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

Chapter Four

The luxury of time.

The death of trust.

The clamor of truth.

Silence.

H ow long have you lurked? I asked the creature.

Heaved breaths met my ears, and some or other of my minds informed me that I had noticed the creature’s breaths for a while now. I had not fully registered his presence while lost in studying the broken woman in me.

She was so curled in on herself, so trembling. I had watched her and wondered about her and in the doing of this, the ringing and clashing and clamor quietened.

I did not need to scream at the creature today.

Is that why you sit and watch me tonight without growling? Because I have stopped denying the state of me?

In answer, the creature started to circle, but its circle had widened .

I returned to my inner vigil. Why do you tremble?

The broken woman did not answer beyond further trembling. The obvious answer was that she was either cold or afraid or… hurt. Maybe all three.

Are you hurt?

The creature stopped circling and returned to its heaving breaths.

The woman deep within my soul nodded.

She had responded! I had not known if she could.

The woman was hurt, and because the woman was me, if I waded through my denial and fears and weaknesses, then I could fathom the root of matters. Surely.

He hurt us.

She started to sob.

He made us doubt ourselves.

She nodded.

He made me doubt myself. Did I believe every cruel comment he had made? I steeled myself to admit hard truths. For I was looking at the deepest and most vulnerable state of me.

I could see the scraps and rags of her.

Denial did not exist here.

There was some truth to King See’s scathing words. Some truth. Maybe more.

But here was the hard truth: I have disguised and concealed us instead of mending us.

The woman made of stitch and patch had never fixed herself before setting out to fix all others and the world.

The rusty cog spun, and I inhaled the wisp of thought offered—the creature was snoring.

The clamor of my minds was quiet for the first time since entering the haze, and maybe for the first time in my existence, and so connections arose that had not been possible in my previous condition .

There was no such thing as coincidence in monsterdom or queendom.

The creature became tamer and more docile when I confronted my inner self. He grew more violent when I resisted doing so—when I screamed and challenged him to set his jaws upon me.

What are you? I asked him.

His snoring was replaced by a warning growl as he resumed his stalk. He did not like when I wasted my energy acknowledging his presence.

Did ancients send this creature? Or was this creature an ancient? Was this assumed punishment in the haze no punishment at all, but a way of ancients forcing me to heal my inner self to become a stronger queen?

Or was this creature just a creature in the haze that was yet to kill me?

I must fix her, I told the creature.

He stopped stalking and growling.

Yes. Whatever his origins, there was a way to tame him, and there were no coincidences in monsterdom or queendom.

While in the haze, I was meant to heal the deepest parts of me.

If I was meant to heal myself, then I was meant to be queen.

If I was meant to be queen, then I was meant to return.

If I was meant to return, I was meant to eliminate the threat of King See.

Revenge.

The woman lifted her head and glanced at me. Tears streaked lines through the dirt covering her face.

We will not let him win, I told us. We are queen.

She trembled a smile.

If there is truth in what he said, then there will not always be truth.

She nodded .

We must get better, my love. My minds sighed as one. We must get better for our monsters.

The woman stood on shaking legs, legs so thin that I feared they would snap. I had not seen the stitch and patch of her before now, but they were apparent as she uncurled and drew tall.

Any fear and pride I felt was rivaled by the shock of discovering that she had not been curled upon herself.

In a sense.

As the woman uncurled and drew tall, I saw that she had been curled around a child. The child had no stitch nor patch, and she was naked, mud and blood caking her.

And she was me too.