“My queen,” hushed Princess Bring. “You have conquered a king.”
Her whisper broke the shocked freeze of those witnessing my triumph. Princess Change broke out in sobs, but did not venture closer to her king. King Change had not looked at her once. He felt betrayed, and yet they had never trusted one another, really. He had relied on the silencing contract of their union. When that was overpowered, then no trusting skill had remained for them to wield, for they had never troubled to practice.
Another frayed union.
So many frayed seams.
I blinked through the flurry of confused thoughts.Ah,here came the consequences of winning in obsession.
“Princess Change, you might return to your forest,” I called over her sobs.
She hiccupped and wiped at her face, following me as I strode from the conservatory out onto the rooftop garden.
“I would remain beside my king. Please!” she cried.
Where was numbness and despondency? Not here.
I faced her, though urgency bid me to hurry onward. “You have a chamber here, do you not? All monsters who reside here make themselves useful. If you choose to stay, then you are no longer a guest. Consider your role in my queendom and present your ideas in my throne room when I return.”
Princess Raise hurried in our wake. Princess Bring and Princess Take hurried along inherwake. Champions of my queendom indeed. “My thanks for interrupting madness, princesses,” I told them.
“Ancient power filled us. But now I feel such urgings to get you to safety,” gasped Princess Take, pressing a hand against her middle. “Where must you go?”
“Into hellebores,” Princess Raise hissed. She set a hand upon my shoulder, and I sighed at the siphoning of the ancient insanity that had already started to warp me.
Princess Bring shot out a web of slime, and I felt another draining of the clamoring and clashing. Princess Take hurried forward to take my hand.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Such earthquakes of new power clashed in me, much like storm waves from opposing currents. Confused thoughts. Too much at once. Too ancient for me, but such was warping. When I had claimed princesses, ancients granted me enough time to get to hellebores.
This hurtling arrival of power granted no mercy.
No time.A king was shackled and a queen faced insanity.
I groaned and did not resist as three princesses picked me up and threw me over the balustrade of the rooftop garden. Arms and legs wide, I was a falling star. A careening queen.
For a heartbeat or two only.
The cobblestones of the courtyard flashed in my awareness a second before I crashed through my mother’s hellebore grave.
Not for the first time.
Not for the last.
ChapterThirteen
Goodness
But a narration
In third person, no less.
The upholstered armchair stuck halfway out of the stone walls between tapestries. The armchair belonged beside a fireplace, seat to a musing creature in possession of a heavy book or a strong drink. As matters stood, a skeleton sat upon the chair, and the chair was positioned my way, instead of toward any fireplace. I should rather say that what I couldseeof the newest monster in Vitale was skeleton. By all means, she could be otherwise above her mid-thighs..Shemay not be asheat all. But there was something feminine about the monster’s elegant toes, and coupled with the high and soft tone of whispering in the walls, I did believe we had another female monster present.
There was a shyness to the arrival of her whisperings that made me feel she did not wish to be too noticed nor spoken at. So far, today, she had just sat there, assumedly watching me. We had not spoken. She had not whispered. Just sat there, watching on.
What was her purpose? I was metaphorically dying to know.