Page 15 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

Chapter Twelve

Tell her

Would he just?

A knock.

Valetise left my side to answer, and reappeared in my private chamber with Is by her side.

Is bowed low. “Good dusk, my queen. I have come with two questions.”

“Ask both, if you will.” I turned this way and that in the mirror to feel how the loose fabric swayed with my body. Two clips held the fabric in place at each of my shoulders.

Is straightened. “The first is from the king and pawns of bringing who request that sand be brought from outside of this pulse and into Princess Bring’s personal chamber.

The sand in her bowl gleams and shines, and she protrudes from it.

They feel dirtier sand is needed to keep feeding her, along with a larger growing space. ”

“I defer to the blobbing knowledge of bringing monsters. Collect what sand you need.”

“I shall pass on this message,” Is chimed, then cleared his throat. “Uh, shall I ask the second question?”

“I have said that you can.”

Is toed the stones. “Yes, but you might have changed your mind, and… maybe you would want to start the evening calmly.”

Amusement lit in my chest. “A queen could not do so when a pawn has implied that a question would unsettle her. Ask your question.”

Is screwed up his face. “King See requests an audience with our marvelous queen. You.”

My brows climbed. Had last night unraveled King See as thoughts of impossible harems had tried to unravel me all day? The audacity of requesting anything from me. “What were his exact words?”

Is spluttered for a time, then winced again, then once more. “He said ‘Tell her I want to speak to her’.”

Tell her.

I want.

Speak to. Not “speak with” but “speak to.” Otherwise known as “speak at.”

Is had obeyed his instincts to dress up the request from his previous liege. He should not have. For the way King See spoke was good to hear, as his words reminded me of the truth.

The truth that must be for now.

For if I chose to believe another truth, then much could become undone.

During a restless day of slumber, I had acknowledged that King See’s harem ideals were impossible, and that he must have known this always.

King See had lied. He had wished to convince me of my smallness and unimportance to him.

But that was where I stopped acknowledging for now, for then too much must be considered with these new shadows in mind.

His betrayal.

His cruel words.

His attempt to take my throne.

What else was a lie? Everything had been clear, a clear betrayal. I trembled within, devoid of courage, as I considered the full or partial disruption of the peace and acceptance I had come to on the subject of King See’s usurpation.

I could survive anything. I would never lose my self again. Future betrayals from King See could not break me.

But I trembled at the idea of daring to hope for a dream instead of a betrayal, for I had clawed myself away from him once. Though confident in my ability to repeat this, I also respected the turmoil and effort of doing so.

To have coped with See’s betrayal once was a lesson.

To open myself to him again… if he betrayed me a second time, then I would have myself to blame too. I would open myself to shame and further resentment, and these were the ingredients to unhappiness.

I was as undone as a queen could be.

“No,” I replied to Is. “His request for a queenly audience is denied.”

Is swallowed hard. “I shall deliver the news. Might I give him a reason?”

I ignored the question, though not really from a design to do so. A queen had work to attend to, and this matter was irrelevant in the reckoning of the world.

Three princesses were sitting in the larger of my private lounges when I left my chamber.

“An audience with King See, huh?” drawled Princess Raise.

When they realized I was leaving the chambers, the princesses hurried after me, even the subdued Princess Change.

Princess Take snorted. “He seeks to crawl back into her good graces and her bed. He envisions a lonely immortality with only a hand to warm him.”

There was that potential. That was why I trembled so. Ultimately, I would have to believe one way or another.

I would need to have faith .

That was not a tangible thing. It was a hope and dream. I wished to believe always in hopes and dreams, and not expose them to a monster who had dashed them before.

“To where do you hasten?” whispered Princess Change.

I peered back and noted her dirt-covered hands. “To the grave.”

The others cried out their objections.

“Not the grave,” mourned Princess Raise. “Not so soon. You have only just returned.”

“To the grave, not to the haze,” I clarified. “’Tis but a simple trip.”

To understand the ruin of the world.

I had the why of the ruin of the world. I had the how . But where and in what way would the ruin of the world occur?

Where and in what way must I fix it?

I must gain knowledge in reckoning. “As I circled in my conservatory amid kings, I was reminded of another tower that I have no understanding of. The answer to the world’s healing does not reside in humans, nor kings, nor even in fifty mothers.

Therefore, the answer must reside in me, but which part of me? ”

I wrenched to a halt before the balustrade that overlooked my mother’s grave.

I faced princesses. “King Raise’s question to me last night about how I had ripped the single reason for existence from Princess Change sparked a thought in me.

I entered a haze that robbed me of body, so that I might understand my minds and self, but in that haze, I did not gain understanding of my power.

That is why I trip through a grave this dusk.

I believe understanding of power could lurk atop a tower. ”

“Power and tower,” murmured Princess Change. “They rhyme.”

“In my experience of poems and chants and verses, rhyme often points to the answer,” I answered.

Princess Take and Raise helped me to stand atop the balustrade, and then Princess Change tentatively pushed me in the lower back.

I toppled off the balustrade and just managed to wave in response to Life’s rear across the courtyard before I was encompassed by hellebores.

After clawing up the other side, I kissed my mother’s gaunt cheek and greeted the other mothers. They did not interrupt their chanting vigil to greet me, but their chant swelled louder and higher for their daughter’s presence.

I strode to the tower and looked upon the various items set out in the dirt.

A needle for which to stitch fifty mothers.

The bridal gifts: a crimson silk and black lace garter from Princess Take, a black bouquet of strawflowers and roses from Princess Change, the black-and-gray pearl necklace of Princess Bring, and the fingerless lace gloves of Princess Raise.

I picked up the items and then considered the tower. As I did so, a doorway appeared. Naturally, a queen was meant to go inside.

So I did, and then climbed to the heights of the tower. There were no other openings, whether window or door. The stairs simply led to the top.

The top was a platform, so far from the ground and fifty mothers, and exposed to all directions without any walls to speak of. A rock—a grayscale replica of the olden rock—sat in the middle and in the exact same place as in the colorful version of this conservatory.

My dress flowed around me in a gentle breeze that must have arisen from the haze. My focus extended to the haze, for there was a link there between this tower and the haze.

What was it?

I started to circle the olden rock, for no other reason than that doing so had sparked my intention to come here. I circled, and my body became less important and my mind and power more so.

Power.

Slumber in power. Vulnerability in power. Obsession in power. Madness in power. Uncertainty in power. Reckoning in power. From infancy of monsterdom to now, my journey in power had transformed as much as the rest of me—perhaps more.

Understanding in power. That was what I lacked.

I held up the needle in my hand. I was a creature of stitch and patch, after all, and the origins of my monstrous form were the heart of my power. Fifty mothers had withered to make me.

My gaze flicked to the olden rock, which was the heart of this conservatory. I walked over, and could see the tiny hole drilled in the top.

A hole for a needle of a queen made of stitch and patch.

I set my needle into the hole—a perfect fit. There was a distant rumble in the land of haze as I did so, then nothing more.

My stitches and patches were the heart of my monsterdom.

The floor around the olden rock was not entirely flat. I had not noticed. Indents. Four of them.

I set the four bridal gifts into the indents, but no distant rumble arose. The indents were not meant for bridal gifts, so I took up a slower pace, scanning the ground for clues as I circled.

I found four holes. The number of them might have led me to believe that they were meant for bridal gifts, but the shape was unmistakable.

“ Mother, ” I thought.

She pushed out five keys from five kings. After studying the keyhole before me, I selected King Bring’s brass key. There was an order to kingly things, I had always found.

I slotted the key into the hole and twisted.

A scream was ripped from my lips, and I clutched at my left shoulder. I screamed again, clutching at the joint. The stitch there—something was trying to rip the stitch from my body.

I pressed a hand against the stitch, and pulled at the stitch with my power in a desperate bid to hold it there.

I pulled and held the stitch until the force subsided.

Panting, I dropped to my hands and knees, watching as beads of sweat fell to stone. Did the tower or ancients cause that?

The ruin of the world?

Surely not kings. The key was already won, and so the key was mine. Whatever had happened must have had to do with my fate and reckoning.

My power. I could not properly think in this panting state.

I lifted my head and located another keyhole. I was meant to insert three more keys, but not four. I could not fathom the why, but the message was clear.

I overrode my instincts that cried out for me to leave, and I inserted a key of bone into the next hole, the key of King Take. This time, the stitch connecting my right leg to my torso tried to rip out of me.

I rolled on stone in agony, curling in with the attempt to keep my leg attached. Screams left me until only panting and sweat remained. I slumped on the ground for a long while, then weaved over to where another keyhole waited.

King Raise’s key. I slotted the stone key into place and dropped to my knees. The right shoulder.

The pain of something internal and intrinsic being ripped outward. The stitch was a physical part of me, yes, but also a source of my power. I had never experienced its like.

I groaned and shook on the ground, curled in a ball.

One more .

But why not two? Five kings existed, and five keys too. Unfortunately, as only one king’s heart thumped in tandem with mine, it was easy to connect that four kings might share a differing fate.

I crawled to the last keyhole, and with trembling fingers, I slotted the twisted wooden key of King Change into place.

I had mostly expected that my left leg would try to rip from my body. With the dregs of my strength and power, I did my best to keep my stitch within, screaming as something invisible plucked at the individual threads in a bid to pry them up.

Only when I returned from dark unconsciousness, did I discover my success in retaining the stitch. The toll of slotting four kingly keys into place had overwhelmed my senses, and that was shocking in itself.

I sat back on my heels and blinked away the blur in my gaze. During my unconsciousness, four stone cases had pushed upward out of stone, directly in front of where I had inserted the keys.

I hardly dared to, as wrung out as I was, but I opened the stone case of King Bring anyway. No invisible force tried to rip my body apart. The shape within the case made the next step clear.

I staggered back to the bridal gifts at the olden rock and selected the black-and-gray pearl necklace that shimmered and shone.

I placed this inside the case and closed the lid.

My body did not try to rip apart. I was glad for that.

Three more. It was quick work to put the garter, bouquet, and lace gloves where they belonged, and after, there was a louder rumble and a shaking.

I wiped sweat from my brow, blinking through immense fatigue. Through such bodily sensations, I could not properly consider what had happened and why. But I soon would because I must .

“Come, Daughter,” came my mother’s thin voice from far below. “You must sit in vigil with us.”

“ Now that you are spent,” chimed the others in unison.

I could not contemplate the magnitude of walking down so many stairs, so I walked to the edge of the tower and threw myself off. I rolled at the bottom, but I need not have bothered, for my weariness was complete, and I could not feel much of anything.

A pawn might have bested me right then, for I was as defenseless as a child.

Ah, but that was the point.

Ancients had reduced me. This vigil was too much for a queen. I was needed in my simplest form. I was the fiftieth daughter, after all. Now I must be the fiftieth child in whatever came next.

Cassandra’s voice filled my impressionable head. “Our vigil begins.”