Page 114 of Of Brides Of Queens

My eyes narrowed. “You wish that love had not afflicted you.”

“Every dusk. For if he did not adore me, then none of this pain would exist.”

But that was just their experience of love. Though… if a king and queen adored one another and spurned their purposes, then two rulers would not play in the saving or ruining of the world.

But that was justtheirexperience of love.

The princess’s exhale shook. “But then my husband’s princes whispered an invitation from a queen. Her will filled them and superseded oaths to a king, and a seed of hope was planted in me. I have eyes as good as anyone’s?—”

Did she?

“—and I see that you will build your tower. When you do, I humbly beg that you fix all that is wrong between myself and my husband. Isolation tears at my monsterdom. I cannot bear harm against him either. I am at a loss, but you might save us.Pleasesave us.”

She walked to me and lowered onto her knees. She took both of my hands. Her facelessness was confronting indeed when so close.

A chill was in my voice. In truth, a chill had entered my heart. From what I could fathom, the only problem in the Raises’union that required a solution was the one where they loved. There must be another solution, for I refused to believe that King See was right about lovelessness. “If a queen did save a warped union, what would a princess offer?”

She bowed her head. “I am but a princess, but immortality and love demanded that I be king too. I am witness, and I have been ruler. You have seen my unnatural understanding and reason for yourself. Without my radio, perhaps I could not have done so well, but ancient thinking seeped into me over centuries, and so I make kingly connections with considerable effort, though princesses were never intended to make them at all.”

“Speak plain, Princess Raise.”

“You are gathering bridal gifts and each time you secure a bridal gift, your queendom and power grow.”

Drat.Bother and drat.

She said, “King See won the garter from Princess Take and must have given it to you. You pulled it from your leotard before you rolled into the grave.”

At my cool expression that perhaps spoke of my icy ponderings on how a princess might use such information against me, the princess hastily said, “I do not seek to use this information against you, Queen Perantiqua. I have absorbed somewhat of a ruler’s thinking, but I am aware of what I am not. I would help you gain the last bridal gift.”

The ice case forming around my intentions melted somewhat. “You would help me in this matter in exchange for the healing of your union.”

The princess squeezed my hands. “I would. I would help you to build your tower. As long as my king is not harmed, I would help you.”

An unexpected turn. “I would help you only as long as none in my care were harmed.”

“We are in agreement on that front,” she whispered. “Will you enter this deal?”

Vice wavered in me, yet I managed to keep my conniving at bay this time. “I am newly a queen and recently a monster. What if I cannot help your union, Princess?”

She lowered her forehead to the backs of my hands. “I hold you only to the best of your abilities. If anyone can help our union, it is you. Perhaps hope makes a fool of me, but I would rather exist a hopeful fool for the rest of my nights. Promise that you will do your best, and I will help you to carve out your sixth. I swear this.”

There were limits to her oath that she could not fathom, but any changes I made to her wording would be studied by this clever princess, and I did not wish for that.

I lifted the princess’s hands to my lips and kissed the backs of them. “I promise you that I shall do my best to heal the warping of your love. But what if the healing of your union steals away your love or his?”

I feared her answer.

And she did not alleviate that fear. “Better not to love. We could share more without it.”

A rage entered me that Princess Raise missed because the double doors were swung open to admit another princess.

Bring blobbed inside. She glanced at the princess kneeling before me.

Princess Raise rose and returned to her couch and radio. “Thank you for giving me the time requested, Princess Bring. Our conversation is done.”

Bring answered, “I am glad.”

I might feel envious that they had formed a deal, if not for Raise confessing a great secret to me this dawn that she had never divulged to another. Bring did not know what the conversation had been about.

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