Chapter 1:Tropical memories
Sixteen-year-old Caitlyn Tan had come to the Malaysian Highlands Summit with a list of instructions from her father and a plan of her own.
The instructions had been delivered at Changi Airport, between two phone calls, in the tone he used for everything: "Don't embarrass us. Be polite, be present, and spend time with the right people. These connections will matter in ten years."
Her plan was to bring four textbooks.
It was the late summer of 2009, and the colonial-era estate in the Malaysian highlands smelled of crushed eucalyptus and wet slate. Over a hundred teenagers had been flown in for the Youth Global Leadership Summit: the children of business magnates, oil families, and political dynasties, all wearing the same lanyards and pretending the week was about the environment, when everyone knew it was about who stood next to whom in the group photo.
Caitlyn avoided the photo. On the first evening she sat on a mossy stone terrace with an advanced cell biology textbook, highlighting metabolic pathways in aggressive yellow and trying very hard not to hear the laughter on the lawn. The right people were down there. She was up here with the mitochondria. She considered this a reasonable compromise.
Then she looked down, just once.
Everyone had been whispering about the Crown Prince of Sahra since the opening dinner, but he wasn't loud like the boys from London and New York. He stood in the middle of a circle of admirers and mostly listened, tall and a little rangy, like someone whose body hadn't finished catching up with his shoulders. When his friend Adrian, all golden hair and French charm, launched into some outrageous story, Zayn just smiled with one dimple, as if he'd heard it before and liked it anyway.
An unnecessary variable, Caitlyn decided, and returned to the mitochondria.
She read the same paragraph four times.
The next morning the fog was so thick the pavilion looked like it was floating. The students gathered for team assignments for the three-day wilderness trek, drawn by lot to force them to mix.
"Group Four," the instructor called. "Zayn bin Khalid Al-Rashid. Caitlyn Tan."
Statistically improbable, Caitlyn thought. Cosmically unfair.
Group Four assembled at the trailhead: Caitlyn, the prince, Adrian, and two quiet boys from Seoul who had clearly drawn the short straw on being stuck with royalty.
"Medical officer," the instructor said, pointing at Caitlyn, because her first-aid certifications were on her form. Her father had insisted she collect them the way other fathers insisted on piano lessons.
"Team leader," he said next, and the vote was unanimous before Zayn could open his mouth.
"I didn't volunteer," Zayn said, with a look of honest dismay.
"That's exactly why," said Adrian, and thumped him on the back.
Zayn caught Caitlyn watching, and she looked away too fast.
By the second day she had learned three things about him. First, he said please to the trail guides and thank you to the cook, and he meant it. Second, he refused to let anyone else carry the heavy tent poles. Third, he was limping.
He thought he was hiding it.
"Sit," Caitlyn said at the midday break, pointing at a log.
"I'm fine."
"You've been landing on your left heel for six hours. Sit. I'm the medical officer. It's the only power I have, so please let me enjoy it."
He sat. He took off his boot like a man being asked to surrender a sword. The blister was the size of a coin, red and angry.
"This is ridiculous," Caitlyn said, digging out the kit. "You could have just said something."
"The others have the same boots."
"The others aren't carrying the tent poles."
"Somebody has to."
"Somebody has three other teammates." She pressed a dressing on, perhaps harder than necessary. "Does everyone just let you do the hard thing? Is that how royalty works? You stand there looking noble until people feel guilty?"
There was a short silence. Then Zayn laughed, a real, surprised laugh that cracked down the middle.
"That's usually how it works, yes," he said. "Nobody has ever called it out before."
"Well." Caitlyn's ears went hot. She had meant it as a criticism. It had come out sounding like a challenge. "I'm sure that's very restful for you. Hold still."
He held still, grinning at the treetops, and she told herself the flush on her neck was from the humidity.
That afternoon he unrolled the topographical map across a boulder and traced the ridge route with one finger. Caitlyn leaned in beside him, a little closer than the map strictly required.
"The contour spacing is misleading," she said. "The undergrowth in that ravine will be much denser than it looks. We'd lose at least forty-five minutes."
She had practiced that sentence in her head while he was talking. It sounded very calm. She was proud of it.
"You've been thinking about that for a while, haven't you?" Zayn said.
"What? No."
"You said it very smoothly."
"I speak smoothly. It's a skill."
"Of course." The dimple appeared. "It's a good point, though. The riverbed to the west is longer, but the gravel's stable. Nobody twists an ankle." He glanced at her, and she noticed, annoyed, that his eyes had gold flecks near the iris, the kind you'd only see if you weren't supposed to be looking. "I'd like to hear if you disagree."
It would have been easier if he'd given an order. She knew what to do with orders. She did not know what to do with a boy who waited for her answer as if it were worth something.
"The riverbed is a better choice," she said. "I'd have said so sooner, but I was enjoying being right about the ridge."
"You were very right about the ridge," said Zayn solemnly.
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, and lost.
At four, the sky turned the color of a bruise.
The rain didn't start gently. It slammed into the canopy like a thrown bucket, and within minutes the trail had become a slide of red clay and wet limestone. Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the ridge. The group slowed to a crawl.
"Small steps!" Zayn shouted back from a rock above. "Don't trust the red clay!"
Caitlyn edged along a narrow ledge above a rushing creek, her medical pack dragging at her shoulders. She tested the ground with every step, the way she tested everything. Be careful. Be prepared. Never be the one who fails.
She put her left boot on what looked like solid limestone.
It wasn't.
The ground simply went. There was no time to scream, only a sharp, ugly gasp as her feet shot out and the ravine tilted up to meet her. Eight feet of jagged rock. Her hands clawed at nothing.
A hand closed around her wrist.
It was hard, warm, and absolutely certain. In one pull Zayn yanked her back onto the trail, and the momentum slammed her into his chest. His back hit the muddy bank, and his arms locked around her as they both went down in a heap.
For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. The rain hammered down. Caitlyn could hear her own pulse, and under it, against her ear, his.
"I've got you," Zayn said. His voice was not calm at all. It shook. "I've got you. Are you hurt?"
"No," she managed. "I... no. You caught me."
"Good." He let out a breath that was half a laugh. "Good. Because I think I just aged ten years."
It was such a human thing to say that she nearly laughed too. She lifted her head. His face was very close, his lashes wet, his expression so openly frightened that something in her chest rearranged itself.
"You're shaking," she said.
"So are you."
She was. She hadn't noticed.
He raised one hand slowly, as if asking permission, and brushed a smear of rain from her cheek with his thumb. It was a small gesture, almost clumsy. His eyes dropped to her mouth for half a second, then shot back up, and a flush climbed his cheekbones that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Caitlyn," he said, quieter. "I..."
"Zayn! Caitlyn!" Adrian's voice crashed through the rain, closer than it should have been. "Are you two dead down there?"
Zayn jerked back so fast he nearly slid off the bank. Caitlyn scrambled upright, face blazing, wiping at her sleeves as if the mud were the problem.
"Slipped on the clay!" Zayn called, his voice cracking on the second word. He cleared his throat and tried again, lower. "We're fine! Right behind you!"
Adrian's footsteps retreated, and a dubious "Sure you are" floated back through the downpour.
Zayn held out a hand and pulled her to her feet, then kept hold of her elbow until she was steady. When he finally let go, his fingers brushed hers. Whether by accident or not, she couldn't tell.
"We should get to the campsite," he said, not quite looking at her. "Before it gets worse."
"Agreed," said Caitlyn. It came out almost normal.
She followed him down the trail, one hand pressed to her cheek where his thumb had been.
Her father had told her to spend time with the right people.
He had not mentioned what to do when one of them made her forget how to finish a sentence.
