Beautiful Cries

Chapter Fifteen: Bitter Hearts

Poseidon opened his kith to speak, but she stopped him again. "I think my heart is too far gone to ever bring back, but I beg you, do not lose the trust that our children have in you. Because when you finally lose their trust, I am afraid you will have none left."

Tapping her hand against the roof to signal the driver, the Queen paused to let the carriage slow its galloping to a canter before opening the door and stepping out into the bustling village.

"Our children are all you have left," Amphitrite stated with the dignity that only a royal herself could maintain, avoiding Poseidon's mad dash for her arm as she stepped farther into the moving crowd around her, "you lost me a long time ago, Poseidon, and I lost you. I accepted that, but please, love our children with all the love you never gave me. Please, if you ever loved me, just do this one thing, for me."

Her words were like a slap to the face while the unrestrained tears pouring down her cheeks were another indication of his failure as a husband, it killed him to see her eyes so full of pain.. pain that he had caused.

"Love, please," he begged, reaching his hand out in a last attempt to keep her close, anything to keep his wife with him, "get back inside the carriage. I promise I'll change, I promise. Please, don't leave me."

Amphitrite had turned her back to his hand, but at his request, she spun around like she had the hounds of hell on her heels.

"I can't!" she screamed in agony, all her rage breaking through her like water through an open dam. "I have tried and tried again to forgive you, but you turn back to your old ways the second I'm not looking! I am done with being used! I am done being the Queen who encounters shaking heads of pity because her husband is out with a different woman every night! I am done with this life and I am done with you!"

The pins from her darkened locks had fallen out as she had screamed in her fury, the long length falling down to her waist and her cheeks flushing pink as she tried to walk backwards, stumbling away from the defeated figure of her husband.

"Amphitrite!" he called out to her in desperation. "You can't walk away from me like this, you'll come back! You always do!"

Bystanders on the street turned their heads to watch him in curiosity, but his eyes were only for his wife who continued to disappear in the developing masses.

Her movements turned into ones of desperation and she looked back one final time before she darted around a corner. "Not this time, Poseidon. No more will I be seen as the weak one, I will be strong as I should have been a long time ago. And as I see it, you won't be losing anything. You can't lose what you have already lost."

With her lace gown flowing and her hair as well as her crown flying in the air as she ran, Queen Amphitrite fled the town, running as fast and as far as her weary feet would take her.

Leaving behind nothing more than her gold, pearl encrusted comb that sat in the shifting sand near the feet of the defeated king.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Mount of Palamör raised itself high above the deep waters of the Aegean Sea as its blue landscape stretched for miles wide, the black caps sitting high atop the Mount's tip reminding Alena of the mountains that sat far above the surface, reaching high up into the clouds.

It had been a few hours since she and Damari had escaped the King, but her mind still wandered to the safety and well being of the Queen along with Rhode, Bea and Triton.