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 changeour 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?”
