Page 26 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

The stone eroded and dull.

Breaking free of the cave, no longer

brave, They stared at a new, foreign age.

Up and out

Weaves golden fate

Feeling ancient in gifted wisdom.

Five powers grasp

All icy demise

Free from her olden prison.

Olden rock. Olden prison. The key was in that which wasolden, as Princess Raise had rightly recalled her husband saying.

My mothers had referred to the time that ancients spent warping kings as “her olden prison.”In the original poem of kings, five brave men touched their left hands to olden rock. In unison. In unity.

Unified.

“And this is the only time kings were unified, and this is all five kings really share. Their source is the olden rock where ancients warped them to immortal beings.”

Princess Bring took up a squelching glide. “So we go to the rock, and you will do queenly shimmerings, and afterward kings will kneel at your heels.”

I highly doubted the conquering of kings would be so easy. There was the matter that the original poem of kings mentioned them setting left hand to olden rock. Bravery was mentioned in the verse, too, and a passage of time also. The green light could be important, or their occupation as soldier. All of these factors might play into my obsession and more.

The conquering of kings would not be easy.

“Obsession sharpens,” I whispered. “Come dusk, I will search for olden rock.”

“You need not search,” Raise muttered.

My, the monster felt very trapped in the right or wrong of her direction. She could hardly work against me, and she could hardly leave my queendom and be rendered ignorant of my every move. On another level, the princess believed that her union would never heal without my help. But she had opted to help me along for now, and for that, I was grateful.

Bring stopped gliding. “But yes, my queen, you would not know of the olden rock. Kings often gathered there in the very beginning to seek out immortal and ancient answers. I cannot speak for other kings, but King Bring has not visited the olden rock in an age. ’Tis outside the walls of this pulse.”

Beyond the walls of Vitale? Was it indeed? Other than a school field trip where we had walked a few feet beyond the steel gates of Vitale, I had only peered out over the high walls at the hostile world beyond on rare occasions—mostly when considering how I would fling my withering body over the side when the time came.

As a monster, I had nothing to fear of a hostile world.

But I did fear a stone that had triggered the coming of kingly monsters. The stone had been the warping tool of ancients. Whether power remained in the stone, I could not ignore a deep foreboding at the idea of seeking such a tool out.

Yet I felt surety in this path too—or perhaps a lack of other ideas. “When dusk arrives, to the olden rock I must go.”

ChapterSeven

There was something to be said

For chasing fate.

Ihad only looked at the great ring of mist machines that surrounded Vitale through binoculars as a human. Now I was close enough to hear the hiss of their misting efforts in the dark. Their watery spray drenched my light robes and the cloth over my mouth soon enough.

The water misters, so I knew from schooling, existed to eliminate much of the dust pressure from the ever-present dust waves and sandstorms. Indeed, as I moved beyond their watery efforts with Princess Raise and Princess Bring in tow, the dust soon stuck to every part of me, seeking its way into my eyes, ears, and every crevice uncovered.

I climbed to the top of a sand dune, and curiosity turned me back to the city.

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