Page 120 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

He turned his cheek as if slapped. “You are right, I do not. But I might earn her in death. You might be the judge. But please do not leave her there to be cleaned away.”

No, I could not do that.

I glanced around for the glass vial. I would ask mother for a beautiful casing for the princess’s remains later, but the cursed vial would need to do for now.

But how curious to find that Princess Change had picked up the vial. She was on her hands and knees before her king.

Her king’s shackles, that was.

And I connected the whole of their plan in one horror-filled instant where even a queen with formidable power, connection, and speed, could do nothing to stop the next second.

Princess Change tilted the vial and the last drops inside poured on to her king’s shackles.

I had not noticed the halting of his laughter in my grief. No other monster had noticed in theirs either—or in their relief at the disappearance of the plague in their loved ones.

The curse hissed on the shackles, and I felt the exact moment that curse met my stitch. I screamed high, and threw myself forward onto hands and knees. I screamed again and moaned through the waves of agony.

My stitch unraveled from his shackles and began to worm its pitiful, dying way back to me.

King Change left his copper panel and he stomped on the stitch that had ensured his conquering.

His princess smirked at me, clear in my line of sight where I had been reduced to the ground. I panted there, frozen in the pain and terror and disbelief of losing a stitch.

There was a shattering, and then I grunted as glass stabbed into my back.

All of this in the space of a few seconds. Not long enough for pawns and princesses to react. And shackled kings could not.

They did launch at King Change when they could, but by then I had a glass vial lodged in my back, and one that had carried a curse inside. Very quickly, I could feel that some of the curse had remained in the vial.

It seared and boiled in me.

My palms began to slide outward until I was flat on the floor.

King Change would surely injure me beyond belief now, but I could not fathom him right now, nor even the poison.

My stitch was dead.

Pawns were filled with power to protect me, and King Change was forced back. His boot lifted off my stitch. The stitch that had shackled him. The stitch that had died because I was blind. I had dismissed simple threats and they had united into a large one.

I crawled to the stitch and dragged it to my face. This had been a mother’s deathly immortality. I could not feel her any longer. I had wondered what the limits of my stitches were in keeping mothers safe. Here was my answer. “I am sorry.”

My circle would never be finished.

The poison spread.

Where was King See?

Someone ripped the glass vial from my back, and when I was rolled over, I wearily took in the panicked terror of Princess Raise and Princess Take.

“My queen,” cried Princess Raise. “My queen, are you dying?”

There was no increasing of the boiling feeling. “No, I am not. There was not enough left for a queen.” My reply was wooden.

My stitch, my mother.My mothers.They had been right, and I had ignored their warnings. My own mother had given this poison to Princess Change in a bid to accelerate fate.

I dragged in a painful, melting inhale. A monster was dead. The kindest and most forgiving of monsters. I would not be the same without her loving presence.

Princess Take gripped my hand. “What can we do?”

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