Celine allowed us all to retreat after that, but she soon fell behind Frederic and me, getting further and further back until she disappeared into the darkness between campfires. I sighed silently. I shouldn’t have been surprised, not when she had matchmaking so firmly on her mind.
We walked silently through the murmur of voices and the occasional grumble of a camel. When we neared our own section of tents, Frederic paused and gestured toward the edge of the camp where the sand dunes stretched away in almost complete darkness.
“It’s a perfect night to view the stars.”
I murmured a soft agreement and let him lead the way out onto the closest dune. The camp stretched out on one side of us, the darkness on the other. Tilting my head, I gazed up into the endless night sky. How many times had I gazed at it thus? And yet my skin had never tingled so at the awareness of someone beside me in the night.
“I feel as if I’m fumbling in the dark,” said Frederic, breaking the stillness with soft words.
I bit my lip on a return quip. This time his serious tone reflected a serious mood.
“Why does everyone react so when I mention Caravan Osmira?”
I turned to look at him but could make out only the dim outline of his face. “You truly do not know?”
“Obviously not.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I thought you must know. It was six years ago now, but still, I thought…You’re a prince…”
He turned to face me, his eyes reflecting light from the camp behind us. “So it does not just involve you, then? Tillara was not offering you condolences for being abandoned.”
I shook my head. “She does not—” I cleared my throat and tried again. “She likely does not even know of it.”
He sucked in a breath. “How is that possible? She knows you left the caravan.”
I shook my head again. “No.” The word was such a quiet whisper I forced myself to speak more loudly. “No, she knows my caravan was taken from me.”
“Taken…?”
I swallowed. “They consolidated the strings and had no more string for me to lead. Some argued that I should stay, that they would grow their camel numbers again. But others said I would be just another mouth to feed until then. I was no kin of theirs, and they had younglings growing who would soon enough be ready for strings of their own.”
I swayed, and he placed a hand beneath my elbow, steadying me.
“Someone said one of the jungler women had offered for them to leave me with her. They agreed they would do so the next time we stopped at the village.” I paused to take a deep breath. “It’s so near the eastern border of the jungle that the caravans will send a single laden string to the village if they have goods to sell or receive. But that means it is also near enough that a determined girl may walk the path out alone.”
His hand on my elbow tightened.
“For three years I learned the trader ways. I had come so close to being accepted. I could not bear to throw it all away. So I followed them back to the desert.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I have wished sometimes since, in my darkest moments, that they had never left me. That I had still been with them when death came calling.”
“Death?”
Silent tears tracked down my face as I struggled to keep my voice steady. “Those who hadn’t been taken by the arrows or the sword had been burned. All of them. Everything. The goods, the tents, the camels, the men and women, the elders—” My voice cracked. “Even the children. Everything. When I at last stumbled into the desert there was nothing but their blackened remains. I counted them…”
My voice gave out, and I paused before continuing my tale. “I counted them all. I hoped…I hoped perhaps some had escaped, had already ridden on for help. But they were all there. Every last one of them. Every camel.”
My knees nearly buckled, and he caught me beneath my other elbow.
“Evie, I don’t…I don’t know what to say. What…what did you do?”
“I stayed there, and I mourned them in the trader way, as best as I could on my own. Until I became almost crazed from thirst. That’s when Caravan Golura arrived. I told them I had been late returning from the jungle, and they never questioned it more closely. They had far bigger concerns. Urgent messengers were sent to the other caravans on their fastest camels. They all stopped trading immediately and took up defensive positions as best they might. Many retreated to their secret oases.”
“Secret oases?”
“There are a string of oases known to all the caravans and used throughout the north-south journey. But each caravan has one or two oases whose location they carefully guard. It is why certain caravans favor certain routes—it gives them a competitive advantage over the others.”
I wiped at my tears. “Urgent messengers went to the capital, and all trade halted until the crown searched out and destroyed the group of bandits who committed the atrocity. They had attacked while the caravan was near the edge of the desert and taken all the gold and the smaller valuables. But they could not handle the camels, so in spite and to hide all traces of their identity, they had burned everything and everyone who remained.”
“This was six years ago?” Frederic sounded thoughtful and troubled. “We were negotiating the Northelm-Lanover trade treaty then. Or rather the Duchess of Sessily was negotiating on our behalf. Father sent Cassian and me along because he thought it would be a good learning experience. Northhelm gets snowed in during the winter so we were gone for many months. I must have missed the whole thing.”
“To the crown’s credit, they acted swiftly and decisively,” I said. “They upheld their end of the bargain between Lanover and the traders. Some of the respect you see now is because of your father’s actions then.”
“And you were only twelve.” He drew me closer in an instinctual protective gesture. “And Caravan Golura then just abandoned you?”
I shook my head. “They would have taken me in, but I could not bear it. Those days alone with the burned caravan…” I shivered. “I could not bear to remain in the desert, so I returned to Mother Nora.”
Frederic sighed. “And then we brought you back here.”
Silence fell between us.
“Evie.”
I looked up to find him staring down at me intensely, the darkness hiding his exact expression. I had felt angry at him earlier—for bringing me here, for asking me questions, for making me lose control. But now that I had told my story, I felt nothing but an unexpected relief. With each step we took of our journey, this prince learned more of the story of me. And not once had he turned away from the mess and ugliness of my past.
He had given me a gift I had not thought to receive. He had looked at me—all of me—and had valued me. And in return I had given him my heart. I realized in that moment it wasn’t a gift I could ever take back.
Warmth spread up my arms from where he still gripped my elbows. Without thinking, I tilted toward him, my face still raised to his. He stiffened for a moment and then pulled me close against him. A soft, dry breeze sent sand curling around our legs as I rested in his arms, my heart beating so fast I feared it would burst.
“Evie,” he said, my name more a moan than a word. He lowered his head toward mine, and my heart stopped altogether.
Less than a breath separated us when the loud bray of a camel shattered the stillness. Frederic jerked and pulled back, letting go so abruptly that I stumbled and nearly fell. Cold rushed around me to fill the place where he had been, and I rubbed my suddenly empty arms.
“Evie, I…I’m sorry.”
I waited for a further explanation, but it never came. Instead he turned and fled across the sand back to camp.