Page 97 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I unfurled a great lasso through the vast skies, and the crack of my power rope was terrible and desperate, the lightning of lightning. The loop hurtled and blurred toward her, and only just hooked around my monster before she struck the ground.
A monster such as she would survive the impact, but if I could prevent the hurt of my loved ones, then I would.
I drew the marchioness back through the sun-lit skies, and the first tendrils of light beamed upon her changed body.
The fire had burned all away. Her clothing. Her hair—eyelashes, eyebrows, and her luxurious tresses. She was like a doll, half-made, or one destroyed by a human toddler. The burns over her would heal quickly.
Her hair… I had an inkling her altered appearance would sit right with the princess, for she was not the same without her marquis.
“Thank you, Mother,” I whispered to the healing sky and world below me. Green growth had exploded here, too, and this part of the world would be unrecognizable within minutes.
Two down.
Should a queen feel hope? A queen felt instead that the hardest battles remained.
I glanced at Marchioness Take, then at my unconscious champions. “Come, my monsters. Back to queendom, if queendom remains.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I could not care
Then I had not cared to
Now I cared
And cared what to do.
The minions of Marquis Take had overrun the queendom. They wrestled with humans, and so now the clamoring humans were also locked in nightmare where impossible creatures existed.
Surprisingly, the minions were led by the gateman and herald of their master.
“They were the first that he took,” Marchioness Take said in a flat voice.
I had not sensed her waking. “They are strongest?”
“They are a product of a horrified king who could not bear to take, and so he gave them some of his life force. That is why a gateman can create verse. That is why a herald canfathom subtle politics between monsters. My husband liked to keep them close.”
I pulsed power over my queendom and minions screeched and toppled from the walls. “No monsters remain in the queendom. They all escaped through hellebores.”
I threw minions and humans from the courtyard as I descended with my champions. Hellebores rustled their greeting and soothed the frown from my face as I passed through their midst into a grave.
We emerged in a grayscale world, and if my only remaining quibble with this place was its lack of monsters, then that problem was solved.
I lay my champions at the base of my tower where King Bring and King No Change were positioned on their copper panels. See was atop the tower and peering down. Pawns were chatting with undead mothers. Life pawed at the ground, eating dirt here and there. I had not thought the steed ate.
My eyes shifted to the statue of Adalina, and I knelt beside my mother. “She was…”
There were no words for how she had fought. Withlove.With smiles and strokes.
“We are very proud of a daughter,” wheezed my mother.
I looked at her, and she looked at me, and I saw everything in her gaze that I did not wish to. Her acceptance. Her sacrifice for a daughter. Her rage at my enemy.
“Mother,” I said. How did I put such feeling and dread into words? How did I speak everything to her that I must? There was no time, for I would go on talking for immortality if it meant keeping her by my side a little longer.
A queen must say goodbye to her mother while knowing they would never meet again. Of all monsters the most was demanded of me, and this made sense while also drawing up resentment and despair in this minute.
My mother replied, “Daughter.”
