Page 79 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

She meant the “my queen” this time.

I nodded. “Your princess is the most ancient of princesses and should be listened to. She could be far more to you than mere flesh, King Take.”

“I cannot let myself have her in other ways,” he answered. “I cannot let myself have such happiness while doing what I do.”

There was the crux of the matter, and the solution was simple. “Why have you come, King Take? It cannot just be to stomp and pout and sulk.”

“A petulant queen makes fun of a petulant king,” he said silkily.

I glared. “I am new to petulance, but I shall not be so for long.”

“As I thought for five hundred years. Accept your stompings, young queen, for petulance is rather fun if you rid yourself of conventional standards.”

I tilted my head. “Goodness. Good sir, I have been ensnared in a small trapping of convention, ’tis so. A revelation of stompings. Thank you kindly, King Take.”

He winced his way through a small bow.

I did my best to return to the topic at hand, though ancient thoughts of petulance wished to tug me again. On the wind, I asked, “Why have you come?”

Take’s yellowed eyes widened as my voice permeated through the very air. “Because I have many minions, Queen Perantiqua. They tell me of how you led King Change through the city, him your prisoner. They speak of how you tucked a key away, as if to quickly conceal them from other eyes. They speak of how King Raise rushed you to a hellebore grave, and then of how he walked to join King Change in your conservatory, even shackling himself.” King Take straightened and removed his top hat to reveal a mostly bald head, though the hair circling the base of his head was very long.

He said, “Your new obsession is to conquer kings.”

His princess gasped, but Take grabbed her hand to stop her from stepping between us. The king extended his other hand in front of him, and there was an enormous distant crash and rumble.

A key appeared in his black-nailed hand, and the key was white—tinged with pink, of course. A slight hint of green moss spoke of the stagnant water in his moat too. “I do not wish to rule. If another king can admit it, then so can I.”

I shook my head. “You do wish to rule, King Take.”

“You assume to know me better than I know myself?”

I smiled. “I understand you. Of all kings, I began to understand you soonest, if you must know. Your ego greatly enjoys ruling, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. King Take, you do not like that you are responsible for choosing whom to take. That is all.”

He did not agree. He did not need to, and this was not an easy thing to agree with aloud before his princess and another king, whom he had tormented for centuries.

King Take’s hand shook, and the key with it. “The taking. It will stop. I will never need to take again.”

“Your taking will never stop, dear king.”

His gaze hardened, and I blurred to take the key as Take prepared to banish them back to his kingdom.

I snatched the key away, and snarled, “Mine.”

The king dropped to his knees on the cobblestones, howling his inner pain to the moon.

I hissed, “You will always take, and you do not get to choose death by plague as an alternative. The future of monsters and all beings depends on you living. Live in torment if you must, and live in happiness if you dare, but know that you are no longer responsible for who lives and who dies. That choice resides with me.”

“You will order me here and there to take? To the evilandto the innocent. What honor is there is that?”

Princess Take hushed, “You will cope much better this way, my king.”

“Whatever honor you assign it, sir. I deliver the orders, and you must merely carry them out. There is separation for you and separation for me. I might deny any taking, because I did not carry out the deed. You might deny any taking because you did not choose your victim. Any number of very horrible acts have been committed with that arrangement in mind.”

I did not feel great about such a thing, but what else could be done when a king’s ancient-given purpose was to take? We had to make good with it somehow.

He hung his head, and I turned from the conquered king, who I understood in completeness. I rolled his key between my fingers and released a slow exhale.

Four keys.Looked like I would return through the grave from whence I just came. At least a king did not need to race me there this time.

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