Page 55 of Of Brides Of Queens

“Do you shy away from transactional agreement?”

Crumbs. He had offered me crumbs. And yet. “I would have accepted this colder arrangement between us as we adjusted to my queendom and rediscovered alignment, had you not betrayed me. Now I do not accept that suggestion any longer. Isuppose, then, that there will be no agreement between us and that we will not find alignment.”

In danger of stomping again, I crossed my arms and faced away.

“No, you do not act as a jealous king,” King See repeated. “Though I have witnessed your undoing, and that is something I can never be sorry for when you do so with abandon and beauty. It is true that Princes Take arrived at my palace, per my invitation. I was still quite mad, you see. Or perhaps she was exactly what I needed.”

I did not wish to listen to this. I wished to with every part of my being too.

“You can imagine her king’s glee,” he continued. “The king who desires to break your heart and toy with it.”

“You are not so different from him, sir,” I replied.

“Yes, well, he recently inspired me in such matters.”

So that was where he formed ideas of breaking my heart. King See borrowed them from King Take. I would laugh over Take being thwarted so, except that See wished to break my heart when I would have loved him. That was a heartbreak of its own.

“We are truly out of alignment,” I told him. “And this seems more final by the second.”

“Nothing is final,” he answered. “I had invited Princess Take over to inspire a jealous rage in you. I plotted that you would accept my claim and that all kings should know it. I made these choices as a mad king. For then I sat a time with Princess Take as she tried any number of ways to seduce me into her king’s orders. In that time, I marveled. Her body did not steal me of reason. Her conversation was one-dimensional. Stunted. Lacking in timelessness. Her clothing clung to her body and did not drive me to the edge of insanity to dangle me there. When dusk arrived and she left, I was not consumed with jealousyabout where she would go next, nor what they would do. In short, I did not care for her in body, mind, or soul any longer. And as I sat with her from dawn to dusk, madness left me, the likes of which have consumed me since your rise to queendom. I saw that I had gone about new obsession like a fool, and from that dusk I have worked to reclaim my senses somewhat. I am a different king, Perantiqua. I told no lie when I warned you of my ambition and of what I now am—a claiming king. But I am changed for a day in the paltry company of Princess Take. Changed enough to resist madness unless pushed back into it.”

What trick was this?

He intended to lure me into something.

There was another agenda at play.

Such were the cynical thoughts of a woman with a hurting heart. “You forget yourself, See. You intend to harden my heart, not the opposite.”

King See jerked, and I fathomed with some surprise that he had entirely forgotten himself. His shock was tangible.

“Do you mean to reassure me with the fleeing of your madness? All I gather is that you will now go about your ambition, obsession, and claiming in a more calculating way. In a word, you are becoming King Take.”

He inhaled sharply. “That is not how I would treat you, nor is it my end. Our destiny is immortal and ancient, and I believe in this unerringly. What the Takes share is but a photo.Wewill be the living memory encased within.”

I could see that he believed his words. I had almost managed to convince myself of our lack of alignment… or had I? Why must my heart leap at all his scathing words of Princess Take’s failings? Why must my mind believe that he might return to the king I had known in early monsterdom? Why must my body wish to feel the touch of his power?

At least the hurt was recent enough to wield. “Good evening, See.”

King See dipped his head. “I am glad the dagger did not hurt you. Until another dusk, Perantiqua.”

He was gone.

I laughed after, but the sweetness of standing my ground was balanced by the bitterness of him fleeing before uttering the part I had most yearned to hear.

King See told me everything he hadn’tfelt for Princess Take. I had foolishly interrupted before he started detailing all hedidfeel for me.

And his goodbye… Had he come to check on my state after the dagger wound? Or had he come to tutor me? Or to distract me with jealousy or break my heart?

I could not make rhyme nor reason of this king, and my stomach churned at the realization. He had no princess to teach me. A queen could not be claimed, so I could never bear witness to his war as a princess would.

Rat-a-tat.

“Yes?” I snapped from where I braced on the writing desk. Conversations with King See had this leg-shaking effect.

“My queen,” Valetise murmured. “Your stairway pawns have returned with Princess Raise. They did not wish to overstep and enter your personal chambers.”

Did See glimpse them on his way out? I hoped not, but he saw too much for a king blinded by me.

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