Page 105 of Of Brides Of Queens

I hurried forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Though she must be exhausted, I could feel strength in the woman, and there was no gauntness about her. “Mother,” I gasped.

The first of fifty mothers.Cassandra.

“Thank you for coming.” I led her to a stone near Mother’s grave so she could sit a while.

“I would not do otherwise, Daughter.”

I crouched at her feet and stared up in amazement. I had never seen a woman like Cassandra. Her skin showed no wrinkle, her hair seemed an impossible color—a pastel blue, and inked designs were as art on her arms. The clothing she wore was not made of any material I knew.

Here was a woman from before The End. One who had survived against all odds when the world around her died. She had lived before walled cities were erected, and I could not fathom how she had found food and water and shelterandmanaged to locate a monster prince to negotiate a contract with an immortal king.

This woman was an amazing mystery.

I took her hands in mine, marveling at the softness. “I do not know what to ask you first.”

She smiled, and she had all of her teeth, and they were impossibly white.

“How are you so vibrant?” I wondered aloud.

“In death I have become the fullest version of my life.”

I glanced to the empty grave, thinking of my gaunt mother.

Cassandra squeezed my hand. “Your mother will provide for you always. She cannot have the fullness of life in death and the fullness of caring for her daughter’s life too. She has traded one for the other and done so without regret.”

This made painful sense. I peered at Cassandra. “You did it. You made me.”

Tears balanced in her eyes. “A strange thing to be consumed with purpose, yet to doubt whether your purpose will manifest through the ages. I had hoped, and I should have trusted my daughters more.”

“They did not err,” I whispered. “I am queen, a monster queen.”

She cupped my cheek. “You are everything I could not fathom in human life. Perantiqua truly. And now I am here.”

Cassandra glanced at the tower where my copper conservatory was a lonely beacon in this barren world. “I did not see much of this part.”

Here was a question I had yearned to have answered. “How did you know to wither? How did you know five kings could not win?”

Her eyes were a rich brown and nothing like mine. Twelve hundred years had changed that. “It happened one week after The End.”

I could see the turmoil in her brown eyes. The loss. The panic and confusion when The End came. A weary acceptance lurked there, too, and spoke of the moment she had known the old world was gone and dead.

“There was no defense against the wind,” she said. “Wind is a weak word for what it was, for it dragged society and life in its wake, ripping buildings and life from their foundations. Little was left but dirt and ash and dust. The small number of us left in my town gathered what resources we could. But the sun came next, and most who lived through the scorching days wereclaimed by ice at night. The water we had found quickly ran out with the heat, and in desperation, we started to sip at collected rain that burned our skin and insides. Our numbered dwindled like the dying embers in a log fire. From fifty to thirty to ten to five to two. In six days, The End had claimed all but two of us. Then came the seventh day, and as I stripped the body of the other person who had lived as long as me, I felt the weariness of everything making sense. I felt the sense in us dying so rapidly and pathetically. So futile, our existence. Fragile creatures that we are—mere dolls for the whims of powerful beings. And we had believed ourselves mighty in our towers.” She sighed. “I could not have thought this way before The End, nor the day after it, nor the sixth. But a week later, I accepted that I existed as an ant. I waited to be trod upon by a larger being—that of nature—and I feared more than any other feeling that death would not come as it had for others. I did not want to be alone.”

She was locked in time.

Cassandra closed her eyes. “A sandstorm came, and I entered its pelting fury, feeling how skin tore from my body. I felt awe of its power by then, not fear, for there was no resistance in me left. There was comfort in what seemed a certain death. This end was fitting for a fragile creature, and more beautiful than dying from heat or cold or thirst. I felt grateful. The sandstorm came, and my skin was torn from me, and then the most beautiful sight of my existence beamed upon me. I looked up at the sky that had been filled with sand, and the moon was there instead. Chaos rained on every side, yet tranquil calm existed above for that moment, that blink—my last gift, I thought as I held my face to the moon. Quite simply, in that blink, I accepted everything that would come next. And in that same blink, surrounded by beauty and chaos and pain and gratitude and the exact point of my death, I was struck by lightning.”

I blinked. “But by lightning?”

She dipped her head. “Lightning, or the feeling of it. A force jolted my soul, burning my blood to ash and erasing all knowledge of myself. I woke half-buried in sand. My skin was as new, and strength filled me that was not mine. The sun scorched above, and I was not burned nor dehydrated. I felt no hunger nor thirst. A knowledge occupied me that had not existed ever. Who I had been was no longer, and what I was meant to do was there instead. A purpose. I had been healed and given power to survive to see this purpose through. I did not know who the purpose belonged to, but I had accepted everything to come in the sandstorm, you might recall. If I had known ‘everything to come’ would mean living on alone, then I would not have chosen it. Regardless, I had unwittingly made a deal that I would need to live by.”

Ancients had commandeered her for their designs. “What was the purpose?”

“To find a monster. To strike a bargain so that he might strengthen the daughter growing in me.”

My mouth dried. “You were pregnant.”

“When life seems about to end, we seek frantic connection with those around us. The last person to die had kept me company in the week after The End. I expected he was the father, but I cannot be sure that the force that filled me with purpose did not also fill me with child.”

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