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He tilted his head. “You start to fathom the whole. Ploy though heartbreak was, I see that I have achieved such breaking after all. Your face and body crumble with it.” He chuckled. “Such small amusements in immortality. But worry not, you will adjust to our new fate.”

I took two unsteady steps closer to him and to the grave between us. “You want me to feel like there is a whole. You wish to undo me.”

“ Yes ,” See hissed. “I wish to undo and remake you as you should be.”

“You would not do that to me? But you…”

“Love you?” he asked. “So many months spent telling you that I would never love you, yet I knew that my success depended on burying my cock in you. There was vast power to be had through claiming the virginity of a queen. I had never thought you pitiful until you begged in so many ways to hear that I loved you. Another instance where you did not look beyond the words offered to you to the lie beyond.”

His words were daggers that picked at each of my stitches. His tone was more poisonous than the poison capable of killing immortals. For I might live through this night, but I would never recover from his comments. “See, you must stop.”

“I will not stop.”

I said louder, “There is nothing to gain from this!”

“There is everything to gain from this.”

I thumped my chest and screamed wordlessly, then shouted, “I cannot believe you, for our hearts beat together. You cannot convince me that our fate is anything other than shared. We can never be adversaries. Every word you speak is a lie. An impossible lie!”

He walked away a few steps, but the uncaring casualness of his posture spoke volumes. “Our fate is shared, but our destiny was never set. For a long time, I believed monsters waited for someone or some thing to remove us from the state of limbo between saving and ruin. Though there was a subtle slide to ruin, no saving or ruining action was ever successful in reversing or accelerating the fate of the world. So I waited, and then you appeared and soon became queen.

“In your infant monsterdom, you had often slumbered in my palace, and I was often warring against other kings on your behalf like a fool. I had not looked as closely as I should have at you nor us. Only when you were queen and my obsession rose with equal violence did I sit with myself—as I should have done from the start—to inspect our future. I had been so focused on the present, and I had tended to dismiss the future after centuries of seeing how saving and ruining never altered the world. Even then, I nearly missed the truth of us when I inspected the future, but I saw that while I was blind to most futures where you were assumedly queen, there was a slice of another future. There was a slice where you were gone, and I could see all again.”

These were words to commit to memory, and yet I could feel The End in me. The obliteration of my heart and hopes and belief in good things. Why did everything he said add up into something sensical? Why was there no foothold of disbelief to cling to?

My voice shook, “What did you see?”

He faced me. “There is much you cannot know on this side of the future. Suffice to say that in that future, you are not queen. There is a king of monsters, and I am he. You are a powerful princess at his side, but a princess only.”

A king.

A king.

And so ancients had given King See a vision of the exact wish of his immortality where he was justified in his patience for so many centuries. They had shown him a future where he ended up with a princess, just like other kings. They had lured him with a fate where he was not shackled and consort to a queen.

“You are happy as my princess in this future,” King See continued in a frenzy. “There is a shuffling of sorts. Your queendom crumbles, and your pawns become mine. Kings are shackled to me, but they harbor no resentment, not even Change. There was always part of them and other monsters and even you who believed that I was more than other monsters.”

I sucked in breath, for I could easily believe that kings and pawns would vastly prefer him, because I had vastly preferred this king too. He had always seemed more to me. Other monsters did view him with some reverence. “What of other princesses?”

His thin lips curved, and where I had seen his lips as the most delectable of his features, now the thinness portrayed an evilness.

“A king must be satisfied,” he said. “But you will accept the sharing of me. You are wise enough in connection to figure out that you cannot do otherwise. You will never be allowed to seek satisfaction from another, but me. Lust is a formidable negotiator.”

The hollowness in me had no sound. No monster might have suspected how empty I felt. My mothers’ warning no longer felt very stretching or urgent. In fact, I felt so very removed. “This is a cruel lie to break me.” I lifted my head. “See, admit that this is a cruel lie, and we can still return to what we shared.”

But I could hear the lie of my words.

He regarded me coolly. “I cannot admit such a thing, for I speak truth. I will not answer to you from this moment, for I am destined to be king of all, including you. My kingdom will never answer to you, either, for it has never been yours, and now it never will be.”

I staggered as my focus drew inward to a recent memory. One in his kingdom when I had stomped my foot and demanded to know where See was… except the kingdom had not squeezed or shimmered with my rage.

His kingdom had never answered to me. I had not noticed. Fool that I was.

“My humans were never yours,” he said next.

I staggered again. For such truth. His humans had never allied with mine. His humans had only displayed the same violent and conniving unrest as those of other kings.

His kingdom was not mine. His subjects were not mine.

He was not mine.

No. I pressed a hand to my head, and the other to my heart. “ No. ”

“You will never be queen of me,” he said softly. “That fate no longer belongs to us.”

I had not noticed the discrepancies. I?—

I pushed on my chest in a bid to force the aching out my heart. My voice was as ragged and stretched as the rest of me. “You are blind to the future of this path, See. You gamble the ruin of the entire world on a whim.”

“No more than on the future paths belonging to you,” he calmly replied. “I cannot see them at all. But I will tell you what I witnessed with my real eyes. I have seen a queen stumble and stagger from pawn to princess to king and scrape through time and again, but I have rarely seen her be and rule as a queen. I have seen her react and cling to control wherever she could find it. This queen did not even think to stitch my shackles in place, so blind was her trust. I gave her a key, and she never thought to demand the final two lessons promised to her so that she might learn the rhyme and reason of my war. She is sloppy. She leaves loose ends. She is chaos. She is unsuited to queendom .” He took a breath.

I did not trust his sudden softening. I could never trust him again.

See said, “No one has tried harder to be what they are not, but you are meant to be mine. Stop fighting to uphold a fate that terrifies you. Let go of that sorry future. I am ready to fight that battle for you and for all monsters, and I will protect you always. You must find the strength and connection to believe in me, and to believe that queendom is not yours. I kneeled at your feet, and now you must kneel at mine. This is our destiny.”

And share you with princesses.

I was wrung out in soul and mind and heart. He had connected the past, present, and future so convincingly. He had provided all the details and cruelties from the moment of us meeting to now. Why did he not rush to help me when the glass vial was shoved into my back? Why did he throw King Change into the grave, helping the king to where my mothers sat in deathly vigil.

He knew they protected me in death.

He needed me weak.

My focus fell to my mother’s grave. Go do what you do best, he had said to King Change.

See wished Change to tear apart the circle of my mothers. He wished the other king to tear down my tower in the world of gray scale and barrenness. For while the tower was intact, so was my queendom.

See would only send Change if he could not go.

He had sent Change there before confronting me. The future where a king of monsters existed instead of a queen was not a certain thing.

See’s ruling future was not assured, and so I could pierce through my shock to access the anger boiling deep within. I could attack See and claim my queendom. Yet… I was a queen weakened by curse, and he was a king of new strength, and how much new strength I could not sense nor say. I could attack See and fail to claim my queendom.

Despite his speech designed to persuade me that all was lost, and that I should happily surrender to princesship, I could not believe that my destiny was anything other than to be the queen and caretaker of all monsters. From my time in See’s company, I had learned that any number of futures operated at once. See had also admitted that he could only see a slice of the future where he was king.

He had said that I was gone for a time.

Yes, there was great risk in giving way to my fury of his betrayal and audacity. I could not attack him now.

A queen had to survive in freedom to fight another night, and King See had inadvertently given me the clue of where I must escape to. I stared at the hellebore grave. There was only one place where a queen could be gone. “You argue your case too passionately, sir.”

He had been talking and cut off.

Pawns gathered behind me, and their snarls and hisses and growls wrapped the broken and tender parts of me that I knew could never heal after See’s betrayal.

But monsters were mine . I belonged to them, just as I had belonged to See two nights ago.

A tear slipped over my cheek. “I am the queen of monsters, sir, and I am that tonight and will be for all nights until The Real End. You will not take that from monsters nor from this world. You will not take that from me . You have revealed what you are now, and I thank you for saving me from greater pain in centuries to come. Better to know from near the start that our destiny is a cold and empty one. I dream of the night when my heart will beat alone in truth and freedom from you.”

“You are undone, mistress,” he stated. “I have ever been clear that I wanted a princess. Your wants and dreams in monsterdom were never greater than mine, though you believed them to be greater indeed. You should have accepted one of my proposals and saved yourself such hardship, as I would have accepted your queendom if not other path had existed. I have been prepared to give you far more than you can fathom to give me. But give it you shall. There is but one future, and you do not rule it. You will be shackled in my chambers, and it will not take long to convince you to me again. You are already shackled to my touch, and have been since the start of your monsterdom.”

He had said those exact words to me during our lovemaking.

My fingers trembled with the urge to cover my mouth. How was he this creature now? How had our fate twisted and warped so? Why did I forget the mercilessness of ancients?

See had been so careful, but he had slipped here and there—enough to convince me of the lie of him. Yet love wished me to deny everything. Love wished me to make excuses and look for irrational explanations.

They did not exist. I could not look for them.

Monsters could not afford me to do that.

I was reeling. Mothers needed me. Whether because of weakness from the curse or weakness from broken love, I could not bear to attack King See.

I could not risk losing.

I took one last look at the king who I had believed in. I looked over every towering chalky-white inch of him. I took in his thin lips and milky gaze, his oversized joints and black clothing with the neat silver embroidery. My breaths were ragged, and my heart was in shreds. Skin so tight.

In my soul, I was not who I had been.

And through all of that came the tandem beat of my heart with him. Thud. Thud. Fool. Fool.

That gift from ancients was a cold cruelty, for I could sense how my heart would never escape him unless I carved the organ from my body.

My soul, however… My soul was mine and true, and untainted by See. My soul belonged to monsters.

There was only one place for this queen to survive in freedom. To fight another night. To fight the king she had loved—whom she loved still. But not for much longer, for the affliction would be conquered without delay.

“Dear pawns,” I whispered. “Protect the queendom. Protect my subjects and princesses. Those are your orders.”

The flare in See’s milky eyes that told me he had guessed my next move.

Too late.

This queen of chaos could be in control of herself sometimes.

I stepped through hellebores, and his was the last face I saw. His were the last words I heard.

“ What fun we will have upon your return, my darkness .”

I tumbled and tumbled, head over heels, inside and out until I crawled out of the grave on the other side.

So wrung out.

I surged to my feet despite it and clawed out of the dirt grave. I whirled in a circle, rubbing at my skin as the tightness leeched away at last. “Where is he? Where is Change?”

Mother said wearily. “We held him as long as we could, but the circle is not closed. We could not keep him here.”

Cassandra replied, “He ran into the haze after several failed attempts to harm us.”

The haze? I turned shocked eyes on the barren emptiness. “I am relieved beyond measure that you are all safe. I could feel the tightness of your vigil and protection in my stitches. But why would he ever enter the haze?”

“He said that all kings are capable of further slumber. He chases more power to conquer you,” she answered.

My heart sank. Of course. I had not managed to conquer kings, and now at least two sought to conquer me.

I scanned the circle for Adalina. She was flat on her back.

I closed my eyes. “She is gone. I knew she was, but I hoped.”

“She is gone,” echoed mothers.

They did not hiss that I had waited too long. They did not reprimand me for ignoring their warning in favor of remaining with See while he eradicated our warm destiny. They did not need to. I felt every one of my failures tonight.

I walked to Adalina and bowed my head. She remained stitched to the mothers either side of her. Her eyes were wide and unseeing and set upon the swirling gray skies.

Adalina was frozen in the fullness of her life and death.

She was gone.

“I have failed,” I said. “The circle will remain incomplete.”

Richalle snarled, “Why did you stitch us here if you were going to give up?”

“I am not giving up,” I said calmly.

“You are,” said my mother.

I faced the three remaining unstitched mothers, who were unconscious at the base of my tower. “Perhaps I gave up on myself because you gave up on me, Mother, when you handed a glass vial to a princess.”

Her frail voice floated to me as I stitched the forty-eighth mother in place. “You were avoiding the haze,” she wheezed.

My focus darted to the haze. I did not reply as I returned to collect the forty-ninth mother. I stitched her in place, then said, “You did not trust me. If not my own mother, then who could possibly believe in a queen?”

I was not angry at her. I was not angry about anything. Or sad. Or disappointed.

A deep empty numbness sat atop the single truth burning in me—the truth in my soul that could not be extinguished. The truth where I belonged to monsters always and forever.

My mother extended her other hand, and I carried the fiftieth mother over, then stitched her in place.

Fifty mothers.

The circle was complete. But the circle would never be complete now one mother was gone.

There was no triumph. No success.

I had failed.

I was a queen of chaos, and she only reacted and was never in control.

I strode for the haze, for I had stitched fifty mothers in vigil and no longer possessed the weakness preventing me from entering the fog.

Love no longer weakened me.

Love no longer screamed at me to return to him.

The very qualities of the haze that had terrified me now beckoned and coaxed me closer. My numbness and emptiness was reflected in the fog that would rob me of all senses and only leave me with connection to my mind and power.

The haze could take my mind, too, for a time. I was sick of it.

Cassandra called, “Daughter, no one might enter or leave now that we are stitched. No one but you. I cannot say what Adalina’s death will affect otherwise, but we are true gatekeepers of your queendom now. Of that I am sure.”

My feet slowed. I could not leave matters like this. I might never see them again.

I faced them and my mother. “I am so sorry for failing you all. I am so sorry that I did not listen. I am sorry that you were forced to set dire plots in motion to get me here.”

Cassandra replied, “You listened, Daughter. You just did not agree. Do not question the unfolding of fate. That is a thankless game.”

“You speak on failure too soon,” chimed other mothers.

Mother’s voice shook. “A mother would not have set events in motion if she did not believe her daughter could return more resilient than ever.”

That is why I gave the curse to Princess Change.

“You must not give up, my Patch,” she said after.

I swallowed. “I have not given up.”

Her face firmed, but she did not disagree with me aloud.

Perhaps I had given up in heart for now. Perhaps I had lost my screaming reason to return from the haze too. But I had not given up on monsters. I would recover. I would return for them.

But there was relief in giving up for a time. Relief in losing myself in numbness. That was what my heart sought as a balm.

I bowed deeply to those who had withered to make me. “I will see you again.”

“We will see you again,” said all conscious mothers.

Despite their chorus, I heard the shake in my mother’s voice—not from frailness, but born of her fear of what might become of me.

There was a creature in the haze, after all, and a king, and I was but a hollow queen tonight.

Or dusk now. Dusk was surely upon me.

The time mattered not.

I stopped at the border of the clearing, and as the haze whispered against my boots, cold irony filled me. A chuckle even slipped past my torsioned lips.

I had misunderstood the original poem of kings.

I had assumed the poem only referred to kings, aside from the mention of me as “golden fate.” Yet this moment of entering the haze… so empty in feeling, was foretold at the very beginning.

The chilling weight of queendom crashed upon my shoulders, and I recited the last verse of the poem that was written for me. My icy voice floated ahead to disappear into the thick fog. “Your immortal burden, cold and lonely. Hear. Rule until the bloody finish. For the mighty never stirred at dawn . She bursts forth at dusk into the toothed beast’s yawn . ”

And so I did.