Haydon, Elizabeth - Symphony of Ages 09 - The Weaver's Lament by Haydon Elizabeth

Author:Haydon, Elizabeth [Haydon, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429949224
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

25

ACHMED’S BEDCHAMBER, YLORC

The night in the dark, stolid room had been quiet and calm for the most part.

Rhapsody had fallen asleep in her dressing gown amid the black satin sheets, exhausted beyond the point of being able to even say good night. Achmed had been perplexed about what to do, and had remained sitting on the edge of the bed for almost a quarter hour before she rolled over and opened her eyes halfway.

“Are you coming to bed?” she murmured sleepily.

“I had thought so,” he replied. “But then I wasn’t sure.”

Rhapsody opened her eyes all the way, blurry.

“You and I slept beside one another for almost fifteen hundred years,” she said. “We crawled along the Root, endured camping conditions once we got out—even though Grunthor, not you, was my mattress.”

“I don’t want to do anything that would make you even in any small way more sad than you already are, Rhapsody.”

Rhapsody blinked. “Thank you,” she said, genuinely touched. “I know you understand how deeply I am mourning. And how much I still love my husband.”

Achmed sighed but said nothing.

Rhapsody put out her arms to him.

“Please come and hold me,” she said softly. “There is nothing I need more tonight than that.”

The Bolg king exhaled, then complied.

For much of the rest of the night he remained awake, listening to the tides of her breath as she slept on his chest, whispering sibilant sounds of comfort to her when her dreams were torturing her.

In the process, he was also absorbing the song that emanated from her that had always soothed the sting of life that irritated his sensitive nerves. It was a song that he had listened to, as she had said, every night for a millennium and a half, and she had no idea how deeply he resented her taking it from him when she had married Ashe and left the mountain.

So while he still was in the throes of agony at the loss of Grunthor, and was irritated and distraught about the buildup to a war that seemed would not happen now, at least he had the secret pleasure of feeling the music that came out of Rhapsody when she was breathing.

Especially when she was curled in his arms when doing so.

* * *

When he woke the following morning, she was watching him intently. She smiled slightly, and it was, for a moment, as if the sun itself had penetrated the dark stone and the black satin of his intentionally dark bedchamber.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning, I suppose.”

“Do you still wish to do this?” she asked nervously. “I realize that yesterday was odd and terrible and confusing, and I don’t want to ask you to do something that you are not comfortable about. I don’t want you to regret your decision.”

Achmed shrugged. “I told you I was willing last night. I am still willing today. I would say that makes it your decision.”

“I—I do still want to,” Rhapsody said nervously. “But the process by which I would like to undertake

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