hide her and the baby. Do you agree?”
Achmed and Grunthor exchanged a glance. Then the Bolg king’s mismatched eyes returned to Ashe. “Ylorc was Rhapsody’s first home on the continent,” he said. “She has title to a small duchy there. She’s always welcome in the Teeth.”
“Yeah, and the Bolg will be glad ta see the baby, too,” Grunthor said, chuckling. “First recipe I see with his name on it, I will light a whole tribe of them on fire,” Rhapsody said. “I now ask the Lady Cymrian to assess what she has heard from each of us, and tell us what she thinks,” said Ashe. The Lady Cymrian exhaled. “It sounds to me like the war that is coming is more a war arising from men’s greed than from the demonic desire for destruction,” she said. “But that matters little. Chaos and anarchy are magnets for the F’dor; sooner or later there will be a power beyond these days, from the old times, that we will be facing. For that reason, the Lightcatcher is a wise investment “I would also guess from what I have heard that there are more allies involved on Talquist’s side than we know about. For all that Sorbold was a more or less solitary nation under Leitha, the Emperor Presumptive is a former merchant. He no doubt has friends and trading partners all around the world. We must discover quickly which ones beyond our borders he has recruited to aid him in his attempt at conquest of the Middle Continent.”
“I would guess the Hintervold,” Anborn said. “Perhaps, though the Hintervold is dependent on Roland for foodstuffs, and Sorbold cannot easily provide that,” Rhapsody said. “It will be interesting to rum over as many rocks as possible and discover what crawls out.” She turned to Rial, her loyal viceroy. “This is my final command to you, my friend: go back to Tyrian and serve, as you did before my crowning, as her Lord Protector. Safeguard the forest for now; we do not need to involve the Lirin at this point, though you must instruct the woods guards and the Lirin border guards to prevent any troops that would pass from Sorbold to Roland from doing so, even at the cost of a martial challenge. And Rial—go to the palace at Tomingorllo, where the diadem rests in its case. Make the attempt to pick it up, as I once did. Perhaps it is time for me crown of stars to change heads; I will be too far away to act as titular queen for a long while. The Lirin deserve better.”
“The crown, and the Lirin, have already made their choices, m’lady,” Rial said. “Even a diadem of ethereal diamonds has the right to revisit a decision every now and them,” Rhapsody said, smiling at her confidant. “We must be ready for what is to come; while this may be only an upworld war to begin with, I suspect it will not remain such.”
“Rhapsody is correct,” Ashe went on. “While the footprints of those that once dwelt within the Vault of the Underworld are not discernible here, the bloodshed and violence that is to come is a bait for the demonic, a temptation that may draw them in. So we must be prepared to repel not only the forces driven by greed and the desire for conquest, but be ready to grapple with darker forces, evil from the First Age that can only be destroyed by lore from the same time. For this reason, I wish to pronounce the decisions of this makeshift council, comprised of members of different factions of the Alliance and the church, in the presence of a Lirin Namer, that history will record our actions as defensive, and undertaken for the sake of safeguarding the Middle Continent, and its people, against the threat of invasion by those who would conquer the earth, and those that dwell beneath it.”