Page 64 of Of Brides Of Queens

Yet she did not wish to go to him.

The king spoke fast and fervently. “Darling beauty. I would not lock you up, but you know there is that between us which must be fixed.”

She sobbed. “I thought I could do what was needed, my king. I love you so, yet I cannot bear to exist in a dungeon so often.”

“My one and only, if you but sign the amendment, you would always be by my side. We would rule together and speak together and laugh together. Do you not yearn deeply for this?”

“More than my immortality.” Her words were barely coherent.

Now here was a conundrum.

Such was the agonized moon-crossed tension between them that I hardly felt brave enough to interrupt. “King Raise, must she sign the amendment?”

“Imust,” she said.

At the same time, he snarled, “Shemust.”

On this, they agreed. A cause to celebrate. Their unified answer did beg the question of why Princess Raise did not just sign if she acknowledged that she must.

And where was the warping?

I could not see anything other than that they were very in love. Was that the warped part? They had spoken with See and Take if they believedthat.

King Raise shook in body and voice. The ruler was undone. “My princess, I cannot be without you. I live each moment for your mind and body and heart to be with me or under my lock and key. How is it that you do not shudder at all when I shudder under the magnitude of such feeling?”

“I feel as you feel, my love. I feel that and more!” she cried. “What screams in my heart and soul for you is destined and infinite.”

A puzzle indeed.

The king started a floating descent. “I rejoice at your words, and yet you do not fling yourself from the rooftops into my arms. You leave me. You bargain for accommodations to distance yourself.”

She could not answer for her tears.

I felt quite bad about this.

“King Raise, my bargain with your princess is of short duration,” I said. “If she would like to return afterward, then she is free to do so.”

“I cannot return,” the princess shrieked, and there was panic in her tone.

All in all, I was experiencing confusion over matters.

Raise’s business shoes touched the ground again, but he did not stop there. He sank to his knees and lowered his head into his oily hands. When he lifted his head again, two oily handprints dripped from his face. “When my princess declares something, then my princess has decided. Who am I without her? Why should I go on? How can such a thing be possible.”

“But you must,” she sobbed. “You must go on in purpose.”

“I cannot face immortality in this way. I cannot. I will not. Do not ask it of me, my darling.”

“Go on in purpose,” she roared.

I blinked at her sudden volume.Impressive.

How deflating that I could no longer relish in the triumph of battle. This was a terrible exchange to witness. I had sliced their love apart to wedge myself in the middle. Goodness, I did not feel right about this lovers’ tragedy.

King Raise choked out, “She burns my heart to ember, then demands that I pick myself up and go on as ever, though I am but cold ash. Who is this woman who commands me and destroys me in turn?”

“It is your princess who does so,” the princess whispered. The hollowness in her feelings seeped into her words.

Why did she not go to him? Why did she not sign?

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