Page 46 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

Chapter Thirty

Here was a test?

Here was the heart of us.

Exactly what

Did a seeing king

See?

I dwelled longer amongst hellebores in a grave tonight. Or this dawn.

When I climbed out with my champions in tow, my eyes immediately swung to where Molly had lived in death.

No longer. Now Molly had met her final death, or her daughter in death. I would not know until my own end, whether that would be in mere days or never.

Grief of the night’s work had wearied me in body, mind, and soul. For while I only had to accept the departure of a mother to loosen her stitch from my body, when I did so, I did so with the knowledge that they would be forever gone.

I had chosen to say goodbye to eight mothers tonight. Goodbye to eight ancestors. Eight mentors and protectors who had helped to make me.

My heart was heavy indeed, and heavier still because…

“The scales are tipping!” Marchioness Take cried out to the others. “Some veins are spontaneously healing.”

The pawns broke out into a stream of questions, some of them clapping too.

The scales must be tipping—she was correct. I could think of no other reason that other veins were healing without the presence and work of me and my champions. I had just felt the tug of a stitch and answered its call.

I had chosen to say goodbye to eight mothers.

I had not chosen to say goodbye to six more. I had not watched them battle the black ruin. I had not remained by their side.

And now I stared at where they had lived in death, only to find them stone.

Yes, my soul was heavy and weary.

I kissed Mother’s cheek and murmured a greeting to Cassandra. As I did, I considered that they were likely next—that they would be gone soon as well.

Pain speared my chest, and I took a step toward the tower, only to see King See watching me from the very top. Too much noise tonight. I might tune out my body, but there were feelings to be felt.

I wished for quiet.

Turning on my heel, I fell back through hellebores. Minions and humans clawed at me on the other side, and I blasted them back with more force than usual. I was not in the mood for human extinction.

I floated into my throne room, pushing my power outward until the minions and humans in there were forced into the courtyard.

Hellebores were quick to frame me upon a throne .

Grief.

I must marvel again at the gift of the haze, for if I held any doubt around my reason for being, then losing mothers might have broken me for several days put together. But I could sit with this loss for an hour to regain clarity and regain peace between the various aspects of self.

I closed my eyes and drew forth their names, one by one.

So few left. I drew forth their faces next, and then replayed the battles of the mothers that I had personally witnessed.

Next, I invented the battles of the six mothers who had spontaneously departed, as if I were by their sides.

Each battle was as unique as each mother.

Each mother left with peace in her soul.

Warmth started to replace the hollow pain in my chest. There was no alternative to this, I reminded myself. Mothers were the most accepting of all. If they had not been, the world would be in ruin.

But their sacrifices… “We are winning,” I whispered to them in my heart. Or perhaps they could hear.

The scales had tipped to saving. We could win.

I felt such fear. To see such miracles of life with each battle won, to draw closer and closer to The Beginning. Stakes had never been higher, or my hopes either. So much to lose.

And loss would be as quick and lacking in goodbyes as losing six mothers had been tonight.

I had not ever properly considered the loss of my own existence while healing the world of ruin. The dire moments of healing the Brings’ seam might have been my last. See would have survived me a time, but I would never have confessed the fullness of what we shared. Nor to pawns or simple monsters.

More hope filled me than ever.

Such fears drove me to speak words of goodbye.

Minions screeched, and humans shrieked and moaned as a force batted them back from the grave. See walked in their midst, unperturbed by their extinction too.

“Perantiqua, your thoughts are heavy. Sadness clothes you this hour,” See said.

He walked to take the seat beside mine, which had entirely escaped my notice. See had a seat at the right of my throne. A queen could only assume that he was meant to sit there, in a saved world, to hear the reports of pawns and to give his interpretation and advice on matters of queendom.

“I am clothed by sadness,” I admitted.

“A great number of mothers have immortalized themselves in stone.” He did not face me.

We both stared out at the minions and humans pressed against my power to get in.

I sighed. “Yes, more than I chose. And that is inevitable but painful, and there is no other that I could fathom battling this great evil but them.”

My prince consort said, “No other could be half as certain and fierce and self-sacrificing.”

No one.

His voice softened. “No one but you.”

I mustered a small smile at his flattery. So secure in my power now, I was not very prone to petulance, but his flattery did play on the small part of petulance that remained in me. “Alas, my power has no clout with this villain.”

“Balance demands such.”

I nodded. “So it does. And saving demands even more.”

See tilted his head at my tone. “You have understood how to fix King Change.”

My smile was genuine this time. “Sir, you are the only one who calls him so, and yes, ’tis so. Cassandra boomed that a change must happen to the Changes.”

“I had fathomed that she meant King Change could change.”

“So I initially interpreted, but his name is well earned. A change must occur to him and them, and only the battle against the frayed seam of the Brings showed me the way.”

See exhaled. “I can only fathom the change feels very great.”

“Other monsters can be used to fortify a union,” I murmured. “Yet I will not lose more monsters in the process. So they must be strong. Their relationships must be grounded in everything monstrous and right and good.”

See looked at me. “You speak of Valetise and Picket.”

I glanced at him. “I do. And Candor and Huckery too.”

“I had not observed their romance.”

“Their romance is fresh, but begins as companionship grounded in deep respect and truth, obviously given who makes up half of what they share.”

See exhaled again, and I noted the shake of it. He said, “I am greatly relieved to hear there is progress in the healing of the last frayed seam. I had worried, along with most monsters, about what might be possible and right.”

I lingered on his choice of words. “I cannot remark on the rightness of asking two other couples to enter such sickness and evil because a king cannot change.”

“I believe he is capable of change. I believe this strongly.”

I considered my prince consort. “He is your brother king. Was your brother king.”

“ Is my brother. We have never had time to speak of how the five of us came to travel together, returning from war. I was a strategist and worked closely with King Change, who was our general, as you know.”

“As I know,” I agreed.

See peered back to the courtyard, but this time I garnered that he no longer saw minions and humans, but rather gunfire and blood.

“He was the only reason that we were able to return home. Our battalion was not expected to survive the front. Indeed, we were up against a mighty alliance, such that we should never have seen another day. Let alone our families. ”

I hummed. “You had a family?”

“I had no family. There was a woman who I wished to marry upon my return. Take, Raise, and Change had wives, though Bring did not. Change also had children.”

My heart sank. “To wake up from ancient slumber as though waking from a single night of sleep, only to find that everyone you knew was dead and gone.”

No chance to say goodbye. Just as with six mothers tonight. Yes, I could empathize with King Change.

See said, “We had some awareness of slumber, if you recall. But from remarks uttered by Change in our early reign, I came to understand that thoughts of returning to his family drove him to cling to sanity in that slumber. Rather, I believe that clinging to memories of them achieved the opposite.”

“He went mad from grief,” I whispered.

“I wonder if it is so. Even a king, and a formidable general, could not remain unchanged by the forces of ancients.”

I shook my head. “It was a wonder that they did not remove your human memories.”

“Those memories of brotherhood were important in keeping us as unified as possible in monsterdom,” See answered. “And I wonder if they gave us some awareness in slumber so that we would know of them too.”

My brow cleared. “Of course.”

See turned his body on his seat and placed a hand upon mine.

“Perantiqua, I understand that Change seeks the ruin of the world, and that you cannot allow him to stand in the way of saving. I wonder if I spoke with him about his human family and of our time as soldiers, whether I may reach him. If I can do that. If he changes at all or just enough, then that could be the difference for all monsters.”

I did not miss that he offered my single reason for being as the motivation for his conversation with King No Change. “His name is well earned, sir. ”

The conversation would do nothing.

“I believe that I can make a difference in matters,” pressed See, gripping my hand.

He knew something.

Was that something that he could not share, or would not share?

I could translate that he needed to speak with King No Change to prove something to himself. Or was he guiding me in the only way possible without affecting the future?

Should I call Candor?

And what would she tell me? The skeleton monster would hesitate to offer the truth, unknowing of whether futures may be affected. Just as I was.

There was something here, too—a chance to have faith in See. A chance to believe him on his merits as I had not wanted to do at our first audience after his betrayal. My heart had forgiven him, and we had moved on.

But I was a queen.

See could achieve nothing dire by speaking with King No Change, and I would eavesdrop on the entire conversation. Could he do good? I expected that King No Change would remain ever unchanged. Yet a queen had sometimes been wrong.

I would be happy to applaud See if he could soften the heart and mind of his brother in any way. “You may converse with King No Change. I expect no alteration in him, sir, but I sense that your feelings seek reassurance or validation on the matter.”

See lifted my hand to his lips. “Thank you, my darkness. He is my brother of fate, after all, if not my brother of blood, and he has respected me most of all monsters. I must try. I must .”