Page 98 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
The word rang, and there was a realization in my mind that only two words needed to be exchanged between us—those we just had.Mother. Daughter.
So much filled those words. Every memory and “I love you” and struggle.
I kissed her cheek, remaining there for longer than usual.
Then I walked amongst other mothers. “Greetings, Mothers. How do you all fare with the sudden company of monsters?”
Cassandra grumbled, “They are noisy indeed, Daughter.”
While some mothers were enjoying the cheeriness of pawns, some were not. Hard to vigil with so much distraction. “Pawns, kindly tend to champions. They have fought a hard battle this night.”
Pawns left mothers. For now.
I walked to King Bring, calling back my stitch. His shackles gradually released from his slime with a loud and suctioning squelch before clattering to the ground.
“My queen?” he asked in a wet gargle.
I smiled at the king. “Tell me, sir, have you answered the last questions that you were wise to ask?”
Emotion filled his voice so damply. “I have. I have.”
“Does confidence fill you at the idea of a future with a princess?”
“Never, my queen, and that is how it must be.”
Warmth filled me. “I sense no vanity in you, Bring, and I am a proud queen to witness the immense acknowledgment and accountability of a monster who was king. Whatever your failings, you have admitted them. Whatever your mistakes, you have learned from them. There are not many creatures who could achieve one of those, let alone both. I am proud indeed, and proud to free you of shackles.”
He bowed his blobs. “You will never regret it.”
“No,” I said. “I will not. Bring, you were king, and henceforth you will be known as Earl. Always and forever, you willserve me in the growth of your power and in the management of your earldom. Stray from this at your shackling peril.”
“I will not stray,” he said fervently. “I have always served monsters, and youaremonsters.”
That was the exact truth of him; he was right. That was why I had always shared a vision with this king. Our reasons for being were the same. What great connection in that.
“As for Princess Bring,” I said next. “She, if she should choose, will be formally known as Countess Bring. Believe always in her pure heart, sir. Believe always that she is revered by monsters and utterly worthy of the greatest love.”
“She is more than me,” he said simply, and I did not agree with him aloud. This was a monster who must put matters on a pedestal to believe in them, whether his purpose, his princess, or kingdom.
I shifted my focus to King No Change.
His eyes glinted at my attention and a dark chuckle rumbled from him. “The greatest pleasure of my immortality will be thwarting your plans to save the world by simply refusing to heal my union. I am awake to your ploys, and I will stand in the way of them, though shackled in place, until ruin feasts on our flesh.”
And he would. That was the ever-growing concern. We all blindly stumbled toward saving, focusing on what was possible. But there was an impossibility, or a thing close to it.
A never-changing king must change.
Could I muscle him into change with my power? I expected not if the haze had been unsuccessful in altering him. Yet the moment of reckoning for the Changes drew nearer, and there must come a time of battling this king into submission for the fate of all monsters and creatures.
See’s mild voice drifted down from high above. “Brother Change, you will choose rightly in the end. I have faith in you.”
That made one monster. Even his princess despaired of him.
I opted for silence and entered the tower, climbing andclimbing to the flat top of it where the gifts of princesses were stored and where white lightning displayed a map of the world’s sickness through the haze.
See stared out across the haze, and I studied his posture for signs of his thoughts. I should have known better than to waste my time.
“I felt the hammering of your heart in battle,” he mused. “Minions attacked at the calming of your pulse, and I managed to get everyone to the courtyard in time. Holding minions back was no small feat. There are so many of them.”
