“Yeah. I wasn't advertising it,” Dale said, staring at the advancing mutual enemy.
Maddoc could not understand the phrasing word for word, but the meaning was clear.
“You fought well, Fragment.”
Dale turned to him, their eyes meeting over the top of Evie's head. “Not well enough.”
Maddoc had no response for that. He drew his dagger.
He would not give Evie to them. If it came to that, he would kill her himself, for the death planned by the Fragment would be a slow torture and abuse.
He loved her too much for that.
Evie trembled against him, and Maddoc raised her chin and kissed her lips for the last time.
They tasted of unrequited love.
CHAPTER 18
As Clair, Matthew, and Olive made their way from the Royal Manse to the judicial buildings in the center of the sphere's city, a group of the guard rushed past.
Matthew slowed, frowning, and called out to them.
The rear guard turned and faced him. His suit coat lay askew, and one of his highly polished boots was untied. The man had obviously dressed in haste. Matthew scowled. “What say you?”
The guard swallowed hard, noting the huge Clan male's gills flaring with his breathing. The pink interiors were nearly red with the plentiful oxygen inside the sphere.
“There is a ruckus at the portal.” He pointed in the direction of his companions, who were already entering the sphere tunnel.
“What disturbance?” Clara asked, stepping forward. Her smile faded like a wilting flower.
“The nefarious kind, Queen Clara.”
“Let us go, Matthew,” Clara said.
Matthew debated.
He did not wish to leave Clara, nor did he wish to take her to the bosom of an unknown danger.
He turned to her, cupping her small face in his large palm.
Clara leaning into that touch and said softly, “Go.” She added for his ears only, “I will be waiting, my king.”
Matthew gave her face one last caress and closed his eyes in remembrance of the tactile memory to be savored like a fine morsel. He dropped his hand without looking at Clara again then ran after the guard.
Clara watched him go, her fingers against her face where he had just touched. She fought tears.
“Well… that was fortuitous,” someone said from behind them.
Clara and Olive turned to face who had spoken.
Charles was smiling, but the expression did not reach his eyes.
*
Maddoc raised his head and gazed at Evie.
One of the Fragment jeered, “Yeah, you make good on the girl. Warm 'er up for us!”
The other Fragment laughed.
Yawh, y'mahke goodahn thah girlah… warmer yawup fur uahs!
Maddoc stroked the silky skin of Evie's pale cheek. Red spots of color popped out on her cheeks.
Maddoc began to lift his dagger blade. A tear escaped his eye.
He let it fall.
Evie tensed but gave him a watery smile of encouragement.
They both knew how this would end.
They had been so tantalizing close to all that they had wished yet so far.
Bravery was commitment to integrity in the face of all opposition, even love.
Nothing won except that which was true.
“He means to kill 'er!” the first Fragment yelled.
He did not seem as jovial as before.
The Fragment surged forward. Maddoc jerked his blade back, readying for a strike that would be quick and merciful.
A clank transcended the noise of the coming footfalls.
Suddenly, the royal guard of the Kingdom of Ohio poured from the portal in a sea of purple velvet. Their black boots crunched across the frozen ground, broadsword tips at waist height.
Maddoc checked his swing at the last second and shoved Evie toward the portal.
“Go!”
Their gazes locked for a fraction of a second, then Evie pivoted and ran to the portal. A few feet away, she slipped on some ice and fell.
Maddoc turned to face his adversaries.
A Fragment who had circled around and gone unnoticed lurched toward her, grabbing a handful of her pale hair and jerked her along the ice and behind him.
He was half crazy, muttering to himself as he swung out of the way of descending metal and bodies.
Matthew plunged through the portal to Outside. He drew his daggers, one for each hand. Without a steed beneath him, he would work in an intimate space against the enemy.
He sailed over the sliding rail of the portal. Five guards remained in case the enemy overwhelmed the front lines.
Matthew was under no delusion about their entering the sphere.
It would not happen while he drew breath.
Matthew moved through the crowd of fighting royal guards and Fragment. He crisscrossed his blades over one throat after another. Then he spotted a Fragment dragging a female off by the hair.
Evie! Matthew ran. Maddoc appeared, and with a swing that was both beautiful and brutal, he chopped off the Fragment’s arm, the same one that had a hand fisted in the long strands of Evie’s hair.
The Fragment kept walking for three or four strides as if unaware of what had happened to him. Then he fell to his knees.
Maddoc stepped over Evie, swinging his blade high, and brought it down on the skull of the Fragment.
Matthew reached their position and picked up a sobbing Evie. He hauled her into his arms as the worthless brains of the Fragment splattered around the enemy's body as it fell. Matthew pressed Evie's face to his chest as the body went into death convulsions.
The sound of skull shards crunched under their feet as the three of them turned to move through the path of destruction and enter the safety of the sphere. Maddoc would feel no relief until they were safely ensconced therein.
Maddoc’s hands trembled, not from the death he had just meted, but because of the one he had almost given Evie.
*
Clara leveled a tentative smile of bewilderment at Charles.
Olive was not so polite. She put her hands on her hips, clearly peeved. “What are ye doing, skulking about in the dim shadows?”
Clara gave a small laugh, though she wondered the same.
Charles stepped into the pool of light cast by the street lamp. Clara heard a noise coming from the direction of the tunnels. She looked that way but saw no one. She started when the lamp hissed its steam release. Clara heard a thunk and turned back.
Olive lay sprawled on the cobblestones, her head leaking blood.
Clara gasped and looked up at Charles, who had stepped closer. “What goes on here?”
She backed away from him. He had been her friend once, a man who had put himself between her and certain abuse more times than she could count.
What in Guardian's green sphere is going on here?
Dark possessive eyes followed her retreat.
Charles advanced, and she took another step backward. She noticed he carried a stout piece of hickory.
Clara was adept at seeing contained violence within a person's countenance.
She took another step back, widening the distance.
“I know!”
Clara tried for calm.
“What do you know, Charles?” She had thought their falling-out to be mended, that his feelings toward her had cooled to only friendship once he saw that she had chosen another. But the seeds of his obsession should have been obvious.
Clara had not wanted to see it. For so long, Charles had been her only protector. She had unwisely clung to that history, ignoring the changing climate of their relationship.
“I know that you wished to marry that heathen in secret.”
Oh dear Guardian.
How long had he followed them? How had Matthew not picked up his scent?
“We wish only to save you, my queen,” Clarence said, coming to stand beside Charles. She gasped again.
Clarence had survi
ved?
And somehow kept his survival secret… to what end? Clara had presumed him dead from the altercation with Cyril.
Her palms began to sweat, her heart beating faster.
Olive moaned and began to stir. Clara walked to where Olive lay and reached out to her friend. Charles touched her outstretched arm with the stick in his hand. The wood was bloodstained.
Clara snatched her hand away.
Clarence continued with an undertone of condescension.
“We tried to make you see reason. It is understood that your tainted blood cannot be helped, though you are not the true monarch. King Raymond was royal, yet not your blooded father. And Queen Ada, though possessing some undesirable traits—”
Clara interrupted. “Are you mad? She was a sadist and nearly killed me!” She turned to Charles.
Clara held her palms out. “How can you do this? Hurt Olive? Wish for my unhappiness?”
Charles stepped toward her.
“You will be happy, Clara.” He reached out and touched the black Samuel's pearl necklace she wore. He had given it to her for her ten and eight years, at the Day of Birth celebration.
His eyes rose from the onyx-colored gem to her face. “With me.”
Clara shook her head. “No, Charles. This will not work!”
Charles sighed and gave a curt nod to Clarence.
Clarence came forward and knelt beside Olive.
The mother-of-pearl hilt shone as he placed the blade against Olive's neck.
Olive stared up at him then rolled her eyes to look at Clara. Her pulse beat frantically just inches below the metal.
Clarence brushed Olive's hair away from her forehead almost tenderly.
When Clarence turned his face toward hers, Clara saw a puckered scar that ran from his sternum to his chin.
Clarence smirked up at her. “You will remain the figurehead of our happy little sphere, and I shall be the ruler behind the queen.” He said the word queen in such a way that it was a mockery of the title. “You will marry Charles this night, and he will become the king he should have always been.”
“No!” Clara glared at him. “This is ridiculous!”
“I shall kill Olive,” Clarence said evenly as if he were discussing humidity levels of the interior sphere.
“Cheer up, dear heart,” Clarence announced in a light voice. “You shall carry on with your original plan. Olive and I will witness the joyous event, with the only change being the suitor.”
“You are both insane,” Clara said.
She watched his amused detachment with disgust, hoping for a granule of uncertainty, and inch of reason.
Clarence shrugged. “You do not understand sacrifice, Queen Clara. If you did, this would be logical, and we would not need to use this type of… encouragement.”
Do not understand sacrifice?
Rage pulsed through Clara as she strode over to Clarence. He straightened, the knife in his fist.
When Clara reached him, she slapped his face, putting her entire body into the motion as her momentum carried her forward neatly.
“This is not encouragement, Clarence,” she said through clenched teeth. Her wrist felt as though it might be broken. “This is coercion—plain and simple.”
Clarence had clutched his cheek with his free hand after the slap. She had pushed him too far. He half-rose from his crouch and shoved her away from him.
“No!” Charles yelled.
Clara flew backward. She landed with a sickening crunch of bone against stone and let out a shriek of agony, certain her arm had been broken.
“Fool!” Charles said. “I told you never to hurt her. I cannot abide that.”
Charles walked to kneel beside her.
Clutching her wounded arm, she tried to scoot away,
Clarence came up behind Charles. “Mayhap you do not need to.” Charles reached for Clara, but his hand fell before he touched her. His eyes showed too much white, growing like saucers, and belated understanding dawned on his face. He toppled like a felled tree. Clarence’s blade protruded from his back. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.
“You have been most uncooperative, Queen Clara,” Clarence said. He lifted her up by her good arm, and she gave a hoarse shrieking wail as her injured arm dangled, unsupported. She sobbed from the pain.
Cold sweat swept over her like a brush fire of ice, and she began to fold, the pain dragging her consciousness away.
She was light enough that Clarence had no trouble carrying her. He muttered to himself as he stepped over the bodies of Charles and Olive. He had a sphere to rule and no time for dissenters.
He had never abided fools gladly.
He tucked the resistant monarch against his body and walked down the street, away from the sphere tunnel and portal to Outside.
It was regrettable violence had been a part of their plan. However, sometimes undesirable methods must be employed for the good of the whole.
Clarence had not always agreed with Queen Ada's methods, but her pure blood and tyranny had exacted results quite well. Since the upheaval after her untimely death, things inside the sphere had been in a state of turmoil.
When Charles had come to him with the terrible tale of an elopement, they had needed to accelerate their plan. Charles was soft. Killing him had been a necessity. Clarence knew exactly what he must do.
He changed course and went to a house he had visited many times before.
Sarah would be none the wiser.
Until Clarence was ready to reveal himself.
*
Maddoc cleared the portal threshold and doubled over, grabbing his arm.
The phantom pain was part of an intuitive communication from someone. He normally felt it most strongly with family but not always.
He whipped his head around, looking for anyone injured nearby.
The royal guard fought as they moved backward through the portal, but no Fragment had gained entrance. The pain in Maddoc's arm began to subside, then it stopped altogether.
Matthew left Maddoc and Evie, jogging to the portal as the last guard backed away. Two of the Fragment began to squeeze through after him.
Matthew came close, his definitive stride becoming like a dance step. One, two, and on the third step, he nimbly swung his dagger with perfect precision up the nostril of the first Fragment.
He twisted the blade, and the Fragment shuddered as his brain was pierced, his entire nose splayed like a fileted fish.
Matthew kicked the Fragment backward, and the man toppled onto the snow, which was red with the blood of many.
The second Fragment who had entered screamed his death into the soft space of the sphere tunnel as Matthew dispatched him easily.
Matthew wiped his blade off on the tunic of the fallen Fragment.
Others of the Band barreled down the wide corridor toward the portal. Many were in a state of disarray, having been called from their beds.
Phillip appeared.
“What is going on here?”
Matthew moved toward the portal door but was unable to close with the hapless Fragment lying across the opening, caught in the jaws of the half-closed door.
Phillip swung his blade high and brought it down, cleaving the body in half. Blood flew, and gore spattered the area as the body halved and tumbled into the tunnel with a lurching roll. Using his boot-clad foot, Phillip shoved the remaining half of the corpse Outside.
He nodded and remarked, “That is how it is done then. Pesky Fragment.”
Pesky? Matthew scowled. They certainly could have used reinforcements earlier.
“Wipe that ungrateful look from your face, Cartier,” Philip said, frowning. “Close the damn portal, or these ne'er-do-well shall stack up like sardines at the hole.”
The guards, who had been momentarily stunned by the half torso that lay twitching on the ground, rushed forward before more could arrive to take the dead Fragment’s place.
“Could have used a little assistance, Philip,” Matthe
w commented dryly.
“Well, some of us were asleep at the time.” He looked over at Evie and Maddoc, and his shoulders relaxed. “Evie… lass.”
Evie ran to Philip, and he picked her up, staring down into her upturned face. “You gave us a mighty fright. Now stop running about playing with Fragment and stay where ye ought!” He growled at her good-naturedly.
Philip looked behind him at the half corpse, and a smile twisted his face. “Ye see the mess you have made of the tunnel?”
Evie burst into tears as Philip gently lowered her to the ground.
Then she laughed.
“Hey now, girl,” Philip said, chucking her beneath her chin.
“Every dead Fragment is a good Fragment.”
Evie nodded gravely.
“ 'Tis true.” Her eyes went to Dale. Everyone else tensed.
Every sword cleared its sheathing.
“Wait!” Maddoc called. “Do not bother with the half-breed Fragment just yet.”
“Why the hell not?” Philip asked, heavy hands pegging his hips.
“We have more grievous matters to consider.” Maddoc glanced at Matthew, and his heart began to speed.
He did not like the way the young man's expression held weight.
“Do ye know where Clara be?”
Matthew nodded. “Of course. I have been away from her but for no more than an hour past.” Matthew heard his own thick heartbeat stuffed high in his throat and the faint rush of blood roaring up to fill his skull. “Why do you ask this?”
Maddoc held out his arm, clenching his fist then dropping it. “Methinks we must check on my sister.”
Philip, Matthew, and Maddoc exchanged a significant glance.
“I will stay with Evie,” Maddoc said quietly.
Philip and Matthew sprinted down the length of the tunnel.
Matthew tried to convince himself that the paranoia was unwarranted.
Yet, when it came to Clara, trouble seemed to find her.
CHAPTER 19
Sarah closed one blue eye and stared through the crystal peephole at the door.
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