Page 52 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Diamonds shone brightest

Upon the darkest pedestals.

“ T he olden rock ,” I said on the air. To use actual words would rob the moment.

My prince could not talk on the air, but his instincts were sound, for he only grunted.

He glanced back.

Indeed, the olden rock was rid of swirling blackness. The tiniest hint remained at the distant heart of it, and I supposed that only a queen might glimpse the subtle gray there.

I will always be here, the gray seemed to imply.

That gray was the potential of betrayal between me and See. That gray had to remain, and so the black would ebb and flow between us across immortality, and in the olden rock too.

We were the heart, and the message in the olden rock was plain—we must always protect our romance, for monsters depended on our soundness.

I had killed King Change because he presented a door for evil to return, and how confronting to discover that the feeling between See and I presented a similar door.

Greater than any worry I held for our romance was my worry over the enormous doorway that humans would always provide for ruin. Though they would need to survive first, so I would worry about that in a saved world.

With all of that connected, I returned my thoughts to the current state of the olden rock.

This was the healthiest state of our romance.

“We must strike,” I said. For these words were very worthy of claiming their moment.

See murmured against my hair, “Shall we go this way?”

With his cock in me still? “Tempting, my prince.”

I freed myself of See—physically, for that was the only way we could be parted at intervals, really. “We must find my mother. She will be the last mother to battle.”

What nerves, what dread. In death, my mother was gaunt and wan, so unlike the vibrant and strong mothers who had burst into their fights.

Then… then how did I find the courage for our goodbye? I clung to the idea of monsters in a saved world tonight, for nothing made sense about the world being emptier of so many that I had loved.

“We do not have long here,” See said, glancing at hellebores.

I followed his focus and spotted the limp and withering hellebores. My stomach lurched anew, for hellebores had saved me too many times to easily recall. Another goodbye to another loved one.

Swallowing, I ripped my focus from the hellebore grave and strode to the box left by Valetise. I cast power forth to flip the heavy lid, and then wrenched to a halt at what lay within.

A bridal dress of cool, gray silk—the color of dusk winning over day.

There was such a shimmering and chilling quality to the fabric that chanted of midnight and the moon.

The top half was sheer, but for the material hellebore petals stitched strategically to cover my breasts.

The petals were stitched down the sheer sleeves that finished at the wrist.

Breathless, I picked up the gown, and turned to see the back. A neat row of buttons fastened the dress from the cool-gray skirt and to the nape of my neck.

Petals, stitched so carefully and lovingly to flow down the skirt and to the floor over their waterfall of moonlight. “This is unexpected.”

A black suit embroidered with copper thread sat in the bottom of the box.

A groom’s attire fitting for a union with a queen.

I turned to face See.

He was on both knees. “I had thought about our last moments, you see, or our first in a saved world. And I thought that in either, I would wish to know that I was yours, and that you were mine.”

My lips torsioned. “I do not believe that is in any doubt.”

See’s thin mouth quirked in a small grin that then faded.

“I wondered if the ceremony might help with olden rock matters.” He shrugged a shoulder.

“Which is now irrelevant. Perantiqua, I know that our union—done in this way—will not be a grand matter before all monsters that you love. Your champions will not be dressed in matching colors to you, nor my brother kings to me. Simple monsters will not shower you in hellebores.”

See looked up, and in his eye I saw devotion bordering on obsession, and desperation that bordered on fury. “But here is a gift of time where only we exist, and so our union might be just for us where so little in immortality will ever be.” He took a breath. “For us, and for your mother.”

My heart dropped, and so his did too. “That is what the two of you spoke about by the grave.”

He dipped his head. “I will not fight fair, as I have never done, my darkness. If I must use the idea of your mother at our union ceremony, then I will.”

The words were simply said, and very true. I would not hesitate to coerce him in such a way either. Vice, alas, was a beautiful thing of monsters.

I gripped the bridal gown to my chest. “So this will be my goodbye to my mother. A gift for me and us, and a gift for her.”

A tear trekked down my cheek.

My prince rose and walked to me to tip my chin higher. “Will you join your immortality with mine, Perantiqua?”

We had been joined since the first moment our hearts pounded together, and truthfully long before that. Ours was a shared destiny, and a love transcended.

“I will join my immortality with yours,” I replied.

See inhaled sharply as he set his lips to mine. His press was brutal, as though he wished to make us one person. My bridal gown crushed between us, and I released it to better clutch at his hair and shoulders.

A hiss rose in the air, and we broke apart, gasping for air that we did not need. Sometimes the soul just needed a breath too.

See kissed my cheek. “Get dressed, my immortality. We must depart.”

I did so, with his help. And he did so, too, in his three-piece suit and cravat, with my help.

We strode to the olden rock, though we had never discussed the natural connection that this must be the exit if the grave was overrun by evil.

The olden rock plummeted out of sight when we set our hands upon it. Certainty dwelled in my heart that if we had not managed to leach the black from the rock, then passage would not have been granted. Our plight for a saved world would have ended now.

But more than ever, I believed that I could save this world. Me and my monsters too .

The tunnel widened to accommodate See, and he wasted no time leaping into the hole left by the olden rock’s departure.

I glanced back at the grave to find the hellebores dead and gone. This place had never been empty until tonight. Statues of mother and pawns.

And evil rising in a wave through the grave.

Our hideaway and retreat was invaded.

The black scented the air, and then like the formidable beast it was, the wave blurred my way.

I leaped into the tunnel after See, and was devoured by darkness that deepened when the olden rock resumed its position over the entrance. To block evil for however long it could.

I blurred through air and sand, and when arms scooped under my legs and back, I naturally clung to the person who had caught me.

See set me on my feet.

“The cave of five soldiers,” I said, glancing around. We were at the door that I had opened after winning the five keys of kings.

A hissing echoed down the cave tunnel, and See gestured me beyond the door, pulling it closed after us.

“Daughter,” rasped my mother in the darkness beyond.

See struck a flame into being. Though the two of us had no need for its help seeing, my mother did.

I crossed to Mother, who sat on the ground before the hole where the olden rock first was. “Mother, are you well?”

“Well enough, my Patch. So full of feeling to see you dressed as a bride. You agreed. He was not so sure that you would. He said that your connection was great, and he could not fathom all that you might on the matter.”

Even powerful prince consorts feared rejection.

I peered into the gaping hole left by the olden rock that extended to the center of the world. Sand still poured into this timer of the world’s ruin. And the top of the sand was in sight, very close.

“Help me to stand, Daughter,” Mother wheezed.

I did so. I knew better than to argue with her. Though once she was standing, I released some power to keep her there.

The ghost of a smile haunted her gaunt face. “Thank you.”

I went to stand by See, darting looks between them. There was one thing I would never share with monsters, and that was the knowledge of how they had lived before me.

I had no idea how unions were meant to go.

But See had seen four. He took my hands in his.

“I gather with two monsters who have made the choice to join their immortality,” Mother rasped.

“These two monsters who have transcended love, who share a heartbeat and destiny, who have traversed through the grave to understand their unique and magnificent romance. Theirs is a companionship and understanding and trust unprecedented, one worthy of a queen and her chosen prince consort.”

Everything shared with See rose in my mind, and I watched them play out anew in his gaze.

Power whipped at our clothing, swirling the sand around our feet.

Every experience and feeling and pain and happiness.

Goodness, but my minds and heart wished to explode with them.

The richness of us was nearly too much to bear.

He slid his palms up my forearms, and mine along his in a twin movement. See gripped my arms near the elbow, and I copied him.

“For a prince consort, a queen will be soft when she can, and choose him above others when possible. For his romance, she will remain warm when otherwise coldness might claim her. Her immortality will be spent in forgiveness, whether in the receiving or giving of it, for her heart is the heart of monsters, and hers is a love transcended.”

See rested his palm against my heart .

I waited as Mother coughed, then said, “For a queen, a prince consort surrenders all he was, for he recognizes the gift granted by this union and by the romance with such an ancient creature. He has been chosen by her because he has earned this honor. He is strong enough to tether her to warmth through the ages. His immortality will be spent in forgiveness, whether in the receiving or giving of it, for she is monsters, and he must tend to her heart, to her queendom, and to her monsters in immortality.”

My breaths were shallow as I rested a palm over See’s heart.

We did not blink as we stared into each other’s eyes. This, our last moment or the first in a saved world.

“Here they stand in mind,” Mother said, and her voice was thick with tears.

See touched a finger to my forehead, and I did the same to him.

She said, “Here they are in power.”

My prince covered my eyes, and I covered his.

“Here they are in immortality.” Mother’s words were barely audible.

I inhaled, and See —everything he was and would be and had been—pulled in to fill my lungs and blood. His hand still covered my eyes, and my hand covered his, as our mouths met and clashed.

He freed my sight to crush me to his body, and I kept my eyes closed to return the depth and passion and desperation of his kiss.

After all this, a union between us. Laughter rumbled in me, and I opened my eyes at last.

See quirked a brow. “What is it, my immortality?”

“I am just thinking how much easier things would have gone if you had agreed to princedom at the start.”

His thin lips spread to a wide grin, and Mother chuckled between coughs from across the hole filling with sand.

My focus dropped to the hole, and I sucked in a breath. “The time is upon us.”

What I felt for See was greater than love. But if monsters had done everything required to save the world, then I would see my prince again and forever.

I left him to clasp my mother to me. “I am not ready.”

She stroked my cheek, resting her head against my chest. The union had weakened her. Why had we done it? What if she could not summon enough strength for the battle.

“We must be ready, Patch, and this is nothing you were not strong enough to do before.”

To have her die once did not make me more ready for a second time. “I slept through that.”

Laughter hacked from her. “So you did. Not this time, my love and life and reason. This time, you must set me free.”

My arms trembled around her. “I will. I will.”

But just one more conversation.

One more embrace.

I kissed her forehead and her cheek. “Mother, you have been everything for me in life and death. I am so grateful for all you are. I love you, and I will always love you. Forever.”

Sobs racked me, and tears flowed down my cheeks. There would never be enough time to utter all that I felt for her. “Immortality seems an unbearable prospect without you there.”

“Shh, my Patch,” she said. And there was no rasp in her voice.

I pulled back as Mother wiped my eyes… then I gaped at the appearance of her.

Vibrant and returned to the fullness of her life. Even my memories would have failed to carve her so well, for my human memories so centered around how she had been in withering. My heart stuttered from the joy in her smile.

“I had forsaken this vibrancy to provide for you in death, Daughter,” she said, her voice so rich and strong. My soul was broken and remade for hearing it, her voice as it had been in times of lullaby and hair stroking.

She said, “Now I return to it to meet my last. The time is now, Perantiqua. You must set me free, for monsters are waiting to return to their queen, and a prince consort stands beside you to help a queen during her hardest times.”

See supported me with a grip under my elbow.

I pulled my mother close again. “You were the mother who made a queen.”

She kissed my lips. “You made yourself, my Patch. Being your mother has been my incredible honor. I love you, Perantiqua.”

There was great relief in leaving my sobbing, tear-drenched body to step into her stitch.

My mother was there already, and as I stared at her, so vibrant and strong, the black room around us morphed to a meadow.

Animals I could not name leaped and bounded in the lush field.

Flowers of every color erupted in the tall grass, as if someone had not even needed to plant them.

Life. So much of it. My mother broke into a joyous grin at the sight of birds high above.

The sky blue. The sun beaming. No sand, or dust, or walls.

And where I had feared and dreaded this goodbye, peace swept in unexpectedly. The peace settled over my minds and heart, and when I touched upon my soul, I found the child of me staring at her mother.

The child lifted her little hand in farewell. I’ll miss you, Mommy.

I whispered, “Goodbye, Mother.”

Mother touched her heart, and then turned to stride through the meadow and away.