Bron kept the watch and wondered about things he couldn’t explain. He had moved away from the dim red glow of the fire, putting his back to it as he looked out on the darkness beyond their little grove of desert trees. He could hear the women breathing behind him, Nyasha and Calea for once acting as one, if only in unconsciousness.
He thought his life had been complex before. He’d had no idea.
His loyalty lay with Calea. That was the choice he had made, and he would keep his promises into death, no matter how useless or old-fashioned others, including Calea herself, might think them. It was his job to make sure Calea was safe, whatever that meant and wherever it took him. That was a truth he regarded as highly as any scientist regarded truths of magic and power.
But the other girl had laid a claim on him, as well. Bron wasn’t sure when it had happened. Perhaps it had been when he’d drawn her out of the rubble of her home. Perhaps when she had started panicking and he’d calmed her with his mere presence. Perhaps it had been when she’d looked at him earlier in the evening, trusting and hopeful and afraid. In that moment, he had accepted that she was his to protect, too. The beginning had not been so formal–no employer had told him, “Now you must keep Nyasha safe.” But perhaps it was all the more powerful for being something chosen between them, not laid on them by an outside party.
Yet how could Bron keep two promises? Calea called him simple. Frequently. It was true enough. He found a certain joy in having one task, and one task only. Now… Everything was more complicated, and part of him shrank from it.
At the same time, he could not be sorry he had met Nyasha. She and Calea were similar in many ways–both intelligent far beyond his capacity to understand, both inventive with tools and materials, both stubborn and aggressive and bossy. Good stars above, they were both so bossy. Bron wondered what sin he had committed to deserve two such women in his life, tugging him this way and that.
But Nyasha was very different from Calea, too. She was much younger and more naive, yes, but also a great deal more open with herself. Where Calea hid, Nyasha displayed proudly, letting all the world know exactly what she felt at any moment. Nyasha was generous with her friends, like Dr. Burdock, so sweetly saying farewell that even that nervous young man had had no choice but to accept it. Bron suspected that Nyasha could also be cruel to her enemies, though he hadn’t seen that yet.
That was another difference–Nyasha had friends and enemies. Calea, it seemed, held all the world in the same low regard. Her life was much the poorer for it, Bron believed. As much as Calea seemed to despise Nyasha’s openness of spirit, perhaps it would be good for her to be around it. Bron could not explain how the three of them had fallen together, but it did not seem like an evil.
Another thing he couldn’t explain was how he’d found this tiny, sheltered valley in the first place. When Nyasha had looked into his eyes, her gaze so desperate and pleading, his mind had been blank. He knew nothing of travel, of the signs to look for in order to find what those alone in the wilderness needed to survive. He was a man of Jalseion, born and bred, and he’d never been outside the city walls before this week.
But when he had decided that he must obey, that he must help this girl, and all of them, in any way he could, suddenly he had known where to go. The women probably thought that he’d heard water or smelled the scent of greenery or saw some track in the rock. But none of that had happened. He’d simply known that there was only one safe place to go, all the rest of their surroundings barren and exposed, and he’d led them there.
How? Bron had no idea.
He also couldn’t explain how Calea had been healed, of course. That was a subject his mind had been unwilling to touch since it had happened. It was just so bizarre. He was less inclined to think some remnant of magic had done it, though, and thought it more likely that fate had lent a hand in some way. Or perhaps the blurry, amorphous, beyond-the-sky God his mother had always spoken of. But that was insane, and he would be a fool to say anything about it to Calea.
Bron swayed slightly where he stood and blinked, pulling himself upright. He was tired, and he ached. Maybe he should sit down….
No, he really ought to get a few hours of sleep. He couldn’t tell the time by the stars, as a true wanderer could have, but he knew he’d been standing guard for many hours. Dawn couldn’t be far off, though as of yet he didn’t even see a slight lightening of the sky in the east to presage the sun.
Bron’s eyes closed of their own accord, and he forced them open. It was no use. He had to rest.
He turned to the fire, hesitating, then finally went to Nyasha. Yesterday had been far too hard on Calea. She needed as much rest as they could afford her. Nyasha was young and strong, and she was eager to prove herself.
Bron crouched down, patting the girl’s shoulder. “Nyasha.” He kept his voice low but let some urgency into it. His body was warning him that soon enough he would keel over, whether he willed it or not. “Nyasha, please wake.”
She stilled beneath his hand, the deep breaths of sleep pausing as she woke. “Yes?” She sounded alert, if a bit wary. “What is it?”
“I need you to keep watch till morning. I have to sleep for a few hours.”
Nyasha sat up abruptly. “You’ve been keeping watch? You haven’t slept at all?”
“Yes.”
Her voice was suddenly troubled. “Papa and I never kept watch before.”
“The world has changed, now, I’m afraid. Can you look out for a few hours? Wake me if you hear or see anything suspicious. Just a touch to my arm will do. I’m a light sleeper.”
“Yes, of course.” Nyasha shook her blanket off, leaving it in an untidy pile, and moved away from the fire just as Bron had done. She had good instincts, even if she had never stood a watch before. Bron’s shoulders relaxed a bit, seeing that. “You sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“Thank you.”
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