“Agreed,” the Lord Cymrian said. Without another word he swept his wife from her feet and laid her carefully down on their marriage bed, then lay down beside her. He took her small face in his hands and stared down at it, as if to commit to memory every feature again, as he had done each night into each day that they had been together for the last four years, the vertical pupils in his eyes shrinking in the candlelight, the cerulean blue irises gleaming with an intensity surpassing that of an ordinary man. It was the dragon within his blood that was assessing her now, Rhapsody knew, a nature both alien and familiar to her that obsessed over each thing or being that it considered to be treasure. She could feel her skin prickle beneath the vibration of his inner sense as it memorized the length of each of her eyelashes, the number of breaths she took, the beating rhythm of her heart. She could feel his anxiety rise and knew that he also perceived how weak she still was from childbirth, how much blood she had lost, how fragile her health had become. The dragon Elynsynos, to whose lair Ashe had originally guided her during a sweet spring long ago, had provided most of the insight she had into this side of the man whose soul she shared. Wyrms are not avaricious—we do not desire much, Pretty, only what we believe is rightfully ours. We are each part of a shield that protects the entirety of the world, and yet we do not wish to own everything in that world. That which is part of our hoard, our treasure, is not our prisoner; we guard it jealously, hut only because we love it with everything that is in us. What humans see as possessiveness, dragons believe to be the purest form of love. This is true whether the treasure is a single coin, a living being, or a whole nation of people. Independent as her own temperament was, she had come to understand that element of his nature, all the while knowing that he battled it, grappled with it, struggled against it every day, endeavoring to keep from letting the draconic side of himself frighten or subsume her. As she looked back into his eyes now, she could see straight to his soul, and within her own she felt an overwhelming sense of impending loss; she had learned to treasure him in the same way. Ashe saw the tears glinting in her eyes, perceived the lump in her throat, and slid his fingers deeper into her hair, cupping her head and covering her mouth with his. Time became suspended as they shared a breath, the musical rhythm of inhalation and release that was the song of their joined lives. When their lips separated he saw that her wan face was wet with the tears she had fought so long to hold in check; his dragon sense had registered her weeping, but the sight of it always squeezed his heart more than he was prepared to withstand. There was something within him mat perceived her as even more beautiful in tears than when she was smiling, and the thought disturbed him greatly. He pulled her closer as she buried her face in his shoulder, secretly glad to be rid of the sight. “A quarter hour, no more,” she murmured. “Why does it always seem that we are limited in our time together? We are barely in each other’s presence more than the span of a few heartbeats before we are once again parted. And how can you withstand losing our child again? I am afraid, Sam— genuinely afraid that this will be more than you, man or dragon, will be able to withstand. I know I would not be able to bear it were it you that was leaving, taking him with you.” The Lord Cymrian exhaled slowly; he had been contemplating, with dread, the same thing. “I will hold on to the few scraps of comfort that remain— the knowledge that, with what is to come, you and Meridion will be safe. I will continue to remind myself, as the dragon grows impatient and angry, that I have never deserved you or the happiness you have brought me from the start.” He put his hand over her mouth to quell the protest that threatened to spill out. “For all that I know you love me, Rhapsody, you really don’t know how much I love you; the inadequacy of my tongue prevents me from putting it into words. Each wrong I’ve done you, each error I’ve made, each time I have allowed pain to touch you, digs a deeper hole of regret that has, like all other vessels within me, filled up yet again with more longing to be with you. Sometimes I think that if ever I were to hurt you, even inadvertently, the breath would turn to ice within me. To do anything other than to commit you to Achmed and Granthor’s protection and get you both as far from the coming hostilities as possible would be to risk that hurt—and that is what, more than anything, I would be unable to bear. So, for the sake of the One-God, do not endanger yourself or our child, I beg you—the knowledge that you are safe as the world begins to fray and come apart is the only thing that keeps me from following my father into the ether—or perhaps to an Ending not unlike his.”
Rhapsody went rigid. “Gods, don’t even say something like that aloud,” she choked, but in his eyes she could see the veracity of his words, and knew that he was not exaggerating. Ashe smiled, and ran his calloused hand through her shining hair. “Oh, and one other thing—I still have to make good on the promise I made you long ago: that when all of this is past, and others come forward to take over the burden of leadership, on that day, and not one day more, I will take you to the forest of your choice, to the glen of your choice, and build for you the goat hut you have long desired, where we can live simply, raise our children, and forget that the world exists beyond our hedgerow.” Rhapsody relaxed beneath the warmth of his smile, though the understanding unspoken between them of what might be a fatal outcome for either or both of them was clear. “Done,” she said. A polite knock came at the chamber door. “Ready, m’lord,” came the quartermaster’s muffled voice. The lord and lady rose quickly from the bed and headed, as if of one mind, to each of their dressing rooms, returning a moment later, holding objects in their hands. Ashe extended his arms first, in which he held a battered cloak, gray on the outside with a blue interior. A shadow of mist, like fog hovering above a lake in morning, seeped out from between the folds. Rhapsody smiled. This was the cloak of mist that had hidden him from sight and other forms of detection ail the years he had been in hiding, walking the world mostly unseen and unnoticed by those around him. It was in this garment she had first beheld him, at least on this side of Time, in the course of a botched pickpocketing that had caused uproar in the streets; the memory of the scuffle that had ensued was both bittersweet and comic. The mist had been imbued into the cloak by Ashe’s command over the element of water, as bearer of the sword Kirsdarke; he had worn it so long that the mist remained, clinging to the fabric, shielding the wearer from prying eyes and scrying. “Take this with you, Aria,” he said briskly. “It’s more than large enough to hide both you and the baby; if the prophecy was right and there are eyes watching him, this should blind them, at least while he is within it. Try to keep him within its folds at least until you reach Canrif, and perhaps beyond.” Rhapsody nodded and took the cloak. “I will, thank you, Sam.” She extended her hand in turn, her fist closed, and held it over his. She opened her hand, and into his palm fell a pearl, luminescent and shining as the glowing moon. In it was contained the memory of their first wedding, a ceremony of their own making conducted without witness in the grotto of Elysian, her hidden underground home within the Bolglands. It was a memory that only they had shared, in a place where she had always felt safe. “And you keep this, to remind you of happy times, and better times to come when this is over.”