Onyx Ridge's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

The foxling followed Onyx to the statue. Its tails brushed the flagstones. Onyx set his good hand under the statue's arm and his bandaged hand on its hip. The stone was cold. It did not move. He knew he could not lift it alone, and he knew Juno would come back before dark to see if he had obeyed her. She came on foot this time. No horse. Her hooves cut the same deep marks in the dirt. She stopped at the edge of the yard and looked at the statue, then at him. "You didn't move it," she said. "I can't. Not alone." She crossed the yard. She put her hands under the base without asking. He took the other side. They lifted together. The statue was heavier than any stone he had carried. Juno bore most of it and did not say so. They shuffled through the studio door sideways. He scraped his knuckles on the frame. She set her end down first and let him ease his end onto the boards. The statue stood in the center of the studio floor, in the last square of window light. Dust hung in the light. The foxling sat in the doorway and watched. Onyx had planned to leave it wrapped until morning. He looked at Juno's face and changed his mind. "Stay a moment," he said. He pulled the canvas off. He had not meant to make a show of it. He did anyway. The cloth slid down the antlers, down the shoulders, down the open hands, and pooled at the hooves. The black stone drank the window light and gave back a soft shine along every edge he had cut. Juno did not move. She looked at the crooked finger a long time. She looked at the collarbone. She looked at the face. "You carved me," she said. "All of me." "Yes." "You spent three days on the finger." "Four." She turned to him. He had been ready for her to be angry, or amused, or kind. She was none of these. She was studying him the way she had studied the statue. "You look at me the way you looked at that face while you cut it," she said. His throat closed. He did not answer. That was answer enough. She was quiet a long moment. Then she reached out and touched the statue's wrist, not his. "This is a debt paid," she said. "Don't mistake it for anything else. Not yet. There are worse things coming up the low road than a hound, and I need your hands steady." She walked to the door. She stopped there. "It's a good likeness," she said. "Bar the door tonight." She left. The foxling stayed. Onyx stood in the studio with the statue and understood two things at once. She had seen him clearly. She had not said no.