He shrugged sheepishly.
“I will admit that I have met my fair share of spoiled princesses. I, however, was not raised to take what we have for granted. I also know that wealth cannot make happiness. Happiness is something we choose, regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I cannot deny that I have had a tough time finding happiness over the past month as I have dealt with Cathal. In the beginning, I truly wanted to try and find the happiness in the situation, and I feel like I’ve failed at it. But then there was you and you became a bright spot in the darkness that had become my days. I can’t imagine how much worse this could have been had you not been here.”
“Well, you fought against this bright spot pretty hard,” he said. His voice was full of frustration but not of anger.
“Could you blame me?” I asked. “I didn’t know how we could possibly have a relationship as a princess and a guard.”
“And what about now?” he asked.
“I still don’t know how it is going to work, not because I don’t want it to, but because we are both so very strong-willed.” I took a deep breath.
“But you love me?” he asked.
The bluntness of his question gave me pause. I had already told him I did. But then, just as I needed to hear the words from him again, perhaps he needed that every bit as much as I did. “I do,” I said with a small smile.
He scooted closer to me until I could feel his warm breath on my face. “I can’t walk away from you, Allete,” he said in a deep, sure voice. “Now that I’ve met you, and I see what an incredibly beautiful person you are, inside and out, I know that I do not want to face life without you. Bond or no bond, I am yours. I want you to marry me, as soon as we reach your new home. I want you to become my wife.”
He ran a finger across my lips and I found myself leaning into his touch. “We barely know one another.”
He chuckled. “You were on the way to the altar with a man you’d never even met, princess. I don’t think that is a fair argument.
True enough, I thought. “How will your clan feel about you taking a foreign bride?”
“Those who trust my mother will not question it. Those loyal to the jarl are on their way out of this life; they just don’t know it yet.”
“You’re going to kill them?” I asked with wide eyes.
He shook his head “I won’t have to. If Magnus moves when I think he will, your father and Cathal will take care of that problem for me. There was a time that my jarl was a great strategist, but his greed and madness have made him careless and impulsive. He is going to get himself and all those who follow him killed.”
“And you will be taking his place?”
Torben nodded “That is what the gods have decided for me. I don’t know exactly what it will look like or how I’m going to change things, but I do believe that you will play a huge part in it.”
“Me?” I asked as I pointed to myself. I didn’t see how I could possibly make any difference to the health of his clan.
“Yes, you. You are strong and humble. You are smart and innocent at the same time. You have great compassion and discipline. You are a mighty warrior, Allete.”
His words made me feel so much more special that I truly was. I wanted them to be true. I wanted to be this woman he saw, but all I felt like was a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, scared of facing the future and afraid of death.
Little Evan was brought to my mind as I thought about death and how all beings face it eventually—some sooner than others Evan was so very young and had his whole life in front of him. It angered me that there was someone out there who thought they had a right to take another’s life. “Was it a Viking that attacked Evan?” I asked him.
Torben nodded, and his lips tighten. “I heard the description Cook gave. It sounded like it was Magnus himself. That would surprise me. He isn’t usually one to wander too far from camp. He prefers to hold court in the center of his warriors, sending others to do his bidding. If it was Magnus, he could be growing even more unpredictable.
“Why would he attack a young, defenseless boy? Is he truly that evil?”
“Power will do things to a man. It will change him from the inside out. It twists him and makes who he once was become unrecognizable to those around him.”
I thought about his words and realized they applied to more than just Magnus. Cathal too had been corrupted by power. I didn’t know at what point in his life he had been changed, or if it had simply started at an early age because of an example set by his parents, but it was more than apparent that he lived for power. Sitting there with Torben, talking about the future I could have, I knew without a doubt that I could not settle for Cathal. There would be no way to find happiness in life with him.
“What are you thinking about?” Torben asked.
“That I need to go begin getting ready for this dreaded ball.”
His jaw clenched, and he nodded. “And don’t forget to pack. After the ball, we will speak with your father and mother and then we will be on our way.”
Home was the word he left unspoken at the end of that sentence. Although we were headed back to his home and for good reason, he was sensitive enough to understand the pain that I would feel leaving my own land.
“How are you holding up?” Dayna asked as she helped lace up the back of my dress. It was the dress Cathal had given me, with the alterations my mother and sisters and I had added. I was ready for the night to be over and it hadn’t even begun.
“I’m just ready to get this started so we can be done,” I admitted.
“There’s something else bothering you,” she prodded.
Yes, there was. I had yet to tell Dayna everything that was happening between Torben and I. I needed to, but I dreaded telling her I was leaving.
“You might as well tell me because I won’t leave you alone until you do.”
“You might want to sit down for this,” I finally said with a sigh.
She sat on the bed and I took the seat across from her. Dayna’s feet dangled from the side and she began to gently kick them, reminding me of how she used to do that very thing when she was much younger and much smaller. The years had flown by, and now I was leaving my home forever.
“After the ball tonight, I will be leaving with Torben,” I said and felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. There was still so much to tell, but it was a start and that was what I had needed. From that moment on, everything poured out of me. I paused a few times to answer her questions, but Dayna listened quietly in rapt attention.
“That is all,” I finally finished over half an hour later.
“Well,” she said, straightening her dress as she stood from her perch on the bed. “I suppose I had better get Lidia to come help you finish getting ready. I need to go pack.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
She grinned at me. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you go on this grand adventure without me, did you?”