Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“What is it?”

She did not look up. “I’m to leave for Bethe Corbair in the morning.”

Oelendra sat stirring the embers of the fire with a large stick, watching the sparks fly up into the sky. The chilly air hung heavy with moisture, causing her old wounds to ache, but she had grown used to such pains and ignored them. Instead she thought of the old outpost that had so recently stood in this clearing. Now all that remained of it was the burnt-out shell of the tower, and scattered timbers that had once held up its frame.

In what had been the central courtyard the Tree still stood, beautiful and undamaged by the smoke and destruction that had consumed the house. A small harp rested in the crook of its main boughs, still softly playing a repetitive melody. Oelendra’s mind went back to when that tower was built, and the times it represented. She wandered down ancient pathways, and spoke to friends long dead. Distantly she asked the kings of old what had become of their noble line. She tossed the branch into the flames.

Her guest had arrived. He stood at the edge of the clearing, his visage hidden by his heavy mantle. In one hand he held a white wooden staff, in the other he carried Kirsdarke, the blue scrolled patterns visible in the ripples of its liquid blade even in the dark. Oelendra wondered how long he had been there. She smiled in welcome.

“Oelendra?” The voice of the shadowed figure was soft.

“You remember me, then?”

“No, not really,” Ashe admitted as he sheathed his sword and crossed to the fire. “Not clearly, anyway. Just your strength, and your kindness. I have carried those things in my heart for many years. I owe you a great debt, but I’m afraid I don’t remember much from those days aside from hazy, pain-filled dreams. I guessed who you were when I saw you. There are, after all, only so many people who know I am alive.”

“Until Rhapsody told me a short time ago, I was not one of them.”

Ashe sounded surprised. “My father did not tell you?”

“Nay, nor did the Lord Rowan.”

He stepped into the light that ringed the air around the fire. As the young man entered the circle of warmth he pulled back his hood, revealing both the shock of his coppery hair and the small crystal globe he wore about his neck. Cryndla’s candle , Oelendra thought, the ancient melding of fire and water, created by a long-dead queen of Serendair for her seafaring lover, now adorning the throat of another lost sailor, by the hand of another Seren queen. It glimmered through the mantle of mist like a beacon through the fog. He was more handsome than Oelendra remembered, but she was not surprised. He had been at death’s door when last they met.

“You look well,” Oelendra said as she gestured for him to take a seat. Her voice was terse; the smile of welcome had dimmed into one that was merely polite.

“You look worried.” He stepped over the trunk of a long-fallen tree and sat down on it, the firelight gleaming red-gold on his hair. “What’s wrong? Why did you call me here?”

“I thought the ruins of the old stronghold was a fitting, if ironic, place for us to meet.”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

The Lirin warrior looked him over thoughtfully. “Perhaps. I have come in service of my queen.”

Ashe smiled, recalling the infamous words the legends said she had uttered to his grandmother long before his own birth. “I thought you did not serve a monarch, but a people.”

“In my queen the two are united.”

He nodded. “Good. Maybe it’s a sign of changing times; it certainly would be a change for the better.”

“Indeed.” She took a drink from her water flask, then offered it to him. “I see you are no longer hiding yourself. Is that a sign you are preparing to take the Lordship?”

Ashe shook his head, declining the drink. “That title is granted, not taken.”

“That didn’t stop your grandparents.”

“I am not my grandparents.”

The Lirin champion studied the man across the fire from her. She did not look at him directly; she knew better than to stare into the eyes of a dragon. She was a little surprised that he was not attempting to catch her gaze, as his grandmother always had. Oelendra had often wondered how much the power of the Seer’s dragonesque eyes had to do with her selection as Lady. Anwyn had always looked people in the eye, always tried to draw them into herself, though few suspected it. Oelendra had been able to withstand that gaze, to endure both its beckoning and its hatred. She was pleased to see that he was not trying to put her will to the test, and looked away from him, turning once more to the fire.

“I hope so,” she answered after a time. “But I will have to see that for myself.”

“You have the right to doubt my line,” Ashe said patiently. “Certainly my family has never given you cause for confidence in it. I hope to prove myself to you by my own actions, if you are willing to judge me by them.” He blinked; her silvery eyes caught the light of the fire as they looked up at him directly, more than a trace of animosity in them. He waited for her to explain her hostile reaction, but she just watched him. He cleared his throat before speaking again.

“I have not come out of hiding to take the Lordship, but in the hope of flushing out the F’dor. The Rakshas is dead, Khaddyr is dead. Now all that remains is the last, the demon host itself. I hope that by walking openly I can draw it to me and kill it.”

“And you think you can do so alone? You certainly are sure of yourself.”

Ashe ran a hand down the back of his head to settle the hairs that had bristled at her tone. “Yes; I’m confident, but I’m not foolish. My father is seldom far away, and I hope to rejoin Rhapsody soon. Between us and her

Bolg companions I suspect we would be victorious over it.”

“Your father? I had wondered if he really was dead. Rhapsody had not said, but I suspected duplicity.”

“It was necessary.” Oelendra laughed bitterly.

“All right,” Ashe acknowledged quietly, “perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was necessary to him.”

“More accurate, and more honorable also, given who paid the price for that decision.”

Ashe looked away. “You’re right. But in one sense he did die. His human side is gone; he let it slip away to the rest it desired. I will not deceive you, however; in truth his death was a charade, designed to draw- his enemies out into the open and allow him to come into his dragon nature through the elements of ether and fire, much like I did. Now he is seldom far from me. He stays in the shadows, watching, waiting for the F’dor to make its move. Still, tonight he is not here. I would not allow him attend this meeting.”

“Allow him? ’Tis a change.”

Ashe stared at her; her face was tight in the reflected light, her eyes intense. There had always been a similar edge to his father’s voice when her name was mentioned, but he had not thought it particularly significant until now. He kept his voice steady, his expression mild.

“I suppose it is. It reflects a confidence in my own choices, something I learned from Rhapsody.”

“Did you learn that before or after you let her burn your father alive? Before she spread what she thought was the truth of his defeat at the hands of Khaddyr to the entirety of the Filidic order, and the nobility of Roland as well?”

Ashe’s eyes narrowed, the dragon bristled in fury. “Why are you doing this? Are you trying to goad me into something, Oelendra? You are treading on fragile ground.”

Oelendra leaned into the firelight. “I am trying to decide whether or not I threw away the bond I had to Daystar Clarion, the piece of the star I gave the Rowans to sew within your sundered chest, on another manipulative spawn of Anwyn and Gwylliam. Make me understand, Gwydion. Explain why you would hurt the person I love as my own child like that; one whom, you supposedly loved as well.”