Page 104 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I had not dared to hope after first connecting how I must heal the injuries of the world. I dared to hope tonight. In fact, I could not quash the hope in me.
How horrible hope was. To think that another frayed seam might shortly mend. To think that we might shuffle one step closer to saving.
Might.
Here was another word to haunt me.
The “might” of healing was a stench in the air as champions gathered around me to depart through a hellebore grave. Those remaining behind hovered and lingered too close. In uncertainty. In survival instinct.
Though the Brings felt none of that. They stood together, blobs held high and sure. They stood with the confidence ofan immortality shared. Their love was a love cultivated through overcoming hardships together and in respect for each other.
They also had not heard my mother’s warning ofmight.
Which meant that I might feel their confidence if I had not heard either. I turned down the memory of Mother’s words and enjoyed the rush of determination that resulted.
Much better.
The mood of my lingering monsters brightened in tandem with their queen’s.
“Champions, we depart,” I growled in a voice saturated in madness.
Hellebores rustled at my approach.
“Perantiqua,” called See.
I battled against madness to look back. “Prince Consort?”
See strode toward me, Life walking beside him.
The prince consort stopped before me and bowed. “MightI suggest that you ride Life to the seam, my queen?”
Might.
I wrinkled my nose at the purposeful word. “Could it be that a seeing monster is warning a queen at last?”
See bowed, and when he straightened, I saw grim seriousness in his gaze.
He replied, “Sometimes he cannot. Sometimes he will not. Sometimes he can.”
Life lowered so I could mount. His savage splinters never seemed to pierce my skin.
“Thank you for the times you can,” I told See. Then I rasped to Life in madness, “Fly faster than the wind, dear Life!”
The steed blurred me through hellebores and erupted into the sky. The screams and cries of clamoring humans and the low groans of minions were quickly left behind.
We did not have far to travel.
I had rarely ventured far from the walls of Vitale, mostly toheal seams, really. But I had visited the cave that had contained the olden rock more than once.
If only I had wandered a time beyond, then I would have glimpsed the black sands that extended outward for so long that a monster could only despair at the sight.
I floated atop Life in the air above and my champions arrived in a whoosh and cackle with the earl in tow.
“My queen!” shouted Princess Change.
I whipped my head to peer downward and sucked in a breath at the furious rise of black granules. They were forming into shards of ice, splinters of diamond, daggers meant to slice and maim and destroy. “Ruin knows we’re here.”
Champions scrambled to link hands and set their hands on the earl. The world exploded in a roar and bellow of trillions of grains of sand pelting and stabbing against their barrier.
