Rhapsody, Child of Blood by Elizabeth Haydon Read Free Book Online Page B

his pants clean with a rag, hoping to remain somewhat presentable. It would not do to meet her father and ask for her hand smelling like the inside of a barn, although many years later it occurred to him that the scent would not have been unfamiliar to the man.
    In the hope that breakfast or scraps from it might still be available, he headed toward the farmhouse. The heat of the morning made his head swim a little, and as he approached the porch he felt dizzier than he ever remembered feeling before.
    had stopped the frame. He checked the tools once more, then gently pried the image loose from the delicate thread. It stuck for a moment, and he smiled in amusement; it was almost as if the boy's force of will were holding it fast. Carefully he slid the first strand forward to the exact place from which he had removed the piece, and replaced it, wiping the strand to cement it back in place. Then he looked through the lens again.
    fwydion appeared in midstep on his way down the forest Everything was exactly as it had been on that achingly fresh morning, everything except his memory.
    He whirled around on the path. The sun was rising in the sky, as before; the birds were calling to each other in trees that glistened in its light. He felt a faint chill as the warm wind blew across his naked chest. Otherwise all things were as they had been.
    Panic coursed through him, and his heart began to pound as he darted wildly up the path, then back, trying to deny where he now was. His hands clutched at the air, trying to reach back to the other reality, but his efforts only resulted in stirring the wind around him and raising a bit of dust from the road.
    His stomach roiled in agony at the thoughts that were pounding in his head: had he been hallucinating? Was he going insane? The prospect that it had not been real was better than the belief that it was, but he knew in his heart that the events had happened. He never in his wildest imagination could have made up something as wonderful as Emily.
    Emily. The implications threw a cold, gangrenous feeling into his stomach and legs.
    Where was she? What had happened to her? He remembered his warning to her about being separated, and winced in anguish at her look of confusion that had followed it.
    Did she understand him, understand the urgency of his admonition? Had she survived?
    He felt for the items he had brought with him, but they weren't there; the waterskin and dagger, his shirt and cloak. His chest tightened at the thought of the cloak, rolled around his gear under the cot, and he went cold as the realization hit him of what the bloodstains were. They had made love on it, and the blood must have been Emily's, the sign of the loss of their mutual virginity, the consummation of what felt like a marriage.
    Despair began to consume him as he searched his pockets, and then he felt a sense of calm descend. He reached deeper and pulled forth his pouch, the one possession he hadn't left in the shed.
    With shaking hands he pulled open the drawstring and felt carefully inside it. A smile touched the corner of his mouth when his fingers brushed it, hidden at first in the corner of the bag. Carefully he drew the tiny object out; it was the button she had given him the night before. Proof of his sanity, proof that his memories were not hallucinations.
    He sighed deeply as immeasurable sadness overwhelmed him. He thought of the cloak, and the other possessions, and the shed, and the farm, all reduced centuries before to cinders, only to be scattered over the ocean on the other side of the world where the Island had its grave. The thought that her ashes blew about in the fair sea wind as well was not to be contemplated; Gwydion knew that would be enough to make the possibility of his insanity real.
    His father would know what to do. She surely had lived, and had found the leaders of the Cymrian refugees he had told her about in the Patchworks. She must have come on one of the great ships. His heart rose