Page 53 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
But this was not my battle. The mother did not need me.
The sludge was hardened and cracking underfoot.
Danya wasfeastingupon the festering wound and emptying the cavern of its putridity. I could see that was so, for the black sludge was sinking and shattering so.
Less and less black, until the sickness was gone.
I peered over the edge and found that the cavern extended to the center of the world. I could see right to the middle now that the sickness was gone of this vein.
“Danya, you did it,” I said hoarsely, and extended my little finger for her to return.
But deep in the cavern, the stitch—no longer bearing Danya’s face—was weaving the walls together. The walls nearest the center of the world pulled closed first, and the wound steadily closed.
The stitch bobbed in and out of crust, then through minerals, clay, sands and lifeless dirt, up and up, until I was forced to retreat so Danya could stitch together the very surface.
The wound was cleaned. Closed.
My heart hammered, and King See must have felt my response.
I stared at the neat stitch as its glowing power faded. I extended my little finger again.Nothing.
The stitch was no longer mine.
I peered at the skin between my little finger and hand to find that the seam of the two patches had merged. Two distinct colors remained, but they no longer required a stitch to hold them together.
“Thank you, Mother,” I whispered. For I had a heavy, sickening feeling that I had seen her for the last time.
The soil turned black underfoot. Not a black of ruin, but the black of rich soil—soil bursting with life. I picked up a handful, and startled at a wiggling worm within.
A worm!
Grass popped up through the rich soil, and shrubs and small trees followed. I hastened backward to accommodate the sudden and lush growth.
Theimpossiblegrowth, unseen since before The End.
With all that I was and with all I could do, I could barely fathom this miracle.
This picture of what a saved world would be—so like the vibrant world atop King Bring’s pedestal that had echoed my human dreams of a different world.
This was all we stood to win.
This was all we stood to lose.
Chapter Seventeen
One… two… three
Chapter Eighteen
“Five, six, seven,” I counted aloud. I counted all the way to forty-nine while staring at the broken circulatory system from atop my conservatory.
King Take snickered.
Which was distracting. The king had surely been sent by ancients to test my tolerance. There was a reason he had required the most ancient princess.
“What do you count?” asked King See.
I did not answer. I was checking.
