Page 45 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lessons of Life

“ N ot The Real End,” I murmured into the black.

“Not The Real End,” a voice replied.

I hummed, “And I had so thought it was.”

“Not yet, my darkness.”

I sighed. “I should open my eyes now.”

“Whenever you should wish to. You have been healing from dawn to dusk, and the chunks of flesh taken by the sick sands have mostly reappeared.”

The details of my last moments of consciousness hurtled into their seats at the table. My eyes popped open, and I stared up at a gray sky.

Pain. Ruin. Loss.

“You came for us,” I said after a beat, then turned my head to look at See.

We were atop my tower and beside the olden rock.

See nodded. “I left after you. I am rather slower than a queen and champions locked in reckoning, but I got there in time.”

“You saw that you must.”

“I hoped that I was doing right. The future becomes ever harder to guess at.”

I faced the sky again. “I am glad that you took the risk. My champions?”

“Returned. Not yet awake, but otherwise unharmed, though I had to extract a great deal of sand from Raise’s lungs.”

I dared to ask. “Life?”

“Life was given in the battle,” See said softly. “He is not merely lost like the others.”

A monster gone and never to return.

I looked inward to my heart to feel and remember all that Life had been. “The Brings were not strong enough alone. A mothers’ vigil tried to get them close enough.”

See said, “The resilience given to them was real, but delivered with a speed that was not. There is no replacement for living life in truth.”

His connections were well considered, and my mind whirled with the past. What if I had allowed the Brings to meet at the moment of the countess reaching fullness of power? They would have had more time to live in union.

What if I had released King Bring at the ball instead of upon the return from the Take’s seam?

I covered my eyes.

“Do you know why I only consider the past when changing the future, Perantiqua?” See asked in the shakings of my exhales.

I knew the answer.

He said it anyway. “Because nobody, not even I, can change the past. I tried once, you know, when feeling myself forever enamored by Princess Take. It’s impossible.

Carved in stone, all of life’s lessons etched to lead us to better choices if we should open ourselves to such wisdom.

But what-ifs do not serve us, for they offer no wisdom, just a delay before you accept at last that what transpired was inevitable.

Because you are who you are at this second and instant.

Your choices could not have been otherwise.

Just as champions’ choices could not have been, nor Madison’s or Life’s or Earl Bring’s choices.

Heed the wisdom of a seeing monster’s, my darkness, and skip the what-ifs to find acceptance and then seek the reason for this lesson. ”

I could see the sense in his wisdom. I tuned out the parts of my mind offering up alternatives of the past. My mastery over the various aspects of myself, mind, body, and soul had become great indeed.

For me to merely tune out a small part of one aspect was a useful skill.

For I had need of my mind to learn this lesson, as See had told.

“What have you learned, my darkness?” And his voice was dark too.

I stared at the sky. “I have learned that the healing of a fraying seam can be reinforced by the sacrifice of a simple monster. Healing is not limited to a mother and the couple in question.”

I had learned that a fate painful beyond reason awaited me if the black should ever truly claim me. The chunks of flesh eaten away by its attack were tender. So many of them. And the black grains of sand had been so few in number. Its attack had been tiny indeed.

What else remained to learn?

There was another lesson in there.

See interrupted before the wisp could rise in my mind. “You are wise to consider such lessons that will keep all remaining monsters safe.”

I sat up. “I have considered the lessons. I feel the loss of Life in my very soul. I will do everything possible to escape that feeling again. ”

The child and woman in my soul had not stopped crying, and their mourning permeated every part of me.

“We must keep all monsters safe,” See murmured, then kissed the back of my hand. He kissed a newly healed bit of flesh and I winced, pulling back.

But I nodded. “That is my reason for being. See, what has befallen the world now that Earl Bring is departed for a time?”

“The night is gone. We are pitched in eternal daylight.”

I worked to keep my breaths even through the horror of that. “But no shadows nor dusk? No midnights nor moonlight?”

“None, my darkness. The oasis of monsters disappeared with a bringing earl, and humans will surely suffer from this loss too.”

They surely would, but I could only think of my monsters right now. “I must go to check my champions.”

I used the olden rock to stand, noting the agitated swirling of the sparser black within. That was a mystery that continued to elude.

See offered his arm, and I took it, glad for the loan of his strength that reminded me of Madison.

When we exited the tower, my eyes swept to where she had been alive in death and stitched in place. A statue of her remained.

I crossed to Molly, who stared vacantly at the dirt, tugging on her stitches every now and then. Pushing out power, I healed the hands of the mothers either side of her. They did not reprimand Molly for hurting them. They knew her pain.

“Molly,” I said. Then my words stopped and there were no more to offer.

Molly looked at me without feeling. No fury, no hope, no reason.

“You are my daughter, and yet I have not felt the sisterhood of this circle where so many others have. My heart is my daughter, and when she was here, my heart was here, and now she is gone, so gone is my heart again. Please let me be next. I want an end. If there is oblivion, I rush to it. If there is Madison, I wish to know without further pain. I seek death, Daughter, and you hold the map.”

I did. “When champions awake, we will fight the battle of your stitch, Mother.”

Tears trailed over her cheeks. “ Thank you, Daughter. ”

I went next to my mother. “Life was given.”

Mother turned her gaunt and fragile face to look at me. “Yes, Daughter. Life was given to you, then taken away.”

I sat beside her. “There was a message in your gift.”

“There is a message in all. In the end, Life meant something wonderful, splinters and all.”

My exhale shook.

“Acceptance, Daughter. Your prince consort was not wrong in that.”

In that. Mother had made the effort to just inform me that there was a message in all. Why speak two words when she might have said, “Your prince consort was not wrong”?

She had implied that he was wrong in another matter.

“Of what did you speak to See about?”

“He spoke as a prince consort might speak to the mother of a woman he feels everything easy and difficult for. I spoke to him as the mother of a daughter.”

I narrowed my eyes and noticed the teasing glint in her gaze. “I am to understand you will not tell me.”

“Your understanding is great.”

Laughter slipped from me. “I will find out.”

“You will,” she said, and the teasing was gone. Departed.

Ah. But ah. What intrigue. Perhaps I should enjoy it a time.

Pawns were tending to champions, who had just begun to stir. I shivered, recalling the feeling of black sand eating at my skin and burrowing under the surface into bone and mind and soul.

I tuned out my body and senses. There was something more to be learned from what had transpired. When no wisp arose, I tuned out my power, too, and gave full noise to my mind.

The cogs whirred and spun, all connected and individual. The tiniest and rustiest of cogs screeched forward, and I awaited their offering.

I had learned that a weak union could be reinforced. That while the healing must include a battling mother and the couple in question, other ingredients could be used in the ritual.

A change to Change.

That was what I was missing. In what way did I need to change the Changes? Or in what way must I change the healing of the Changes’ seam?

Perhaps the King of No Change would always remain as he was. That seemed an irrefutable reality by now. Nothing could change his single reason for being. But I could alter the ingredients of how his frayed seam was mended.

By sacrificing other simple monsters.

My very soul shied away from that answer, and the woman and child in the deepest part of me threw up their hands to cover their eyes.

I almost missed it. The wisp.

The wisp was such a minuscule shimmer, barely a mist. I inched my face forward to inhale the wisp, and even then the flavor of the wisp was hard to decipher.

Ingredients?

Ingredients.

Ingredients.

The ingredients could be changed to achieve the same result.

The healing was the result.

The healing must be made up of enough . And what was “ enough”? Enough of a loving union, or respect and understanding and loyalty?

The flavor burst through my taste buds and self, the knowledge contained in the wisp unlocked by a simple sequence of questions.

The wisp offered a great connection indeed.

Ah.

But ah.