Page 122 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

There was no snarled answer.

Stopping in my stride, I pivot to look at my pawns. They were searching for Huckery too. He was not with us.

“He started out with us,” Loup said. “When did he leave?”

Pawns muttered, and none seemed to know. I had not noticed either. This was also not the first time Huckery had opted not to help me, and I could feel that my lenience with him was straining also. Soon, I would need to alter my approach to Huckery again.

Soon.

If a queen could still fix this mess. Though, another part of me was considering that Huckery was much more than a pawn, really. So where was he?

Because I could sense pawns, and summon them too, I dove into my senses, and sifted through monsters until I came to Huckery. “He has traveled to the heart of Vitale.”

“But to the heart?” exclaimed Deliver. “Why, that would mean…?”

“He goes to my queendom.” I hummed. “Huckery knows something we do not.”

I took off at a run, and a thudding started under my ribs that grew louder and louder until the pace I had maintained for pawns was no longer possible. The thudding induced panic in me and demanded that I run faster.

As fast as a queen could.

An enemy king was in her queendom, and this king was unsurpassed in plot and plan and ruin.

I left pawns behind and soon the gleaming, vicious points of my picket came into view. Blood stained the tips of some as I leaped over—signs of King Change’s forced entry.

A howl. A whimper.

“Huckery!” I gasped.

I blurred between thatched human abodes and then slammed through the gate in my wall of bars.

Dust surged forward in a wave as I halted, sending my slipstream rushing onward.

Huckery was injured. Limping.

He stood between my mother’s grave and his king, and the only reason my werepawn was not seriously injured resided in the dripping wound on King Change’s leg. He had been sliced by my picket. Mypoisonedpicket.

The origins of the thudding panic under my ribs was revealed. Huckery had guessed Change’s plot before me. Monsters were not in my queendom, Huckery aside, but my ancestral mothers were here still. They sat in vigil in an unfinished circle, therefore unprotected in the guarding on my queendom.

“King Change,” I growled, and my voice was many voices layered over each other. My queendom thrashed and rolled with it, and the screams of my humans rose from outside the walls to fill the skies in a wail.

The king turned. “You did not die. That is a pity, though not unexpected.”

I circled closer. I was stronger than him particularly in my queendom. I knew where he wished to go—through hellebores. Yet this king was crafty and never to be underestimated. “What awaits you through hellebores, sir?”

“Ruin. Always.”

I snarled wordlessly at his answer and my queendom squeezed. Huckery limped to me, and King Change watched his painful retreat. “You convinced my ruining beast away. I did not think it possible.”

Huckery had parted ways from other pawns to intercept his king. I would marvel over this when I got the chance. Such connection. Such loyalty. Such defeat of his inner lack of worth. “I am so proud of you, Huckery. You have my thanks.”

“You have my loyalty,” he whispered.

I inhaled sharply as the other pawns caught up. Loup and Unguis beelined for their brother pawn, helping him behind me. I sent a silent thank-you after Huckery. That would need to suffice until later.

I regarded King Change. “You will return to shackles, sir. And I promise you that you will not leave them for a long while.”

“I will never leave them,” he said, walking forward as if admitting defeat. “I will never stray from my purpose.”

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