Page 94 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“You may, and I shall answer your next question and say that Take and Raise interpret the last lines of the verse to mean that no matter how they try—or do not try—they will fulfill their role in the world’s fate because they cannot do other than their purpose.”

“They believe their role is passive, not active.”

I was reminded of how I’d passively accepted frights and not actively sought happiness. “What of King See?”

“See has never seen fit to inform me why he turned from duty, though I have gathered he doesn’t share the sentiment of Take and Raise.”

“Once he agreed to save the world.”

“Once we all agreed, when the five of us were on better terms and new immortals with the glory of soldierhood still in our hearts. We set out to save the world together and spent one century in this fashion, great hope in every honorable step.”

I’d known that once the kings agreed. “What happened to change that?”

“One king didn’t possess the strength and fortitude of the others. From this chip in the armor were other cracks born. Raise lasted another century before he grew weary at heart and drifted too deeply into his purpose. Our purpose is not designed to be personal, fair maiden. Not the action of it, nor the feeling we gain from the action.”

He meant, I thought, that Raise’s power had corrupted him.

“King Take was next to turn from your plight?”

“Take was next, yes, and I fear he goes the way of the other king. He begins to hate himself.”

Having met Take, I’d wager that true. “Then King See left you alone.”

Bring sighed. “He did after a millennium. His heart was broken and that was the end.”

I struggled to keep my face smooth as my mind turned to Take’s princess and King See.

“Ah, this news affects you, dear one. See has set his hooks in your heart. I glimpse it on your face. Yes, Take’s princess broke See’s heart and his will. She has kept him broken ever since, visiting again whenever he starts to heal and recover. She rules his body, Lady Patch, and this alters his thoughts. Mind and body are connected, no matter how we might wish it otherwise.”

I did feel pain then.

I’d resolved to believe that King See’s past didn’t matter if I might be his future—though my younger self still balked from that. My ancient side had told me many times that a person could take pleasure from another and not feel any warm sentiment toward them in general.

King Bring wished to convince me otherwise.

He wished to convince me to play concubine, but as he’d chosen to do so by causing pain, he’d achieved more of the opposite.

“You are hurt,” he said. “I am happy for that, though your pain is my anguish. You are a charm and a curse.”

Oddly, his confession endeared him to me again. “I cannot begrudge an immortal’s past. King See lived twelve hundred years before meeting me.”

“Why does my information affect you then?”

“My younger side wonders many things.”

A lull.

The king said, “You wonder what they are to one another. You wonder what they were to one another. You, a new monster, have missed out on living centuries while everyone around you has not. We hold many memories together, and you will exist in our company forevermore, never privy to the secrets we know and share.”

That was exactly right, and I’d never felt the hollowness of that before. When it came to Take’s princess and King See, I felt everyone was inside on a joke. I felt that no matter what someone might tell me, I’d never fully know the truth. “Yes, in a word.”

“Dear one, why did you not say so? I am warlock of charm and curse, and when something is both curse and charm, then balance is maintained, and granting a wish is within my power. I will show you all See has shared with Take’s princess.”

He could do that?

I lingered in the doorway as his warning reached me. When something is both curse and charm. Again, my mind seized the possibilities and ran with them. If what he showed me rendered me distraught, then my relationship with King See could suffer a fatal blow. If I kept on in ignorance, my relationship with King See would suffer anyway.

“Yes,” King Bring breathed. “You see the curse of it. You are torn, Lady Patch. Exquisitely so.”

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