Hatred, black as the night sky above her, burned like the cold fire of the aurora within her three-chambered heart.
Anwyn, she thought; the name resonated, ringing a chime in her memory. Anwyn.
Her name.
Her own name.
She remembered.
12
Morning crept through the eastern windows, unbidden and unwelcome.
In the gray light of foredawn Rhapsody sat up, hazily aware and partially refreshed. She pressed a warm kiss on her sleeping husband’s cheek, then leaned back and watched him for a while, lovingly admiring his face, its chin and jaw shadowed with a night’s growth of beard. With his eyes closed, his human and Lirin heritage was more evident than when he was awake; the vertical slits in his eyes were the only real sign of the draconic blood that ran in his veins. Asleep, he was human, undeniably human. Rhapsody’s heart swelled at the sight.
Finally, when Ashe sighed in his sleep and rolled over she rose, running a hand gently across his shoulder, then made her way into the privy closet to dress for her morning devotions.
The air in the garden was chilly; autumn was coming, and the earth was beginning to cool in preparation for its long sleep that would soon begin. If this year was to be as most were, the snow would fall a sennight or so before the winter solstice, blanketing the middle continent with an unbroken layer of frost that sank deeply below the ground until Thaw, that time in midwinter, after the yule, when the harsh weather abated for one turn of the moon before going back to its frozen dominion until spring came. That warmth in the depth of winter held a special place in Rhapsody’s heart; it had been Thaw when she, Achmed, and Grunthor had first come to this place, stepping out of the dark belly of the world into the relative warmth of winter’s abatement.
But before winter came again, there would be autumn, harvest time, which was her favorite season. She had seen the first signs of it upon returning to Navarne from the seacoast, where her abduction had left the shoreline burning from Gwynwood to Avonderre. After Ashe and Achmed brought her back she had been confined to her bed for almost a sennight before she rebelled, and had hurried to the window in time to see the beginnings of the autumnal change, the tips of the leaves turning bright hues of red and orange, yellow and brown, in the trees beyond the balcony of her tower chamber.
Now, as she wandered the neatly manicured pathways of Haguefort’s gardens, waiting for the first ray of sun to crest the horizon, Rhapsody took the time to inhale the morning wind, scented with hickory and pine, and the sharp odor of leaves burning. It was a smell that put her in mind of her childhood home on Serendair, the farm country where she was born, where harvest had been a time alive with excitement, with urgency, with the year growing shorter, the days growing darker as each one passed.
She watched the sky now; Liringlas, the skysingers of the Lirin race, were accustomed to greeting the dawn with songs called aubades, and therefore could sense when the cobalt hue of the horizon lightened to the richest of cerulean blues, signaling the sun’s approach.
The first ray of morning cracked the horizon, sending a thin shaft of radiance into the clouds, bathing them with golden light. Rhapsody cleared her throat, and slowly began the ancient devotion, the song of welcome that her Liringlas mother had taught her while her human father stood and listened, entranced.
She sang the first aubade welcoming the sun, then turned westward and moved into the second one, the song which sang the daystar farewell. Rhapsody watched as the bright celestial light dimmed in the brightening sky, then began to sing her last customary aubade, the song to Seren, the star she was born beneath, on the other side of the world.
Aria, she chanted softly; my guiding star. Tradition held that each Liringlas soul was tied to the star which ruled the day of his or her birth; Rhapsody’s birth star had been Seren, the bright celestial body for which the island of Serendair had been named. The aubade to Seren had always been particularly poignant when sung in this new land, as she could never see it; it sparkled in darkness half a world away when the sun was high above her, and slept in the light of day when she was out beneath the stars of this new land. Rhapsody had taken to chanting the traditional evening blessing in the morning out of a sense of futility, choosing to honor her birth star at the time it was shining, even if she could not see it.
As she sang the namesong of the star, she heard a rich, crackling voice join with her, chanting in the same tongue she sang in.
Seren, si vol nira caeleus, toterdaa guiline meda vor til.
Blood flushed her face; she broke the song off in midnote and whirled around to see Jal’asee behind her, smiling pleasantly. His expression faded at her reaction.
“Pray forgive me, m’lady,” he said, bowing respectfully, “I did not mean to intrude.”
Rhapsody crossed the garden, her hand going instinctively to her belly in an unconscious gesture of protection.
“How—how do you know the Lirin aubades?” she asked nervously, struggling to keep her own voice in an appropriate tone.
Jal’asee smiled. “You forget, m’lady, that when the Liringlas of your homeland—our homeland—refugeed from Serendair, most of them sailed with the Second Fleet. And most of those that did chose to land in Gaematria after the fleet was blown off course by a storm, rather than continue on to this continent, or to follow the rest of the fleet to Manosse. So I live among a good number of your people. No doubt more than you have ever seen, if you were raised among humans.” He tucked his long-fingered hands into the sleeves of his robe and stepped cautiously toward her as the sun crested the horizon and the sky lightened to robin’s-egg blue.
“I have only met a few of my mother’s race in my life,” Rhapsody admitted. A wave of nausea rose and she struggled internally to force it down. She mimicked Jal’asee’s gesture, her hands suddenly cold, either from the morning chill or from the shock of surprise at his joining in her aubade.
The elderly, golden-skinned man stepped closer, then stopped when he was within gentle earshot. “In addition, it might be noted that I am of a race even older than your own, ancient as the Lirin may be,” he said congenially. “The Seren are said to be descended of the stars, a race born at the place where the element had its birthplace on Earth, where starlight first touched this world. We are, of course, named after that star, as was the Island. Your aubade is the musical vibration that rings the star’s true name. So I suppose it is not beyond reasonability that I might know the song as well.” He winked at her. “Failing that, I have a good ear for catchy tunes, I’m told.”
Rhapsody chuckled, half embarrassed. “How arrogant of me. I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.”
“Please, m’lady, address me by my given name. Among my people that is a sign of friendship as well as respect.” Rhapsody nodded. “Your husband asked me to meet you here; I apologize if I am early.”
“Not at all.”
“Excellent. Now, what I can do for you? I am at your service.”
Rhapsody struggled to keep her voice calm, while her stomach churned in distress. “You can elucidate your comments of last night, as I am confused by them.”
“About seeing you leave the Island?”
“Yes.”
Jal’asee studied her face; Rhapsody noted that he seemed aware of the rise and fall of her nausea, the movement of the child within her. When the sickness abated for a moment, the Sea Mage ambassador extended his arm and led her to a marble bench at the foot of a splashing fountain.