Page 19 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

Chapter Fifteen

An audience.

“ W hat do you ponder, my queen, if I may be very bold and ask?” Valetise murmured in her unique murmuring way that managed to convey great steeliness of character despite the muted volume.

I remained still as she buttoned the high neck of the crisp, white blouse. The white blouse tucked into black trousers, and while lacy embellishments and large buttons adorned the garment, they did not distract from the message of the ensemble. Business.

I answered, “I am always glad for boldness in monsters. Quite simply I yearn for a haze where time does not exist.”

“You would rather not entertain this audience with King See.”

She knew about the audience. Everyone knew about the audience.

Every monster had sensed the shift when Princess Change began speaking to her king in the rooftop garden every hour of the night.

They could not miss Princess Raise acting differently, so suddenly assertive and commanding.

If they had missed all of that, then they surely had experienced the sight of Princess Take wearing a full-length cloak, and also her king’s despairing shock.

And a queen had reversed her decision to deny King See an audience.

Monsters could not miss such shifts.

Soon I would meet with King See, and so many barriers in me.

How would he try to justify his betrayal?

How would I respond to an unexpected apology, if one were offered?

Yet I trusted myself forevermore since I existed in the haze… the haze I longed to return to in times like this. I trusted in my mind, in my body, and in my power. I knew them, and they knew me.

My fate was to save the world.

For my monsters.

I took a bracing breath and acknowledged Valetise’s curtsey with a nod.

“King See is for you, as Picket is for me,” she whispered to my back. “You will find love once more, my queen.”

How little she understood. I was happy for the monster’s ability to live so simply, and I did feel lonely in the complexity and diversity of my knowledge.

Only a queen understood the failings of love.

If most kings had known it, then they had chosen to ignore their instincts to transcend love. To survive it.

Only one king had refused the sentiment of love. King See had refused to settle for less than transcendence. In doing so, he had gone too far the other way and mistaken transcendence with coldness and distance.

And now we were meant to heal all of the misgivings and mistrust and betrayal between us in a matter of weeks .

The Real End seemed an easier path.

I floated to my throne room and sat upon my throne. Hellebores framed me bodily, curling around my face, arms, and legs in their frantic bid to alleviate the burden on my mind.

Candor slid out of the stone wall. “My queen, good dusk. Will you require my truth services during this audience?”

Did I wish to know lie from truth? No.

And yes.

I sighed. “If I believe from a sense of faith in a person, blindly in other words, does the truth carry more weight?”

“King See wishes to be believed because you choose to believe in him, not because you are in possession of a lie detector. Just as you would wish to be believed on your merits and character. Yes, in answer. But that does not mean that you should not use my magic either. There is a time for truth. There is a time for faith. Only you can decide which to employ.”

I had expected as much. “Do you know…?”

Though I did not specify what she might know, Candor shook her head.

“King See often opts for silence in my presence. I do not perceive this silence to be from malicious subterfuge. My role is nuanced, Your Majesty. I must consider every monster’s purpose when I utter truth—in King See’s case, his ability to see the future.

He may act in one moment to avoid a disastrous path, and I must tread with care lest I undo his tending efforts.

I admit that he is the most difficult monster to seek truth from, for I am often unsure whether I am safe to uncover his truth. ”

For Candor to suppose that King See might be working for good did not sit well in my bile duct. For that would be exactly what he wanted monsters to believe, so thwarted in overthrowing me as he had been.

As for his tendency toward silence, and how well he shrouded the truth… this was as he had ever been. I had always struggled to see into the heart and mind of him .

I tapped the armrest of my throne. “Though King See prefers to be believed on his merits, we are rather past that. Perhaps in the future, we can reach this place where faith takes flight. However, sand fills the hourglass, and faith is more of a gradual concept. Candor, you arose in my queendom walls for a great reason. I bid you to wield the truth in the matter of rebuilding romance between a queen and a king. If you should be unsure of the safety of divulging King See’s truth, then let us settle on a gesture.

If I cannot know the proper truth in his silences or comments, then I would still know that he withholds information. ”

My skeleton monster clasped her hands together.

“As you bid, my queen. I shall change the crossing of my legs to alert you to my uncertainty in his withholding silences. While I should not like to cause you pain, if there is pain to be felt, let it be felt once, and then let uncertainty and lies be done.”

I considered her wisdom. “I would like that. There is sense in a single pain.”

I tuned out my bodily senses and settled into the whirring of my minds. My new theories and connections of King See’s betrayal centered on the impossibility of a harem. There were many theories. Which would prove true? Which would he try to sway me into believing?

I tuned into my bodily senses again.

Goodness. King See was here. Right before me and shackled to his panel. Is, Has Been, and Will Be, stood either side of my throne. Candor sat in her armchair with her legs uncrossed.

How long had they waited?

“Faithful pawns, you may leave,” I said to my seeing pawns, who had once answered their seeing king and now stood with me against him.

They bowed and lumbered out, but not without casting furtive looks over their shoulders.

“Perantiqua,” stated King See. He could hardly bow while shackled, and his shackled state suited me. As did my choice of meeting place. As did my seat on this throne.

King See would never again be in doubt as to who ruled the world.

I replied, “Do you use my name without proper title in an attempt to be what you have been?”

“We have always been what we are . We have always been what we can be.”

Candor did not correct him, nor did she cross her legs. He spoke truth. King See wished me to believe that we could return to our previous fate.

I looked into milky eyes, and there was so much to demand that I could demand nothing. But I was not the monster who had sought this meeting. “Why did you seek an audience?”

“Why did you deny it, then grant it?” he asked in a silken voice.

That silken voice had undressed me many times, and yet I wished to shudder in revulsion upon hearing it tonight. I detested the idea of romance with him.

And I loved him, for he was a monster.

I waited, and King See’s face settled into grave lines.

But why did he not appear cowed? Why was his inky black hair and short, clipped beard lush and groomed?

Why did he stand straight-backed and sure?

His black velvet coat, embroidered with silver thread, was impeccable, as was his tunic beneath.

Chalky skin and oversized joints and thin, cruel lips that had kissed me into oblivion.

Why did he not crawl to reenter my favor? I did not wish to view his dignity.

“I come to you,” he said, then stopped. “To explain. When I undertook to betray you, I did not expect the aftermath would become the hardest chapter. I expected that… I feared that…”

Candor crossed her legs.

“Are you so unused to speaking your true thoughts aloud, sir?” I inquired. At least he had not denied betraying me, though a small sinking in my stomach did surprise me. Had part of me still hoped?

His mouth pressed into a grim line. “I had to be sure that the betrayal had worked. I could not put you through that a second time. I could not play that role twice either. Perhaps that was my larger concern.”

I hummed. “So you betrayed me for my own good. That is the story you would like to tell. How tiresome.”

King See’s jaw tightened. “I had to be sure, and though I hoped you had won the victory against yourself through the grave—and you were so very and obviously different upon your return—I could not bear undertaking betrayal again, and so I waited for proof.”

“What proof?” I asked coldly. This conversation would not lead to immediate healing of our romance.

The world demanded a healing of our romance, if we were to save it.

King See looked into my eyes as if he were not shackled, and as if I did not sit upon a throne.

He said, “Proof that you had transcended love.”

Laughter startled from me, and I was genuinely amused. “Sir, there is no reason to transcend a love that does not exist.”

He remained mute, but I perceived a new darkness in his milky gaze. Worry? Disagreement? Annoyance that I was not believing his story?

“You have transcended what you feel for me,” he urged.

“I witnessed this when you asked me for information and advice two nights ago—you asked me for these things, the king that betrayed you. I felt the exact moment that you placed queenly matters so certainly before our romance. In exchange for that information, you even granted me power, though I have delivered you with so much pain. That is proof of the shift in you, Perantiqua. ”

Though I wished to disagree with King See until the end of time, we did not have much time at all, and in self, I was certain indeed.

“I feel no hesitation in the order of queendom and romance. In the haze that robbed me of all but mind and power, I uncovered the reason of me. That reason was not you.”