So he had no foothold to understanding what she was feeling.
Which meant his only recourse was to return the favor shewas extending to him.
Hold her close and keep her firmly tethered to the beliefthat there was good in this world, and he was giving it to her.
In the midst of this, he’d received his summons from hisking and had to leave her.
It was a summons from a king, he could not say no.
It also expressly asked he come alone.
As such, he was frustrated.
That frustration dissipated when he arrived at their suiteto see True, Farah, Cora and Circe were not there, but a redheaded womanwearing an attractive, but very strange garment was with his king and the rulerofKorwahk.
She studied him, thoroughly, and then smiled a small smilethat was both spectacular and terrifying.
“Lore, we need you to sit down,” Tor said quietly.
“Satrineis—” he began.
“Please sit down,” Tor said, still quietly, but now firmly.
It was then, Loren took full note of the look on his king’sface.
And he sat down.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Everything Turned Good
Satrine
Friday Morning
Idina tucked a curl more firmly into thefluffy chignon she’d crafted at the nape of my neck.It had escaped after she’ddressed me.
But with that curl tucked away, I was now ready to face theday.
And I was petrified.
It was a natural build up to the terror I’d beenexperiencing more and more each day as Dad-not-Dad’s trial got closer.
It was also more.
A ton more.
I had spent the last weeks preparing for the biggest projectI’d ever present.
A presentation that would last the rest of my life.
I’d read snippets to long passages of everything I could getmy hands on, history, fiction, poetry, to give me a greater sense of this worldI lived in.I’d also made a catalogue of which of those to return to when I hadtime for more study.
I read the papers from masthead to obituaries to understandwhat the people of this world found important.Although I skimmed the articlessimply to get a sense of the news, I turned my focus to the things I hopedreally mattered in the day to day.I picked apart the advertisements.I taughtmyself the scoring for the games.That being, after I taught myself what thegames actually were.
I especially combed the society pages and memorized names,titles, who was married to whom, and any tidbit I could consume to assist Momand me not to put our foot in it when the time came, we met people she wassupposed to know.
But now, I’d done what I’d done with our darling Carling andBeacher and lost it in front of kings and queens, and in doing so, I didn’tguard my words (I mean, I’d called him a badass,in front of kings andqueens).
