She listened for the shallows and could see them as stepping-stones across the rushing flood. She tied her cloak up around her waist and slowly stepped out into the water, eyes still closed, feeling her way along. She sank almost immediately up to her waist and shoulders, but the water did not seem to have the force to unbalance her in the places she forded the river.
When she was a few feet into the river Ashe followed her in slowly. He still believed she was too small to withstand the rush of the current, that her body mass was too slight to keep from being swept away in the torrent. For a moment he considered using his power over water to calm the raging river, but decided it would be unwise to reveal even more to her than he already had. He hoped fervently that when she lost her footing he would be able to reach her in time, given that he knew he had to hang back or risk facing her ire again.
He watched in amazement as she stepped from rock to rock along the river bottom seamlessly, with her eyes closed. She seemed to be able to sense the river’s floor and navigate around it, using the intrinsic moraines and dredges to step in places where the water was naturally blocked and the current slower. Somehow she had found a way to determine the underwater topography that was innately clear to him because of his nature and his sword.
Rhapsody had made it two-thirds of the way across the river when she stopped. Ashe knew her dilemma instantly; before her was a large sinkhole, sheltered in a dam of rocks and debris. It was not safe to cross, nor was it easy to get around due to the swiftness of the current that its barricades circumvented. She stood in a swale, puzzling what to do. It seemed the best route might be to climb the dam on its upriver face and then use it to brace herself against the surge of the diverted current. Just as she decided to try it and took the first step, Ashe called out from behind her.
“Watch for the hole in—”
Rhapsody’s concentration shattered and the song vanished. With it went the vision of the river’s floor; she toppled into the water and was lost in a raging torrent that threatened to pull her down. She struggled to keep from panicking as the current dragged her off the dam and swept her over the sinkhole. Her hand flailed as she grabbed blindly for the place where she had seen the rock outcropping. The water surged over her head, choking her.
Ashe rushed forward, moving effortlessly through the rapids. He was about to reach out and snag her cloak when she emerged, gasping, anchored to a log wedged in the riverbed. He hung back and watched as she dragged herself up over it, steadied herself, and began to hum again. It took her a moment to find the song, but then she was off again slowly, picking her way across the bottom once more. Ashe stood where he was and waited until she had pulled herself, sodden and dripping, from the river and up onto the shore of the floodplain.
She bent over for a moment. Ashe assumed she was catching her breath, but then saw her pick something up from the ground. He climbed up onto the debris dam and headed for shore himself.
He was almost to the edge of the dam when the sizable rock she hurled at him caught him in the forehead. His dragon senses had registered her movements, her intent, even before it had left her hand, but the action shocked him so greatly that he was unable to react. He tried to duck at the last second and succeeded only in stumbling into the water and losing his balance. It was the first time he remembered anything like that happening. The Kirsdarkenvar, master of the element of water, one of the most agile men in all of Roland, tripped and plunged face-first into the Tar’afel.
Ashe stood up, dripping for a moment, then emerged, dry, from the river. He went up behind Rhapsody, who was picking up the gear he had brought across the river previously.
“What was that for?” he demanded.
She stood, hoisted her pack onto her shoulder and glared at him. “It’s the same thing you did to me. Don’t ever interrupt me when I’m concentrating, unless something is swooping in from a place I can’t know about. For me it’s the same as if you had thrown a rock at my head. I can hurl one at yours each time you break my focus, if you’d like, to remind you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Ashe, annoyed. “So, now I’m to speak only if spoken to, is that it?”
“That’s tempting, but not required,” Rhapsody replied. “If you want to go back now, I think I can find my way from here.”
“No, you can’t,” Ashe said. Before the words had left his lips, he regretted them. Twice already that afternoon he had condescended to her, doubted her ability to do what she said she could, and it only served to infuriate her more each time, as evidenced by the glowering anger that was taking up residence on her exquisite face now. “Wait; I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I don’t want to give up the journey now. We’re almost there. I said I would escort you as far as Elynsynos’s lair, and I don’t want to break my word. Surely you can respect that.”
The rolling boil tempered to a steaming simmer. “I suppose,” she said grudgingly. “But I’m very tired of not being taken seriously because of my size.” She carried the packs to a small clearing in the woods and dropped them on the ground, then stripped off her cloak. She was dripping wet from head to foot, her boots sodden and squishing, her clothes clinging to her body. The sight made Ashe swallow hard and give silent thanks that he could not be seen. To quell his building arousal he challenged her statement.
“You think people don’t take you seriously because you’re small?”
Rhapsody pulled her soaking shirt over her head and draped it over a tree branch. She was wearing a sleeveless camisole of Sorboldian linen trimmed with lace, the outline of her graceful breasts made obvious by the way it clung to her wet body. Ashe could feel his temperature rise and his hands begin to tremble.
“That, or my hair color. For some reason people seem to equate the darkness of someone’s hair with the mental heat their head is generating. I don’t understand it at all.” She pulled off her boots and unlaced the ties of her trousers.
Ashe was beginning to fear losing control. “Well, perhaps it’s more a matter of lack of common sense,” he said, hoping to forestall her removing any more clothing and at the same time wishing she would continue.
The rolling boil was back. “Excuse me? Did you just say I had no common sense?”
“Well, look at you. You’re alone in an uninhabited forest glade with a man you barely know, stripping down to your undergarments.”
“My clothes are wet.”
“I understand that, and, believe me, I’m enjoying the sight, but if I were someone else, you could be in considerable hazard at this moment.”
“Why?” She let her trousers fall to the ground and stepped out of them, hanging them on the branch next to her dripping shirt. Her long slender legs were clad in slim knee-length pants of linen that matched her camisole, with similarly clinging tendencies.
“Well, you could be ravaged or worse.”
Rhapsody smiled at him in great amusement. “Now, Ashe, how intimidated can a woman be by a man whose sword is made of water?” She winked at him and went back to spreading her clothes out evenly on the branch.
Ashe stared at her, then laughed aloud. She really did personify the unpredictability of the type of musical piece whose name she bore; wild, different from moment to moment, full of the unexpected. He had anticipated a longer, more drawn-out argument over his last choice of insult, and instead she was gently mocking him.
“Never underestimate the power of water,” he said teasingly. “My sword can be icy, and as hard as steel. I can even make it smoke.”
“Ooooo,” she said, her back still turned and sounding unimpressed. “But what good does that do if it melts when it comes in contact with heat?” She patted the scabbard of Daystar Clarion without turning around.
Ashe couldn’t tell if she was flirting with him, but he certainly was hoping that she was. He reached out a hand from behind her over her shoulder and touched the clothing she had hung up, drawing the water from it. She ran a hand over it in surprise to find that her shirt, trousers and sto
ckings were dry.
“Impressive,” she said.
“If I might have permission to touch your shoulder, I can dry the rest of them,” he said.
Rhapsody considered for a moment, then nodded. Ashe’s fingers came to rest on her shoulder, and the camisole stiffened in the absence of the water that soaked it the moment before. A moment later the rest of her garments were dry as well.
“Thank you,” she said, pulling her clothes off the tree and donning her shirt. “Now you can start taking me seriously again.”
“Rhapsody, I do take you seriously,” Ashe said. He was being truthful; he prayed she was what she seemed, not a demonic minion. If she was evil, he knew that when the time came he would hand his soul over to her without a struggle.
She was lacing her trousers back up. “Most men don’t take most women seriously when they are unclothed.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Well, I think it’s because men are uncomfortable with being unclothed themselves by and large. Unlike women, they have an indicator that can betray things about them, that tells what, and if, they’re thinking.”
Ashe felt the color rise in his face. “Excuse me?” He hoped she was not referring to him.
“Well, when he’s naked, a man’s brain is hanging out for all the world to see.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Rhapsody gave him a thoughtful look as she pulled her boot on. “No, it’s not. From my experience, that’s the organ men think with.”
Ashe decided to let the conversation drop then. She was right. He was thinking long and hard at the moment.
The fire burned low that night, smoldering quietly in the wind. Ashe had fed it with twigs and peat several times, but it refused the sustenance, maintaining a steady flame. He smiled at the irony of it; he had never seen a pensive campfire before. Its mood matched Rhapsody’s exactly.
She had said little from the time they had made camp, and had gone about checking and repacking the gear while he cooked. She had eaten in silence as well, but it was not a hostile one. She answered questions without rancor but did not seem to initiate any conversation. The depth of her thought was such that it could almost be heard, so Ashe respected her stillness, and by and large left her to her musings.
After she had cleaned and repacked the eating and cooking utensils she slipped away to the edge of the firelight, watching the stars come out, one by one, over the dimming shapes of the hills in the distance. The wind was from the east, and it blew the smoke from the fire across the fields before her, sending occasional sparks drifting over her head and into the night sky where they vanished without a trace.
Ashe sat on the opposite side of the fire, his back to her. She was well within the range of his senses, and he wanted to afford her whatever distance she needed. He listened with interest for the sunset devotions she always sang as the stars came forth, as he did each night, delighting in the beauty of her voice and the purity of the song, but twilight came, then dusk, then darkness, and still she was silent.
From where he sat he sensed a single tear form and fall; her eyes were searching the sky intensely, not finding what they sought. Ashe’s heart twisted. He longed to go to her, to take her in his arms and whisper words of comfort, but he knew better. He was condemned to his distance, to her privacy, and to the possibility that it was he who had caused her sadness with his stupidity. He cursed himself and prayed that her pain did not derive from reliving old memories he had stirred up.
Your fault, the dragon muttered. All your fault.
Finally, he heard her whisper something to herself. The words were imperceptible to the human ear, but the dragon caught them as if she had spoken them next to him.
“Liacor miathmyn evet tana rosha? Evet ria diandaer. Diefi aria.”
He recognized the language immediately; she was speaking in Ancient Lirin. He thought he could translate it fairly closely: How can I expect you to answer? You don’t know me. I have lost the star.
A jumble of feelings swarmed in his head. Delight—his suspicions had been all but confirmed; she must be Cymrian to know the tongue of the Lirin of Serendair. Uncertainty—was she addressing the stars, or him, or perhaps another altogether? And pain—the despair in her voice was of a depth he recognized; it held a loneliness not unlike his own.
Ashe stood up and walked slowly around the fire until he came up behind her. He could feel her shoulders straighten as he approached, and the tear dissipated as the surface temperature of her skin rose momentarily. She remained otherwise motionless. He smiled to himself, touched by the use of her fire lore, then made his voice as casual as he could.
“Are you looking for any star in particular?” She shook her head in response. “I have a—well—that is to say, I know something of astronomy,” he continued, groping for the right words, and missing, in the dark.
“Why do you ask?” It really wasn’t even a question.
Ashe winced at his inept attempt. “Well,” he said, trying the honest route, “I thought I heard you say ‘diefi aria.’ Doesn’t that mean ‘I’ve lost the star’?”
Rhapsody’s eyes closed, and she sighed deeply. When she turned to him there was a look of sadness and resignation on her face. He could detect no trace of anger.
“‘Diefi’ is ‘I have lost,’ you’re right,” she said, looking past him. “But you have mistranslated ‘aria.’ It doesn’t mean ‘the star;’ it means ‘my star.’”
Ashe knew better than to claim victory in his quest for her past. “And what does that mean, if you don’t mind my asking? What star have you lost?”
Rhapsody walked back to the fire and sat, resting her forehead on her palm. She was silent. Ashe cursed himself again.
“I’m sorry; that was inexcusable of me. I had no right to pry into things I overheard.”
Rhapsody looked up at him for the first time since supper. “My mother’s family were Liringlas, the people of the woods and meadows, Skysingers. They watched the heavens for guidance, and greeted the passing of the night into morning, and the dusk into night, with song. I believe you’ve noticed.”
“Yes. Beautiful.” His words had many meanings.
“They also believed that each child was born under a specific guiding star, and that there was a bond between each Lirin soul and its star. ‘Aria’ is the word for ‘my guiding star,’ though of course each star had its own name as well. There were many rituals and traditions around it, I guess. My father thought it was nonsense.”
“I think it is a wonderful belief.”
Rhapsody said nothing. She gazed into the fire again, the light reflecting off her face in a somber rhythm.
“So which star is your star? Perhaps I can help you find it again.”
She rose and stirred the fire. “No, you can’t. Thank you, nonetheless. I’ll take the first watch. Get some sleep.” She went to the gear and prepared the weapons for the night.
It was not until he was deep within his bedroll that Ashe fully understood her answer. Her star was on the other side of the world, shining over a sea that held the place of her birth in a watery tomb.
He lay back in the silence of his bedchamber and listened to the sound of the warm Spring wind. All around him the noise and distraction of the day had settled into muffled torpidity. How he loved this time of the night, when the mask could come off and he could relish all those things he had put in place without being discovered.
If the wind was clear and the night silent enough he could feel the heat, the friction in the air from violence that was being made by his manipulation, even from a great distance away. This night, it came to him courtesy of the squad of Yarimese guards in his thrall that had turned from their normal duties patroling the water routes outside the crumbling capital city of Yarim Paar, safeguarding the Shanouin, the clan of well diggers and water carriers as they bore their precious burden back to the thirsty town.
The Shanouin had depended upon the protection of the guards for centuries. He chu
ckled at the thought. Mayhem was always valuable; it brought the electric fervor he craved. It was even better when the victims trusted the thralls. The static from the initial shock added to the amusement value. And the horror of the guards that would result when the thrall wore off and they had to confront their murderous actions was the stuff of delicious anticipation.
His skin tingled at the rush of fear that broke over him in waves as the slaughter began. The water carriers were men of brawn, but worked routinely with their families in tow. He took a deeper breath, stretching his limbs as the warmth of spilling blood coursed over them.
It was friction, the heat of contact, of violence, that roared through his body, that caressed his spirit nature now, the power of heat that so recalled the fire from which he had come. All nature of actions generated it, but the place it was most surely found was the fierce combat of murder, heinous and ferocious and utterly stimulating. He felt arousal building in his human flesh, flesh denied satisfaction in most other ways due to age and the other restraints of dual nature.
The patrol was efficient; too efficient—they weren’t taking their time. He grunted in frustration, willing the guards to slow their efforts, to stab more rather than decapitate, to leave the children until the end. His hopes for the heat of the gore building to an invigorating climax grew dim; he had not committed enough of his own essence when he had enthralled the group. A shame, really. A mistake he would not make again.
There was no need to conserve his power anymore. He was now powerful enough to spare more of his life essence, that which would have been a soul if F’dor had such a thing. The next time he had the opportunity to make a group of soldiers into his unwitting temporary servants he would be sure to commit more of himself to the undertaking. That way he would feel more of the misery, soak up more of the agony. It certainly was worth it, given that the only other pleasures his human form allowed him were brandy and rich pastries.