Page 119 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
Snakes formed of black, lifeless dirt blurred upward, and my champions erupted in response. Their barrier erected before me right as the fastest snakes lunged at my face.
I stared at a snake inches from my eyes.
“You will not win. Be gone from this world,” I told it.
The hissing masses rattled with laughter.
Silence was my reply as I dove into the stitch up my spine and the stitch in my thigh. The one so deeply and functionally stitched so that it would always hold me together.
I walked into a dark room in my mind, and though I had expected two mothers to greet me, only Cassandra was waiting.
“Niyna gave all to me, Daughter. She has passed to death, but wished you to know that she died filled with pride of what she leaves behind in you.”
Cassandra opened her arms, and I fell into them.
Cassandra was the first mother and the first reason why I might win immortality by the side of my monsters.
“The loss of you feels great,” I murmured into her shoulder.
She answered, “Life is not meant to be easy, Fiftieth Daughter. Life is meant to be possible. So this loss, like all other losses you have borne, will be borne too.”
I pulled back and scanned her face one last time to memorize it.
Cassandra smiled, and leaned closer to whisper. “And you will rejoice just as much. The losses you bear will only push moments of celebration and happiness to their fullest potential. Never forget that diamonds sparkle best when set upon the darkest pedestal. Do not be afraid of life. Never be afraid of life.”
My voice shook. “I will not.”
Cassandra kissed my forehead, then strode past me. Her body started to shimmer as she neared the cusp of leaving thismental space we occupied. “Daughter, you must not fail monsters. Be warned, there is one who must not remain.”
I was jolted back into my body, and reeled back as Cassandra’senormousstitch began to whip and writhe.
Cassandra exploded and white blinded me as I was thrown through the air and against the carriage.
“My queen!” screamed Valetise.
I wrenched my head to look at Cassandra, and my heart stopped. She had become a gigantic hand in the sky, and a hole existed where her stitch had once been.
No sooner was her transformation done than the stitch on my thigh snapped into the air and shot toward the first mother. Niyna’s power shot toward Cassandra’s hand and white light flared. Lightning now crackled in the stitch hole in the first mother’s hand. Niyna’s energy was gathering and building.
In a cacophony of crackling and whipping, Cassandra unleashed a gigantic bolt of lightning from her hand. And how poetic, howrightthat she should fight with lightning at her last battle when ancients first used lightning to force their purpose into her.
Hisses became shrieks.
My champions dropped their barrier to form a defense in rhythm and accordance with Cassandra’s unique form of fighting. Between each lightning strike, my champions shoved their power downward in an enormous wall. The lightning was forming enormous craters in the steaming continent of evil below, and the pushes of champions were forcing the villain out of the air and against the surface.
The world shook and whined, and the millions of snakes of lifeless dirt joined into thousands of larger beasts. Cassandra hit one with her lightning, then batted one back with her huge hand.
The snakes turned in unison to face me, and then blurred toward me next. Champions threw forth a barrier, and I shoutedwordless challenge at the snake, whose fangs were so close to nearly latching about my throat.
A ringing noise stilled my heart with its hope and strength. The snakes battering at the defenses around me paused to glance back.
The circle of mothers in vigil was here, overlayed in this world from where they sat mostly as statues around my tower. But that still meant something—it must—or why would the first mother have brought them here?
The snakes left me to return to the siege on Cassandra. She threw lightning and slammed the snakes back. She snapped them in two and whipped their fanged heads against the surface. The world shook with her fury and menace.
The black was nearly to the ground, and though I had anticipated that the battle would stall, I had hoped against odds that it would not.
The carriage door pushed open, and I held out a hand for Valetise and Picket. They were taken to the other champions by Duke Raise.
