In spite of the suspicion and the doubt, Ashe had guided her from the Bolglands to this place to which she was traveling now, to the white forest of Gwynwood beyond the Tar’afel River, a place of deep magic, then and now.
The lands of the dragon Elynsynos.
The sun was setting two days afterward by the time she reached Mirror Lake, the beautiful body of water, still as glass, that was the landmark to the entrance of the dragon’s lands. There was now, a thousand years after the war that had threatened this place, nothing but peace in the utter absence of birdsong, the deafening silence a sure sign that the dragon was alive and well.
The only voice making a sound she could hear was inside her.
Rhapsody reined her roan to a halt and stared across the lake, letting her hand come to rest on her abdomen.
For a century or more, she had been beset by the voice of a child, calling to her from within, as each of her six children had done prior to his or her conception. It had initially begun as a distant awareness, a realization that a presence was hovering in the ether, waiting to be conceived and born. She had happily shared this news with Ashe, who had blinked, then stared at her. In her mind she recalled his first words in answer.
Not again, he had said, wincing at the surprise, followed by shock and sadness, that had come over her face, banishing the glow of happiness that had been there a moment before. Surely you do not want to undertake this again, Rhapsody?
She had been so gobsmacked that she had not brought the subject up to him again.
But that had not quieted the presence she could feel, growing stronger each time it made itself known to her, as it intermittently did.
As the sense grew stronger, a voice emerged, as it also had with each previous child. At first it spoke softly, often in the darkness just as she was falling into slumber, or at quiet times when she was engrossed in her studies, when no one else was around.
Mimen, it had whispered.
Mama.
She had struggled to quiet the call, but it only grew more insistent, filling her ears and her dreams with its song. She had almost come to regard it as a secret she was keeping from her husband, who would occasionally catch sight of her face, her eyes filled with despair when there was no other reason for it, then sigh and turn away.
The voice had only grown stronger, more plaintive, as if it were standing beyond a doorway in the freezing cold.
Mimen—Mimen. Please. Let me in.
Only to become quiet again as she dissolved into silent tears, unshared.
Often great lengths of time would pass, while silence held sway. It had been so for a long while; she had no idea why it was making its presence known again now.
Rhapsody shook her head to dispel the thoughts, then took up the reins again and allowed the horse to walk the entire way around the lake. Horse and rider came to a gentle halt, and she dismounted near the stream that flowed into the lake from a nearby hillside. She stopped at the stream’s edge.
“May I come in, my friend?” she whispered into the wind.
A rustling of leaves answered. A gentle breeze picked up, tousling her hair.
Of course, came a magnificent voice in the tones of soprano and alto, tenor and bass simultaneously. You well know how much I love to see you. Come in, Pretty.
Rhapsody chuckled.
She tied the roan to a nearby tree close to the stream, gave her an apple, and made her way across the glistening brook to the cave in the hillside and down into the lair of the dragon, the first wyrm she had ever learned to love.
Now that dragon was the matriarch of her family of them.
HIGHMEADOW
Meridion, Cara, and Evannii had arrived just short of two days after departing from the Circle, their carriage coming through the gates at almost the same time as those belonging to Meridion’s brother Joseph, who, with his wife, Caryssa, had brought three large wagons of food, decorations, gifts, and grandchildren, and his sister Elienne, whose retinue was even larger.
“I am so excited for this gathering,” Evannii had said, peering out the window, her face glowing. “I haven’t seen most of these family members since our wedding.”
“I do believe Mimen said everyone is coming,” Meridion observed, peering out the window at the guards and house servants assisting in the unloading of goods and little people. “This is certain to be fun.”
His father, Lord Gwydion, appeared at the carriage window.
“Well met, beloved ones,” Ashe said, his face shining. “I trust your trip was safe and easy?”
All three family members nodded.
“Excellent! Well, I don’t mean to give you and the others short shrift, but I have an appointment with an extraordinarily beautiful woman to the north of here. I am leaving momentarily—I do hope you will forgive me. We will be back in a couple of days.”
“Oh, absolutely, Papa,” Cara said, mischief in her eyes. “Hamimen talked of nothing else the whole time we were with her in Tyrian. I do hope you have rested up and that your back isn’t bothering you. She’s really quite excited. I imagine you’ll both be smiling, and tired, and perhaps bowlegged, when we see you again.”
Ashe’s mouth fell open, then he laughed aloud.
“One thing that can never be said about this family is that it is shy when talking about sex,” he said, his face coloring. “I just had a conversation with Laurelyn yesterday about the evils of celibacy from which I may never recover.”
“Tosh,” said Cara, kissing her grandfather’s cheek. “I’ve always been grateful to have grown up in a family where candor is the order of the day, and a healthy attitude about all things natural is to be expected. Mimen says it comes from farming origins; what do you think, Papa?”
“I think your grandmother is always right,” Ashe said, patting Evannii’s face. “And any man who doesn’t have the same belief about his wife is a damned fool. Enjoy the gathering, and I will see you both the day after the day after tomorrow.”
He disappeared from the window, whistling.
8
GWYNWOOD, BELOW THE WATERFALL
A day later, Ashe finished tying his mount to a slender tree next to Rhapsody’s waiting roan and sighed.
The black gelding had been watered downstream from the thundering falls, swollen with the rains of approaching autumn, fed and picked of knots. Ashe was fighting the long-ago instructions from his father, Llauron, and his uncle, Anborn, both of whom had been his instructors in horsemanship centuries before.
You shall not eat, nor sleep, nor piss until you have taken your mount through all its steps of care, Anborn had told him as an eleven-year-old, along with his friends and the rest of the youth brigade of which he was a part. If I find any horse insufficiently cooled down and tended to, you will experience the same treatment yourself the following night.
Satisfied that his uncle and father would approve of his gelding’s condition, he untied its saddlebag and drew forth the bouquet of nymph’s hair, airy wildflowers he had gathered for his love at the mouth of the stream. He inhaled their scent, remembering his brief time in the old world, where he and Rhapsody had first met, and how he had spied a clump of those very flowers on the morning after their first night together, her birthday, and had planned to make a gift of them to her.
That was just before he had been torn away from her, back to his own time, an event that had shattered his soul.
But now the only thing that separated him from her was the waterfall.
Ashe stowed the bouquet in his bandolier and started to climb.
The ascent was far more difficult than he had remembered it from the year before, and all the previous ones. By the time he reached the place where the waterfall shed away from the shale, Ashe was puffing, red in the face.
He bent over and put his hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath.
A sense of despair washed over him, leaving him weak and vulnerable to the muttering of the draconic voice within him.
Dying, you k
now, it muttered. You’re dying. This is what it looks like.
Abandoning his dignity, Ashe sat on the slippery rock bed that led down to the falls. He listened to the music of the wind ruffling the green leaves of the crabapple glen, the place in the spring of their first journey together that had most enchanted the woman who would be his wife.
If he closed his eyes, he could see her still, as she had been on that first journey, staring in wonder at the pink blossoms of the trees, holding out her hands in the heavy golden shafts of dusty sunlight.
It was a memory of light he had always kept in times of pain or sorrow, just to lift his spirits.
They had met in this place for centuries uncounted afterward, away from the family and the trappings of court, to be completely alone together. It was one of the only places he had felt safe during his time in hiding; now, it was a place of treasured memories and privacy.
A nagging thought from the dragon in his blood dulled the happy mood.
It was a conversation, resurrected from a hundred years before, when he had first had difficulty summiting the hillside that led to their meeting place, a small turf hut beside the waterfall.
Prior to that time, they had happily chased each other up the hill, climbing eagerly through the forest, frequently succumbing to passion among the trees or in the sweet moss beneath them, making love in time to the song of the waterfall. The surging dance of the element of water laughing over the rocks had refreshed his soul almost as much as the coupling had, the ebb and flow of both, the sense of freedom and eternity that the endless rush had engendered.
But on that first time when his stamina had failed him, when he needed to gasp for breath, bending over at the waist, Rhapsody had waited patiently for him to get his wind again, then put out her hand.
Come, my love, she had said. Our bower awaits.
He had looked up from his panting, this time from the exertion of the climb rather than the recovery from a glorious climax, and had glowered at her.
Look at me. You don’t see me as I am again, do you Rhapsody? I am an old man.
She had smiled. I see the boy in the meadow.
You have always seen what you wanted to see, he had grumbled, still overexerted.
There was a time you believed that was a good thing.
I still believe that, he said, finally able to stand erect. But we’ve been at this eight centuries now. How long are we supposed to live happily ever after?
Rhapsody’s smile had faded, but her eyes had still met his, looking as if into his soul.
Given that I didn’t think I would survive the first year after I came, I suppose everything else is a gift, a blessing.
A blessing, the dragon whispered sarcastically. Certainly, frailty and decrepit existence can be a blessing.
Just as he felt his human aspect surrendering to the beast’s ire, he raised his head and saw the warm glow of light-shine from the window of the turf hut, a tiny cabin hidden against the moss-covered face of the mountain behind it.
His dragon sense caught the warmth of his wife, waiting within the small room for him.
His resolved renewed, Ashe climbed over the last of the barrier rocks and hurried across the spongy turf of the grass leading up to the door of the hut. He paused outside it; the door was ajar.
He pushed it open a little farther, leaned up against the exterior turf wall, and called into the doorway.
“Do you still love me, Aria?”
Her answer was the same as it had been every time he asked the question over the last millennium.
“Always,” she called back. Then Ashe heard a smile creep into her voice. “Come inside; you’re letting the bugs in.”
“Nonsense,” he said jokingly, following her voice into the cabin, the bouquet behind his back. “Within range of the door, there are only twenty-eight river flies, four mosquitoes, one hundred and seventeen—oops, make that sixteen, a minnow just got one—gnats, and—”
His words ground to a halt once inside as his senses were overwhelmed.
The first to make a successful assault on his dragon sense, and his nose, was the odor of a savory stew, which had been spiced appealingly and had filled the small cabin with a warm, inviting air. He noted the other dishes she had prepared—freshly baked bread infused with rosemary and waiting to be served with butter and honey; crisp greens tossed with mulled wine; and a torte that had been assembled in eight layers of cake, cream, mousse, and chocolate, all touched with coordinated liqueurs—and recognized the complexity of the spices and the elaborate levels of preparation within what were otherwise relatively simple dishes.
The second of his senses to succumb was his hearing; she had obviously spent some of her time that day playing a gentle air on several of her instruments—lute, flute, and harp—that were repeating it endlessly now on their own. The piece was easy on the ear but Ashe recognized the sophistication of the music, primarily because his draconic nature was counting the measures and making note of the complex time changes and obscure harmonies.
At the same time that other nature was noting the fact that scented water had been sprayed about the cabin, a subtle blend of lavender and sweet woodruff that took some of the dryness out of the room. The residual mist rested lightly on his skin, taking away some the sting of the vibrations that played havoc with his concentration on a regular basis, and refreshing the waters of his soul and sword. The result was a feeling of great peace and wellness descending; Ashe breathed it in, touched and happy in the knowledge that each of the actions his wife had undertaken she had done with her knowledge of the needs of both aspects of his nature, man and dragon, as an expression of her love for him, a love he knew was deeper than the sea.
But he was utterly unprepared for the sight of her.
Instead of the clothing in which she generally met him in this place—her regular traveling trousers and linen shirt, a negligee, or nothing at all—Rhapsody was attired in an elegant gown of midnight-blue watered silk that also shone black or gray, depending on the angle at which she was being viewed. It was embroidered with thousands of tiny pearls that made it look like a star-scattered sky, except that the wyrm noted the patterns into which the pearls had been assembled, spelling out a variety of phrases in musical script and Ancient Lirin, the dead language of her childhood. Some phrases were loving, some humorous, some scandalously bawdy, and they fascinated the dragon in his blood. A long line of small matching pearled buttons stretched down her back, the sheer sight of which made his fingers ache.
Her beautiful hair had been carefully plaited in the luxuriant patterns the Lirin were known for, and a rainbow of tiny gemstones had been placed within the strands; the jewels caught the light of the fire and sparkled, enflaming the dragon’s heart, and the man’s at the same time, but for different reasons.
She was just finishing setting a pair of crystal wineglasses on the table, and looked up as he closed the door behind him. Upon beholding him, she broke into a heart-melting smile and stood erect, her hands behind her back like a little girl with a secret.
Ashe fought down the lump that had risen in his throat. He coughed, then shook his head with mock concern.
“A thousand years a queen, and yet you are still the same foolhardy, reckless woman who drew a puny dagger on me when we met in the streets of Bethe Corbair.”
Rhapsody blinked but her smile remained.
“Reckless, am I? Foolhardy?”
“Indeed. Did you intentionally risk being devoured this evening?”
“Oh, I certainly hope so.”
Ashe laughed again. “I meant literally. I’m not complaining, mind you—this is a lovely diversion, Aria.”
“Diversion?”
His laugh dissolved into a warm chuckle, but there was a serious look in his eyes. “Are you saying the exquisitely detailed jeweling of your intricately braided hair, the dozens of tiny buttons down the back of your color-changing dress, the pearls adorning your gown in patterns of words in Ancient Lirin, and the compli
cated symphony of spices with which you have made that delicious-smelling supper as well as perfumed your beautiful body, are not specifically designed to distract the dragon within my blood?”
His wife slowly came away from the table before the fire toward him. “‘Distract’ is a somewhat belittling word. I would say rather that those things are meant to amuse or entertain that part of your nature, beloved. I love the dragon as I love the man you are. I thought it deserved some attention as well.”
“Well, while the dragon appreciates it greatly, the man is at a loss to deal with the details,” the Lord Cymrian said, dropping his pack to the floor, but bringing forth the bouquet from behind his back and holding it out to her. “While the wyrm in my blood is enjoying the opportunity to count them, the arthritic fingers of the human side of me are despairing the barricade of buttons that will keep you from me for hours while I fumble with them.”
Rhapsody’s smile broadened. From behind her own back she produced a buttonhook and held it up wordlessly.
Ashe laughed aloud.
“Gained,” he said, using the sword trainer’s word for acknowledging a point of an opponent’s victory.
In return, Rhapsody came closer and took the bouquet from his hand. She raised the blossoms to her face and inhaled their scent, her smile growing warmer. When she looked back at him, her eyes were gleaming.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Happy anniversary.”
“And to you, Sam.”
Ashe’s throat constricted at the use of the name she had called him by on the night they met in the old world, the name by which an unknown young man or boy was greeted by the people of her farming village. The word, spoken in her voice, still made his heart race as it had then, a lifetime ago.
Sometimes in the light of morning, on the rare occasions when he woke before her, he could still see the girl he remembered, the young woman who had not yet been touched by the mesmerizing power of the elemental fire she had absorbed later on her journey through the Earth, coming to this place a world away from everything she had known and everyone she had loved. With her emerald eyes closed and her golden hair mussed and loose around the pillow, she was Emily in his eyes, a blond, fair girl of slight figure and strong backbone, hiding from and refusing the suit of the farmboys who had sought her hand in the marriage lottery of her village.