Page 88 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

Stairways erupted in the next beat, and my raising pawns, who had been recording the whole on large contraptions, sent unlucky humans hurtling through the air. How terrifying to see rubble careening toward you with no ability to move out of the way. Bruises, nightmare, impossible power. A tangible sign of monsters, a lasting trauma of them, and a fear of them.

I brushed away a tear. “Beautiful.”

“This is unlike anything I will experience again,” whispered King See. His hold on me tightened.

Picket was up as he sliced vicious sections of picket up through the ground between humans. A few screams here and there told me he might have caught a foot or two, and I grinned, imagining the future fright of these humans simply walking around the city while wondering if picket might erupt through their feet at any time.

King See kissed up my arm. “Your orchestra is exquisite. And you the maestro.”

And I the maestro. Yes, that I was.

Valetise and my sliming pawns set alight gigantic renditions of me.

See laughed. “King Change did you an accidental favor, I fathom.”

I laughed with him. Because Change had secured a realness of me in the minds of humans with his corn husk doll efforts.

But I did not have time to answer King See, for the second act had begun.

Princesses walked out. One to stand before the territory that used to belong to her king. And I peeled back the veil a tiny bit more. Just enough that humans might suspect that Princess Raise had no face and could drip oil—they might also see the headset over her ears and by her mouth as she broadcasted the event to all other pulses.

Princess Change appeared lifeless and empty to them, horrifically so, but they would not miss that the trees creaked loudly in their bid to reach her. Princess Take created painful desire within humans. They writhed. Some might not survive it. And Princess Bring was surely grotesque in the minds of humans, a blob and a slime. I could not make sense of their terror at the sight of her, but I did understand how limited they were by convention.

Humans were on their knees. Some were insane and many injured. They were locked in nightmare, frozen and unable to cover their eyes and ears—unable to crumble in a heap and curl their bodies over in an attempt to hide.

Wonderfully wonderful.

Princesses lifted their arms, some more willingly than others, and they began to speak all at once. The delightful—but terrible—symphony of pawnly laughter. Rumbling of the ground. The singing slice of erupting picket.

The arrangement stole my very breath.

“The finale,” I managed to choke. I took See’s hand and squeezed it. “Step back, sir. You are not the symbol.”

King See kissed the back of my hand and retired to a shadow.

My seeing pawns cast forth their small power, and humans shook and cried anew as every regret was drawn up in them in a surge. Every wish was crushed. Every dream and hope was reduced to dust and blown away with the swirling and whipping wind that was nothing more or less than the eruption of so much monstrous power in one location and all at once.

The fright was enormous, the fright attacked every sense and rendered humans senseless.

I lowered the veil by half. There was a second of relief, and of all that I had released on humans this dusk, that brief hope was monstrous indeed.

My skeleton shrieked from the rooftop next to mine. “Born of patch. Tied with stitch. She is Power. She is All.”

I lifted my arms either side of me, and then I gathered the veil that masked me from humans. I gathered it and focused on the feel. For the next moment was crucial, and may very well fail. How fortunate that I was many minds in one skull.

Mine would be the only skull in fact.

“She is mistress of your fate.”

I took lightning in my power. Then I forced all human eyes to the top of the apartment building, accidentally squeezing some too hard in the process.

One second. That was all this could be. So I kept my arms outstretched and felt the twist and sweep of my torn white gown in the wind.

My skeleton hiss rocketed through the air. “Mistress Stitch is here.”

I jerked the lightning bolt to hit the top of the apartment building, then I threw off the veil on humans’ minds.

And I pointed at them. In a terrible voice, I whispered, “Obey.”

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