Page 7 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

My, but Picket had accomplished a great deal in a short time. He should not take the failure so personally. That was entirely my role as queen. “Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Duty need not get in the way of love.”

As I said it, my mind tagged on a qualifier—for monsters who do not rule.

Because for me, duty must get in the way. I had deciphered that much very early into queendom.

“I will inform him such, my queen. Thank you.”

“May his fibers fill you soon, Valetise.”

Her flashed grin warmed me as she swept back into my wardrobe, assumedly to her chambers beyond.

I was rather invested in their love story. I wanted them to win. If my fate did not involve love, then others must experience it for me, and not the tragic kind that the Raises shared.

I had some time before princesses arrived. “Mother, I shall travel through your hellebores presently.”

She rattled the artwork in response.

As I walked out of my sleeping chamber, I said, “I do hope that Picket and Valetise work things out.”

My feet slowed as I entered the smallest of my two lounges. My private lounge, I had come to think of it, because princesses never ventured past the largest lounge that sat closest to the doors.

A monster sat upon my couch.

His voice curled around me. “She speaks to her mother in death, and I will do the same, because such a mother must be thanked for providing the world with a daughter of darkness. Her daughter defines my immortality. She isperantiquaand always has been and must always be, for another possibility is not enough for her exquisiteness. Thank you to the mother of my ancient destiny.”

A humming murmur sounded from within the walls, and despite the fact that the uninhibited sight of King See had frozen my mind and soul, I did cast a look at my queendom.Mother?

Why was she humming so? Did she enjoy King See’s speech? I surely had, though I could not recall a single word, so robbed was I by the sight of him. I had only recently seen him in entirety—with no blur of face or body to speak of.

The candles flickered, and no more humming came.

I forced my gaze to King See and held it there with great difficulty. He was too much to absorb at once, and me a queen. There was the intense menace of him that unraveled my breath. Then there was the powerful focus of him that trembled my insides. Not to mention the intense heat of his all-seeing perusal of my thoughts and feelings and intentions and obsessions.

Pitched against this was the whirlwind of my own thoughts as I considered each of these in regard tohim.He was recently unpredictable in ambition and madness in obsession, but how did he think and feel? What were his plans and dreams and hopes? Each of these factors—menace, focus, perusal, and mystery—was too large to fathom in a heartbeat, let alone all of them combined. I could sooner stare at the moon from an arm’s length away and never be blinded. To be the object of King See’s claiming scrutiny was to walk down a stairway that constantly shifted and disappeared and tilted and crumbled.

I felt inwardly and outwardly seared in the same inhale. My exhale was suffocatedby all we were and were notin the same.

I wished to tear off the very dress that had fit like a glove five steps ago.

When milky eyes fixed upon me so certain, so consuming, the awareness ofmewas shaken and rattled so that I could not feel centered, and all this was merely a reaction to the essence of him and our destiny. The addiction I felt for his appearance on top of this simply ensured that I would always be undone on the matter of King See.

He kept his black beard clipped short, though he did not treat his black hair the same, which curled atop his shoulders. A simple silver circlet nestled on his head to mark him king, and chalky white skin provided the perfect contrast to the inky midnight of his hair and dark, velvet coat.

There was such grateful joy to be felt at the unexpected and hard-won sight, and yet the sight picked apart my stitches to splay the patches of me under a magnifying glass too—for his lazy viewing pleasure. The brightness of him as he inspected every part of me through the glass would surely set my skins alight.

“Your breaths quicken,” he stated. “You are undone.”

I swallowed. “I feel grateful joy at the unexpected and hard-won-for sight of you. Yet the sight of you picks apart my stitches to splay my patches under a magnifying glass.”

King See’s thin lips curved. “I would do all that you say, and splay you for my lazy viewing pleasure. No part of you would be safe from the thoroughness of my cold inspection.”

Truth.“That is why my breath quickens, sir.”

“You are undone.”

My eyes narrowed. “As you must be.”

Though the king seemed far more collected than I.

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