Page 105 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
If Life had lowered by an inch, sickness would have taken his hooves.
So close to touching me and claiming me.
There was a reason that a queen’s power had no effect against this sickness. Because that was fair. This infection must have a chance to succeed, too, by eliminating the heart of monsters.
Too close.
I dove into the stitch connecting my left arm to my torso.
“Madison,” I echoed a call.
In my mind’s eye, or in the curious undead layer that superimposed over life, Madison stood. She kissed her mother, Molly, who was weeping and tugging at her stitches to be free.
Madison was a healer of a mother’s heart. Only her presence in the circle had calmed her mother’s attempt to be free.
Peace of soul.
Madison was a balm as strong but as unique as Adalina had been. For while Adalina had affected large masses with everything kind and good, Madison could sense a hurt soul in thedarkness. She targeted them without conscious thought, and though kind and good, Madison’s power was in the lending of her strength. She had such wondrous excess of inner strength, and also an unconscious generosity of lending that quality to select others whose souls were most in turmoil.
“Mother, I am in awe of you. Such pride resonates in me because you are my ancestor.”
Madison placed a hand on my shoulder. She gripped it in a way that grounded all my uncertainties as if they were a flock of birds who had suddenly and unexpectedly decided against erupting into flight. “Pride. Awe. I feel all of these things for the chapters of you, Daughter. I go to the final death with such intrigue of all that remains unwritten for you. Write it well, as only you can.”
“I will, Mother,” I said hoarsely.
She did not wipe away my tears, for such tears were her definition of strength.
I was pulled out of my mind and back to the world of monsters as Madison’s stitch unwound from my left shoulder. She hovered before me, as the others had done, and I could not blink for the watching of her transformation.
Not shield, nor giant, nor snake, nor herself.
And though she was everything good and generous, she was those things in great excess of strength.
The stitch ricocheted outward in a sweepingboomand blast and shimmering. The translucent substance she had formed swirled.
Madison was a wind, a gale.
The crucial second ingredient to whip a sandstorm into being. The barrier of champions dropped and Madison circled through the slicing granules in enormous circles to gather the sand in her slipstream.
Champions settled into the second phase of their power and purpose, that of aiding the mother in her battle. They clawed atthe black sands below, whisking them upward and into the growing sandstorm until the sky and land were black all around.
Madison was out there, so formidable and unafraid. My champions must be close. All of them protected me as surely as they attacked.
The sky grew lighter, and I scanned until locating my champions. The Brings were separating from the others and walking toward a Madison that they could clearly see, though I could not make any sense of this chaos.
But there! A shimmer in the air, an echoing encouragement from a mother who was a tower of strength in life, in undead life, and in her final battle.
The Brings were taken by sand. If they screamed, then I could not hear above the gale and pounding roar.
The sandstorm was being forced to the ground. The sky was steadily reclaimed.
Until it stopped.
With no sight of Madison or the Brings, though surely they fought from within, the sickness stopped shrinking.
A standstill. Yet ruin would not stand still for long.
“Champions,” I shouted.
