Page 20 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

His milky gaze swirled. His jaw tightened again. “Who is your reason?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Jealousy, See?”

“Yes, always. Forevermore. That is one of the prices I pay, and I pay it gladly.”

I withheld a shudder. “I would keep you jealous if I held any feelings for you, but I do not, and so I shall tell you that the reason of me is my love of monsters. That is how I put queendom before my heart.”

There was a great silence where I watched See wrestle with his emotions.

There was a pang in me that I did not wish to spark to a flame.

See was the strongest monster after myself, yet he would never reach my queenly heights.

He would always struggle with separating the layers of himself to achieve the clarity that had been so ruthlessly ingrained in me.

Perhaps he had been correct in mentioning the prices of romance with a queen.

See said, “You have the tools to transcend love. That is the proof I needed to know that a second betrayal would not be needed. Now I might speak the truth to you without fear of eliminating our fate and the fate of all monsters.”

Candor did not interrupt him.

“You might speak the truth, sir, but there is no need to transcend love any longer. You can rest happy in the knowledge that queendom will always come first because there is nothing to challenge it. You saved monsters single-handedly and forced a weak queen to become strong. How wise and all-seeing you are. None of us is anything without your interference.”

King See gazed upon me, and I felt—as I so often had in his company—the inner workings of his purpose and power to see past, present, and future. He could not see these things in my company, but he had seen them in the absence of me. King See recalled possible paths well enough between times.

Candor crossed her legs the other way.

My voice dripped ice. “I suggest you speak all that you wish to speak. It is unlikely that I will grant another audience.”

“There will be more audiences. The world is ending and we must hurry in romance,” he said low.

Drat. I studied him. I had hoped to keep all of that hidden. Far better that See had believed in the futility of our love. I would have believed his actions more readily. “The Real End is far more likely than the healing of romance. The thought of sharing romance with you makes me shudder within.”

The air changed, and I welcomed the sign of his rage.

His chains rattled. “You will shudder for a different reason soon. You have given me proof, and so shall I. I will not rest until that time.”

“Shackled as you are, resting is exactly what you will do,” I drawled.

See shook his shackles harder, and his voice gained a mild tone.

See’s rage. “Love of monsters is the reason of you. You will entertain the thought of romance—no, you will chase our romance—because you can do no other. Just as Princess Change could not engage in life without the magic of growing filling her soul.”

The stone walls of my throne room squeezed together, and the stones forming the floor rattled in place.

“Be careful, King See. Be very careful. If you contain a shred of certainty about what a queen may chase and entertain, then you contain too much certainty.” I waved a hand in the air.

“Is this all you have? I confess myself disappointed. I had expected a well-crafted lie at the very least. Perhaps I am too aware of the vast difference between us now. You were only enough for a weaker queen.”

The words struck him. The last sentence specifically. This was what he feared—that he was not strong enough for me.

King See’s throat worked. “I had not ever seen futures involving you, Perantiqua. Until one night, for no obvious reason, there came a brief period of time when the fullness of sight was returned to me. For five minutes only.”

I frowned. “The full future? All paths, including mine?”

“Yours and ours, yes. I considered the ‘how’ of what had happened for a long while before I realized the better question was ‘Where did she go to allow my sight again?’. Your absence for the last six months answered that question. For I have been able to look at all future paths for the last six months, and now that you are back, I no longer see anything to do with you.”

My brow cleared. The haze.

I had entered the haze to save a screaming mother once. I had walked three steps in, then three steps out. “When I entered the haze the first time, you saw how to best betray me.”

“Yes,” he said.

At least See did not deny it, but there was a tiny sinking in me still.

Candor reversed the cross of her legs.

“Yes, with a caveat,” I said in a bored tone. “How many times must I bid you to speak what you wished to speak?”

“I was blinded by the suddenness of seeing all, and seeing all that you could be and do for the first time. At the same time, I was shocked by the difference of what I could see in comparison to the map of possible and impossible futures that had once existed. I had slowly been going blind, though I had never told you such. You were becoming ingrained in all futures, of course you were, but as I could not see anything involving you, there was less and less to see. The difference, though… before you rose to monsterdom, there were so many paths to save the world—not quite half, but nearly. What I saw in th ose five minutes… every path led to destruction and ruin. Every possibility catapulted monsters to The Real End.”

Every path. That could not be. I wanted to ask him for more, yet I did not wish to show intrigue that may allow him to weave a believable tale.

I tilted my head. “Which is when you decided to betray me.”

“Not for the reason I led you to believe.”

I had let him lead me many places as a weaker queen.

He exhaled, then met my gaze. “I told you how blinded and shocked I was at the sudden sight of all futures. Old habits had me memorize as much of the map as I could, but five minutes was over too soon. Or just soon enough. Later, when I followed each possible future, my despair and belief in ruin towered higher and higher. Until, hidden under such thick and glowing futures, I found a thin trail, no more than a grassland track for a shepherd and his flock. There was a way to save the world. There was a way you could save the world.”

This was the carefully crafted lie I had expected. I detested him for intriguing me. I loathed that he possessed this gift for authenticity, for his words could well be truth—Candor certainly had not interrupted—but this king had convinced me of betrayal.

So how could I believe the opposite?

This king of omissions and half-truths, that even my monster of truth found difficult to decipher. How did a queen trust that kind of king?

I did not know how, and yet monsters needed me to. So I uttered hard words that I did not want to. “Go on.”

“I had only had five minutes to memorize the future,” he said quickly.

Low and heated. As if in a fever. “I could only see that you were gone for a long time. That you returned in a different form. I could see hundreds of branches from this thin path that all led to the ruin of the world. I watched the futures during your absence. I existed in a tortured state of hope as you navigated each fork in the future. I did not know what you did in the haze to succeed in each obstacle or decision, but I witnessed as you whittled away the futures leading to ruin. I rejoiced in each success, and I feared in each breath that you would fail.”

My breaths were shallow. I deepened them. “You did not believe in a queen. You had known me as a weaker one.”

“I knew you as you ever were and are,” he said harshly. “As the only queen. The queen we need. The queen who will save the world. But I feared, yes. For I had led you to betrayal, and I could not bear The Real End where you continued to believe that of me.”

There were two obvious holes in his fantastical narration.

“You could see how I whittled ruining futures away, but you still required proof of the shift in me before calling this audience. You feared The Real End where I thought the worst of you, yet you waited to call this audience until you had such proof.”

He winced. “The time of your absence was drawing to a close. I had accepted that the world might end while you thought the worst of me, and I had started to fear a saved world where you thought the worst of me despite my best efforts. I spoke true about my inner need for proof. I could not see the details of your trials in the haze, and perhaps I have learned to trust my physical eyes more when it comes to you and us. I have rarely had the luxury of magical sight in your company, after all. I meant what I said. I could not betray you a second time. I had to be sure. I had to find my courage to face the growing fear in me that you might never forgive me.”

Candor said, “ The urgent timeline of ruin gave a king hope, for he knew that a queen served monsters above all else. ”

King See’s eyes glinted. “That too. I am weak enough to need such hope when it comes to an all-powerful queen, though I would prefer otherwise.”

I did not respond. Even with Candor’s presence, I did not want to believe anything he said. Though I could certainly withstand a second betrayal, my being shied from pain, as any creature must.

But I was not any being.

King See exhaled in a rush. “I would fall to my knees before you if I could. I would tell you how I loathed myself in that moment where you were so weakened and under siege from another king. What I did was despicable, though justified. I have never felt more relief to have found the ability to betray you, and I have never felt more relief for a betrayal to be done. But I hated the act, and I hated myself. I hated our destiny, too, and for all the burdens and demands it places upon me. I have resented that simple concepts are lost to us. Simplicity has filled my dreams in my weaker moments.”