Ashe buried his face in her hair, exhaling deeply.
“Worried? Anything of concern to you on the wind?”
Her eyes still closed, Rhapsody listened carefully. The wind was muted, still; it gusted intermittently, dying down to the stagnant air of summer, only to pick up again in a moment. She concentrated, trying to discern the vibrations it carried.
Like the breeze in which she stood on the windy hilltop near Haguefort, the wind of Yarim carried a sense of arrival, of portent; something was coming. Yet unlike the sense she gained in Navarne, that something evil was brewing, it was a gentle omen, seeming to be a harbinger of something good.
A sense of hope, of good cheer, rippled over her skin, leaving it tingling.
She leaned back against Ashe, listening to the beating of his three-chambered dragon heart; it was a comforting sound, musical, slow, like the rhythm of waves in the sea. The vibration she felt in the air around her, the sense of peace and good fortune, blending with the heartbeat of her soul-mate—it was intoxicating, making her face flush warm in the rosy luminance of the setting sun.
She struggled to come back to consciousness, back to calm, knowing that if she remained in Ashe’s arms a moment longer she would succumb to a deep and blissful reverie, one from which it would be painful to rouse, and would remain on the balcony into the dark hours, reveling in the sounds of the night, the warm wind on her face, her husband’s enduring embrace, his breath on her skin, the spicy scent of summer mixed with the intoxicating perfume from the Outer Market.
Rhapsody gently broke free from his hands and turned around to him, her face shining. Ashe blinked, then smiled.
“All right, I will assume that your answer is no, there is nothing worrying you on the wind.”
“Nothing at all. Not on the wind, not anywhere else.”
“Good.” He took her hand and kissed it gently, then led her from the balcony into the inner chamber that had been lighted while they were outside with dozens of scented tapers.
All around the room were porcelain vases overflowing with fragrant summer lilies in fiery shades, dianthus and tuberoses, and sweet woodruff, known to the Lirin as ease-the-mind. On a table in the center of the room a silver platter of rich red berries coated in white and dark chocolate lay next to a bottle of Canderian brandy, two crystal snifters beside it, light dancing off their bowled surfaces. And in the middle of the table, a tiny fountain danced and splashed around a glass cylinder of flame, causing watery, fire-colored ripples of light to flicker on the chamber’s walls.
It was Rhapsody’s turn to blink. “What is all this? Do you think this means Ihrman has forgiven me for forcing the Bolg on him?”
“Probably not,” Ashe said, walking to the table and uncorking the brandy. “This is from me.”
“From you? Why? Are we arguing?”
Ashe chuckled. “I don’t think so. Not yet, at least.”
Rhapsody bent close to a vase of tuberoses and inhaled the sweet-spicy scent. “Then are we celebrating?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at Ashe; the light of the candleflames was glistening in his cerulean-blue eyes, a half-smile on his face.
“What are we celebrating?”
Ashe poured the gem-colored liquid into the snifters, then swirled them both gently.
“Your birthday.”
Rhapsody cocked her head and looked askance at him. “My birthday is not for another two months.”
“Not the upcoming one, Aria. Next year’s.”
“Next year’s birthday? Why?”
He ambled across the room and stopped in front of her, handing her a glass.
“Because the gift I plan to give you for your birthday next year will take time to craft; about thirteen months, I think. I need to be certain you will want it before it is started.”
Rhapsody lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. The liquid was warm, like fire, and it burned pleasantly in her mouth. She swallowed, inhaling over the fiery sensation in her throat. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
Ashe took a sip himself, then stood, regarding her, one hand in his pocket. After a moment he pulled out a small leather drawstring bag and tossed it to her. She caught it, sending rolling waves through the brandy in her glass.
“Goodness; you’ll make me spill,” she chided, setting the glass down on the table and opening the pouch. She shook the contents out into her hand.
Five heavy gold pieces, older coinage than she had seen in Roland, slid out, clinking pleasantly as they came. Rhapsody turned the top one over slowly and examined it.
“‘Malcolm of Bethany,’ ” she read, squinting at the inscription, then looked up at Ashe, a puzzled expression on her face. “Was this Tristan’s father?” Ashe took another sip of his brandy and nodded. “Thank you,” Rhapsody said doubtfully.
“Do you remember ever seeing coins like this before?”
“I don’t think so.”
He sighed in disappointment. “Ah well. I had antiquities merchants scrambling all over Yarim to find them. What a waste.”
“Where would I have seen them?” Rhapsody asked, her voice betraying a hint of impatience.
Ashe set his glass down and came over to her, taking her shoulders and staring down into her questioning eyes.
“In a windy meadow, on the other side of Time,” he said gently. “I offered you coins just like these, because I had nothing else to give you on the eve of your birthday.”
Rhapsody turned away, clutching the coins tightly in her hand. She braced against the flood of emotions that swept over her, some stinging, others sweet, all treasured memories of their meeting in the old world, a story that no person other than they knew.
Sometimes, even now, she wondered if it had all been merely a dream that lingered until it had formed a memory.
Ashe took her by the shoulders and turned her around. He tucked his forefinger under her chin and lifted her gaze to meet his own, the vertical pupils in his eyes expanding and contracting in the flickering light of the candles.
“Through all the years, down all the roads I have traveled, after every nightmare, every dream, I have never forgotten how you looked in the moonlight that night, Emily,” he said softly, using the name her family called her in the old world. “I still do not know what magic, what hand of Fate, plucked me from the road to town that I was walking and deposited me where I could find you, outside that foreharvest dance, but whoever it was, I owe them my soul. Because without you, I wouldn’t have one.”
“Do not be so quick to feel gratitude,” Rhapsody said, her eyes on her fist, gripped tightly around the golden coins. “Whoever it was must have been the cruel person who also ripped you away from me the next day.”
Ashe smiled broadly. “Exactly. And the pain nearly killed both of us—all but ruined our lives.”
“And you’re grateful for that?”
“Yes. All of it. The good and the bad, the pain and the ecstasy. Because it was our beginning, Aria. And in that beginning we knew, without question, what we wanted—each other, in any way we could have that. It was simple; there was no questioning it. You were willing to leave behind everything you had to come away with me; I was willing to give up the life I had known in the Future, knowing the war that was to come, in a heartbeat, to be with you. Risk was something we never even considered; that is what is so pure, so holy, about a new beginning. And nothing—not being dragged back to this time, not the cataclysm that took Serendair to the bottom of the sea, not having to travel for centuries through the belly of the earth, not separation, misunderstanding, pain, death, betrayal—nothing has thwarted the love that began that night.” He reached out then and caressed her face, receiving a smile in return.
“And nothing will,” she said.
“Each new beginning we’ve had in our lives has been a renaissance for us.
There is a risk that is weighed, then discarded, when we forge ahead, trusting in what we are doing,” Ashe continued. “Look at your undertaking with Entudenin. There was considerable risk there—the ire of the citizenry, the potential for conflict between the Bolg and the Yarimese, the possibility that you were destroying an ancient holy relic, which I know as a Singer and student of lore would be devastating to you—and yet you understood that the need for the water outweighed the risk. You forged ahead, staked your credibility with the dukes, the people, and with the Bolg, unable to promise any of them results or protection, but undertaking it anyway. As you said to me in Navarne, what in life is not worth risk? Even Achmed was willing to assume his part in that risk, for whatever his reasons were.”