Page 65 of Of Brides Of Queens

Why did he not abandon the amendment?

I wished they would just be in love. I wished she would fling herself into his arms, or that he would scale the walls to claim her. I would let him.

I also saw that Raise was my creature. If I could be callous enough, then I need not ever fear his kingdom again. But could I be cold enough?

“My princess,” Raise groaned, a broken king.

“Your princess demands that you go on in purpose,” she cooed.

King Raise closed his eyes and tipped his face to the storm cloud sky. “I will do as she demands. But she must tell me that she loves me. She must.”

Another sob from her.

I could almost hear the porcelain of her heart cracking, and I could not understand King Take’s obsession with breaking hearts because witnessing it was almost too monstrous to bear.

How could King See wish to do this tome?

“I love you.” Her words were spoken with complete conviction. Torture. Regret. Pain. Devotion. Obsession.

I gasped at the fullness of them, and the king they had been aimed at clutched at his chest, panting for air.

Oil coated his face, but despair had been eradicated from his posture. King Raise stood. “It is done.”

His black stairway had not disappeared. With the woodenness of a man walking to his death, the king returned to his stairs.

Then he was gone.

I felt very terrible. They were moon-crossed and drowning in tragedy. I did wish that she would go to him and that he would not lock her up. Or that he could be happy she was staying here during proceedings.

A sorry conflict.

My pawns had lurked and lingered close by during the conversation with King Raise. Very close, as if they might have protected me against him, even his princes.

Toil broke the silence first. “King Raise’s fifth is gone, my queen.”

I scanned the area and found it empty of living humans. “So they are.”

“We need only fight King Change’s fifth now,” Deliver quipped.

We looked at him, hearing the forced cheer in his words.

Sign, Seal, and Deliver appeared very upset, and their eyes glanced often to the conservatory where the princess’s occasional sob could be heard. Princely pawns did not love conflict between kings and princesses.

A chilled sneer stretched to me from far away. “King Change’s fifth will not arrive, transcendent Queen.”

My eyes were rather good, but finding King Take in the smoke and dust was a task. He lurked atop an apartment building three blocks to the south. “King Take, did you watch the battle?”

He chuckled. “I do love a show.”

I squinted harder to make out two forms on the apartment roof. One was masculine in form but with the boyish and joking posture of King Take. The other was sensual and sure.

Princess Take.

I said, “Then I am glad for you, King Take. And does your princess enjoy a show?”

Her voice was a delight—a haunting melody, the sound of a full moon’s arrival. She took my breath away, though not with her words.

“You lower yourself,” she answered.

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