Page 98 of Of Monsters Of Kings

When I woke from the pitiful excuse for sleep near dusk, weariness itched at my nerves, and my irritation rose to match it.

This was no state to make decisions in.

I didn’t bother dressing, but stomped to my conservatory in my soft-pink nightgown. The top level did ease away some agitation, but I didn’t feel tension leave me altogether as usual.

I scowled in the direction of See’s palace first, then Take’s castle and Bring’s thatched house. “Kings!” I hissed. The lot of them could go away. They only existed to toy with me and tug me here and there.

And I was very annoyed that King Raise and his princes hadn’t bothered to visit. That was a cold shoulder and a rudeness. I had an inkling to give him a piece of my mind.

I crouched beside the glass panel on the ground. A conventional eye stared up at me through the dust, and I glared right back, not in the mood for playful frights.

The monster shied away as I held up my pointer finger in threatening fashion. Leaning forward, I wrote on the glass panel in angry capitals.

DON’T KEEP ME WAITING.

Apparently, I’d grown to expect attention from kings, even if I also wanted the lot of them to go away and stop toying with me.

The eye blinked, and the monster disappeared from sight.

“Good riddance,” I seethed, stomping around my conservatory some more. Metal whined and stones leaped, but I cared not that my mood or power was affecting the hotel.

I’d give Raise’s princes one hour to get here, and then I couldn’t answer for what might happen. I was not in the mood for rudeness.

The hour came.

“Rudeness to the fullest degree,” I shrieked, hearing a splitting crash below.

I ran to get parchment and ink, and then blinked back to the conservatory where I scrawled a note.

I’m waiting to meet you, King Raise.

Kindly send your princes to my hotel.

The newest monster in Vitale,

Lady Patch

Folding the note in three, I wrenched opened the glass panel and dropped the letter into the kingdom. The letter fluttered down through the tunnel and landed on a stairwell, one of thousands.

“If that doesn’t outline my expectations, then I’m certain nothing will,” I yelled at the conservatory.

A large patch of oxidized copper disappeared, and my irritation only mounted at the hotel’s message that my behavior was rather juvenile.

“I’m allowed to have a night,” I snapped. “My heart feels very heavy, and so do my eyelids!”

More oxidized copper disappeared.

I shrieked again, and then took up a pace, blinking every so often. Unlike other nights, the blinking brought me no joy.

Another hour passed.

This King Raise was messing with me on the wrong night. I itched to have an argument with anyone. I wasn’t in a state to make large choices, and so I sought a distraction from my feelings.

Bother.

I sat on my sweeping staircase in a puff of nightgown. That was the crux of it.

I didn’t want to feel what I felt.

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