17. Axl

I’ve just said ‘good night’ to Georgiana, but I’m still standing outside her door. I don’t know what I expect to happen. I don’t know why I’m standing here, but I feel it’s the right place to be, just in case her door opens again and she needs something. I don’t know what she could need. She knows how to work the room’s computer as it’s a similar system to one that was on the Hio and on the Alliance Force Base.

A passing slave gives me a look. “You know Axl, you shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.” I don’t move.

The slave comes over to stand beside me. He’s an older man and I’ve known him my whole life. “The goddesses have sunburnt you,” he says after a few minutes of silence.

“I know.”

“Are you really going to let your mother and sister dictate when she leaves?”

“It’s up to Madame Georgiana.”

“Yes, they say that, but you know they’re going to make her want to leave. You have to stop their interference.”

“I don’t think Madame Georgiana would listen. She’s very stubborn. She had to see the doctors to convince her that all this was real. I doubt even my mother could break into her psyche. If she wants to stay with me she will stay.”

“Well,” says the older man, “If it were me, I would go to the Grand City Temple and pay homage to the goddess of home. She may have some sympathy. And don’t worry about what the gossip columns say, you will either marry this human to your mother and sister’s dishonor or you will not and it will be forgotten. But pay your dues to the goddesses so that the High Priestess is on your side no matter what happens.”

“As always, you offer the best advice. Walk in the goddesses’ light,” I say in thanks as the slave leaves me outside of Georgiana’s door.

Thirty minutes pass, then an hour. When it sounds like everyone else in the Main House has gone to sleep, I begin to reluctantly walk away. Outside Georgiana’s door, I can see that she is still awake. The yellow light is lit up, but I decide to go to bed myself. I don’t think she’d be impressed if I slept in the corridor. I smile thinking of when she said, ‘I want my husband to adore me.’ I say out loud to the darkness, “And I do adore you.”