He crouched at her feet. After a moment, he said, “They won’t be able to hurt anyone at the fort again. You destroyed their shrine. Never again will any women die there, Bym.” His voice was soothing, and his eyes were filled with a gentleness and understanding.
“They killed Abner’s sister. I helped Helga prepare the pyres. I felt so dirty doing it. They’d all be alive if I had come forward.”
“Did you know you were the Goddess when you came through here? Did you?” His brown eyes held pity and something else.
“No,” she answered with a shaking voice.
“When did you know?”
“I suspected, but it wasn’t until with the Priestesses….”
“Stop. You did the best you could.”
Her arms went around his neck, and she buried her face to his throat where she sobbed out her grief. However, her grief led her on a short path to Guto. Pushing herself away from the comfort which she so desperately needed, she yelled, “You killed him! You killed Guto! He was my friend and protector. I… I cared for him. Why, Eurig? Why?”
He caught her wrists in gentle holds before she could start beating him again. “I thought I was saving you. I’m so sorry, Bym. I’m so sorry.” Releasing her wrists, he enclosed her in his arms, holding her tightly until her grief began to subside. “I won’t ever make a mistake like that again. I won’t ever abandon you either. I’ll protect you with my life. I swear it. All I need is a chance to prove to you the truth of my words. Please.” He loosened his hold enough for their eyes to meet.
Compartmentalizing her feelings, she said, “We can’t stay here. The goblins are occupied, but they’ll come for me. They find me no matter where I try to hide, the village, the Umbra fortress, or a Solis prison.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed.
Bym frowned at him.
Sheepishly, he said, “I imagine the Commander will be put in front of archers once word gets out of his treatment of you if he survives the attack.”
“Those women were all taken on his orders, right? I don’t really care what happens to him.” Staring off into the forest, she remembered the long journey she’d taken after her first trip through the portal. It would take several days of hard travel to get home to the Umbra, longer on foot. She shared her thoughts with Eurig.
“Well, we’d better move. Say, can you make it light? It might be safer.”
She tried, failed, and shook her head. “It took everything I could draw in to break the Solis arch.”
Growing thoughtful, he asked, “Can you travel through this arch to another one like you just did from there to here?” Frowning, he rubbed at his belly and considered how their magical passage had sickened his guts.
She shrugged as she walked. “I don’t know. I’ve only ever seen this one and the one I just destroyed.” Turning back, she studied the gate. “This one is home.” She walked beneath it and through it again. Nothing happened. Shaking her head, she coughed to try and clear the dryness from her throat. He passed her the canteen attached to his belt, and she drank thirstily from it. “Do you have any food?” He handed her an apple and some dried meat. Then, they walked in silence.
Later in the night, she asked, “Are you angry with me for being less than forthcoming with you?”
They’d set up camp deep in the woods at the base of a massive oak. No caves or crags were in sight. A small fire did very little to keep the chill away.
“No, I understand why you were afraid to tell me. Actually, I’m more relieved than anything.”
“Relieved?”
“Goblin balls, Bym. Um…. I’m sorry. My apologies, Goddess,” he mumbled.
Bym rolled her eyes. “Don’t start that shit with me.”
He chuckled and used a stick to poke at the fire.
Bym rifled through the pack he’d prepared before breaking her out of the dungeon and pulled out a roll. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Why were you relieved?”
“Are you gonna make me say it?” He sounded thoroughly uncomfortable.
“Well, that depends. Are we done hiding things from each other? Are we together, family, trusting each other, or not?” She sank her teeth into the roll and chewed.
He cleared his throat. “To tell the truth, I was eager to leave you with Helga.” Anger bubbled up within her at his confession, but he didn’t notice since he was still poking at the fire. “I thought I was a pervert, having feelings for a young boy. Feelings for a grown man would be one thing but for a little kid would be sick. I didn’t know what to do but leave. That night during dinner with you at the inn, I knew I had to put distance between us.” He sighed. “I’m really glad you’re a girl. How old are you anyway?”
Her eyes wide and her cheeks puffed out with bread like a greedy squirrel, she stared into his eyes from across the fire. Seeing her, he laughed and waited for her to chew. “I’m twenty-one.”
He seemed surprised. “I’m twenty. We’re of an age then.” He grinned like a happy idiot but noticed the distant look in her eyes.
During the night, they huddled together for warmth. She’d fallen into an exhausted sleep with her back against his chest, her head on his bicep, and his other arm around her. He didn’t sleep. His mind wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he tried to recall every moment they had spent together and all of the words they had ever spoken. He’d abandoned the Temporal Locum, and when she’d found her place, he’d ripped her from it.
He’d played the villain in reality and not the hero of his fantasies. He had to protect her and return her safely to the Umbra. They were with whom she wanted to be. It was the only way he could see to begin earning her forgiveness. He became resolved to it. Then, in the night during a troubled dream, he held her and heard a forlorn name escape her lips, Guto. Sick guilt settled in his stomach. He’d run through the man she’d loved, the man who’d loved and accepted her in return. He’d never forgive himself for it.
Sticks crackled as they burned. Bym stretched and saw her yawn form a white puff in the air. Sitting up, she held Eurig’s cloak more tightly around herself. He sat opposite the fire cooking a rabbit. He kept his attention on it and not on her. Achily getting to her feet, she trudged away and behind a bush. When she returned to the fire, he continued to avoid looking at her.
She said, “You’ve changed your mind and don’t know how to tell me.”
He could hear the acceptance, heavy and dead in her voice, and it cut through what little pride he had left. “Wrong. I won’t leave you until the day I’ve drawn my last breath.”
Not prepared for his fervor so early in the day, she took the canteen from where it was propped against a rock. He’d refilled it. Remembering the dead birds and rats she’d encountered in the closest well to the gate, she asked, “Where’d you refill this?”
“There’s a stream a quarter of a mile that way.” He pointed and gave a nod of his head. “I found it while I was hunting. You need more than day-old bread and dried meat.”
She wasn’t surprised he’d gone hunting. She sat across from him and drank. “If you haven’t changed your mind, what’s wrong?”
His hair obscured his face. “I’m so ashamed.”
Sighing, she said, “I know how you feel.”
He cut the best pieces from the spitted rabbit and put them in a hunk of bread. Carefully, he handed it to her and returned to his seat. “No, you don’t. You’ve never deliberately caused another person harm. Can we drop it, please?”
They occupied themselves with eating. Then, the silence stretched between them while they broke camp. She started walking in what she was certain was the right direction.
“We can’t go that way.”
“Why not?” She turned her head to him but kept walking.
“Our farm is that way, and if what I suspect has come to pass, my brother and Abigail will have started rebuilding her father’s farm. You said the barn was still standing?”
She nodded.
“They’ll live in it while t
hey construct a new cabin. Ma and Pa will be there helping. They’ll be clearing trees to use.” He gazed off as if imagining his family working. “We can’t go that way.” His voice was full of regret.
“You can go back to them. Give me a horse. I can find my way, and I can fight.” She tapped the sword at her hip.
“Even if I could force myself to leave you, I can’t go back. If I did, they’d have to tie me up and hold me. The Solis know me and where I’m from. They know I went back for you. I had permission to do it. Then, all of them saw us at the gate. If the Commander is still giving the orders….”
She took his big rough hand in hers. “They don’t know you were helping me. It may have looked like you were trying to capture me, but wouldn’t they want to help the Goddess, um… me?”
“Your prison mate does. He won’t keep quiet. The men on my team knew. They didn’t stop me, but they knew I was breaking you out and deserting.”
Bym smirked. “Why did they think you were going to all of the trouble for little old me?”
Eurig’s face lost all color. They’d thought he was infatuated with Bym and had stabbed Guto out of romantic jealousy, but maybe he had.
Her thoughts were on Guto as well. She’d loved how at the slightest teasing he’d turn practically purple.
As if he could feel her sorrow in his own chest, he let their hands fall free of each other. Killing her lover had erected a wall between them, and he didn’t feel it would be right of him to try to scale it or to chip away at it. He cleared his throat. “I think it would be best to go around to the west behind the ridge, head north along the mountainside, and then head back east to the Umbra.”
“Are you crazy? We don’t have horses! I’ll have hair again by the time we fucking get there!”
Exasperated, he stormed off but paced his way back. “I have to keep you safe.” Keeping his voice calm was making the veins in his neck bulge with the effort it took. “I think it’s the safest way.”
“If we skirt the farms, we can get help in the village. It’s not far to the Umbra fortress from there. Lyle, Abner, Sedwidge, and Helga….”
He put a finger to her lips to quiet her.
She bit it.
He clenched his teeth, forcing himself to be quiet, and pulled her down into a crouch. She heard it then. Someone was blowing a horn, and it wasn’t the Umbra. They travelled in silence. “It’s a Solis scouting party,” he whispered.
After releasing his finger from her teeth, she whispered back, “How could they be searching for us already?”
“I don’t recommend asking them. Do you?”
“Nope. Fine. I don’t want to be their prisoner. We’ll try it your way.”
They set off in the opposite direction in a careful jog. Stopping only when they had to catch their breaths or quench their thirsts, they covered a fair amount of distance. However, as Bym’s endurance failed her, her influence on the calm night snapped away from her like a loose sail in a strong wind. Dawn broke to a stormy grey sky. The wind blew hard and bent tall trees to their sides. Brown leaves which had not yet fallen from their branches lost their stubborn battles and streaked across the horizon. Eurig and Bym were forced to seek shelter in the last place either of them wanted, a cave. From its entrance, they watched as a tree limb splintered, cracked, and crashed heavily to the rocky boulders at its roots.
He started to leave the cave while she tried to pull him back inside. “We need firewood and something to shield us from the storm. Otherwise, we might freeze to death.”
Hurrying, they tossed every dry stick they could find into the cave. Then, they hauled the fallen branch to the entrance and shoved a slab of rock against it for good measure. After making their fire far enough from the entrance for it not to get blown out, they settled in to wait out the storm. Unfortunately, it seemed to be growing in intensity.
Worn out from his previous sleepless night, Eurig soon had an arm thrown over his eyes and was softly snoring. Too distraught over Guto’s death, being lost in the middle of nowhere yet again, and everything she needed to resolve with Eurig, Bym’s tired body couldn’t subdue her mind and thus allow her to sleep. Anyway, she hurt everywhere. Needing comfort, she sat, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine Yeva. She imagined her telling her how to breathe and clear her mind. She imagined her voice, her face, and Perri sitting beside her. Vitaliana was there with her bright auburn hair, a flame amongst the brown strands of Alix, Jarita, Nurissa, and Rowe. Aya stood out as the only blonde, and Bym was the only bald. Smiling, she allowed herself to feel safe.
A soft whisper in her mind asked, “Where are you?” The whisper wasn’t a single voice but all of their voices combined as one.
“In a cave, a day’s run on foot from my gate, the ancient one Drem found.”
“Be not afraid. He will come for you. We will send him.”
Needing their comfort, Bym brokenly cried, “Guto,” before she lost what meditative peace the waking dream had given her. Then, she questioned whether or not what she’d heard had been real or wishful imaginings. Tired and cold, she added sticks to the fire and moved to lie at Eurig’s side for warmth. Listening to the rush of flames and snapping of burning wood, she huddled against his side and did her best to ignore the brutal storm. When she failed at it, she gave in to her grief and mourned Guto. Had she remained in the Umbra fortress rather than sneaking away to the village, she wouldn’t have lost him. Her anguish and the wind howled.
Chapter Thirteen
A growl like that of a starving bear jerked her awake with fear. Pushing herself back with her bootheels, she struggled to draw the sword at her hip. The enraged beast had stomped out the dwindling fire, seized Eurig, and was dragging him through the tree limb’s branches and from the cave.
“Eurig!” Getting to her feet, she struggled with the sword as she ran. Blinking against the cold, driving rain, it took her several seconds to make sense of what she saw.
The bear wasn’t a bear at all. Hooded, cloaked, and gloved, he dragged Eurig from the cave, down the boulders, and to the ground amidst cloaked Umbra warriors who quietly sat their horses. Two of the black horses were riderless. Yelling his rage, the Umbra warrior drew his black-bladed sword. Eurig stared at his face and drew his own. Panic froze Bym’s heart.
“No!” she wailed. Was she to lose everyone? Her cry was lost to the wind. Desperate to reach the combatants, she slipped and skidded over wet, ice-covered boulders.
Eurig threw down his sword, went to his knees, looked sadly at Bym, one last time, and bowed his head.
“No!” she screamed, throwing out her hands.
The Umbra warrior lifted his sword but only to sheath it.
Stumbling to a halt, Bym saw the face beneath his cowl and cried out yet again. The face was filled with unmitigated rage toward the Solis soldier at his feet, but when he turned to her, a softness entered his eyes.
“Guto! Guto!” Bym dropped her sword and threw herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist, grabbing him by the ears, and kissing him repeatedly on his lips until he was shaking with laughter.
“Should we turn around and give you some privacy?” Gethim asked in a bored tone.
“Speak for yourself. I’m watching,” Hopcyn declared.
“I thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you.” She hid her eyes against his neck, sharing the cowl of his cloak with him.
“I’ll never leave you, even in death.” His hands cupped her ass, and she could feel his length stirring between them.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious, she said, “Don’t you ever fucking scare me like that again, and your breath smells like goblin ass.”
Sneering at her, Guto asked, “How the fuck do you know what goblin ass smells like? Oh, right. I found you cuddled up next to a goblin turd.” He glared down at Eurig who was looking up at them both in confusion.
Grabbing his ears and making him wince in pain before he turned his eyes back to hers, she said in a much quieter voice, “I mean it. Don’t y
ou ever do that to me again. I thought you’d died.”
“He almost did, but I saved him,” Iago proudly explained. He walked his horse over and stared smugly down at them. “You haven’t only awakened Drem’s magic.” Smiling, he showed Bym his palm which began to glow a soft red, like when a flashlight shines through a person’s closed fingers in the dark.
Circling them on his own horse, under his breath, Drem said, “We can all see what you’ve awakened in Guto.”
Hopcyn asked, “What are we going to do with him?”
Bym slid down Guto’s body to her feet and accidentally pushed his erection at an odd angle. Hissing in a breath, he glared at her, stepped back, and rearranged his abused appendage.
Hopcyn, having witnessed the exchange, almost laughed himself off his horse.
Nervously, she said, “He’s pledged himself to me. This is Eurig. I told you about him. Remember?”
“Indeed,” Drem said. “I think we all recall our encounter with the two of you near the ridge.”
“I don’t,” Guto grumbled.
Drem focused on him. “You weren’t with us.”
“Don’t take that tone with him!” Bym scolded. She threw her arms around Guto once more, holding him tightly and afraid to let go.
“You’re squeezing the shit out of me.”
“What if I let go and wake up?” She hid her face to the front of his cloak. Then, noticing the water bead and roll off of it, she gave it a sniff.
Grumbling while he put on his mask, he said, “I don’t mind if you’re as clingy as you want to be, later after you’ve had a bath or four. Right now, I’m not so inclined to be cuddled.” He sniffed her head. “The cold rain has helped, but you smell, and not like lavender.”
Jaw dropping in outrage, Bym stared up at a very apologetically serious Guto.
Clearing his throat, Eurig stood and sheathed his sword. “I don’t mind how you smell. I’d be honored to hold you.”
As she pulled away from him, she could feel Guto’s muscles tensing up to fight. Sausage and Potatoes, ever vigilant, trotted over to her with wagging tails. Before she could even bend to pet them, they sniffed her, whined, put their tails between their legs, and trotted back to Gethim. Before the hound master could say a word, Bym narrowed her eyes at him. Guto turned and mounted his horse.
Temporal Locum Page 17