Page 68 of Of Brides Of Queens

Her lips curved. “Anyone else? Could you be more specific?”

I enjoyed her coyness and wit more than her sadness, though I saw they were a mask. “Did King See come?”

“In what sense of the word?”

Her humor was enjoyable. “Both, but I fathom King See would not choose such a setting for the use of his hand.”

“You know him in this. He arrived shortly after you engaged in the first battle. He stayed until after dawn.”

After dawn. “Why so long?”

Had he stayed to watch the Takes? Jealousy clawed up my legs.

“To ensure King Change would not attack, I suppose.”

My brow cleared. Jealousy removed its claws. “You are right.” His presence also explained the body-slapping actions of the Takes. They had sought to bait King See into envy to stab at my heart.

They had failed to drag a response from him, and that warmed my vanity somewhat.

Princess Raise added, “King See crouched in readiness to intervene in the battle. He cares for a queen. But he also did not stand by her side against my king...”

I did feel grateful that he had come. Though with his ambition, I could also suppose that he had wished me rendered weaker, so that he might better claim me.

His intervention was not necessary in the end. King Raise had been defeated by his princess’s rejection, and so I would never know what King See had truly intended. “Do you make any sense of King See?”

She was stunned. Astonished. “King See is not my king, Queen Perantiqua. I make no sense of him.”

I released a breath. “Of course. I expected not.”

“Do you not make sense of him?”

“Should I?”

She considered that. “I could always make a small sense of my king from when I first met him. After our union, I could make much sense of him, and this grew and grew until I knew his sense completely. Do you make any small sense of King See?”

Worry was a gnawing creature. “I did before queendom. I have not since.”

The princess nodded. “The rules of princess cannot apply to you.”

I did not wish to confess too much to the princess of Raise, who loved her king very much and would always help him, but I did feel very uncertain. “I would feel relief if our troubles were just a matter of adjusting to queendom.”

As it was, King See had learned more from a day in Princess Take’s company than anything so far. Though… I had grown in queenliness in that time too. Perhaps I should not dismiss how my actions and the claiming of a necklace had lessened See’s madness.

“I am naught but a princess. I cannot speak of queendom.”

Neither could I yet, nor anyone.

The radio crackled. “Why do you listen to humans?”

“To hear somewhat of the world when I am locked up.”

“Do human affairs interest you?”

“Sometimes.” Princess Raise turned up the volume.

“A message from the President of Vitale…”the presenter announced.

A deeper voice flooded through the speakers. The president of Vitale, who had been president as long as I could recall, was somewhat of an untouchable neighbor. A person viewed him as friendly, but had most citizens interacted with him? I never had in humanity.

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