Page 113 of Of Brides Of Queens

She stiffened, and too long went by before the princess chuckled. “We should not get ahead of ourselves. We might deal in this very nicely. I mentioned the depth of my thoughts.”

“You did.”

“While the poem does imply that you would leave kings as mindless monsters to build your tower, I do not believe this aligns with what I have witnessed of your character. You display a love of monsters, and you display a strong sentiment toward one king. You would certainly not render him mindless. Not unless he greatly erred, which I admit he has lately seemed close to doing. But I interpret the poem to mean that you will take from all five of them to become equal to them in power. Five rulers will become six.”

I took care not to budge. She had interpreted that part of the poem differently from me, and this was a good thing. “You would not mind if I took some of your king’s kingdom to forge a queendom?”

“He is my husband,” she said quietly. “Not my king. Well, he is that too. But first and foremost, he is my husband.”

I was struck. I was silent. A princess who believed in the idea of a husband? Once I had called a princess a wife, and King See had laughed at the commonness of the idea. Yet here was a princess who was a wife and who saw her king as husband.

They loved one another. The beauty of her quiet words sparked a lump in my throat, and no small amount of envy. How I longed for See’s love. How I longed to unbridle mine that sometimes felt like a dam about to burst. “You would not mind if I took some of your husband’s kingdom.”

“Not if you stole away other things too. Not if rulers remained equal.”

Her tone had shuttered. We had entered uncertain territory, and she was deciding whether to divulge more.

So I helped her. “You wish me to steal away the warping of your union.”

She gasped, and I noted the way her face lengthened. “But yes. However did you… I suppose queenly understanding is great.”

It was, and greater than ever. Answers almost seemed to pop into my head sometimes. King See had once spoken of how the same patterns repeated themselves. Ancient understanding had allowed me to see such patterns, perhaps, though not in the all-seeing way of King See.

The princess wrung her hands, quite undone. “I have never said this aloud to anyone, Queen Perantiqua. Not in twelve hundred years. This is difficult and feels akin to trusting you. I should not feel such a way after so little time. There are others I have known far longer, whom I have never confided in. But I have seen you figure out the matter of poison for Bring. I have seen you cheer for a new monster’s growing strength. I have seen pain in your eyes when looking at burning dummies of yourself. I have seen you in knots over the idea of daylight activities with a king. For an immortal monster queen, you are relatable indeed.

I answered, “You might choose to confide in me because I might do something to help the warping where others could not.”

Could I heal a warped union? Likely yes as no. Here, though, was a mystery to solve, and tonight I would not deny conniving vice.

The princess took a breath. “There was a warping with our union, ’tis true. My husband… he… How shall I put this? He loved me more than his purpose.”

I could not imagine Raise as loving anyone nor anything more than his purpose. He was corrupted in purpose, andevery monster knew it. Raise had barely come above ground in centuries, so addicted to power was he. He wished to be theonlyking.

And yet, I had seen their tragic love. “Tell me, Princess.”

“My husband struggled with his purpose from the moment of waking an immortal king. He denied the calling in him to raise stairs in the form of contracts for decades. The contract with your ancestor was the first he made, in fact, and this deal sat easier with him because she had sought it out so fiercely. My husband lied to kings and said that he could not figure out how to work his power. He agreed with them to save and wished for this truthfully. Then, the first time we met, our destiny was clear. But we saw how Princess Change had lost her purpose after union by then, and Raise did not wish this fate for me. We enjoyed our battles of wit. He loved me for who I was. What if that was altered?” She sighed. “Yet ancients would push us together in union, for Change’s power had grown for claiming a princess, and as his mind turned to ruin, he sought to prevent kings from tapping into the power source of princesses. Union was safest for me and Raise, and so we did so. And then my worst fears were flipped.”

Ah.Yes, I fathomed the whole. I did not interrupt.

The princess continued. “In union, Raise loved me more than his purpose. Nights and weeks would go by where Raise would ignore the pressing call of those in desperate need or want to adore me. And I would adore him. But his princes would not. Time and again, the power of ancients filled them to punish my husband and drive him back to his purpose. Raise declared that they would never win, and the ancients must have heard his challenge, for such power was granted to his princes that night.” She broke off. Emotion had clogged her throat.

A series of observations had snapped together. I had seen guilt on the faces of my stairway princes more than once whenthey spoke of protocols. I had witnessed the shock of Prince Sign when his king ordered protocol seven against me. Sign had done his best to refuse the order.

Princess Raise’s voice shook. “They used protocol eight on my husband, and when they released him again, my husband was not the same. He was callous and mercurial—though never with me—but just as disinterested in his purpose. My husband loved me more than his purpose still, but now he was… damaged. He did not care about the nature of contracts forged, whether they were of a saving or ruining kind—even despite my best efforts to encourage him to act in a way his previous self might have needed. I could not witness more.”

So she had become king.

“So on the matter of his purpose, I became king,” she blurted, then pressed a hand against her heart. “Goodness, the words are out, and shall I regret them? Have I given her the tools to steal who they are to build her tower?”

I regarded her, for here was a woman with endless depth. She was a princess to marvel over, a kingly princess. “You locked yourself up. You made Raise believe the union between you could be fixed with an amendment, and then refused to sign. You convinced your husband that locking you away would force you to agree because when you are locked away, he does not have the distraction of you to adore. And then you use love to blackmail him into purpose.”

Tears dripped onto her lap. “Yes.”

How magnificent. How complex.

I mused, “You feel immense guilt and shame, but this is balanced by the memory of how princes once broke him, which stops such fidgets and leaps that sometimes come with guilt and shame. You simply cannot endure more harm to come to him, and so you listen to the humans for their ignorant forecasts on the matters of monsters, but locking yourself away claws atyour vibrancy over centuries. And that is why you bargained to remain in my queendom—because you wish to lock yourself in happier social surroundings than a dungeon. You sob for him but cannot run into his arms. You refuse his amendment, too, because if you sign it, you will need to create another reason to drive him to purpose and prevent his punishment by princes.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. All of this I do. I must, or they will hurt him. I cannot bear it. Why did we complete the union? Why did we not battle against Change and remain as we were? Why did we think to love one another and not just lust? Not a century goes by that is not filled with regret.”

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