Page 22 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

Splat!

A slime explosion threw me backward against the wall of bars. Picket hastened to cast his fibers and help to restrain me. Rage swept me along, and I had never felt the like. My queendom shimmered and squeezed with it. Pawn, princess, and monsters cried out and exclaimed at the jump and tilt.

“You will not hold me here.” I pulsed heat into the slime, though I had never known my power could do so.

The slime dried, and I shoved out with all my strength to shatter the prison. Picket’s ropes were nothing against the claw of my fingers.

My lips torsioned. “Pawns can do naught against a queen.”

Princess Bring and Princess Raise planted themselves before me.

“Power fills me, my queen,” said Princess Bring. “Never fear. We will not let madness derail you so.”

She shot slime over my hands, flinging them out wide with the act. She slimed my ankles too.

I laughed and pulsed searing heat into the slime again, but my laughter faded when the slime did not dry. I used all my strength to pry arm and leg from the wall of bars and achieved nothing more than the smallest budge. My growl was volcanic. “What is this?”

Princess Raise neared. “I am not saying that I will enjoy this, but I am not saying that I will not.”

The princess punched me in the face.

The power in her fist. My breath was stolen. My mind stripped blank from pain. The back of my head hit the bars, and I gasped.

I gasped as the madness that had consumed me upon returning from the grave drained away. “Thank you.”

Raise snorted. “Any time.”

My face hurt. “Maybe not any time.”

She hummed. “Deal. Not sure I could do that any time, unless you are going mad over obsession.”

“I worried that we could not restrain her,” Princess Bring said on an exhale.

She called her slime back, and I gingerly touched my nose. The break was already healing. “Mother poisoned me to lessen the jolt of obsession. No doubt so two princesses might restrain me.”

All four would be needed if this happened again, and I imagined eating any old hellebore would not poison me half as well as the one Mother had given me.

The last of her poison left my body, and with it the bruising and break caused by Princess Raise.

“My queen, what of your new obsession?” Gangrel asked.

Indeed.

My gaze lifted to the onlooker on the second level—Princess Change. She stood outside her chamber, and the monster would have seen much this dawn. Without her presence, I still would hesitate to divulge this information to pawns and princesses.

I was not their only tie. Not yet.

“I must retire and reflect,” I declared.

Pawns bowed, princesses curtsied, and then everyone waited for me to move.

I peered down at my feet, which had not budged. The slime was gone. Goodness. “I must retire. So I will go now.”

Picket crouched to inspect my legs. “There is no slime remaining, my queen.”

Apparently there were aftereffects to hellebore poisoning. No matter, here must be the reason that a queen could blink. Except I did not wish to reveal that skill to Princess Change.

A conundrum.

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