*
“Bracus?” Clara laughed.
“I apologize, Clara. I was deep in my memories.”
“Of what, pray tell?” Charles asked, and Clara gave him a look of warning but he ignored her.
“I was thinking of the discussion I have had most recently with the Band about the Prince and the serpent's whereabouts,” Bracus said with gravity.
Charles nodded. “We have scouts on the patrol for him but with the rain of the Outside...”
Bracus nodded. The weather had made tracking virtually impossible.
“He will not try to enter the sphere again. Let him take his chances amongst the fragment and clans which are not as friendly as yours,” Clara said dismissively, the Prince utterly gone from her mind.
And that was where she wished for him to remain.
“I am afraid the fragment may welcome someone such as he,” Bracus said. “However, we can do no more, and he has no force now that the king of that sphere has cast him out. He is but a refugee.” He rolled his tremendous shoulders into a shrug.
Clara nodded, and Bracus began to walk to the doorway where a guard opened the massive oak door. Turning, Bracus looked to her directly. “I will speak with you later.”
Matthew.
Just thinking of him had brought a trembling energy to her body, and she struggled to suppress it. Charles watched her facial expressions like a hawk.
Clara got right to it. “Charles,” she began, taking his hand, “we are the greatest of friends, and although you have made your intentions toward me known, my feelings do not extend beyond friendship.”
“Can you not see what we could be together?”
She could see. That was the misery of it. Clara loved him with all her heart. But there was no fire, no passion. Perhaps in time, it could grow. She did not know. Then there was the complication of being a select. Whatever that meant. She did not fully understand its significance yet. She knew that there was a certain biological compulsion working within her that colored her thoughts and emotional processes, mayhap robbing her of what she may have thought and chosen in their absence. The facts were that it was her reality now. Clara was keenly aware that she was royal. Her father never let her forget her sense of duty. If she were to marry, or mate, as the clan referred to it, she could not exclude the Band, as they were seen as the royalty of their culture. It was all very convoluted, and she wished not to dwell upon it, but dwell she must.
Clara needed to walk. Holding on to Charles's hand she swung her feet out from the covers and stood. Charles rose with her.
“You answered not my question.”
“I will. Let us walk. I need to ease the throbbing in my head, and I believe my blood moving will aid in that.”
Charles could not suppress his guilty expression. Clara had suffered because of his jealously. He held out his arm, and she took it. The guard smoothly opened the door. He could no longer think and act rationally where Clara was concerned, and it troubled him.
Clara felt a trifle lightheaded as they made their way to the top of the huge staircase and began their descent, Charles's right hand gliding atop the polished wood bannister.
“I do see what we could be, Charles. But there is more to my decisions than potential. I have many things to consider.”
Charles stopped on the stairwell. The magnificent stained glass mermaid observed them. Charles put his back to the glass. The colors of the sea washed him in a halo of aquamarine. Clara looked into his face, and then the sun slanted into her eyes through the sphere wall, bleeding through the glass. Lifting her hand to shield her eyes, she saw the face of the mermaid was in shadowed relief. Only the eyes glowed softly down at them.
Clara's memory poured over her, and she heard her father's words.
*
“Those waters look like your eyes, Clara. A part of the sea remains with you. You have only to gaze into the looking glass to know those waters.”
Clara's mind hovered on the edge of a revelation. She stood in Charles's grip, looking up at the mermaid as if she were an angel come from heaven, remembering the touch of sadness in her father's voice as he recounted the sea.
Suddenly, it slammed into her with the force of the ages, “The mermaid...” Queen Ada had said. She had said she was not her mother. Then Clara flashed her eyes to the window above her. The one that had looked over her countless times, walking, playing on the step, admiring it. And all the time it had been...
“Clara, what is it?” Charles shook her slightly.
“Charles, when was this stained glass window commissioned?” she asked with a thread of hope running through her. The beat of her heart was a wild thing, like a moth in a jar straining toward the light.
Charles leaned his head back, a puzzled look coming over him. “After your birth.”
Clara's heart leaped with joy. Could it be?
“It was not old, as the others?”
Charles shook his head. “No, it was replaced after your birth.”
“Do you know for what reason?”
Charles stood quietly for a moment, considering what she had said, the oddness of the question. Finally, when Clara felt she was near bursting he said, “I believe it was celebratory. I remember my father speaking of it. Why is this important?” he asked, a hint of impatience leaking into his voice.
She is my mother.
It was the only way that my father could have her with him. That was why Queen Ada had mentioned it at the last. It was the one kindness she had ever bestowed on Clara. The Queen's actions made so much more sense now! She had never loved Clara because Clara was not hers, only King Raymond's and this mystery woman’s. Clara's eyes went to the glass. How she had never seen her own face staring down at her she did not know. But there it was, Clara's face with hair of spun gold and eyes of the palest violet. She must find her... her mother.
She looked at Charles with barely contained joy that was so contagious that he smiled down at her in response.
She told him the lot of it and he turned to look at the stained glass apparition behind him, his face at once becoming an aqua wash, gazing at it for a full minute. He looked at Clara, then back at the glass.
“It is you, but not. Do you really believe...?”
“I do.”
“You do not think that she misspoke, so near death?” He let his question trail off.
“I do not.”
He nodded. If anyone could be lucid, it was Queen Ada.
On impulse, Clara reached up and hugged Charles fiercely. Surprised at first, he stood still, then his arms came around her, her joy encompassing them both.
Finally, she went to let go, and he cupped her chin in his large hand, palming her entire jaw, and in his eyes was a question she had seen once before. Weakened by his nearness and their friendship, she allowed him to kiss her.
Charles didn't ask twice. He pressed her body against his, hip to chest and she could feel all of him. His heart beat fast and hard against her chest, and one arm held her against him while the other moved to the nape of her neck and climbed into her hair, tilting her head up to meet his kiss. When his lips touched hers, they molded to her mouth as if they had a thousand times before, and she felt such surprise at it her mouth opened, and his tongue found entrance, caressing hers as he pressed and moved his lips over hers. Then he broke the kiss, moving her closer until she was crushed against him. He worked his kisses from her jaw to the tender places of her throat, and an involuntary moan escaped her. She was not herself. The moment captured her entirely. She responded against everything she knew was proper. Her hands traveled and reaching his hair. She grasped it, winding slender fingers through the silky blackness, and when his kissing went lower she came to herself. The velvet brushes of his lips on the tops of the exposed flesh of her breasts brought her back to her senses. “Charles... no... we mustn’t,” she said in the softest voice.
“Your body says, yes but your words say no.” Charles raised his head. Any closer and their faces woul
d touch. His eyes were black pools of longing. That cooled the heat between them. Clara’s intellect slowly returned. But it was a sound at the bottom of the staircase that made them part.
Clarence looked up at the two, having come upon them while Charles was crawling down their Queen's throat, bending her small body backward even as he drew her closer.
Charles looked guiltily away.
Clara met Clarence’s eyes. Her swollen lips, flushed cheeks, hair formed a halo about her, and Clarence was struck by her beauty. With the light from the window behind her, she looked like a goddess.
He shook his head. “What are you doing with our Queen, my friend?”
Charles looked down at him in anger. “Kissing her, dolt.”
Clarence strode up the steps, taking them two at a time. “You forget your duty to her, to our kingdom, when you press your advantage.” Clarence's chest heaved, not with breath, but with righteous indignation.
“I want her to understand that the savages are not the only one she can feel passion with!” Charles said, disgusted.
“Your prejudice against them cannot affect her decisions as Queen. You know this!” They stood chest-to-chest, ready to come to blows.
Males.
“Stop this. I go to their clan. I will be tested. If there is one amongst them that is a contender,” Clara stumbled over the word, “I will consider a courtship. That is the end of it.”
“What of us?” Charles asked.
Clara looked at him.
He stepped forward, and it would have been more comfortable had they been touching, but he kept himself uncomfortably close, without contact. “You do not know.”
She nodded. She did not. But she must be fair. Charles was her friend, but he had proven something this day, that they could be more. But the heart felt as it would, without sense or direction. And the Band were not males who intellectualized. They were instinctual.
She looked back at the window, as did Clarence and Charles. Their tempers cooled, following her gaze.
Looking at the face that stared down at her, a mirror of her own, Clara knew that she had much to seek, many questions that needed answers. But not this day.
This day was filled with conversation with the Band and their president. In the morrow, she traveled.
CHAPTER 36
Clara stood with half her royal guard before the new portal that had been fashioned over the gaping wound of the sphere tunnel.
Curiously, the ragged edges of the sphere had begun to grow around the brass perimeter framework. She looked upon it and gauged it to be eight feet high by twelve feet in length. The doors were made of solid brass and fitted with pearls in the emblem of the sphere.
They were so heavy that they slid upon runners of brass. When closed, there were great, built-in locks in the bottom corners to secure them.
Clara did not know if the fragment was aware of the spheres’ saltwater weakness as the clan had been. Their scouts thought not. But one could not be too careful.
“My Queen,” Clarence asked as both statement and question.
Clara nodded. She was ready. The portal doors took three guards to slide open. As the Outside was revealed, Clara took a deep breath and left the safety inside the womb of the sphere.
****
Clara stood nervously before the entire clan, a contingent of her royal guard at her back, the circumstances entirely different than when she had but dallied here briefly with Anna and Lillian. She searched the faces of the crowd until she found Jack and Lillian, who smiled at her, and she returned it. Then her eyes came upon Joseph and Anna and there seemed to be a tension there. Before she could think on it, President Bowen came out and introduced Clara. Would she ever get used to the title of Queen? She thought not.
The Band stood to the right of Bowen, their backs ramrod straight, their expressions neutral, a backdrop of contained menace.
Bowen spoke. “As you are all aware, the Evil Ones left a portentous book of sorts that cataloged some of the events of this time, and we have, by necessity, had to act upon some of the suppositions therein.”
Clara could see that they were aggrieved to do so.
Bowen outlined the rules of the testing. This so incensed Clarence that he had wrapped his hand around her upper arm and furiously whispered in her ear. She shook her head. She would allow it. They were a different culture. There were some concessions to be made.
Clarence went against her wishes, speaking directly to Bowen. “She cannot be expected to kiss each one? She is a Queen, not a common trollop!” Clarence sputtered, throwing up his hands and huffing.
“Clarence,” Clara said with ringing authority, hating what she was about to do but realizing that she must, “you must stand down.”
He stared at her.
“That is a royal directive,” she finished quietly.
He came to stand before her and she met his eyes. Clara knew that she must set a precedence here, now, so that her authority would be respected. She was uncomfortable to do so, but she had her duty.
Clarence relented, adding a muttered, “I will remain here.”
That was as good as she would get from him, she thought.
The Band came forward: Bracus, Matthew, Jacob, James, Stephen, Philip—looking quite well healed she noticed—and Joseph. Clara swallowed the lump in her throat and sought out Anna, who looked back at her calmly. Clara was suddenly much more awkward than before. Only Jack remained, already mated to Lillian, whom he held against him.
She felt no accusation from Anna. But in her heart, she felt sadness.
Clara stepped forward and stood in the place that they had indicated. A groundwork of curiously beautiful stones were made in a pattern inside a circle, which looked vaguely star-like in its design. She turned briefly and looked at Bowen with a silent question.
“It has been assembled as written.”
Ah, Clara thought, the book from the Guardians. She stepped inside the circle, and it seemed to hum with independent energy, a symbol whose weight she felt in her limbs, running through her in a low thrumming buzz. She should have felt fear, but instead that curious energy stilled her.
James swaggered into the six foot diameter circle, his feet passing its perimeter and he almost stumbled, as surprised as she had been by the effect.
He quickly regained his composure and approached her.
They stared at each another. He tried to remain polite, but already she could see desire pooling in his eyes, and Clara knew before he moved that he would touch her. She felt the wind from his body, every small hair standing on end, as he wrapped her close to him, smelling of pine and earth and male. His arms were bands of steel as he pressed her against him, and when his lips touched hers there was a jolt, shot through with the kind of spark one feels right after the sphere's cleansing, and it is dry and you touch a knob of brass. It almost hurt, and she gasped. They pulled away, only a brushing of lips, no true passion.
The disappointment on James's face was obvious. He looked at Bowen and shook his head. Looking at Clara, he inclined his head in the barest of bows and retraced his steps out of the circle.
Clara rubbed her hands up and down her arms. That had been disquieting.
There was more to the testing than she’s
realized.
****
Clara was tired. Her lips were numb from being kissed, quite thoroughly, by both Jacob and Stephen with similar, jolting, and somewhat painful results. And it helped not that the one male she might enjoy kissing was last and waiting on the barest edge of the stone perimeter with anger riding his body.
He did not like other men handling her.
Joseph was next, coming to her as though he would rather be anywhere but here in this ring, and she had great sympathy for him and Anna.
They came together awkwardly. He reached for her, and keeping his body away from hers, he leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss on her lips. The barest pressure, and a spark ignited that licked like a flame and spread.
He was Band. He was not commanded by causal lust. This Queen had stirred something deep within him that he wished not to recognize. Joseph backed away, while his body fought him to get back to her. He all but ran out of the circle and away from Clara.
That left Philip, his brother Bracus, and Matthew. She looked behind her at Clarence, who scowled back.
Marvelous.
Bracus clapped Philip on the back, and he approached her. “Queen Clara.” He inclined his head.
“Philip,” she said, noticing his side was without scar. “You are healed.”
He nodded. “It is always such with the Band.”
Then he pulled her to him and the moment their lips touched the heat came upon them and his eyes snapped open. He pulled her closer. As the largest of the Band, he had to awkwardly maneuver her around until his hand found her hair, and then he wrapped his fist in it, with his arm he lifted her off the ground.
“Philip!” President Bowen interceded.
He pulled his head away, his breathing harsh and stared down at Clara, eyes gone wide with shock and surprise.
Two of Clara's guard entered the circle and he turned in a crouch, jerking her against himself and growled at the guards.
Growled.
“Get back,” Clara said with a tremor in her voice. It was one thing to see the Band fight from a distance and quite another to be intimately pressed against one of them.
Bracus did not cross the border of stone but said in a low, clear voice, “Let her down, brother.” He put a palm out in supplication.
They stared at each other for a long moment, his forearm jammed underneath Clara's ribs, her body against him, heat coming off his body in waves.
Gradually, he lowered her to the ground and said, “I will not look upon you now, Clara. I fear it may be my undoing.”
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