tell me that i'm cutthroat
I am Orestes, Prince of the Sun,” he says.Vendetta stands at the fore of the crowd with her skirt and her roses and her horns like blood. They have all seen too much blood, Solterra has bathed in it, and she is bright and hot with it. This man has turned one of their fallen into a centerpiece, into a marker, a reminder. There could be a soul yet within that stone. And it sickens her, to see him poised there, as if he ought to be part of one of their fountains.
The stories, of the trapped ones, had spread quickly once they had been freed. And even if there are no remnants of the horse left in that shell of stone, turning what is left of what had once been his mortal body to the afterlife is the least this Prince of the Sun could do for the stallion the rock had been.
The unicorn does not place much faith in Solis, but she knows that the pyres are a big part of Solterran culture. And whoever that stallion was, he has been robbed of his final resting ceremony.
He talks a lot, this Orestes. But Vendetta does not care much for his words nor his promises. Words can be lied, and promises broken. Raum had spoken a lot too, but it had been his actions that had truly spoken for him. In her eyes, sharp and bright like rubies, Vendetta knows that it will be this man’s actions that will speak for him too, in time.
All things in time.
He puts on a very good show, with his gleaming markings, or tattoos, that swirl up his legs and curl over the bones of his face. He looks like he could be from the desert but he does not look Solterran, and the sun and the aridness have yet to dig themselves into his skin like a perfume. He is an outsider, and an imposter on these sand-filled streets.
He says he will go first into every fray, but Solterra has seen enough frays. What she wants to know is what he will do to keep them from burning, again. To keep them from seeing blood spilled on their streets, again. She does not want him to go first into the fray and wear his scars proudly on his front. What Vendetta wants from him is to stop the hurting and prevent the suffering. She has had enough of it to last a lifetime—a godly one, an immortal one, let alone the short one she is allowed on this earth.
Vendetta is glad that Raum is gone. Like many of the bastard snakes she has disposed of, he deserved little else. But, that does not mean that the unicorn is convinced that this Orestes, self-proclaimed ‘Prince of the Sun’, is the rightful sovereign for Solterra.
Only time will tell, after all.
