Chapter 5
Callum
I awake several hours before Elia, accustomed to waking up before the sun begins to rise.
After checking on the horses and carriages, I have the Hunters prepare for our departure this morning.
If we leave early enough we can make it to the palace before dusk, and I’m impatient to continue the search for the relic.
I haven’t told Elia what we’re hunting for yet, only because this relic may be the most important one that’s ever existed, and I don’t want her to accidentally mention anything about it in front of anyone.
When I make it back to the room, Elia is still in bed.
She’s on her side, facing outwards, and has one arm cradling her head while the other clutches the blankets under her chin.
Her skin is tanned from being exposed to the desert sun and complements her dark hair that’s mused and spread out across the pillow.
I have the strange urge to lean over and thread my fingers through it. Seeing her last night in the towel flustered me. I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen that much of a woman’s body and I’d forgotten how…curvy they are.
My body hasn’t reacted this strongly to anyone since Rafe and it scares me.
Giving her my shirt was also a regrettable decision as the white material clung to her damp body like a lover’s caress. That image of her has been superimposed in my head since last night, and I’ve been walking around half hard all morning, doing my best not to linger on the captured memory.
On that note, if I keep staring at her while fantasizing about her nipples outlined in my shirt, I’ll be fully hard and will have a lot of explaining to do when she wakes up. I walk over to open the door and slam it harder, trying to rouse her as if I only now came back to the room.
Elia stirs, then slowly blinks her eyes open. “I must be dreaming,” she murmurs lazily, flipping on to her back and stretching her arms over her head.
She must read the confusion on my face before she continues. “There’s a six-foot-two blond Hunter in my bedroom whose shirt I’m wearing.” She sits up, wiggling her eyebrows. “Most women would call that a dream.” She pauses. “Or men. Honestly, anyone would be in a dreamlike state waking up to you.”
“Are you saying this isn’t how you typically wake up?” I don’t comment on the last part of her statement, not wanting to read too much into it. There’s no way she could know that I’m interested in both men and women after knowing me for a day.
Elia laughs. “Only in my dreams.”
I toss her clothes on top of her in bed. “These were cleaned last night for you. Get ready, and I’ll meet you downstairs. We have a long day ahead of us.”
She beams at me again before she offers her thanks, and I give her privacy as I head back downstairs.
I’ve never met someone so cheerful or full of life.
She reminds me of a sunburst, shooting both quips and grins.
Elia spent the last decade of her life in the scorching desert, a feat not even the strongest of my Hunters would attempt, and yet she smiled more in the last day than most people around me have in their entire life. Me included.
She reminds me of my younger self – back when I had less responsibilities or duties.
Back when I was in love.
I shake my head to clear that mindset. It’s been five years, damnit.
I need to move on. Spending this time with Elia might have two purposes – not only can I find the relic the king desperately wants and remain in his good graces, but maybe I can also try and open my heart again.
Maybe this was all meant to be – that she came into my life to help me move on.
I hear Elia coming down the stairs and move to greet her. She’s wearing the same clothing she had on yesterday, the only difference being that it’s clean now.
“Those colors don’t suit you.” The words slip out before I realize I said it aloud and not in my head.
She glares at me, mouth falling open. “Are you kidding me? I didn’t realize I had so many options to choose from!”
She steers clear of me and storms out the door to the waiting carriage. I exhale and pinch the bridge of my nose. Real smooth. I just ruined any progress I had made the previous day.
I follow Elia out but she’s already climbed into the carriage. Ginna is adjusting the horses’ saddle and throws me a questioning look which I ignore.
“Gather the rest of the Hunters and tell them we’re ready to head out.”
Ginna smirks back at me. “Lover’s quarrel already? What did it take, a day?
“Shut up.”
She throws her head back and roars with laughter.
Once Ginna finishes laughing at my expense, her face turns serious.
“Don’t forget this is temporary, Cal.” She pauses to tug on one of the straps before continuing.
“I know you, and once you find that spark, you’ll follow it until you’re the one in flames.
I don’t want this to be another situation like with –”
“I’m fine. There’s no ‘spark’.” I interject. “Now let’s get going, shall we?”
I can tell Ginna wants to say something else, but smartly doesn’t.
I don’t need her reminding me of the shell I once was.
I step into the carriage, taking the empty bench across from Elia.
Her arms are crossed against her chest and she’s back to staring out the window.
There’s movement outside as my Hunters double check the horses and carriages, and within several minutes we’re once again rocking to the carriage moving.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.” I fiddle with my twitching hands in my lap.
Elia turns to face me. “How did you mean it, then?”
I give Elia’s outfit another onceover. It’s a simple cotton tunic and breeches, the color all too similar to the sand and dirt that coated it yesterday. There’s no detail or embroidery to it; the outfit is plain and bare and simple, outwardly the opposite of herself.
“You’re so –” I gesture my hand in the air towards her, trying to land on a word to describe the aura I sense around her.
She raises her eyebrows. “So…what?”
“So happy,” I finish. “Positive. A sunny disposition. I guess I picture you in something that matches that.”
Elia snorts. “I wish you’d seen the rest of my wardrobe at the camp. This is my most stylish one.”
“I’ll have one of the maids bring you new clothing once we arrive.
I didn’t mean to insult. Honestly.” I need her help with this search and offending her on the second day is not going to start this hunt well.
We also started to form a sort of friendship and trust yesterday, and I want to continue to do so.
“I can be persuaded to forgive you with the promise of another bath tonight,” she remarks airily, but I see the corner of her mouth twitch, and I know I’ve already been forgiven.
“You can have a bath every night, especially if you smell this lovely afterwards.” I take an exaggerated sniff of the floral scent I smelled since last night. “Lavender?”
I don’t know who this man is sitting in the carriage with Elia right now. This playful, flirtatious side of myself has long since been buried, but it isn’t as rusty as I would have thought coming to the surface.
The corners of Elia’s mouth start to tug up, despite her trying to maintain her teasing frown. “My favorite scent, in fact.”
She falters, and I can immediately tell when she decides to abandon her ruse of being mad at me. Elia uncrosses her arms and lifts her legs onto the bench next to her, back to the window as if lounging in a daybed.
“There was a lavender field near my family’s farm, and it always smelled so fresh.
Anytime I could, I used to sneak to the field and pick bunches and bunches of lavender to bring home.
I used to stuff it under my mattress and pillow until my parents told me it was a waste.
I thought when I was older I might start my own business, selling lavender products out of the farm.
But then, well…” She gestures her hand around as if to finish her sentence.
“How did you end up at the work camp? And for so long?”
It was the question that has been lingering in my head, and now that she is starting to be comfortable opening up, I jumped at the chance to ask it.
Elia stares at her hands in her lap, fiddling with the bottom fabric of her tunic. I don’t press her, waiting to see if she’ll share her story with me.
“It began with the Golden Hunt,” she sighs, her eyes still fixed on her lap.
“My parents were grain farmers, but they were never satisfied with the life they lived. My dad used to be a sailor for years before he met my mom, and he always talked about the life of adventure and travel he used to have. Then he met my mom, who was a merchant’s daughter.
She also used to move from town to town, selling their different wares.
After they met they continued to travel together, my dad helping out on different crews for short trips and my mom continuing to sell her embroidery and cloth.
Once I was born, they tried to continue their adventures with me, but once I was a toddler it got too hard for them.
Apparently I almost fell overboard and that’s when they bought the grain farm in the middle of nowhere and settled down. ”
Elia peers out the window, eyes glazed as she’s taken back to her past memories.
She continues. “When I was fourteen, the Golden Hunt was announced and my parents became obsessed. They saw it as a way to go back to their old days of traveling, and the value of the reward would allow them the freedom in the future to continue. One day they packed their trunks. Told me that they were leaving me to find the chest. That the treasure would change our life.” She rolls her eyes.
“They left you alone to work the farm?” Fourteen wasn’t so young to not have responsibilities, but operating an entire grain farm by herself would be nearly impossible.
Elia shrugs. “It wasn’t so bad at first. I managed the first harvest without problems. I even started to make some lavender oil, hoping that when my parents came back, I would be able to sell some of my own wares on the road.
But then bills started to arrive. Bills from inns, merchants, and ships, and all these different places my parents must have stopped during their search for the treasure.
I put them aside, assuming that they could all be sorted when my parents came home.
Then collectors started showing up at the farm.
I had to start selling the animals and the tools.
It had been almost a year at that point since my parents had left, and they hadn’t even sent me a letter during the time they were gone.
The only news I heard of them was through the different bills that arrived. ”
Elia pauses. She is anxiously picking at the skin around her nails.
“Eventually, I ran out of money. I thought a work camp might be a good place to earn some quick coin, until I could start up my own business. I left a note for my parents in the knot of the tree on our farm and moved to the desert in the same week.
“The farm kept me very busy, mind you, so I rarely went to town and never heard the news or gossip.
It was only when I arrived at the camp that I started hearing the rumors that people who started the Golden Hunt were missing or dead.
One of my tentmates told me her uncle died in the woods from a wolf attack.
Another one whose father died in a rockslide.
A shipwreck. A bat bite. The list went on and on.
Some even said people were driven mad and turned on themselves, killing others on the hunt so they alone would have the glory when they found the treasure.
“I refused to believe my parents met the same fate, so I stayed at the camp. Waiting.”
The silence is heavy around us. The Golden Hunt was never supposed to escalate the way it did.
“Why did you stay so long, though?”
Elia’s jaw tightens, and I realize it was probably the wrong question to ask.
“After a couple of years, I tried to leave. Turns out, I wasn’t making any money like I thought.
The collectors found out that I went to the camp, and gave the overseer the bills, which had collected years of interest. The overseer said I couldn’t leave until my debt was paid off, and he never told me how much it was or how long that would take.
Without any coin, I knew I wouldn’t even be able to afford to leave the desert or start elsewhere. ”
My mind returns to my brief conversation with the overseer of the camp.
He had mentioned something of a payment to release Elia, but I had wrongly assumed that was for the inconvenience and because he knew I would pay handsomely for her help.
My fingers spasm in my lap. He’d be taken care of later, I’d make sure of it.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Elia, knowing that those words will never be enough.
“I didn’t tell you for your sympathy or pity. It is what it is at this point.”
“I know, but I’m still sorry that happened to you.” I remember how uncomfortable my short stint was in the desert, and can’t fathom living there for that long.
“Elia,” I start, and she pulls her gaze away from the window. I’m rewarded with another glimpse of those remarkable eyes, an entire rainbow existing within them. “I promise that after all this is over, after we find the relic, you’ll be able to start that dream of yours.”
Her lips curved faintly. “Thanks, Callum.”
That was the first time she acknowledged my name, and in that moment I knew I would do anything for her to utter those syllables again. Anything to earn that soft smile.
The carriage rolled on, and we sat peacefully as minutes turned into hours, listening to the wheels methodically pass over the dirt road.
“Six-five, by the way,” I offer, trying to bring some lightheartedness back into the carriage.
“What?”
“You said this morning that there was a six-foot-two blond Hunter in your bedroom. I’m six-five.”
There’s a pause as she eyes me warily, then bursts out laughing. “Every inch counts, I guess.” I see the light in her eyes coming back, and the tension releasing in her shoulders. “You might be alright, Callum.”
The grin that spreads across my face greets me like a lost friend coming home.