Page 81 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

The monster walked around me in her swishing, voluminous skirt. “Just so, my queen. Are you near fullness of power, do you suppose?”

“I believe that I must be, dear Valetise. If Picket feels less driven in purpose, then that is as good as sign as any to believe that the sandstorm might soon calm.”

“What then, my queen?”

Then I save or ruin the world.

I could not think of that yet. The notion still threatened to drown me.

Princess Bring arrived, and I walked through my private lounge to greet her in the larger lounge.

The princess was naked. How different this version of her from the monster I had first met.

“How lovely to have you back,” she exclaimed so genuinely that she dripped on the floor.

“Princess Bring, how do you fare?”

“Damply, my queen. Thank you for asking. Pawns satisfy my needs very well. I found there were many centuries of lustful imaginings trapped within me, and once free, they were all out at once. It is a good thing you have fifteen pawns. A lesser number of them might have seen them succumb to exhaustion.”

Even my werebeasts? “I am sure they are honored to receive your magnificence, Princess.”

She lengthened. “They are. Every one of them.”

I stopped. “Might I put my hand on your shoulder, Princess?”

She did not hesitate. “You may.”

I did so, and was intrigued by the viscous feeling of her slime. “No one could be surprised that any monster was honored to receive your attention, whether in touch, conversation, look, or smile. My heart bursts with the new happiness and confidence of you.”

She rolled her blob over my hand in what might be a pat. “Quite simply, you inspired me and challenged me to find my spark. I was stuck in a trench, you see, and I had become lazy with attempts to climb out.Thank you,my queen.”

“You might thank me, dear friend,” I replied, then said on the air, “as long as you thank yourself first.”

I released her, and she curtsied, shivering at the brush of my voice.

“I must speak with pawns,” I told her. “I must speak with princesses.”

She blobbed after me. “I will arrange both.”

“Anything else to report?”

“Princess Change takes care not to dig by your mother’s grave during the night, but she sneaks out to do so in daylight.”

My eyes narrowed. “She digs at my last nerve.”

“Yes, my queen. She drowns in a lake of shame, for her confessions resulted in the shackling of her king. She seeks to make it up to him with freedom.”

By stealing back her bouquet? While that might dent my power and spin my queendom into some discomfort, we were well past the point where the removal of a bridal gift could undo me. “Anything else?”

“Pawns are very sick, my queen. Mostly all of them.”

I stopped in my tracks. As I stared at her, my mind revisited the sorry state of my bringing pawns. They had looked positively dry, and I had not seen them in over a week. I had chalked their dryness down to stress. “They have caught the kings’ plague. But ’tis thekings’plague. What of Take’s pawns?”

“Very unwell, Your Majesty. All crisscrossed with black veins. Lethargic. I do most of the work nowanights.”

“You have not caught the plague during your time with pawns?”

“No, my queen. I did not realize they were sick until well after we had all started our affairs. All of them except the seeing pawns are sick to some degree, but I have not contracted whatever afflicts them.”

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