Page 20 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
This was a view of how much I had to fix.
The sand at my feet leaped in answer to a pained groan from the world’s core. Sand started to trickle into the hole, and thesand did not stop. More and more arrived to trickle and fall to the center of the world.
Ah.
Here was the reason for winning five keys to open this door.
“I have released The Real End,” I whispered. “The olden rock was the stopper, and a queen has uncorked all the ruin and sickness you held inside until she was ready to reckon.”
Eventually, sand would fill this hole.
And ancients had gifted me an hourglass fit for a queen.
Chapter Nine
Distractions of body.
Iappreciated the simplicity of pawns this dusk. They were least complicated of all, even less complicated than simple monsters, who liked to evolve and form attachments, and even less complicated than princesses as their loyalty was not tugged elsewhere to a king. Not now that kings were conquered.
“My liegess,” sobbed Vassal, bowing until his nose and the tip of his spear touched the stone floor. “We are overjoyed, yet very overrun with worry of how you perceive us. We did not wish to obey King See?—”
“Wealwaysspoke of him unkindly where he could not hear.” Toil slapped his blob on the floor in a way that left me in no doubt of his fury.
Sign narrowed his eyes, which wrinkled his gray and hairless, waxy head. “He received no smile nor help from us, my queen. I assure you.”
Unguis whimpered and covered his nose with a paw. “He sat on your throne.”
Anger simmered deep in my stomach at that. Because this was a copper throne where hellebores climbed. In other words, this throne was uniquely and magnificently mine. The gall of a king.
Loup added, “He slept in your private chambers.”
On my throne and in my bed.
Copper armrests whined under my tightened grip, buckling slightly. I loosened my hands, then loosened my thoughts. King See would do neither again. For all his glimpses of the future, he was but a shackled monster.
I hoped he had enjoyed his small taste of a copper throne and a queenly bed. Alas, this report only confirmed what I had already gleaned from a restless night spent catching King See’s scent over and over. I would ask Valetise to change the sheets.
My seeing pawns, Has Been, Is, and Will Be hung their heads, and I fathomed that the passage of time had been horrible for them. They had been King See’s princes for an age. But they obeyed the call of my power. A horrible predicament indeed. For all of them. Pawns were simple, but prone to stress. Tears were evident in the waxy and hairless skin of Deliver and Seal.
My blobbing pawns appeared on the dry side—never a good sign.
Will Be’s seeing eye in the middle of his forehead was streaked yellow, and the eyes either side of Is’s head were the same.
Sanguine and Gangrel’s fangs did not gleam as viciously as usual.
Of all pawns, only one seemed sound in appearance and outlook.
I looked to Huckery, as I often did, for he was somewhat more than a pawn in his connection. “What of you, sir pawn? What did King See receive from an esteemed werebeast?”
“Less than a queen. Your imminent return was obvious to me.”
All other pawns gasped and squelched.
Loup snapped his teeth at his brother. “You knew our queen would return?”
“You did not!” Sigil said hotly and also damply. “That’s easy enough to say now she is back.”
Huckery did not reply. He was wise in his silence, and always had been. Huckery was somewhat immovable in his ideas—this was his great downfall and his great strength.
