Chapter 24 Carver
It’s settled. You’re my wife. My fake wife. But still. The second the words left his mouth Carver mentally kicked himself. He glanced at Clara, but she stared straight ahead, not daring to react to his careless words. His stupid, careless, stupid words.
He would benefit from running his words through his brain before letting them come out of his mouth.
He didn’t need to clarify what she was thinking.
There was a point she would have been his wife.
If he had chosen differently. If she had never tried to follow him.
It was far too late now. History couldn’t be changed, no matter how many times he attempted to rewrite the details in his mind.
The sun was high on the horizon when he felt a shift. They had left the forest behind a couple hours before, and the endless fields took on a more civilized air. Well trodden paths were coming into view, a ruined road visible among the wildflowers.
The nations had formed into five individual kingdoms after that war. Firm boundaries were established, and the world outside the kingdoms ceased to exist. The radiation from the war was too great, and leaving the established boundaries or trade routes from the kingdoms was a death sentence.
Though most kingdoms were civil to each other, at least for the purpose of trade, Noxvalis and Quorath never restored that kind of relationship.
So for the last 50 years, each tried to carefully sabotage the other.
What they called a war, was at the surface quite petty.
Noxvalis sent soldiers to Quorath; Quorath fought them off.
Quorath attacked Noxvalis, and the cycle never ended.
The war efforts had been going on for so long, no one could even remember why they started.
Truthfully, it felt like more of a feud than an actual war.
Carver justified it by knowing Quorath couldn’t lay down its weapons. Noxvalis was bigger, and for some reason wanted to destroy them. Quorath would only survive if its people continued to fight back. So here he was.
They stayed to the side of the road, choosing to continue their journey on the softer ground rather than the broken concrete. Eventually they reached another dirt trodden road. This road was for more typical transportation. Foot traffic or animals.
The old concrete roads allowed people to travel too freely. Now, people stayed within their own kingdoms, seldom daring to travel beyond the safety of their borders. Concrete roads also dared militaries to provide more and more threatening transports. It simply wasn’t worth it.
“Do you think we’ll run into people soon?” It was the first time Clara spoke to him since his stupid slip up. He wondered how many times his words had replayed in her head. Stupid. The best word to describe him in every attempt to talk to her.
“I hope so. If we show up like this, we’ll garner suspicion.” A real response, the best he could do.
“Wouldn’t want that.”
“No,” he kicked a rock and watched as it bounced along the grass, “We would not.”
She fell into silence again, and desperate to bridge the void Carver said, “Was it hard spending so much time on in-house assignments instead of missions?”
She met his gaze, eyes wide. He almost smiled at her shocked expression, she looked so much younger again. But then her gaze hardened, “Trying to lord your greater number of missions over me?”
His heart dropped. How did he always manage to say the wrong thing? “No, Clara, no that wasn’t what I was trying to do at all—” he would have continued justifying his comment but she started laughing.
“I know. I’m teasing. That’s allowed.” She quickly added as she continued to laugh at him, and as much as it jolted his pride, he enjoyed the sound of her laugh too much to stay offended.
“Maybe it should have been a rule,” he muttered, giving her more to laugh at.
“To answer your question,” she instantly sobered, all mirth gone from her tone.
“It was. I wondered what else I needed to do to prove myself. At the same time, I had peace about it. I knew I was the best. I didn’t need Command to prove that.
Everyone knew I was the most dependable and the most valuable asset. ”
“And also humble.”
She scowled at him, “You asked.”
He nodded, smiling. “That I did, and I appreciate your honest response.”
She nodded in return, and Carver felt the silence returning.
He hated the silence. They used to laugh and banter the entire time they were together.
They would discuss deep concepts, discuss every single thought they had.
He pretended to be annoyed by how much she talked, but he loved every minute of it. He would trade so much to have it back.
Instead, the silence swelled around him, only broken by the occasional bird call or the wind brushing through the greenery.
It felt so wrong, so wrong to be out here with her, like this.
There was more he should say, some way he should assuage things between them so it would be easier to play their roles.
It was a role that would possibly, probably, kill him to play.
How could he pretend she was his wife while keeping professional boundaries?
What constituted as a professional boundary anyway?
“Clara, we should think through how we’re planning to be,” he caught himself, “How we’ll play our roles. Once we get there I think we should…” He trailed off as she held up a hand to stop him.
She examined the distance listening carefully. “I think I hear someone.”
He stopped completely, straining to hear what had made her pause.
“We should change. You have the clothes we’re supposed to wear into town, right?”
He nodded. She set her bag down and before he had a chance to respond, stripped her shirt off to switch them.
She glanced up in time to see his jaw slacken, “Hey, eyes off me. Change.” He swallowed hard but turned to his bag, unable to keep his eyes from straining back to her as she finished changing.
He changed quickly. The all black clothes were put back in their bags, and they both wore the softer colors of Calyndor. Clara looked significantly less intimidating. Pretty. While he was tempted to comment, he didn’t want to receive another scowl and thought better of it.
He breathed in deeply, hating every single person at Command for what came next. He grabbed the box he hid in the bottom of his bag when he had found it that morning, and cleared his throat. “As you know, our roles were written before we were ever called to Command.”
“You sound so serious. This isn’t good, is it?” Her eyes were glued to him, and his heart started pounding.
He tried his best to keep his expression the same. “Just know this isn’t from me. I tried to brainstorm another option.”
He tossed her the velvet box, too annoyed by his role to even hand it to her, and as much as he wanted to catalogue her reaction, he couldn’t keep his eyes on her.
He scuffed his toes in the dirt, covering the light fabric of the shoes in a thin layer of dust. He couldn’t believe that Command had forced this upon them.
At the same time, why would they care how it affected them?
They were soldiers and nothing more. With that in mind, he looked up.
Clara’s mouth hung slightly open, and she gazed at the ring she’d placed on her finger.
“I would’ve put it on you, but, well, the rules,” he said, stumbling over his words in the way only she caused.
“Wouldn’t want to break them.” Even though everything inside him longed to slip the ring over her finger just to feel her skin once more.
She swallowed hard. “This wasn’t your idea.” A statement, not a question. A reminder. She chewed on her bottom lip, her right hand twisting the bracelet on her left wrist as she stared.
“It wasn’t my idea,” he confirmed, though the admission killed a part of him.
He always wanted to be the one to put a ring on her finger, the one to cause that look of amazement to cross her face.
The ring he planned to put there was still in his drawer–a reminder. He loved her too much to keep her.
She swallowed again, seemingly coming back into herself. “Command sure has an interesting plan for the two of us.” She met his eyes then, and he waited for the outburst or frustration he was sure would come. She just stared back, no emotions on display.
“It seems that way, yes.” He continued to keep his words careful, waiting for another explosion from her. Waiting for her to scream or shout over the insensitivity.
“So, husband,” she paused over the word, as if she was testing the feel of it. His heart swelled in a way that was definitely wrong. “How are we supposed to do this?”
He shrugged, shoving his ring finger into the thick silver band Command had provided to him. He flexed his fingers, the weight foreign and frustrating. “Follow the rules.” He provided.