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Chapter One

We are well aware by now…

Only immortal fools

Believe that seconds do not account

to days,

decades.

To eons.

A black hellebore stroked my stitched hand where I had rested it upon the arm of my copper throne. Hellebores were a cure of ancient insanity, and so I had a dire need of its stroking aid this night.

“I lament, I despair,” choked King Raise. He thudded to his knees before his princess. “I curl into a ball without you to greet my senses in my kingdom.”

She was occupied with distraught and gulping sobs.

Such was love.

Or the Raises’ version of love. They did not—how should I phrase it— raise my hopes on matters of the heart.

My lips curved. Small wordplays must be enjoyed in immortality.

Princess Raise, quite fittingly, did not have a face, but the flood of salted water pouring off her chin region informed me of her tears. From whence they came was a mystery, but the princess could surely look, hear, taste, and sense in utterness despite her facelessness.

“M-my l-love.” She managed. “I-I cannot s-sign the amendment.” A high keening overtook her attempts to talk.

Princess Raise and I had struck a deal that she would help me in queendom if I could mend the broken love of her marriage. When I had made King Raise an offer to help resolve issues with his princess, I had envisioned a simple mediation that covered a secret motivation to figure out exactly how their union was warped. Two meetings had yielded naught on such figuring, and the first meeting had shown me that these mediations would really be a kind of conversational carousel.

The carousel went thus: I cannot sign the amendment. You must, my love, or I will lock you away. I cannot be locked away. I do not want to lock you away. Then do not! Then sign.

I cannot sign the amendment. You must, my love, or I will lock you away. I cannot be locked away. I do not want to lock you away. Then do not! Then sign.

And so forth, round and round the conversational carousel—sometimes with poetic sorrow and wracking sobs thrown in too.

Then, sometimes, I ventured to say, “Why not do away with the amendment entirely?”

I had not intended to speak aloud.

The Raises faced me, and their eerie blankness was a wonder to behold, for how perfect that creatures who never wished to give away any flicker and hint in negotiations should not have any features to speak of.

“There must be an amendment,” they snapped together.

Then the king, “And she must sign!”

Princess Raise clutched at the brim of her fedora hat, dragging down the sides. “I cannot sign the amendment, Queen Perantiqua.”

“You must, my love, or I will lock you away,” King Raise whispered.

They took up their mounts on the carousel again, and the hellebore quickened its stroking on my hand. Another hellebore rustled closer to lend its help.

I had endured enough for the night. This mediation must end, and though infant in queendom, I had risen in the cunning of how to end sobbing affairs.

Just on prearranged time, footsteps sounded outside the closed double doors of the throne room. Some feet struck the ground in a lumbering way that spoke of their great height. Other feet padded and were not feet at all, but paws. There were squelches of slime, and also the distinct grating of spears dragging on cobblestones—though the footsteps of those holding the spears were ever silent.

Relief was here.

“Until next week,” I declared. “My pawns have arrived for our dusk ritual.”

The Raises chose not to hear me and continued on in their lamenting despair. They had attempted to ignore me last week too.

I glanced at the walls. “Mother, if you please.”

The Raises heard that.

Too late was their scramble for the door, however. Mother yawned them away through the stone floor of my throne room, and Princess Raise’s shriek cut off as though snipped in two with scissors.

Problem solved.

I imagined that Mother might deposit them out in the courtyard, but I could not say so with certainty.

“Thank you, Mother.” I winked, and the chiaroscuro tapestries hanging on every which wall rattled in her reply.

Perhaps I could allow myself one dusk minute of peace before allowing pawns to enter. I took a deep breath and held it. My throne room was exquisitely simple in design with a copper throne set atop a low platform, and able to be accessed by three shallow steps on all sides. Hellebores sprawled and climbed to soften the regal stateliness of the throne, but otherwise, cold stone extended to the many corners of the chamber. I was lucky enough that darkness and shadow had made its home in the chilling chamber with the accentuating help of flickering candlelight from their holders in the floor-standing candelabras. I supposed that the carved details in the ceilings and doorways lessened the coldness somewhat, but all in all, my throne room was a place for ancient happenings, whether ponderings or orders. I did so love when the look of a place or person reflected its purpose.

Oof— I released my held breath.

“Enter, dear pawns,” I called.

The double doors creaked open in obedience to my call. Perhaps Mother operated the queendom for me, or perhaps the queendom was me. I had not deciphered this. But framed in the open doors was a skeleton of pawns—so I had recently learned pawns were collectively termed.

The skeleton was made up of groups of three, and while the fifteen pawns stood together, they also lurked very obviously in their trios. Twelve hundred years had seen them pitted against each other, and until me, there had never been a question that each trio would obey the separate and colliding orders of their various kings.

“Good evening, my queen,” said Deliver, bowing grandly in a way that displayed the lovely hairlessness of his gray and waxy head. The rest of his body was the same—all that I could see of it.

Though my three stairway pawns were not identical, his brothers shared the gray, waxy, and hairless appearance of Deliver. Seal was shorter than the others, who were shorter than most of the other pawns present, and Sign had a third arm out of his back. Those differences aside, they were brother monsters indeed.

“Good evening to you all,” I replied. “Sign, I am glad to see the rips either side of your mouth have healed.”

He used all three of his hands to feel the area. “Thank you, my queen. My stress is under control. For a while there…”

The stairway pawn of King Raise did not need to finish, for only two weeks had passed since a queen secured four bridal gifts that then granted her power over princesses. Not the same as her power over pawns, of course. Pawns were filled with my will, and their role in my queendom did not require any understanding of my actions and thoughts.

Princesses were another matter.

“For a while there,” I repeated, then roamed my gaze over the others.

My werebeasts liked to sulk through dusk. I had demanded that they sleep each day in my queendom as tithe for their choice between obeying my orders or their kings’. They could sulk about the tithe just as long as they upheld the other part of our agreement.

I checked them for signs of injury from their king, and though a great deal of mange covered their beastly forms, I could not detect any new physical wounds.

Of inner wounds, they were a pulpy mess.

I inhaled very quietly against an influx of rage, then forced myself to move on.

Beside the werebeasts slimed my bringing pawns. Their placement beside each other was uncoincidental. Though their kings sat on opposite sides of the world’s fate, one ruining and one saving, both of their kings would like to see me crawling and begging and without power. I had made a great deal of kingly enemies of late, and the subconscious way one set of pawns stood next to another set spoke of this.

“Vassal, that noise is monstrous,” I told the taking pawn. “I applaud your symphony.”

My most sheepish pawn ducked his head, and paused in the act of scratching his spear over the stones. “I am honored, my queen. The sound makes me feel every bone in my face, you see.”

I nodded. “That was how I felt.”

His brothers seemed annoyed that they had already discontinued their own scratching to slot their spears into the sheaths over their backs. The fanged monsters of King Take were fierce indeed with their weapons of choice—whether fang or spear. I had seen them in action, eyes blackened and lips drawn back to naught.

There only remained my seeing pawns to greet. I had known them longest of all pawns, as they were the princes that I knew first in monsterdom. They had been my friends, and then the monsters I least wished to see. Though I would never voice such a thing aloud, especially to Toil, Hex, and Sigil who tended toward jealousy. There was an extra fondness and warmth for my seeing pawns due to my fondness and warmth of their liege.

King See.

He who would prefer that fondness nor warmth never existed between us. Though he did want us to be everything for each other in immortality. But before that could happen, he must… shatter my heart.

As ancient as I was, that series of connections eluded me.

I dipped my head at my seeing pawns, and they bowed back. While their—dare I say it— normal eyes—lowered to look at the stone floor, their seeing eyes always stared in the same direction without blinking. Will Be’s seeing eye stared straight ahead to the future, while Has Been’s eye stared out the back of his head to the past, and then Is had an eye above each ear that stared always at the present moment.

“Are there any reports this dusk,” I asked after, feeling how the tension drained from my shoulders. Here was a predictable part of the day, and one not infused with tragic romance. How the Raises swayed always at such towering emotional heights was commendable.

Sanguine, ever reserved, spoke in his unhurried but succinct way. “Our liege grows impatient to hear your purpose first.”

Purpose, purpose, purpose.

There was a humming in the walls after Sanguine’s question, and I paused at the vibrating sound, which was so like a person’s voice muffled against a mattress, or heard through thick walls. Mother did not tend to speak through this side of the grave. The hum faded away, and no other noise came.

Curious.

I answered Sanguine, “I have no purpose yet. Your liege might feel as impatient as he likes.”

King Take was not in my good books after sending his sixth to war against me. I had been more surprised than anyone when his princess nuzzled my crotch, but I had not sent my sixth against him in response, had I?

Though my sixth of humans were confused and unsure of themselves, really. Their number also did not equal the sixths of kings. But the whole thing made me wish to stomp my foot, and I did not wish to give in to new petulant urges!

Gangrel strode forward to pass me a letter. “Our liege takes this opportunity to continue negotiations with you pertaining to the slight against his princess.”

Is that what we were calling the crotch nuzzling?

Conniving Queen

Your counteroffer of providing my own princes to me for the space of one week is rejected.

If you will not provide your broken heart to me on a platter, then I suggest this as retribution for leading my princess into desire.

Pass over your queendom to me.

Ever thirst for Thirst itself

King Take.

He did not ask for much. Still, he was moving in a positive direction, and I could not deny my ability to connive—nor to lie and thieve. Though these vices were balanced by some great and kind qualities in me too.

Gangrel bowed. “My liege wished to remind you that he will war against you if negotiations are not fruitful.”

I folded the letter. “I am reminded. Anyone else?”

Sigil squelched forward. “My queen, our liege plots and plans against you. He is not himself. We worry for you greatly, while also finding it hard to resist offering encouragement to keep him in good saving spirit.”

I smiled. “I appreciate your wet worry in whatever amount you can give it. Do you expect that you would warn me of impending doom from King Bring?”

Slime sprayed over stone as Toil and Hex blanched with their blobbing brother.

“Oh yes, my queen,” Sigil exclaimed. “Most certainly. You are assured. How could you doubt us so?”

Because they were encouraging their liege in his plots and plans against me. But ultimately, I knew they could not move against me. My will was greater than a king’s. Yet for me, they were pawns, and for their kings, they were princes. Compromise must be wielded too. “Feel less torn on this affair, honored bringing pawns, if you please. I believe in you all.”

Embarrassment was one of their wettest and most enjoyable noises.

Sigil stretched his blobs taller so I could read the letter stuck to his slime.

The ink was blotchy and jagged, as if this king had both cried and tried to murder the paper while penning his message.

Traitorous Queen

You are served with your last chance. What we share might never be as it could have.

You might have saved beside me, as my swinging princess, but you have turned to ruin in the matter of us.

There is still somewhat to salvage if you can cease in foolishness.

Come to my kingdom a prisoness. Come to me in shackles. Exist this way, a maiden of my whims and pleasures, until I am convinced of your regrets and sorrows.

Only in this way, might we go forth in peace.

Otherwise… otherwise…

Words and Actions Mighty,

King Bring

Goodness, from concubine to prisoness. A maiden of my whims and pleasures. In shackles, no less. Gone was his fantasies that I might swing in his kitchen in a pretty dress. How this king bounced around, but he was a large problem, one of my largest. He fervently believed, even more than King Change, that I must be extinguished or controlled and used. Things with King Bring were sour enough to make one pucker.

“Is there anything else to report?” I scanned the pawns.

My seeing pawns appeared contemplative, but they did not present a letter. Which did irk, as the only kingly letter I wished for was from their liege.

My stairway pawns had nothing to report as their king and princess had just been yawned away by Mother.

But my werebeasts were too silent for my liking.

I tilted my head. “There was an assassination attempt from King Change last night.”

Unguis and Loup whined, hanging their heads to the ground. Huckery returned my stare, and that was a feat in itself, for I was an ancient queen, and he was but a pawn.

“But you knew this.” My voice had gained somewhat of a depth and menace. I felt no true ire, really, or my voice would be rather different.

“We knew,” Huckery answered. While no other pawns could understand the werebeasts in their true forms, they must have gauged Huckery’s answered from his tone.

Toil gasped soggily.

Defiance. And yet not all pawnly matters were simple. “You did not seek to warn me of impending doom.”

“A monster who has a gateman need not worry about assassins” was Huckery’s answer.

I considered that.

My werebeasts agreed with their liege’s ideals of ruin. King Change upheld the beliefs of convention—where a monster was indeed a monster and an evil and wicked thing. King Change would like nothing more than to drill into the world and fill the hole with explosives to rid the world of monsters at the cost of all living creatures, monsters included.

He had carved that ruining ideal into his princes, and as my pawns, they still clung to the teachings drummed into their beings.

Yet Huckery had not warned me because I required no warning, being in possession of a gateman. Such defiant, dismissive utterings from other pawns might have filled me with a small fury, but emotional and turmoiled complexities must be given space in my werebeasts.

“I do have a gateman,” I answered.

“What is the price of our silence?” he demanded.

And I heard the yearning in his voice that could only revolt a person who loved themselves. This pawn yearned for punishment. He had been taught to expect hurt as a natural, routine event. He felt some relief in maltreatment because abuse made his outsides feel like his insides. There was a balancing sense in that state that he chased, along with his brother werebeasts. While they were the fastest of all my pawns, they would never catch what they did not realize that they hunted. Inner peace.

Only through changing the alignment of their insides could I alter their yearnings for punishment.

I had demanded tithes from them recently to satisfy this yearning, but there was a need to challenge them too. “Maybe I am not in the mood for prices tonight.”

Unguis’s tongue lolled. “No prith?”

Huckery and Loup froze.

I hummed. “Perhaps not. Perhaps that is the price.”

“That is no price at all,” Huckery sneered. “A trick.”

Twelve pawns turned their hisses, glares and rumbles on him.

I smiled. “Are you not very uncomfortable? Do you expect to feel good about the tithes demanded? I expect this is the perfect price for what you have done, and not done.”

Loup sat back on his haunches, but Huckery’s yellowed gaze gained the calculation that I deeply respected. He was the most discerning of all my pawns, a near prince among them, as Princess Raise was a near king among princesses.

“I am very uncomfortable,” said Unguis.

Loup swung his great beastly head to look at his brother. “As am I. More uncomfortable than I have felt with this queen’s other punishments.”

Huckery watched me closely. He saw, but did not quite see, what I had done.

I had not given punishment for their silence, and that was the punishment. I had rubbed at their wounds, as he had once described my efforts to treat them well. How delightful that a simple change of phrase had altered his perception of me offering no punishment at all.

“This is the punishment I have chosen for your silence of the assassination attempt against your queen,” I declared, then said to all, “Now to your nightly tasks. You will deliver five letters for me.”

Fifteen groans.

Has Been muttered, “Not another royal dinner affair.”

I smirked, feeling the torsion of my stitched lips. “No, not another of those. They are letters to princesses.”

Toil’s eyes rolled up into his blob, then reappeared. “My princess is upstairs.”

“As is ours,” said Sign, tipping his head as if listening. “In your personal lounge.”

I rose. “Then you shall not need to venture far. Deliver your letters. They are a summons for princesses to attend a queen.”

A representative from each king approached to take their letter. Unguis padded over, and I set the letter between his fangs.

“You can summon our princess with a stitch,” Huckery muttered. “Why not do that?”

Now I had the bridal gifts of princesses, yes, I could do that. “Because I will give a monster respect while I receive it, and while I am not maddened with obsession—no matter that she is a princess of ruin—I will not tug her here and there. She shall receive a letter like others.”

“Our liege will wish to know if you intend to keep her a week.”

“Yes,” I answered. “I intend to make good on my demand of retribution for your king’s attack. Princess Change will remain in my queendom for one week from the time of her arrival.”

I might only have one chance to learn the rhyme and reason of King Change. I must do so before he fathomed how I had wormed the same information from other princesses. I could not say when I may need to wage war and reveal my knowledge, and so further delays were too risky.

Gangrel cleared his throat, having tucked the letter inside his billowing tunic. “My queen, our princess is as moonlight, pure and impossible in her fanged delightfulness, but she… uh, she… will resist.”

“I imagine. Can three pawns motivate a princess?”

The three taking pawns chimed, “No.”

The princess was likely embarrassed to be in my company after crotch nuzzling, but she also had trust issues to navigate with her king. When Princess Bring had slimed Princess Take to my queendom wall, I had learned King Take’s rhyme and reason. I knew how seriously his princess viewed the matter of trust, and why she had to.

I withheld a sigh. “You might assure the princess that all princesses will be in attendance. She would be foolish to remain apart from such a visit that could provide her king with information.”

King Take could not resist that temptation.

I added, “You might inform Princess Take that if I must send a stitch to tug her here, then her king might be driven a step more toward ruin. She cannot risk that.”

The taking pawns bowed in unison.

The stairway pawns did the same. As did my bringing pawns.

Werebeasts did not deign to bow to me over an extended foreleg, but they departed with the others to deliver their letters.

My seeing pawns were confused.

“My queen,” said Is. “Our liege has no princess. Who shall we deliver this letter to?”

“Your letter is not intended for a princess.”

And here was the conundrum. Here was the predicament.

King See did not have a princess. There had never been a witness to the rhyme and reason of the king who saw past, present, and future. His war thinkings and habits were infuriatingly out of reach. In addition, this king saw a lot of me, so soon he would connect what I wished to extract from his thin, cruel lips.

Once he guessed, he would undoubtedly use the knowledge to better break my heart.

I said, “You will deliver your liege with my letter of demand.”

Princess Raise had helped me to craft together the legal document.

“Demand,” echoed Will Be, and in his chalky features, I could detect awe of my daring. To them, and to most pawns and princesses and kings, King See was fearsome indeed.

“Of demand,” I replied. “Your king owes me three lessons in war. I have come to collect.”