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.
If Frederic felt something for me, he was fighting it. And although my heart wanted to, my head couldn’t blame him. I forced myself to hold that head high when I saw him the next day, to laugh and joke as if nothing had happened. He seemed grateful for it, responding in kind, although every now and then I found him watching me with a confused look in his eyes.
I could only assume in the absence of probing questions that Celine hadn’t picked up on it. Perhaps because she was so preoccupied with helping along Cassian’s currently non-existent romance. Cassian himself was still unaware of this mission since Celine had decided that surprise was her best weapon on this occasion.
When Tillie arrived to share our meal, I watched Cassian over her shoulder as we exchanged cheek kisses. Somewhat to my astonishment, his face turned red and then deathly pale. Someone handed him a bowl of food, and he took it without looking, his eyes fixed on the trader girl instead. After standing immobile for a moment, he attempted to sit without checking beneath him first and nearly toppled over on the uneven ground. Anyone would have thought him a mere youth, and not a man grown.
My eyes widened as Tillie moved on to greet Frederic. Celine was giving me a knowing look, and I had to give her credit. Staid, calm, reserved Cassian certainly seemed to have strong feelings of some sort for my old friend.
But to my increasing dismay, Cassian proceeded not to open his mouth for the rest of the evening. The other four of us laughed and talked easily, and Frederic made several attempts to bring his brother into the conversation. But Cassian merely shook his head or nodded, no matter how inappropriate such a response was to the question.
I caught Tillie several times during the meal throwing him odd, almost concerned looks. Did she think there was something wrong with him? If she had heard he was destined to be his brother’s Chief Advisor one day, she was probably experiencing some strong concerns. The whole situation was so humorous, I found myself fighting not to laugh on several occasions, despite my own personal heartbreak.
To my surprise, Celine made no attempt to praise Cassian to Tillie or to bring him into the conversation. She seemed content to let him sit there like a lump. It didn’t seem the soundest strategy at first glance, but I had no doubt she had a devious plan in play.
It was easy enough to see that Tillie had charmed all three royals by the end of her visit, just as she had charmed all of us all those years ago. She was intelligent and well-educated, funny and graceful. She seemed to know everyone in every caravan, and she had even traveled for a year of her youth with one of the larger merchant caravans. In short, she was everything a princess should be. I had no doubt Frederic and Celine would approve the match and could not be surprised at Cassian’s being captivated by her. Unfortunately, given the careful, sympathetic way she bid him goodnight, I also saw little hope for his suit.
As soon as she was gone from view and hearing, Celine collapsed onto the beautiful rug beneath us. “Can’t…breathe,” she wheezed between giggles. She sat up and looked at her brother. “Poor Cassian, I believe she thinks you feeble minded.” She went off into a fresh wave of giggles. “She is most likely feeling sorry for us all and wondering how the royal family managed to hush it up for so many years.”
“Be quiet, Celine.” Cassian looked glumly into his now-empty bowl.
Celine instantly stopped laughing and fixed him with an intense stare. “Admit it, Cassian. There’s no point trying to hide it after that dismal performance. You’re attracted to Tillara.”
Her strategy now made sense. It had been aimed at him, not at her, designed to make him confess everything to us. Still, I was surprised by his response.
“Attracted to her? Every man with sense must feel some attraction toward her. She is perfection itself. I’m not attracted to her—I’m in love with her.” The words seemed wrenched from him, and when he had finished the impassioned declaration, he went back to staring deject
edly into his bowl.
We all looked at one another, shock keeping us silent.
He shrugged. “It does not matter, however. She would never look at me when I cannot even open my mouth in her presence.”
Celine sat beside him and patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Cassian, we’ll help you.” Her serious reassurance and motherly approach looked comical given she was both years younger and more than a head shorter than her brother.
“Cassian, what’s happened to you?” asked Frederic with concern. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
Cassian put his hands to his head, distraught fingers making havoc with his hair. “I’ve never felt like this before—could never have imagined such a feeling! I have always found girls nice enough, their company pleasant, but not gripping enough to divert my focus from my training and the kingdom. But now…now! I can’t sleep, I can barely eat.” He threw his bowl on the ground. “I can’t seem to think of anything but her and how we shall soon leave the caravan, and I’ll never see her again. She is like the moon and the stars—beautiful, but, oh, so achingly distant.”
He subsided once more into moody silence. I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn’t seem to close it. Never would I have imagined that love would hit Cassian in such a way. He had never before showed even the faintest stirrings of a romantic, and Celine had assured me this had always been the case. And yet now he talked like a poet, comparing his unbearable love to the moon and losing all capacity for basic function.
Celine, fortunately, seemed undaunted. “We must make a plan,” she declared.
While the rest of us remained silent—Cassian apparently from the pain of unrequited love, and Frederic and me from shock—she outlined her course of attack. And as day after day plodded on through the desert, she set it into motion.
She decided that familiarity might wear down Cassian’s awkwardness and invited Tillie to join us more and more frequently. This did produce some progress, but since Cassian could still only stutter out a few words here or there, I feared we would need at least a year in the desert before we saw any improvement worthy of hope.
Celine’s next step, of which I highly disapproved, was to inform Tillie of her brother’s love. Tillie actually laughed—a far from promising sign—and assured Celine it could not be so.
“I have much experience in the matter,” she confided with a grin. “Why, he doesn’t even speak to me.”
“He is overwhelmed by the depth of his feelings,” Celine replied gravely. But even I had a hard time keeping a straight face at this. Tillie seemed unconvinced, and it was quite clear that if she could be convinced she would feel only sympathy for his heartbreak.
“That went well,” Celine told me later.
I stared at her in confusion.
“He acts like someone without a brain, manners, or common sense of any type,” said Celine. “Could you respect a girl who would be interested in him anyway because he’s rich and a prince? No! Which means she has given just the response I wanted to hear. Now we just have to show her what he’s really like.”
This third part of her campaign was carried out in stealth and often required two of us to pull it off. We dragged a reluctant Tillie with us to all sorts of odd places around the caravan, positioning ourselves where we could—in essence—spy on Cassian. Often one of us accompanied her while the other engaged him in conversation. Other times we surreptitiously observed his conversations with Frederic, or the steward, or Tillie’s father, the caravan master.
I reminded Celine frequently that it was impolite to eavesdrop, but she told me such concerns must be brushed aside in pursuit of the noble cause of love.
“Besides,” she said. “It’s not as if we’re listening to them talk about us. In fact, they’re usually saying the most boring things. The important thing is that Cassian sounds perfectly sensible. Intelligent even.”
After a week of this, Tillie no longer laughed at Celine’s claims that Cassian was desperately in love with her and that this love was the cause of his apparent stupidity. And I noticed a strange expression in her eyes when she watched him. Still, I didn’t see how Cassian had any hope of winning her if he could not bring himself to woo her.
He could find no flowers to take her in the desert, and she had no need of expensive trinkets. As a caravan master’s daughter, she had always received such things and valued them little.
The southern coast grew ever closer, and we would turn off for Largo before we reached it. His time was running out. My mind was occupied with this thought when the caravan arrived at the last oasis before the turn off to Largo.
Shouts of horror and wails from the front of the caravan soon distracted me, and I clutched at Celine. What new danger was this? Should I act now to protect the princess in some way?
But when members of the caravan ran back past us, none seemed injured, despite the fear on their faces. “The oasis,” they shouted. “The oasis has been filled in.” None of them mentioned what this meant. They didn’t need to, not when we’d all spent so long traveling through the desolate sand dunes of the desert.
The reality of the situation sank in, and I began to tremble. Caravans always traveled deep in the desert to protect themselves from bandits. Only now we had no water. Time, it seemed, was running out for more than Cassian.
Chapter 22
In the confusion that followed, it took a couple of minutes to get our camel kneeling so that Celine and I could tumble off. The princes were already gone at that point, off to consult with the caravan master. Celine and I raced after them.
We found a huddle of the senior Tour and caravan members in the midst of the hubbub. As we approached, the caravan master was addressing the princes, his face ashen.
“You must take our fastest camels, what youngsters we still have with us, and all the remaining water supplies and make for the edge of the desert.”
“Absolutely not!” said Frederic.
“But, Your Highness, there is no hope for us all to make it. This route has already pushed us longer than ideal between oasis stops. The camels cannot go on forever, and we have only a small amount of drinking water left for the humans.”
“I will not leave more than half our number out here to die. If we leave you no water, you will have not the smallest chance of survival.”
“Is there no hope of digging down to the water?” asked Cassian. “Surely they cannot have completely blocked the source.” I noticed that his serious gaze didn’t stray to Tillie, although she stood near her father. Apparently a crisis was enough to break through his love haze.
Celine thrust herself into the midst of the group. “What has happened?” she asked breathlessly. “How could someone block an oasis?”
“We did not think such a thing possible,” said the caravan master. He had unwrapped his head covering and now mopped at his forehead. “There must be magic involved, it’s the only way.” He looked helplessly at the princes. “If our unknown adversary has twisted a godmother object to achieve this nefarious deed, I do not see what hope we have to undo it. Unless…”
“Unless?” Cassian looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“Unless one of you who are royal would care to call on your own godmother? Perhaps she would be willing to reverse what has been done here.”
“It doesn’t work quite like that,” said Celine, sounding frustrated. “They don’t necessarily come when we call. They have a reasoning behind their actions, I’m sure, but it’s not one that makes much sense to us.”
Frederic looked at her, and she spread her hands wide and shrugged. “I already tried to call her.”
“Which means they expect us to solve this one for ourselves.” Frederic’s expression grew thoughtful. “That means there must be a way. There must be a way to save everyone.”
I lingered on the edge of the group, unwilling to push through as Celine had done. But when no one spoke in response to Frederic, I could not stay silent.
“Surely we should not be stan
ding here! We must move at once for the next oasis—as fast as we can go without taxing the animals to the point of death.”
Everyone turned to look at me, and I took a half step backward. “Should we not?”
The caravan master, who clearly didn’t recognize me and considered me one of the Tour members, shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid this is the last oasis before Largo. We could head back for the previous one, but it would be just as long a journey as pushing on for the city, and we would not make it. Our camels can go ten days between drinks, and some could perhaps be pushed further. But it has been so long since our last stop. We do not have enough days left to make it to another source of water.”
I frowned, looking around me as if I could pull map coordinates from the sky. Without even thinking I had fallen into old habits on this journey, tracking our passage against the map of the desert that I kept in my mind.
“But that’s not right. You’re forgetting we have a good chance of reaching the…” I trailed off as sudden realization exploded in my mind.
They did not know of the Osmira Oasis. No one left in the entire kingdom knew of it but me. I paled as I realized that if we were all to be spared destruction, I must lead us to safety. And if I got the way wrong, the consequences would be catastrophic.
If I said nothing, at least the royals and a small group with them could have some hope of getting out of the desert.
The caravan master had turned back to his people, dismissing me, but Frederic still watched me with creased brow. He believed in me. I went over the route in my head. Everyone in the caravan as soon as they were old enough to talk were drilled in the locations of all the oases, public and secret. I could do this. I had to do this.
I cleared my throat, but the caravan master didn’t look back in my direction. I raised my voice. “We still have some hope of reaching the Osmira Oasis. We have a good chance, in fact.”
Immediate silence fell. The caravan master whirled to face me, his eyes narrowed. “The location of that oasis has been lost. Everyone knows that. There are none now living with that information.”
The Princess Search: A Retelling of The Ugly Duckling (The Four Kingdoms Book 5) Page 17