Destiny: Child of the Sky

74

The cry of the horns might have been the first signal Rhapsody and the other Cymrians had to alert them to the next group’s arrival, but Achmed had known of their coming for hours. His scouts and spies had warned him of their arrival, because when they first appeared on the horizon they had resembled an army more than a delegation, dressed as they were in uniform shining armor with banners flying high above them.

They were not human or Lirin; the men stood five to five and a half feet tall, with long flowing beards and well-muscled chests and shoulders as broad as that of a human man. The majority of the assemblage had never seen these people in their time, but had heard the old stories of the war and the Cymrian Age, and recognized them after a moment as the citizens who lived within and beyond the Night Mountain.

They were the earth dwellers, the Children of the Forge, the Nain who had come to the new world on the Cymrian ships but had chosen to live among others of their race far to the east. Much as Gwylliam had been taken to be the king of men, of both Cymrians and those who had occupied the lands before their arrival, so the leader of the Cymrian Nain had become the king of the Nain in the new world, and had remained so, maintaining the kingdom through the war until the two peoples blended. And he came as such now, Faedryth, king and Lord of the House of Alexander, both an ancient Cymrian of the First Generation, and the king of an indigenous people.

For centuries the Nain had lived in self-imposed isolation. They had fought in the war, primarily against the Lirin, had remained part of the Council but kept to themselves and the affairs of their own kingdom. The arrival of the Nain Houses caused a sudden silence, then a growing murmur as the repercussions of their attendance were widely discussed.

Once all of the delegation had arrived, the Nain positioned themselves across from the Lirin, whose Houses still stood together at the base of the Summoner’s Ledge. A tension began to pick up in the air. The crowds were now sorting themselves out by House, race, or the fleet with which their ancestors had sailed. The Bolg Cymrians stood with Achmed, who had placed himself, as host, on the lip of the Bowl behind Rhapsody.

Then the tension in the air grew palpable. Some of the Houses had been claiming members from the Diaspora upon arrival, as some of their own recognized distant cousins or other family members in the crowd. Now others were seeming to adopt members more freely, without certain knowledge of their lineage, but with more political ends in mind. This padding of the numbers caused the outbreak of many arguments, with tempers flaring and the occasional drawing of weapons being witnessed, despite aggression within the Council being forbidden. Rhapsody was distressed when she saw that this was able to happen, but realized that until she called the Council to order, none of them were bound by the laws that they would be required to respect once it was in session. She decided to do so as soon as possible.

A great roar went up from the assemblage, and Rhapsody stood on her toes to see what was causing the commotion. A moment later, a path . opened in the sea of people within the Bowl and a figure, resplendent in shining black armor and riding a barded black charger, rode through. Rhapsody recognized the horse immediately. When the man stopped before the Summoner’s Ledge he removed his helmet and great cacophony ensued again; it was Anborn.

Even from as far away as he was, Rhapsody could see the smile that briefly crossed his face when their eyes met, and he winked at her. Then he dismounted and walked to the open center of the amphitheater and waited in silence. A crowd instantly began to form around him, some greeting him with quiet respect, others with open glee. Suddenly, more than ever before, she saw him as the general that he was, the great knight marshal of the Cymrians, rather than the surly dilettante she had gotten to know and like, and who might become her husband. He was a leader, born to it, and now she saw the command his presence drew. The Nain king crossed to him and clasped his hand in the gesture of old friends. Among the Lirin she could hear unpleasant rumblings and noticed glaring expressions and gestures of contempt.

With Anborn’s arrival the Houses began to split loosely into their respective Waves, the remnants of the fleets in which they had sailed to their new home. Even within the fleets themselves was great disparity; although the Cymrian Lirin primarily stood with the First Fleet, there were also many Lirin numbered among the Third Fleet, acknowledging the Wave with which they had sailed more than the side they had taken in the war. The Nain positioned themselves between Anborn and the delegation of the Third Fleet, who had settled in the southern section of the Moot, though a few could be seen sprinkled here and there throughout the other factions. The diminutive races, like the Gwadd, had separated out and were clustering together, away from the larger groups. Some of the Diaspora, even those who had been welcomed into other Houses, had begun to separate from the rest, forming their own crowd off to the edges. Rhapsody was not sure if they did so out of confusion, out of an alliance that had formed while they had waited, or out of the desire not to be associated with the feuds and hostilities that were evidently brewing. The guests had not all arrived yet, and already a fight was in the offing. She glanced over to Oelendra, who was dressed in simple chain mail and a flowing blue cloak, and rolled her eyes. Oelendra laughed in return.

A moment later the attention of both of them was drawn to the next group entering the Bowl. With their entrance an uneasy silence fell. Some of the members of the procession were Lirin, or looked like Lirin but with darker skin and a more ancient mien to them. Others were giants, as tall as Grunthor, but with a thin, lithe build. Their skin was golden and their faces were ancient; the sight of them caused Rhapsody to hold her breath. Though she had never seen one in all her days on the Island, she recognized these people as Ancient Seren, the legendary Firstborn of Serendair, who had all but died out long before she was born. The darker Lirin she guessed were the Kith, another of the Firstborn of the Island, a mysterious people of the ancient woods and primeval forests. It was this House she had heard singing the final chorus of her morning aubade.

Neither of the Firstborn races led this House. At the head of the procession was a man, broadly built like Anborn, but portly and soft where the knight marshal was muscular and well defined. His lineage was strikingly evident, the hawklike nose, the silver hair: this was Edwyn Griffyth, the oldest son of Anwyn and Gwylliam, who had left at the advent of the war in disgust and gone to live on the island between the two continents, Gaematria, the Isle of the Sea Mages. At last Rhapsody understood the lineage of the Sea Mages, and why they held such power. They were made up of Firstborn and their descendants who had chosen to live apart from the other Cymrians even before the start of the war, and had therefore been untouched by it, allowing for a millennium of their growth and prosperity as a civilization. They avoided both fleets and formed a distinctly separate group.

As the last of the Sea Mages had taken his place, the Second Fleet arrived. Rhapsody’s heart began to pound; Ashe was at their head, riding a gray stallion, leading the Houses into the Moot. Like the Nain they carried banners proclaiming their lineage, but they were wearing traveling clothes, not military garb. This last, largest fleet to arrive was the most heterogeneous of the three; all races were represented within its ranks, and there were substantial numbers of people of mixed blood. They took their place between the First and Third Fleets and did not mix ranks, though there were many greetings.

Ashe’s arrival caused more of a stir than any other, undoubtedly because it was still widely believed that he was dead. A wave of recognition had begun outside the Bowl as he approached, cresting as he entered. Amid loud rumblings and cheers he rode into the inner circle, surrounded by his kinsmen from the House of Newland, and stopped before the Summoner’s Ledge. He stared at Rhapsody for a moment, his face blank but a look of intense longing in his eyes. Rhapsody felt her heart tug as it had a year before when she looked out the window at him on the shore of Elysian’s lake, after their first night as lovers, then it twisted in self-condemnation. She looked quickly to see if his wife was there as well; a number of young women were in the first line of the contigent that rode behind them, but it was impossible to distinguish one that might be the new Lady Newland. Ashe bowed to her, then returned to the center of the Second Fleet.

Once he was back in position it was easier for her to take notice of how he was attired. He carried the staff of the Invoker; Rhapsody took grim satisfaction in the understanding that Khaddyr had been removed from office. Across his back flowed the mantle of mist that had hidden him for so long. Instead of vaporous darkness, however, it now appeared like the rampant azure waves of the ocean, drawing the attention it had once averted. Around his neck Crynella’s candle gleamed, illuminating the breastplate of armor of the Kirsdarkenvar, which glittered like blue-green fish scales in the golden radiance of the forenoon sun. But more than the armor, his hair caught the sunlight, and it made him look the quintessential picture of a great and noble lord, a king of ancient lineage. Rhapsody’s eyes glittered in the light as well. It was easy to see why she had been unworthy of him.

Achmed, Grunthor, and the Cymrian Bolg had joined the Diaspora, and now formed a separate group. They stood on an elevated rise to the east of the Summoner’s Ledge, assuming a position of honor as the hosts. Rhapsody turned to see how her friends were sizing up the most recent entrance and noticed fourteen cloaked and hooded figures grouped silently behind the Firbolg king. At first she felt her throat tighten with concern; she had not seen these Cymrians arrive, and had no idea which fleet, if any, they had come with. Then she noticed their thin hands, and the vague familiarity of their posture, so like Achmed’s. Achmed smiled, and a look passed between the two of them. Instantly her consternation melted away; these were Dhracians. Rhapsody felt a flood of joy to know that Achmed’s race was not extinguished after all.

A rumbling din removed the smile from her face. When her glance returned to the assemblage she found that the Bowl was in the throes of myriad arguments, disagreements, and outright hostilities. The fleets were bickering between and among themselves; a shouted exchange between the Nain and the Lirin was threatening to explode in violence. Rhapsody sighed in dismay; the Council had not even been called to order and already the Cymrians were on the verge of another war.

She took a deep breath and began to sing. With the same note as the Cymrian horn she intoned the ancient words of Gwylliam the Visionary that Merithyn had carved on the dragon’s cave, that the Cymrians themselves had inscribed on every marker along the trail of their journey toward reunion with each other in the new world.

Cyme we inne frið, from the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.

Like the ringing of the great bell of the carillon of Bethe Corbair, her song echoed through the Moot, the Bowl accentuating its resonance and drawing down the mutterings of discontent into silence. Two hundred thousand eyes fixed on her, standing on the Ledge above them, the star-crowned queen, the Namer, summoning the Cymrians and calling them to order. The assemblage stood, slack-jawed, staring at her in shock. The first to recover was Anborn, whose face broke rapidly into a broad smile; he sighed in relief, and with his exhale came tens of thousands of others. The tension in the air dissolved, and the silence became a respectful one.

“Well, wasn’t that pretty?” A harsh voice, thick with power and elemental depth like the crashing of waves or a roaring bonfire, echoed through the Bowl, shattering the placid silence. A gasp went up from the Council; the sound made Rhapsody’s blood run cold. She watched as the Cymrians moved rapidly away from the middle of the amphitheater.

At the center of the point of entry stood three figures. A path in the crowd had opened before them and had closed behind them; the hush that descended was fraught with fury and hatred. Three women stood at the core of the Bowl, tall as their father had been, holding themselves with silent dignity. The faces of the Cymrian assemblage were contorted with hate and fear.

Rhapsody recognized the first two of the sisters immediately. Rhonwyn was dressed in the black robe of her cloistered abbey; she was pale and fragile, and appeared lost in a dream. In contrast, Manwyn stood her ground defiantly, her flaming red hair streaming in the wind, her mirrored eyes reflecting the sunlight. But all attention was really on the third sister, a woman taller than Achmed or Ashe, not much smaller than Grunthor, with broad shoulders and a face that was intensely, almost painfully beautiful.

Anwyn’s appearance was not at all what Rhapsody expected; she was stunning, and frightening. Her skin was golden, as her father’s must have been; her face, though dazzling, was composed of features so hard they appeared to have been wrought in metal. And her hair was copper like Ashe’s; the sun that beat down from directly overhead glinted off it, blinding many in the Bowl. She cast her dragonesque eyes around the assemblage, eyes of a blistering blue that cut through any who dared to look into them. Her displeasure was evident.

Achmed watched her with great interest, at the ready. Among the powerful and ancient people assembled here, Anwyn alone had a compelling perfection that rivaled Rhapsody’s. He had watched the Cymrians, as a people, fall under Rhapsody’s spell, becoming totally enchanted with one look at her, or one spoken word. But where Rhapsody inspired love and longing, Anwyn’s appearance served to intimidate and spread fear. She knew it; it was obvious in the smile that came into her eyes a moment after she had surveyed the Council.

With the arrival of the Seers the assemblage was complete, and the Bowl became quiet. The deep timbre of the Nain king’s voice rumbled from within his ranks, tinged with annoyance.

“Who has summoned us here? By what right has this Council, broken a thousand years, been called into being again?”

Achmed looked up at Rhapsody on the Summoner’s Ledge. Her face was surprisingly serene, even with the arrival of the Seers, and her voice, when she answered him, was calm and sweet.

“I am the one who sounded the horn, Your Majesty.”

“By what right?” the ancient Nain demanded. “We are a Council no more, and many of us have no wish to return to being one.”

From within the Lirin contingent at the edge of the First Fleet, Oelendra’s voice rang out, cutting through the noise of the Bowl. “She is the Lirin queen, and the Iliachenva’ar,” she declared. At once discussion broke out again, murmured and muttered, particularly among the Nain.

“Irrelevant,” shouted Anwyn; silence fell immediately. “You have no right to have even touched that horn, girl. Those rights are reserved to the Lady or Lord Cymrian, as is the right to call this Council.”

“Nonsense,” Anborn bellowed from within the Third Fleet. “That is the horn of the Cymrians, made for use in time of need or to summon the Council, as is the right of any Cymrian soul. No restrictions were put on its use, it is not your personal possession.” His brazen tone resulted in the assemblage taking a collective breath and holding it.

Anwyn’s anger smoldered, and her eyes burned more brightly blue. “You’d best be careful, Anborn; I disowned you centuries ago. Do you wish to challenge me here?” Anborn met her gaze without looking away, but said nothing. The air became slightly more static-filled, and overhead the sky began to darken as the wispy clouds thickened, heavy with unshed rain. A moment later Anwyn smiled. “I thought not. In the presence of witnesses, it is usually best for a traitor to keep silent.”

“Traitor?” shouted one of the Lirin of the First Fleet. “Who are you to accuse another of treachery?” Murmurs of agreement rose softly around the speaker. Anwyn turned slowly and glared at the man, who seemed to sink before her withering stare. He trembled in fear, unable to break the wyrmkin’s serpentine gaze.

“Grandmother!” Ashe cried out, his voice clear in the silence that had returned. “We are in Council! You are prohibited by the law of the Moot from assaulting another within the Bowl, you know that better than anyone!”

“Since when has Anwyn ever abided by the law?” muttered someone from the Second Fleet.

Anwyn ignored the comments and turned her glower on Ashe. “Are you turning against me as well? Siding with him over me?”

“There is no need to take sides; I am only pointing out that you are on the verge of breaking your own rule. Whether you like it or not, the fact that we are all here proves we are officially in Council, and Her Majesty has called us to order.”

“If we are in Council, then this girl has no right to chair it,” Anwyn retorted, turning to Rhapsody once more. “There can be no Council without the Lord or Lady to preside over it. There is now and always has been, and will ever be only one Lady Cymrian. I am the Lady of this Council! Stand down, wench.” She strode across the Bowl to the foot of the Speaker’s Rise and began to climb the twisting path to the pulpit structure.

The Bowl erupted in turmoil. Words of condemnation and disbelief filled the air, drowning out all of Rhapsody’s attempts to restore order. Achmed was certain that Anwyn’s smile grew brighter as the outcry increased in intensity. Anborn was speaking strongly to Edwyn Griffyth, who in turn glared skyward and pointed in anger as Anwyn ascended the Speaker’s Rise. The fleets and the Diaspora had dissolved into chaos, with foul shouts being heard and the shaking of fists seen everywhere. When she reached the first crest of the Rise, Anwyn stood tall and smiled proudly, reveling in the upheaval she had caused.

A moment later the air was rent by the blast of the horn. The assemblage froze, and even Anwyn’s face blanched in shock. The last echo of the note died away, taking with it the resentful murmurs.

Rhapsody’s face was calm as she lowered the horn from her lips. Achmed smiled at the grace with which she was comporting herself. He could tell by the color of her eyes that she was furious.

“There seems to be some dispute with your claim, Anwyn,” she said politely.

“What this rabble says is of no consequence,” Anwyn answered, unruffled by the silent hatred, rising in almost palpable waves, from the floor of the Moot. “I am the Lady Cymrian. While I live, there can be no other.”

At once the air was filled with ugly shouted threats from volunteers offering to rectify that situation. Angry voices surged forth again, and Anwyn stared coldly down at the rabble calling for her to step away from the Rise. The sonorous voice of one of the ancient Seren could be heard above the others.

“Despite what you claim, you were cast out of this Council and stripped of your position. You no longer hold any tide here.”

“I do not recognize the authority of the Council to perform such an act,” Anwyn replied icily.

“You do not recognize?” shouted Anborn, angrier than those about him had ever seen him. “What makes you think you have the right to recognize anything? The Council named you Lady, and after you disgraced yourself and almost destroyed all of us, we threw you out!”

Anwyn drew herself up to her full height and glared at her estranged son, whose words had driven the mob back into silence again. “You are a fine one to accuse another of disgrace, Nonentity. And my right to this land comes from a legacy far older than anyone here. My blood is the eldest in this land—I am the child of Merithyn the Explorer, and the dragon whose realm this was long before any of you came here. I am the bond! My very existence is the symbol of the tie between the Cymrians and this land, the union of the blood of the most ancient from the Island of Serendair with the Firstborn of this land as well. Which of you can claim that? Who can dispute my right?”

“Actually—” began Edwyn Griffyth, but his words were drowned by Anwyn’s continuing tirade.

“I am the Seer of the Past, the child of the Ancient Ones, the living emblem of the unity of the people with the land. Without me you would have been cast back into the sea from which you crawled! You owed me your lives then, as you do now—who do you think is responsible for your longevity, your immortality? Who among you has the right to decry me?”

There was silence. As the echo of her voice died away unanswered, Anwyn looked down on the quiet throng with a victorious smile. She glanced around at the Cymrian assemblage, the piercing blue eyes taking in the people she had once ruled, once fought beside, once fought against. Her gaze came to rest for a moment on Oelendra, and the smile melted from her face, replaced by seething hatred. The Lirin warrior met her stare without blinking. Anwyn began to tremble with rage and raised her hand, pointing at her in accusation.

“I have the right to decry you.” Ashe’s voice broke the silence, and all eyes turned immediately in his direction. “You have betrayed your position as Seer. You lied to me.”

A low murmur swept through the crowd again, colored more with astonishment than anger.

;. C.,

Anwyn’s golden face deepened to a shade approaching purple. “Blasphemy! I told you no untruth.”

“No, you told me a half-truth! You manipulated what you saw and told me only what you wished me to know, not what I needed to, and not what I asked. That, Grandmother, is the same thing as lying. You betrayed the last shred of trust I had in you.

“Your lie broke my heart, but that is my suffering alone, and for that, perhaps, you could be forgiven. But in choosing to keep the truth from me, to keep me under your thumb, you hid the nature of the coming of the Three. Far too many have died because of that, Grandmother. It is yet another betrayal of the Cymrian people, and their champions, who were needlessly slaughtered seeking a demon we could have defeated without costing their lives! You will never find forgiveness now.”

His eyes turned to Rhapsody; the rest of the Council presumed he was yielding the floor, but Achmed, who stood slightly below her, facing the same direction she did, saw something more. He had no knowledge of what lie it was that Ashe was referring to, but it somehow seemed to have something to do with her. He glanced up in Rhapsody’s direction; her face was blank. Obviously she had no idea what he was talking about, either, but the sudden attention brought a rosy blush to her cheeks.

He was not alone in his notice; Anwyn was staring at the Lirin queen, too. Her face grew hard, and she looked from Rhapsody to Oelendra and back again.

“Stand down, girl,” she commanded. “These are my people, this is my Council. I am the Lady of the Cymrians, and I do not cede to you any right to act as the chair of this Council.”

Rhapsody smiled. There was a quiet but audible intake of breath among the assemblage, and they began to mutter angrily among themselves. In the time since the first to arrive had come, the Cymrian people had lost their hearts to the gentle Singer, the unassuming queen who behaved like a respectful peasant, and Achmed knew their devotion to her was strong.

A deeper anger was brewing within them now, an outrage at the insulting manner in which Anwyn was treating her. Achmed knew that Rhapsody understood this as well, and that was why she smiled. It was a way of defusing the situation before it exploded in a frenzy of loyal violence.

“I hardly think you should be referring to me as ‘girl,’ given that my birth predates yours by several centuries,” she said calmly.

A haughty sneer curled on the Seer’s lip. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Achmed felt no such compunction to be polite. “It means,” came the cool, sandy voice of the Firbolg king, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd like a slashing sword, “that the girl doesn’t like the way she is being addressed by the hag.”

Laughter mixed with gasps of shock rippled through the crowd. Anwyn’s face contorted in rage, and Rhapsody looked horrified.

“Achmed, you’re out of line,” she said reproachfully. “Anwyn is not a hag.”

“Right you are,” came the furious voice of Grunthor. The assemblage turned toward the sound to see the giant Firbolg commander straining to control his wrath; he was losing the battle, and it was a horrific prospect. The outrage the Cymrians had felt on Rhapsody’s behalf paled by comparison to the rage in the eyes of her dear friend. “She’s a bloody ’arfy. Oi’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your flamin’ ’ead, missus, and act more respectfully towards ’Er Ladyship, or Oi’ll personally rip out whatever is where your ’eart oughta be and eat it raw.” There was another collective intake of breath from the Council. There was no way that could be perceived as an idle threat. Rhapsody gestured to Achmed, who stood beside the Sergeant, and he touched the giant’s elbow.

Anwyn was livid. “How dare you speak to me that way, you subhuman monster? You ill-begotten freak of nature? Your presence soils this noble ground. As your ruler I command you, leave this Moot at once, and if you ever dare to even raise your cannibalistic face in my presence, I will smite you down into the mudfilth from which you and your people sprang.” She shot him a look of hatred, the dragon-eye attack she had used on the Lirin spokesman earlier, that had reduced the man to a quivering mass on the floor of the Bowl.

Grunthor would have none of it. “ ’Ave at me, then, ya bitch!” he roared, his enraged cry echoing off the rockwalls of the Bowl and over the Teeth, where even the Bolg within the mountains heard it and trembled.

He scrambled down from the outcropping on which he stood and dashed toward the Speaker’s Rise. The terrifying sight caused the assemblage to gasp. He was brute strength in motion, seven and a half feet of infuriated musculature single-mindedly intent on murder. He would have been at the foot of the Rise a moment later had Achmed not vaulted down in front of him and interposed his body between them. The path to the Seer was clear; the Lirin Cymrians who had been standing below Rhapsody on the Summoner’s Ledge had moved back hastily when Grunthor’s exchange with Anwyn had begun.

“Sergeant-Major, don’t lower yourself,” Achmed said in a stern voice. “She is not fit to wipe your boots; don’t soil your hands by tearing out her throat, no matter how much she deserves it.” He looked into the giant’s face; Grunthor was panting with rage, every muscle straining to avoid throwing Achmed out of his path. “As your king I command it.”

“Not fit?” came the powerful trumpet-voice. Anwyn laughed, and the sound blasted the ears of the assemblage. “I, the Lady Cymrian, the victor in the Great War, am not fit? So speaks the evidence that prophecies are generally a disappointment.” Manwyn bristled at her words and clenched her fists. “My people, behold the Three, your purported saviors, the ones my sister said would rescue us all from the wrath of an invisible demon. Look at them in all their splendor. First, we have the giant freak, an animal that appears to have recently escaped from a traveling circus! Beside him his noble lord, the Purveyor of Death, the assassin who, like a whore, served whoever paid him, killing indiscriminately—”

“I believe she means me,” Achmed said to the crowd, raising his hand. He turned his face to Anwyn, whose speech had been choked off with his interruption. A mocking smile crossed his face. “Oh, I’m sorry, Annie, that was presumptuous. Were you referring to yourself? Certainly you earned the title far better than I ever did. The Purveyor of Death? My trophies pale in comparison to yours. I can’t claim, as only you can, to have annihilated a quarter of my own people over a domestic squabble. If only Gwylliam had slapped you harder, maybe he would have broken your bony neck and none of us would be here to have to endure your rantings now. Pity he didn’t.

“And whore? Well, yes, I suppose that applies to you again. Who else would sell out her kingdom and that of her allies, the Lirin, to the same demon who once almost destroyed an entire nation? Would give it the opportunity to do so again? All to avenge herself on her fool of a husband? You are the consummate whore, Anwyn. Get off the Rise and out of my lands before I step away and let Grunthor remove your head from your shoulders and use your skull for a chamber pot.”

The silence in the Bowl was absolute; even the sounds of nature had died away. Anwyn’s face had been frozen in amazement; over the span of her entire lifetime no one had ever dared to speak to her in that manner. Her eyes narrowed to slits for a moment as she formulated her response; when she had done so, she smiled cruelly.

“I thank you for granting me the title of Consummate Whore, but I’m afraid I can’t accept it. That would belong to another in this assemblage.” She turned toward Rhapsody. “Step forward, Your Majesty, and—”

“Enough!” Ashe’s voice thundered over the Moot, ringing with the multi-toned echoes of the dragon in his blood. He knew what was coming, and would sooner die, or kill Anwyn where she stood, than allow it. He turned toward the Seer of the Present. “Rhonwyn, who is the Lady Cymrian?”

The fragile Seer looked toward the sky as the eyes of the throng locked onto her. “There is no Lady Cymrian,” she said as if in a dream, lost inside herself.

“Thus says the Seer of the Present, the indisputable authority!” Ashe cried. “My fellows, as of this moment, there is no Lady Cymrian! Your claim is rejected, Grandmother!”