Page 20

Chapter Twenty

Choices

There were at least five of them.

“A ny alteration in the sickness of pawns?” I asked Princess Bring.

Her blobs wobbled, and her reluctance was an answer in itself.

She sighed. “I am afraid not, my queen. They report no bettering, but at least no worsening either.”

I nodded my thanks to Valetise, then strode through my private rooms with the princess sliming in my wake. “So the plague has little to do with humanity, or at least the resetting of humanity toward stitch and patch was not crucial in matters, even if it was crucial in solidifying queendom. Who can tell what might help to tip the scale.”

“Your connections are beyond me.”

I knew this to be very true. “Instruct pawns to gather in the throne room.”

There were fewer theories and more answers this evening. Of everything remaining, the only theory I would entertain henceforth was the one where I conquered King Bring and found fullness of queendom therefore curing the plague. That, and I would do everything in my power to complete the circle of mothers sitting in vigil.

Foreboding creeped over me like a mist—like the haze hiding the barrenness of my gray-scale retreat. Something was coming for me, and I did not know if I would continue to be afterward.

I listened to Princess Bring’s report, and then to Princess Raise’s when she intercepted me on the stairwell. I winked at Princess Change in the courtyard, who glowered at me from the shadows. One of my stitches bound her arms behind her back. There would be no digging now unless she wish to do so with her teeth. From the looks of the dirt around her mouth, that was exactly her wish.

Princess Take did not arrive to report, so I fathomed there was nothing to report in matters of pawns, yet when I swept into the throne room, my marshal was present, her simple stool set off to the left of my throne.

Candor sat in the dark corner at the back, and I smiled at her. Her jaw unlocked slightly to allow a widening of her tooth bones in thin air. Perhaps a smile.

“Pawns,” I said after sitting. Hellebores immediately stroked the backs of my hands. Two others rubbed at my temples. Such was queendom. “How do you all fare?”

My, they looked terrible. Horribly sick. Veined with black, and lacking in strength and hope. “My pawns,” I said sadly. “My heart is heavy for the pain and weariness of you. Might I do anything to help you in illness?”

Gangrel hacked a cough. “You do all you can by seeking answers. We can bear this small burden while you bear burdens far greater.”

From her armchair, Candor stated, “ He spoke the truth of his heart.”

“Gangrel, you are honor itself,” I replied. “I wish a healing tincture could be had, but I fear in my heart that only a queen finding fullness in queendom will help pawns and kings. With that in mind, I must ask each of you to act despite your sickness. I am sorry for this request, and only the fate of monsterdom would force my hand such.”

“You will do as commanded,” Princess Take said to them.

She was certain on the topic, and I could see that pawns were very certain that they would obey her or suffer. Princess Take had found her calling, and it occurred to me that pawns might benefit from a stricter handling than I had provided thus far. A queen was not meant to marshal, though, and so I had done my best.

Pawns fell over themselves to reassure me that their sickness should not be given any space in the discussion of acting. Yet I could see them with my eyes and all the eyes in my mind.

They were dying.

My pawns, the monsters who were first my friends before they could not be any longer, were dying. I did not wish to rule a world where they did not live and breathe and frighten. The fright we shared last night could not be our last.

“I must conquer King Bring,” I said. “He must be very sick by now. He cannot be allowed to die. The fate of the world depends on the survival of kings. Pawns, find King Bring. If you cannot bring him to me, then hasten to take me to him. A queen must finish conquering before all is too late and plague wipes monsters away.”

Pawns bowed and blobbed, then made their sorry and sickly way out of the throne room to see my bidding done.

“You will oversee their efforts and report back, Princess Take,” I said, standing.

She curtsied.

Candor stated, “ Princess Take did not enjoy taking orders and believed she could run this queendom better if given the chance.”

The princess hissed at the unperturbed skeleton, then quickly left. I bit back the chuckle trying to escape me as she turned in the doorway.

“My queen, might I offer a suggestion?” asked Princess Take.

Candor said, “ The suggestion came from a genuine place. ”

Good to know. “You may this evening.”

“Kings are good for shackling.” The arch way that she offered the comment spoke of exactly why she might shackle a king. “They are also an age of experience and ruling insight. A king is good for more than shackling.”

I dipped my head, and when she had departed, I trailed out of the throne room. She had touched on a delicate point, for reluctance did rear its head in me at the mention of a discussion with kings. I was a new queen—though more powerful than any other monster. A queen might still feel intimidated when consulting kings. They were all the things that Princess Take had described and more.

Fear cloaked inner growth, so I should throw off the robes and embrace the fear uncovered. That was the best path forward.

I climbed from courtyard to conservatory, and when I arrived, it was to find King See striding through my rooftop gardens. He entered the conservatory and stood in his position, facing outward to the gothic palace that used to be his kingdom.

His shackles snapped shut, but he could remain unstitched.

“Good evening,” I greeted kings, all of which stared at their previous territories.

King See glanced each way when the other kings did not reply.

Ah. “Hellebores, kindly desist your stroking. I must talk with kings, not at kings.”

The hellebores fell to the ground, and I waited before trying again. “Good evening.”

King Change chuckled darkly under his breath. Raise, who was shackled in the middle of the conservatory over the glass panel, might have smiled, but he also might not have. I could not truly say. Take snickered gleefully.

The stone under the kings’ feet turned them to faced me. The glass panel under Raise’s feet twisted slightly too.

“You fare as well and as poorly as pawns,” I remarked.

King See remained untouched by plague. Perhaps that was an error of ancients, or perhaps a wisdom of ancients. I could not say if I might become incapacitated by fear if plague was to set upon See. Would I forget all queenly obligations to save him? Yes, ancients had been wise to spare my king the plague. They must wish me to still succeed—a brightening thought.

I had come to discuss a specific plaguing matter with kings, and yet the words out of my mismatched lips had naught to do with plague. “What does each of you know of ancients?”

There was a draw on my power, and I felt it reverberate through the stitches in their shackles. Ah, so that is how this would work. For the price of power, kings would answer my questions. Could they save up what power I gave them? If they could save the power, what might they spend it on? Time may reveal such things if they survived.

I did not like the sudden glint in King Change’s eyes, though I did like the delighted whoop from King Take at the little tickle of my power.

King Raise answered first. “Ancients warped us to monsters, Queen Perantiqua.”

The original poem of kings spoke as much. “Have they face or greater detail?”

King See hummed. “I recall faces of horror during my warping. I remember their hissed language. I recall their long absences from my warping, many years at a time. That was a warping in itself.”

I tilted my head. “Lack of company, even a lack of warping company, is a warping in itself. Profound. Yes, you are right. I feel the warping of such ignorance and have done since first walking into toothed beast’s yawn. Wherever did they go for all those years?”

“They departed for other places,” drawled Take.

“Other worlds?” I asked sharply, ignoring his sarcastic tone.

“Who could say,” said King See. “I have only connected that they may be wardens of our world, if not others. They only provide the tools needed to potentially save a world, though they do not save it themselves. The natural connection is that?—”

I cut in. “—They oversee so many worlds that they cannot possibly be personally involved in saving each one. The tools are supplied, whether they are successfully used is left to chance.”

As See nodded, King Raise said, “We have limitations to our power. Perhaps they do too. Perhaps they can only work through beings, for instance. Indirectly.”

I circled the conservatory in the mists of kings. “Interesting indeed. I have been curious, you see. A better understanding of ancients might help me in the matter of healing kings and pawns.”

“You will never understand ancients,” snarled King Change. “You will always be at their mercy. You will sense the oil of them in all you do.”

Did he refer to warping?

“Always so dramatic, dear Change,” said Take, smirking. “I feel their presence more as a slickness, but not an oily one. There are others slicknesses that I like very, very much. It’s about perspective.”

“You have no perspective beyond the slapping visits of your princess,” was the snapped response.

What, up here in my conservatory?

Princess Take did love an audience.

I stopped before King See. “How do you feel the presence of ancients, sir?”

“As others have said, they are as a layer over everything I do. When I peer into past, present, or future, there is a casing around every path, the sheath of a sword. That is how ancients monitor us and affect all change. They are permeated through every speck of everything and everyone. There is no hiding. No tricking. No escaping. Perantiqua, make good with the presence of ancients, whether you view them as oily or otherwise. Make good with them, or they will force you to do so, and never grant you the semblance of freedom again. That is what I sense.” His milky eyes warned me away from choosing any other path.

I would heed his warning because I respected him greatly. “I do not mean to escape anything. I seek understanding. Be reassured.”

He released an exhale. “I am reassured. Thank you.”

I hesitated, then admitted to the shackled kings. “I feel a great wave rising up to crash down upon me. There comes a time when monsterdom will hang in the balance, and I do not fathom as much as I need to. And I cannot yet.”

Kings were silent. If I could not connect a matter, then they certainly could not, being mere kings.

“What do you know?” asked King Take.

Here was the exact point of possessing shackled kings, I supposed. They were meant as my advisors, most likely. Yet I only had four, and I hesitated to confide in them with one king out on the loose.

Something was missing. Something crucial. Something hidden, and that something was attached to the overwhelming feeling of foreboding. I could not confide in kings just yet. “Soon King Bring will join your number,” I replied. “That is when I will confide in kings.”

“And shall we stay here after that?” asked Raise. “I am enjoying the break.”

I could appreciate he truly might, the king who was but a foot soldier in mind and heart.

We all listened to the clicking approach of Princess Take’s heeled shoes.

“I harden,” hissed King Take, earning a snarl from Change.

“My queen,” she said in undertones. “Pawns have been unsuccessful in their mission. There is no sign of King Bring in Vitale. Shall I punish them?”

My eyebrows climbed. Goodness, punishment for simple failure, and when they were sick? Perhaps I would need to manage the princess’s bloodthirstiness. “That will be unnecessary. Tell pawns to leave no rock unturned. He has not left Vitale because I have not, and he believes I am his curing hope. Speak with Princess Bring. She was his witness for an age. She may provide some hint or clue. Instruct Princess Raise to inspect the olden door for his presence. Carefully.”

“ I harden,” murmured King See to King Take. They chuckled together, and I bit back a grin.

“As you say, Your Majesty.” Princess Take curtsied and departed. “Where shall I find you once I have an update?”

“You will not find me. I trip through hellebores. If King Bring wishes to play hide and seek, then I shall let him tire himself. I have mothers to find in the meantime.”

Tire himself. But not die. He could not die, but I could only be in so many places, and so I must trust in pawns and my marshal.

“Mothers,” said King Change, drawing out the s .

I met the glinting yellow-eyed gaze of the king, then cast my magic to check the security of the stitch welding his shackles firmly shut forevermore—unless I deemed otherwise. Unless he proved trustworthy. “Mothers, yes. The fifty ancestral mothers who made me.”

“How many remain to find?” asked King See.

The kings were interested indeed. How could they not be when fifty mothers—human, no less—gathered to me in their death. Humans. There was another reminder. I should not underestimate their power over monsters.

I answered despite some inner discomfort, “Thirteen mothers remain.”

King Change growled, “What is their purpose?”

“Deathly vigil.” With that said, I strode for the rooftop balustrade and leaped off to fall through moonlit air toward Mother’s grave.

I used to rush through the grave, eager for the warmth and support of so many women who shared my blood. Nowanights, the rustling trip through hellebores invoked dread. If only they were not so insistent about entering the haze. If only they were not so disappointed in my refusal.

In the gray scale side, I clawed up the dirt sides of the grave.

“Mother.” I kissed her sunken cheek. “Mothers,” I greeted the thirty-six others.

“Patch,” replied some.

“Perantiqua,” hummed others.

“My Patch,” wheezed my mother.

Seven others had appeared, and relief filled me at the sight of them. Six left.

“Welcome,” I called to where they stood at the base of the tower.

No answer. No smile or nod of acknowledgment.

I perceived more reluctance in them than in any other group. No single mother stood out as particularly resistant, but there was an undercurrent in the recent arrivals. No doubt the reason they had dragged their feet. Of course, these mothers had come later in the ancestral line and ancient purpose had not filled them at all. Only the mantel they had inherited had guilted, shamed, and forced them into withering. A deathbed promise to their withered mother. Or some had chosen and accepted withering in the deepest parts of their hearts and minds, only to be shocked when the withering actually happened.

I brushed over the stitches on my face and chest that they were responsible for. “I will stitch you in place now.”

They did not have the strength to resist, and truthfully, I could not let them do so. To do so would be to condemn all monsters and the mothers already sitting in vigil. They were only strong in totality of numbers, but currently were full body armor without the chest piece. I could not leave them so.

I took the hand of the closest mother. “Come, Mother.”

Her hard blue eyes met mine. “I do not choose this death.”

My heart sank. “I know, Mother. I would not choose this death for you either. Many lives depend on you sitting stitched. Will you do so of free will?”

“No, for I lost half my life for the lives of all. I should not have to give my eternal death too.”

A tear slipped over my cheek and caught on the very cheek stitch she had created. The stitch was very neat. Neat and angry. This mother hated her part in this play, and yet she had still performed to the best of her ability. “If I had another choice, I would not stitch you here.”

She walked with me and sat, then closed her eyes. “There is always choice.”

The mother extended her hand, and I could find nothing to reply with as I stitched her in vigil. She was right and wrong at the same time. Or did I wish to believe she was wrong? Was there another option?

“There is always choice,” sneered another mother. The most bitter of my mothers, in fact. Richalle.

I glanced between her and the new mother who had so calmly rebuked me.

“You are Richalle’s daughter?” I asked her.

“If that is what she can still be called,” hissed Richalle. “Does a daughter abandon her withering mother in her last days? Does she, Yasmin?”

Yasmin’s shoulders tightened, as did the small lines around her full lips. She did not meet my gaze, nor her mother’s, but peered straight ahead.

“Yasmin, you are welcome here,” I said. “I imagine you have dreaded my stitch and this vigil since you have known of it. Among mothers you will encounter guilt and regret and shame. You will find acceptance and learning and gratitude. These exist in us all, and not just in you.”

She swallowed but kept her focus on the tower.

“ Shame, ” hissed Richalle.

Cassandra said, “If this is how you treated her as a mother, then I can fathom her choice.”

Richalle tore at her stitches, ignoring the cries of pain from the mothers either side of her. “You know nothing, you who started this inheritance of agony! I gave her everything. I gave her all. There was my mistake, because I should have let her suffer sometimes, so that she might survive the loss of me. But I was too weak to witness her disappointment and heartache.” Richalle’s chest heaved and the furious spark in her gaze drained away, water disappearing down a pipe. “That was my mistake. But how I paid for it.”

Tears flowed over Yasmin’s cheeks, and she was as vibrant in death as all mothers except mine. “I paid for it too. I did not know how to be without you or to survive. When your time came… I could not face it. Far easier to deny your death. Maybe then, you would not die at all. I could return from nightmare to find your warnings of withering a falsehood. But I did return to be met with your remains and emptiness.” She turned to look around the circle at her mother. “What regret and shame and guilt crashed upon me. What dread crushed me to the floor for the rest of my life. What fear and franticness drove me in the decade after your withering. I hated you, Mother, and I blamed you for leaving me weak. I blamed myself for my denial and contentedness with that weakness too. For I had known that I could not look after myself even then. I had banished the thoughts, though, just as I had banished all thoughts of you leaving me too soon.”

There was no sound but her tears and her mother’s erratic breaths.

Yasmin drew herself tall. “Mother, I am sorry that I abandoned you in withering. I could not bear it, but I should have. I was weak, and that was not entirely your doing. In life, from that moment and that mistake, I became determined to be stronger. And I did, Mother. I withered knowing that had you still existed, and had you needed me in death later in my life, then I would not have left your side until your last breath was emptied to the air. I was not what you nor I needed then, but I was in the end. I am now. The loss of you shaped me forever. I will not deny. I will not pretend. I will accept. I will do hard things.”

I was not the only one to look at Richalle. As apologies went, this one was thorough and humble.

Richalle tried to rub away a tear with her shoulder. I had not thought of how their stitched hands removed their ability to rub away tears. There was some beauty in the inability to hide such emotion.

“I was alone,” she said hoarsely. “I was alone, and part of me wished to be. Such a sight was not one I wished for you. My heart could not bear it, and yet I hoped. At the end, my weaknesses were undone to reveal the lonely and fear-filled soul of me. She wanted her daughter. But I had always covered her and smothered you, and so how could I be surprised when there was not enough resilience to carry you through hardship. You abandoned me for three days, but what I failed to teach you lasted you a lifetime. I am sorry, Yasmin. I am sorry that I failed you. I have existed in death so filled with fear of how your life might have gone.”

Both mothers were crying, and I noticed how Yasmin clasped at the fingers of the mother next to her. Her daughter. Her daughter that, I could feel in a stitch, was formidable in every bone of her body.

My inhale trembled. “I am full beyond words that death has provided opportunity for healing.”

So full that I could say no more.

Yasmin did not answer me, and whatever healing she had gained and given did not appear to have warmed her thoughts of stitched vigil.

I returned to the tower. Three of the mothers were unconscious, and I felt guilty about the wave of relief at the sight. The remaining three mothers were stitched into place with varying levels of resistance. One did not speak a word to me. Another attempted to run back to the haze. The last took to beating a stone against my tower while I stitched the sixth into place.

I scanned the mothers—all forty-four of them—after. “I am very sorry to force your choice in this matter. I am very sorry for all you have endured and must continue to endure.”

“Your apologies mean nothing,” said the mother who had tried to damage my tower. “We do not choose this.”

“You do not choose this, and I did not choose to be queen,” I replied. “We each give ourselves eternally. I can still be sorry for those who struggle to accept what is. ”

Fire sparked in her gaze.

“Daughter,” whispered my mother. “Another.”

I followed her haunted focus to the haze behind my tower. I tipped my head this way and that in an attempt to sense the mother. “I cannot hear her. You do?”

“We do,” said most of the mothers in unison.

“The haze renders me numb in sense,” I confessed.

Cassandra said, “Is this why you fear it?”

“I sense that entering this place will break me.”

“All the better to remake you,” she replied without feeling. Without warmth and with cold certainty.

Inner growth was cloaked by fear, but I was too frightened to throw off this cloak as hastily as I had thrown off another when consulting kings. “I fathom. Tell me of the haze.”

Adalina said, “’Tis nothing more or less than walking through a fog with no hope of making your destination and no sense of direction. We walked toward the beating of a drum, but the drumming never grew louder. That was our only company.”

“The beating of a drum,” I echoed.

My mother coughed. “Your heartbeat, my Patch.”

Ah.

“If each of you heard my heartbeat in the haze, then what would I hear?” I whispered.

The newly arrived mothers who were conscious, laughed.

“The queen trembles and quakes,” sneered the first I had stitched in place this evening.

The other mothers erupted in a humming chant.

“ Until ancient in truth

Tarry not

Linger never

Lest the world becomes forever buried.”

They chanted the excerpt from the poem again.

Then again.

Then again!

My heart galloped to be free. I could not delay. I felt the enormity of that seismic error.

The haze awaited me, and so I set one foot in front of the other, then did so again. “Where is she?”

The words barely escaped my lips.

My mother lifted her hand that was more bone than flesh to point.

I walked stiffly.

I walked with no real thought of entering the haze. I could not contemplate the magnitude of the haze just as I could not contemplate the magnitude of saving of the world. That must be the answer. Only in the haze would I find the answers needed to save or ruin the world.

I was not ready for either.

Could I be ready, though? Was I delaying the inevitable out of a false sense that I could prepare?

“I cannot,” I whispered in horror.

The haze . I had arrived.

The wisps of mist tickled my stitched toes as I wrenched to a halt. Forty-four mothers must watch me now.

The mothers who had made me and now sat in vigil around my tower in this eerie place. There was a point to their presence here, and a necessity. They would protect my queendom once their circle was complete… and perhaps they would be my heartbeat in the haze as I had been theirs.

They would guide me back to…

I sucked in a breath at a single thought struck me in soul and mind.

Back to him. They would guide me back to him.

Back to my See.

He was my first thought, and that surely inched too close to undying love, which I could not feel. I had seen what happened to others who had not cared to transcend love. A queen did not have that liberty. I must make choices without love of a king to influence them. To transcend love I must make choices with the wellbeing of all monsters in mind.

To transcend love, my first thought of returning from the haze should be to return to them. To monsters, to humans, to mothers, to queendom.

How clearly I saw the barrier of loving him now. How certainly. And how murky was the solution, for how was a creature meant to undo or surpass the feeling? Ever was I trapped in the matter of transcending love.

Perhaps the haze would teach this to me also.

I stepped into the haze, and my breath choked in my throat. The air cloyed and clung, as if the fog was sentient. To be lost in its midst… what hopeless and despair. At least I could hold to the hope of simply reversing a single step.

Except mothers had mentioned hearing my heartbeat. The beating of a drum that never grew louder. I tried to suck in a breath and noticed the whole monstrous truth.

My senses were gone. I could not feel air entering my lungs. I could not hear the rush of breath coming in and going out. I could hear nothing—not forty-four mothers back at the tower. Nor could I taste or smell or see.

My heart must beat wildly in my fear, but the numbness controlling my body would give me no sign to confirm it—no opening and closing of my mouth. No feeling of thunder in my chest. No rush of blood in my ears.

I was numb but for the thoughts in my head and the power in my veins. Why did the haze numb me so in body and sense? Why did I have less to help me in here than mothers?

“Their circle is incomplete,” I announced in the haze. Or perhaps I did not, for I could not hear my voice, nor confirm whether my mouth had opened to vocalize.

That must be the answer. When the remaining six mothers were stitched into place, their heart would beat for me in the haze.

I stepped deeper into the haze. One step. Another terrifying, panic-inducing step.

What if I turned slightly when leaving and accidentally circled into the haze? What if I had doomed monsters by submitting to pressure from ancestral mothers to enter this place?

One more step.

“One more and then a mother must find her own way.” I should not talk when I could not hear myself.

I stepped one more step, then nearly screamed when a hand gripped my ankle. Goodness, I liked frights as much as the next monster, but a fright on top of sheer terror was a lot to enjoy at once. I kept my body straight, trying not to twist in a way that might get me eternally lost.

My heart thumped like a lead weight in my ribs. “Mother?”

If the woman clutching my ankle answered, then I could not hear her.

I crouched down and scooped her up, then held her tightly as she thrashed and clawed at me. I reversed one step.

Taking another breath, I took another.

I took a third.

The third step did not reveal a clearing of haze or a mostly complete circle of ancestral mothers. Panic clouded the many of my minds until the brightest and fastest of them reminded me that my step length had altered for the weight of the mother I carried.

I hoped.

For I felt a quailing queen in this haze.

I stepped again.

Senses were returned in a whoosh , including the agonized screams of the mother in my arms. The chant of the other mothers was a keen, and they swayed with it, dipping forward in a circle at intervals.

Despite the agony of the mother in my arms, I could not think of her or anyone for a full minute. Such was the fear that I had experienced.

I cannot enter you again.

I did not speak the words aloud, for ancestral mothers were present and would surely disagree and disapprove. But I could not. I would never return there.

The bubble of panic was popped, and I blinked a few times.

I peered down at the mother in my arms. “Mother, where are you hurt?”

“My leg, daughter.” She panted, pale from loss of blood and pain.

I carried her to the tower, then rested her on dirt. “Your leg is quite torn away and dangling. Who did this to you?”

“A creature in the fog.” She wailed, then lost the tension from her body all at once. Unconscious.

Mothers stopped their chant to pass around her words. A creature in the fog.

My mouth dried. A creature in the fog. This must be what pressed on my mind and heart. This must be my fear. Surely a queen was meant to defeat a creature in the haze. Why else would she feel such terror?

While she was unconscious, I severed the dangling and shredding remains of her leg, then scalded the wound with my magic to cauterize the vessels and flesh. The mother would forgive me. She was forgiveness itself.

I carried her to the circle, then stitched her in place, and afterward, I stared at her for a time.

“She will be well,” said my mother.

Cassandra. “She cannot die of her wounds. Her safety is in her stitch upon your body.”

My stitches were my power. They were the sacrifice of my mothers. Still, this injured mother could still have screamed for eternity while lost in the haze. Until perhaps a creature feasted upon her. Surely a stitch could not protect a mother from everything.

“You send me a message, do you?” I tore my gaze from the shaking, unconscious mother, and peered out at the haze. “Is that why you did not wholly feast upon her? You wish me to know that you are there.”

That we will meet.

“That one of us will win,” I whispered.

I returned to the mother’s leg and picked it up. I was very strong now. A mere twitch of my arm saw the mother’s leg hurtle away and disappear into the haze.

“A snack,” I called to the creature. “You will need your strength to face me.”

“She prepares for war,” hissed Cassandra.

Her words were taken up, of course, in various ways. “ She readies herself!”

“She tarries no longer.”

“She will fight.”

“She will conquer.”

“She will do nothing until this circle of mothers is complete,” I announced. “ She will not be forced to anything, not even by the line of mothers who came before her.”

The mother who had tried to damage my tower laughed. “Now you understand, o’ powerful queen. Now you understand what it is to be me. You never could have done what fifty of us did for you , and I wish you every bit of strength in resisting your fate. I wish that you might resist fate now and until your long, endless ruin.”

She was right, and I was in no mood for such insight.

I strode to the grave and soon the rustle of hellebores stole away her cold laughter. Though not from my mind where terror of a haze and creature lurked in the form of dread and fear even stronger than the last time I had come here.