Page 8 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

Chapter Eight

The return of the queen .

F ifty mothers called me home into the stitched circle of their arms. The creature had feasted on the gifted flesh of a mother, and the ancients had been merciful. They had released Adalina back to me.

I had listened to their chant for some time while completing the final stretch to my tower.

They chanted,

“Up and out

Wove golden fate

Feeling ancient in gifted wisdom.

Five powers grasp

All icy demise

Free from her olden prison.

Throne was seat

Union is seam

Skulls are skin

Shackles were stitch.

She is ancient in truth

And tarries not

Lingers never

Lest the world become forever buried.”

“Subtle changes in a chant,” I murmured to Princess Bring, who scratched around in her sand, safely cocooned in my tunic.

The parts of the chant I had addressed were now in past tense, and the rest remained in present tense. Kings were still free of my olden prison. I had been sloppy in obsession and had not tidied up such details. That would be rectified.

Of the rest of their chant, I saw clearly.

I scanned my fifty mothers, so alive in their death. Forty-nine possessed vibrant appearances, having been halted at the prime of their life. Their beautiful smiles spread wide as they rejoiced in the return of their daughter and queen, and also celebrated the return of Adalina.

I nodded at Adalina, and then looked to the only mother not paused at the prime of her life.

She could not have had that and also have received the gift of providing for her daughter in death.

Two priceless gifts could not be enjoyed eternally, and so my mother had chosen to exist in the richness of motherhood.

I knelt before her, on one knee only. “Mother, I have returned.”

The chant of fifty mothers cut off, and silence reigned after— near silence. King Change was being choked by hellebores in the grave he had tried to pass through to return to the colorful world of monsters.

My mother’s blood-streaked gaze shone with unshed tears. “You returned, my Patch. You have done what no other could do. How were you born of me?”

I held both corners of my tunic in one hand, then brushed away Mother’s single tear, feeling the sharp bones of her gaunt face.

Her skin was so fragile. “That is not the question I ask, for that answer is obvious to me. I could only be born of a woman like you.” I peered around my mothers. “Of women like you all.”

I leaned forward to kiss my mother, and then faced my ancestors.

Tuning out the sound of Change choking, I said to them, “The reckoning of princes, princesses, and kings is at an end. Now comes the reckoning of the world.”

“ The reckoning of the world,” they hissed in unison. Such eagerness.

Many mothers had disagreed with their fate, and I had morally disagreed with stitching those in place that had not wished for it, but I saw determination and eagerness on their faces now.

Whether those mothers had altered their thoughts, or whether this version of me had muffled their fears, I could feel the hum of agreement in their midst.

“Thank you, Mothers. I shall return soon. As you vigil, so must I on the matter of the end of the world.”

Mothers settled into their chant again, and I crossed to the mother who possessed but one arm. A stitch connected her by shoulder stump to her daughter.

I placed a hand over her stump and trickled power into the unalive flesh. “I am sorry for the pain endured as a creature feasted on your arm. Your sacrifice brought back Adalina, and while I cannot be sorry for that happy return, know that I did not put you through pain lightly.”

“I knew it, Daughter,” murmured the mother. “I could feel that great purpose rolled around me.”

She peered at her stump and smiled at the tiny branches and leaves already growing there. “A great gift. Thank you, Daughter.”

“You gave life as surely as a tree,” I answered.

Snorts and chuckles and soft laughter trickled from the mothers closest to the grave. I walked toward the choking King Change, and could not resist a chuckle of my own.

The five-petaled black flowers were choking the king, tightening their stems around his neck like a noose. They had pried open his lips and forced their way inside too. Hellebores were the cure for ancient insanity. What cure had they granted a king of no change?

I looked at the king, and the hellebores sensed my intention and vacated his mouth. “What are your thoughts of saving, sir?”

He said on a weary exhale, “I have no thoughts of saving. My thoughts are of ruin, and always of ruin.”

I had expected such. “King Change, you have learned the truth of this place, sir—that this circle of my mothers will no longer allow you entry nor exit without my knowledge and acceptance.”

Exhausted as he was, the king could only speak his mind. “I will never again enter this place of despair and nothing.”

I considered my circle of mothers and the tower and haze beyond. I did not see nothingness and despair in this place any longer.

I saw an absence of color, so that I might see exactly what was. I saw a gift of haze that could grant me the absolute truth of myself and all matters. I saw the essence of my power in the tower here.

I saw the making of me in fifty mothers. “You are just a king and not meant to understand such a place.”

Whatever he responded with was surely unimportant, and so I did not wait to hear it. I gathered my tunic tighter to my body, then stepped into the hellebore grave. King Change was dragged through behind me.

Soon enough—too simply and impossibly and magnificently for all I had experienced in the haze—I was back in a world of monsters and kings.

Of brides and queen s

Of skull and shackle.

I inhaled my queendom, and did not shoo away the vibration in my heart as my queendom purred and wiggled in greeting. “I have missed you too.”

A yelling King Change was ejected from the grave. Goodness. Undone, more and more.

He landed heavily in the middle of the courtyard, not far from where Life was drinking water from his trough.

Of course, the king’s yelling could only draw the attention of pawns, who served to protect my queendom.

And yelling could only startle princesses into action because they were champions of my queendom.

Yelling would, of course, gather the attention of simple monsters, too, who existed to observe my queendom in a way I never could nor would.

Monsters arrived in ones or twos and threes, whether to lurk in the growing shadows of the courtyard or to lean over the balustrades to look down upon it. They gasped, they shouted, and they burst into tears.

Joy.

How grateful I was to sense their joy, though fear or animosity would not have stopped me.

I relaxed my grip on the tunic to give Princess Bring more scratching space.

“Dear monsters,” I called. “Your queen has returned. Who do you serve?”

Oddly enough, while I had often struggled to adjust the magnitude of the power in my voice to a level that other monsters could tolerate, I no longer had to consciously do so.

I knew without thought how much me I should let free.

So I let out that amount of my power. Just enough to fill each and every one of their senses without obliterating their minds.

Simple monsters knelt immediately. Two knees, and no less, though in some instances a blob and haunch must suffice.

Pawns knelt soon after, and princesses a whisper after them.

Princess Change was the last to kneel, and she did not do so by choice, but because my power was undeniable, as was my fate.

She had managed to stand in the way of a broken queen, but she could not stand in the way of a complete one.

Her eyes fixed on her king, who was growling terribly and rising to his feet. In this world of color and monsters, he felt braver. But a king would never forget the haze.

“Come, King Change,” I thought on the air, and some of the present monsters shuddered as my words swirled around them like a breeze.

I walked to the stairs, and when King Change followed in my wake, the loudest gasp of all arose from his princess of ruin. Subservience in a king determined to destroy monsters and the world?

They mistook subservience for agreement. King Change did not need to share my views in order to recognize my power.

Mother pushed a large glass bowl up through cobblestones, and I eased Baby Bring inside, sand and all.

“Take her for now,” I murmured, and Mother drew our little princess down into the safety of her keeping.

I walked up the stairs, tuning out all that my ears and eyes and skin and nose wished to tell me.

Obsession must be tidied up. I had left three kings shackled and stitched to the copper panels of my conservatory.

Pawns had returned the panels from King See’s gothic palace.

For upon returning from the grave, I had heard the snicker of King Take and the interested hum of King Raise.

I had heard the heavy sigh of King Bring, who must be filled with regret and guilt.

Though I had shut off my senses to focus on the matter at hand, I could not shut off my heart.

And so, I knew that he was up there, too, standing in place but unshackled.

Our hearts beat in tandem—mine in truth, and his in betrayal and usurpation.

Which answered a tiny question formed in the haze about whether ancients would grant me mercy and sever my heartbeat from his.

They may have seen fit to return Adalina to life in death, but that would be all.

King See was in my conservatory, ready to be shackled. He must have sensed the immensity of my power and hastily decided to surrender and submit without challenge and battle. He was a rat in flood waters, hoping to survive until he might claw his way to safety.

But I was glad he had not run. I did not wish to hunt him right now.

I glided into the conservatory in my queenly version of a walk. “King Change, kindly return to your place.”