The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 32

IT WAS A short walk to get to the dens. At the top of the stairs, Verus had quietly conferred with the guards, Max's name came up so Alex guessed he was verifying their story and filling in the men with why the three of them were there. A messenger had been sent off, returning after about fifteen minutes with an announcement. After that, Alex had been allowed to go down into the walkway between the cages to find out why Mark was here in Bonna for Verus, and to find out why exactly he was here in this time for herself.

        She'd let her usual stance and posture drop away as she descended, her footsteps turning limping and furtive and her posture hunched by the time she was coming to the bottom of the stairs. Once below, she would hurry for a few steps, then stop and look in at each cage, scanning for Mark. She was about half way into the dens when he saw her first.

        "Alex?"

        She thanked whatever gods were looking over her that Verus had put her hair down, and hoped they continued watching, then spun around.

        "Mark," she smiled as though happy to see him, wincing for real as her lip pulled at the new bruise. "What's going on? What are you doing here? How did Max get here? I couldn't believe it when I saw him last night." She approached the metal cage after noting that he was shackled and couldn't get his hands through the grid.

        "It's ok, it's all ok now," he assured her, pushing his fingers through the grid. "Once I knew what had happened, I came back here to find you. What has happened to you?" he asked, eyeing the old bruising from the village and new swelling from Verus.

        She squeezed his hands in hers, not letting him wrap his fingers around and grip her in return.

        "I don't know what happened!" She ducked her head and leaned toward the grid between them. "I don't understand anything."

        Hidden behind her hair, it was easy to manipulate her voice to sound shaky. She didn't have a way of making tears show, though, so she simply hid her face from him.

        "It was a jump through time, as you were destined to do. I know all about it. I'm actually from this time, but I came forward for you. I didn't know it at the time, but you are my destiny."

        His words about 'destiny' echoed in her mind, shaking loose memories from when she was fourteen. The house in southern Russia, the boy with the limp outside one night, her gigno coming up the walk and the boy stopping him. She had watched at a window, her bag packed in moments, waiting for her gigno to come and take her back from the kind family who had thought they were helping her. The boy had said something about destiny. Her gigno had angered quickly, and beaten the boy bloody.

        "How?" she asked, searching his face and seeing the old scars with new eyes through the light layer of dust and dirt; the scars matched the wounds her gigno had given a boy many years before. "How is it possible to go through time?"

        "There's a whole section of research about you, don't you know?" He ignored her question. "Written by your own mother, but she wouldn't have known it at the time. She researched you before you were even born. You have a powerful destiny, Alex. One we can share." He touched her face, gently avoiding the prominent bruise at her mouth. "You are the first proven Amazon, Alex. Your future, now, was a distant history when you are from, but it is glorious, and your name is known even two thousand years later! I can shape this destiny with you."

        Her mind whirred, whistling through old memories, finding and recalling her momma's research on the warrior woman. The first ever found Roman Amazon, in a lost tomb under what had been Illyria. Her father had made her read it, recite it, every night after sword practice and dinner were complete for nearly the whole year after her momma died. She'd always thought she'd been named after the woman, in honor of her momma's work. The photo of the mummified warrior woman lying in her crypt floated into her mind. She hid her thoughts deeply, seeing Mark for the first time as he was now: angling. She faced him with a look of helpless confusion.