Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Undone by curiosity

Again,

Again,

And Again

M y crown and the mesh veil hanging from it covered more of my body than my clothing. Valetise had decided to use my novel female form as a weapon—telling me so in as many words. I was the only monster queen. Kings had never seen the likes of me. Ancient as I was, I would play on my uniquities.

And if I wanted to torment King See too?

Then I would. Because such amusements should be taken when offered, lest immortality grow dull.

The jumpsuit was sheer, though white fabric flowers covered the most intimate parts of me. Otherwise, white mesh clung like a second skin to my arms, legs, and chest. In monsterdom, I had often worn dresses, and the lack of confinement around my legs was a welcome change, though one I could not feel grateful for if I wore jumpsuits every night.

Valetise had coiled my blonde hair into a tight and elegant bun that sat tucked inside my crown. The crown itself was atop my head but barely, and so clutched in my white-knuckled hand to keep it in place.

My wooden horse grated to a teeth-affirming halt outside the pink-washed white castle of King Take.

I released my crown at last, exhaling my immense relief.

King Take’s castle. When last I was here, I had attended a ball in my honor. A bloody and frightening ball.

The brightness of fresh pink stains around the castle windows spoke of the king “taking” many times in recent nights. I did wish that he would take without painting the humans’ blood on his castle for all to see. The act was crass and unbefitting of monstrous dignity. Though King Take might be a very hurt and damaged soul: a soldier stolen of his glory at the height of the feeling, then left in fragments from centuries of this midnight war. This king’s purpose to take had created a direct conflict against his noble character from human days.

Perhaps other kings had not faced such a dilemma.

“Thank you, grand steed.” I patted the wooden horse.

My efforts to sneak out without the horse were thwarted when Mother noticed me creeping around the perimeter of the courtyard.

I could hardly tell her no.

I had just navigated the rotting bridge over the stagnant and stinking moat when a voice slithered from the entranceway shadows. “You again.”

A minion.

Whomever King Take took life from didn’t quite die. They became shells that existed to cater to the whims of his emotion and will. Lacking the dusk substance, these minions weren’t monsters, as I had mistakenly thought at the ball.

The voice slithered again. “You better have an invitation. Or make it worth my while, seeing as you’re dressed so pretty.”

What a drastic alternative to providing him with an invitation. “I did bring my invitation, in fact.”

I could state my queenliness or barge in, but royal monsterdom and impossible power were no excuse to be uncivil.

I untucked the king’s letter from beneath my sheer sleeve, and my brows shot up when a long and thin tongue whipped out to snatch the letter away.

“Do not snatch from me,” I boomed.

The gate man popped his head out, and as he assessed the pebbles leaping on the ground from my rage, I assessed the gray wrinkles of his skin.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he remarked, his slither gone. “This isn’t your kingdom. And I’ll snatch from you if I please.”

Hmm. I had expected the minion to be affected by my booming order, but I supposed he was not my creature at all.

Unlike the princes of kings.

The minion tossed my letter into the stinking moat where a telltale pink tinted the stagnant and shallow creek. “No invitation now.”

A tickle of glee found me. “How monstrous of you.”

“Thank you. I aspire to be what e’er I see.”

My brows rose for a different reason. “My, and what a gift for rhyme. Were you like this in conventional life, sir?”

He puffed out his chest and recited, “Emptiness of

Life

Granted vacant

Space,

for thirsted

Beauty.”

My smile was genuine indeed. “Life, space, and beauty. What a wonderful outcome for you.”

The gateman edged further from the entrance shadow, nothing more to the eye than a gray raisin might look next to a grape.

“You know,” he said, “I thought it when you attended my master’s ball that I had never heard such a delightful voice as yours. Articulate. Such an artful turn of phrase. Exquisite even. These are the words that come to mind.” He blinked, and the sandpaper sound as he did so convinced me of the utter dryness of his eyeballs. “I am inspired. I am filled with verse,” he exclaimed. “I must write a poem!”

The minion ducked into the shadows again, but poked his head out into the moonlight. “Will you stay to hear the verse?”

“I would be happy to,” I replied. “Do you mind if I wait inside? The wind blows so.”

“But of course. Kindly enter, and enjoy all for the taking. I will be a time at this. Such is art, you understand.”

“I could never rush brilliance,” I murmured, ignoring the rest. Of taking , there would be naught by me.

The minion paused his muttering to yank aside the stanchion, then disappeared into his shadows to remain.

I glided into the mostly white castle, with only the rhythmic click of my heels on stone to betray that I didn’t float. The gliding had formed since my last slumber as a result of my constant need to balance my power, speed, and blinking ability. The monstrous outcome was this gliding gait, and I wasn’t sure I had the finesse to walk in a conventional way any longer.

My only other options were to run, jump, or blink, but kings were yet to discover I could blink like the princes of King Bring. Strength and speed were more usual monstrous powers and raised no fear and concern. The ability to blink, however, might raise questions about how I could blink. Unanswered questions were a beast of their own, I had learned, and so I would avoid unleashing more of them.

As it was, kings likely had assumed that ancients were tampering with the fate of the world by introducing a queen.

Best to keep it that way.

Whoosh, click, whoosh, click . I enjoyed the haunting melody of my queenly gait as I swept toward the ballroom of my memories.

A bloodied and dripping curtain blocked my way soon enough, and I glanced to the small nook beside it.

No one greeted me.

I cleared my throat. “Queen Perantiqua.”

“ Ah! ” A snorting snore. “A-apologies, miss. Queen. Ma’am! Oh, I’m not meant to call you queen.”

Indeed? His liege’s orders, no doubt. “Are you well, sir?”

“No, no. Yes. No. Let me get that curtain open.”

The wheezing minion staggered from the shadows, then jumped high with the surprising agility I recalled. Still half-asleep, the minion missed the rope hanging from the ceiling and crashed to the stone floor. He rolled a time, then dragged himself upright quite quickly. With a second agile leap, the minion managed to latch onto the rope.

The minion pulled down hard, and the rope pooled on the floor, burying him in its coil.

I had begun to ask the minion how he was, but as the curtain lifted, five kingly and immortal presences became painfully obvious. I could only wonder that the bloodied curtain had blocked all traces of them.

I adjusted my white mesh veil to check that my eyes were somewhat covered. In the past, Valetise had crafted my veils of solid, heavy material to withstand the presence of vast kingly power. By contrast, this material was light and mesh like my jumpsuit.

Valetise must have known something I did not.

I knew even less than usual, for I had never glided amongst five kings. While usually I loathed the idea of forced slumber, perhaps slumber was not a terrible fate for a queen avoiding a declaration of her purpose.

“What’s your name again?” The wheezing minion kicked and clawed from the midst of the coiled rope.

“Queen Perantiqua,” I repeated mildly, my focus on the five powers in the next room.

Silent, listening. Waiting.

One of them was King See. I had not seen nor spoken to him in a week but for sending him an annoyed and flippant reply via his princes.

“Pear. Antique. Kwah,” said the minion, dragging my attention away from kings.

No one ever said my name quite as my mother had.

No one ever said my name as King See did. Whatever ire I had raised in him, and whatever ire he had raised in me, I still shivered at the anticipation of his closeness. If only he had refrained from sending his princes to pester me about purpose, then I could fully relish a meeting with him without any ire.

Another wheeze. “Are you listening? Do you have a slogan?”

I focused on the minion again. “Excuse me?”

“Your slogan.”

“Pardon me, sir, but if you could expand that thought.”

“What a delightful way to ask a person for an explanation. I will do so. My master is King Take, for example, and his slogan is ‘Ever thirst for Thirst itself’.”

“Goodness, I see your meaning. I have admired the wordplay of his slogan. Do I need one, then?”

The minion lifted a shoulder. “All kings have slogans.”

I appreciated his candidness. “I feel put on the spot.” To form a slogan, I would need to know what I was about.

Without purpose, there could be no slogan.

My eyes narrowed on the minion. “You are filled with the will of your king. He seeks to drag declaration of purpose from my unwitting lips.”

The minion cracked a grin, displaying yellowed and crumbling teeth. He swept a bow, and another wheeze was expelled from his lungs with the act. “As I am.”

Very clever, King Take. I should not underestimate his underlings again, whether minion or prince.

“I have no slogan tonight,” I declared. “Kindly announce my arrival, or kindly do not. I am entering.”

“Queen Perantiqua!” yelled the herald as I strode in, then muttered, “You’re not meant to call her queen, dolt.”

I timed my gliding entry to avoid the bloody drips off the bottom of the raised curtain. I had not dodged them last time, but remaining untouched by takings felt important this evening.

My thoughts had centered on kings since the raising of the curtain, but as I glided within, my sheer veil allowed me to see the entire ballroom.

A gasp fell from my lips.

The width of the room could have accommodated the entire length of my queenly hotel, though I was gratified to see the ceiling hung too low for the whole of my hotel to fit in here. I did feel peeved that my hotel took up so little space in comparison.

No matter.

Moonlight streamed through openings in the thick castle walls to grace the ballroom with eerie, untrustworthy softness. Red candles formed shadows where they flickered flame and dripped wax in white stone recesses, and while the red of the candles cast a subtle pink glow on the white stone, the bloody fountain I recalled from my first visit here had the same effect, though to a more dramatic degree.

Channels in the floor allowed the blood to flow from the fountain and around the room. The whole ballroom was awash with a pink, deadly glow.

I murmured, “ A glow of death.

A painting of taken life.

A revelation of purpose .”

In the next blink, I saw the added genius. “But that is extraordinary.”

The channels on the floor formed a human circulatory system. The fountain was shaped as a heart.

“I am flattered you think so much of my ballroom flooring, Lady Patch,” King Take said in his gleeful way.

Only then did I recall the presence of kings.

Take swung his legs in his childlike way and clapped for good measure. “You had quite forgotten we were here. I admit my great reluctance in interrupting your explorations. The way your focus consumed you was magnificent to behold.”

King Take perched atop his white stone throne, just as I remembered. The throne was set at the very top of a steep, jutting set of stone stairs at the far end of the ballroom.

“My apologies for the delay of my greeting, King Take. I am very impressed with your flooring. I hope I find you well this evening. Much has happened since we last met. I am no longer Lady Patch, for instance, but Queen Perantiqua.”

As he well knew.

I had intended to look at King See first… just to check. But like ever, I could not see the faces of kings. Yet something had happened to my power and the confines of my mind upon becoming a queen because I could accept more details about King Take tonight.

His bare feet were clear where they’d been slightly blurred in the past. I could see how they appeared drained in the same manner as his princes and minions. Thick black nails curled under his feet, and I was able to see that black inked the wrinkled skin of his feet too. His veins?

Yes, that must be so, though I could not see higher than his ankles to confirm that blackness filled all of his veins.

The king wore black fitted pants that extended above his waist. From there, the coarse linen of his shirt took over. I could not tell much of his shirt due to the abundance of gray feathers. “Your gray feathers are striking, King Take.”

They fanned over his shoulders and stood erect around the back of his neck to form a high collar.

“Regal, are they not?” he mused as though granting me a boon with his conversation.

Indeed they were, as was the felt top hat that cast a shadow across the king’s face. Despite the shadow, the outline of his face was defined. I could even fathom dark circles where his eyes must be.

I could see a great deal more as a queen. What would King See look like? I had not looked at him first, and now I almost feared doing so.

“Are you done perusing King Take, most exquisite queen?”

I glanced at King Bring. He sat in a high-backed chair set to my far left. King Raise sat between him and Take’s throne. I could assume that See and Change sat on the other side. I wouldn’t look there just yet.

“I am done, King Bring,” I replied. “I find monsterdom constantly shifts.”

I hadn’t missed the slight edge to Bring’s voice. He did not enjoy the way I had inspected King Take for so long, and he wanted me to know it. King Bring was a jealous immortal this night.

What was a queen to do with that?

He relaxed under my attention, stating, “I am as I was, and as I was made twelve hundred years ago. You, most pure and unique of monsters, are the only immortal who can change.”

Bring’s black, long coat concealed a second mouth over his stomach. That was where the immortal sampled every curse and charm he unleashed upon the citizens of Vitale. By doing so, he desensitized to them and grew stronger and more resilient. “Do you not eat the curses and charms you make to grow your power, sir?”

King Take chuckled.

Astonishingly, I was able to see King Bring lift one corner of his mouth in a smile. The smile was blurred, but there.

I was more ancient indeed.

“You are right in that,” he answered. “But there is a sense in one and not the other.”

Bring might be right about that, but my heart and mind leaped with the fantasy that I might see the smile of another king. A king who had not yet greeted me, nor I him.

How I wished that I had done so at the very beginning. Now the moment felt looming and terrible.

A monster sneered. “And so immortality must be when a monster’s slumber is pitifully short and the monster herself is pitifully weak.”

King Change.

I could reply with any manner of things. A smirking comment or a snide one. My queenly pride bristled and there was a temptation to respond in kind.

Or should I offer a demure or flattering comment in a bid to sweeten him?

The answer was none of them. The state of things between us suited me, and I would not push Change further into his ideas of eradicating me, nor give him false assurances of a future alliance.

I looked at him, being very careful not to catch a glimpse of the seeing king.

King Change’s greasy, dirty clothing was in tatters, hanging in strips off what I could see was a vastly powerful body. He must be very fast like his werebeast princes, and I wagered that he might be the fastest king of all. I wondered then at the clawed scars marring his chest and arms. Who was quick enough to catch him to deliver such wounds?

The only answer was that he stood still to receive them or did that to himself.

I repressed a shudder.

“Shall we begin or are you all content to waste time away from your purpose?” snapped King Raise.

I only felt relief for the excuse to avoid King See a while longer. I dragged my focus to the other side of Take’s throne again. “King Raise,” I greeted. “How ironic to mention time when you waste everyone’s time with this tribunal.”

The seating arrangement caught my notice for the first time. How curious that Bring and See, my most likely allies, had each chosen to sit beside a king that may prove my enemy. Was that from a desire to protect me? Or had See and Bring positioned themselves so far from one another out of jealousy?

He replied, “This tribunal is no waste of my time.”

I imagined not, seeing as he might gain a queen for an eternal servant.

Raise’s crisp suit fitted him just like in my memory, though I could make out a pinstripe detail tonight. The suit was three-piece, and a gold chain I hadn’t seen last time hung across the vest. Jewels dotted his fingers, and a diamond glinted in his left ear. Greasy brown hair was cut above the nape, and Raise had pushed it off his face and behind his ears. Unlike the others, I could not see any hints of his facial features.

What did that mean?

Power had lured Raise from the direction of his purpose centuries ago, and he was unbothered about the saving or ruining of this world. This king consumed all that his power had to offer with a single-mindedness that made Take seem the lesser of two evils, though Take was unbothered about saving or ruining also.

“I gather this tribunal is very worth your while, King Raise,” I murmured.

He dipped his head, and his diamond earring glinted. “I continue to be impressed with the intricacies you grasp. I anticipate your value over our long companionship.”

King Bring shifted on his chair to my left. Did he equate companionship to concubineship? I supposed if my servitude was eternal, then I might look to King Raise for pleasure in time, but as things stood, I felt more fear and disgust for him.

Silence fell after.

A silence as strong as him.

He had watched me this entire time, perusing me for queenly changes, and I had only grown more nervous of returning that perusal.

There remained one king to greet.

My breath, my heart, my very skin begged me to do so without delay. They screamed at me not to in the same instant.

When last I saw See, we had conversed over dinner and discussed what we might be to one another. A proposal. A refusal. A rejection of love. The night had ended in delicious pleasure and bitter disappointment.

Yet the deal struck was clear: We would only be for each other until which time as we understood what we would be for each other.

The soft menace of his voice filled the ballroom. “Lover.”

The tightness between us shattered, and I shivered at the bursting release of tension. My body quickened and coiled at his brazen claim.

He’d called me lover, and at first there was a rushing relief that King See still desired me. A flush entered my cheeks that drew awed gasps from the other rulers.

“The blush of midnight,” Raise murmured, and his wonder was at utter odds with his underhand intention for the tribunal.

My second response was to feel irritated by my blush. I did not care to blush as a new queen trying to escape eternal servitude to a king. I also did not see why a certain king should greet me with “lover” when he had degraded love to a useless farce of fools and mortals.

Was he toying with me?

Was he angered by my flippant response on the topic of purpose?

I turned my head to look at him, nothing more.

I would look at him briefly.

I would keep my distance.

But my dismissive intention was thwarted.

Velvet coat. Silver stitches. Of course, of course. I had obsessed over what details I had of King See, and I didn’t need to check his boots to know they were black and embroidered silver to match his coat. I had precious little to visualize him considering how enamored and intimate we had been. Then again, See had once taught me that infatuation had little to do with appearance. I could not agree with that tonight because through the opening in his velvet coat, I could see that his black trousers were belted at the hip, snug against the conventional V of his torso, which was made more evident by the clinging silk of his black tunic.

Hair, as long and dark as the midnight hour, brushed the shoulders of his jacket.

I could see far more of him. I could see the glint of his black crown.

My hopes climbed as I focused on his face.

And those hopes were slashed like wheat.

His skin was white, as his princes’ were. The chalky white conveyed the eerie timelessness that See was and suited him greatly and magnificently. Except the chalky white blazed so that I could not make out his other features. A snow-blindness of sorts such as that of staring at the bright moon overlong. Nothing else could be perceived through the brightness.

No lifted corner of the mouth.

No black-rimmed eyes.

No diamond earring.

No scars.

I lowered my gaze so kings did not spot my disappointment.

In doing so, I found myself looking at his hands. The joints on them were oversized like his princes’. His other joints were the same, I assumed, though why I did that was any monsters’ guess when none of me matched at all.

“She is as a child discovering the world. Overrun by curiosity. I am very entertained,” whispered Take.

I stilled and took stock of my surroundings.

Bother.

A dismissive distance was what I had intended, but not only had I ventured as close as possible to King See—which was far closer than I’d ever ventured—I was also stooped with my hands on my knees to inspect him.

Bother and drat.

“Do you see me, Perantiqua?” King See asked, relaxed under my perusal. He was more than relaxed. My intrigue stroked and gratified his masculine pride.

And that was why he had called me lover. The mystery was solved. He was a jealous king as well. What should a queen do with one jealous king, let alone two?

I straightened, recovering myself. “As much as ever, King See.”

And more.

He tilted his head, hearing what I hadn’t said aloud. The seeing king tapped a finger on his armrest, and I became aware that his relaxed demeanor was forced. Irritation was caged within him.

“The memory of your tight body will warm me many times,” said King Bring from behind.

Goodness, but yes. Bring had received an unobstructed view of my bent-over form just now.

See’s finger froze in its downward motion at the words, and I understood that jealousy was also behind his irritation.

How strange jealousy was. See’s stoked my feminine ego wonderfully while Bring’s was more of an annoyance. Either way, I had my answer to jealous kings.

A queen did not belong to a king.

I saw the genius of Valetise anew, because she had shown my skin equally to kings tonight. Perhaps they had not all touched intimate parts of me, but this revealing outfit declared that this queen was her own. That she would venture where she liked.

A queen could not belong to a king.

The thought wiped my small smile away with vicious speed. My heart skipped a beat, and my gaze snapped back to King See. There was a stillness to him that made me wonder if, impossibly, he had just connected the same as I.

“Heartbreak,” King Take said on a moan. “I smell it. And what has done this, I wonder? I would do it again and again, you see.”

Change scoffed. “Perhaps she fears a king’s masturbation? Or does she fear a life in eternal servitude?”

“We might never know, brother king, yet I smell jealousy in See’s blood,” Take announced in glee. “Will you wage another war for her, brother? You are led by your loins for the first time. What entertainment we shall have.”

See looked at Take, who pressed back against his throne in mock fright.

“Might we get on with the tribunal?” King Raise seethed, and I gasped at the sting of his power against the side of my face.

Take swung his feet on his throne. “Yes, let us do just that. Change might get beastly otherwise.”

Change snapped his jaws. “Watch your tongue, drainer. I will have it.”

The black around Take’s eyes flooded outward to occupy his forehead and cheeks like a mask. “Take care, brother king. You are in my kingdom.”

That appeared to mean something, and Change made no further threat.

“Let us begin. I have saving matters to attend,” Bring said, though he did not shift his focus from me.

King Raise strode forward from his chair. His intention was revealed as he drew closer to me. And closer until I was forced back, step after grating, rage-inducing step.

Fury flooded my circulatory system as he painted a clear picture of the differences in our power.

Raise stopped in the center of the room, having pushed me over near the entrance, then turned his back on me. He faced the other kings.

Insult and injury.

My fingers clawed with the urge to answer his offense.

King Bring called, “Wondrous queen, please take my chair.”

He left his chair and ventured closer to Take’s throne.

Gratitude swept through me. “Thank you, sir.”

I glided over, tuned in to the more forceful tap, tap of See’s finger. He might have offered his seat, too, so he could tap all that he liked.

I sat, surprised by the almost-painful heat on the chair.

“I run hot,” Bring purred my way.

I could tell. On both counts.

Raise didn’t show signs of annoyance at being thwarted. He flipped his palm up. I had time to see that his hands dripped oil before an enormous, rolled parchment appeared in his hand.

A contract?

I wished very much to read that contract. I had been pestered and drowning and annoyed many times in the last week, but I had also felt increasing awe of my monstrous form and curiosity of my stitches and the mothers who created them.

I longed for any contact with my ancestors, even in this potentially disastrous form. Any question I might ask would be dissected by kings, though. I must tread carefully.

King Raise’s hands continued to drip oil as he held the rolled parchment higher. “I hold a contract forged with the human ancestor of Queen Perantiqua some twelve hundred years ago.”

“In the infancy of your immortality, you say?” interrupted King Take. “And here you had told us that such dealings did not come easy to you for many centuries.”

Raise stiffened. “This human sought out one of my princes.”

See asked, “How so when Vitale was not yet formed, and fire and ice and sand and storm wrought despair and death across the world?”

“How did any human survive? She did, then found my prince. Her proposition was unusual, yet so was much at that time. I had woken an immortal king, for example.”

Change asked, “What did this human propose?”

Raise shifted to face the beastly king. “That she might wither away far before her time and in doing so leave one precious and powerful body part to her infant daughter, and that her infant daughter be given the choice to do the same, and so forth until a daughter in her line might choose not to. She offered half of her life in exchange. I could not believe how little she wanted.”

She had bested him. I could not stay silent any longer. “How do you believe I am involved in this deal made with my ancestors, King Raise?”

What I truly wished to know was how the first mother knew to find a prince.

How she knew to forge a deal to wither with an immortal monster king.

How she knew that one daughter would eventually refuse to wither?

She had forged a deal twelve hundred years ago that would eventually create a queen.

How?

Raise released one end of the rolled parchment. I could see no sign of his oil on the contract as it unraveled and unrolled, spilling across the channels of blood but never became soaked or weakened by that substance either.

The contract kept rolling, revealing its enormous, dooming length until bumping to a stop against the toes of my heeled shoes.

I didn’t need to see Raise’s smile to hear the triumph encased therein. “How glad I am that you asked.”