Prophecy, Child of Earth (60 page)

Rhapsody handed him back the painting and turned again to face the fireplace.

She was silent for a long time, lost in thought; Ashe was used to her quiet moments, and he waited patiently. He knew her mind was racing a mil lion leagues with each passing second, and when she came out the other side of the thought she would be that distance away, so he resolved to remember to put the question to her again. At last she spoke, though her question seemed directed to the fire.

'Do you believe in the concept of soulmates? You know, two people sharing halves of the same soul?"

'Yes."

'And did you ever meet yours?"

Ashe was silent himself for a moment.

'Yes," he said finally.

Rhapsody glanced up, and for the first time in a while her eyes seemed clear and focused on him. "Really? If you don't mind my asking, what happened to her?"

'She died," he answered, his face twisting in pain.

Rhapsody flushed with mortification and sadness at the sorrow her question had caused. "Ashe, I'm so very sorry."

'Not only that," he said, unable to keep the words inside, "she died believing I betrayed her, because I didn't say goodbye."

Rhapsody looked away. For at least the second time that afternoon she wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him. But then she thought back to the first time she had, on the forest road to Tyrian, and remembered the pain her embrace had caused him. She didn't want to repeat the mistake, she told herself, then silently owned up to the truth: she was afraid of what might happen within her own heart if she did.

Ashe looked up to find her averting her eyes. "What about you?" he asked. "Do you believe in soulmates?"

'No," she said softly. "I mean, yes, I guess there are for some people, but I don't believe I have one."

'No? Why not?"

Rhapsody sighed, wishing she could change the subject gracefully and knowing she couldn't. "Well, I thought so once, and I was consummately wrong."

'What happened?"

'Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. I fell in love with someone who didn't love me back. Standard fare."

Ashe laughed aloud and shook his head.

Rhapsody was annoyed. "What? Is that so hard to believe?"

'Actually—yes."

She was flabbergasted. "Why?"

Ashe put the painting of the Firbolg children back in its place on the mantel and walked to the sofa in front of the fireplace. He leaned back against the arm of the sofa, arms crossed, studying her, watching the firelight play off her features, responding to her mood. The flames were burning quietly, with the occasional crackle and hiss.

'Rhapsody, in case you hadn't noticed, men profess their undying love for you from little more than a glance. Even when you walk about cloaked and hooded, ox carts run into each other, men stumble into walls, and women stand with their mouths agape. The mere sound of your voice causes those who have been happily wed for thirty years to cry for the sorrow of never having known you. And your smile—your smile warms the coldest of hearts, even those that have wandered alone and wounded for decades.

'Yet I suppose I could understand a man not loving you for these things, for they are only physical. But as beautiful as your bodily form is, it's only a shadow of the soul that wears it. How someone could come to know the person that you are and fail to lose his heart to you is, frankly, beyond me. Gods know I lost mine immediately. Whether you understand it or not, Rhapsody, I do love you, and not just for your appearance, but for the myriad and contradictory things that you are."

'What does that mean? How am I contradictory?"

'Almost everything about you is a contradiction, and I love each one. I love that you are a Singer, but that most of the songs you know are in a tongue no one understands. I love that you are the Iliachenva'ar, but hate to have to use your sword, whether it's for the pain or the mess that it causes. I love that you are a virgin, and yet you seem to know the charms and enchantments of a prostitute."

Rhapsody blushed, and Ashe had to avert his eyes quickly to stifle his laugh when he saw the look of shock cross her face.

'You want the rest of the litany? All right, here it is, good and bad. I love that you make what is perhaps the worst pot of tea I have ever been asked to endure. I love that you still tear up at sad songs you have sung a thousand times. I love that your best friends are a giant half-Bolg and the most obnoxious creature I have ever laid eyes on, they are rude to you beyond measure, and yet you love them like brothers. I love that you think of food as a musical instrument—"

'You said that was manipulative," Rhapsody interjected.

'Don't interrupt. I love that you have a better right cross than I have, and, even though you're half my size, you're not afraid to use it on me. I love that you sing the Ballad of Jakar'sid and always get the words of the refrain wrong. I love the way you look after Jo as if she were a little girl when she clearly lost her innocence years ago. And I especially love that you speak your mind to me, even when I don't want to hear it.

'I love that you can't conceive of jealousy in anyone else because there is none in you; that you think that all women have the same effect on men that you do—that you don't even realize you are beautiful at all. I love that your beauty—the thing so highly prized and sought after by almost everyone else—is the bane of your existence.

'I love that you have survived the cataclysm of your whole world, and have lived among monsters, and still always attribute honorable intentions to people. I love that you have the mind of a scholar, the will of a warrior, and the heart of a little girl who only wishes to be loved in spite of all that she is. I love all these things—I love you, and I cannot see how anyone could come to know you, truly know you, and not also love you, not for what you appear, but for who you are.

Whoever this man was that didn't was the world's most consummate imbecile.

'But perhaps that's the answer. Perhaps no one else truly does understand you. I know you, Rhapsody, I really know you. I know what it is like to lose those you love, to have to leave them behind and to know that they continued on with their lives until the end of their days, never knowing what became of you. I know the sorrow that brings, though no doubt I do not know that pain to the depths you do."

Rhapsody, whose face had been growing rosier at each word, paled and turned to face the fire, her back to Ashe, her shoulders straight. The dragon within him sensed the tears brimming, but the dam inside him had already ruptured, and he could not stop the words from pouring out.

'I also know what is worse is that you feel you cannot even fill the holes it left in your life with new friends, new loves, for fear of showing your face. That, I think, is the worst pain of all.

'You are a woman who longs to be taken at face value, but the nature of your beauty forces you to hide yourself behind a cloak, unable to show yourself for fear of the consequences that will ensue. And then there's the fear of whether or not you can trust that the love so abundantly expressed is genuine, or motivated by something else—something as innocent as blind infatuation with your physical attributes, or as sinister as wanting to possess or destroy your soul.

'I know that fear. I know, perhaps better than anyone, what it is like to live behind the mask, remaining unseen, unknown, even though your heart cries out for recognition. It is hideously lonely, in ways no one could ever expect. It makes you want to turn your back on it all and go live in a goat hut, but you can't. Your destiny won't let you, and I know what that feels like, too. I know what it is like to live in that pain, Rhapsody. I know what it is to need that kind of healing. And I would give my very life to spare you from one more moment of it." His voice broke, and he fell silent.

The fire had died down to softly burning embers while he was speaking; now a few flames licked up, catching new life from parts of the wood revealed as the spent logs crumbled. Rhapsody turned to face him again.

Ashe's dragon senses had told him that she was crying, but the actual sight of her in tears caught him off guard. Her face had never been more beautiful, and his heart, now whole and freed from its former pain, twisted into tiny knots at the sight of it.

She smiled through her tears, and came and stood before him, looking down at him for perhaps the first time. Her fingers carefully touched the coppery hair, brushing the strands gently off his forehead, a look of wonder and discovery on her face. As on that day in the forest where she first saw him without his disguise, her eyes sparkled as they took in his features. Then she bent down and rested her forehead on his.

'So," she said, closing her eyes, "you came here hoping to heal me, too?"

'Not really," Ashe answered. "I came because you called. I came intending to tell you the truth about how I feel." His face grew florid in the firelight. "If the whole truth be told, if you want to know my deepest desires, I came hoping to make love to you."

Rhapsody smiled again. "You just did," she said softly.

She kissed him gently, and then stepped back and opened her eyes. The look of hope and love and fear on his face broke her heart in that instant. He reached out his hands to her, and she came into his arms and kissed him again.

Ashe began to feel the control he had over his senses give way. The warmth, the sweetness of her mouth was intoxicating him; he was growing dizzy with joy. He pulled her even closer and pressed her lithe body to his, and the burning in his fingers from when he had first let his dragon nature sense her cooled and disappeared as he touched her. Headiest of all was the sensation of being whole again, being without pretense, knowing that she was aware of his feelings and responding to them without fear. And as he gave himself over to the ecstasy of holding her, the dragon arose and reached out to sense more fully the woman in his arms.

I want to touch this.

But as its awareness began to envelope her, Rhapsody pulled away. She pushed out of his grasp and turned from him, her hands covering her face. Ashe could acutely feel each muscle in her body begin to tremble and hot tears fall onto her hands; tension knotted her shoulders and her heart began to race. She was crumbling before his eyes.

'I can't. I can't. I can't. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't do this. I can't. It isn't right; it isn't fair. I can't."

'Fair to whom?" Ashe asked.

Within him he felt the fabric of the universe tremble. The power that the dragon held over the forces of nature began to rise. Though no outward sign betrayed the inner battle that was waging in his soul, Ashe stood at the brink, fighting his own nature and the longing that both parts of it shared. He held as physically still as he could, praying that Rhapsody would not look at him while the dragon was dominant, for the guile it would use to enchant her would be evident in his eyes.

And though every part of his senses was primed for what the dragon wanted, it was finally the man who prevailed. The human soul longed for her far more than the dragon could ever covet her, and the human understood that her love had to be given, not taken, so the wyrm was forced back into submission, and the man was left, human and alone.

'Fair to you," she answered, her voice thick with tears. "You really deserve someone better, someone who has the capacity to love you back. Someone with a heart. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Ashe stood up, walking until he stood behind her.

'Please turn around," he said.

Her body went rigid, but she did not pull away. Slowly she obeyed, looking up at him through strands of shining hair that had fallen out of place, her eyes dark, her chin trembling slightly. He held up his hand.

'May I touch you?" he asked softly.

Rhapsody's eyes cleared. He was remembering his promise. She nodded slightly.

He reached out, and, gently caressing her cheek, he traced the trail of a tear. Her eyes closed at his touch, and her head tilted slightly toward his hand. His fingers traced on, down the line of her neck, to her collar and the neckline of her blouse, which he traced down to the hollow of her bosom before stopping. Lightly he rested his hand upon her chest, just above the heart, and felt it pounding.

Rhapsody drew in a sharp, broken breath, and stood trembling beneath his hand.

She wanted this; some part of her wanted this, and deep within her being the part of her bound to fire rose at his touch and flowed into the void places of Ashe's soul where the fire had been taken. Slowly she opened her eyes and looked at him.

They stood just so for a moment, neither one moving or breathing. Ashe felt the racing of her heart beneath his palm and saw the bewildered look on her face as the swarm of conflicting emotions fought within her.

'It feels like you have a heart to me," Ashe said at last. He watched her, breath held, trembling, vulnerable but not defenseless, and he wanted her. As Ashe, as Gwydion, as man and dragon, he wanted her. Not to vanquish or possess, but to cherish. He wanted her, and he waited in fear of her answer. "You do have a heart, Rhapsody. Why don't you trust what it tells you?"

Her answer was a whisper. "It lies."

'You never lie. No part of you could either."

'Then it has terrible judgment. I believed it before, and it couldn't have been more wrong."

'Give it another chance. I thought you believed in taking risks."

He had to bend nearer to hear her soft reply. "It's fragile. I wouldn't survive it being wrong again."

Ashe removed his hand from her chest and caressed her face again. "You seem to have appointed yourself the guardian of my heart, Rhapsody. Why don't you make me the protector of yours? I promise I will keep it safe."

The conflict around and within her was making Rhapsody's head spin. She struggled to hold on to what she believed was reality as her eyes searched his for assurances. They seemed so alien, and yet more human than she had ever seen them, and the depth of feeling she could see in them amazed her.
How could I have
been so wrong about him
? she thought, remembering their sibling-like bickering during their travels, the distance at which he held her when she tried to learn more about him, their platonic level of comfort.
I didn't know him at all
.