Destiny: Child Of Sky (52 page)

She cast another glance around as the sound of a horse-drawn coach clattered up the alleyway and passed by. Good, she noted. The carriage routes were not far; it would be easy to hire a coach to get to the wedding. Once the sound had died away she turned back to the thorny wall and slid her hand under the first shaggy layer from the bottom, away from the direction in which the thorns grew.

Verlyss, she sang softly, speaking the plant's true name. She could feel the musical vibration of the rough bark, the spiked thorns, in the air around her as the vegetation attuned itself to the call.

Evenee, she said. Velvet moss.

The savage thorns that rested against the skin on the back of her hand softened, became slippery and harmless, tender as the green lichen that covered fallen trees in springtime. Gently she pulled the tapestry of vegetation aside. Behind it was a stone door without a handle, as Ashe had said there would be.

She felt around the edges of the door until she found an indentation to use as a handhold, and pulled. The door opened silently and she stepped quickly inside, closing it behind her again.

She was in a small, dark room that had once been part of a street-level cistern in Cymrian times, perhaps a caretaker's dwelling, long since forgotten behind the wall of swordlike thorns. A tiny recessed grate served as a window, letting light but no sound into the room.

Rhapsody fumbled in her pack for a candle. Upon finding one she willed it to light; as the flame sparked she felt a pleasant surge from her inner fire, connecting momentarily to the elemental bond within her. She held up the candle and looked around.

The room contained a bed, a chest of drawers, and a doorless closet. A threadbare armchair, much like the one in Ashe's room behind the waterfall, stood by the window next to a small table on which a lantern sat. The room was remarkably free from mildew and comfortably dry, though cold. All around, on the floor and the chest of drawers, were large beeswax candles.

Rhapsody went to the doorless alcove and hung up the cloth bag that contained her dress for the wedding, put her pack atop the chest of drawers, then set about lighting the beeswax candles from the taper in her hand. She sat down on the bed, watching the wicks catch more thoroughly, and the light grow brighter. As she settled back to wait for Ashe, she smiled as she heard her mother's voice.

Even the simplest house is a, palace in candlelight.

Rhapsody closed her eyes and sought her mother's face in her mind. It appeared, smiling in return.

'Thank you, m'Lord and Lady Rowan,“ she whispered. "Thank you for giving her back to me."

In the balcony of the upstairs ballroom at Tannen Hall, the royal residence where the wedding guests were being housed, Llauron crossed his arms and inhaled the frosty wind that was turning even colder with the coming of night. He scanned the sky in the west, watching the clouds winding in hazy gold spirals as they chased the sun beyond the rim of the horizon. How beautiful, the Invoker thought, running his hands absently over his arms for warmth. Soon I will know firsthand what it is like to be part of that beauty.

The evenstar appeared in the sky, glittering brightly in the darkening firmament.

As if waiting for the lead to be taken, one by one the rest of the stars began to shine, winking with cold, burning brightly, eternally. Tears stung the edges of Llauron's aged blue eyes.

I come, my brothers, he whispered into the wind, come.

The balcony door opened; Llauron turned away from the dark beauty of the night, back toward the light and merriment within the royal hall. A servant stood, silhouetted against the bright backdrop of moving shapes and laughter.

'Is everything all right, Your Grace? Can I assist you in anything?"

The Invoker smiled.

'No, thank you, my son,“ he said, walking slowly back toward the door. "I was just making a wish on the evenstar that all goes well tomorrow."

-

-

The white linen blouse beneath Tristan Steward's sky-blue velvet wedding doublet clung uncomfortably to the muscles of his chest and beneath his arms, wet with nervous perspiration.

He had been pacing back and forth since sunrise, striding the long corridor outside the Great Hall of his palace with an aspect that at some times resembled that of a condemned man, and at others that of a caged beast. Now he was wearing a path in the woven silk carpet of his office, which had been outfitted as a dressing chamber, running his hands through his hair, displacing the ceremonial ribbon of state that had been plaited neatly through his forelock.

For the third time in the last hour he summoned James Edactor, the chamberlain, scowling as the door opened and quickly closed behind the man.

'Yes, m'lord?"

'Is she here yet?" the Lord Roland blurted, turning from his desk and knocking a sheaf of maps and papers over in the process. •

'Lady Madeleine?"

'No, you thickheaded lout.“ Tristan Steward scowled. "Did I not thrice ask you to have the representative from the Bolglands sent to me?"

The chamberlain cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yes, m'lord, but we have been unable to locate her."

The Lord Roland's face went pale. “What? What did you say?"

'We cannot find her, m'lord, I am sorry. She presented her invitation at the western gate yesterday, but she did not arrive at Tannen Hall to secure her guest quarters.

She is undoubtedly elsewhere in the city, perhaps visiting friends."

The Lord Roland whirled, sweeping his arm angrily across the newly erected dressing table. A silvered glass tray with a toilette set went flying off the table, shattering on the marble floor in a great hail of bottles of cologne, combs, and razors. The chamberlain leapt out of the way to avoid the flying glass shards.

'Oh, you know that, do you?“ he snarled, storming through the debris toward the office door. "For all you know, she has been abducted or ravaged or worse." Or is trysting with one of the other dukes or nobles in the comfort of their private halls in the inner circle of Bethany, he thought. For all you know, Edactor, they have draped her in jewels., promising her wealth and a safe exit from the Badlands in return for her favors. At this moment she could be wrapped, naked, her skin gleaming, in their finest silk sheets, entwining her glorious legs around their pasty chests, giving herself to Ivenstrand or Ealdasarre or MacAlwaen, when it could be me.

New beads of sweat sprang out in his already-perspiring forehead at the thought.

Perhaps it had even been arranged before her arrival; perhaps she had been wooed by one of the ambassadors who had come to the court of Ylorc to pay tribute to the despised Bolg king on behalf of one of Tristan's rivals. Perhaps they were even now lying in bed, laughing at him, indulging in splendid lovemaking between bouts of merriment at his expense, chuckling at his looming marriage to the Beast of Canderre amid bouts of torrid debauchery.

The shock on the face of the chamberlain as he strode past the man did little to clear his head. The blood of rage, and something darker, was pounding behind his eyes, filling him with painful arousal, making his hands shake in fury.

'Now, go to the captain of the palace regiment and have them comb the streets.

Find her. I want to see her before the wedding, here, in my office. I have important diplomatic issues I need to discuss with her before I can concentrate on throwing my life away and binding myself for all time to that hag from Canderre. Is that clear, Edactor?“ He seized the door handle and dragged the heavy door open with an emphatic scream of iron hinges. "Find that woman and—"

He stopped, his voice cracking like a youth's as he skidded over the last word.

Standing outside the doorway was a trembling little girl bedecked in a frilly white gown, flowers entwined in her hair. It was one of Madeleine's handmaidens, bearing the traditional bridemeal for him, a tray laden with pastries and steaming tea, fresh porridge and aromatic sausages. The bride-meal was customarily cooked by the bride herself on the morning of the wedding as a promise of future repasts she would provide as a wife, though undoubtedly Madeleine had merely ordered that it be prepared by the palace servants. Tristan could not fault her at that. He had done the same with the flowers he was supposed to handpick and present to her as the bridegroom. He stared down at the girl in dismay, then coughed.

'Find that woman, Edactor, and when you have, thank her for this splendid breakfast. Tell my Lady Madeleine that her devoted bridegroom awaits his ladylove at the Altar of Fire in the basilica." Ashe was almost to Bethany's northwestern gate when he felt a strange tremor on the surface of his skin.

The sun was just cresting the horizon, shining on his face, lighting the path before him and casting his shadow, grotesquely elongated, behind him. Ahead in the near distance the towers of Bethany reached skyward to meet the rising sun, gleaming with promise. Deep within those streets, beyond the city walls, Rhapsody was waiting for him, a clandestine meeting planned in autumn. It was all he could do to contain his exhilaration. The pain that had once radiated constantly through his chest and body was gone; there was joy to be had in inhaling the fresh, cold air, joy in being alive, for the first time since boyhood.

But now, no more than a league from the northwestern gate, something bristled in the air behind him, causing the dragon within him to stir.

Ashe reined the gelding he had taken from the battlefield at the edge of the Krevensfield Plain to a halt and turned around to taste the wind, allowing his dragon nature to sense more fully. At the outer edges of his consciousness he felt stealthy movement, dark shadows, elongated like his own in the morning sun, creeping eastward from beyond the Phon's western bank. Though the dragon was powerful in its awareness of the minutiae of the world around him, Ashe could not look into men's hearts. There was no doubt in his own, however, that his sense of foreboding was well placed.

Black anger flashed through his mind, resonating throughout his body. Another incursion, another manipulation of the F'dor. Another attack that would doubtless allow the demon to prey upon the unsuspecting, spilling more innocent blood. He was accustomed to intervening in such incursions. Not, however, when the woman he loved, and had been separated from for what seemed like an eternity, was finally within his reach. His anticipation of seeing Rhapsody, gowned in her wedding finery, had been the only thing that had kept him from madness over the last months.

Ashe looked back at the wakening city coming to light with the dawn.

Growling a string of ugly profanities, he tugged the reins and turned west again, leaving the shining light of daybreak in Bethany to cast longer, angrier shadows ahead of him now.

Rhapsody was growing desperate. The great clock in the bell tower of the Regent's Palace had struck the quarter hour twice in the time she had been standing at the street corner's edge, waiting to flag down a passing coach. She had watched carefully from the grated window in the abandoned cistern the afternoon before, and had noted carriages passing every few minutes, their drivers calling their availability for hire. Now, however, the streets of northern Bethany were deserted; all the townspeople were either at the palace hall preparing the wedding feast, or standing outside the fire basilica, hoping to catch a glimpse of the royal couple.

Undoubtedly every available carriage was currently employed delivering the invited guests from Tannen Hall to the basilica, even though it was only a few streets away.

She stamped her foot in frustration. How foolish it had been to forsake the comfort and proximity of the guest lodging for a night alone in an empty stone cistern.

Ashe had never come; she had passed the time waiting writing sonnets in her worn journal by candlelight, trying to keep her heart from betraying her. By sunrise she had given up trying to fall asleep and had gone to the northern well, drawing water to cleanse herself with before dressing for the wedding. The square in which the well stood was crowded with squabbling men and women, shrieking babies, and children running madly about in the excitement of the wedding; it had been a simple task to slip in and out without notice.

Now she was dressed and ready, but had no way to get to the wedding.

The gown of stiff amethyst silk was glorious; she had reveled in the crisp touch of it the night before, running her hands down the skirt to smooth any wrinkles that had occurred in its transport to her hiding place. -In the morning light the color was even more stunning, dusky and rich, matching exactly the sparkling jewels she had purchased to accentuate it. Her slippers, formed of satin dyed to match the dress, would never survive the long walk to the basilica in the filthy snow of the cobbled roadways. Her gown would fare no better.

She looked anxiously up and down the empty street, wondering if her purchases, her preparations, in fact, her visit to Bethany had been in vain. In that moment in the distance she heard the clip-clop of horses' hooves.

A moment later a tinker's cart rounded the corner a few streets away. An ancient mule, mottled skin visible beneath her tattered blanket and wearing blinders over her eyes, plodded slowly through the cobbled streets, pulling the rickety wagon hung with chamber pots, cooking pans, tarnished oil lamps, and scores of other metal objects, all clattering into each other in quiet cacophony. Rhapsody chuckled.

'Excuse me,“ she called to the grizzled tinker as the cart approached. "By your leave, sir, might I beg a ride of you? I must get to the royal wedding."

The man, wearing an eyepatch over one eye, turned and stared at her. Obviously the sight of a wedding guest in a gown and velvet cloak was confounding, Rhapsody thought, because for a moment the shock on his face was so great that she feared he might fall from his seat. The reins dropped from his hands and the mule, sensing the slack, ambled to a stop.

Gathering her skirts, Rhapsody hurried across the roadway and climbed nimbly into the cart beside the tinker.

'Thank you,“ she said in relief. "I was afraid I was going to miss it."