Page 131 of Of Brides Of Queens

Change sneered. “Not when you are a weak queen. No more, the war begins.”

There was a roaring surge from a quarter of the humans attacking my picket. My pawns erupted forward, though none of my werebeast pawns.

But the gate in my wall of bars creaked open at that moment, and four kings saw the princess who exited.

Princess Bring appeared, rehydrated to completeness. She stopped just behind me and curtsied. To me.

“Shelives,” exclaimed Raise. “But how?”

Bring’s growl was menacing indeed.

“King Bring,” I mocked. “You did not believe that I would let you murder your princess in my queendom, surely. Not when you had revealed the curse to me during our midnight picnic.”

The eyes of all were upon him.

“This is a fakeness and a farce. She is dead. You torment me with her image,” he cried. “Anyone could be under that cloak.”

My heart sank.You cold bastard. You cruel soul.

Princess Bring shook in squelch behind me. “It is I, the princess you have been smoking each day with poison in a bid to bachelor yourself so that you might take a second princess.”

“You are not she,” her king scoffed.

There was a whisper of fabric, and I refused to look back as Princess Bring uncovered herself.

Kings murmured their shock. Bring was most shocked of all, for he must have thought his princess too weak to reveal herself.

“You see it is me,” the princess said coldly.

Raise replied, “We see, truly.”

King Take was never more serious. “Is this true, brother king? King of saving. Have you been poisoning your princess? Did you seek to kill her in truth during the royal dinner affair?”

King Bring did not answer.

“I switched the goblet,” I told those gathered. “I had already told Princess Bring that you meant to kill her and would likely do so to pin the murder on me in a blackmail attempt.”

“You trick me, false queen,” bellowed King Bring. “You have enticed and lured me.”

“You enticed and lured yourself,” I replied calmly. “A saving king you may be, but in my experience of you, there is no king in possession of more denial. You convinced yourself that murder was an act of saving.”

I had been warned of this king several times, of how his adoration of me would turn to hate if I did not take care.

I watched this transformation now. His second mouth shouted curses along with his first mouth. His power blasted outward. His humans screamed and shrieked and clawed at my walls.

King See stepped forward. “Perantiqua is no murderer. You gather against her tonight in reaction to a lie. Two lies, in fact, for she did not murder Princess Bring, and she did not agree to union with the king of bringing either.”

“Falsehood!” blasted King Bring.

Change laughed. “I did not come here to seek justice, See. You know me better. There is ruin to be had.”

His humans were climbing the walls.

My sixth were screaming and fleeing their thatched houses.

“King Take. King Raise,” I called. “What of you?”

“You have our princesses,” Take hissed.

---