Prophecy: Child of Earth

53

Flickering images danced before her eyes, then disappeared, as Rhapsody struggled to regain consciousness. Through it all there were eyes, dragon eyes, gleaming down at her, their odd vertical slits spinning as her angle of perspective changed.

Finally she came around, focusing on the ceiling above her, the shadows from the firelight wafting over the heavy wooden beams. She blinked and tried to sit up, but gentle hands held her down, stroking her hair lovingly.

“Shhh,” Ashe said. As the world solidified she found she was on the sofa in the parlor, the fire burning quietly on the hearth, her head in his lap. Her shoes had fallen off, and the cool, wet arm of his jacket lay across her forehead. She blinked more rapidly.

“I fainted?”

He chuckled. “Yes, but I won’t tell anyone.”

“I had the most incredible dream,” she murmured, disorientedly touching the white sleeve of his shirt. His smile broadened, and he bent and brushed a kiss on the bridge of her nose.

“Sorry, Aria, it was no dream. It’s really me; it’s really you. My heart swore it the first time I saw you, but I knew it couldn’t be. She said you never came through; I had believed all this time you were dead.”

“She?”

“Anwyn. After I came back from Serendair, I was desperate to find you. I went to Anwyn. I knew she would have seen if you had come from the old land, and would know if you were still alive. She told me that you never came, that when the ships landed you weren’t on any of them. And, to my great sorrow, I had to believe her. When speaking of the Past, Anwyn cannot lie without losing her gift. I still don’t understand how you got here.”

Rhapsody sat up, running a hand over her eyes and forehead. “Got here? I’m not sure where I am, and I think I live here.”

Ashe wrapped a bent knee around her, giving her something to lean on. He held up the small coin, shiny copper, with an odd number of sides. “I remember the day I was given this,” he said, musing as if to himself. “I was three or four, and it was a Day of Convening; pompous ceremonies and long-winded speeches, and nothing interesting in any of them. They left me totally alone. I was so bored that I thought I would die, but I was expected to sit there and behave.

“I was beginning to think all my life would be just like this, that I would never be able to run or play or do anything fun like my friends did. It was the loneliest moment of my whole life to that point.

“And then he was there, this old man, leaning over me and smiling, with a gift—two threepenny pieces. ‘Buck up, lad,’ he said, and he winked—I remember that wink clearly, because I spent many days afterward imitating it—sooner or later they’ll shut up. In the meantime, you can examine these. They’ll keep the loneliness away as long as you keep them together, because you can’t have loneliness in a place where two things match so well.’

“And he was right. I had a marvelous time studying them, trying to fit the sides into each other. It seemed like moments later when my father came to collect me, though hours had passed. I carried them with me from that day on, until I gave one to you. Because once I met you, Emily, I thought I would never be lonely again.”

Rhapsody rubbed her temples with her fingertips, trying to ease the headache that had crept behind her eyes. “That was a different lifetime. I didn’t even recognize the name when you first used it.” She looked up and caught his gaze; he looked totally happy, on the verge of giddy. “Are you telling me that you—you’re Sam?”

He sighed deeply. “Yes. Gods, how I’ve longed to hear you call me that again.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her, his lips seeking hers in wonder.

Rhapsody pulled away from him and looked into his face again. “You? It’s really you?” He nodded. “You don’t look the same.”

Ashe laughed. “I was fourteen; what do you expect? And a few things have happened since then, foremost of which was a rather reptilian transformation brought on by a near-death experience. And, by the way, you don’t look the same either, Emily. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, but, well, you’ve changed somewhat yourself.” He ran his fingers through the tendrils of hair that touched the flawless face, watching the light catch the strands, shining like burnished gold.

The emerald eyes ran over his features, trying to place the memory of his face into the one she now knew so well. Though he had changed a great deal, there was a clear resemblance; it was the denial brought on by history that made it impossible to see before. And as her eyes took him in, they began to brim with tears. She struggled to form words, but they took a moment to come out.

“Why?” she asked, her voice coming out fragmented, broken. “Why didn’t you come back?”

His hands cupped her face again. “I couldn’t,” he said, tears welling in his own eyes. “I don’t even know how I got there in the first place. I was flung back into the Past for only one day’s time. One moment I was walking the road to Navarne, and then I was in Serendair. And after we met, I would have gladly stayed there forever with you, even though it meant dying, meant losing my whole world just like you did. I would have given it up in a heartbeat, because I had found the other half of my soul.

“I was incredibly excited that next morning, your birthday. I had made myself as presentable as possible, so your father would give his consent and allow me to marry you. I remember being nervous, and happy, but then, as inexplicably as before, I was back on the road to Navarne, back in this world.

“I almost went insane with grief. I looked for you endlessly, seeking out every First Generationer I could find, asking about you. And then Anwyn told me you had not come, and that made me realize it was too late, that you were dead, dead a thousand years or more, that you had not found MacQuieth, or any of the others from your time who could have saved you.

“My father lost patience, told me I had been dreaming, but I knew that wasn’t true, because I had the button, and had seen three drops of your blood on my cloak, from when we made love. And from that moment on I was like the coin; odd, not fitting with anything, worth very little, permanently lonely. There has been no one in my life since you, Emily, no one—except you, the woman I know as Rhapsody. Who could have measured up? My father trotted his whores past me, hoping to shake you out of my heart, but I left and went to sea, rather than betray the memory of the only thing in my life that I had ever held holy, that had ever mattered.

“And that’s all. I lived that way, even before the F’dor took my soul apart. I guess it had already been torn beyond recognition anyway by the loss of you. But now you’re here; gods, you have been here all along. Where did you come over? Did you land in Manosse, with the Second Fleet? Or did you go as a refugee to one of the lands nearer to the Island?” As the questions passed his lips, he noticed her face; she was struggling to keep from bursting into tears, trembling.

He pulled her quickly into his arms, caressing her hair. “Emily, Aria, everything is all right now. We’re together; everything is all right. Finally, for the first time, everything is all right.”

Violently she pushed away, scorching pain in her eyes. “It is most certainly not all right, Ashe. Nothing is all right. Nothing.”

His mouth opened in disbelief, then closed again. “Talk to me, Aria. Tell me what is in your heart.”

Rhapsody couldn’t speak. She looked down at her hands, clutching them until they turned white. One of Ashe’s hands closed gently over hers as the other came to rest on her face.

“Tell me, Aria, whatever it is. Tell me.”

“Well, first and foremost, I won’t know this tomorrow, Ashe. I won’t have any idea when the sun comes up that anything is different. I will go on with my life, with the same belief that you deserted me, that I misjudged you utterly, that you died when the Island was destroyed, or before. It is something I think about every day, Ashe, even now, every day. It makes me doubt myself, it makes me afraid to trust. Gods, you will leave me tomorrow, and I won’t know this. And I will believe that even the love I found with you here belongs to someone else now. Perhaps everything is all right for you, but for me, everything will be just as wrong as it was before, in fact, more so.”

She gave in to the tears. Ashe drew her into his arms and held her as she wept. “You’re right,” he said, kissing her ear after he spoke. “I’m going to get the pearl.”

Rhapsody sat up, pulling out of his embrace again. “What? Why?”

Ashe smiled at her, brushing the tears away with his knuckle. “Nothing, nothing in this world, is worth hurting you for one more second. You have carried too much pain for too long, Emily. I’m going to give this memory back to you. You deserve it more than anyone else deserves the selfish fulfillment of their stupid goals.” He started to rise, but she stopped him.

“What will happen to Llauron?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I care what happens to you.”

Rhapsody’s eyes were now dry, and radiating worry. “Well, I do know, and I think you do, too. If I am useless to Llauron as a herald, because I know the truth, if I refuse to immolate a man I know is still alive, then the plan will fail. And it is already too late to prevent the assassination, isn’t it? Lark’s plans are laid; Llauron will die for nothing, and there will be no chance for immortality. He will be gone, because I was too self-serving to wait to know something I have lived without the knowledge of for more than a millennium.” She sighed heavily.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, finally using the name. “You couldn’t believe I’m selfish; well, here’s the proof. My whining almost caused you to let your own father die.”

“That’s hardly what happened.”

“That’s exactly what happened.” Rhapsody wiped the remnants of her tears out of her eyes with the hem of her dress. “But at least we caught it in time.”

Ashe regarded her with a sharp look. “What are you saying, Emily? You don’t want to keep the memory?”

She smiled at him. “You keep it for me, Sam. I can live without it a little longer.”

He took her in his arms and held her quietly for a moment. “Do you want to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“What happened to you? When I didn’t come back?”

“I don’t think you really want to know, Sam.”

“Your choice, Emily. I want to know everything I missed, everything that isn’t too painful for you to tell me.”

“So you wish to nullify our agreement? To talk about the Past?”

“Yes,” he said forcefully. “Up to now we have been keeping silent not only to spare ourselves the pain, but to protect the interests of our families, our friends. Blast them. There is nothing in this world, the next, or the last, that ever was or ever will be more important to me than you are. Nothing. Please, Emily; I want to know what happened, whatever it won’t hurt you to tell me, so that perhaps we can make sense of why it happened, and how.”

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 clientèle. 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. Kyle 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.”

“I don’t know why you call yourself Ashe.”

“Because ‘Gwydion’ would get me killed. Stop stalling. What is it?”

“Be careful, Sam,” she said seriously. “A name is very powerful. My old name has never been spoken in this world. When that happens it should be in a special ceremony, something that will surround it with power, so it won’t be vulnerable to the old world demons. Like a wedding, for instance.”

He nodded, his playfulness subsiding. Rhapsody sensed his mood shift, and she climbed back into his lap.

“But,” she said, eyes sparkling with mischief, “if I told it to you in pieces, it probably would be all right.”

“Only if—”

“

“Rhapsody’ really is my middle name,” she interrupted before he could finish. “My mother was a skysinger; her name was Allegra.”

“Beautiful.”

“It would be a good name for a daughter, wouldn’t it?”

He smiled at her tenderly. “Yes; yes it would.”

“Anyway, my father named me after his mother, and Mama was not thrilled with the name. She thought it was staid and boring. I know because she told me once, in front of the fire, when we were alone, brushing my hair. She wanted to name me something Lirin, something with music in it, because she believed it would give me a musical soul.”

“She was a wise woman.”

“So that’s where ‘Rhapsody’ came from. Besides being a musical term, it denotes unpredictability, and passion, and wild romance. She hoped those things would counteract my first name.”

He kissed her forehead. “It suits you perfectly.”

“Thank you—I think.”

“So,” he said, wicked mirth in his own eyes, “what was your grandmother’s name?”

“Elienne.”

“Not the Lirin one, you brat. What was your father’s mother’s name?”

Rhapsody’s face grew rosier still, either from embarrassment or laughter. “Amelia.”

“Amelia? I like Amelia. Emily, short for Amelia. Has a nice ring to it.”

“My family called me Emmy,” she said. “My friends called me Emily. The only one who called me Amelia was—”

“Let me guess: your grandmother?”

Rhapsody laughed again. “How did you know?”

“And what last name, what patronymic, did the farm families in your village generally have?”

She played along. “Well, the one I knew best was Turner, as in Earth-turner. It signified that they were planters, and raised crops from the ground. Nice people; I was very fond of all of them. Now, if we’re done with the ancient history lesson, is it my turn? Do I get to ask my question now?”

“Certainly. Ask away.”

“I want to know who this other woman was that you were going to search out and marry; the one you discovered after the ring came into full power.”

“There never was another woman, Rhapsody; I was talking about you.”

Rhapsody shook her head in disagreement. “When you said you now knew who the right woman was, this Cymrian woman you became aware of, and certain of, to be the Lady—”

“You.”

“I see. And the woman you told me you were in love with, in the forest when we—”

“Also you.”

“What about—”

“You, Rhapsody. There is, and never has been, anyone in my life but you. Until tonight I thought that constituted two, but, in actuality, since you and Emily are one and the same, it makes it astonishingly simple. I loved you then as Emily; I love you now, again, as Rhapsody, both very different and yet still the same. You are the only woman I have ever touched, ever kissed, ever loved. Just you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Let’s keep it that way,” she whispered, smiling with him. “Is that selfish enough for you?”

His answer was lost in the kiss that followed; he cradled her face as their lips met, breathing her in like a spring wind, filling his soul with her essence. His hands slid up her back, his fingers caressing the crinkly silk of the dress, and carefully began to unbutton it.

Rhapsody pulled away gently “Sam, please don’t.”

“What’s the matter?”

She took a deep breath, then looked at him steadily. “Perhaps, given that I won’t have any memory of this tomorrow, it’s a bad idea to become engaged tonight.”

Ashe’s face fell. “Emily—”

“Let me finish. There’s no point in making a promise to marry. Those are promises easily broken, and without the knowledge that it was made, there really is no point in it. After everything you’ve heard, do you still want to marry me?”

His heart was in his eyes. “More than ever.”

“And given the choice, assuming all other things are unimportant, would you rather leave here tomorrow as my fiancé—or as my husband?”

Understanding began to dawn on him, and Ashe started to smile. “As your husband—no question.”

Her eyes mirrored his. “Then marry me, Sam. Marry me tonight.”

Rhapsody awoke the next morning as the light began to filter through the curtains. She stretched in luxurious warmth and rolled over in her bed, coming face-to-face with the sleeping Ashe. She started, and her movement caused him to wake and open his eyes.

“Good morning,” he said softly, smiling at her. There was a happiness in his eyes the like of which she had never seen.

“Good morning,” she answered drowsily, returning his smile wanly and yawning. “I have to say I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you planned to be gone before I awoke.” As her awareness began to return, she realized in embarrassment that they were naked beneath the sheets.

“We talked late into the night. Do you remember anything?”

Rhapsody turned the thought over in her mind. “No,” she said, a trace of sadness in her voice. “Not after we went into the gazebo—that’s my last memory. It went well, then?”

His smile broadened, and he reached out and drew a lock of her hair across his throat. “Very well.”

Rhapsody’s face grew solemn, returning to her melancholy thoughts of the night before. “Why did you stay, really?”

Ashe looked at her seriously. “We wanted to spend as much time together as we could before I left. You agreed; honestly you did.”

Rhapsody sat up and saw her silk dress crumpled in a heap on the floor at the foot of the bed, his mariner’s clothes scattered across the room. Color rose in her cheeks as she lay back under the blankets once more and looked at him again.

“We made love, then?” she asked quietly.

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

Rhapsody looked uncomfortable. “You—you did want to, didn’t you? I didn’t make you feel guilty or beg you, did I?”

Ashe laughed. “Not at all. As if you would ever need to.”

She turned away from him so he could not see the sorrow in her eyes. “I wish I could remember,” she said sadly.

Ashe took her carefully by the shoulders and turned her to face him, kissing her gently. “You will, one day,” he said. “I am holding the memory for you, Aria. One day it will be ours to share again.”

Tears began to form in the emerald eyes. “No,” she whispered. “It may be mine to keep someday, but it’s time for you to begin making memories with someone else.”

Ashe pulled her closer so she could not see him smile. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Today I am still here with you. Perhaps there is a way to make up for the loss until the memory is yours once more.” He laid her back down on the pillow and kissed her again, his hands caressing her breasts lovingly.

Fire, mingled with guilt, coursed through Rhapsody’s body as his lips moved lower. She quickly gave herself over to the passion, fueled by the pain of her imminent loss, and they made love again, clinging to each other desperately, as though they thought they would never see each other again.

When it was over, neither of them looked happy. Rhapsody lay quietly in his arms, in the throes of silent guilt. The pensive sadness in Ashe’s eyes was much worse; he had felt their souls touch the night before in ecstasy, and today it was gone, replaced by bitter regret, the pain of being so close to ultimate happiness and still having it elude them.

Finally, Rhapsody rose from the bed and gathered some fresh clothes. She disappeared into the bathroom, and while she was gone Ashe dressed in the clean garments she had left out for him on top of his pack. He cursed Llauron, he cursed Anwyn, he cursed himself, anyone and anything that had conspired to keep them apart and was to blame for any part of the sorrow in her eyes.

As he waited for her to come out again Ashe’s senses, then his eyes, turned to the threepenny piece lying unnoticed in the rug before the fire. He bent to pick it up, smiling. He looked in the pile of hastily discarded clothes and found her locket, then carefully replaced the coin within it. He had Emily back, and she was his wife. Now if he could only keep her safe and in love with him until she knew it.