The wizard, Alerich Ashimar, ran a loving hand down the neck of the old guitar, chord after gently played chord resounding in softness, the mellow sound filling the dark music room. It wasn’t his rosewood-fretted Hummingbird beauty, hidden away in his rooms at Ashimar House in England, but the old Martin Dreadnought he had found still fit his hands well and was a joy to play.
“Of all the money that e’re I’ve had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm that e’re I’ve done.
Alas it was to none but me.”
“Alas it was to none but me.”
But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? His hands stilled on the strings and his thoughts pulled his gaze out the window to watch the snow fall in the bright moonlight.
He was a killer. A murderer from a painfully young age. He had helped his father, Magnus, to make sacrifices to the Demon Lord Arariel for years and it didn’t matter that he had been an unwilling accomplice, forced by beatings and blood to comply. He had still done it.
“And all I’ve done, for want of wit,
To mem’ry now I can’t recall.”
Except he could. He remembered all of them. All of their faces, contorted in agony.
He remembered his father’s face as he fell backwards through the Demon Gate, pulling Arariel through with him. One, final, sacrifice for the sake of his family. Alerich folded himself over the body of the guitar, fighting a sudden surge of tears. Tears for his father. For himself.
Tears for his newly found freedom, forged by his father’s death. Freedom to be himself, to marry who he chose. To play this guitar without fear of mockery or beating because the piano was a more refined instrument. The guitar was for the low-brow.
Tears for his daughters.
Winter, his beloved Winter, was asleep upstairs, their newly conceived daughters warm in her still-flat belly. She—
A soft noise sounded from his left and he looked up, startled. Winter was standing in the doorway.
Alerich grimaced and stood as she entered, instinctively tucking the guitar against his leg and out of direct line of sight. “I apologize. I hope I didn’t wake you.” The powers that be knew she needed sleep, between the pregnancy and her responsibilities to the community as a physician and politician. Responsibilities he was only just beginning to comprehend.
Winter approached, wearing her warm white robe over his red pajama top. She saw no reason for the tops to go unused, as Alerich never wore them. Alerich thought it was one of the sexiest things he had ever seen. She reached up and dried his cheek with her soft sleeve. “The sheets were cold. How long have you been down here?” She carried his robe over one arm and slipped it about his bare shoulders.
Alerich felt the warmth seep into his skin. “Long enough to not realize I was cold. Thank you.” He bent and gave her a light kiss.
Winter smiled into his kiss and then glanced down at the guitar. “I heard you playing. It was beautiful. I’ve seen you play piano, but I had no idea you also sang and played guitar.”
“It’s nothing, really.” Alerich moved to put the instrument away. “Just something I pluck at every now and then.”
Winter watched him closely and he could feel the whisper against his senses that told him she was using her soul reading. Sometimes she was not aware that she was doing it, it was simply another sense for her, but Alerich was fairly sure this was not one of those times.
He turned and held her blue-eyed gaze, so unlike his own. Angel eyes. “Really, it’s nothing.”
Winter closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms about his waist beneath his robe, her hands warm against his cold skin. “If it hurts you, it’s something. To me, if no one else. But you don’t have to talk about it unless you’re ready.”
Alerich bent his cheek to her soft white hair, silent for several long moments. When he spoke it was barely a whisper. “What sort of father will I be? Given the way I was raised,” the beatings, the control, the rapes, “I’m afraid that I’ll be a monster.”
Winter held him tighter and then met his gaze. “I only knew your father for a brief time, and you’re right, he was monstrous. He did terrible things and felt only resentment about them. Resignation. Until the end, when he saw a chance to break you and your sister and these little girls free of the demon’s influence. I think your father was a complicated man, and I think you are, too. But I also think, like your father, that you are not a man to let your past shape your future. If you want to be a good father, you will be. I have faith in you.”
Alerich’s eyes filled with tears that threatened to spill over. “I miss him. Even after everything, I miss him.”
Winter nodded. “I miss my father, too. And I’m also still angry with him, and it’s something I struggle with. I don’t know if he loved me, and I may never know. But I do know your father loved you. Loved you enough to give you a chance at a better life the moment it came into his grasp. Have faith in that and know that you have that kind of love in you, too.” She smiled. “I can see it.”
Alerich’s tears ran down his cheeks and he buried his face in her long hair, trusting her. Trying to trust himself.
“So, fill to me the parting glass.
Goodnight, and joy be with you all.”
Joy. Was it possible? Even for a man like him? He breathed in the floral scent of the woman in his arms. The woman welcoming him to this new and complicated life, and he hoped. Hope had been an elusive thing until now, but here, standing with this woman, the mother of his children, it flared small and fragile inside his chest. She believed that he could be the father he wanted to be. He carefully stoked that flickering flame of hope and allowed himself, at least tonight, to believe.