“But no more,” Evelyn said.
Anna looked up at the women with eyes that blazed out of her face. “Yes. I have found joy and safety once more. One of the Band loves me and I grieve no more. I fear no more. He has released me from the terror that choked me when I lived with my clan.”
That was nearly the biggest speech that Clara had ever heard from Anna. She loved to hear her words. They were spoken fervently and from the heart.
Clara sighed. “Does Clarence understand how you feel?”
Sarah shook her head. “There is time aplenty for me to assure him of our betrothal.”
Clara was confused. “I understand you have made your intentions and feelings an ensnared mess for the men to guess about. Sarah, I implore you, you must choose. And choose now. These men are our protectors on this journey. They sacrifice much.”
Sarah glared at Clara and she returned the gaze. An uncomfortable silence rode the group. Then Clara made a final comment, washing her hands of it, “I might add, that if the Band are good enough to be part of a ruling pair for our kingdom than they should be acceptable for you to consider courting.”
With that, Clara rose out of the steaming pool, the cool, early summer air nipping at her exposed flesh. The women exited the pool quietly, wrapping themselves in the itchy burlap cloth that traveled well but roughened the skin. Clara knew this and patted her skin dry, finally piling what felt like ten pounds of hair atop her head.
“Why do you think we have not seen the fragment about?” Evelyn asked and Clara stiffened.
“They are about. But they will not approach when four of the Band ride with us,” Anna said with certainty.
“You do not recall the battle? How many of the Band to that of the fragment?” Clara asked her.
Evelyn nodded. “I do remember. But we are far and away from the safety of our clan. It is very open here.”
Clara knew exactly what she meant. Though the forest was to the north of them, they had traveled alongside the last sphere, the Kingdom of Pennsylvania, ten days past. There had been an abiding sadness as she saw the glow of the sphere fall away behind their procession.
“There was much prejudice there...” Sarah said meaningfully.
Clara was angered by some of the other spheres' inhospitable treatment of the clan-dwellers and especially the Band. They feared change. Feared the Band. Clara felt it was their future. The mingling of their respective peoples.
She felt it in her bones, in her blood.
She nodded. “Yes, refreshing our supplies was the most they would do.”
Anna articulated exactly how Clara felt, “They showed you insufficient deference, Clara.”
“I am aware. Mayhap time is needed for them to see there really is very little difference amongst the two peoples.”
“Nay, the Band is different.” Evelyn said.
They looked at her, their clothes sticking upon their damp bodies.
“Go on,” Clara asked.
“I listened to them when they spoke of the Band,” she said.
Clara was rapt with her attention. Evelyn was only ten and three years and had not been pressed about her brief capture by the fragment. Mayhap she was ready to rid herself of some of the memory by speaking with those she felt safest with.
Evelyn looked at Clara for encouragement and she nodded her encouragement.
Evelyn continued, “They spoke of the Band as tools of the Travelers. They are to protect more than just the clans.”
“Who are the Travelers, Evelyn?” Sarah asked, unwinding her hair from the cloth.
“Miss Sarah, they are the Guardians. She looked at each of their shocked faces.
Anna recovered first. “The Evil Ones.”
Evelyn smiled. “Nay, they are not evil, but they have punished the fragment in a most unique way. Is it true the fragment and clan-dwellers could not penetrate the sphere but by the salted water?”
Clara nodded, thinking briefly of their own singular seawater oyster field under constant guard.
“The Band is the safeguard for your Guardians. They are the assurance of order in the chaos that is the fragment,” she finished.
Anna shook her head. “No, they are but small pieces of disbanded clans strewn about...”
“No, it is more than that,” Clara said, studying Evelyn's reaction. “Tell us why you think the Band's purpose is broader than we know.”
Evelyn took a deep breath. “Clara, what do you remember about the fragment when we were engaged in battle.”
Clara's mind turned quickly, remembering the one who intended to rape her, the one that cornered she and Evelyn.
“They were criminal, filthy.”
Evelyn nodded but Clara sensed her frustration. She circled the answer but had not yet lighted upon it. “Their speech. It is their speech. They do not speak as we do,” Evelyn prompted.
She was right. They had a strange way of talking. Clara had not touched on that memory. It was very small in comparison with all the others which crowded her mind and stole her sleep.
Sarah and Anna looked at Clara. “What she mentions is true. They spoke strangely.”
Sarah cocked an eyebrow. “In what way?” Her discomfort over the past conversation overridden by her curiosity. After all, she was a teacher.
Evelyn and she looked at each other but it was Evelyn that spoke, “There are some that speak as we do but it is mixed. The majority slur the words together. With missing letters.”
Clara nodded, remembering. “That is true.”
Anna said, “Let us ask Matthew. He was held by them for years. He would have surely noticed differences.”
“Why do they label the Guardians, Travelers?” Clara asked. She was most curious as to why the Guardians had three different monikers amongst the different groups.
“Wait!” Sarah said suddenly. “Was their speech modern sounding?”
Anna looked at her. “Really, Sarah? If it were modern how would one identify that?”
But Evelyn nodded. “It seemed as if it could be speech that was shortened to facilitate communication.”
Sarah began pacing, excited by the discovery, the differences.
Of course, she had not met them in the flesh at battle. It would put a pall on the most stout composition.
Evelyn faced Clara. “They are called Travelers because they move through time.”
There was absolute silence. It was as if the forest held its breath.
“What did you say?” Sarah asked in disbelief.
Evelyn looked at her feet and mumbled again. “They are not of this time, they are of another.”
Clara moved and took her hand. “Dear Heart, I think you are confused.”
“I am not,” she regarded Clara steadily. “They saved the clan-dwellers, the sphere-dwellers but the fragment is another thing entirely. I do not know what their role is but the fragment spoke about the Travelers saving their 'precious people'. They harnessed time, Clara. They use it as their vehicle between now and some other time.”
“Why did you not tell us this most important piece of news?” Clara asked gently, trying her best not to let the disbelief leak all over her face. It was too impossible to believe.
“I thought I would not be believed,” she shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I am but ten and three years, unimportant, save for my sex...”
“When?” Anna breathed.
“What time?” Sarah asked and Evelyn looked confused.
“What time are they from?” Clara asked.
“The future. They are from the future.”
CHAPTER 4
Clara could not sleep. Her bedroll pleasant and snug, the Band in a diamond configuration around the group, she at its center. She was restless, the news of the Guardians swirling around her mind like an insistent fog.
It did not matter that the night was cool and perfect, the stars casting a whitish blue haze above her head. She sighed again and turned over. Fifty paces from where she lay she met Matthew's gaze. He did no
t sleep either. Even in the gloom she could feel the heat from his eyes.
Quietly she rolled the top cover off and stood up. She looked about her, women in the center, the guard outside of them and finally, the Band at the four directional corners.
She moved between the sleeping bodies, making her way to Matthew. When she was almost upon him he met her and wrapped her body against his. Her thin nightdress pressed against the bare skin of his chest. Smooth and brown, the muscles flexed and moved underneath her cheek.
“We must move away from here as to not wake the others,” he said.
“Is that wise? We are never to be alone...?” Clara asked, her heart speeding with his proximity.
His teeth flashed in the gloom. “Are you afraid to be with me alone, Clara?” he asked with the thinnest thread of humor in his voice.
“Never,” she breathed out. “But I do wish to be fair to Bracus.”
Matthew raised a bare shoulder in a half-shrug. “We must talk, you do not sleep. We will not go far.”
Clara pulled away slightly and he took her hand where he led her to a small stand of trees whose leaves rustled and sung in the breeze above them.
They stood facing each other with their hands clasped. “What bothers you, Clara?”
Clara craned her neck up to look at Matthew. They had come so far and worked through so much of his unease with others. She sighed. “Evelyn has revealed many things about the fragment that are disquieting, unbelievable. Truly unbelievable.” Clara measured his reaction but his face showed very little.
He answered, “You wish to know more of my time with them.”
Clara exhaled in relief. “Yes. What she has told us seems truly impossible.”
He raised his brow in the moonlight.
“She has said they speak differently.”
“Aye, they do.”
“She also told us a tale of the Guardians. The fragment hail them as Travelers.”
Matthew stood very still, his fingers beginning a restless dance on the fragile underside of her wrist.
“Tis true, what Evelyn says.”
“And...?” Clara asked.
The heat from his touch rolled over her body and they stared into each others eyes. He removed his hands and placed them on his hips. Clara's nightdress lifted and floated about her ankles. Matthew's eyes looked at her silhouette that could just be made out through the sheer fabric, reaching out to stroke a hair that had come undone from behind her ear.
“It was too fantastical a story for me to repeat. Especially to my Bandmates. It has taken a decade to become a fighting unit with them. And this last year their trust was deeply shaken from my taking of you.” His hand slipped away and fell to his side.
Clara huffed, “You cannot agree with this nonsense then not prove your words.”
Matthew's lips thinned into an angry line. “It matters not. The Travelers set the fragment here for their own reasons. Then instilled within our very marrow to be protectors for their flock. They left wolves here and we must safeguard the sheep. It is now not only the clan which we protect, but your kingdom must be considered as well. We do not have enough Band to protect our own clan and the sphere where you reside. Not both.”
“Wait. You say the Travelers meant for the fragment to be where and what they are?”
“They have always been thus. They did not speak freely in front of one such as I. They knew what I was.” He licked his lips. Clara knew it was not nervousness, that it was remembering the fragment which made him tense.
Clara crossed her arms. “What can you tell me that will enlighten me? As I have been tossing and turning this night, thinking of a way to tell our party this story without them thinking me mad.”
Matthew looked at her intently, deciding something. “Only a singular time did Margaret and I overhear a piece of news that may be fortuitous.”
Clara leaned forward. “What say you?”
“They are returning. They return in intervals.”
“When?” Clara asked breathlessly, looking around her, expecting what she had known as a Guardian to spring up out of the forest floor.
“Soon.”
“That is not answer enough!” Clara cried and Matthew grabbed her and laid a kiss upon her lips, so quickly and fiercely she opened her mouth in surprise and felt his tongue pierce between her lips. Her arms wound around his neck and he pressed her tighter against his body.
Suddenly he stiffened and Clara's eyes popped open. Bracus stood behind Matthew, a naked blade flat against his temple.
Matthew's lips carefully broke their seal on her mouth and he said, “My Captain.”
Bracus backed away, holding the dirk in an easy hand away from his body. “You abide not by our agreement.”
“It is my fault,” Clara began and Bracus' look quieted her.
“It is he that must prove that he is fair in his actions. Sneaking about in the dead of the night is not just.” His eyes moved between the two of them and searing heat rose to her cheeks.
“He truly did not transgress, it is I that could not sleep.” Clara shrugged and continued, “He only sought to comfort me.”
“With his tongue?” Bracus intoned, sheathing his weapon.
Matthew turned on him. “I do not try to go behind your back like a coward. I but saw her restlessness from a distance and attempted to assuage that.”
Clara came between them. “Evelyn has told me a most disturbing piece of news. One that I wish we had known before. I simply could not sleep. Matthew saw that and we endeavored to discuss the matter. And,” her look was all for Bracus, “he was with them, the fragment. He knows better than most what information I may need.”
Bracus' brows knit together then he looked at Matthew. “What is this? What has Evelyn said?”
Clara recounted the story as closely as possible, tripping over the most unbelievable portion as clearly as she was able. His reaction was as she expected.
He chuckled quietly. “That is quite a tale. Mayhap she uses this to ease around the horrors that she endured? She is but young yet...”
“She did not retell the tale in jest. She was serious.”
Bracus was quiet for so long a time Clara almost interrupted him but he spoke. “Clara, this is foolishness. Humanity is not equipped with the necessary physiological status to endure what would need to occur for such travel.” He rolled his huge shoulders into a shrug, his shape but an enormous dark bulk amongst the trees at the edge of the forest.
Clara shook her head and Matthew stepped behind her, the heat of his body emanating into her. Bracus tracked his progress, pulling his lips back from his teeth.
“Stop it and listen,” she commanded. “This is so much more than our courtship, this journey, ruling the kingdom.” Her eyes roved the planes of Bracus' face and her body reacted to him. It was almost too much. One of the Band at her back and one forward of her. Heat and erotic energy entwining the three. Ensnaring them.
Drat her genetics!
His lips curled in triumph. He could see her flustered response to him. Their attraction between the three of them, a thing of biology, was almost as difficult for her as it was for them.
“These Travelers or Guardians, whatever name they masquerade by, are returning.” She turned and looked at Matthew who nodded. “We must discover what purpose they had for saving our peoples. Who the fragment are, why you are the Band? There are one hundred questions I have to be answered. There is a reason for our existence. And I, for one, wish to know what it is.”
“I believe none of it,” Bracus said. “Mayhap the girl misunderstood.”
“She did not,” Matthew said. Quiet during the interchange until that moment. Bracus' eyes flicked to his.
“I overheard them talk to one another about the supposed Travelers. It is as the girl says. Yet,” he looked uncomfortable with this next, “they are from a time much further than now.”
“The future?”
Matthew nodded once.
“Utter nonse
nse,” Bracus said with disgust.
“We cannot be so arrogant to believe that the spheres and their evolved construction came out of thin air,” Clara waved a hand about her. “Rather, they were deliberately constructed using machinations that were unheard of. Even now, my people do not understand it all. We only know that it works. It is powered by steam. The sphere is permeable yet strong. It is barrier to all but can be breached by salt water. Do you not see that a people more advanced than ourselves would have been needed to conceptualize such a thing?”
“Why save us?” Bracus posed to her.
She shrugged. “I do not know, but save us they did. Furthermore, they have engineered the perfect protectors in the form of the Band. Who would they be...no, rather, from when would they be that they could change the very framework of your human state?” she asked, using a palm to gesture at his gills.
“Mayhap we are their survival?” Matthew spoke quietly.
“For what?” Clara asked.
Bracus nodded, understanding lighting his face. “Their future. They protected us to save their own hides.”
Clara nodded. “Plausible. Yet, what of the fragment? How are they a part of this? Uncivilized and criminal is what they are. Are you saying that they did not think of every eventuality? They housed my people in nineteen spheres, fashioned formidable protectors to guarantee humanity’s survival and put the fragment here to war? Steal? Rape?” Clara shook her head. It did not agree. Something did not make sense.
“Whether they come or not, it matters not. They did not go to the trouble of engineering the spheres and us,” Bracus looked at Matthew, “to offer violence.”
Clara's brow furrowed and she said nothing. The men waited. Finally she said, “I do not know. Their motivations are suspect. There is a reason why the clans call them the Evil Ones.”
She took one of each of their hands in hers and laid them on either side of her face. Their hands palmed her head, the heel of their hands almost meeting as a cup under her chin.
“Let us be about sleeping. I will have a long day ahead of me. Sorting this mess out for everyone.”
The Savage Blood (Savage Series, Book 2) Page 3