threw her a playful grin. “Most princesses usually are.”
Chapter 12
The next morning they ate rice with peppers and tomatoes and an array of spices Willow found quite delicious. She watched Caleb eat over the small fire and wished they could speak some more.
When they were done eating it was time to fold her tent. Willow was sure she’d forgotten something Jonas had taught her. Her first two attempts were almost comical to everyone but Caleb. He watched her intently, as if willing her to get it right. She was folding it, just not the right way.
After a quarter of an hour, Caleb dismounted and went to her. At first, she refused his help, determined to do it herself, but his instruction was gentle, and he ended up making her laugh when he pinched his finger in the collapsing poles.
“Am I riding with you or Jonas today?” she asked with a coy smile.
“Who do you want to ride with?” he put to her and snapped the tent, folding it around the collapsed poles.
She looked just beyond him where Jonas paused to hear her answer.
“You,” she said to Caleb directly. She didn’t want to hurt Jonas’ feelings, though she didn’t think she had. She often caught him staring into the distance…or the past, lost to someone.
The burly Warrior walked off to ready his mount.
“Wait,” she said, tuning back to Caleb and stopping him. “What did you just do with the tent?”
He showed her and she watched. “I have it,” she said and took it from him to show him. She did it after one try. She looked up to find him beaming at her.
“Well done, lady.”
She bowed her head. “Thank you.”
They both laughed a little. This was why she had chosen him. He made her laugh, even in the promise of another blistering day.
He bent to her to help her tie the tent and hand it off to Jarod.
She was very proud of herself for learning this basic skill and couldn’t stop smiling when Caleb walked her to the men. They smiled back, a few even clapped.
“We fight so much that we haven’t noticed each other,” she told Caleb when he helped her mount his horse.
“I noticed you,” he told her, holding her by the hips. “Come,” he said, leaping up in front of her. “There’s something I want to show you when we get back to Shondravar.”
“What?”
He turned to her. His smile was still wide, his eyes still gleamed with amusement and pride in her. “Gold,” he said. “Fields of it.”
“Real gold?” she breathed.
He nodded and flicked his reins. “Real gold.”
She didn’t understand. If he had fields of gold, why had he taken hers?
But she didn’t ask him about his gold. She asked him about his family. He told her about his sister, Shauna and how Jonas’ father had raised them after his father died. “I had a very simple life. I learned to plant when I was four and to fight at the age of six.
She smiled behind him imaging his chubby fingers digging in whatever soil his family possessed. But then her smile faded when she asked the next question. “Why did my father kill yours, a simple farmer?”
“It was a dispute over land, I believe.”
Willow shook her head, knowing her father was villainous indeed. “Did the king steal his land?’
“Yes,” Caleb told her. “He killed him and then stole it.”
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I can understand why you hate him.”
He shook his head. “It’s about more than my father, Willow. Killing my father wasn’t enough. Baltrasard had to kill the land too. He cut down all the trees. Even the ones in Shondravar. But after he left, we started planting and we’ve never stopped.
“What did you plant?”
“Everything.” He smiled. “We bought the seeds at first. We had the sun.” He pointed up. “We just needed water.”
She nodded. “Where did you get enough?”
“From looting the noblemen’s houses before we left. We sold what we took or traded for water and soil. Every year we bought more until Shondravar became what it is today.”
Her eyes danced over his. “What is it?”
“Beautiful. An oasis in the desert. I want to bring you there.”
Her heart did little flips in her chest. “I want to go with you.”
They camped outside the twin towns of Prandar and Londa, twenty leagues north of Luris, one of the small towns where Caleb had secured the first tunnel for the sand with Jonas’ help.
They slept under a full moon, for Caleb had planned their attack during