In Which Ashe Finds a Truth to Keep

December 10, 1180

"You're home early."

Rona didn't sound upset--but she didn't sound happy either. It was the chilling neutrality that had Ashe at an abrupt halt the second he'd shut the door. "That merchant who's been giving me trouble is down with a cold. His wife did a much better job with the numbers." Add that to her sending him running when she'd started taking her clothes off like a raunchy barmaid in Jadin's wet dreams and of course he was home early. He figured it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Rona only heard the abridged version. "And a few had paid their rents in advance for this month. It was over more quickly than usual."

"Good." But she still didn't sound happy. "Can we talk?"

There it was. But if she wasn't spitting embers like she had when she'd found out about the magic, at least it probably wasn't anything too serious? Unless maybe she was keeping calm just to spite him? No, that wasn't her style. If she was being frosty with him, she wouldn't have asked to talk. "All right..."

"Sit with me."

He stepped around the bed and did just that. "What's the problem?"

She allowed him to get comfortable--physically, at least--before launching her decisive strike of an answer. "Yvanette."

Any trace of warmth in the room drained to a void he'd never noticed. Silence became the overpowering sound. Where was his little girl? It wasn't her usual nap time. Something must have happened at Rona's mother's, some freak accident, some horrific--

He flinched as Deian's shadow flashed across Yvanette's face. He hadn't been correct, had he? That lingering magic, surely it hadn't begun to manifest itself... had it? Oh God, it had. It had, and whatever form it had taken was not any quasi-beneficial perk Ashe had dared to hope for. What had he been thinking? His sweet little girl, her life ruined, doomed by her mere existence, his mere existence. The new baby too. How had he let things get so far? Ought to have respectfully declined Lorn's offer. No, he ought to have never entered that tournament, ought to have never spit on Lonriad's boot, ought to have--

"No, not our Yvanette!" Rona reached across the gap between him and clenched his hand. He let out a relieved sigh as his pulse slowed beneath her grasp. "Electra's watching her. I meant your aunt."

Right. His aunt. Inconvenient. But at least his daughter was all right. "Arydath."

Rona nodded. "How did you know?"

"She would have delivered my cousin, right?" It was a meager fact, but he savored the feeling it left on his lips. However mundane or trivial a thing it might have been, there was little he appreciated more than a truth he dared tell. "I guess I don't have any decent excuses to choose from, do I?"

"Not a single one." Her fingers landed on her belly with a harpist's precision and a butterfly's grace. She was beautiful when she was disappointed and he hated himself for noticing. She deserved better. "What was your mother's name?"

"My mother." The smart thing to do would have been to think of a name, any name. The first name that came to mind, whatever it happened to be--and if it was awful, that could have been his excuse for not wanting to name his daughter for her. But he couldn't do that. His mother's name was Yvanette. He'd told Rona that. He couldn't give up one of the few truths he'd managed to keep. "You know, it's not important."

"Ashe--"

"No, I... I never even knew her. She died when I was a baby. Then my dad died too and I pretty much had to raise myself." Rona's lip quivered in a quiet gasp. He'd told her he was an orphan, but he'd never admitted to how long that had been the case. Not in this form, anyway. He hoped she wouldn't make the connection. "And even if she was alive, the truth is that that part of my life might as well belong to someone else. It doesn't feel right to cling to remnants. They're not mine any more."

Rona had the most haunting, most tragic eyes he'd ever seen. For a brief second, he saw the new baby in Yvanette's old crib, those same eyes staring up at him with that same kicked-puppy look. Same betrayal, same disbelief, same pleading. Same disappointment. I'm so sorry. "You can't mean that."

He didn't want to argue. So he said nothing.

"Ashe? Ashe, please tell me you don't mean that." Lashes fluttered and moisture welled across soft honey-brown and red-tinted white. Every muscle in his body went tense. He'd already made her cry once and that was one time too many. "We're all entitled to our secrets, and we all have things in our pasts that we'd rather not remember, but you can't just will it all out of existence."

"I'm not willing it out of existence. I'm just saying that it's no longer relevant." It wasn't the truth but he wished it could have been. Everything would have been so much easier. "I've got you now, and Yvanette, and the new baby. That's what matters to me, Rona. Everything else is just a detail."

"But it's not." He thought he saw her shuffle toward the side of the bed. She couldn't have moved more than an inch but it might as well have been a mile. "It's you. It wouldn't be so important for you to keep it secret if it wasn't, and that's what bothers me. I want to know your mother's name. I want to know your father's name, and where you grew up, and what you did after your parents died, everything. And I want to look at you and know that you were worth every bit of shit that happened to me before I met you, because I need you to be. I need things to be good."

He needed that too. He needed her to know who he really was. He needed her to know that he'd always been there and that he had come back for her, and that he'd never leave her again. He needed her to accept him, regardless of what his name was or what their relationship was or which third-person pronouns applied. He needed her to be happy.

But first, he needed to know. "Do you love me?"

She stared ahead of her, leaving him to study the profile he'd memorized long ago, her dainty chin and her upturned nose, her full lips and her star-like eyes. She couldn't even look at him when she brought herself to respond. "I don't know you."

She was right. She didn't know him, because he couldn't let her. He'd been foolish to hope for anything more.

I'm so sorry, Rona.

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