He shoved my face back where it was and stated inflexibly, “I’ll not hear talk of this again. I don’t need it, Satrine. Do not let it upset you.”
And there it was again, all of it, falling into place as if it was meant to.
But he didn’t get it!
And it was his to have.
But he never would.
I reared in his arms with my emotion, and he held on.
In the end, I cried myself out, and it was so mammoth, I was a ragdoll after it was over.
Never fear, my man was a god and he picked me up and put me to bed.
He held me there too, and muttered irritably, “That man is the foulest in creation, having done this to you. I worried you were handling things too well. You should have let this out sooner, darling.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“It will come to you, and I hope it will be soon, just how safe you are.”
Until Lady Corliss meets a friend she should know well, but she doesn’t.
Or Dad-not-Dad makes his defense, and suggests someone go to Fleuridia and find this cottage we were supposed to have been sequestered in and the couple who brought us provisions, and it wasn’t there, and they don’t exist.
Or a million different threads of the carefully crafted lies Mom and I told started to unravel.
And then, how safe would I be?
We’d have money.
Mom or I would let go of Maxine on our dying breath, so we’d have Maxie.
But there were a million ways to be found out.
And then lose him.
And I couldn’t exist in this world without him.
Hell, I couldn’t exist in my world without him.
But I knew, down in my soul, somewhere along the way, something was going to get fucked up.
I knew down to my soul…
My days were numbered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Spoiled
Satrine
“Darling!”
After shouting his endearment at me, the reins were tugged from my gloved fingers so Loren could right the phaeton I was driving.
I noticed this vaguely, seeing as, following the carriage that held Mom, Maxie and Aunt Mary, I’d taken the turn onto an avenue, and I’d seen it.
And it being all it was, I lost track of what I was doing with the horses.
“Good Gods, it’s amazing,” I whispered.
Mom’s carriage stopped in front of the block-long building.
Loren guided our phaeton behind it and came to a stop too.
I distractedly noted men wearing smart, blue uniforms loping toward us from a small hut erected on the pavement, as I sensed Loren securing the reins then turning to me.
But mostly, through all this, I sat staring.
“It took five years and was brought painstakingly, section by section, by ship and then by land, and reconstructed here. The stone is so heavy, they could only put one piece aboard one vessel at a time, and there are twenty pieces. It was a scandal throughout the realm, not only the cost of that task of bringing it here, but what the taxpayers of Newton had to pay the Dax of Korwahk simply to have it,” he said.
I remained motionless in the carriage, attempting to take in the enormous, exquisitely carved statue of a horse that stood at the front of the long, stately building. He was up on his hind hooves, striking at the air, his mane long and wild, his head proud and fierce, his nostrils flaring, and he had to rise two, maybe even more stories up into the air.
Making him even more magnificent, his hooves looked to be made of real gold, as were his bared teeth, not to mention the tips of his mane and tail, but his eyes could be nothing else but humongous rubies.
There was decorative, but most assuredly tall, stout and dangerous (what with all the spears on top) iron fence surrounding it, as well as a contingent of those men in blue uniform.
My eyes drifted to Loren when he spoke again.
“It’s a statue of their horse god, and I’m told it isn’t even the most superlative of them. That one, apparently, is on the road that leads to their capital city of Korwahn,” Loren went on.
I couldn’t imagine a better one. That was impossible.
Loren wasn’t finished.
“This statue is guarded day and night and thousands of people from all over Hawkvale, Lunwyn and Fleuridia have taken the journey to Newton simply to view it.”
“I can see why,” I replied. “I’ve never seen anything so…so…large. And so beautifully rendered. And so…so…magnificently daunting. I mean, it’s incredible, but it’s also terrifying, like he was a god at one point, and he’s been turned to stone.”
And it was a “he.” They hadn’t left that part out in the rendering.
Loren was smiling. “Most everyone, not Korwahkian, are in concurrence. And the citizens of Newton complain no more, due to the coin spent by visitors in our hotels, shops and restaurants. And now, as you know, Newton’s Museum of Cultures has another feather in their cap, beating out all others in the Northlands to show this exhibit of Firenz tribal history. I’m not sure any museum anywhere has ever had an exhibit this large of anything from Triton. It’s only recently, due to the Mar-el pirates allowing passage after freeing the seas that made it possible.”