Page 58 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I knelt beside my gaunt mother and could not summon the right words. I looked to where the statue of Danya was just visible across the circle.
“We knew, Daughter,” wheezed my mother.
I looked at her, and she looked at me.
“Since lightning poured through you and into this place, we have known.”
Cassandra added, “Each of us felt ourselves in part of the world. We knew what was required of us.”
I closed my eyes. “Danya was… so fierce and beautiful. Savage. The sickness was nothing against her.”
“Danya is free in death,” said my mother.
I looked up. “Free in death.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I peered immediately to the mothers sitting in vigil who had never wished to be here. “I had not expected that ancients would allow death for our line.”
“They will not allow death for you,” said Cassandra.
Mothers stared at me.
They chanted, “You will free us.”
Yasmin—who had never wished to wither—hissed, “You must not fail us.”
My mother snapped back, “She will not fail us.”
I cupped my mother’s cheek. “But Mother… how can I free you? You were meant to be with me always.”
“I had thought so, too, my Patch.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “And that was a lovely existence while we believed in it. We are not bigger than the world. So much life awaits all, more than that of my wildest dreams. We cannot work against that.”
There must be a way. There was always a way. Ancients had returned Adalina to life. And Princess Bring too. I would not lose fifty mothers, and if I lost forty-nine, then I would not losemymother.
Ancients could show mercy when they liked.
“There is much work to be done before our goodbye,” Mother said.
I cocked a brow at the yells and screams behind me. “I had not realized what terror this place would hold for other monsters.”
I supposed that they saw fifty undead mothers sitting in a circle, their hands stitched together, and one of them a rock statue. I supposed the Takes could not understand the lack of color in the place either.
I lashed power around their wrists again, then dragged the Takes after me. The princess had sparked this idea when she had mentioned breaking.
A queen knew of a place where monsters could not feel their body. Well, I should say that the haze presented differently to all monsters. For me, my bodily sensations had been removed so that I might know my mind and soul. While King Change had not received the same experience from the haze, I had come to wonder if the haze had recognized the lack of the king’s ability to change. The haze had trapped the king for me, but otherwise had left him alone.
I stopped just before the haze, and then smiled when my copper-furred creature brushed against my legs. “Hello, beautiful creature. I have missed you.”
It stalked off into the haze.
“What is that thing?” Princess Take shrieked.
I told her true. “’Tis the creature that will feast upon your flesh if you should not succeed in this place.”
King Take dragged his princess behind him. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I will tell you something that might help you in the haze, sir. Listen well, for this is more than I knew.” I glanced over my shoulder. “This haze is a gift, if you choose to see it that way. You see, your union is very frayed, sir. The saving of the world depends on you accepting the lessons to be learned in here.” I did something I had never done and pressed images into his mind.
An image of what I had seen of his union—the artery so frayed it was like two halves instead of a whole structure. I showed him the black sickness and the life that had sprung up once Danya healed it.
