Page 17 of Of Brides Of Queens
Any marvel over my new power fled as I turned to find King See standing between me and the beastly king.
King See had saved me from slumber.
Bring sauntered to stand beside See and between me and the other kings. My three pawns stood either side of me, too, and I hadn’t noticed them move to protect me. From their stunned expressions, I wasn’t sure they’d noticed either.
I met Change’s regard. “Yes, I was. Imagine my confusion over the kingliness of it when I am a queen. There is noprecedent I acknowledge for how tribunals have been before me. Things must go differently now. Princes are now pawns. Five territories are now six. Monsterdom does not mean what it has meant.” I set my sights on Raise. “There is no tribunal. There is no future where I am your servant. Your power cannot hold me, as you have just witnessed.”
“There are ways,” Raise sneered. “Broken rulers are easily molded.”
The pawns either side of me stiffened, and I noted their reaction as any ancient mind might.
“Bravo!” King Take clapped. “A lovely speech, Queen Patch, but a speech just that. You are not the queen of kings, might I remind you. You are the queen of a hotel, and where one power cannot hold you, five might.”
I arched a brow. “You propose that kings agree?”
“There would not be five,” King Bring declared.
Take chuckled. “And I doubt there would be four with See’s mind in his cock. But would there be three kings?”
I sensed the keen intelligence that was the taking king’s true weapon. He was discerning of political and emotional undercurrents to a dizzying degree.
Take wished me to plead and beg for his support. I said, “I am not sure how you can break my heart if I am Raise’s servant.”
Take threw back his head and laughed, and I was doubly glad for the barrier of See and Bring’s power. Whether amusement or fury, I was vulnerable to uncontrolled feelings of kings.
The black around Take’s eyes flooded outward again. “I will break your heart, young queen. I have been too entertained tonight not to see who you could become. The tiny, damaged vessels around your heart give off such a heady aroma.” He turned his head. “Did you cause this, See? Will she only choose you if broken? And,” the king lowered his voice, “what if she does?”
My heart skipped another beat at his words. He had already connected a startling theory that had just occurred to me this night.
My first instinct was to ignore his words, but I couldn’t help absorbing the words to consider later. “King Take, here is my offer to you. When I decide my purpose, you shall be the first to know.”
His glee rocked the walls. “I accept in anticipation. You delight me.”
“And you, King Change, it hardly benefits you to have me a servant,” I said.
“Do not assume what may benefit a king, pitiful queen of nothing,” he answered. “Raise is closer to joining my ruin than any other. One hundred years. Two. I could wait.”
Raise didn’t respond.
I replied, “What if I sought to ruin?”
“You will not ruin as you are,” Change said. “But you are a changeable monster, and so you might easily change toward ruin. Fragile and vulnerable in self and in body, and so I shall ruin you, and thus ruin See in the same act. I see only victory when I look at you.”
He meant every word.
And I could see the sense in them. I couldfeelthem in the doubtful parts of my mind that I had vowed to strengthen with my daily trips to a conservatory mirror. This beastly king had surprised and terrified me with his cruel statement. I was vulnerable and fragile still. I would be for some time, both inside and out.
I did not much fear heartbreak of a romantic kind. That was a matter between me and a seeing king. But to be torn apart in self-esteem. That was my greatest weakness as a new queen and a recent monster.
King See interrupted the heavy quiet after Change’s speech. “So there is but one king who clings to this tribunal. A king who cannot hold this queen prisoner by himself.”
He circled to my right, coming as close as possible without pushing me to move as Raise had done. King See reached out the tiniest tendril of his cold, menacing power, and memories of his magic pulsing into me slammed to the fore of my mind.
“You are all warned,” he told four kings. “This queen is mine, and she has my protection.”
See stroked his power over my cheek and I sighed, betrayed by my body and even my mind for the space of a breath.
Then fury filled me hard and fast, and the heat and red of it nearly obliterated my senses of how to behave before five kings.
