Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

A confiding leap,

An unexpected turn.

A flute played through the radio and a man sang soulfully in rich baritone, “ She that inspires. She they desire .”

A choir echoed him. “ She that inspires. She they desire.”

“Should only shimmer, shimmer, shimmer ?—”

“ Shimmer, shimmer, shimmer. ”

I grimaced. “Kindly turn that off, Princess Raise.”

The princess did so, and after, she pondered the silent radio on her lap.

I lowered onto the armchair opposite and enjoyed the way my voluminous gray dress puffed around me.

Though I had started off meeting princesses in the conservatory, the largest of my personal lounges had become our new gathering place. Possessing two lounges in my chamber suite had seemed superfluous, but this one had proved useful for princesses. Which left me to wonder what the other was for.

“They sing of you,” said Princess Raise, and emotion had never filled her blank face more. The monster was perplexed and concerned. The greatness of my obsessive path loomed over her like a thundercloud about to unleash its torrent. This princess had sharp instincts indeed.

She added, “The humans in Vitale recite the poem endlessly. They play their renditions on the radio night and day. The humans of your sixth chant the poem in their sleep, and by day, they coo it to the husk dolls they have made in your likeness.”

This news was inconvenient for a queen who wished to keep a low profile until she grew powerful enough to protect herself from kings. I should have sent Take’s gateman away without hearing his verse. “How do my humans fair?”

“Your humans are well enough, Queen Perantiqua. They gratefully received grants from the president to erect new thatched shelters. Picket has been busy building walls when they sleep. Your humans call your queendom a gated, garden community. The other humans grow angrier and more envious by the day, and of course, the human citizens of Vitale believed this tension spilled over and led to the attack tonight.”

The matters of kings and a queen did spill so into quaint human life.

“Picket is wise to build walls,” murmured the faceless princess.

“I wager that he is. Thank you for the report, Princess. You are upholding your end of the deal beautifully.”

She released a breath. “Yet you would only keep me here while no harm comes to others in your care. If you had been here during the recent battle, you might have tossed me to my king to save those in your walls.”

I kept my silence. In her uncertainty, the princess mused aloud. Sometimes she forgot that I existed.

The princess set the radio on the couch, then took up a pace in front of the double doors. Her forehead lowered like she wore a frown, and then her pace was abruptly ended as she faced me. “Is it true you have invited all royal monsters to an elaborate dinner affair tomorrow night?”

“It is.”

She paced again. “I suppose that you will not divulge your agenda to me. No, she will not do that.”

The princess paused by the door and rested a hand upon it. Two pawns lurked on the other side, but they were not in her thoughts. “ She that inspires,

She they desire,

Should only shimmer

Like a star

Without its power,

Lest starlight steals

All they are,

To build her tower. ”

I did not wish her to venture down that path. For a princess, she was unnaturally discerning. “You should not read much into human culture trends.”

Her tone was deadly serious. “But I do, Queen Perantiqua. And if kings were smart, they would do the same. The humans in Vitale are a forecast of the weather to come. If a person knows that, then they might dress accordingly and better survive the night. Your efforts to downplay the poem have confirmed truth is there.”

My smile faded. Bother. “You have a keen intellect.”

She curtsied in her suit. “As do you, Your Majesty. You possess of any number of great qualities, and yet I feel as only a princesses might that much is untapped in you yet. The poem is a forecast of what you will become.”

“A possible forecast, Princess. The verse speaks of shoulds and naught more.”

“It speaks of two possibilities,” she countered. “One where kings fail to control you, and one where they succeed. Will you shimmer like a star with its power or not? If you do, then you will steal all they are to build your tower.”

She had the right of it. Drat .

Princess Raise turned away from the door at last, and I could only assume she looked at me. The intellectual respect between us was nothing to sneeze at. I would not seek to redirect her or play things down. There could only be a deal between us. “You have reason untold of a princess. Which possibility do you believe will come to be?”

“The one where you steal all they are to build your tower.” She curtsied in her suit again.

“The one where I steal all your king is to build my tower. That is what might concern a princess who loves her king.”

The princess crossed to sit on the couch opposite again. “Naturally this was my first concern. Yet as humans have recited, I have sought to deepen my thoughts.”

Very unusual indeed. This princess was no mere witness of other’s reason. She had misled me, indeed, or her reason grew in tandem with my power. “I would hear the depth of your thoughts.”

The width of her face pushed out. A smile? “That is what I enjoy about you, Your Majesty. You enjoy to hear of understanding when we might find it.”

Other princesses did not offer up understanding in this fashion, and why was she complimenting me so much? “You wish for something from me.”

“And you wish to keep a poem from the ears of kings. They may dismiss the songs of humans, but they would not dismiss the warning of a princess.”

I leaned forward. “How would that princess escape to warn them?”

She stiffened, and too long went by before the princess chuckled. “We should not get ahead of ourselves. We might deal in this very nicely. I mentioned the depth of my thoughts.”

“You did.”

“While the poem does imply that you would leave kings as mindless monsters to build your tower, I do not believe this aligns with what I have witnessed of your character. You display a love of monsters, and you display a strong sentiment toward one king. You would certainly not render him mindless. Not unless he greatly erred, which I admit he has lately seemed close to doing. But I interpret the poem to mean that you will take from all five of them to become equal to them in power. Five rulers will become six.”

I took care not to budge. She had interpreted that part of the poem differently from me, and this was a good thing. “You would not mind if I took some of your king’s kingdom to forge a queendom?”

“He is my husband,” she said quietly. “Not my king. Well, he is that too. But first and foremost, he is my husband.”

I was struck. I was silent. A princess who believed in the idea of a husband? Once I had called a princess a wife, and King See had laughed at the commonness of the idea. Yet here was a princess who was a wife and who saw her king as husband.

They loved one another. The beauty of her quiet words sparked a lump in my throat, and no small amount of envy. How I longed for See’s love. How I longed to unbridle mine that sometimes felt like a dam about to burst. “You would not mind if I took some of your husband’s kingdom.”

“Not if you stole away other things too. Not if rulers remained equal.”

Her tone had shuttered. We had entered uncertain territory, and she was deciding whether to divulge more.

So I helped her. “You wish me to steal away the warping of your union.”

She gasped, and I noted the way her face lengthened. “But yes. However did you… I suppose queenly understanding is great.”

It was, and greater than ever. Answers almost seemed to pop into my head sometimes. King See had once spoken of how the same patterns repeated themselves. Ancient understanding had allowed me to see such patterns, perhaps, though not in the all-seeing way of King See.

The princess wrung her hands, quite undone. “I have never said this aloud to anyone, Queen Perantiqua. Not in twelve hundred years. This is difficult and feels akin to trusting you. I should not feel such a way after so little time. There are others I have known far longer, whom I have never confided in. But I have seen you figure out the matter of poison for Bring. I have seen you cheer for a new monster’s growing strength. I have seen pain in your eyes when looking at burning dummies of yourself. I have seen you in knots over the idea of daylight activities with a king. For an immortal monster queen, you are relatable indeed.

I answered, “You might choose to confide in me because I might do something to help the warping where others could not.”

Could I heal a warped union? Likely yes as no. Here, though, was a mystery to solve, and tonight I would not deny conniving vice.

The princess took a breath. “There was a warping with our union, ’tis true. My husband… he… How shall I put this? He loved me more than his purpose.”

I could not imagine Raise as loving anyone nor anything more than his purpose. He was corrupted in purpose, and every monster knew it. Raise had barely come above ground in centuries, so addicted to power was he. He wished to be the only king.

And yet, I had seen their tragic love. “Tell me, Princess.”

“My husband struggled with his purpose from the moment of waking an immortal king. He denied the calling in him to raise stairs in the form of contracts for decades. The contract with your ancestor was the first he made, in fact, and this deal sat easier with him because she had sought it out so fiercely. My husband lied to kings and said that he could not figure out how to work his power. He agreed with them to save and wished for this truthfully. Then, the first time we met, our destiny was clear. But we saw how Princess Change had lost her purpose after union by then, and Raise did not wish this fate for me. We enjoyed our battles of wit. He loved me for who I was. What if that was altered?” She sighed. “Yet ancients would push us together in union, for Change’s power had grown for claiming a princess, and as his mind turned to ruin, he sought to prevent kings from tapping into the power source of princesses. Union was safest for me and Raise, and so we did so. And then my worst fears were flipped.”

Ah. Yes, I fathomed the whole. I did not interrupt.

The princess continued. “In union, Raise loved me more than his purpose. Nights and weeks would go by where Raise would ignore the pressing call of those in desperate need or want to adore me. And I would adore him. But his princes would not. Time and again, the power of ancients filled them to punish my husband and drive him back to his purpose. Raise declared that they would never win, and the ancients must have heard his challenge, for such power was granted to his princes that night.” She broke off. Emotion had clogged her throat.

A series of observations had snapped together. I had seen guilt on the faces of my stairway princes more than once when they spoke of protocols. I had witnessed the shock of Prince Sign when his king ordered protocol seven against me. Sign had done his best to refuse the order.

Princess Raise’s voice shook. “They used protocol eight on my husband, and when they released him again, my husband was not the same. He was callous and mercurial—though never with me—but just as disinterested in his purpose. My husband loved me more than his purpose still, but now he was… damaged. He did not care about the nature of contracts forged, whether they were of a saving or ruining kind—even despite my best efforts to encourage him to act in a way his previous self might have needed. I could not witness more.”

So she had become king.

“So on the matter of his purpose, I became king,” she blurted, then pressed a hand against her heart. “Goodness, the words are out, and shall I regret them? Have I given her the tools to steal who they are to build her tower?”

I regarded her, for here was a woman with endless depth. She was a princess to marvel over, a kingly princess. “You locked yourself up. You made Raise believe the union between you could be fixed with an amendment, and then refused to sign. You convinced your husband that locking you away would force you to agree because when you are locked away, he does not have the distraction of you to adore. And then you use love to blackmail him into purpose.”

Tears dripped onto her lap. “ Yes. ”

How magnificent. How complex.

I mused, “You feel immense guilt and shame, but this is balanced by the memory of how princes once broke him, which stops such fidgets and leaps that sometimes come with guilt and shame. You simply cannot endure more harm to come to him, and so you listen to the humans for their ignorant forecasts on the matters of monsters, but locking yourself away claws at your vibrancy over centuries. And that is why you bargained to remain in my queendom—because you wish to lock yourself in happier social surroundings than a dungeon. You sob for him but cannot run into his arms. You refuse his amendment, too, because if you sign it, you will need to create another reason to drive him to purpose and prevent his punishment by princes.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. All of this I do. I must, or they will hurt him. I cannot bear it. Why did we complete the union? Why did we not battle against Change and remain as we were? Why did we think to love one another and not just lust? Not a century goes by that is not filled with regret.”

My eyes narrowed. “You wish that love had not afflicted you.”

“Every dusk. For if he did not adore me, then none of this pain would exist.”

But that was just their experience of love. Though… if a king and queen adored one another and spurned their purposes, then two rulers would not play in the saving or ruining of the world.

But that was just their experience of love.

The princess’s exhale shook. “But then my husband’s princes whispered an invitation from a queen. Her will filled them and superseded oaths to a king, and a seed of hope was planted in me. I have eyes as good as anyone’s?—”

Did she?

“—and I see that you will build your tower. When you do, I humbly beg that you fix all that is wrong between myself and my husband. Isolation tears at my monsterdom. I cannot bear harm against him either. I am at a loss, but you might save us. Please save us.”

She walked to me and lowered onto her knees. She took both of my hands. Her facelessness was confronting indeed when so close.

A chill was in my voice. In truth, a chill had entered my heart. From what I could fathom, the only problem in the Raises’ union that required a solution was the one where they loved. There must be another solution, for I refused to believe that King See was right about lovelessness. “If a queen did save a warped union, what would a princess offer?”

She bowed her head. “I am but a princess, but immortality and love demanded that I be king too. I am witness, and I have been ruler. You have seen my unnatural understanding and reason for yourself. Without my radio, perhaps I could not have done so well, but ancient thinking seeped into me over centuries, and so I make kingly connections with considerable effort, though princesses were never intended to make them at all.”

“Speak plain, Princess Raise.”

“You are gathering bridal gifts and each time you secure a bridal gift, your queendom and power grow.”

Drat. Bother and drat.

She said, “King See won the garter from Princess Take and must have given it to you. You pulled it from your leotard before you rolled into the grave.”

At my cool expression that perhaps spoke of my icy ponderings on how a princess might use such information against me, the princess hastily said, “I do not seek to use this information against you, Queen Perantiqua. I have absorbed somewhat of a ruler’s thinking, but I am aware of what I am not. I would help you gain the last bridal gift.”

The ice case forming around my intentions melted somewhat. “You would help me in this matter in exchange for the healing of your union.”

The princess squeezed my hands. “I would. I would help you to build your tower. As long as my king is not harmed, I would help you.”

An unexpected turn. “I would help you only as long as none in my care were harmed.”

“We are in agreement on that front,” she whispered. “Will you enter this deal?”

Vice wavered in me, yet I managed to keep my conniving at bay this time. “I am newly a queen and recently a monster. What if I cannot help your union, Princess?”

She lowered her forehead to the backs of my hands. “I hold you only to the best of your abilities. If anyone can help our union, it is you. Perhaps hope makes a fool of me, but I would rather exist a hopeful fool for the rest of my nights. Promise that you will do your best, and I will help you to carve out your sixth. I swear this.”

There were limits to her oath that she could not fathom, but any changes I made to her wording would be studied by this clever princess, and I did not wish for that.

I lifted the princess’s hands to my lips and kissed the backs of them. “I promise you that I shall do my best to heal the warping of your love. But what if the healing of your union steals away your love or his?”

I feared her answer.

And she did not alleviate that fear. “Better not to love. We could share more without it.”

A rage entered me that Princess Raise missed because the double doors were swung open to admit another princess.

Bring blobbed inside. She glanced at the princess kneeling before me.

Princess Raise rose and returned to her couch and radio. “Thank you for giving me the time requested, Princess Bring. Our conversation is done.”

Bring answered, “I am glad.”

I might feel envious that they had formed a deal, if not for Raise confessing a great secret to me this dawn that she had never divulged to another. Bring did not know what the conversation had been about.

As it was, the deal between me and Raise had clicked a trust into place. One that had not existed an hour prior. We relied upon each other.

Until now, I had stolen and connived and committed violence to win bridal gifts. I could not say that I would not do so again, but with two princesses, there might be less vice. I found myself yearning to confide. “Princess Bring, please sit. I have a confession and a sorry confirmation to impart on you.”

After she had arranged her blobs in damp fashion on the couch next to Raise, I said, “There was an evening when I did touch your shoulder, Princess Bring. You blinked away with exquisite speed, and you dropped something in the doing.”

She squelched. “My necklace! Do you have it then?”

I dipped my head. “The black pearls were nestled in thyme, and when I saw the glimmer of them, an obsession overcame me such that I was vulnerable to vices never before experienced. I became a thief that evening, Princess Bring, and though guilt and shame pressed at me—for our friendship was growing and I did not wish to endanger this—the idea of returning the necklace to you was unfathomable. Is unfathomable. With this said, please know that I value the uniqueness of you very highly. I am grateful to have met you and to know you.”

Bring said after a beat, “You say that you stole my necklace, and also that you will not return it. But that you like me.”

“Yes,” I replied.

“’Tis difficult… not to feel like a friend would not steal off her friend.”

“Let me explain in more depth for I feel the workings of trust between us. Obsession over your bridal gift, and those of others, has led me into greater power. So I cannot return any of them, for fear of returning queenly power also. I have need of this, and you have need of it also.”

She asked, “How many bridal gifts do you have?”

“Three.”

Her blob relaxed. “So I am not the only friend you have stolen from. This reassures me greatly. You only stole from me for power, and that is understandable. You have said that I will have need of your power, so can I assume my king wishes to kill me?”

My heart sank. She was too kind a princess to be so poorly treated. By me and her king. I wished nothing for her but wildflowers and sweet treats. “Your instincts were sound, Princess Bring. Your king wishes to bachelor himself.”

Her top blob folded over the second. “Yes, yes. I expected this was so. And why would he not with all you are? I can fathom how this is so in his mind. A s-sorry place our union has come to, and neither of us could have foreseen such disinterest and distance.”

Raise glanced at me, and I battled a surge of fury before answering, “You are not responsible for the choices of other monsters, Princess. You are responsible for yours. You did not poison yourself. You have not created a curse that might kill an immortal. You simply did not feel attracted or interested in a king, and this was as much of a surprise to you as him. That is all you have done. Yet you remained true as his princess to witness his rhyme and reason through the centuries. That was your choice, and one you might feel proud of.”

The Brings had not given love and lust enough space, and every bit of space to duty. Thoughts of unions did confound me still.

“And shall I feel proud of being here?” Princess Bring squeaked.

“Shall you feel proud of saving yourself?” I demanded, and there was a boom of fury in my voice that was not directed at her.

She swallowed moistly. “There was an urge to remain alive, I admit.”

I would foster such selfishness. “Urges should be listened to. I implore that you will always do so. You are worthy indeed of a meaningful and happy existence. Now then, we come to the matter of the fourth bridal gift. That of Princess Change. I can assume by the immense leap in my power after the third bridal gift, that vast power awaits me if I secure the fourth.”

“Her dried bouquet,” said Princess Raise.

Saliva filled my mouth. The dried bouquet of a ruining princess. Tears threatened. Perfection. Untold perfection.

My inhale was ragged. “Only with this power, can I protect those in my queendom against allied kings. I must have it.”

The princesses leaned closer. The slime of one dripped on the floor, and the featureless face of the other was nevertheless awash with intrigue.

“How?” Bring breathed. “How will we do it?”

I smirked at the contagiousness of my obsession. “I will tell you how.”