Rhapsody studied his face, lost in thought. After a few moments, he could see her eyes darken as she came to a decision. “Very well. I need to tell you this, Sam, and you need to hear it. It may make you reconsider things you think you’ve decided.”
He took her face in his hands and stared at her hard, trying to emphasize his words. “Nothing you could possibly say will make me change my mind about you, Rhapsody. Nothing.” He tried to use the tone she did when she spoke truly, as a Namer.
She recognized the attempt and smiled. “Why don’t you hear me out and then decide, Sam.”
“Nothing,” he repeated, almost testily.
Gently she pushed his hands away and rose, crossing the room to the corner by the fireplace. She picked up the paintings of her grandchildren and studied them, smiling after a moment. “Do you remember my recurring dream? The one I told you about that night?”
“The one where the stars fell from the sky into your hands?”
“Yes. And then later, when I was enrolled in the marriage lottery, the dream changed, and the stars would fall through my hands, and into the water of the stream that ran through the Patchworks.
“The night you didn’t come—well, let’s just say it was a sad night, and when I went to sleep I had the dream again, but it was very different. I dreamt I looked into the water, and the stars had fallen in a circle around a long dark crevice, and were shining up at me. It wasn’t until recently, when we fell in love again, that I understood what it was.”
“That being—?”
“It was your eye, Sam; your serpentine-pupiled eye, so very different from what I remember and yet very much the same. That must have been what my mother meant in the vision when she said if I could find my guiding star I would never be lost. She meant it was in you—that you had a piece of my soul inside you, and to find it I needed to find you. That I would be complete with you. You aren’t the only one who had lost a piece of his soul; now each of us has carried that piece for the other.
“Now I finally understand why I’m prescient; why I have dreams of the Future. It’s because I gave you part of my soul that night in the Patchworks, and it came back here with you. That piece has been living, in the Future, all along. It has seen things that for me constituted the Future, since I was living fourteen hundred years in the Past. It has been calling to me, trying to reunite us.”
He smiled, looking down at the floor. “Thank God for those dreams. And if I ever meet the Lady Rowan again, I’ll have to remember to thank her.”
Rhapsody replaced the paintings and sighed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t understand any of this at the time. A deep despair descended on me, and I went through my days as if in a fog. My parents were very worried about me, just as your father was about you. I had told them you were Lirin, and my father was convinced you had cast a spell on me.
“He decided I needed something to salve my heart, and that marriage was the answer, so he moved up the suit interviews. That only made me more desperate and frightened, but I had to trust his judgment, because now I doubted my own. I remembered the gold coins you offered me as a gift, and decided what I had actually done was sold you my virginity.” Ashe’s face constricted in pain, but she didn’t seem to notice. “It made things that happened later inevitable, I guess.”
“Then one day, about a week after you left, several soldiers rode into our village. They didn’t know anything about you specifically; they were looking for anyone who had seemed unusual, who might have shown up at the same time you did. The Partches, the people whose barn you slept in, showed them the items you had left behind, and then they departed.
“I was terrified they would find you, and harm you. I knew I had to try to warn you, so I packed whatever I could carry, took one of my father’s horses, and ran away, following them to Easton. I lost them after a few days once we were there.
“I had never been in a city before, and it seemed very large and very dangerous to me; my horse was stolen almost immediately. I asked everyone I met if they had seen you, but no one ever had. I even made a foray into the Wide Meadows to see the leader of the Lirin who lived there, but she didn’t know any of the names you had given me, except for MacQuieth, who was a warrior of great renown that lived in the western lands past the great river. I realize now it was because, except for him, none of those other people had been born yet.
“Years later I did meet MacQuieth; it was quite by accident, really. And since he is a legendary hero in your lineage, I will spare you the details of how that occurred. I don’t want to dispel any of his mythos. I guess some things run in the family.”
Ashe laughed. “Could it be that your meeting had something in common with the way I, er, met Jo?”
She smiled sadly. “Well, in a way, yes,” she admitted, “but you were far nicer to Jo than he was to me. I asked him about you, and he said he had never seen you. And it was at that moment that I gave up; I knew that either you were dead, or a liar, but either way you weren’t coming back for me; and I would never see you again.
“But, as I said, that was years later. After a few days, when I could find no one who had even seen you, I decided to go home. Then I realized I didn’t even know where home was. The trip to Easton had taken several weeks, and I had no real knowledge of navigation then, and no horse. I always thought I would make it home someday, anyway.
“I needed money, so I sold the buttons; the silver buttons that matched the one I gave you.” He winced, remembering the excitement in her eyes, the pride on her face as she displayed them for him that night. “They brought a decent price, and that allowed me to live, at least for a little while; the money bought me shelter and food. But then the money ran out, and I had to find another way to support myself.
“At first I found work cleaning houses. I was a farm girl, and I knew at least how to do that well. But always something would happen. Sooner or later the master of the house and his wife would begin to argue about me, and sometimes he would even—” She turned away from him, crossing her arms and staring at the wall. The firelight reflected off the shimmering dress, casting shadows that undulated through the creases in the fabric, as though it sought to comfort her.
“Anyway, I would be out on the street again. And, unfortunately, there is a whole class of people who prey on young girls who are on the street. Then again, there are occasionally some who, while profiting from girls like me, also seek to protect them, and I was lucky enough to meet one of them, just before some of the more unsavory types moved in on me. Everyone called her Nana. She took me in, and wrapped her network of protection around me. All I had to do was—was—”
His voice was choked with pain. “Emily—”
“I guess I don’t need to spell it out for you, Sam. She sold me, often, I’m sorry to say. I wasn’t exactly the easiest commodity to sell; my body wasn’t womanly, my breasts small for the profession, and I didn’t help things by refusing to service married men. That severely limited my clientele. Yet despite all the obstacles, she still managed to find work for me.”
Tears touched the corners of Ashe’s eyes. Easily, no doubt, he thought bitterly.
“I thought I wouldn’t care; nothing really mattered anymore, I was just marking my days. But I remember the first time,” she said, each word becoming softer. “I was just fifteen. It had been a long time since you, and, well, Nana was able to sell me as untouched. She expected I would bleed again, and she was right. I guess she got a much better price because of it. She would always give me a treat or small gift when that would happen later on, but then it was due to violence, not inexperience. The first time there was both. I tried to be brave, but in truth I cried all the way through it. I probably would have anyway, but the kind of man who is willing to pay extra for that particular privilege—”
She stopped when she heard a deep sob from behind her. A look of alarm shot across her face; she gathered her skirts and hurried to him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Sam, I’m sorry; gods,
I shouldn’t have told you. It’s all right, Sam, I’m all right. Oh, Sam, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry.”
He pulled her into his lap, burying his face in her shoulder as he wept. She held him to her heart until he calmed. At that moment she decided she would never again tell him anything about that time, locking the door in her memory. That was nothing, she thought ruefully. He would never survive hearing about the bad stuff.
“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. Ryle 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.”
Rhapsody laughed, and leaned her head back against his shoulder as he put his arm around her. “What interesting imagery. Now, which of us is the farm child? Wheat is only good if you need food, Sam. Chaff works very well to make a soft bed. Generally we spend more time there than at the table, anyway.” Her eyes sparkled humorously, and he laughed with her, hugging her tighter. “And chaff makes a tremendous bonfire. Don’t discount the value of chaff, Sam. It will be our turn for bread eventually.”
Ashe sighed deeply and stroked her hair. They watched the fire for a long time, curled around each other in comfortable familiarity, as the flames changed colors, twisting in a quiet dance. Finally, he spoke.
“I have a question.”
“Oh, good. So do I.”
“You first.”
“No, go ahead.”
“All right,” he said, enjoying the banality of their exchange, “why did you start calling yourself Rhapsody?”
She laughed. “Nana thought my real name was too ordinary. It was prim-sounding, not a good name for, well, for my new line of work.”
“Emily is a beautiful name.”
“‘Emily’ is only an abbreviation of my real name. It’s actually my nickname.”
Interest brightened Ashe’s face. “Really? I didn’t know that. What is your real name?”
Rhapsody turned red, and she looked away, although her eyes still smiled.
“Come on,” he cajoled, grabbing her around the waist, laughing as she squirmed away. “You’re going to marry me; I should at least get to know what your real name is. Gods, you know every permutation of mine.”