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I approach slowly, then spread my arms out to him.
“You’re not going to run from me. You’re just going to be alone for a moment.” I reach up to touch his face, but his eyes are downcast. “Look at me.”
Torben’s deep blue-green eyes search me, his face clouded with shame. “You’re not like him, Torben. I simply stepped into something difficult for you to talk about. We’ve been together every second for the last three days, running on very little sleep. It will do us good to take a break for an hour. Besides, you can’t run away from me. Remember what Papaw said? I’m a crackerjack hunter.”
Torben kisses me fiercely on the forehead, then wraps me in a long, spine-cracking bear hug I could get lost in for a week.
“Closer to two days,” he laughs.
He may seem off. But this is not the hug you get when someone is about to skip town. I know that much.
28
Hailey
I run into Flora as I’m headed back to the palace. The girl nearly plows over me as she speeds around a blind corner on the south terrace, where I’ve been lost in thought inside the aviary for some time.
“Oh! Sorry!”
She latches on to both my arms to steady herself, terribly out of breath.
“No worries,” I say, tilting my head at her. “Were you running a 5K?”
Flora titters. “Not exactly. I guess you could say I take after my brother Sig. The woods energizes me, one might say. Where’s Torben?” Her dancing eyes glance around the terrace, and a quizzical look comes over her face.
My gut clenches because I don’t know his whereabouts, only that he’s taking a moment to himself. “I think he’s in his room.”
Flora studies me for a moment. “What happened, dear? You look troubled.”
“I don’t hide it well, do I?”
Her lovely smile falters a bit. “Oh, dear. Is that idiot getting cold feet? I’ll throttle him if he’s broken it off.”
Horrified at the suggestion, I quickly reply, “Oh, no, It’s not that. I stepped into something he didn’t want to discuss, sending him into an emotional spiral. I’m giving him some space.”
Flora looks thoughtful for several seconds, then her shoulders sag. “Oh no. It’s about Kala, isn’t it?”
I inhale a shuddering breath. “Yes, and I’m worried that whatever they used to mean to each other is creeping back up.”
The youthful, animated Flora practically leaps at me, wrapping me up in an unexpected hug. “Oh, my dear Hailey, you must never tell yourself these stories. Torben is madly, madly in love with you. I can see it in the way he looks at you. I will not allow this romance to wither away. Let me assuage your fears by telling you why Kala’s presence has him in knots.”
“Please do, your highness. And leave nothing out.” I am obsessed with the flowery way she talks, and I’d love nothing more than to hear her tell me a story right now, even if it’s not a great one.
Princess Flora releases me from her python embrace and hooks my arm in hers. “Sister, let’s go to the kitchen. It’s tea time.”
* * *
The tea is piping hot and made from local herbs and dried wildflowers. The kitchen staff serves us on a minuscule porch of crumbling stones off the main kitchen in a far-flung corner of the palace that I’m guessing the public never sees.
But the delicious tea is not half as wild as the story Flora tells me.
She’s too young to remember, but when Torben was around seven years old, he and Kala became friends, both receiving lessons from the same private tutors. Kala happened to be the daughter of the country’s largest beer maker, and when the king caught wind that the beer man had a daughter the same age as the prince, he saw dollar signs.
Flora tells the story in hushed tones. “Father thought he could somehow benefit by arranging for his son to marry Kala. Father would give a major producer more land to grow his hops; the beer man would cut the family in on more profits, while his daughter would get a title and own land. Win-win, right?
“Well, Torben had no idea about any of it until his 18th birthday. I believe I was 11 at the time. After we cut the cake, Kala showed up to the party dressed to the nines, wearing one of the official engagement rings of the palace.”
I nearly choke on pastry. “What in the world.”
