Page 26

Fifty mothers

No weakness.

“A princess is dead ,” whispered Candor.

I did not wish to hear the truth any longer. Not tonight. A monster was dead, and she had been the best of us, good in every blob and speckle of slime. “We have been robbed.”

King Bring dragged in a breath, and no one who had been listening to his labored pants could miss the fullness of it.

I glanced up at him to watch as black crumbled from him. The cracks were already filling in. More of his crimson skin was apparent by the second.

I looked to pawns and watched as the black veins afflicting them receded. Princesses rushed to their kings, who were also healing.

I closed my eyes, longing for King See. I closed my eyes and mourned a princess who had seen to the heart of a simple matter. The plague of monsters had originated when King Bring sampled a curse not consumed by its intended victim.

Until it was.

I pressed a hand over my heart and sobbed once. “Princess Bring, we might have figured it all out. The wellness and future of monsters did not need to rest in your sacrifice.”

“Please,” rasped King Bring. “Please gather up the dust of her. Please…”

Such rage in me toward the fool king. None of this would have happened if not for his corruption. I glared upward. “You do not deserve her in death. You did not in life.”

He turned his cheek as if slapped. “You are right, I do not. But I might earn her in death. You might be the judge. But please do not leave her there to be cleaned away.”

No, I could not do that.

I glanced around for the glass vial. I would ask mother for a beautiful casing for the princess’s remains later, but the cursed vial would need to do for now.

But how curious to find that Princess Change had picked up the vial. She was on her hands and knees before her king.

Her king’s shackles, that was.

And I connected the whole of their plan in one horror-filled instant where even a queen with formidable power, connection, and speed, could do nothing to stop the next second.

Princess Change tilted the vial and the last drops inside poured on to her king’s shackles.

I had not noticed the halting of his laughter in my grief. No other monster had noticed in theirs either—or in their relief at the disappearance of the plague in their loved ones.

The curse hissed on the shackles, and I felt the exact moment that curse met my stitch. I screamed high, and threw myself forward onto hands and knees. I screamed again and moaned through the waves of agony.

My stitch unraveled from his shackles and began to worm its pitiful, dying way back to me.

King Change left his copper panel and he stomped on the stitch that had ensured his conquering.

His princess smirked at me, clear in my line of sight where I had been reduced to the ground. I panted there, frozen in the pain and terror and disbelief of losing a stitch.

There was a shattering, and then I grunted as glass stabbed into my back.

All of this in the space of a few seconds. Not long enough for pawns and princesses to react. And shackled kings could not.

They did launch at King Change when they could, but by then I had a glass vial lodged in my back, and one that had carried a curse inside. Very quickly, I could feel that some of the curse had remained in the vial.

It seared and boiled in me.

My palms began to slide outward until I was flat on the floor.

King Change would surely injure me beyond belief now, but I could not fathom him right now, nor even the poison.

My stitch was dead.

Pawns were filled with power to protect me, and King Change was forced back. His boot lifted off my stitch. The stitch that had shackled him. The stitch that had died because I was blind. I had dismissed simple threats and they had united into a large one.

I crawled to the stitch and dragged it to my face. This had been a mother’s deathly immortality. I could not feel her any longer. I had wondered what the limits of my stitches were in keeping mothers safe. Here was my answer. “I am sorry.”

My circle would never be finished.

The poison spread.

Where was King See?

Someone ripped the glass vial from my back, and when I was rolled over, I wearily took in the panicked terror of Princess Raise and Princess Take.

“My queen,” cried Princess Raise. “My queen, are you dying?”

There was no increasing of the boiling feeling. “No, I am not. There was not enough left for a queen.” My reply was wooden.

My stitch, my mother. My mother s. They had been right, and I had ignored their warnings. My own mother had given this poison to Princess Change in a bid to accelerate fate.

I dragged in a painful, melting inhale. A monster was dead. The kindest and most forgiving of monsters. I would not be the same without her loving presence.

Princess Take gripped my hand. “What can we do?”

“Get King See.” I could not risk releasing the other kings while Change was on the loose. “Where is King Change?”

Gangrel appeared near my feet. “We tried to contain him, my queen, but we cannot overwhelm a king, only protect you. He has escaped.”

Perantiqua, you fool. I had dismissed the connections of princesses too easily. “I must hunt him. Where is his princess?”

Gangrel glanced over his shoulder. “He left her here.”

Good. I pushed my power to the floor to rise, and then I floated my injured body to the princess. She cowered against the wall, and I blasted her with my power, booming, “What does he plan?”

She had little chance, even weakened as I was.

Princess Change screamed, “He will hide and recover his strength. He will feel you out. He will sacrifice his flesh to weaken you. He will focus all ruin on you .”

“Where will he run?” I demanded.

Her eyes rolled back in her head.

I sighed. “I overwhelmed her. Pawns, take her to the dungeons. Lock her in. I want three pawns guarding her at all times. If her king comes for her, send word to me immediately.”

The boiling feeling was lessening in my blood. I was injured, but would recover soon enough. I must be strong enough to hunt a king. I could still make matters right.

“Where is King See?” I demanded, stomping my foot.

Three pawns and two princesses apparently could not get him here. “I can wait no longer.”

I crouched by the glass vial, then focused my power to obliterate the remains in a blinding flash incase other princesses got ideas about the shackles of other kings. “Pawns,” I said after. “Come with me.”

I walked from the lounge and then jogged down the hall. My ability to run returned by the portcullis, and after another block, I could settle into a blur manageable for pawns to maintain.

“Where first?” Sign shouted from the back.

“His old kingdom,” I replied.

I did not bound ahead of pawns as we reached the outskirts of his beastly territory. Humans afflicted with all manner of beastly qualities emerged from apartment and rubble.

I hissed an order at them to retreat, and surprisingly they did, which would suggest that King Change remained conquered. Something he would seek to alter. “Or will you set out to ruin as much as possible as your princess expects?”

The thing was that the king and princess of change had not been on speaking terms. I could not rely on the princess as witness for his actions now. But I knew that the king was a leader among kings, and a forger of path and unfathomable connection.

I entered the haunted forest with my pawns and wasted no time forcing my power into the soil. The map of tree roots was revealed to me, and I scanned here and there, this way and that, for any sign of the king. I had barely seen him the first time, and he no longer had a crown to betray his hiding place.

I blurred through the forest in a methodical grid, scanning each part of the forest. The trees and roots creaked and swayed and rolled with the force of my murderous intent. The kingdom would have revealed Change if he was here.

“Can you feel him, or summon him as you can with pawns?” Toil panted wetly.

I could summon pawns. I could sense the ties of princess and kings, now I stopped to assess the various ties between me and monsters. I had never summoned princesses—they anticipated my queendom needs. I would assume that kings could not be summoned, and also would not anticipate my needs.

They would do something else that was yet to reveal itself, and may never unless I satisfied ancients by shackling five kings.

“Where next, my queen?”

I peered around. “Werebeasts, where else did your king frequent?”

“He ruined from his haunted forest, my queen,” said Loup.

Unguis whined. “He rarely exited it unless to be entertained by war or per the polite invitation to some royal event or tribunal. Other kings came to him for favors.”

I nodded. “Huckery?”

There was no snarled answer.

Stopping in my stride, I pivot to look at my pawns. They were searching for Huckery too. He was not with us.

“He started out with us,” Loup said. “When did he leave?”

Pawns muttered, and none seemed to know. I had not noticed either. This was also not the first time Huckery had opted not to help me, and I could feel that my lenience with him was straining also. Soon, I would need to alter my approach to Huckery again.

Soon .

If a queen could still fix this mess. Though, another part of me was considering that Huckery was much more than a pawn, really. So where was he?

Because I could sense pawns, and summon them too, I dove into my senses, and sifted through monsters until I came to Huckery. “He has traveled to the heart of Vitale.”

“But to the heart?” exclaimed Deliver. “Why, that would mean…?”

“He goes to my queendom.” I hummed. “Huckery knows something we do not.”

I took off at a run, and a thudding started under my ribs that grew louder and louder until the pace I had maintained for pawns was no longer possible. The thudding induced panic in me and demanded that I run faster.

As fast as a queen could.

An enemy king was in her queendom, and this king was unsurpassed in plot and plan and ruin.

I left pawns behind and soon the gleaming, vicious points of my picket came into view. Blood stained the tips of some as I leaped over—signs of King Change’s forced entry.

A howl. A whimper.

“Huckery!” I gasped.

I blurred between thatched human abodes and then slammed through the gate in my wall of bars.

Dust surged forward in a wave as I halted, sending my slipstream rushing onward.

Huckery was injured. Limping.

He stood between my mother’s grave and his king, and the only reason my werepawn was not seriously injured resided in the dripping wound on King Change’s leg. He had been sliced by my picket. My poisoned picket.

The origins of the thudding panic under my ribs was revealed. Huckery had guessed Change’s plot before me. Monsters were not in my queendom, Huckery aside, but my ancestral mothers were here still. They sat in vigil in an unfinished circle, therefore unprotected in the guarding on my queendom.

“King Change,” I growled, and my voice was many voices layered over each other. My queendom thrashed and rolled with it, and the screams of my humans rose from outside the walls to fill the skies in a wail.

The king turned. “You did not die. That is a pity, though not unexpected.”

I circled closer. I was stronger than him particularly in my queendom. I knew where he wished to go—through hellebores. Yet this king was crafty and never to be underestimated. “What awaits you through hellebores, sir?”

“Ruin. Always.”

I snarled wordlessly at his answer and my queendom squeezed. Huckery limped to me, and King Change watched his painful retreat. “You convinced my ruining beast away. I did not think it possible.”

Huckery had parted ways from other pawns to intercept his king. I would marvel over this when I got the chance. Such connection. Such loyalty. Such defeat of his inner lack of worth. “I am so proud of you, Huckery. You have my thanks.”

“You have my loyalty,” he whispered.

I inhaled sharply as the other pawns caught up. Loup and Unguis beelined for their brother pawn, helping him behind me. I sent a silent thank-you after Huckery. That would need to suffice until later.

I regarded King Change. “You will return to shackles, sir. And I promise you that you will not leave them for a long while.”

“I will never leave them,” he said, walking forward as if admitting defeat. “I will never stray from my purpose.”

He stopped before me, and I tilted my head up to look at him. “No, I see that. I have always known that. If there is one thing I can understand about you, it is your absolute dedication to a cause. How I wish we could be aligned in purpose, sir, for you would be a formidable advisor in my immortality.”

The king said, “This will never be.”

And did I detect the slight sadness there? “I wager not. You are dedicated absolutely as I have seen. What remains for us then, King Change? You see beastliness in lack of convention and monsterdom. This is as clear to you as the magnificence of these things are to me. I could not ever doubt in that beauty, where you will never doubt in the evil beastliness. I understand that clarity of surety, even if yours is directed the opposite way to mine.”

King Change doubled over slightly as if winded.

I closed the remaining distance. “Yes, dear king. I have fathomed the whole. No wonder you laughed so much in recent weeks, for you have already seen that the matter of conquering kings was not so simple as a shackling and stitching and complete surrender. I doubt the drops of a curse would have dissolved your stitch otherwise.”

He dropped to a knee. “It would not have, no.”

“So you withheld the final piece of conquering from me.” I rested a hand upon his shoulder. “Something I gained from all kings—See, Take, Raise, and even Bring in the end.”

King Change fell to all fours. “Understanding.”

The word filled my queendom, which had quietened—only shimmering and squeezing at intervals now that the acute danger had passed.

“ Understanding, ” I repeated. I had not troubled to understand this king. I had dismissed any chance of understanding him, for how could I ever fathom his evil brand of ruin? How could I ever fathom the demise of monsters? And yet we both held a strength of surety. I would laugh over saving, and he would laugh over ruin. I admired his originality and respected his cunning. I was unequal to the absoluteness of his dedication—for where he would not allow love to factor in his decisions, I still would. Though his union needed mending just like all others had, this king might have come closest to succeeding. If only he had felt more for his princess at the same time.

Yes, there was much to admire about King Change. I had just done so nearly too late. “I understand you now, and that is what matters. Come, we return to shackle and stitch.”

My insides quailed at the idea of sacrificing another stitch to his shackles. The mother who had belonged to the last stitch had been one of my most steadfast.

Adalina .

I must get through hellebores, though I already knew she would not be. What happened when immortality was erased from the already dead?

“And so I must return to awaiting your ruin of this world,” said the crawling king.

There was a warning in there. “What plan do you return from?”

But he was saved from answering by a parting of my pawns. They made way for King See, who strode quickly to join us.

Finally.

I was annoyed at him for missing the entirety of this threat to my queendom, and yet the sight of him. The sight of him. Those hands had swept over me and filled me. His fingers. His mouth.

My body warmed for the presence of him.

I wanted to return to what we had shared. Over and over again, I wished to be filled to that place where black spotted my vision and we slumbered for a day, and then a day again. I wanted to wake with him still within me, having slept so deeply that a king could sneak up on us.

I wanted my See.

“I apologize, Perantiqua,” he said low, bowing slightly. “I was held in slumber after our…” His lips curved.

“Slumber, you say? Ancient-given slumber?”

He nodded curtly. “The end in you was too much for my kingly mind.”

My insides purred at that. What woman would not wish to hear that her body and magnificence had forced a king beyond the edges of his sanity? “I am glad slumber was not overlong. That is why you did not come.”

“That is another matter,” said King See. “Are you well after the poison? Princess Raise and Princess Take told me all.”

“There is some weakness, but I am well.”

“Good.” See circled me to gaze down upon King Change with disgust. “You always did lack the necessary qualities to lead.”

“I led us to victory,” King Change shot back, sitting back on his haunches.

See chuckled darkly. “A brilliant mind does not equate to great leadership. Much better that you were a simple strategist in our human wars. The men never liked you. They did not love you. They followed you because you had the right uniform and the right title, nothing more.”

“You always did wish for my job, See.” He returned to hands and knees.

King See aimed a kick under his ribs, and the king rolled across cobblestones a way. I glanced between them, stepping closer but not intervening. This grudge ran ancient and cold in See, I could tell. I barely recognized his face.

“The men did love me,” said See. “My brother kings still do love and respect me. All monsters do, even a queen. But I was too smart to covet your job, Change. Not when I stood no chance at seizing it.”

King See crouched in front of his general from a time millennia ago. “But now I stand a chance.”

Change laughed, then gripped his ribs. “You want my job? Have it. A shackled king is a shackled king, and as she has removed all traces of skulls, she has shackled all kings too. You are just the same.”

“Your job?” King See lifted the other king. “No, not your job, brother.”

I frowned as King See threw his brother. “Go do what you do best.”

King Change disappeared through a hellebore grave. Pawns shouted and cried out their horror. I shrieked as every stitch in my body tightened at once, stretching at my patches until I thought they might tear.

My stitches did not loosen. My mothers were screaming a warning at me that another intruded in my deathly domain.

Such tightness, such warning, and yet my eyes dragged from the grave to King See. I was immobilized by the whirling of my many minds. They were trying to provide a logical answer for See’s action. A logical answer that did not point to betrayal.

For the first time since See’s arrival, I pulsed my power. The towering feeling of him was palpable. He was stronger than when I had left him in bed. Slumber.

Ancients had granted See more power and connection after our lovemaking.

Ancients were unsure of my success. Had the death of a princess, a stitch, and the mother it denoted removed me from the saving of monsters entirely?

How strong was he? For I was a queen who had recently absorbed some curse, and my full strength had not returned.

My knees shook under the sudden weight of crushing doom. “What was the other matter that kept you from coming when I was poisoned and betrayed?”

King See faced me. “I did not wish to come.”

I sucked in a breath. “I do not believe you. You seek to break my heart. The moment has come.” I stumbled back a step.

“You are weak from a few drops of deadly curse. Good. This will go well.” He inspected me as I stood staring.

I shook my head as if detached from my body in a nightmare. “You have not always plotted so. Ancients whispered this into you during slumber. This new ambition arises from new connection and power.”

“Maybe so.” King See lifted a shoulder. “Yet these next thoughts offered are not new. You possess so much potential, Perantiqua, both in power and connection, and yet you do not spend time with yourself to ever fulfil that potential. Since slumber, I can admit my true thoughts at last. Here is the summary: Queendom is wasted on you.”

I could not fully block the sting of his comment. I wished to believe he lied in the pursuit of my heartbreak, but the ring in his words… so resounding and sure. Yes, I felt some slapping sting. “I do not have time for your heartbreak tonight.”

My body was tired indeed, and my patches were pulled so close to ripping. Mothers needed me.

See chuckled again. So darkly. “Heartbreak. You accepted that lie so easily. I needed a cover for the sudden ambition that sparked in me when you rose to queendom. The instant you wore a crown was the instant ancients made me your adversary. I could not see the fullness of how I was meant to rise against you at first, and so I bargained for time. I had become a claiming king with an obsession to break your heart, I said to you, and how easily you reasoned away my every action against you after that. How easily you accepted my lack of guidance in queendom. You hardly questioned my avoidance of offering any help. In the end, in the matter of conquering kings, you even seemed to interpret my lack of help as a compliment—as if my absence during conquering was my show of belief in your power and connection.

That was when I realized the truth of you… Perantiqua, you are so ready to be convinced of heartbreak because you are unfinished and unrealized. There is a girl in you who sees the world with such naivety that you cannot face the magnitude of cold futures and bitter pasts. You cannot face the magnitude of what ancients need from you, and so you rarely look past the words and ideas offered because the deepest parts of you wish for an excuse to fail. The girl in you, and the woman, are terrified and trembling. You resist success in yourself, and in the possible fate that might be yours. All because you are broken by your past.”

Pain slashed through me. This monster was not King See. I could feel the difference. I did not know this monster.

Perhaps he had always carried a smaller version of these harsh thoughts of me, but slumber had altered him and drawn those small thoughts in larger proportions. He believed what he said—whether his words were the actual truth.

This changed everything between us.

Because this was not the king who had confessed love to me. This was not the king who refused to love me so that we might transcend love together.

He was not that monster any longer.

So perhaps the words See uttered were truth. Perhaps I had been fooled as to the obsessions of a “claiming” king. I had voiced my disappointments to other monsters when See did not guide me in early queendom. I had taken his lack of offer to help conquer King Raise as a compliment. I had thought See held great confidence in my abilities.

My heart started to pound, and the tightness of my patches was echoed inside. Brittle. I could not let him glimpse the weakness of me. Not until I knew if this was all just a simple heartbreak. How ironic to now wish for that fate. “How exactly is a queen broken?”

“Because the girl who became queen could not save her mother, not even in her mother’s death.”

I staggered back a step as pain exploded in the deepest parts of me, in my soul. I could not immediately speak through it. “That is not the breaking of me but the making. ”

“You are ever the girl hiding in the elevator scared that the landlady will discover you. Why else do you return to haunt her so? ’Tis not the landlady you seek to haunt but yourself.”

My chest rose and fell. He was not right. He was not! “You do not know me better than myself.”

“I have explored more of you than you ever have,” he snarled, then smirked. “Or have you buried your fingers in your ass?”

The words were a dark disrespect of the perfect love we had created and shared. See had been many things to me, but disrespectful? Never. “You are not yourself. You are adjusting to new power. We must pause in this conversation before real damage is done.”

The damage was done. There was a fractured change in the air between us. But I had to heed the warning of mothers or they would tear me apart.

“I am exactly myself,” he roared.

Not mild as he tended to be in a rage. He had roared. See was uncovered. His real ambitions and obsession to rise as my adversary.

How could ancients be so cruel? They surely could not be so cruel.

Yet King See had failed me far more times than he had helped me. Why did I put such faith in him? When had See earned that apart from in the infancy of my monsterdom?

For the first time, I saw that my ability to consider so many things at once was not entirely a strength, for I created one hundred theories in the next instant, and not half of them worked in See’s loving favor, but in favor of his long-held plot to overthrow me instead.