The Illegitimate Claim (9 page)

away. What kind of trouble could there be? The Runners and Gothman just successfully

defeated the Tree People and Sea People. Now would be the time for celebration and

great battle stories told around the fires.

A pressure built on her chest as the familiar pangs of longing coursed through her

veins. Thoughts of Andru, Ana and Gilroy jumped through her mind. She’d discovered

Gilroy was her half-brother right before leaving her home, and wondered if she’d ever

have the opportunity to know him better. The man was too good-looking for her to

think of him as a brother.

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Ana told her she could be her first assistant and commander of her armies, yet she’d

given all that up to follow the work of Crator. She would return with no rank. Would

Ana still want to be her friend when she returned?

Those thoughts plagued her more often than she cared to think. But the thoughts

that disturbed her the most, and distracted her rational thoughts, were ones of Andru.

Neither one of them knew she’d be gone for so many winters. A picture of him

appeared in front of her vision. Dark golden curls fell haphazardly around his head and

down to his shoulders. He looked intimidating and powerful in his brown leather jacket

and pants. The crispness of the material stretched across incredible muscles in a most

tempting way. She could see the expression on his face, contemplative and serious. He

appeared to be looking across a far distance as if searching for something, yet his eye

contact never met her internal eye.

Meah snapped out of her thoughts quickly and sat up straight. Oh Crator, certainly

she was wrong. Had Andru somehow found out she’d birthed the twins? Was the dog-

woman sending her on a detour to avoid some search he’d instigated to find his

children? She suddenly felt an incredible urgency to continue on her trek toward home.

Five winters had passed. They’d only known each other a short time. Certainly his

feelings for her faded as the winters passed. At least, she’d told herself that many times

as she lay awake thinking of home. But regardless how he felt about her, if he knew he

made her pregnant and that she’d given birth—not to one child, but twins—she had no

doubt that he would want those twins with him.

Meah woke the twins early the next morning after a rather sleepless night. She

worked silently as she fixed the children a breakfast of fruit and nuts and quickly

disassembled the camp.

“Are you okay?” Tory asked, as he sat cross-legged facing his sister on the same

mat Meah spent most of the night on.

“The dog-woman said some things yesterday that kept me up last night thinking.”

She always tried to speak to her children openly. She didn’t have a clue if it was good

parenting or not, but she had no one else to share her thoughts with.

“Tia wants to know what po…cas, um, I don’t know how to say the word.” Tory

wrinkled his forehead.

“The word is procrastination, and it means that I’m taking my time when I should

be hurrying.” Meah tied the rolled tent to the back of the glider and then stared down at

her children. “I don’t know why we’re supposed to move faster, but it isn’t our place to

question the words of Crator. So we will spend the day flying without stopping as

much.”

The twins surprised her by nodding silently and then began to clean up their area.

She jumped in quickly, and before long they were ready to leave. They headed south

until she was sure she was close to the northeastern part of the Neurian nation and then

began to fly east.

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Meah landed briefly and let the children run while she prepared food. She couldn’t

get them to eat much though, they were content to run around the trees and climb the

few with branches low enough to be compatible. Meah threw a small mat down on the

ground and then simply pulled some food out of the bags without bothering to unload

them from her glider. She felt a certain sense of urgency in the air and she wondered by

the way Tory and Tia were acting if they sensed something too.

Along with urgency, Meah also felt apprehensive. Why had she waited so long to

come home? She chided herself that her homecoming would be easier if she’d sent a

transmission from time to time letting Tara or maybe Ana know what she was doing.

That way at least, if Andru had no interest, she might at least have a job when she

returned. As it was, the Red Star clan would be traveling during the summer months,

and she wasn’t sure if the Blood Circle clan would allow her to the fires or not.

Five hours later, her voice was scratchy from telling story after story to the twins

about Runner or Gothman history as she flew over tree-covered land. The two of them

were finally asleep and she hovered low over an unending forest. This was River People

territory, which was governed by Gothman. Occasionally, there would be an open

patch of ground visible through the thick foliage and it was in one of these treeless

areas that she noticed smoke from a campfire.

Circling around the open area, she knew her presence was obvious but not

immediately feared. There were about seven people moving around two good-sized fire

pits with four tents bordering them. She landed outside the tents and two men and a

woman approached her before she was able to climb off around her groggy children.

“It is just a woman and her children,” she heard a large, potbellied man say. His

hair was sandy-colored and unkempt and he wore a full beard. He wore a large flannel

shirt untucked over brown leather pants. She could see a Runner laser hanging off his

side belt and the small wire of a comm sticking out of his shirt pocket. He was

Gothman.

A tall, older Neurian woman looked at the man and then at Meah. “Where are you

traveling, my child?”

“I’m heading north,” Meah responded as she climbed off her glider and pulled first

one child then the other off the seat. Her children stood close, Tia hovering behind her

in her usual shyness, and Tory standing next to her with one hand gently touching her

thigh.

“You came from the east,” the Gothman grumbled.

“And tomorrow I shall head north,” Meah said quickly, giving him a superior look.

“And tonight you are welcome to share our campsite,” the man in the middle

finally spoke. He was a tall, thin Neurian with skin darker than midnight and eyes

equally as black. He wore loose-fitting tan pants with a matching smock. The white of

his teeth jumped out at her when he opened his mouth and smiled. “We don’t travel the

same direction as you but our camp is nearly set up and we shall enjoy food soon.”

“I can contribute to the food,” Meah offered.

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“An acceptable offer.” The tall, thin Neurian nodded.

“There is room in my tent for you and your children. It’s large and there are just

two of us women.” The Neurian woman smiled now. “My name is Jasvee, a humble

servant of Crator. May I help you with your belongings?”

Meah noticed that Jasvee spoke with a different accent than the tall, thin man. She

decided they must be from different parts of the Neurian nation. It wasn’t clear what

mission brought this hodgepodge of people together. As she pushed her glider up

alongside the tent Jasvee had indicated, she noticed three River People and a heavyset

Gothman woman working silently around the camp area. All of them watched her with

curiosity, and five winters out of her Runner element allowed her to smile politely at

them.

“Paleah, we have company for the evening,” Jasvee said in her singsong accent, as

she held the tent flap for Meah to enter.

A very young woman, barely a woman, looked up from where she sat on a bedroll.

A flat landlink sat on her lap. The scowl on her face implied she’d been lost in whatever

she read on the small screen. The young woman didn’t speak, but watched intently as

Jasvee pointed to where Meah could place the three mats she carried.

“Some of your items are strange to me.” Jasvee sat on a bedroll next to Paleah’s.

“Your clothes are a Neurian style, but I’ve never seen fabric like that before. And the

mats—do you not have bedrolls? Could I be so bold to ask who your people are?”

Meah looked at her things and instantly remembered a time when they seemed

foreign to her as well. The mixture of Sea People, Norther and Neurian items that Rog’s

small village had incorporated were now her own. She smiled in spite of herself.

“They must look very strange now that you mention it.” Both women offered her a

curious glance. “I’ve been traveling three days now and you’re the first people I’ve seen

since I left my village. I lived with a group of people from various cultures and I guess

we made a habit out of using the most practical items of each culture. The village is in a

very hot climate. It never snows and seldom is there rain. The mats stay cooler at night

than the bedrolls did. That’s why we used them instead. I’ve slept on a bedroll before,

but I admit it’s been several winters.”

“Your accent.” Paleah spoke with a similar accent to Jasvee. “It’s familiar. Which

race did you bring to this village that you’ve mentioned?”

“I’m a Runner.” Meah glanced up for their reaction. “I’m Meah of the Red Star

clan.”

“You’re a long way from home.” Paleah looked back down at her landlink, but

didn’t push any of the buttons. “I believe the Red Star clan is up by the Norther border

right now.”

The young woman looked sad, Meah decided. There was a brief silence, while

Meah finished rolling out the three mats and then sat on one of them, pulling Tia onto

her lap. Paleah let out a choked sigh, and looked back up at Meah.

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“What is it like? I mean, how did you handle being so far from your home and

everything you knew?” Paleah didn’t look up in order to direct her question, but Meah

assumed she spoke to her.

“It’s really lonely sometimes,” Meah answered without thinking. Should she have

her guard up with these people? She decided no. Crator wished her to travel this way,

and so He must have put these people in her path. Faith in Crator would allow her to

trust these people. “I never would have traveled so far, and for so long, if it hadn’t been

Crator’s will.”

“I doubt very much that my travels have much to do with Crator.” Paleah rubbed

her eye but kept her head down.