Page 30 of Of Brides Of Queens

I placed the letter in my desk at the bottom of the paper pile, then started a new message.

See,

Three lessons. We are agreed.

How well you know yourself has little to do with lessons of war and the payment of them.

Present yourself for our first lesson before the week’s end.

Perantiqua

I passed the letter to Is after.

“Your heart is heavy, Lady Queen,” he murmured.

I nodded. “I have a lot to be thinking about, Is, and I do not know how to go about war. I had not thought of it before a letter, and now I can think of nothing but. A queen must learn war.”

“As a queen, I would imagine so. You will have many humans with beastly qualities rising against you soon, by Change’s orders. He whispers of riches stored in what used to be the abandoned Hotel Vitale. He spreads rumor that opportunity awaits any strong and smart enough to claim it.”

I hadn’t been monster long enough to entirely quit fearing lack of resources. I did not require food nor drink, yet I’d always possessed fear of survival. Such was life in this world and in this era. The habit was a hard one to kick. “I see.”

“Not as well as my king,” Is replied.

“Never as well as that.”

And here I was isolating such an asset because he had brought ambition into our intimacy. To think of him coldly as an asset though… that didn’t align with me either. To obey my heart was not ancient enough, and to obey my head was too ancient tonight. If a between existed, I was unaware of it.

“I wish that princely pawns could be of more help to you during this troubling time,” Is said next. “It must be our purpose to help you because we feel your will, and yet we are not your mouthpieces, I sense.”

They were not my princes, no. A pawn existed to do my bidding, and I saw sense in his words—that I must delegate to them and remove burden from myself. My defense was that I had never been a queen nor had pawns until recently. I had also lived human and monster life providing for my own survival thus far.

I nearly missed his next words.

“But what of princesses? Have you tried them?”

I cut him a sharp look. “Why should war concern princesses?”

Is chuckled, then stared when I did not join him. “Why, only that princesses know much of everything about war. They are married to a king’s purpose. We are mouthpieces, but only a princess bears witness.”

The bloodied curtains drew back in my mind.But of course.“A princess is present when a king decides to beat a drum. She sees his rhythm. She hears his reasonings before he conveys the conclusion of them through his princes.”

“Exactly that, Lady Queen.”

Princesses.I hadn’t considered princesses at all, more the fool me. “A prince as his mouthpiece, and a princess as his witness.”

Is seemed confused over the shocked force of my revelation. “It is so. A princess might be depended upon to know a king’s rhyme and reason.”

Chapter Six

One rhyme concluded,

One reek theorized.

Dear Princess Bring,

I desire your wonderful and unmatched company.

Do dusk plans engage you tomorrow night?

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