Page 13 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I no longer feared the haze.
This haze was a queenly gift.
The creature brushed against me.
“I will do it,” King Change bellowed at my back.
I winced at the sudden volume, then realized he spoke idle threats. “Do not do it, sir. You would regret your choice.”
“You need me, or you would not have collected me. Answer my questions, or I will walk away, never to be seen again.”
I might inform the king that I would find him again. Or perhaps divulge to him that ancients had led me to his location forcollection. Maybe he would enjoy a reminder that my power was far greater, and that I could stop him leaving without much effort at all.
Or I could say and do nothing.
The creature pressed against my thigh, reminding me for the first time since entering this haze of what I wore. How incredible. I had nearly forgotten that monsters mostly wore clothing.
Functional.That is what I had thought of the loose trousers made of such sturdy material. I ran a hand over the long tunic that extended to the knees and split up each side to my waist.Nogs fastened the high neck.Functional.Valetise had not known what I would face, but she had dressed me for an inner war, nevertheless.
The creature growled, and I dropped my hands at its warning, then tuned out the king’s continued threats. I could not become distracted.
I heard it then.
“Quiet.” I thought the word and it echoed through the haze, rendering King Change mute. To use my lips and mouth to form the word had seemed… superfluous and extravagant.
Ah.Yes, the sound was clear. A scritch-scratching and a rustle. A disturbance of sand.
“What is that?” King Change hushed.
My lips curved at the ruin of a ruining king, but as the path widened to another clearing, my smile faded.
I crouched beside a pile of sand. Something buried in its midst agitated the sand, causing the sides of the small dune to pour and fall away in tiny amounts. The changing king craned to see over my shoulder.
With naught but a finger, I brushed the sand this way and that. The small creature within stilled, sensing the threat, but did not flee.Could not flee.
I gently shifted the sand, then froze when my fingertips encountered… stickiness. The stickiness stretched as I tried to pull my hand back. So viscous and strong.
And alive.
I scooped sand over my sticky fingertips, and the tiny creature released me again. I knew this creature. I knew her in my heart.
“Princess Bring, my friend,” I whispered. This moment deserved full noise. “I had assumed the worst and grief has lingered in me.”
I ignored King Change’s exclamation. He had seen PrincessBring draw the deadly curse into her blob, the same as I. She had died before our eyes, reduced to a pile of ash.
Like this pile of sand.
“So there is the answer,” I murmured.
Princess Bring—this rudimentary and infant version of her—had paused to listen. She knew me, too, in whatever capacity remained to her.
The tiny path in the fog had led me first to King Change, and then to Princess Bring. The king was clearly needed. And Princess Bring would clearly live again.
Here was the purpose of such a long tunic. I scooped the princess, with a large portion of sand, into the front of the tunic. The split up the sides allowed me to hold her safely encased in the coarse grains that she appeared to need.
King Change sneered. “You cannot bring her back. I will enjoy watching you fail.”
My savage and snarling beast left my side, and the urge to respond to the king with a retort drained away. Silence was powerful. I did not need to respond to petty utterings of ego.
