“I loved when my father used to return with tales about you,” she confided, sounding drowsy. “I felt as if I knew you—or I wanted to.”
He looked at the curtain and smiled. “You wanted to?”
“Yes. The king would speak of you interfering with his dealings, which I knew were underhanded. He hated you for turning up at a shipment of silks and other fine fabrics he’d had stolen from Culderia. I thought you were rather fascinating.”
Rather fascinating. Caleb smiled.
Then, she didn’t hate him, after all.
Chapter 9
Willow dried herself and dressed. She wished she had fresh clothes, but what she had would do. She felt so much better, clean and smelling pleasant.
She thought about the things she’d told Caleb. Some were private, things she’d never shared with anyone, like her mother crying at night. She’d never had anyone to share them with. She was lonely, but she was too much of a coward to stay with Caleb for a little while longer. Besides, he wanted to kill her father, or put him into prison. But…he made her feel things. Strange things, as if thousands of butterflies were flying around inside her, making her want to smile—or giggle. She hadn’t giggled since her mother tripped down the last step on the main staircase of the palace in Beldar and landed on her rump three summers ago. She missed her mother. She missed her more than she could sometimes bear.
The thought of also losing her father made her tremble.
She wondered why her father had killed Caleb’s father. She hoped to ask them both. She would see her father again. Caleb had promised to send her off to Beldar. He wouldn’t go after her father now, but what about later? She would talk to Caleb about it. If her father truly traded people, then he should go to prison. She hoped he didn’t do such a heinous thing.
She wanted to go to Beldar. Didn’t she? How long would she be there before her father sent her off to Oscar?
She tied her hair into a high tail and stepped out of her curtained-off room. Caleb had told her he would meet her outside and as she left the tent, she spotted him talking to Jonas and Marcus. Behind them was a large cart.
Caleb’s hair, free of his bandana, flowed to his shoulders like liquid gold. She thought about touching it, putting her fingers through it. Free of the black war paint around his eyes for the first time since she met him, they sparkled like untouched lagoons in the sun.
He smiled when he saw her, and she thought Beldar could wait. He didn’t look this good when she used to imagine him in her head. After her father’s tales of his mortal enemy.
When she reached him and Jonas, he leaned down and gave her a sniff. “Better.”
He laughed when she swatted his arm.
Boldly—and foolishly, she leaned up and sniffed him back. His hair brushed her nose and filled her with the scent of something slightly sweet, slightly spicy. She drank him in and gazed even more boldly into his eyes.
His smile remained as she drew away reluctantly. Without his war paint, he looked immensely more friendly, more golden and perfect in the late afternoon sun.
“Did you enjoy your bath, Princess?” Jonas asked her, breaking the spell Caleb had on her.
“Yes, very much.” She smiled at him.
He grinned in surprise. “It’s done you a world of good!”
Caleb smiled and looked away.
Willow knew she’d been difficult. She was sorry. She had no idea how to interact with him…with any of them. She wasn’t sure she should. They were her father’s enemies. She must not forget! But she was forgetting every time she looked at the Warrior commander.
“Come, there is one more place I wish to bring you,” Caleb said to her but did not hold out his hand.
She followed, nonetheless, turning back one last time when he called over his shoulder to Jonas to have a bath.
“Where are we going?” she asked Caleb, catching up.
They didn’t walk far, to the next tent, in fact.
“To church.”
“What is church?”
He led her into a large purple tent. Inside were rows of empty benches. Hundreds of small candles burned around a beautiful gold cross set high on a wooden altar. On the cross, the figure of a man, wearing only a cloth around his waist was hanging by his hands and feet. He looked…dead.