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Chapter Three

Of Smells

N ine steps were required to walk from my private lounge to the larger lounge by the door. I dared not hope that nine steps had provided a sound-proofing effect.

Nine steps completed, I then scanned the larger lounge and the four princesses occupying it. Three on a couch. One on an armchair.

Maybe they had not waited very long.

“Your nipples are showing,” said Princess Raise, and perhaps there was a grin on her face that I could not see, but there was definite grin in her tone.

I adjusted my breasts again.

“They won’t go back in the same,” drawled Princess Take. “Take it from me and save your strength.”

I pursed my lips and abandoned the effort. The display of nipple felt fitting in a sense. We were all uneasy and underdressed in some sense or another. Princess Bring had been brave enough to leave her head of blob and slime uncovered by veil. She had been doing so since she declared herself living to King Bring.

Princess Raise had attended even after delaying Princess Change so I could attack her. Princess Take had been lured here despite all the angst the visit would cause her king. Princess Change had come having last seen me a mad queen when I ripped her dried bouquet from her. I had also acted in violence against Princess Take.

Though payment meant different things to different princesses. My humiliation might speak to Princess Change, but my body spoke to Princess Take, judging by the quickness of her breaths.

“Do you desire her so strongly then?” asked Princess Change in her most despondent and echoing voice.

Princess Take hissed, flashing fang. “I do not! I desire my one and only. I desire my king.”

“You were practically writhing on that armchair while King See made her scream,” drawled Princess Raise.

I sat on the last armchair. There seemed nothing else to do.

“I-I cannot speak for the hold she has on me,” said the princess after a beat. “But ’tis lust and nothing more.”

I glanced at her. “But that is all you feel for your king, you have often said.”

She clamped her lips shut.

Princess Take took care to only display lust for her king because King Take could not feel more for her . If she asked for more, he would become more of a broken thing. King Take would not allow himself to behave as a deserving and great immortal because he could only execute his purpose while believing the exact opposite.

Only the despicable existed. Only vice. Ancients wished him to sink into the depths of depravity where only lust and whim and taking existed.

I had been correct in guessing that King Take had been the most moral and steadfast of men in his human life, and thus the taking purpose, which killed humans and rendered them to shells, had destroyed him. But ancients had given him the most ancient of princesses for a reason. Her powers of connection were powerful enough to fathom her broken king, and how she must go about ensuring he did not become a ruining king—not out of a fear of saving the world, but out of a fear that King Take would never recover himself from true ruin.

And so Princess Take feared ruining more than anything.

“Princesses,” I said, dipping my head to each in turn. “Welcome.”

“Queen Perantiqua,” said Princess Bring, and she started to stand to curtsey.

I held up a hand. “Do not trouble yourself, and I must remark on the dewy quality of your slime tonight, Princess Bring. You glow.”

The wettest of squelches, and to my delight, the princess did not say anything in reply. Compliments did not require an answer, I had once told her. The only effort must be to believe them.

“Your letters to us were a poorly disguised threat,” snapped Princess Take.

I tilted my head. “Did it seem so?”

“Why have you brought us here?” Black flooded the skin around her eyes, giving the illusion of a masquerade mask. The monster of desire was annoyed indeed.

I settled back. “You might have guessed by now that I have gained some power over princesses. Such power should be explored, and it struck me that there may be bad feeling between some of you after recent events.”

Princess Take turned her venom to the occupants of the couch. “You mean after she slimed me to the wall for two nights?”

“You are vexed,” said Princess Bring. “But remember you were very sad when you believed me dead.”

Take’s voice rose in a screech. “I should be relieved you live when you faked your death and made me sad in the first place?”

Princess Bring considered that. “You are angry at me for faking my death. I was very heartened to witness all of your sorrows from my dehydrated state. Change, you interrupted your numbness for a time, and Take, you even stopped tending to your king’s cock. Raise, you were in on the whole thing, but I do like to think you might cry in such a way if I really died.”

“I did hurry along his fulfilment,” Princess Take withered. “Only to find that you stomp upon our long-held acquaintance. And then you have the gall to slime me to the queendom of… of…”

“The queen whose crotch you nuzzled,” Raise supplied.

Take glared at her. I wondered if Princess Raise had always challenged Take’s ancientness so.

“Acquaintances are all we have been for centuries,” echoed Change. “We are not the friends we once were. I am not annoyed by your fake death, Princess Bring. I thank you for the extra ruin it caused. My king was very happy to see your death, and then hardly less so for all the hurt that came once you were alive again. Your king is in no small amount of agony over his situation.”

“But you would feel sorrow if I died,” Princess Bring stated.

Change hesitated. “I would welcome its ruin. I would feel relief that your trial was done.”

Princess Bring’s blob pushed up in a smile. “I am heartened that you still hesitate before offering ruinous words.”

There came no reply to that.

I said, “Princess Change, I must apologize to you for committing violence against you recently.”

“Against her . What about your violence against me ?” demanded Princess Take.

“I should apologize for it, but I will be honest instead and say that I enjoyed pushing you to the ground. I enjoyed that you left the interaction humiliated. I enjoyed cracking your king’s heart when he has been so vocal about cracking mine. That aside, I wish to treat you better in the future.”

Princess Take’s mouth was ajar. “You mean to say that you relished physically and emotionally mistreating me, and seeking revenge on my king, but you will try your best not to do so again.”

I considered that. “Yes, that is a great summation.”

“Try your best,” she repeated.

I clapped my hands. “Then all that remains is the matter between Princess Raise delaying Princess Change so that I could attack her.”

Raise shrugged a shoulder. “I would do it again. Just business.”

“Her delay was an act of ruin, and I am a servant of ruin,” said Princess Change. “I forgot myself for a time after you attacked when I should have numbly accepted the happenings, but I strive not to err from the path of ruin until smoldering blades shred me and I burn to death in the healing fire of The Real End.

That seemed settled then, though there was a tension in the lounge that implied that princesses were not content. They were rather different from pawns, and I had never had many female human friends to compare them to.

I scanned them. “So everyone is fine?”

“I’m fine,” said Princess Take, then Bring and Change offered versions of the same comment, while Princess Raise only grunted.

Did the word “fine” mean the same to them?

The princess of Change looked at me, but did not focus on me as such. “Why do you wish me to spend one week in your queendom?”

“That may soon become clear. I do not wish to be enemies with you, Princess. That much I will say.”

“And what will you say of how Princess Raise lingers in your walls?” she asked.

Princess Raise answered, “You know my husband locks me away terribly, Change. I struck a bargain with her. I manage her humans and she lets me stay.”

“You have prostrated yourself to become her steward.” Princess Take wrinkled her nose. “How could you lower yourself so?”

Raise crossed her ankles. “As easily as you crawled under the table at the royal dinner affair, I would imagine.”

I bit back laughter.

Take glared at the other princess, then turned her venom on an easier target. “And what are you to her, Bring? Her king? I have heard that See does not wish for the mantle.”

Princess Bring drew her blob up. “See would crawl for the mantle, Princess Take. Do not choose unkindness when you can choose otherwise. You are much better than that.”

Wonder held me when the comment struck Princess Take dumb. Goodness, but Princess Bring was no easy target at all. Rather, she had used kindness twice to strike the others to silence.

“I am her Lady’s Maid,” the blobbing princess said after a beat. “I bring scheduled matters to her attention and attend to the queen in her chamber when needed.”

I was the next to be struck to silence. Her words were spoken so surely. I unlocked my lips. “Goodness, but you did that this very dusk to remind me of my meeting with princesses.”

She nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. The lady’s maid urge is new to me, but I anticipate settling more into the role as you settle into the fullness of your queendom.”

“You are my lady’s maid in truth?” I demanded. “An urge born, not chosen?”

“An urge born, my queen,” she answered. “This is your power bidding me to aid you.”

I switched my focus. “And you, Princess Raise?”

“I become more interested in human affairs, finances, and accounts by the night. The roles of a steward, as Princess Take says.”

But here was an unexpected twist. I had wondered how princesses would come into play, and here they had unveiled their purpose for me. Princesses were meant to aid me in the running of my queendom. I shuddered with the rightness of their purpose.

Then came the next natural question.

I glanced between the remaining monsters. “Princess Take?”

The impossible beauty tossed her hair. “I feel no urge?—”

“Apart from the nuzzling kind,” interjected Princess Raise.

Black flooded her face. “You are not queen enough to have power over one as ancient as me.”

Princess Bring emitted a damp squeak at the insult, yet I would leave Princess Take with her denial. I guessed that she already had a very good idea of her destined role in my walls. The picture would gain clarity soon enough. As for Princess Change, she would reside in my queendom for an entire week, and her purpose would arise in that time, so surrounded in my power as she would be. I imagined that she might only feel her role once I uncovered her king’s rhyme and reason.

Princess Bring laughed nervously and wetly. “Queen Perantiqua, I cannot go on without mentioning the smell of you. The stench quite fills the room.”

“But the smell of me?” I blurted.

“The smell.”

Raise grunted. “I smell it.”

“As do I,” Take admitted.

Change remained in a numb state.

“I washed last night. I assure you. What is the nature of the smell?” My cheeks warmed, thinking of my interaction with King See.

Princess Bring sniffed, and how did she smell anything with how blocked her nasal cavities were by smile? “Musing. Ancient.”

Raise joined her in sniffing. “Powerful. Explosive.”

I grimaced, but Princess Take added, “Threatening. Looming. An aroma of dire need.”

Ah.

But ah.

Her use of “aroma” had helped me to connect the parts.

Princesses would not only cater to the current needs of my queendom, I fathomed. Unless I was mistaken, they could smell my next obsession. I had smelled these aromas myself, more than once.

And why?

Why would they smell anything unless their purpose was to aid me in obsession and help to grow my queendom to fullness? Raise and Bring had already displayed deep intrigue in my plots and plans when planning Bring’s death for the royal dinner affair.

Yes, princesses were certainly meant to aid me in obsession.

“If any of you should catch a whiff of the direction of this aroma, please let me know,” I said.

“I will do no such thing,” said Princess Take, crossing her arms.

But she would. I could feel how she would. She would hate it for a time because I was a ruining threat for her king. But she would.

I rose. “That is all. You might stay here to reacquaint yourselves if you like. Princess Change, kindly do not leave my walls. Princess Take, you may come and go as you please. Princess Raise and Princess Bring, please let me know if you require anything to fulfill your roles in my queendom.”

“That is all?” Take scowled. Her gaze dipped to my nipples.

“’Tis all for princesses,” I replied.

Chaos swirled in my mind after their sniffings of looming obsession. If obsession threatened to strike, and one as dire to be described as musing, ancient, and explosive, then there was much to do before that time.

Much of everything to do.