Page 100 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“He is very convinced after conversing with you.” She hesitated. “You should never make light of his vow, lady. One woman to another do I say this.”

“I will heed your advice, and I am very sorry your home is dark and shaky of late.”

“You’re not responsible for his mood, lady. Ruin raises his ire. He can’t have you become princess to King See who blocks all ruin and saving. He can’t have you blinding See to the actions of another king if you become concubine or companion or hostage to Take, Change, or Raise. He sees that left alone, you have already inspired much ruin—the war between See and Change, for example, and now the war between See and Take.”

I gripped the balustrade. “King See wars with King Take?”

“Over the information Take granted to you, yes, and how Take toys and tugs with your heart. Such a thing could end the world, and Bring takes exception to this. He believed a life with you by his side was the only solution from the moment of hearing you existed. After seeing you, he lusted for you in body too. Now he has spent time in your company, he wants you in near or equal measure to his purpose because he believes that you and his purpose might be one and the same. I cannot fault him for that, for you are beyond words the most magnificent creature in existence.” She curtsied after.

I’d never met a female monster. I couldn’t say what I might’ve expected. If this woman was genuine in her remarks, though, then I might learn something from her. “You said that you weren’t born to monsterdom.”

“No, Lady Patch,” she replied. “I was human until seventeen, then entered a twenty-year slumber and woke a monster at The End.”

Curious. “How did you become monster?”

“Five sacrificed themselves to trigger my true form. My grandmother, her sister, my mother, and her two sisters.”

“You lost so many.” Fifty had patched me together, but I’d only felt the loss of one.

“The loss of them was a long time ago.” She paused. “As was the shock of discovering this world, but I recall how ill-fitting everything felt.”

I considered her words, though the instinct was to agree without delay. “Nothing feels ill-fitting except for my new body, Princess Bring. Even then… this body does feel a perfect fit, if not my feelings about it. I can do any number of impossible things, and I feel very capable of physical tasks. I climbed to your king’s thatched house with these arms and legs.” I stared at my hands after. “This new body of mine, formed by my ancestors, is very capable.”

“You are extremely capable, lady,” the princess said in a breathless rush. “You inspire princes and climb cliffs. You deny kings, then forge deals with them in the next breath. Are you proud of yourself?”

The question was so genuine that it robbed away the instinct to conceal how I felt. “I’ve learned and dealt with a lot lately. Yes, I am proud of how capable I’ve proved, not only in body.”

“I am happy for you, lady.”

“Tell me, Princess Bring, how did you come to terms with the sight of your monster? I do not mean to imply you are anything but exquisite, for remember I haven’t seen you, but I speak of living in a conventional body one day, then waking a monster the next night. Tell me of the first time you looked upon your true form.”

There was a soft squelch as she fidgeted.

“Lady, the first time I looked at myself was ten years after I woke. Things were very patchy in the time immediately following The End. Kings and their princes hadn’t established, walled cities hadn’t formed, and mirrors certainly weren’t accessible. I spent most of my time dead and buried in sand. I could tell I’d become something other from the feel and slime of me. By the time I could look at myself, I was very eager to see what I’d become. I’d long marveled that I couldn’t seem to die. My body was impossibly capable, and with it, I no longer feared things like hunger or pain or death. When I first saw my reflection, I did like myself.”

I could tell by her tone that might not be true any longer. I shouldn’t pry further, yet self-interest wanted to push my curiosity to nosiness. I let it. “What happened to change that?”

“I imagine that my choice to become princess did. I’d had the lavish attentions of a king as he wooed me. A magical life rested in my hands at our wedding and for the initial years, but the magic gradually drained away. We are disinterested in each other, you see, in conversation and in body. I do not blame my king for this, for he was as fooled by infatuation as me when entering our union, but it does mean that I spend my time around a person who finds me unattractive and boring. After some decades, I began to wonder what was wrong with me, and though I can’t recall when I opted to veil myself from dusk until dawn, I can say that I feel far better under here where none can see my monster.”

I could see that she believed this.

How interesting that while this princess had slowly convinced herself that she was boring and ugly, Bring—who’d been recipient to her disinterest and lack of attraction—didn’t believe himself either of those things. He’d spoken to me with confidence as he uttered lover’s words. He’d enjoyed my curiosity of his crimson torso and second mouth.

I said, “I’ve recently discovered how enough compliments and flattery can build a person’s positive perspective of themselves. Yet now I’ve heard your story, I find myself wishing that you would not place any importance on how King Bring sees you. Does it remain then, that we should surround ourselves with those who see the best in us while also giving most importance to our thoughts of ourselves?”

“Lady Patch, you are more ancient than me in such things,” the princess said, then whispered, “How is she more ancient than me?”

There was a bitter note to her voice that I didn’t understand.

I called down, “The other princesses, how did they transform?”

Squelch. “I have been the only princess to transform from human until you, Lady Patch. You will know that princes are as ancient as one another as all entered the womb to slumber for 100 years before The End. Princesses vary in their length of slumber and therefore their ancientness, though we are not sure why ancients chose to vary us this way. The most ancient of us slumbered in the womb for fifty years before the end, two others slumbered in the womb for thirty years. I didn’t slumber in the womb at all, and instead was born of sacrifice, then entered a twenty-year slumber.”

Curious. “I wonder why that is.”

“None of us have figured out the answer, but I have been the least ancient monster for a long time.”

Ah, her earlier bitterness made sense. The others must poke fun at her youth.

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