Page 12

Chapter Twelve

Obsession was a quaking,

A shaking of Whole.

Madness was a staking,

The unmaking of Soul.

R eining madness to blur at a pace manageable for pawns took every ounce of my willpower.

Growls panted from deep in my chest. I was a rabid creature.

“Slow down, my queen,” shouted Deliver.

An impossibility. Only a speck of me remained. Ancients wrestled with me for control. Soon I would abandon the battle and let age-old icy instinct take the wheel.

Shadowed tree tops of a haunted forest loomed in the dark distance.

King Change.

Saliva—or foam—pooled in my mouth and dribbled from the corners. The thought of rendering him weak with my power rattled in my vice-ridden soul. Not vice. Necessity. Cold survival. Crucial for the world. I felt apart from the whisperings of my soul where I challenged violent and controlling ideals. They grew fainter with each leaping stride as ancients pumped their schemes into my blood like oxygen.

I sucked in a long breath. One hundred smells existed in the breath and one hundred more. “ He sends his human subjects to attack ,” I called on the wind. “ Hold them back .”

My pawns howled and whined behind me as I shoved my heeled boots into the ground and bounded over the shrieking wave of beastly humans, who sprinted and drooled and scratched to intercept me.

They were not to blame for their state. A king controlled them, just as ancients controlled me. We were one and the same.

I leaped high in the sky over rubble and beastly remains. A crater formed upon my powerful landing.

I blurred on without thought to the crawling pace of pawns. Madness had found me truly, and my body heaved, never more entrenched in monsterdom.

When I reached the forest edge, terrible laughter spilled from my lips. At last. I burst into the trees, kept so meticulously uniform by Princess Change. Unnatural. Unworthy of wildness—that is how she viewed this kingdom, or maybe fooled herself into believing.

I did not care. I would burn this incredible forest down to find a king. Then, I would burn down the world.

Everyone and everything.

My rabid grunts filled the unnatural forest.

I pulsed my power forth and opened every sense. A stillness overcame me, nevertheless as mad as my grunting state had been. I breathed in through my nose in an effort to detect a king.

I tilted my head to better listen as I pivoted in a slow circle. Nothing. No smell. No sound. No palpable barrier of his power.

A snarl tore from me. Change was hidden . Cloaked.

I laughed again, anticipating how the forest would burn to ash. Burn for me.

Did King Change lurk in the deepest midst of the forest? Nothing so conventional . He would not allow himself the pleasure. A king who believed himself evil would linger where he felt self-punishment was strongest. I had this king’s reason well in hand. No, he would not lurk deep in the midst of the forest. He would linger closest to beastliness. In humans and monsters.

Twisting in the very air, I bounded back to the boundary of King Change’s kingdom. The dirt underfoot muted my pounding gait, yet my sinister intention was a reverberating beat of the drum—I could feel it in the world itself.

As I neared the last lines of trees, I slowed my blur and blink, and then arrested my movement. My slipstream swept past me with a great whoosh.

Still in the confines of the trees, I pulsed my power out. My power swept in arcs through the forest.

“C hange ,” I said on the wind, then called, “Where do you hide, weak and undone?”

I rested a hand on the nearest tree, then weaved my power through bark and into the tree’s soul. An impossible lattice blinded me. I blinked through the maze and web revealed and realized I looked at every tree and every root system in the forest. Here was a map of Change’s kingdom. My lip curled as I swept my power over the intricate webbing pathways and the kings hidden between.

One king, that was to say.

My high-pitched laugh was gleeful to the extreme. I padded through the forest toward where King Change had buried himself amid thick roots. Only his crown had betrayed him with how it was so pointed amongst curving and flowing roots. What poetic symmetry: His crown was the only reason I had come.

I padded closer, coiled with predatory readiness. “Would you like to face a queen while standing on your immortal feet or shall I drag you out of the dirt?”

A hand shot through the ground at the base of a tree ten feet before me. Dirt crusted in the long nails and congealed in great patches over scarred and manged forearm.

Another hand followed, and then the crown, head, and torso of King Change emerged from his hiding place in root and tree. His lips always showed an excess of spotted gum, but his top lip drew over yellowed fangs. A snarl. Low, warning, and building in power, rumbled from him.

“You dare threaten me so in my own kingdom,” he snapped. “Fool queen, you have willingly entered my trap. Here, your cage for centuries and forever.”

The trees bowed inward toward him as though dragged. Branches cracked and the few leaves in the forest showered between us.

Yet such ancient confidence filled me. In madness, there was no such thing as doubt. “You are the new object of my obsession, King Change. I am come to conquer you .”

Sinister chuckles interrupted his words. “You think you can conquer a king.”

The trees did not straighten, though, so their king was not calm.

He was afraid. I had caught him with his crown off. The skin between his scar and mange was pale and drawn. His yellowed eyes held the same fatigue as that of the ill King Bring.

This king was vulnerable.

I licked my lips and stalked closer. “Tell me, great king. Why have you not put this fool queen in a cage already? You chuckle more than you trap. Or are you trying to savor the capture?”

“My mercy will soon expire. Turn tail and run now. I will enjoy the hunt, and perhaps there is a tiny chance that you might escape and keep your freedom for another night.”

A bluff. But what was the measure of a weak king? How powerful was King Change so soon to orchestrating ruin on the Takes?

I could only glean one way to find out.

Terrible, crackling power flooded through me, and I blasted power out in a wall. My power was vast and cloying in quality—like breathing in mud. Queenly night—the darkness between stars—poured from me to deliver a conquering blow against a king.

The king’s hasty barrier dissolved in the face of mine, and Change snarled and staggered back. His head was whipped aside, and I imagined that remaining upright had taken all the willpower he possessed. Which was a lot.

Of his brilliance, I had no illusion.

“Weak from ruin,” I purred, pouring power out with ease. “Arrogant in purpose, you have become, great king.”

My voice was on the wind and everywhere, layered and menacing in totality. King Change’s eyes widened. He had never seen this version of the fool queen.

I laughed. “You fathom.”

“My princess has betrayed me. I had thought that she could not.” He grunted from the effort of shielding himself from the continued onslaught of my power.

“Unions crumble before everything I am,” I screamed. Screamed, no less. The shrieked comment warranted deeper thought later. Ancients controlled me right now, and my voice too. That comment had originated from them.

He replied, “Evil might try. She shall find no surrender in me.”

Well, yes, surrender was unlikely from this king. I could appreciate such willpower, as I had not come across this very often from other monsters.

This king must be robbed of all choice. My hands clawed as I pulled in my thick, consuming power. This time I did not blast out the crackling darkness in a wall. Instead, I formed my power into the hand of a giant and seized the king in my grip.

He could do nothing against me. The king struggled in vain.

I sighed with impending triumph. Change was weak beyond my wildest hopes. I could feel the barrier he had erected. The barrier dissolved against my cloying power, and King Change stabbed outward with what little remained to him. A gleeful shout left my lips when he attempted to drill a hole in his prison.

I should remember that tactic.

His knees started to shake. Sweat broke out on his brow to trickle over his face, so melted in appearance from ruin.

I did not pause the flow of queenly power. I squeezed at a king and savored the way he banged his fists for freedom. “Here is a cage for you .”

“How will you hold me once my power returns?” His bellow was muffled.

I had wondered the same about my olden prison, but I did trust in madness and obsession by now. They existed for a reason.

I squeezed harder and harder until King Change dropped to one knee.

My mad ego considered doing many other things. Slamming his face into the ground for the corn husk dolls. Dragging him through dirt for vile words spoken. This king had never supported me in monsterdom. He had only done harm to this world and its creatures.

I trembled against the urge to punish him for what he had done to three werebeasts and his princess.

Snap! I whipped to look left at the intrusion and caught sight of Princess Raise standing still and watching from a distance. A quick scan revealed two other princesses.

They were here to stop madness spilling over, and that understanding was enough to pull me back from punishing thoughts.

I would never convince King Change to love monsterdom if I committed the same punishing acts as he. I had naught in common with this cruel king—I could understand nothing of why he ruined. Somehow and somenight, I would understand. Then, I would guide him back to wellness and hope.

Later.

For his snarls were of a monster nearly conquered. Irresistible to a queen.

Just a little more.

I stood immediately before him. His drilling tactic grew weaker and weaker. Feeble, really. King Change needed to believe in my victory and in his failure. This king must believe he had done everything possible to win.

As weak as he was, all of my power would be required to bring him to both knees.

Ah. Both knees. There was the missing symmetry and the loose stitch.

I lashed a stitch from my hand at his second leg. King Change was nearly driven face-first into the ground. He rested on closed fists, two knees embedded in dirt.

Stillness .

Obscene and eerie, stillness filled the forest and me. Trees straightened and stopped the underground writhing of their roots at their king’s distress. The air cleared of Change’s fury and fear. All power dissipated, except mine.

Except mine.

The trees showered leaves over me in welcome of their new queen. I did not understand tree and root and kingdom, yet, but they were mine. I shuddered with awareness of their intricate webbing and beastly human occupants. Not for long. Soon, beastly humans would reflect my queendom.

I dragged in the fullest breath of my dusk existence, and my jaw cracked with the magnitude. “’Tis done.”

The world shook. Lightning struck.

King Change’s arm rose, seemingly of its own accord. He unfurled his fist and flipped his left palm up. There was a wooden puppetry to his actions that informed me King Change was not in control of his movements.

I smiled. “The same hand you set to olden rock.”

“You are not what you believe,” he said woodenly. “Kings shall ensure your demise. I wish them failure against you, for I see that I have ruined and ruined in vain. The world will crumble under your lack of control. Your inexperience and lack of direction will ruin more than I ever could have.”

“You can be assured, sir, that if I choose to ruin, I shall certainly do it better than you ever could have. Now, you have something that I need.”

There was an underfoot rumble that defied anything I had felt in a kingdom or even my own queendom. King Change roared in pain, and nearest trees toppled and crashed to the forest floor. Their tangle of roots ripped from the dirt to form tangled walls on all sides around me and the kneeling king.

With a cracking split from root to canopy, the tallest and thickest tree that had remained upright—divided cleanly in two. The two sides whined and groaned, then fell apart to crash into the ground.

My ears rang from the collision, but I pushed the noise out of mind to focus on the split tree.

A gnarled and twisted stick no longer or larger than my forearm floated to us.

A stick, or so I first thought.

The stick floated to land on King Change’s palm. His left palm, of course. The turmoil and madness in me honed to a pinprick.

“ Key, ” I hissed, and the forest took up the word, bouncing it between tree trunks. If princesses remained to tame me, then I had no awareness of them.

A twisted, knotted, and gnarled key stole all parts of me.

I took the key without touching the king. I did not wish to betray the tremble of my stitched-on fingers. Such importance in this key.

“ Mine. ” I gave full throat and full sigh to the word. I could not do otherwise. “Mine.” The second uttering of the word was crooned and upset. Upset and crazed. The unhinged reverence inspired by this key had revealed the enormity of my doubts and fears of my future. Four kings remained unconquered. Obsession was unsatisfied. Unsafe destiny. Unsafe and uncertain. Only when four more kingly keys belonged to me would I feel satiated and sure again. But I had felt such uncertainty over bridal gifts, too, and when negotiating the return of snuffing shares.

I must trust in the unfolding of my fate.

I had conquered a king. A king, no less. Weak, he might be this midnight, but not so long ago, this king had tipped me into slumber with no more than his proximity. I was assaulted by the largeness of what I now was.

As if following my thoughts, Change hissed, “I should have attacked in fullness that night.”

Yes. He should have. “Leave reflections of the past to King See. He is best equipped to look without the mistake of regret. Follow me.”

There was a pulse with my order, and a small siphoning of my power. King Change rose and walked behind me. In this vulnerable state of his, I did not fear attack, and so I turned my back to a king, all the better to display my control over the sinister figure.

Such control must be displayed. Other kings would hear of this violent battle between queen and king. These kings would not guess how depleted King Change’s power had been after ruin, and so they would fear what I was capable of . They would hesitate to attack me. They would urge each other to be the first. Or they would unite to do so.

Yes, I would play on this controlling display to sow seeds of doubt.

King Change walked behind me as I strode from his kingdom with his olden key in hand. I placed the key inside the waistband of my leather trousers. Kings did not need to know the exact details of my obsession.

In the rubble beyond the forest, beastly humans waged war on my pawns. No wonder pawns had not come to my aid. Hundreds of humans were an annoying but towering task for twelve pawns. Even fifteen would have struggled—though my werebeasts looked on from their perch atop rubble.

“Cease,” I boomed.

Beastly humans dropped to the ground, crying out. They barely breathed. They had just heard her .

“ The corn husk woman,” they said in awe. The humans craned to catch a glimpse of her. They should not try. Their minds would never handle the sight of me.

They were my subjects now. “Leave this place,” I told them. “Return to your homes and be better and happy.”

A beastly person may not know how to do either, and I could not guess how I was meant to manage them, or whether King Change still had a role in that. Time would reveal the workings of obsession. That, and a meeting with Princess Raise.

Pawns gaped as they stopped fighting and caught sight of the sullen, defeated king in my wake.

“The changing kingdom belongs to me,” I declared to pawns, then glanced at my werebeasts. “We return to my queendom.”

And we did, pawns, and king, and a queen.

Conquering triumph did not leave room for doubt, and madness still flowed in my veins somewhat, so I did not doubt that to my queendom I must go.

I did not doubt that I must go to the single place that existed in this version of my queendom and also in the version through Mother’s grave.

My conservatory was the heart of my monsterdom.

I led a king and fifteen pawns to the top of my queendom, and sure enough, shackles awaited him there. He would be shackled in the arched opening that overlooked his kingdom. My kingdom now, and he could look upon the forest always and remember failing in ruin for eternity.

“Your new home,” I announced.

King Change, my puppet, stepped to the wall, then faced outward. I might admire such dignity in defeat, but that was a hard feat when the monster himself was detestable.

The shackles snapped shut of their own accord, but I paused when Mother rattled the copper panels.

“Thank you, Mother. I had quite forgotten.”

If throne is seat

Union is seam

Skulls are skin

Shackles are stitch.

I freed the stitch from my right knee and cast it toward the simmering king. Pawns, and the four princesses who had creeped in, watched as I stitched the shackles at his ankles and wrists. There was no escape from shackles such as these. A stitch had ensured that.

“Welcome to my queendom, Change,” I said. “We will figure out the rest together.”

“We will do nothing,” he answered.

We must agree to disagree on that.

“My queen,” hushed Princess Bring. “You have conquered a king.”

Her whisper broke the shocked freeze of those witnessing my triumph. Princess Change broke out in sobs, but did not venture closer to her king. King Change had not looked at her once. He felt betrayed, and yet they had never trusted one another, really. He had relied on the silencing contract of their union. When that was overpowered, then no trusting skill had remained for them to wield, for they had never troubled to practice.

Another frayed union.

So many frayed seams.

I blinked through the flurry of confused thoughts. Ah, here came the consequences of winning in obsession.

“Princess Change, you might return to your forest,” I called over her sobs.

She hiccupped and wiped at her face, following me as I strode from the conservatory out onto the rooftop garden.

“I would remain beside my king. Please!” she cried.

Where was numbness and despondency? Not here.

I faced her, though urgency bid me to hurry onward. “You have a chamber here, do you not? All monsters who reside here make themselves useful. If you choose to stay, then you are no longer a guest. Consider your role in my queendom and present your ideas in my throne room when I return.”

Princess Raise hurried in our wake. Princess Bring and Princess Take hurried along in her wake. Champions of my queendom indeed. “My thanks for interrupting madness, princesses,” I told them.

“Ancient power filled us. But now I feel such urgings to get you to safety,” gasped Princess Take, pressing a hand against her middle. “Where must you go?”

“Into hellebores,” Princess Raise hissed. She set a hand upon my shoulder, and I sighed at the siphoning of the ancient insanity that had already started to warp me.

Princess Bring shot out a web of slime, and I felt another draining of the clamoring and clashing. Princess Take hurried forward to take my hand.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Such earthquakes of new power clashed in me, much like storm waves from opposing currents. Confused thoughts. Too much at once. Too ancient for me, but such was warping. When I had claimed princesses, ancients granted me enough time to get to hellebores.

This hurtling arrival of power granted no mercy.

No time. A king was shackled and a queen faced insanity.

I groaned and did not resist as three princesses picked me up and threw me over the balustrade of the rooftop garden. Arms and legs wide, I was a falling star. A careening queen.

For a heartbeat or two only.

The cobblestones of the courtyard flashed in my awareness a second before I crashed through my mother’s hellebore grave.

Not for the first time.

Not for the last.