Chapter 13

Ari

A nother week had passed before I got a chance to go on a ride with Gem again. She was chatting animatedly about the gladiators’ games, and I didn’t mind the noise.

“Rumor has it that the games master is acquiring giant fire-breathing worms. She’s trying to keep it a secret, but I have my sources, and they report that she’s already had an underground terrarium built for the nasty creatures. Can you imagine the show she’ll put on with them in the arena? I can’t wait to see Falo in it. He’d be perfect to fight monsters like that.”

Her chatting blended with the chirping of birds around us and the rustling of wind in the trees by the forest path we took.

“Oh, it’s hot.” Gem fanned herself with her hand.

It took me a minute to realize she was talking about the weather now and not the fire of the worms or Falo’s exceptional sex appeal.

“You know what? We should go swimming,” she moaned. “We can ride to the waterfall here in the forest or to the lily pond in the palace gardens. You choose.”

“I’m not sure I want to go swimming.” I eased my dress off my shoulders to let the breeze cool my skin. The heat was bearable here in the shade from the trees.

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I have things to do.”

“You always have things to do. But you need to make time to enjoy life. Before you know it, you’ll be a married woman and a queen, running yourself into the ground with work.”

I didn’t really have that much work to do today. I just preferred to have a nice lunch with my parents, then have some quiet time on the patio with Ria, instead of listening to Gem’s idle chatting and nagging for another hour or more while we swam.

Keeping Revlis at a steady pace, I let her walk along the forest path that very few people knew about beside Gem and me. The two of us had traveled here often enough for our horses to become so familiar with the route that they no longer needed our guidance to find the way.

I tipped my head back, letting the sun play with shadows on my face. A bird was singing high in the branches, and I wondered if its song would sound just as lovely everywhere else in Rorrim, specifically in the unknown-to-me place where a former slave lived as a free man now.

I thought about Salas daily. Nightly too, quite often. Sometimes, the thoughts of him hurt, but many were pleasant. I tried to focus on the pleasant ones.

He obviously wasn’t afraid of hard work, and I had no doubt he’d found a decent occupation for those skilled hands of his. I imagined he rented a place to live, like a cute little cottage on a farm or in a forest somewhere, where he would come to after a day of honest work to eat dinner in a cozy living room by the fire.

The only thing I could never bring myself to envision was a woman sharing that dinner with him. I wanted Salas to be happy, and that could include him finding the love of his life, settling down, and starting a family. But I just couldn’t stomach the thought of his hands that had touched me so tenderly on another woman’s body.

In my mind, I often envisioned him wearing the shirt I bought for him at the market, even though I’d never given it to him, of course. It lay folded and wrapped on the bottom of one of the trunks in my dressing room where no maid would ever find it.

I’d bought it on impulse, thinking how perfectly the green and gold embroidery would go with his eyes of many shades of brown. Even as I was paying for the shirt, I knew I’d never give it to him. But I kept it as a memento of him, a souvenir, even though he never wore it.

We’d never see each other again. It was best for both of us. But thinking about the way we parted still filled me with unease and even embarrassment. I hated myself for forcing on him the diamonds he couldn’t even sell without putting his freedom and possibly his life in danger. I wished I would’ve said a proper goodbye instead. I also wished I could take back every single word I’d said to him about my past that night.

However, something good did come out of it. After I'd opened up to Salas, I’d been learning to think about my past without fear. Somehow, spread between two people instead of one, the weight of those memories proved easier to bear now.

“Fine, let’s go back to the palace,” Gem grumped, following me out of the forest and toward the road to the main gate of the city.

“Maybe we can go swimming tomorrow?” I took pity on her. “That way, I’ll have a whole day to prepare myself mentally. You know I’m not very good at being spontaneous.”

“Don’t I know it,” she scoffed, casting her eyes upwards.

We approached a place where the city wall came almost flush with that of the palace grounds. A group of workers were repairing the part where the mortar had crumbled and the massive rocks had fallen out.

“Just look at that asshole.” Gem pointed with her riding crop at the man who was sitting on the ground by the wall, smoking a cigarette.

Realizing we’d spotted him, he jumped to his feet, tossed away the cigarette, then pretended to help two other men to haul a rock up the wall for the masons to mortar it into place.

“Who is that?”

“The slave owner’s helper.” Gem tsked disapprovingly, shaking her head. “He’s the only man in that group who is being paid actual wages, but he’s been slacking behind the owner’s back all along.”

“Are the slaves not done yet?”

“They’re almost done. Leaving by the end of the next week. Just fixing a few things here and there before our contract with their owner runs out.”

The helper and the two other men rolled another huge rock onto the shoulders of a man who’d crouched down. As he straightened, lifting the rock all by himself, thoughts of Salas rushed me again. The man with the rock was of similar height and brawn. He had the same brown shaggy hair, too... and a full beard, just like Salas.

As he rolled the rock onto the wall for the bricklayers, then turned around, all doubts left me. It was Salas.

I gripped my horse’s reins tighter.

“What the hell is he still doing here?”

While I’d been daydreaming about Salas living in a quaint cottage and making friends with cute forest animals, he’d been here all along. He’d never left. The only thing that changed was that he was now hauling rocks instead of bricks.

“Mother assured me his debt was paid in full over a week ago.” I twisted at the waist to face Gem. “Did she lie?”

“Lying is below Queen Anna. The debt has been paid. But you know how it is with some men. They find a way to get in debt again. Once a slave, always a slave, they say.”

My shock was replaced by anger. I dug my heels into Revlis’s sides and flicked the reins to urge the mare to move faster. Startled by the command she rarely received, the horse eventually sped up a little, but it wasn’t fast enough for me.

A short distance from the wall, I slid off from the saddle and proceeded on foot. My anger rose with every step.

He should’ve been free.

I gave him that chance.

Why did he waste it?

“What the fuck are you still doing here?” I yelled, stomping through the tall grass toward Salas.

He wiped sweat off his forehead with his arm and watched me approach, raking his eyes up and down my frame. His long-sleeved shirt was soaked with sweat. His hair and beard were overgrown and disheveled. He panted in the heat after delivering a boulder that should’ve taken at least three people to lift.

His beard moved as I came closer. The bastard was smiling, obviously finding my anger amusing.

“Why are you here?” I demanded, out of breath.

“Where else can I be, Princess?” His deep familiar voice trapped me, extinguishing my anger.

No one called me “princess” to my face but Salas. The way he used that word sounded intimate, like a nickname shared only between him and me. It disarmed me.

I stared at him, drinking in every familiar feature, and fought the strong urge to hug him with all his sweat, grime, and the stone dust.

“Why are you here?” I asked with far less fire than before.

“I work here.” The light in his expression dimmed. “But we’re leaving next week. You won’t have to worry about running into me ever again.”

“Greetings, Your Highness.” One of the masons leaned down from the wall. She was topless, her shirt tied over her head to protect her head and shoulders from the sun. “Is there a problem? Did he do something?”

Gem had caught up with me on foot, holding both our horses’ reins in one hand.

“Ari,” she said in an urgent whisper, “you’re making a scene. And on the verge of your impending marriage, nonetheless.”

If there was anything most scandalous at the royal court, it would be “making a scene.” Goddess forbid the crown princess made a spectacle out of herself in public by getting into a fight with a slave.

I looked up at the mason and forced my lips to curl into a serene smile.

“It’s nothing, good woman. Sorry to disrupt your team’s work. I mistook this slave for someone else.” I glared at Salas and added with emphasis, “I mistook him for a free man.”

SALAS WASN’T FREE. And he wasn’t gone. He didn’t live a happy life somewhere. He still slaved away in the heat all day.

“He is not your responsibility,” Gem said as we rode away from the wall with me seething inside.

Gem was right, Salas shouldn’t be my problem. But somehow, he had become one. I wished him to be happy. Without even knowing all the wrongs he had endured in his life, I wanted to right them all. If I knew for sure that he was free, well, and happy, then maybe I could stop thinking about him all the fucking time.

“I need to know what happened,” I said to Gem. “Why is he still here when he was free to leave days ago? Did he sign another contract with the slave owner?”

“Most likely he did.”

“Why? I need more than just ‘most likely.’”

I needed to know if Salas had been taken advantage of. Had he been coerced into another contract? Blackmailed maybe? It made no sense to me that a man would give away his freedom that easily, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I had the answers.

“Find out, Gem. Everything.”

MY THOUGHTS REMAINED with Salas through the lunch with my parents, then through the entire afternoon and the early evening when I tried to work on a project for the next council meeting.

After dinner, I dug out from the trunk the shirt I’d bought. Then I sat on the floor in my dressing room with the folded shirt on my lap.

To solve a problem, I had to first identify it correctly. The true reason I worried so much about Salas was because I liked him. I had to be honest, at least with myself, about it. I felt a strong attraction for this man.

Some of it was physical. My body tingled with excitement at the phantom memory of his hands on me. But I also admired him as a person.

Also, after spending almost three nights with him, I was still very much a virgin. We had unfinished business, Salas and me. And maybe that was a part of the problem? I hated leaving things unfinished.

Yet sex wasn’t on my mind when I finally climbed to my feet a while later, still clutching the shirt in my hands. I took off my crown, draped a dark cloak over my shoulders, pulled the hood over my head, then stuffed the shirt into a satchel to take it with me.

Knowing that all this time Salas had been just a short walk away from me messed with my head and my feelings. Now, I desperately wished to see him again, which presented a huge problem, and like a coward, I hoped that Salas would solve it for me. I hoped he’d use the common sense that I seemed to have lost and send me away when I showed up at the slaves’ barracks.

He had plenty of reasons to resent me. I’d barged into his life without an invitation. He was literally dragged in chains to my bedroom. I’d used him. And after all that, I did more to him than had been agreed between us. I’d unloaded the grimy sludge of my past on him, then kicked him out with his hands filled with diamonds as a payment for his silence.

He would have every right to laugh in my face when I showed up with my gift at his door. Maybe he did have a temper like they said. Maybe he would yell at me or even slap me for everything I’d done to him. I almost wished he’d slap me. It might be the only thing that would force me to write him off completely and never think about him again other than with disdain. That kind of humiliation would surely be enough to finally get that man out of my fucking mind.

That was how crazy my thoughts had become.

That was how I knew I had to do something about this before I went completely insane and did something even more unhinged.

I had to resolve this before the council approved Mother’s plans for the foreign princes’ arrivals. My virginal groom hopefuls would show up in Rorrim soon, with their judgmental handlers in tow. With all of them at the Egami Palace, I needed a clear head and a focused mind. I couldn’t possibly keep obsessing over another man while officially courting my future husband.

I couldn’t risk plunging the Crown of Rorrim into a scandal it had never faced before.